Recent events in America and the world at large have provided plenty of fodder for Hollywood adaptation. There have been movies about everything from hunting Osama Bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty to the Valerie Plame scandal to weird biopics about George W. Bush. But it has been awhile since we had a good movie about scandal in America's press corps. That gap will be filled with Truth, a movie about the scandal that eventually got Dan Rather in serious trouble with CBS.
It just would not be Monday without a Star Wars: Episode VII rumor. Ever since the film was even hinted at, the Internet has clamored with casting rumors, script rumors, character rumors, and rumors about rumors that might become rumors at some point. I pay attention to these things and even I cannot keep track of what's a rumor and what's been officially confirmed. But that is all as one, because we have another rumor now that has nothing to do with vague images or vaguer casting decisions: it's about actually getting to see footage, however limited, from the new Star Wars.
As sequel fever spreads across Hollywood, there is at least one movie that no one ever hoped would receive an additional film: Batman and Robin, Joel Schumacher's ill-conceived superhero flick that featured nipples on the Batsuit and, more problematically, no narrative consistency of which we were aware. Even Schumacher himself has admitted to the spectacular failure of the film, going so far as to place most of the blame squarely upon his own shoulders. But no movie must remain un-sequeled, and Batman and Robin is no exception; although its sequel will not be taking a cinematic form.
Has Vin Diesel ever done a historical fantasy before? I don't know: I just cannot think of the guy as that kind of action hero. But the premise of The Last Witch Hunter is based in the idea that we can accept him as a man out of time. Diesel will be an immortal hunter of witches, tasked with stopping the covens of New York City from unleashing a deadly plague on humanity. He will be helped in his endeavors by a sexy witch (Rose Leslie), evoking the age-old question: who hunts the witch hunter? The release date that Lionsgate has given the film is October 23, 2015 - so the covens will come alive just in time for Halloween next year.
It's the movie that would not die! Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote has seemed to be nothing more than the director tilting at windmills for a very long time. Back in 2000, Gilliam actually began filming the semi-adaptation of Cervantes' Don Quixote, but the project rapidly fell apart in the wake of natural disaster, an over-ambitious production concept, scheduling conflicts with Johnny Depp, and the illness of lead Jean Rochefort. It was even the subject of a 2002 documentary Lost in La Mancha. But Gilliam has not given up hope; indeed, he's been trying to relaunch the project for almost a decade now. Now it looks like he might actually get the film off the ground, this time with John Hurt in the Quixote role and, possibly, Skins star Jack O'Connell in the role vacated by Depp.
Let's face it: before long, every working director, writer, and actor will have done something for either a Marvel or a DC film; maybe even both. The only ones to escape will be the Old Guard of Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg, and Lucas (though I wonder about Spielberg). Following in the footsteps of Whedon, it seems hardly surprising that now Adam McKay is circling a potential directing gig with Marvel.
Viral outbreaks are not new fodder for Hollywood. Zombie movies and dystopian films often feature some kind of virus running rampant among the populace, leaving it up to our heroes to try and stem the tide...or, more often than not, fail to do anything about it. But the upcoming film I.Q. 83 takes the "virus run amok" trope and gives it a new, interesting spin: what if the virus actually began slowly lowering everyone's IQ, including the people working to find a cure?
While I am still not over the idea of Hollywood's nice guy Steve Carell playing a obsessive psychopath, there are apparently other things going on in Bennett Miller's dark drama Foxcatcher. There's Channing Tatum, of course, playing Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz, and Mark Ruffalo as his brother Dave. Then there's the complicated relationship that develops between the Schultz brothers and John du Pont (Carell) as the latter helps them train for the 1988 Seoul Olympics at his new training facility on his estate. As the three men interact, obsession, power, and paranoia begin to take over, and du Pont's increasingly erratic and disturbing behavior threatens to drive a rift between the brothers. Exciting stuff, made all the more so when you realize that it's based on a true story.
In recent years, one of the most mis-managed attempts at launching a franchise was Disney's John Carter. No one can quite agree on what went wrong, though casting, script, and poor marketing probably all share at least part of the blame. Suffice it to say that John Carter did not launch a franchise and star Taylor Kitsch remains a not-quite-household name. But, Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel series might get another chance at the big screen, though not with Disney, as the company has just lost the rights to the character.
It is seldom that the director, actors, and executive producer of a film beg the public to refuse to go see their movie. But in the case of Dying of the Light, this is neither a publicity stunt nor a weird request: Paul Schrader, Nicolas Cage, Anton Yelchin, and Nicolas Winding Refn have an apparently good reason for wishing audiences to boycott their latest film.
