Back in the halcyon days of yore, there were tentative plans to make a whole bunch of X-Men Origins films. Unfortunately, 20th Century Fox started it all off with the risible X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The film busted and we all moved on to the next Wolverine film. It's a shame too, because there are more X-Men than just the one played by Hugh Jackman. Characters such as Gambit, the wise-cracking New Orleans gambler and thief, made a brief appearance in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and then was promptly forgotten by the X-Men universe.
Yesterday we reported that there might be a four hour director's cut included on The Wolf of Wall Street Blu-Ray. Today, however, we can tell you that unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) that will not be the case.
When we think of British media in America we tend to think of Downton Abbey, Jane Austen adaptations, Hugh Dancy, and Edgar Wright comedies. But a mere glance over some of the British domestic releases - that is, films that do not and will not receive an American release - reminds us that the Brits are just as enamored of stupid comedies as we are. Cuban Fury looks to be just such a film, but with a cast that includes Nick Frost, Rashida Jones, and Chris O'Dowd, this one will likely wind up in American cineplexes.
If you are someone who just loves your long, intricate, plot-spoiling trailers, then you're going to have go somewhere other than a movie-theatre to get your fix. Our very own NATO (that's National Association of Theater Owners) recently released a set of guidelines aiming, among other things, to limit the length of trailers to no more than two minutes apiece. That's right: no more five minute trailers telling you everything you never wanted to know about 300: Rise of an Empire.
It has become so easy to rip on Nicolas Cage that one tends to forget that beneath the posturing, the bug-eyes, and the over-acted madness is a man who once won an Oscar. Cage has always been capable of nuanced performances; we just don't get to see them very often any more. Hopefully that will change with the release of Joe, the David Gordon Green film that premiered at the Venice Film Festival and stars Cage behaving, for once, in a relatively calm and sedate manner.
Over the course of roughly a week, Quentin Tarantino's scrapped project The Hateful Eight has gone from being a fanboy's dream to a total nightmare. First, the director announced that he would be abandoning the film after the first draft of his script began making the Hollywood rounds without his consent. Then, every gossip rag and blog began scouring the Internet for the actual leaked script, prompting a host of hoaxes and imitators. Now, things are about to get very real in the legal sense, with Tarantino lawyering up to sue the website Gawker for posting the real script.
Jean-Claude Van Damme has had a career resurgence of sorts, ever since 2008's JCVD. Appearing as the villain in The Expendables 2 and impressing us all with his flexibility in a series of Volvo commercials, the Muscles from Brussels has risen once more to the heights of B-action star. Now he's working on his comedic chops in Welcome To The Jungle, starring as a former Marine who takes a bunch of office workers on a 'team-building' exercise to a jungle island.
Robert De Niro seems to alternate between playing a caricatured version of his past roles and playing an actual part. Having seen the first trailer for the actor's latest crime thriller The Bag Man, I could not quite decide which De Niro I was watching.
Hollywood seems to be running out of original ideas right now, despite a wealth of literature old and new to choose from. Still, I suppose they could probably do a lot worse than a new adaptation of The Day of the Triffids, the latest sci-fi classic up for a contemporary reboot. After much hemming and hawing, the film finally has a director in the form of Mike Newell.
Will rumors never cease? If the casting/scripting/directing rumors about Star Wars: Episode VII weren't enough, we now also have to contend with rumors about all those other Star Wars films: the spin-offs, the sequels, and the...animated films? Yes, that's the latest rumor as apparently there will be some sort of animated Star Wars feature, produced by Disney's own animation giant Pixar. A Pixar Star Wars film - now there's an interesting idea.
