Will people please stop talking to Dan Aykroyd? You’re just encouraging him. ‘Twas not so long ago that Mr. Aykroyd announced that Ghostbusters 3, the sequel that is scaring the hell out of everyone for all the wrong reasons, will be shooting by next year. Now Aykroyd has informed Larry King on some important plot details for the next film.
Loved it or hated it, the fact remains that Ridley Scott’s Prometheus was a major film that set up the distinct possibility – probability, really – of at least one more sequel to tie up the many many loose ends. It has developed into a difficult slog to get Prometheus 2 off the ground, though, what with screenwriter Damon Lindelof leaving the whole script up in the air, and director Ridley Scott taking on other projects. But for those of you who desperately want to know what happens to Elizabeth Shaw and Michael Fassbender’s head-in-a-bag, good news! Ridley Scott has been chatting up a young actor about a supporting role in Prometheus 2.
The march of rumors began in a galaxy far far away, back when it was announced that there would, in fact, be a Star Wars Episode VII. Cue the speculation, on casting, on director, on plot and subject and on the color of Luke Skywalker’s underwear. With three originals returning (Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford), and director JJ Abrams locked in, the spotlight naturally turns to who will be required to anchor Star Wars Episode VII. Because if this continuation of a beloved franchise is going to fly, the cast better be good.
I have been trying to think up a comparable actor for Colin Firth and I’m pretty much coming up with two parts Michael Caine and one part Alec Guinness. Caine and Guinness were so often the anti-James Bonds - Caine as the be-spectacled and put-upon Harry Palmer and Guinness as George Smiley. That seems to be what Firth is going for too, at least since he appeared in the crazy amazing Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy adaptation as the charming and nefarious Bill Haydon. Now Colin Firth will be spying for Britain once again in the adaptation of Charles Cummings’ novel A Foreign Country.
When you lose Michael Mann to another flick, the first person you go to for a replacement is totally Spike Lee. That appears to be the reasoning of Black Bear Pictures with their upcoming film Gold. With Mann apparently out of the running, Lee has reportedly stepped up to the plate as director.
I do not know anyone who saw Tucker And Dale Vs. Evil and did not find it totally and unabashedly awesome. I would even go so far as to put it above Cabin In The Woods in my ‘genre-bending horror movie’ subset. So it is nice for this horror fan to hear that Tucker And Dale director Eli Craig will return to the dark comic genre with Universal’s Little Evil.
From the sublime to the ridiculous. On the same day that the first trailer for James Franco’s adaptation of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying premieres, we also have the premiere of quite another type of confusing ‘is it good or the worst idea ever’ media: the first motion poster for Lionsgate’s I, Frankenstein.
Unfilmable? James Franco does not know the meaning of the word! The actor will never be accused of not trying everything at least once. Case in point: Franco’s latest effort to premiere at Cannes, an adaptation of William Faulkner’s brilliant and narratively complex As I Lay Dying.
It was bound to happen sooner or later. I mean, you just cannot keep Jack Bauer down, no matter how hard you try. Fox has closed a deal with Kiefer Sutherland to return to his role as Bauer for a limited series of 24.
There was a time when the name M. Night Shyamalan was a byword for twisty-turny thrillers and high production values. That time was 1999 and the movie that got him there was The Sixth Sense. Since then Shyamalan’s cred has sunk, slowly but surely, one stupid twist after another, until the career nadir of The Last Airbender, which was just awful in every conceivable way. But Shyamalan hopes to regain some credibility and Fox apparently trusts him to do it by greelighting the event series Wayward Pines, to star Matt Dillon.
