It hasn't been a particular good week for The Hobbit, what with all those mysterious animal deaths and now that the J.R.R. Tolkien estate have decided to sue Warner Bros. for $80 milion. And you thought it was going so well, Peter Jackson, didn't you? Yes, the Tolkien estate, eager to get their greedy mits around cash they may or may not deserve, have filed a lawsuit against both Warner Bros. and New Line over something to do with "online slot machines and digital merchandising" that dates back to an original agreement they had in 1969.
Quentin Tarantino has made some of the best movies of the last twenty years: movies dense with pop cultural nods, obsure movie references, memorable quotes, dynamite characters and innovative sequences that stick in your memory long after you've left the theatre, the man definitely knows how to give audiences a good time.
The battle for Harry Osborn is on, because who wouldn't want to play Peter Parker's scheming, contemptuous, douchebag friend in Marc Webb's upcoming sequel? James Franco defined the role back in 2002 when Sam Raimi cast him as Osborn in the original Spider-Man movie. And when we say defined, we purely mean that James Franco is the only guy who's had a chance to play the character on the big screen thus far. Which means anyone can define it if they want to. Go on. Define it.
Yesterday we reported that 27 animals had met their end in an array of "death traps" on the set of The Hobbit, the victims of which include Rainbow, a miniature horse who broke his back and had to put out of his misery, and several ducks who came into a dangerous confrontation with some dogs (the dogs won). But director Peter Jackson has fought back against such claims, issuing a statement that denies the animal deaths constituted mistreatment. And although the production staff were aware that innocent animals were being bumped off one by one in increasingly horrific ways, considerable funds were devoted to improving their living conditions.
Although Skyfall's Sam Mendes recently denied that he'd make himself available for Bond 24, the sneaky devil is still hanging around the franchise, apparently involving himself enough in the process to even be helping develop the story for the next outing. That's according to Robert Wade, James Bond writer since 1999, who mentioned during a conversation regarding Bond 24 that “John Logan and Sam Mendes have come up with a plot for another one.”
Animals die every day in abundance. There are hundreds of different reasons that such a thing might occur to each of God's precious creatures, but getting a job on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey probably didn't seem like it'd end in death for the 27 animals who were killed making the movie. After being moved into their stables during production, many of the unsuspecting creatures came to meet their end when they were "kept at a nearby farm filled with bluffs, sinkholes and other death traps." That's according to four wranglers, anyway, who have lodged complaints against Peter Jackson and his company for their apparent mistreatment of the deceased.
Presumably jealous of the perfectly-formed face that God granted Ryan Gosling upon his birth, the marketing team for Only God Forgives have come together muttering phrases like "That'll show him" having released a new image of the Drive actor all banged up for Nicholas Winding Refn's new flick. The pity is that - despite the horrific nature of his wounds - Gosling's inherent handsomeness shines through somehow, still making the rest of us feel more like Matt Damon in Neill Blomkamp's upcoming movie.
Pedro Almodovar has made great films in a whole variety of genres, but one might have never expected the Spanish auteur to base his next film around Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. That's exactly what's happening, though, given that Almodovar recently announced his plans for the project:
I'm super-psyched for the director of Star Wars: Episode VII to reveal themselves, and not because I want to see how they take on George Lucas' iconic series. No. I just can't bear to hear anymore stories about who or who many not take the reigns, given that it's almost definitely a new person every day, despite the fact that said individuals reveal themselves hours later to be uninvolved in every way. Same goes now for Colin Trevorrow, who insists that the odds of him directing Star Wars are "3720 to 1." For anybody unfamiliar with odds, those are considered not good.
If you've been wandering about recently thinking,"I wonder if there were any posters for The Dark Knight Rises that Warner Bros. chose not to use," then what the heck is wrong with you? Although ultimately we can't deny that you're amazing attuned to the cultural zeitgeist, given that three unused posters for Christopher Nolan's third Batman movie have just been released online. Check 'em out below, wanderer.
