In advance of its May 8th release, Paramount has already preemptively greenlit a sequel to J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, and has confirmed that screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci will be back. Joining those two, however, will be Damon Lindelof, a Paramount producer and writer for "Lost" who helped get this Star Trek reboot off the ground with J.J. Abrams to begin with. No decision has been made on whether Abrams will return to direct the sequel. Although we can expect to hear a lot more about this in May, soon after it hits theaters. It looks like Abrams has indeed already successfully rebooted this franchise!
SCI FI Wire talked to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman about coming up with the new story, about what robots you might see and about possibly getting Leonard Nimoy to voice a character.
What would Pixar’s WALL-E look like if it was an anime series starring human characters instead of robots? Or what about Finding Nemo set on land instead of the ocean? These two Pixar/Andrew Stanton reimaginings were found on 4chan. The Finding Nemo art (available after the jump) is credited to Andrew Kalko, but I’m not sure who created the Wall-E piece.
Disney has released a new featurette titled Inside Up: Discovering a Lost World on IGN today that looks at what went into creating the South American jungle that Carl and Russell end up at in Pixar's Up. This is why I love Pixar and everything they do. And yes, I'm happy to give more exposure to a Pixar movie on the very day that DreamWorks Animation's Monsters vs Aliens hits theaters, because they have such an extreme amount of passion for what they do. And if you're one of those people that are skeptical about Up, then please watch this, as it'll give you a better idea of the story and inspiration behind Pixar's latest work of art.
Watch the Inside Up: Discovering a Lost World video:
By tying thousands of balloon to his home, 78-year-old Carl Fredricksen sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream to see South America. Right after lifting off, however, he learns he isn't alone on his journey, since Russell, a wilderness explorer 70 years his junior, has inadvertently become a stowaway on the trip.
Pixar's Up is directed Pete Docter, one of the original Pixar members who directed Monsters, Inc previously and wrote the stories for Toy Story and Toy Story 2. The film is co-directed and written by Bob Peterson, who also wrote Finding Nemo. Disney will debut Up in theaters everywhere on May 29th this summer.
Paramount Pictures has extended its overall deal with J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Prods., keeping the company on the lot through 2013. The deal comes as the studio moves into promotional warp speed for the May 8 release of "Star Trek," which Abrams directed and produced.
Abrams and long-time producing partner Bryan Burk set the company at Paramount in July 2006.
Bad Robot is growing into an important supplier of the Paramount film slate. The company's first release was "Cloverfield," which grossed $170 million worldwide. "Star Trek" is the company's second film, and Bad Robot begins production in June on "Morning Glory," the Roger Michel-directed film that stars Harrison Ford and Rachel McAdams to be released in 2010.
"Today's announcement is meaningful to me in many ways," Paramount Pictures Corporation chairman/CEO Brad Grey said. "Bad Robot was one of the first deals we made to help rebuild the studio. J.J. has since become part of the fabric of Paramount, and we look forward to continuing our fruitful creative collaboration for many years to come."
"Bad Robot has had an incredibly fun and productive collaboration with Paramount," Abrams said. "We feel like we're just getting started."
A new International Poster has been posted online via IESB.net who posted the Empire Exclusive release.
The post is alright and hits on the important elements of a character centric franchise, showing the Enterprise in its prelaunch construction state. It conveys enough about the movie to get the point across, but its the same images we have seen splashed everywhere promoting this movie.
They manage to just barely dodge the “floating photoshop heads” but only just barely. And they are not even new pictures of the faces. They are the same recycled images we have already been exposed to a dozen times.
I am excited for this movie, and I hope that soon we might actually see a poster that matches my enthusiasm.
While browsing through some of the collections of international posters, I came across TrekMovie.com and found one from Germany that looked great. This poster here is probably my favorite one so far.
A chronicle of the early days of James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew members.
Star Trek is directed by J.J. Abrams (of "Lost" and Mission: Impossible III) and is written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (of The Island, Mission: Impossible III, Transformers, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen). This is the 11th movie in the Star Trek universe, following most recently Star Trek: Nemesis in 2002. Star Trek is set to land in theaters everywhere on May 8th, 2009 this summer!
Angels & Demons is directed by prolific filmmaker Ron Howard, of everything from Willow to Backdraft to Apollo 13 to A Beautiful Mind to the previous The Da Vinci Code. The script was written by veteran screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, of Lost in Space, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, The Da Vinci Code, and I Am Legend most recently. This film is based on Dan Brown's popular bestselling novel of the same name. Sony Pictures will be debuting Angels & Demons in theaters everywhere on May 15th this summer.
The team of Orci and Kurtzman have taken a bow out on Transformers 3, choosing to leave to pursue other projects. This leaves a job opening to pen Bay’s next scene of giant robots making splodey messes and selling GM cars.
Summit Entertainment has debuted the second teaser trailer for Imagi's Astro Boy animated movie on Hulu. This is a vast improvement over that original teaser, with more scenes, more footage, and less of the cheesy animation that I'm so worried about. I'm actually really digging the way this looks now and have a feeling we're all going to be in for a treat in October. I know I'm going to get torn to shreds by making this comparison, but in a very basic sense, Astro Boy seems a lot like Iron Man for the kids, with a kid who is actually a robot, not inside of a robot, first getting his bearings and everything. Anyway, check this out!Watch the second teaser trailer for Astro Boy:
Set in futuristic Metro City, AstroBoy is about a young robot with incredible powers created by a brilliant scientist to replace the son he has lost. Unable to fulfill the grieving father's expectations, our hero embarks on a journey in search of acceptance, experiencing betrayal and a netherworld of robot gladiators, before he returns to save Metro City and reconcile with the man who had rejected him.
Astro Boy is directed by ex-Disney animator David Bowers, of Flushed Away previously, with a screenplay written by Timothy Harris, of Brewster's Millions, Kindergarten Cop, and Space Jam previously. Imagi Animation, the studio behind TMNT last year, is developing this animated film which is based on Osamu Tezuka's manga series. Astro Boy will arrive in theaters everywhere on October 23rd this year.
Now that you've seen it, what did you think? Director Alex Proyas is best known and loved for two films from his past - The Crow and Dark City. When he directed I, Robot in 2004, many people thought he finally hit the bottom of the barrel, but now he's back, five years later, with another edgy new dark thriller. So is this Proyas' triumphant return? Did Nic Cage make a comeback, too? Was this as formulaic and as boring as most people seemed it would be? Or was Knowing as edgy and thrilling as Proyas' two prior cult classics? Sound off below, leave your thoughts, and let us know what you thought of Knowing!
Woops. Someone at Paramount heard wrong. Yesterday news that Transformers 3 had been scheduled for a July 1st, 2011 release date, alongside a number of other exciting movies. But apparently Paramount jumped the gun. Michael Bay posted the following on his own official forums: "I said I was taking off a year from Transformers. Paramount made a mistake in dating Transformers 3 - they asked me on the phone - I said yes to July 4 - but for 2012 - whoops! Not 2011!!! That would mean I would have to start prep in September. No way. My brain needs a break from fighting robots." Will it be rescheduled?I'm a bit amazed that such a huge mistake was made and that Paramount even announced the wrong date. Well, it falls in line with the exact pattern that Bay followed for the first two, so it could make sense that they'd push for the same two year schedule for the third sequel. Additionally, this is the first time Bay has ever followed through with a complete trilogy. He's only ever actually made one sequel - Bad Boys II - but this will be the first time he continues on. It's obvious that this is a passion project for him and that he was indeed born to direct Transformers. He just needs a break, too! So will they push it back to 2012?
Apparently there's a lot more to Neil Marshall than we ever thought! After scaring us all with The Descent, he went on to direct Doomsday, a mash-up of everything old and new, proving that he's got a lot of things going on in his mind besides just claustrophobic horror. Next up for Marshall is Centurion, an epic action adventure film set in 117 AD about a group of Roman soldiers who must fight for their lives behind enemy lines after their legion is decimated in a devastating guerrilla attack. Seen below via Empire is ex-Bond girl Olga Kurylenko as the character Etain, described as "a savage-looking Pict warrior woman."
"Etain is kind of revenge incarnate," Marshall tells Empire. "Her family were butchered by the Romans, she had her tongue cut out by the Romans, she's had a hell of a time and she's out for Roman blood." So does that mean she won't be speaking at all in the film? "She's quite furious, because one sense is not there - she can't speak - all the others are more developed. She sees very well and hears very well: she is an animal!" In addition to Kurylenko, Centurion stars Michael Fassbender, Dominic West, Noel Clarke, and David Morrisey. And of course, it is both written and directed by Neil Marshall. Stay tuned for more details!
It's a sad day for Hollywood. They've finally crossed that line that no one wanted them to ever cross. New Line has greenlit a MacGyver feature film. Legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis and his daughter Raffaella are producing, along with series creator Lee Zlotoff. No word on whether the original MacGyver, Richard Dean Anderson, will be involved, but our guess is that he's not going to have anything to do with this. New Line hasn't hired a writer yet either, but they hope to find a script "that can acknowledge how the concept has staked a place into pop culture yet still makes for a serious and fun adventure movie."
As a quick refresher, MacGyver was an adventure TV series that first debuted in 1985 on ABC and eventually got two spin-off made-for-TV movies both in 1994. Richard Dean Anderson starred as an incredibly resourceful secret agent for the Phoenix Foundation who frequently would escape from dangerous situations with ingenious and lightning-quick engineering trickery (refer to this MythBusters episode). If this news itself wasn't painful enough, just listen to this pitiful pun from New Line's Richard Brener. "We think we're a stick of chewing gum, a paper clip and an A-list writer away from a global franchise." Goodness…
Vin Diesel was chatting about the relase of the new video game based on Chronicles of Riddick and also mentioned they are working on a Riddick 3.“Maybe we’re too tight-lipped about the next ‘Chronicles of Riddick’ film, and I think circa the release of [Dark Athena] that’s probably when you’ll start hearing more about the next ‘Riddick’ film,” Diesel said. “It is underway and I almost think it’s a coincidence that we haven’t heard anything, that there hasn’t been a lot of public stuff on the ‘Riddick’ movie.
I think it is smart for Diesel to return to franchises that he was famous for to begin with. He has had so many flops that he needs some in the win column.
Riddick has always worked out well for Vin, and he suits the role so well. I enjoyed the Riddick films.
Chronicles of Riddick director David Twohy's latest film is thriller called A Perfect Getaway. It stars Milla Jovovich and Steve Zahn as two lovers on honeymoon in Hawaii who discover they're being stalked by a pair of killers, played by Kiele Sanchez and Timothy Olyphant. Seems like a twisted and tropical mix of Funny Games and The Strangers. This was originally supposed to hit theaters this week, but Universal has since pushed it back to mid-August. To keep us excited, Twohy himself has posted two photos of his leading ladies, Jovovich and Sanchez, over on his official blog, which are the very first photos from the film.
I don't know else to say about this, but I guess I'm curious? I'm wondering what the title, A Perfect Getaway, has to do with the story. Is it just saying that Hawaii was the perfect "getaway" vacation for these two or is there some secondary meaning to it? Twohy's blog is actually a pretty cool read. "After a 100% stage show like Riddick, I wanted to do something outdoors… So I got what I wished for, anyway, since APG wound up being 95% exteriors." We'll keep eye our out for more on this as the year progresses.
It’s been the worst-kept secret in Hollywood (well, apart from the one about [CENSORED] being massively [CENSORED]) for months, but finally it’s been officially confirmed that Dakota Fanning has joined the cast of Twilight sequel, New Moon. You now have permission to squeal with excitement, Twilight fans.The extraordinarily precocious Fanning – no relation to Irish music journo Dave Fanning, we presume – will play ancient and morally ambiguous bloodsucker Jane in the Chris Weitz-directed movie, which had better start filming soon, given that it’s got a November release date.
Jane, of course, is a member of the Volturi, a clan of Italian vampires that I knew all about and didn’t have to look up on Wikipedia, honest. Immortal peacekeepers that protect the secret of vampirism, they factor into the plot when Robert Pattinson’s Edward Cullen [Spoiler Alert] takes his massive hair to Italy, moping over the apparent loss of his soulmate, Bella (Kristen Stewart), and yearning for death. Or a new stylist.
The child-like Jane is one of the more prominent members of the clan, and has the ability to create illusions of pain. It seems that Fanning – who has admitted to being a big fan of the Stephenie Meyer novels on which the film series is based – may well be perfect casting for the role.
Other members of the Volturi, including their leader Aro, who can read thoughts once he’s touched the person involved, Marcus, who senses relationships (what a spectacularly useless power), and Alec, who can block senses, have yet to be cast. But expect firm announcements on those fronts very soon.
Warner Bros.' dark superhero pic "Watchmen" grossed an estimated $55.7 million from 3,611 theaters in its domestic B.O. debut, coming in lower than expected but still scoring the best opening of the year and one of the best showings ever for an R-rated film.Studio had hoped for the pic to transform into a March tentpole and match, or best, the $70.9 million opening of Zack Snyder's previous film "300," which bowed on the same frame in 2007.
"Watchmen's" running time, however, was 2:40 before trailers. At that length, theaters couldn't play as much runs of the pic as they did "300," which ran under two hours.
"Watchmen," based on the iconic graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, played heavily to fans, i.e., males between the ages of 17-34. After that, "Watchmen" appeared to have some trouble broadening out. Pic was considered a hard R, because of its graphic violence and sex.
"Watchmen's" 124 Imax runs were sold out throughout the weekend. Imax runs accounted for $5.5 million; the circuit's best opening weekend number after "The Dark Knight" ($6.3 million).
"Watchmen" nabbed the third highest March opening, and the fifth highest opening ever for an R-rated film.
Gyllenhaal plays Dastan, a young prince in sixth century Persia who must join forces with Tamina (Arterton), a feisty and exotic princess, to prevent a villainous nobleman from possessing the Sands of Time, a gift from the gods that can reverse time and allow its possessor to rule the world.
Universal Pictures has updated the official website for Fast & Furious, opening in theaters on April 3rd. The action-thriller, directed by Justin Lin, stars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, John Ortiz, Laz Alonso, Gal Gadot, Shea Whigham, Tego Calderon and Liza Lapira.
To be fair to Michael Bay… he did warn us over a year ago that he would purposefully leak fake information about Transformers 2 in order to keep everyone guessing and blur what rumors and “leaks” are true and which ones aren’t. As an online film fan I hate that… but I’ve got to admit it was probably the most brilliant thing he could do. One of the things he said early on was that Megatron was NOT going to be back in Transformers 2. I think most of us suspected this was one of those “fake” pieces of news since, how can you have a Transformers movie without Megatron in some way, shape or form?
But with information leaking out… including a picture of a Megatron toy in the full Transformers 2 packaging, it looks like Bay has had no choice but to come out and confirm that Megatron is indeed back. Our friends over at IESB give us this:
From Bay’s site, “Okay cat is out of the bag. Megatron is back —- but you will only get to see him from the long lost past. We go way back in time as this movie explains the mythology of the Primes. He is not a tank like everyone suggests, but an alien vehicle. But sadly he does not has much screen time. Michael”
This is like A-Rod having to admit he did roids after getting caught. But here’s the thing… even though Bay has admitted Megatron will be back, I don’t think he’s telling the truth about how much Megs will be in the movie. I suspect he’ll have a much larger role than what Bay is letting on right now. What do you think?
