New Writer Attending X-Men: First Class

Only a day after it was confirmed Bryan Singer was returning to the X-Men franchise with First Class, Heat Vision reports that Jamie Moss has been brought on board to write the newest draft. As most expected, the film will concern the exploits of Professor Xavier's original line-up as well as his friendship with Erik Lehnsherr and how their friendship went to the shitter. I’m guessing Singer and his team won’t be employing that awful CG-botox from X-Men: The Last Stand and Wolverine. Hiring younger actor who could pass off as Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen is the cheaper (and more logical) route.

As Singer explained the matter elsewhere to the trades:

"Whether it's 'Batman,' 'Lord of the Rings' or 'Star Trek,' if the characters are good, you want to see them on their journey even if you know their destiny. I put myself in the fan's position, and I think this story is something I would want to see, and so will they."

The problem, unlike Star Trek or Batman Begins, is that this is a prequel and not a reboot. Singer will be forced to adhere to continuity. That can be a bitch to pull off – especially when you’re trying to build suspense over what will happen next. Look at what happened with Terminator: Salvation.

When you think about it, the expectations for this are much higher as opposed to when Singer took over the Superman franchise. Go to the talk-back section of any website or forum and you’ll read countless "If only Bryan had done X-Men 3 instead…" statements from fanboys. The funny thing is it’s not out of left-field to suggest that maybe his version would have let fans down. I know Mike Dougherty has publicly revealed his ideas and we’ve heard rumblings of what Singer had in mind. But the fact remains that we’ll never truly know.

I say all of this because we’re now hearing from those same people "Singer is coming back. Everything will be great again!" Eh, not necessarily. He’s a filmmaker who’s yet to disappoint me. But fans had better keep their expectations within reality.

The Hangover 2 Headed For Thailand?

Yes, The Hangover was funny. It had good laughs, solid cast and plenty of great "What the fuck…?" moments. But the fact that it chugged out $280 million is still mind-boggling to tell you the truth. All the news of Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures advancing with a sequel just left me uneasy. You just can’t repeat that kind of success – especially with a comedy.

Then a funny thing happened, I re-watched the film a few nights ago. It holds up. Really well in fact. I’d even go as far to say I laughed more upon my second viewing than I did in that mostly vacant matinee screening last June. Now I’m more open to the prospects for a follow-up. Weird, I know. What Todd Phillips has in mind for what Allen (Zack Galifianakis) is too intriguing to pass up.

The word from CHUD is the guys won’t be headed to Vegas again. Thank God. Instead the shenanigans will take place in Thailand. In fact, Phillips was planning on using that as the location for his aborted Old School sequel that fell apart. Will Farrell thought Land of the Lost was the better career movie, I suppose.

Correct me on this one, but I don’t know if it’s been confirmed that Justin Bartha will be a part of this. Ditto Heather Graham. We all know that the principle three leads (i.e. Galifianakis, Ed Helms and Bradley Cooper) will. As funny as he was, let’s hope they keep Mike Tyson (or his tiger) out. Don’t need this to be one of those sequels that bring back every character just for the Hell of it like Pirates of the Caribbean.

Morpheus Vs. Predators

The currently-filming Predators have added another solid character-actor to its lineup.

Latino Review reports that Lawrence Fishburne has joined the cast of the Nimród Antal-directed, Robert Rodriquez-produced sequel. I remember back around 1999/2000 his name was brought up as a great candidate to play Doctor Who. This, of course, was back during that magical time when The Matrix was the shit, the Wachowskis and James Cameron were the official directors of choice by fanboys for every franchise known to man and George Lucas was shit on every waking moment. How times change...

I know I’ve said this before. But I’m curious to see how this will come back next July. Will it follow the path of last summer’s Terminator: Salvation (i.e. damn-near nobody cared despite all that Internet hype) or Live Free or Die Hard (i.e. damn-near nobody on the Internet cared but everyone else did!)

I could see people really digging this. If it’s nothing more than a kick-ass sci-fi action film, that’s good enough for me.

Spider-Man 4 In Trouble

UPDATE: Super Hero Hype has received word from their sources within Sony that the delay is 100% related to a break for the holidays. Nothing more, nothing less. Work will get back up at the start of next year. Meanwhile, Aint It Cool News reports they heard similiar rumblings to what IESB first reported. Take all of that for what you will.

When you hear a movie is on "indefinite hold," its prospects of crawling out of Development Hell don’t sound encouraging. If the film in question is Spider-Man 4, it makes matters worse. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars and the career projectory of studio executives on the line here. Correction, I meant to say Spider-M4n. Yeah...

The good folks over at IESB have the exclusive lowdown. Even though production was long said to commence in the early months of next year, there is still no script. Yikes. In fact, there’s yet to be an agreement between Sam Raimi and Sony over which villain to use.

The director wants Vulture as reported earlier this month. Sorry, but that Vultress bit sounded like bullshit. The studio, on the other hand, would prefer a villain who wasn’t as "out there" looking. Not that I was against using him, but I can sympathize with Sony. Shouldn't they have already settled on this forever ago?

Furthermore, things are said to be getting pretty heated with plenty of "very pissed off" people involved in the production. One assumes Mr. Raimi is among them. In fact, a number of departments have been told to stop work until all of this gets sorted out.

With the film scheduled for a May 6, 2011 release and these productions starting up way ahead of time in order to finish the effects work, the longer this drags out the less likely this becomes. Let me rephrase that. It becomes less likely that a Sam Raimi directed Spider-M4n happens.

Then again, this could explain why Tobey Maguire is suddenly being looked at for The Hobbit.

Bryan Singer Returns to X-Men

True, we’ve heard this before. But it was nothing more than non-news at the time. A couple of months back Bryan Singer stated he’d be interested in returning to the X-Men franchise. Of course, we’re sure he’d also love to helm another Superman film and maybe that Star Trek movie he’s had in his head for years. Sorry, but someone saying they’re "interested" doesn’t automatically translate to "That means its happening!" like a lot of Internet fanboys tend to assume.

Welcome to the exception to that rule. The director revealed on the "blue carpet" at last night’s Avatar premiere in Los Angeles ("blue carpet," get it?) he’d recently signed on the dotted line to helm X-Men: The First Class. He’s already working on Jack the Giant Killer for Warner Brothers and it appears the plan is for him to jump immediately back on Team Mutie next.

What this means for the Battlestar Galactica reboot at Universal and that Excalibur remake with WB remains to be seen.

I’m 50/50 on this. On the plus side, Singer’s better strengths came out through his two X-Men films. Like it or hate it, he was one of the key filmmakers responsible for the superhero boom in the past decade. The real issue, for me, is this is a prequel to the first three films and a follow-up to last summer’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Now the guy responsible for this franchise has to adhere to continuity already established by him and the producers/screenwriters of X-Men: The Last Stand?

Granted, there were certain restraints placed on Bryan by the studio forcing him to work around issues like budget during X-Men and X2. "Art thrives on restrictions," anyone?

Special props go to Flickchart and our pals at Screen Rant for posting said information first!

Hot Tub Time Machine Trailer

Did Hot Tub Time Machine sound stupid beyond belief when it was first announced? Absolutely. Hell the first thing that popped in my head was "Did you need the money that much, John Cusack?" Yes, I had kept in mind that he'd already agreed to headline 2012. That thought didn't escape me.

Yahoo! Movies has the new trailer up for the comedy. Guess what? It's funny. Really, I swear! Check it out either at the link provided or below and you will too. Once again, Craig Robison (the scene-stealer from The Pineapple Express which itself was a film full of scene-stealing performances and Kevin Smith's Zack & Miri Make a Porno) got the biggest laughs outta me.

Rob Marshall Still "Iffy" Towards Pirates 4

I was under the impression Disney was getting their shit together for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. The last two sequels went into shooting without a finished script. It showed. Of course, both were monster hits so it was considered a moot point by everyone. Can’t say I’d argue with that logic.

Last we heard the script by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio was coming together and filming was moving forward this coming March. There was even indication that some casting had already begun. If that is in fact the case, someone forgot to tell its director Rob Marshall.

While doing press for his musical Nine, Marshall revealed to Coming Soon he’s yet to receive the screenplay. It doesn’t help matters when he stated to the news-site, "We're still trying to figure out if it's going to all happen." Uh-huh.

In addition, Johnny Depp’s decision to headline The Tourist has pushed the start date on the tentpole back to summer 2010. There still appears to be no specific release date marked in for Pirates 4. All we know so far is its coming summer 2011. Might the studio opt to push it back to the currently non-stuffed summer of 2012 like Star Trek 2 is doing? It’s altogether possible, sure. But I seriously doubt it.

To be fair, there is the chance that Marshall has been off the project and the Mouse has already moved on to another helmer. Hence he’s speaking from the outsider perspective.

J.J. Abrams Directing Another Film Before Star Trek Sequel?

Yesterday, the New York Times did an article on Paramount Pictures. In what appears to be an otherwise by-the-numbers puff piece on the studio comes a tiny nugget of information on their current golden-boy J.J. Abrams:

"As for J. J. Abrams, a producer and the director of 'Star Trek,' Mr. Grey is looking for 'Star Trek 2.' And 'Mission: Impossible IV.' And possibly before either, what he called another 'tentpole' film to be directed by Mr. Abrams, and yet to be announced."

Don’t start having a shit-fits wondering what this means for the Star Trek sequel. It appears all but certain that the high-profile follow-up will beam into cinemas for summer 2012 instead of 2011. Just as we told you, good folks, it would months ago. Whenever we see Captain Kirk, Spock and the gang again, people will show up in droves to see it rest assured.

As for M:I 4, I don’t think anyone seriously thinks he will be calling the shots on that one. My guess is he hands that off to one of his guys like Matt Reeves.

It’s not like we could easily guesstimate what this mystery "tentpole" is at the moment. Abrams only has about fifty billion projects on his slate. Whatever it is, Abrams will most likely churn it out quickly before boarding the U.S.S. Enterprise for its sophomore voyage. If you’ll remember he actually finished his well-received Trek reboot in early December of last year.

Could Tobey Maguire Headline The Hobbit?

Having an actor headline two franchises at the same time (at two separate studios, no less!) hasn’t met with the best results. Look at what happened with Christian Bale. Sure his two Batman movies were insanely popular and profitable. But his becoming the face of the Terminator franchise didn’t do the same wonders and they won’t be back for quite some time. Then again, there is hope in Robert Downey Junior with next week’s Sherlock Holmes opening and Iron Man 2 opening next summer. We’ll see.

The good folks over at Latino Review have the exclusive information that Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson might have found their Bilbo Baggins after two years worth of rumor, speculation and 100% grade-A Internet bullshit.

Although this is strictly in the talks phase and nothing has been signed, their sources say that Tobey Maguire is the favorite to take over the role from Sir Ian Holm.

That’s right, kids. Spider-Man could also be The Hobbit. As the site points out, the shooting schedule for both tentpoles allows for Maguire to pull it off. Spider-Man 4 starts filming early next year while the two-movie Hobbit adaptation won’t commence principal photography until summer 2010.

Yeah, I could imagine Tobey done up in Middle-Earth costuming and what not.

Leonardo DiCaprio to Headline Mel Gibson-Directed Viking Epic

This is one of those Hollywood "connecting the dots" scenarios.

The trades report Leonardo DiCaprio (having just wrapped Inception with Christopher Nolan and about to start promoting Shutter Island in the coming months) will headline a currently untitled Viking film. Not one to pass up an old-school epic with plenty of blood and carnage, Mel Gibson will direct with the intention of starting filming by next fall.

Both parties come together thanks to the participation of producer Graham King. He recently worked on Edge of Darkness with Gibson and did The Departed with DiCaprio. That, of course, resulted in him winning the "Best Picture" Oscar for the Martin Scorsese-helmed crime thriller back in 2006.

Adding further glue is William Monahan. The screenwriter penned The Departed (and subsequently won the "Best Adapted Screenplay" Oscar), Shutter Island and Edge of Darkness. So I guess this should be called Six Degrees of Bill Monahan?

For those skeptics who say "Leo as a Viking? Come on!" the dude was able to pull off playing a South African in Blood Diamond. All he has to do put on some extra pounds in muscle and he’s good to go. Seeing him working with someone like Gibson should have interesting results.

It also further establishes his track-record for avoiding franchise tentpole and working with high-profile directors.