Tue, May 18, 2010 Comingsoon.Net has gotten hold of a new Australian poster for forthcoming Angelina Jolie spy flick Salt.
Word is not good on this one and it seems Tom Cruise was wise to choose Knight and Day instead, Columbia were hoping for a franchise but unless this defies early word then it's unlikely they'll get their wish.
Mon, May 17, 2010 
I guess we have Alice in Wonderland's $980 million worldwide box office total for this. Disney has signed Aline Brosh McKenna to write a live-action "re-imagining" of the classic fairy tale Cinderella, according to a report from Deadline.
McKenna's previous screenwriting credits include The Devil Wears Prada and 27 Dresses. The film will be produced by Simon Kinberg, who worked with McKenna on a rewrite of Date Night.
No word yet on a release date or whether or not this new version of Cinderella will be in 3D (but it probably will be). The deal with McKenna is reportedly a 7-figure deal, so it looks like Disney is putting a lot into this remake. This makes sense, since the studio's 1950 animated film is arguably the most popular movie version of the story (she even has her own castle in one of their theme parks, for crying out loud), so a remake better be good.
I think it's a good choice for the live-action treatment. I loved Disney's Enchanted, which was sort of the same story, but this could be even more fun because there's a lot of potential for the supporting characters to steal the show.
I'm also curious to see if they plan to keep this strictly a princess movie - as I recall, Prince Charming doesn't do much else except be charming, and there's not an action sequence to be had. Disney recently changed the title of their upcoming animated version of Rapunzel to Tangled to avoid that "princess movie" label that may have hurt their box office with The Princess and the Frog last year (and I loved that movie too). So I'm sure there will be some tinkering with the story to make it fun for everyone.
So now that's two Disney princesses getting a makeover. Am I the only one who thinks a live-action version of Mulan would be awesome?
Mon, May 17, 2010 
This will likely be the last week that Iron Man 2 takes the top spot, coming in at 52 million, sightly higher then I'd predicted, but less then yesterday's estimate. Next week look for Shrek 4 to take the number one spot, and be sure to check back on Wednesday for my official review.
1. Iron Man 2 (Marvel/Paramount) - $52 million
2. Robin Hood (Universal) - $36 million
3. Letters to Juliet (Summit) - $13.5 million
4. Just Wright (Fox Searchlight) - $8.2 million N/A
5. How to Train Your Dragon (DreamWorks Animation/Paramount) - $5 million
6. A Nightmare on Elm Street (New Line/WB) - $4.6 million
7 Date Night (20th Century Fox) - $3.8 million
8. The Back-Up Plan (CBS Films) - $2.8 million
9. Furry Vengeance (Summit) - $2.2 million
10. Clash Of The Titans (Warner Bros) - $1.2 million
Check back to TMT on Wednesday for this coming weekends Box Office predictions, and again on Sunday for the estimates from Jen.
Mon, May 17, 2010 
HeatVision reports Zoe Saldana is in early negotiations to star in "Colombiana," a drama that Luc Besson is producing under his Europa Corp. The project is slated for late-summer start with Olivier Megaton ("Transporter 3") directing.
Written by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, "Colombiana" is set in Latin America and the U.S. Saldana would play a young woman who, after witnessing her parents' murder as a child in Bogota, grows up to be a stone-cold assassin. She works for her uncle as a hitman by day, but her personal time is spent engaging in vigilante murders that she hopes will lead her to her ultimate target: the mobster responsible for her parents' death.
She most recently was seen in The Losers and Death at a Funeral, Next year she starts shooting the sequel to the JJ Abrams Star Trek sequel from 2009. If comulmbiana is as retarded as both her most recent films, she'll be three for three in the crap department, and in desperate need of the Star Trek sequel so we can forget about all the shit we've seen her in as of late.
Mon, May 17, 2010 
Shia LaBeouf is at Cannes promoting Wallstreet 2, the last time he was there He was promoting Indiana Jones 4. Shia recently spoke to the LA Times where admitted that he was in the majority in that he didn't like Transformers 2 or Indiana Jones 4 either.
He had the following to say about Transformers 2:
Shia LaBeouf says the second "Transformers" movie got too big for its own good - but the third one brings the heart back to the franchise.
LaBeouf, who starts work on the next "Transformers" sequel Tuesday, said the third installment will be the best one yet. The new script restores a human element that got lost in the second movie, LaBeouf said.
"When I saw the second movie, I wasn't impressed with what we did," LaBeouf said in an interview Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival, where his finance drama "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" is premiering. "There were some really wild stunts in it, but the heart was gone."
"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" was a runaway commercial success but was drubbed by critics.
Michael Bay returns for the third time as director of the science-fiction franchise, which centers on dueling races of giant robots that bring their war to Earth. The next movie will have what the last one lacked - a sense of human consequences, LaBeouf said.
On the second movie, "we got lost. We tried to get bigger. It's what happens to sequels. It's like, how do you top the first one? You've got to go bigger," LaBeouf said. "Mike went so big that it became too big, and I think you lost the anchor of the movie. ... You lost a bit of the relationships. Unless you have those relationships, then the movie doesn't matter. Then it's just a bunch of robots fighting each other."
With "Transformers 3," the toll of the robot war will be grave for our planet, LaBeouf said.
"There's going to be a lot of death, human death. This time, they're targeting humans," LaBeouf said. "It's going to be the craziest action movie ever made, or we failed."
And on Indiana Jones 4;
"I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished," LaBeouf said, explaining that this upped the ante for him before he began shooting the "Wall Street" sequel. "If I was going to do it twice, my career was over. So this was fight-or-flight for me."
"You get to monkey-swinging and things like that and you can blame it on the writer and you can blame it on Steven [Spielberg, who directed]. But the actor's job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn't do it. So that's my fault. Simple."
LaBeouf said that he could have kept quiet, especially given the movie's blockbuster status, but didn't think the film had fooled anyone. "I think the audience is pretty intelligent. I think they know when you've made ... . And I think if you don't acknowledge it, then why do they trust you the next time you're promoting a movie." LaBeouf went on to say he wasn't the only star on the film who felt that way. "We [Harrison Ford and LaBeouf] had major discussions. He wasn't happy with it either. Look, the movie could have been updated. There was a reason it wasn't universally accepted."
LaBeouf added, "We need to be able to satiate the appetite," he said. "I think we just misinterpreted what we were trying to satiate."
I have to say it's very refreshing to hear an actor actually own up to his failures, but I don't think we can blame Transformers 2 or Indiana Jones solely on Shia. With Transformers Michael Bay had a large hand in making that sequel as ridiculous as it was, and with Indiana Jones the biggest problem was George Lucas' awful script, Spielberg didn't help the situation either with shitty use of CGI and lackluster set pieces.
I personally like Shia, but my hopes for Transformers 3 being any better then the second one aren't very high. I really want Wallstreet 2 to be good, the original is one of my favorite films, but if it sucks will Shia just come out while pimping his next project and shit on that too?
Sun, May 16, 2010 
Courtesy of ComingSoon.net:
1. Iron Man 2: $53 million
2. Robin Hood: $37.1 million
3. Letters to Juliet: $13.7 million
4. Just Wright: $8.5 million
5. How to Train Your Dragon: $5.1 million
6. A Nightmare on Elm Street: $4.7 million
7. Date Night: $4 million
8. The Back-Up Plan: $2.4 million
9: Furry Vengeance: $2.3 million
10. Clash of the Titans: $1.2 million
As predicted, Iron Man 2 easily held the #1 spot over Robin Hood this weekend. That's a 59% drop from the opening weekend, which is a pretty big drop, but it was still good enough to cross the $200 million mark domestically, and its worldwide total now stands at $457 million.
Ridley Scott's new version of Robin Hood finished the weekend with an OK (but not great) $37.1 million. The good news for Universal is that it's doing much better overseas, where it grossed an additional $74 million - topping the opening weekends for both of the previous Ridley Scott/Russell Crowe films Gladiator and American Gangster. The bad news is that at this point it's unlikely to make back its estimated $225 production costs.
The romance drama Letters to Juliet, starring Amanda Seyfried, opened with an unremarkable $13.7 million. The Queen Latifah comedy Just Wright also opened quietly with $8.5 million.
How to Train Your Dragon remained in the top 5, adding another $5.1 million to its $207 million domestic total. Expect those numbers to go down once the new Shrek movie opens next week.
The remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street dropped to sixth place, with another $4.7 million. Its domestic total now stands at $56.1 million, so if New Line is serious about that 3D sequel, now would be the time to get started on it.
The romantic comedies Date Night and The Break-Up Plan held up respectively over the weekend. Furry Vengeance somehow still remains in the top 10 (seriously, who is seeing this movie?), and Clash of the Titans managed to cling to a few more theaters to claim the #10 spot with $1.25 million, however, it's already been outgrossed by Iron Man 2 and How to Train Your Dragon.
Check back for Mitch's update once the actuals come in. I'll be curious to see what Iron Man 2's official numbers are for the weekend.
Sun, May 16, 2010 
Just yesterday we reported that Disney had hired Director David Fincher to diret their adaption of 20,000 leagues under the sea. Now comes news via Heat Vision, that Disney will have some competition.
Fox is prepping its own version of the classic Jules Verne tale with an equally pedigreed film making team. Producers Ridley and Tony Scott and their Scott Free Prods. are developing a "Leagues" project for the studio with a script by "Clash of the Titans" co-writer Travis Beacham. And they've been talking with director Timur Bekmambetov ("Wanted") about helming the big-budget adaptation, though there's no deal for Timur yet.
It's likely the studio to release their version first will come out on top. Unfortunately for Disney the project underway at Fox is much further along. Disney is finalizing deals with Fincher and scribe Scott Z. Burns, who will then begin writing. Fincher will likely direct another movie before turning his attention to "Leagues."
Sun, May 16, 2010 
Producers Gianni Nunnari and Mark Canton, whose last toga pic was 300, will package and produce Exclusive Media Group’s new historical drama based on the early life of Julius Caesar.
The movie hopes to be the first in a trilogy based on Conn Iggulden’s bestselling Emperor book series. William Broyles (Flags of Our Fathers) has written the script. Nunnari and Canton are currently producing another historical epic, The Immortals, for Relativity Media and Universal.
Exclusive hopes to start filming within the next few months, although no director is yet attached.
If your not familiar Caesar was a Roman military and political leader. He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. In 44 BC he was assassinated by his own people, they surrounded him outside The Theatre of Pompey, where it's said over 60 men helped in his murder, stabbing him as many as 23 times.
As long as they don't go with a green screen for the entire movie, like they did with 300, I think this could be a very cool trilogy. This is the kind of project Ridley Scott should be attached to, no more Robin Hood in re-written history.
Sun, May 16, 2010 
David Fincher, master of the dark thriller is headed into uncharted waters as he has signed on to replace McG at the helm of Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea remake according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Months after deep-sixing a McG-helmed version of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," Disney is in negotiations with David Fincher to direct, and hot "Bourne Ultimatum" scribe Scott Z. Burns to write, a new take on the classic Jules Verne story.
The project came together after Fincher approached Disney's new production head Sean Bailey a few weeks into his job this winter. The Oscar-nominated helmer wanted to tackle a four-quadrant tentpole movie, somewhat of a departure from the dark, R-rated dramas such as "Fight Club" and "Zodiac" (or even "Curious Case of Benjamin Button") that he's done in the past.
The project was being developed under the radar as Bailey settled into his position under new studio topper Rich Ross, then gained steam in the past few days with Fincher and Burns entering talks for deals.
First published in 1869, the classic science fiction novel is in the public domain. But ever since Disney's Kirk Douglas-starring version was released in 1954, the studio and the Verne story -- about a group of men who encounter a vengeful scientific genius and his warlike submarine -- have been linked in the public's mind.
Last year, Disney was fast-tracking a $150 million "Leagues" that would have served as an origin story for Nemo. But the project was the first of several to be sunk by Ross when he took over the studio from Dick Cook in the fall (ironically, given Fincher's involvement, the dark tone of the McG version was a concern for the new regime).
It's not surprising that Disney would revisit "Leagues." Ross has said his mandate is to make wide-appeal, pre-branded entertainment. And while plotlines are being kept submerged, the Fincher/Burns take on the material is described as being in the vein of "Star Wars" or "The Empire Strikes Back." It will aim to be visually dazzling.
Burns, who penned Steven Soderbergh's latest "Contagion" as well as "The Informant!,"will begin writing immediately. That should give Fincher, who is in post on "The Social Network" for Sony, time to direct another movie (possibly "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," also for Sony, but his name has surfaced in connection with a host of projects) before jumping into "Leagues."
I admit I have always been in favour of this remake, I think there is much modern effects can add to the films concepts, not least The Nautilus, now Fincher is directing I am even more intrigued as to how this will turn out, Brad Pitt as Ned Land?
Sun, May 16, 2010 
Rian Johnson's debut movie was Brick starring Joseph Gordon Levitt, it was a high school set noir and it was pretty brilliant, if you haven't seen it I suggest you pick it up. He followed that with the Brothers Bloom, a quirky comedy caper movie that seemed to take forever to get released and then when it did it was gone as quickly as it arrived, despite getting decent reviews.
Now he is gearing up for his third movie which is set to be a sci fi action film called Looper, it was announced the other week that Joseph Gordon Levitt would be starring in it and now comes news from Deadline.com that action icon Bruce Willis will also be coming aboard.
EXCLUSIVE: Bruce Willis is joining the cast of Looper, a science fiction time travel tale that reunites the Brick team of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and writer/director Rian Johnson. The Terminator-esque action film has a clever premise. Loopers are hit men whose victims are sent back in time from the future to be executed. The Loopers bump them off in the present, so there is no trace of a crime in the future. I'm told that Willis and Gordon-Levitt will play the same character, in those different time frames. That ploy is also being used in Men in Black 3, with Josh Brolin playing the younger version of Tommy Lee Jones's Agent Kay. CAA is repping North American rights, and FilmNation Entertainment is repping it. Insiders said it is not being shopped at this fest. But buyers are all over it.
Sci Fi is hitting a purple patch right now with Avatar and Star Trek hitting big last year and Moon garnering huge critical praise, then this summer will see Inception and Source Code (directed by Moon director Duncan Jones) is tipped to big by those that have read the script, and now we have Looper which quite frankly sounds like it may top the lot. I've been a fan of Willis since I was a kid and JGL is one of the most talented young actors working today, this combined with an interesting director and killer hook put Looper right up top of my anticipation list.