Archive for October, 2008
Posted by dominie in Films, News on October 31st, 2008
Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight) joins Denzel Washington in the film Book of Eli from Warner Bros. reports Variety.
The post-apocalyptic action story, to be directed by Allen and Albert Hughes, “revolves around a lone warrior (Washington) who must fight to bring society the knowledge that could be the key to its redemption. Oldman has been set to portray the despot of a small makeshift town who’s determined to take possession of the book Eli’s guarding.”
Warner Bros. will handle domestic distribution deals while Summit controls the international sales.
Posted by dominie in Films, Literature on October 31st, 2008
It looks like a start of a new fantasy franchise. Variety reports that Essential Pictures will adapt Diana Gabaldon’s series of fantasy novels beginning with Outlander for the big screen. Randall Wallace (Braveheart) scripted the screenplay that is currently still seeking a director but aims to begin production next spring.
The franchise will be based off of Gabaldon’s six novels that center on an 18th century Scottish Highlander and his time-traveling wife. This will be a part of Essential Pictures’ grand plan to finance and produce two to three films a year in the $10 million to $40 million budge range.
Posted by dominie in Films, News on October 31st, 2008
Twitch Films sets hype on The Pack (La Meute), a new “bloody rock ‘n roll chiller” from director Franck Richard they are calling “the next wave of French horror.”
“In the middle of a snowy no man’s land, Charlotte picks up Max, a hitchhiker; they stop in a truck-stop restaurant, and when Max doesn’t come back from the bathroom, Charlotte starts looking for him in vain. She decides to return during the night but gets kidnapped by the bartender, La Spack, who turns out to be Max’s mother and needs to feed her kids, « The pack », a bunch of blood lusting ghouls. Charlotte now faces a terrifying reality: these ghouls are already dead… and hungry. Alone and in the middle of nowhere, she quickly realizes… she’s next on the menu.”
Phillippe Nahon (Irreversible, Brotherhood of the Wolf) and Yolande Moreau (The Last Mistress, Amelle) star.
Posted by dominie in Films, General on October 31st, 2008
Happy Halloween from Famous Monsters of Filmland! After a sleepless night—it was before the crack of dawn—I broke free from my sleeping undead roommates and headed to the kitchen for those M&M cookies I’ve been jonesing for since yesterday afternoon. Scout’s honor, I held off until today.
I proceeded to imprint my arsh on the couch to do my daily web surfing and came across some free old horror movies. Before I knew it, I was having my own private pre-Halloween night celebration—candy, jammies, and good old scary storytelling!
So here I did some more research and compiled a few titles you may be interested in. Send the kids out! Sit back, kick up your feet, and click on these titles for a night of classic black & white horrors! Historical references courtesy of Wikipedia.
Carnival of Souls (1962) — She Was A Stranger Among The Living
Released in 1962, Carnival of Souls remains a favorite of ours. The organ score by Gene Moore creates the atmosphere and mood of horror rather than relying on special effects.
After a traumatic accident, a woman becomes drawn to a mysterious abandoned carnival.
Nosferatu (1922) — A Silent Masterpiece!
Originally released in 1922 as Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie Des Grauens, director F.W. Munarau’s chilling and eerie “unauthorized” adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a silent masterpiece of terror, which to this day is the most striking and frightening portrayal of the legend.
“This was the first and last Prana Film; the company declared bankruptcy after Bram Stoker’s estate, acting for his widow, Florence Stoker, sued for copyright infringement and won. The court ordered all existing prints of Nosferatu destroyed, but copies of the film had already been distributed around the world. These prints were then copied over the years, helping Nosferatu gain its current reputation as one of the greatest movie adaptations of the vampire legend.”
Freaks (1932) — Banned in the UK for 30 Years
Freaks is a horror film about sideshow performers, in which director Tod Browning took casting in a new direction. Instead of hiring people for costumes and makeup, he used real people with real deformities.
“Reaction to the film was so intense that the studio was forced to cut it from a length of approximately ninety minutes to just over an hour. Today, the parts that were removed from it are considered lost. Browning, famed at the time for his collaborations with Lon Chaney and for directing Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931) had trouble finding work afterwards, and this in effect brought his career to an early close. Because its deformed cast was shocking to moviegoers of the time, the film was banned in the United Kingdom for thirty years.”
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The original George A. Romero film that spawned a slew of cinematic re-releases, remakes, spinoffs, you name it—It needs no introduction.
Posted by dominic in Films, News on October 30th, 2008
I am not a fan of what Bryan Singer did with the X-Men films. I was more impressed with Superman Returns only ever so slightly. I would have rather seen a complete reboot of the saga. Not to mention that Smallville has done an amazing job, on a television shows budget, of bringing the story of Kal-El off the comic book pages. However, I don’t think the epic story of Superman has ever been given the justice it deserves on the big screen.
Step in Mark Millar, creator of Wanted, and his new grand vision of Superman. Working closely with an undisclosed Hollywood director, Millar told EMPIRE he is planning a three film, 8 hour epic in the vain of Lord of the Rings, a la one picture a year.
Speaking to EMPIRE he had this to say:
“It’s gonna be like Michael Corleone in the Godfather films, the entire story from beginning to end, you see where he starts, how he becomes who he becomes, and where that takes him. The Dark Knight showed you can take a comic book property and make a serious film, and I think the studios are ready to listen to bigger ideas now.”
“The problem with Superman Returns was like releasing Star Wars in ’77, The Empire Strikes Back in ’80 and then waiting 28 years to release Return of the Jedi, it wasn’t relevant. I understand what Bryan Singer was trying to do, to pay homage to Richard Donner’s original vision, but I think you should pay homage by doing something completely different.”
“I want to start on Krypton, a thousand years ago, and end with Superman alone on Planet Earth, the last being left on the planet, as the yellow sun turns red and starts to supernova, and he loses his powers.”
I don’t know about you guys, but if this awesome concept ever comes to pass I’ll be the first one in line when film number one opens. Good luck Mr. Millar, for our sakes.
Posted by dominie in Films, News on October 30th, 2008
Speaking of director Pascal Laugier, his French horror Martyrs arrives on DVD February 24, 2009 from Dimension Extreme according to Dread Central. The DVD features are still to be announced.
THR says, “Martyrs has been dividing audiences since appearing at the Festival de Cannes because of its unrelenting violent nature. The movie was hit with a 18+ rating — a rarity in France and an equivalent of NC-17 in the U.S. — sparking a protest by the country’s Society of Film Directors. At the Toronto International Film Festival, several people reportedly fainted during its midnight screenings. The Weinstein Co. is the domestic distributor, but no dates have been announced.”
Plot synopsis: France. A night at the beginning of the 1970s. Lucie, a little girl missing for over a year, is discovered wandering by the side of a country road. Near catatonic, she can say nothing about what has happened to her. The cops quickly find the place in which she’s been incarcerated - a disused slaughterhouse. Every indication is that she never once left the empty, freezing room in which she was imprisoned. Filthy, starving, dehydrated, the child’s body nonetheless bears no traces of sexual abuse - this was no pedophile abduction, but something far stranger. What happened in that icy room? And how did Lucie escape?
Posted by dominie in Films, News on October 30th, 2008
The announcement first surfaced on Bloody Disgusting that director of French horror Martyrs, Pascal Laugier, is in talks to helm Dimension Films’ re-imaging of Hellraiser, one of Clive Barker’s best-known creations. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the news is true and Laugier is now in the final negotiations to write and direct the remake.
“This is a dream project for me,” Laugier tells THR. “I know Clive Barker’s work very well, and I would never betray what he has done. Fans are expecting a definitive ‘Hellraiser,’ and I don’t want to take that away from them.”
“Released in 1987, Hellraiser told the story of an unfaithful wife who attempts to assist her dead lover in his escape from hell. The movie introduced viewers to a race of demons called Cenobites, most notably one nicknamed Pinhead — who became one of the most enduring horror characters of the decade — who was summoned using an antique puzzle box.”
Posted by dominie in Films, News on October 30th, 2008
The first project in the three-fright-picture deal between M. Night Shyamalan (The Happening) and Media Rights Capital is beginning to take flight. Brothers John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dwodle (Quarantine) will direct and produce and executive produce the project titled Devil, from a script by Brian Nelson (30 Days of Night). The film will be the first of three films produced over the next three years from the partnership under their Night Chronicles banner.
No plot details have been released yet. We only know that Devil is based on an original story by Shyamalan and will have a PG-13 rating. Shyamalan will oversee the creative direction of the film as well as casting selections, and retain co-ownership of the copyrights, while Media Rights Capital will handle any distribution deals. Production is set to begin next year.
Posted by dominie in Comics, Films, News on October 30th, 2008
Columbia Pictures has acquired the rights to adapt a big screen version of Preacher from the 1990s DC/Vertigo comic series reports THR. Currently there is no writer on board, however the studio has tapped Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Revolutionary Road) to helm the project.
“Created by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, Preacher, which ran from 1995-2000, told the story of a down-and-out Texas preacher possessed by Genesis, a supernatural entity conceived by the unnatural coupling of an angel and a demon. Given immense powers, the preacher teamed with an old girlfriend and a hard-drinking Irish vampire and set out on a journey across America to find God — who apparently had abandoned his duties in heaven — and hold him accountable for his negligence.”
Several attempts to transition the comic book character onto the screen have been attempted before this. An HBO one-hour series was launched by Howard Deutch and then dropped in past August because HBO claimed it was “too dark,” “too violent,” and “too controversial.” Kevin Smith’s View Askew also attempted a hand at Preacher that only reached the casting stage of development even with its reported $25 million budget. This time around, let’s hope Columbia gets it all the way through—the darker the better.
Posted by dominie in Films, News on October 30th, 2008
Dominic Sena’s (Swordfish, Gone in Sixty Seconds) adaptation of Whiteout has finally received a release date! The Kate Beckinsale (Underworld) and Gabriel Macht (The Spirit) starrer film arrives in theaters September 11, 2009.
Bloody Disgusting supplies the following synopsis.
The ticking-clock Whiteout follows U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko as she uncovers the first murder ever in the Antarctic just as the sun is about to set for six months. She must catch the killer before he leaves the ice or be stuck there with him in the dark for six months.
Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight) joins Denzel Washington in the film Book of Eli from Warner Bros. reports Variety.
