There still seems to be no official press release regarding Don Cheadle's involvement in a Miles Davis biopic, but TMZ is reporting that not only is the actor confirmed to star as the jazz trumpet legend, but he will be directing the film, as well. Erik told us back in March about the project, but at that time it was thought that Sony Pictures would be involved and that Antoine Fuqua might be interested in directing it. Then, just a few weeks ago, Jessica mentioned that there are in fact two competing Davis pics.
Apparently, the main setback in getting this project started was securing music rights. That is where Sony ended up being involved, as producer Cary Brokaw went to the studio, which released his last two pictures, as a go-between in dealing with Davis' Columbia Records catalog (Sony Pictures and Columbia Records are owned by the same conglomerate). But the film will not be produced by the studio; Brokaw will reportedly be financing it independently. I predict, however, that in the end it will be distributed by Sony Classics.
Writing the screenplay for the bio are Chris Wilkinson and Steve Rivele, the Oscar-nominated duo behind other biopics, such as Nixon, Ali, Copying Beethoven and an upcoming film about Jackie Robinson. Depending on Cheadle's talent as a director -- we will see his handiwork first with next year's Tishomingo Blues --- he could very well go on to win an Oscar (or two!) for this project. We already know that he's an amazing actor and that the Academy loves biographical roles, so this is obviously a film that should generate buzz even before the thing has its first day of shooting.
Just a few days ago the lovely Jessica Barnes informed us that there was a new poster afoot for the upcoming werewolf movie Blood & Chocolate, and now here I am sharing with you the all-new trailer for the flick ... and it ain't pretty. Oh sure, leading lady Agnes Bruckner is all kinds of attractive, but based on this trailer, Blood & Chocolate looks a lot like a Uwe Boll flick mixed with a supernatural teenybopper TV series that Fox hyped, debuted and canceled over the course of three full weeks.
In related news, "Blood & Chocolate" has already won the award for 2007's Stupidest Movie Title of the Year. I just now made up the award and gave it out at the same time. (Yes, I know the movie is based on a book, but that doesn't magically make the title any less stupid.) Attention bored teenagers: Blood & Chocolate opens on January 26. Your other multiplex options that night will be Jennifer Garner, yet another remake or something to make your eyes bleed. Yowch, rough weekend.
While Sony and Marvel would love to continue the Spider-Man franchise past this May's third installment, there's a good chance they'll be doing so without Spidey himself, Tobey Maguire. We already know Kirsten Dunst probably won't return, James Franco recently threw in his own thoughts on a fourth film and Marvel exec Kevin Feige told MTV that "there will be many more Spider-Man films to come" -- but the big question remains: Are additional sequels worth it if the trilogy's main stars don't return? Would it really be a Spider-Man film without Sam Raimi or Tobey Maguire?
When presented with these questions, Maguire told Starpulse News that, unless a miracle occurs, he's done slinging webs for now. Says Maguire, "This might be a good place to stop -- I am not tied contractually to any more Spider-Man movies. I am not completely closed to the idea of another one if it made sense but I would say the odds were in favor of this being the last one". But what exactly does that mean -- "if it made sense?" If what made sense? The stories are there, the fans are certainly there -- could Maguire be alluding to, dare I say it, the money? If so, then I imagine whatever new contract is drawn up would have to, not only provide him with a gigantic paycheck, but also be for only one film. There's no way this dude is committing himself to another three, and he's probably going to see where his co-stars and director stand before any final decisions are made.
Would you support a Spider-Man 4 if the original cast doesn't return?
The 1963 epic Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor in the title role, is often mistaken for being a financial flop. But it was actually one of the highest grossing pictures of its year. It couldn't turn a profit right away because its cost was just too high and so it may have seemed like a disaster originally, but after so many years it eventually made money. If the film were made today for an equivalent cost, it might not be as successful. Its budget would be close to $300 million. Judging from the grosses of other recent epics of this kind, it probably wouldn't come close -- even with international box office -- to making its money back, let alone the original's inflation-adjusted earnings of $442 million.
So, producer Scott Rudin will have to be tighter with the cash when he goes into production on a new Cleopatra film, which will be based on a book by Pulitzer-Prize winner Stacy Schiff due in 2009. Columbia Pictures bought the rights to this unfinished book based on a 10-page proposal for a reported seven figures (that's at least a million bucks, so already the budget is rising). It is expected to spotlight the Egyptian queen's strengths as a ruler as opposed to her reputation as a lover. Hopefully she will be played by someone closer in appearance than Taylor, though I would like to see Taylor have some sort of cameo.
Just because one of my old high school pals worked on both movies, that doesn't mean I really love both Starship Troopers movies. OK, I actually do love the first one, while the DTV sequel ... meh, a Saturday afternoon DVD, at best. And now it looks like the pair is about to become a trilogy, and get this: Johnny Rico is coming back!
Yep. According to reliablesources, veteran sci-fi screenwriter Ed Neumeier is poised to make his directorial debut on Starship Troopers 3, and I wasn't kidding about Johnny Rico: Original Trooper Casper Van Dien is planning to make his return to Bug Central! Having written both entries already (in addition to the original Robocop and, um, Anaconda 2), Neumeier is obviously pretty familiar with the genre material. (The first Starship flick was based on the classic novel by Robert Heinlein and resulted in a still buzzed-about Paul Verhoeven sci-fi action satire amalgam.)
Production is set to begin in South Africa next March, which means Starship Troopers 3 should be hitting your DVD stacks by this time next year.
I don't care how well-known you are or how many scripts you've written, for a writer to be offered $4 million -- heck, that's pretty damn impressive. And it's great for screenwriting in general. No, you're not reading that wrong (though, trust me, I had to read it more than once myself before it became believable) -- apparently, Akiva Goldsman has been hired to write a $4million script: Angels & Demons.
As most of you are well aware, Angels & Demons is a book that was written by Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code. Demons follows the same main character as Da Vinci, Robert Langdon (as played by Tom Hanks in the film), as he once again finds himself all wrapped up in a bizarre life-altering mystery that involves the church. Pic is currently on target to be released at some point in 2008, and in order to make that date, Sony is willing to throw an enormous amount of dough (the most ever offered to a screenwriter for a script) at Akiva Goldsman. And for a script based on a book, no less. (You think Goldsman wore his Superman costume to Thanksgiving dinner, or what?)
What does this mean for screenwriting? Well, writers now have a new bargaining chip. Up until this point, the most amount of money offered for a script (usually an original piece of work) has been between $2-2.5 million. Sure, you have to be a writer with a hefty set of balls (and be represented by an agent with an even heftier set) to demand that kind of moolah. But the stakes have been raised, and it's nice to see people realizing just how valuable the writer really is.
Our wonderful friends over at Autoblog have a few movie-related posts this week. I love when Cinematical and Autoblog can share in the interconnection between cinephilia and autophilia, because really what good is a movie without a couple cool cars? Plus, give or take a decade, film and automobiles are roughly the same age, and so their histories are interesting to parallel.
Frank Filipponio posted Thursday about Hot Rod magazine's list of "Top 40 Car Movies." He points out the mag's editors were biased towards films featuring hot rods, such as #1 on the list, American Graffiti. He also mentions some titles he thinks deserved to be mentioned, such as The Transporter and Cars. I like the list, because I'm not a huge car buff, but I do love all the late '70s/early '80s cars/truckers/dumb cop movies like Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run, and I'm always happy to see them recognized. The list also gives credit to movies with famous car chases, such as The French Connection, and also to at least one historical car movie, Tucker: The Man and His Dream. Also, the list includes a cool key to help you find which movie to watch if you like hot babes, lots of music or teen angst, or if you have a preference for Fords, Chevys or Pontiacs.
Also on Thursday, Alex Nunez wrote up a piece on an Australian promotional tie-in for the home video release of Cars. Inside those Down Under DVDs is a mail-in coupon with which you could win a Holden HSV GTS that is painted to slightly resemble the main character from the Pixar film. For those of you thinking about importing the DVD or even entering online, be aware that the sweepstakes is only open to residents of Australia.
Sunday, Alex reported on the subject of Bond cars and how Ford is very happy to be featured in Casino Royale, not just with the new Aston Martin (typically associated with Bond) but also with their new Ford Mondeo. There's also a little bit of "dissing" going on from the car manufacturer in the direction of Toyota/Lexus.
Her hands were lifeless in his. "My darling," he said. "Won't you tell me? Do you know, that first morning I was coming back to ask you to marry me. Can't we go back to the beginning again? What is this dreadful nightmare that is killing us?" At first she said nothing, then a tear slowly rolled down her cheek. "You mean you would have married me?" Bond nodded. "Oh my God,' she said. -- Ian Fleming'sCasino Royale
There are two serious love stories in the James Bond canon, nine books apart. The first, Casino Royale, is the inaugural Bond story. Thanks in part to an ill-conceived and boring parody film in 1967, Casino went 55 years before a serious effort was mounted to film it. The other, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, is story number ten, and pairs Bond with a brash young heiress and scion of a pan-European crime syndicate named Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo. Both stories have down endings, and fans of the film series often feel a sense of robbery with regards to the second, since Albert Broccoli waited until after Connery left to make a faithful adaptation of a superior Bond story. George Lazenby, despite being adored by some contrarian critics, was fairly assessed at the time as a failure. He was reportedly a terror to work with and his interpretation is so different from Connery's that the film almost stands outside the series. And now that Fleming's stories will no longer be used for forthcoming films, there's seemingly no chance for a re-do of On Her Majesty's.
That means the current film version of Casino Royale may have to stand as one of the only serious attempts to transmute Ian Fleming's idea of 'Bond drama' to the big screen. Not that it's a PBS piece or anything. The film is neatly cut in two, with one half faithfully adapting a present-day version of Fleming's novel (only 213 pages) and the other half devoted to big, wordless action set-pieces. You can't really expect anything more tame than that, with so much money at stake, I guess. But the interesting thing to note is that the drama in Casino Royale actually works, despite its sparsity. The origin of Bond's asshole-persona is resurrected as an epic origin tale of romantic treason, with the supremely gorgeous and worldly Vesper Lynd eating the young, naive spy for breakfast. The book ends on an abrupt quote, resurrected word-for-word in the film, that almost suggests (to me, anyway) that Bond may have been set up with Vesper as a final stage of his training. A necessary freezing process.
It's Casino Royale weekend! Sadly, it also means our (00)7 Days of James Bond will be drawing to a close as well. For your enjoyment and consideration, we've consolidated all of the opening gun barrel sequences to the James Bond films here.
I used to think this was a camera shutter when I was younger. It was only later that I finally realized it was a rifled gun barrel. Imagine my chagrin at all those years of wondering, "Why does James Bond not like photographers?"
Some trivia:
The first three films didn't even have a Bond actor in this sequence. They were all filmed using stuntman Bob Simmons.
Sean Connery made his debut as Bond the in the gun barrel sequence with Thunderball.
Lazenby was the only Bond to drop to one knee while firing.
Bond wore a hat and fired one-handed until 1973's Live And Let Die.
Since The Spy Who Loved Me, Bond only wears a tuxedo in the opening, although that appears to change in the new film.
1985's A View To A Kill features a text card just before the sequence stating that the Max Zorin character does not reflect any person or company in real life.
Die Another Day has Bond's gun firing a bullet that you actually see passing through the assassin's gun barrel. Nice shot, Mr. Bond. This was done to commemorate the 20th Bond film, and to celebrate more than 40 years of Bond.
In the teaser trailer for Casino Royale, Daniel Craig is actually in a tiled restroom when he turns and fires, not the normal white background.
The sequence was shot through a pinhole camera in an actual rifle barrel until GoldenEye. It has been CG-animated ever since.
Now get out there and check out the new Bond flick -- after first checking for snipers, of course. ...
Two weeks ago, Cinematical received an invitation to a two-day press bonanza for Casino Royale. Events would kick off with a Sunday evening cocktail party and screening, followed by a day of round-robin interviews at a swank Park Avenue hotel, with catered breakfast and lunch. We want our readers to know that in order to safeguard our journalistic integrity, we politely declined all the free food and booze, except for a comp hotdog at the screening. Almost every notable from the film, with the exception of Judi Dench, turned up for the question/answer roundtables. Daniel Craig, the controversial choice to re-launch the Bond character, was there. So was the unnervingly beautiful French actress Eva Green, who plays Ian Fleming's first Bond girl, Vesper Lynd. Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, who was plucked from obscurity to play the film's snake-like villain, Le Chiffre, was also on hand. So was Italian beauty Caterina Murino, who plays a more traditional Bond girl in the film.
Director Martin Campbell, returning for his second Bond film after Goldeneye, and the series' longtime producer Barbara Broccoli, were also in attendance. The following is a sampling of the endless questions and answers bandied about on that day. Please note that it contains every possible spoiler about Casino Royale -- who lives, who dies, the ending, what will happen in the next film, etc ... if you want to be surprised, stop reading now.
Daniel Craig
Cinematical: Barbara Broccoli has implied that she felt Die Another Day was over-the-top. Is that something you personally want to avoid as you go forward with these films? "All I'm concerned about is that we cast the right people in the roles. As for being over the top, I mean for Christ's sakes, Mads weeps blood. That's quite over the top. But it's great because it's a beautiful Bond moment. It's done with a dab. I want it to be as stylish as it possibly can. You can do anything. If it's in the plot, you can do anything. If it's right and it feels good and it's not there because it's self-consciously there. We're in a fantasy world. This isn't real life."
One more day until Casino Royale hits the theaters. Are you excited about it yet? Have you been following all of the Bond coverage and pretending that you're a superspy? I've personally had the Goldfinger theme song stuck in my head for days. At first, it made small errands (like going to the post office) fun and exciting. I'd pretend I was on a secret mission, and that the stamp on my letter contained a secret microdot that had to get to New York by Saturday. After that was another death-defying mission at the grocery store (plans for the enemy's HQ hidden in the canned vegetables). However, at this point I'm going a bit mental. Get out of my head, Shirley Bassey!
Hopefully my mental slippage won't be too obvious as we immerse ourselves in Part Two of the History of Bond Films. If you missed the first part, you can catch up quickly and be ready for Casino Royale by Friday. Make it your mission, in fact. "Gooollllldifing ... " er, sorry.
Onwards through the doors of MI6 and into Bond history we go -- just don't call me Moneypenny.
Pierce Brosnan's last memorable line as James Bond comes early in Die Another Day, during a routine walking tour with gadget guru and perpetual shut-in Q. After passing by some vintage toys from his twenty prior adventures -- they don't seem to spark much recognition -- Bond is led to a vehicle track, where an empty platform comes rolling by. "The ultimate in British engineering," Q announces, proudly. "You must be joking," comes the reply. Apparently, someone was joking. In addition to the invisible Aston Martin, the last and least of the Brosnan quartet also featured a mansion chiseled out of ice, a medical procedure for changing a person's race, and an orbiting magnifying glass used by the villain to cook enemies on the ground like ants. The whole enterprise smelled of Viagra. Enter producer Barbara Broccoli, who like a Templar Knight, has devoted her life to fulfilling a task handed down by her father -- protecting the Bond franchise from harm. Brosnan was tossed, and a series re-boot commissioned. How severely the foundations would be rocked no one knew.
What's been delivered is a movie not only exciting and sharp-eyed, but also weirdly respectful of the character Ian Fleming first dreamed up at his Goldeneye resort in Jamaica. Casino Royale, the origin tale, is unfortunately saddled with one of the series' least evocative titles. A better one might have been Ballbreaker, which would not only reference the story's signature scene -- when the villain Le Chiffre captures Bond and attacks his balls with a carpet beater -- it would also get at the creation moment, when the Bond we know is punished into existence by a velvet heartbreaker called Vesper Lynd. Luminous French actress Eva Green melts the screen as the Eve-figure in Bond mythology, who rides shotgun for 007's first globe trot, beginning in the toy soldier kingdom of Montenegro and going all the way to an oceanside Bahamas vista, and further. Green makes this Vesper's film, with her actions half-explaining, half-justifying everything that will follow her -- a thousand misogynist sneers, a catalog of cold remarks, and the hero's often-suspicious inability to save the girl.
The wait for a longer morsel of Spiderman goodness is almost over.SuperheroHype has reported that although the trailer is set to be shown with Casino Royale, which will be released on November 17th, we might not have to wait the desperate thirteen days. It might show up on TV first. ...
Where could Spidey slide in on television? If you're like me, Heroes would come to mind. How better to hit the superhero demographic than releasing the trailer while a bunch of superhero fans are watching? Silly me, that would be too rational. The trailer is rumored to come during The Duel.What's that?The umpteenth Real World/Road Rules Challenge.
This is where the warning bells go off. I can't quite wrap my head around why this would happen. It's not like the Grindhouse trailer popping up during the Scream Awards. Are young people anxious to see angst-filled reality show competitors go head-to-head the Spiderman demographic? While it seemed like a valid question as I typed it, Harry Osborn's face just came to mind.
Maybe the bigger news is the possibility of what will come with the Spiderman 3 trailer. Sony Pictures has brought internet trailer viewing up a notch on the film's website. Forget clicking on your connection speed or trailer size.; the Spidey site offers Quicktime, full-screen and high-def. If you don't patronize Casino Royale, or get yourself a little slice of MTV, there just might be a full-screen explosion coming your way in no time.
Over at her Risky Biz Blog, Anne Thompson has a piece up on the big scoop around United Artists. United Artists has been a studio in limbo ever since Sony acquired both MGM and UA in April of last year. No one was sure if Sony would simply absorb the other company, or whether they would continue to use their brand and logo as a distribution arm. Today the mystery is over, with MGM announcing today that Tom Cruise and his partner Paula Wagner will help relaunch the new United Artists as partner-operators. This finally lands Cruise at a new studio, after being released by Paramount following the disappointing box office take for M:I3, and displeasure over Tom's couch-jumping antics. The new deal gives Cruise and Wagner the ability to greenlight their own projects, and will serve as a pipeline for them to distribute their own content. What remains unclear is how this newly announced deal will affect the new Cruise/Wagner production company that was cobbled together by investors once Tom left Paramount.
Since 1919 United Artists has had a storied past since inception and creation by four of the film world's biggest stars at the time: Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and director D.W. Griffith. It enjoyed both success and failures in the intervening years, giving birth to such franchises as the Rocky, James Bond, and Pink Panther films as part of its highs, and being the studio behind the Heaven's Gate debacle as part of the lows, which left it essentially bankrupt in 1980. The press release lauds Cruise as, "one of the most successful, critically acclaimed and sought after movie stars in the world. Cruise's films have resulted in worldwide box office totals of approximately US$6 billion and his last two films, War of the Worlds and Mission: Impossible III have grossed nearly US$1 billion worldwide." United Artists is hoping that both Cruise name and star power will help bring them home some of that bling.
In the latest issue of Movie Advertising Monthly Premiere Magazine, a sit-down with actor Daniel Craig reveals that he agreed to step into the shoes of James Bond after getting some helpful advice from his Munich director, Steven Spielberg. Craig, who was previously most known for his role as philandering poet Ted Hughes in Sylvia, was reluctant to step into the shoes of the legendary martini-sipper, and had a frank conversation with Spielberg about his dilemma. "You know the kind of films I do, Steven, they're not, you know, this," he told the director. Spielberg responded by telling Craig that if the script and the money were right, it was a no-brainer. Is this late revelation by Craig a way of sending a signal to the acting community that he still considers himself a thesp? Or is it standard publicity-tour stuff?
In the interview, Craig also reveals that he threw his weight around on the set, nixing a scene that involved a suicide bomber. He apparently believes Bond films are best when they exist out of time and have no bearing whatsoever on the real world. It's important that all the bad guys be trying to walk away with "a suitcase full of cash," Craig says. He also slides in a cryptic statement to the interviewer that seems to betray some animus towards Bondage in general: "There are certain things that Bond means to you that just don't mean anything to me."
I still maintain that Fleming's original stories have been mined as much as they can, and the producers should have taken on Icebreaker as Craig's first assignment. But we shall see.
There still seems to be no official press release regarding Don Cheadle's involvement in a Miles Davis biopic, but TMZ is reporting that not only is the actor confirmed to star as the jazz trumpet legend, but he will be directing the film, as well. Erik told us back in March about the project, but at that time it was thought that Sony Pictures would be involved and that Antoine Fuqua might be interested in directing it. Then, just a few weeks ago, Jessica mentioned that there are in fact two competing Davis pics. 
Just a few days ago the lovely Jessica Barnes informed us that there was 
While Sony and Marvel would love to continue the Spider-Man franchise past this May's third installment, there's a good chance they'll be doing so without Spidey himself, 
The 1963 epic 
Just because one of my old high school 
I don't care how well-known you are or how many scripts you've written, for a writer to be offered $4 million -- heck, that's pretty damn impressive. And it's great for screenwriting in general. No, you're not reading that wrong (though, trust me, I had to read it more than once myself before it became believable) -- apparently, 
Over at her Risky Biz Blog, Anne Thompson has a piece up on 
In the latest issue of 
