Not to be The Big Lebowski guy on this blog, but another interesting item crossed my path. Action figures. Yep, you heard me. Now you can have a mini Dude on your desk.
Tiny Dude abides
Bif Bang Pow! has created collectible action figures based on the Coen Brothers’ film. Of course, these are more “bobble head” than “action figure,” but who’s nitpicking? Cick here check out the new items.
I had one thought as I left a preview screening of Death Race last night: Will Natalie Martinez be sexy enough to earn the film a perfect 4-star rating from Roger Ebert? We shall see.
Forgoing for the moment that a Poltergeist remake is already a bad idea, the track record of the chosen writers isn’t inspiring a lot of confidence.
Admittedly, the co-writers of the original were not really of note at the time (except for that Spielberg guy). But you imagine that you’d want to turn to someone with the credentials to turn in a screenplay as strong as, if not better than, the source material. Frank Darabont comes to mind. Sam Raimi. Peter Jackson.
Or, if you can’t afford to go A-list, how about Steven Moffat, who has written some creepy-as-hell eps of Doctor Who, many involving children?
Or you can go with the folks who wrote Boogeyman. Your call.
This computer-generated meat tastes real!
Diary of the Dead was a travesty of everything a George A. Romero zombie film once stood for. While he hasn’t crossed over to super-strong, fast-moving zombies (yet), the genre originator filled his latest walking dead tale with annoying, YouTube actors and computer-generated gore effects. (Never mind the fact that he trashes the idea of CG effects in the Dawn of the Dead DVD commentary.) Sticking to what he used to do best, Romero is once again preparing another walking dead, set to start shooting September 15, according to Bloody-Disgusting.com.
Diary of the Dead 2 picks up with the survivors of the first film still trapped in the mansion. After escaping a battle with the undead, they hop a ferry and go to an island, which happens to be populated with more zombies. The sequel will be the sixth film in the series and the continuation of Romero’s downfall.
Warners just handed Summit their first Event Picture.
Coming to the CW, er, I mean, theaters this fall.
Rather than face down the “will probably do better than any of us are willing to admit” Day the Earth Stood Still remake on December 12, the company’s Twilight will now do battle with the “will probably do worse than Disney expects…well, a lot worse now” talking dog romp Bolt in the vacated Harry Potter slot.
The pre-Thanksgiving weekend release, the Rain Man suite of fall dates, takes this from a less than $100 million grossing curiosity to a $100 million plus contender.
But the real win here is all the news and blog posts (this included) now that will fan the Harry Potter comparisons that the series has already been courting. Even if, in reality, there’s no comparison at all.
The final book in the Twilight series sold 1.3 million copies in the first 24 hours. The final book in the Harry Potter series sold 8.3 million copies in its first 24.
But anybody who hasn’t heard of the series will now hear it in the same breath as Harry Potter and feel, maybe, like they need to give it the same attention.
And that is how you market a movie.
There are 17 million stories in the Naked City, assuming, of course, the Naked City in question is Beijing. In honor of the Olympics, we’ve selected 11 great movies that take place in Beijing. Follow the stories of a bike messenger who loses his bike, student scaught up in the 1989 uprising, a young gay man in search of himself, an old codger watching his neighborhood get torn down around him, or yes, even the Last Emperor himself. Beyond the Bird’s Nest is where Beijing really gets interesting.
Scary Movies to Watch in the Dark
Kids’ movies have lost their bite. Blame the global domination by Disney or the innuendo-obsessed DreamWorks, but terrifying cautionary tales of old are no more — from “The Grimm Fairy Tales” to “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.” But there’s hope for scaring future generations with the adaptation of the “Goosebumps” Series by R.L. Stine. Larry Karazewski and Scott Alexander (of Ed Wood and 1408 fame) have been nabbed to pen the project.
While the Stine stories may be tame to our adult standards these days, there was nothing more exciting in elementary school than the monthly Scholastic book order form coming around and offering a new “Goosebumps” scare. No word on which book(s) are tapped for adaptation , as Karazewski and Alexander are expected to close their deal with Columbia by week’s end.
It’s Back to School time here at FilmCritic.com, and that means it’s time for us to present our list of the Worst High Schools in Movie History. It’s sure to bring back plenty of unpleasant memories of your own days wandering the halls between classes. Enjoy!
Last year you couldn’t watch a DVD without seeing the trailer for Fanboys, in which a group of Star Wars nerds travel to George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch to try to abscond with an advance copy of Star Wars: Episode 1. The trailer looked funny, and the tagline stated “Coming to our galaxy in 2007.”
Well, we’re nearing the end of 2008… what happened?
Delays, to start with. Additional funding came together, which let the director shoot some extra scenes, but which involved lengthy delays until he could get his cast back together. Then The Weinstein Company apparently didn’t like what they saw and gave the movie to someone else to edit. Finally they gave it back to the original director earlier this year. There have been repeated delays, re-edits, and even protests… and perhaps it’s finally done. The full story’s digested and available at Wikipedia.
At Comic-Con, there was a well-received screening of the movie (for the third year in a row)… and this website about the making of the film has shown up.
Meanwhile, even real fanboys are getting tired of waiting… but a release date has been set: September 19. No word on how big a release it will be, but, at last, it looks like we’re finally going to get to see this thing. After all that, can it have come through the wringer unscathed?
If anyone else has any better dirt on the movie (or has seen it), post something in the comments!
In an interview with MovieHole.net, Robert Downey, Jr. said exactly what I said in this blog not so long ago: The Dark Knight is too hard to understand. Take it away, Robert:
My whole thing is that that I saw ‘The Dark Knight’. I feel like I’m dumb because I feel like I don’t get how many things that are so smart. It’s like a Ferrari engine of storytelling and script writing and I’m like, ‘That’s not my idea of what I want to see in a movie.’ I loved ‘The Prestige’ but didn’t understand ‘The Dark Knight’. Didn’t get it, still can’t tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. I’m like, ‘I get it. This is so high brow and so f–king smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie.’ You know what? F-ck DC comics. That’s all I have to say and that’s where I’m really coming from.
Jesus says, "Start your own fest."
So you say you can’t make it to the annual Lebowski festivals in Los Angeles, Tennessee, Kentucky (or beyond)? Then do what Chris Aponte did and start your own.
Dan Good of the Press of Atlantic City interviewed me for his piece on Aponte’s makeshift fest and the overall Lebowski craze. I can’t say I understand it totally. Maybe if fans had an O, Brother festival and karaoke concert, I’d be there dressed as a Soggy Bottom Boy.
Hold on now, that gives me an idea. “Honey, I’m heading down to the Wal-Mart to get me some bib overalls and a long, grey beard. Hold my calls!”
Come November, Criterion jumps into the Blu-ray fray. The company says it plans to release one or two of its titles on Blu-ray every month going forward, but will launch with five in November. The first Bluterion titles: Bottle Rocket, Chungking Express, The Third Man, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and The Last Emperor.
Yahoo! users pick their top sci-fi films. Can you guess what they selected? Well, you could … but you’d be wrong.
Discuss.
In representing my filmcritic.com brethren I talked about Tropic Thunder — and its “controversy” – this morning on 92.9 Dave FM in Atlanta. Big shout out to my man Zakk Tyler in the ATL.
Hollywood Reporter points out what was likely a key factor in the decision to postpone Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for half a year.
For a publicly traded company like Warners parent Time Warner, earnings growth is vital. So moving Potter to next summer improves prospects of a decent revenue comparison with Batman-swelled ‘08.
This isn’t just about box office. If Warners releases Potter this fiscal year, it has to market it this fiscal year, which is a whole lotta dinero out of this year’s budget.
Analysts including Pali Capital’s Rich Greenfield noted that the film’s original November slotting would have weighted the fourth quarter with heavy marketing costs, while “Dark Knight” already ensures a healthy revenue haul for the studio in 2008.
So, if The Dark Knight hadn’t have been so darn successful, they might have had to release Harry Potter this year to make up the difference so, in a way, this is all Batman’s fault.
Think Dark Knight fans want to see The RIddler in the third Batman film? At least one does. This fake poster hit the Interwebz recently. Nice work!
Riddle me this, Chris Nolan
Anxiously awaiting the next Harry Potter film? Be patient.
Warner Bros. announced yesterday that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, scheduled for a November release, will now open July 17, 2009.
Alan Horn, President and Chief Operating Officer, had this to say:
Our reasons for shifting ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to summer are twofold: we know the summer season is an ideal window for a family tent pole release, as proven by the success of our last Harry Potter film, which is the second-highest grossing film in the franchise, behind only the first installment. Additionally, like every other studio, we are still feeling the repercussions of the writers’ strike, which impacted the readiness of scripts for other films—changing the competitive landscape for 2009 and offering new windows of opportunity that we wanted to take advantage of. We agreed the best strategy was to move ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to July, where it perfectly fills the gap for a major tent pole release for mid-summer.
So, because Warner backed off of a Justice League film (for now), Harry fans have to wait.
You can learn a lot by reading this article by L.A. Times blogger Patrick Goldstein.
Joel has an 800-screen deal, which we’ll honor, but we might not be willing to spend the marketing money he wants us to.
The filmmakers have every right to do what they think is best in support of their movies. But we have the right to do what’s best for Warner Bros.
(That last point is really more my take on it, given how everything Horn is talking about here is predicated upon many of these wings, including two of his own, closing down.)
Where's my agent???
Unless you’re part of the biz known as show, or faithfully follow the free screening experience, you may not be aware of the fact that 20th Century Fox, distributor for the new Alexandre Aja horror film Mirrors, is pulling the plug on all previews. While some markets were never getting a before-release showing (for press or otherwise), several with planned events have seen the studio renege on their promises and cancel them outright. Naturally, many chalk this up to (a) the movie being part of a typically marginalized and poorly reviewed genre, (b) the end of an already mediocre summer for the studio, and/or (c) that the movie really, really sucks. Still, with 24 guy Kiefer Sutherland in the lead and the man behind the semi-successful Hills Have Eyes remake at the helm (both FOX products), one would assume some contractual obligation on the part of the parent company. Apparently, this mirror is about to reflect badly on all involved.
Yes, yes, everyone’s all a-twitter about Billy Bob being maybe sorta kinda cast as Freddie Kruger in the upcoming Nightmare on Elm Street remake. But I think we’re missing the larger point which is, they’re still doing a Nightmare on Elm Street remake. Adding Billy Bob to the mix does not improve or detract from the fact that Michael Bay’s “let’s remake every horror film ever made except far, far crappier” Platinum Dunes shingle is on the case. You could announce that the re-animated corpse of Don Knotts is going to play Freddie Kruger, you’re still remaking Nightmare on Elm Street. It has not suddenly become a good idea.
That having been said I think they’re overlooking the far more obvious choice of that creepy old guy from those Six Flags commercials. Just throw some finger-blades on that dude and he’s ready to go. He could even do that same dance. Scaaary!
Watch this and tell me you are not frightened out of your mind.