Now that we’re all partied out for congratulating ourselves here in ‘Murica, let’s see what’s been happening in film news.
In this week’s “Unplanned plans” story, it’s never just one film anymore, it’s always milk it for more. Director Matt Reeves, who is helming The Batman, alluded to such a thing with this new incarnation of Batman.
“I have ideas about an arc, but really, the important thing is just to start… you have to start with one,” he explained. “You know, you have to start with a story that begins something. And I would be lying if I could tell you that the arcs of ‘Apes’ was already planned out, because it simply wasn’t; it’s one of those things where that character was so potent, and the possibility was embedded from the beginning, but exactly how you’ve got from A to Z is not something that existed.”
Yeah, I’m pretty sure we’ll get three of them, unless they’re unwatchable. But I’m putting faith in Matt Reeve to make The Batman worth watching, so a trilogy might not be a bad thing.
In this week’s “F-ck me gently with a chainsaw” story, the classic cult film Heathers is getting a reboot by way of an anthology series from Paramount. It’ll air this Fall on Paramount Network; which will be the rebranded Spike TV.
Actress Selma Blair has signed on for a recurring role in the hour-long dark dramedy series.
The 10-episode series is set in the present day and features a new set of popular-yet-evil Heathers — only this time the outcasts have become high school royalty. Heather McNamara (originally played by Lisanne Falk) will be portrayed by Jasmine Mathews; Heather Duke (Shannen Doherty in the film) is a male who identifies as gender-queer whose real name is Heath (Brendan Scannell); and Heather Chandler (originally Kim Walker) has a body like Martha Dumptruck and will be played by Melanie Field. Newcomers James Scully and Grace Victoria Cox star as J.D. and Veronica, respectively. Original Heathers star Doherty guest-stars in the pilot, which was directed by Leslye Headland and written by Jason Micallef.
Blair will take on the role of Jade, Heather Duke’s (Scannell) step-mother, described as a stripper and menthol smoker who is rough around the edges but with a bit of glamor to her. She’s biding her time until her 82-year-old husband kicks the bucket.
Wow, ok. We’ll see how that goes.
In this week’s “Oh no, another one” story, Netflix has got a new Adam Sandler comedy in production, and Steve Buscemi has been roped into it.
The film, called The Week Of, also stars Chris Rock.
The Week Of is set to begin production in Long Island this summer. Veteran “Saturday Night Live” writer and producer Robert Smigel is directing the film.
The movie centers around the week of preparation for a wedding between Sandler’s character’s daughter and Rock’s character’s son. Sandler and Smigel co-wrote the script.
Happy Madison Productions’ Sandler and Allen Covert will serve as producers, and Barry Bernardi and Tim Herlihy are the executive producers. The film will premiere globally in 2018.
The streaming network announced in March that it would be financing and producing four more films with Sandler in the wake of its four-movie deal with Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions.
This just makes me sad. Ok, a little angry, too.
In this week’s “Finally, the name fits the accent” story, Taram Killam directed and starred in Killing Gunther, his new action-comedy, also starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the title character, Gunther.
Saban Films has acquired Killing Gunther, which also stars Bobby Moynihan, Hannah Simone, Cobie Smulders and Paul Brittain. Schwarzenegger plays the titular character, the world’s greatest hitman. There are plenty of reasons to want to kill him: he’s arrogant, he’s a show-off and he steals jobs. The assassin community is tired of his arrogance and habit of stealing jobs, so a group of eccentric killers from across the globe come together to set the perfect trap. But their master plan quickly turns into a series of embarrassing fails, as Gunther always appears one step ahead.
Production has wrapped, so I suspect we’ll be seeing this later in the year, or maybe early next. It actually sounds like it might be a funny idea. Schwarzenegger still needs a definitive hit since returning to film.
In this week’s “BBC Comes to Comicon” story, BBC America will be making an appearance in Hall H of San Diego Comicon this year.
Dirk Gently’s Holostic Detective Agency will have a panel for the first time, to support it’s second season which is now in production.
Also, the final Doctor Who panel for current Doctor, Peter Capaldi, will take place. Joining Capaldi on the panel will be Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, Michelle Gomez, writer and actor Mark Gatiss and showrunner Steven Moffat.
And of course, the moderator will be none other than uber nerd and super lucky guy, Chris Hardwicke. That would be worth seeing – if you didn’t have to stand in line for 12 hours to get in.
In this week’s “Pay Equity, and How to Get it” story, actress Emma Stone says she sometimes asks her male co-stars to take a pay cut in order to get equal pay on films.
She says this isn’t simply a short term solution but a long term benefit to Stone because of the way Hollywood handles salary negotiations. According to Stone…
“In my career so far, I’ve needed my male co-stars to take a pay cut so that I may have parity with them. And that’s something they do for me because they feel it’s what’s right and fair. That’s something that’s also not discussed, necessarily—that our getting equal pay is going to require people to selflessly say, ‘That’s what’s fair.’ If my male co-star, who has a higher quote than me but believes we are equal, takes a pay cut so that I can match him, that changes my quote in the future and changes my life.”
Wow, that’s interesting, to say the least.
Apparently, Hollywood works on a system of “quotes.” They basically look back at what actors have been paid in the past and then making the offers for new films based on that. As Emma Stone explains to Out magazine, this means that it’s important to her long-term success that producers of new films see that she has a history of being paid just as much as her male co-stars. Therefore, whatever the studio is planning to pay the male lead, they need to be ready to offer her as well. This is why having the male lead that was previously getting paid more take a cut is important.
It’s also worth noting that it’s really cool for male actors to do this for Stone. The ones that agree to it are clearly willing to help make the change in the industry. Anyone who does not agree to it are basically just assholes.
Gotta wonder how many of them there are…
In this week’s “Future Golden Raspberry Award winner?”, story, Halle Berry wants her son back, and she’ll drive her minivan like a maniac to do it.
From the producers of Salt and Transformers comes Kidnap, directed by Luis Prieto. It’s an R-rated action-thriller where Berry plays a mom whose son is kidnapped and takes it upon herself to get him back because she has no cell phone (?!) and can’t wait for the police. She has to drive real fast or she’ll lose sight of the kidnappers.
I saw this trailer months ago – the film was supposed to come out last December, but it got pushed to this August. I laughed heartily at the footage I saw. I mean, it looked awful. But it may be the Plan 9 From Outer Space kind of bad; so bad it’s hilarious. If Kidnap is so bad, it’s good, then it might actually have some redeeming qualities.
In this week’s “Spoookyyyy” story, principal photography is underway in the UK on The Little Stranger, Lenny Abrahamson’s first feature since he was Oscar-nominated for Room.
Shooting will take place in various locations outside of London and in Yorkshire for about 10 weeks.
Starring Domhnall Gleeson, Ruth Wilson, Will Poulter and Charlotte Rampling, the film is a period ghost story that follows a doctor, who, during a hot summer in 1948, is called to treat a patient at a haunted country house.
Lucinda Coxon adapted the screenplay from Sarah Waters’ novel of the same name. That’s a great cast.
Who doesn’t love a period ghost story? I know I do!
In this week’s “Coming to Comicon” story, it turns out that Charlize Theron and her new action film Atomic Blonde will be coming to San Diego Comicon this year.
Theron will be sitting in the center chair on Entertainment Weekly‘s “Women Who Kick Ass” panel, which has traditionally spotlighted and celebrated actresses in fanboy TV series and films and the obstacles they’ve conquered in the industry.
Word has it that there will also be screenings of Atomic Blonde at Comicon as well. There won’t be a world premiere like last year’s Star Trek Beyond from Paramount, which made a major footprint in San Diego. Atomic Blonde is having a premiere in Berlin in two weeks after it already debuted at SXSW. It’s looking at a 76% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes at the moment.
I’d love to be able to get in a screening of this while there, but we don’t know what day that’ll be happening yet, so I don’t know if it’ll happen.
In this week’s “Catching up to technology” story, Paramount Pictures film Gemini Man, to be directed by Ang Lee, is now set for an Oct. 4, 2019 release.
The film, co-produced by Skydance Media, has been around for the past 20 years, with hands changing over and over again. It was originally at Disney in 1997 from a pitch by Darren Lemke, then the movie stalled due to the fact that CG aging VFX at the time weren’t good enough for the same actor to play the same part. Will Smith is set to star as an assassin who faces off against himself, a clone who is younger and in his prime.
Previous drafts were penned by a revolving door of scribes that included Brian Helgeland, Andrew Niccol and David Benioff. Previously the late Tony Scott considered directing as well as Curtis Hanson. Skydance acquired the project in 2016 with Jerry Bruckheimer attached to produce and Don Murphy executive producing.
I’m not even sure it’s worth taking this long to get this movie made. It better be AMAZING.
In this week’s “’nuff said” story, Joan Lee, the wife of Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee, died Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 93.
“I can confirm the sad news that Joan Lee passed away this morning quietly and surrounded by her family,” a spokesperson for Stan Lee and his family said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “The family ask that you please give them time to grieve and respect their privacy during this difficult time.”
Joan Lee suffered a stroke earlier in the week and was hospitalized, according to sources.
The former British hat model and Lee were married on Dec. 5, 1947, and were by all accounts hopelessly devoted to each other. They had two children: J.C. (Joan Celia), who was born in 1950, and Jan, who died three days after her birth in 1953.
Wow, my heart goes out to Stan Lee.
In this week’s “OUCH” story, Jeremy Renner has fractured both of his arms while performing a stunt. Renner, who has been filming Avengers: Infinity War and recently started shooting the New Line comedy Tag, said Friday that he “broke his arms” during a stunt. The actor fractured his right elbow and his left wrist while filming Tag. “That’s how it goes,” Renner said. “It’s part of the job.”
Strange that he hurt himself on this comedy, Tag, and not on the Avengers movie.
Smiling wryly, Renner said the injury wouldn’t affect his job. “I’m sort of a problem solver, you know. There will be an effect to it, but it won’t stop me from doing things that I need to be doing,” Renner said. “I’ll heal fast. I’m doing everything I can to heal faster.”
Geez, pal, take it easy out there. I guess now we know why studios don’t usually want their actors doing their own stunts. This is what stunt men are for. But for clarification, no, his injuries won’t affect Avengers filming. Yay!
In this week’s “You run like a Cruise”, story, Dwayne Johnson clearly does NOT want anyone confusing his running style for Tom Cruise’s style. I guess I could hardly blame him…
Someone on the set of Johnson’s film Rampage may have made some comparisons because there is a lot of running on that set.
Johnson explains:
“While shooting this running scene all day, one of our producers said ‘Rock you’re running like Tom Cruise in his movies.’ I said stop the music right there. Nope. Cruise runs like 6 o’clock. Straight up and down, arms tight to the body like an offensive player running for the end zone. This is the run of a defensive headhunter. Forward lean, stride long, arms open and pumping. Intense eyes fixated on the target which my warrior ancestors lovingly referred to as your head.
This running form is also called, ‘Get me the fuck outta here because there’s a genetically modified 50 TON BEAST that’s trying to eat me and all I wanted to do is just want to go home and have tequila and waffles.'”
Tequila and waffles? That Dwayne Johnson sure has some crazy dietary habits. Either way, don’t get him started on running styles.
