Ok, so it’s another week of finding film facts to amaze and amuse! Shenanigans Edition!
In this week’s “Weird Project Central” story, Warner Bros. bought the rights to make a film adaptation of the video game Mincraft back in early 2014. After some changes along the way, Steve Carell is now in talks to star, while It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia creator Rob McEhenney is now directing – and co-writing with Wonder Woman writer Jason Fuchs. Real Steel director Shawn Levy was going to direct the film with “a bit of Goonies flair” but Mojang, the makers of the game Minecraft, didn’t want to go that direction. That seems like a great direction, but whatever.
I don’t know how they’re going to make this film work as a narrative, seeing as the game doesn’t really have a concrete one. It’s kind of a free-form thing, so it’s surely a challenge to write. Whatever it will be, the film is slated to release on May 25, 2019.
In this week’s “Dirty little secrets” story, actress Carrie Fisher (you know, Princess Leia?) has revealed that she and Harrison Ford had a heated three month affair during the filming of the original Star Wars. She has a new book coming out called The Princess Diarist which is based on Fisher’s journals full of intimate, funny, behind the scene stories of filming Star Wars.
Turns out Fisher was 19 at the time, and Harrison Ford, 33, was married to Mary Marquart and they had two children. That makes things complicated.
CNN has been trying to get a hold of Harrison Ford for a comment. That should be interesting.
In this week’s “Let’s forget he was the Joker” story, Jared Leto is in talks to star in the action-crime drama film, The Outsider, from Netflix.
The Outsider follows a U.S. army deserter who joins the Yakuza while living in post-World War II Japan. Leto, who won an Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club, is the big draw, but the cast also includes Rory Cochrane (Black Mass) and Tadanobu Asano (Thor). It is directed by Martin Zandvliet, whose previous film Land of Mine world premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2015, where it was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics. Land of Mine is Denmark’s submission to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.
Leto will also star in Blade Runner 2049, opposite Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling. How much you want to bet he’ll be a replicant?
In this week’s “Bright idea” story, Netflix is getting some other big names in David Ayer’s new film, Bright, written by Max Landis. They have just signed Matt Gerold, who will join Will Smith, Joel Egerton, and Noomi Rapace in the film that’s set in a world where humans cohabit the earth with magical creatures. Gerald recurs on second season of the Marvel/Netlfix series Daredevil, and will next be seen in the crime thriller Solace opposite Anthony Hopkins, Colin Farrell and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
In this week’s “This can’t be happening” story, Michael “I’ll make anything for a buck” Bay is giving us the gift of another Transformers movie, and it’s called The Last Knight. Some behind the scenes footage of it is online now if you care to see it. And lord help us all, he has managed make a Transformers movie that includes King Arthur and his knights, AND Hitler, AND mini-Dinobots. Yes, you read that correctly. Already sounds like a debacle. One can only imagine what flimsy psuedo-science will be used in an attempt to get the audience to suspend their disbelief enough to buy the preposterous combining of King Arthur and Hitler into a Transformers movie. The mini-Dinobots, however, are completely expected.
You know, just when you think Bay has gone as far as he can to sucker people into this franchise, he goes further.
In this week’s “I totally missed this info” story, Sesame Street is getting a new movie. But how did I not realize that it’s being made by HBO – because that’s where the show moved this year. It moved over to HBO from PBS! But you don’t need to pay to see the new episodes, you just have to with the nine months until PBS gets them and airs them after they run on HBO.
There isn’t much more information about the Sesame Street film. There doesn’t appear to be any mention of a Game of Thrones crossover, or any new Parental Advisory warnings for violence or nudity, so it looks like Sesame Street won’t be making any changes in content. Hopefully they won’t add lots of steady-cam or jump cuts, either.
In this week’s “Don’t we all know this story by now?” story, Lionsgate/Summit’s film Robin Hood, is set to release March 23, 2018. It to star Taron Egerton (Kingsman: The Secret Service) as the title character, with Jamie Foxx, Jamie Dornan, Eve Hewson, and Paul Anderson. The film, which was originally titled Robin Hood: Origins, is to be directed by Otto Bathurst (Peaky Blinders). Joby Harold penned the script.
Didn’t Ridley Scott just make one of these Robin Hood origin films a few years ago starring Russell Crowe? Yes, he did. And it wasn’t all that great. Because we all know this story. I mean, I get remaking it for a new audience, but give it some time, Hollywood. Or do it so great we can’t say ‘no’ to it. Or just go watch Peaky Blinders on Netflix. That show is great.
In this week’s “Jackie Chan!” story, it would seem our (the U.S.’s) sad lack of new Jackie Chan movies may be coming to an end. Chan’s new Chinese action-comedy, Railroad Tigers, may be getting a U.S. release early next year.
Railroad Tigers, directed by Ding Sheng (Little Big Soldier, Police Story: Lockdown), has flares of the South Korean western action flick The Good, The Bad, The Weird from 2008 (which you should see because it’s awesome).
The official synopsis: In this action-comedy caper harkening back to Jackie Chan’s classic Hong Kong films, a railroad worker (Jackie Chan) and his ragtag group of freedom fighters find themselves on the wrong side of the tracks when they decide to ambush a heavily armed military train filled with desperately needed provisions. Unarmed and outnumbered, they must fight back against an entire army using only their wits, in a series of a dazzling set pieces and action scenes rivaling anything seen on the big screen before.
The trailer is online and it looks fun. It’s hard to dislike a Jackie Chan film either way. But it also looks like there is talk of doing another Shanghai sequel, Shanghai Dawn, which is now back in development. It even has director Jared Hess attached, with Own Wilson returning, so anything could happen. All I know is we need more Jackie Chan in our lives.
In this week’s “Oooh…wow…” story, actress Shelley Duvall is exhibiting disconcerting behavior in a new episode of Dr. Phil. The 67 year-old actress discusses her life away from the spotlight in a sit-down interview. since she retired from acting, she has been living in Blanco, Texas.
In a clip preview of the show, DuVall says she “needs help”. She also says to Dr. Phil that she believes Robin Williams is still alive as a shape-shifter, and that there is a “whirring disc” in her leg, and that she is being threatened by a man she says in the Sheriff of Nottingham. Yikes.
As alarming and, let’s face it, amusing, as this is, there are people, including her fans, and even Vivian Kubrick, daughter of director Stanley Kubrick, that feel Dr. Phil is most certainly not helping here but exploiting DuVall for entertainment and ratings. And frankly, whether he is or not, those people have a point. Some of them say Shelley DuVall is really competent enough to grant permission. Well, I certainly can’t imagine anyone wanting to televise themselves in this mental condition. Or, hey, maybe I’d be too far out to care. But it’s a bummer anyway.
In this week’s “Fucked-up reason to throw a party” story, Chelsea Handler apparently doesn’t like Angelina Jolie all that much. I guess that’s because she’s been a long time friend of Jennifer Aniston. Handler took a few shots at Jolie while performing at a gala honouring famed Hollywood divorce attorney Laura Wasser, who has represented such clients as Johnny Depp, Stevie Wonder, two Kardashians, and Mel Gibson’s ex-wife.
Handler couldn’t resist taking a swing at Gibson during her comedic introduction of Wasser. “Why anyone would ever want to divorce him we will never know.”
Handler also fired off a quick shot at the expense of Jolie, joking that Wasser is “currently handling Brad Pitt’s emancipation,” adding, “speaking of kids who need help…”
Hilarious. I think, however, that the most concerning aspect of all this is that they’re throwing a gala to honour A DIVORCE ATTORNEY. Like, WHAT. Thanks, Hollywood, for living up to nearly the worst expectations imaginable.
In this week’s “My favorite actor now” story, actor Michael Shannon has some thoughts on president-elect Donald Trump and his voters. No sir, he doesn’t like them.
Trying to make sense of everything that happened in the past week, Shannon expressed that the country is “filled with ignorant jacka**es.”
“The big red dildo running through the middle of our country needs to be annexed to be its own country of moronic a**holes,” he stated. “You can call it the United States of Moronic F**king A**holes.”
Providing some comments on Trump voters, he continued, “I don’t know how people got so goddamn stupid. But it’s really weird, because it’s like the last eight years, now it feels like a lie. Like, this has been festering underneath the whole time. Racists, sexists.”
Unfortunately he didn’t sound optimistic about the future ahead.
“It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened. It’s the worst,” he stated. “This guy is going to destroy civilization as we know it, and the earth, and all because of these people who don’t have any idea why they’re alive.”
Oh yeah. Let’s keep the Michael Shannon love going.
In this week’s ” My favorite story ever” story, intense actor, Michael Shannon, fell asleep while watching Batman v Superman. LOL.
“You’re gonna get me in trouble, man! People ask me about this all the time,” Shannon said in a recent interview with Fandango. “Okay, I’ll tell you the god’s honest truth. Zack [Snyder] is gonna kill me for this – he’s gonna kill me. I watched it once and I fell asleep.”
Ok, he also mentions that he was on a plane and tired when he saw it, but still. “I shouldn’t have been watching it on a plane,” he added. “But I never go to the movies anymore! I don’t have time to see anything. I used to go to the movies all the time when I was 20 years old and wasn’t working 10 days a week.”
Though Shannon has never really expressed enthusiasm for the film. Before Batman v Superman even hit theaters, he said he was “profoundly, utterly unconcerned” with the outcome of the battle between the two superheroes.
“I guess I have to root for Superman because he killed me, so I would hope that he would continue his killing spree and become like a serial killer Superman,” he said. “That’s a new take on Superman. We’d all be in a heap of trouble if Superman was a serial killer. He could just wipe us all out. But then he’d be lonely.”
Just another reason for me to love actor Michael Shannon.
Well, then, I suppose that’s as good a place to wrap up as any this week. I have to go out of town next week so you may have to do without these shenanigans until after the Thanksgiving holiday. Let’s all try to think of the good things we have in life right now to balance out our anxiety. Cheers!
~ Neil T Weakley, your average movie-goer, pretty sure Hollywood will still make films of dubious quality no matter whose in the White House.