Another hectic week in celluloid news!
In this week’s “Well, his brother said so…” story, looks like Casey Affleck thinks his brother Ben is not doing any more Batman movies.
In an interview with WEEI sports radio, the Academy award winner opens up about the rumors plaguing his brother.
Host Rich Keefe asked about the rumors to which Affleck responded by talking about his brother’s tenure as Batman in past tense. “I thought he was an okay Batman,” Affleck joked. “No, he was great. He was great. He’s a hero, so he had something to channel and work with there. But he’s not gonna do that movie, I don’t think.”
That movie would be The Batman, a film Ben Affleck was originally set to write and direct before dropping out, he said, to focus on his performance. Affleck took great pains to make it clear that he’s 100 percent on board with his replacement behind the camera, Matt Reeves, but because the news notably coincided with Affleck’s highly publicized personal struggles, rumors persisted that Affleck was looking for a way out.
However, just last month at San Diego Comic Con during the Warner Bros Hall H presentation, Affleck practically shouted refutation of those rumors as soon as he was on stage. “Being Batman is the coolest f–ing part in any universe. I’m so thrilled to do it,” he said. “It’s f–ing amazing [to] have this history of this great studio… They said to me, ‘We want you to be our Batman and I believe them.”
Oh, speculation, you are a cruel, cruel tease. Will he do it? Will he not do it? Ugh.
This week’s “May paycheck is bigger than your paycheck” story, Emma Stone is 2017’s highest paid actress.
Stone apparently made more money than Jennifer Anniston and Jennifer Lawrence. The 28 year old took in $28 million in the last 12 months. That’s some big money. Most of that was from La La Land.
Stone spoke out against the gender pay gap in Hollywood, revealing in an interview with Out Magazine that some of her male co-stars have taken pay cuts to ensure parity. Stone will next be seen alongside Steve Carell in upcoming film Battle Of The Sexes.
Anniston came in a close second with $25.5 million, but most of that was from endorsements.
Must be nice.
In this week’s “Ouchie” story, Mission Impossible 6 is taking an 8 week break from shooting due to Tom Cruise injuring himself on set while performing a stunt.
A video taken on the London set obtained by TMZ showed the actor jumping between buildings and falling short his mark, smacking into one side hard and limping away afterwards.
A source has said it appears to be a damaged ankle. Oh, well. Everybody take a break. But the film is still sticking to its’ July 27, 2018 release, so don’t get too comfy.
In this week’s “Smoke ’em if ya got ’em” story, break out your good weed, because Super Troopers 2 is coming April 20, 2018!
it’s only been 17 years since the original cult hit comedy, but if you’re high enough, you probably didn’t realize that.
Jay Chandrasekhar is directing the comedy sequel, as he did on the original. Filmmaking team Broken Lizard raised $4.4 million in a 30-day crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo in 2015 that saw more than 50,000 contributors. It was one of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns for a movie along with the $5.7 million raised by fans for the Veronica Mars movie starring Kristen Bell.
Donation incentives for Super Troopers 2 on the first day included a producer title for $10,000, a speaking actor role for $10,000, a trip to the ballpark with the main actors for $15,000, and the patrol car to be used in the filming for $35,000. “Super Troopers 2” met the initial goal of $2 million (set by Fox Searchlight) in 26 hours.
Super Troopers 2 reunites all five Troopers from the original film — Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske. The quintet play goofy Vermont state troopers with a penchant for pranks and feuding with other local law enforcement officers.
The comedy troupe began shooting in October, 2015, and cast Rob Lowe as Guy Le Franc, a former hockey player and the current mayor of a Canadian town near Quebec.
The original Super Troopers was made for $1.2 million and acquired by Fox Searchlight at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. It grossed $23 million worldwide.
Ha. Good times.
In this week’s “SHAFT!” story, it looks like we’re getting a Shaft 2 film.
After originally planning a full reboot of the ’70s classic, New Line is reverting back to a familiar formula for the next installment of Shaft, while also leaving the door open for a new face to take over the franchise.
Sources tell Variety that Samuel L. Jackson is in negotiations to reprise his role of the titular character with Survivor’s Remorse star Jessie T. Usher in talks to play Jackson’s son in the film.
Tim Story is directing a script from Black-ish creator Kenya Barris. New Line began developing a new Shaft in 2015 after acquiring the remake rights and setting up the latest version with producer John Davis.
MGM’s 1971 blaxploitation film was based on Ernest Tidyman’s novel and directed by Gordon Parks. John Shaft was portrayed by Richard Roundtree, who navigates mob neighborhoods in New York City to find a mobster’s missing daughter.
Samuel L. Jackson, the busiest man in film.
In this week’s “I wanna be in Wonder Woman 2!” story, apparently if director Patty Jenkins is looking for Amazons for her Wonder Woman sequel, Geena Davis is interested.
She says” “I met Patty Jenkins and I told her, “I’m sure you’re going to make a sequel and if you need anybody Amazonian, there’s always me. I’m available.”
Ok, Geena, thanks for the heads up. There’s a lot of reasons she would want to be in it, and I’d say she’d likely be a good choice for a role.
In this week’s “How to film underwater” story, the Aquaman film has a LOT of underwater scenes, and Willem Defoe is telling us how that’s done: NOT underwater. Huh?
There’s a lot of technical challenges, and according to director James Wan, it’s “super complicated.” He’s isn’t saying much else about that but Willem Defoe is.
While many of the underwater scenes are done using CGI, the actors still need to mimic the effects using an elaborate harness set up. Dafoe explained:
“Most of my scenes are underwater. Some are not. So much of it, because we’re talking, and shooting underwater is a lot of ways impractical because you’re limited to what you can do with sets. It’s more about shooting them dry for wet, and then the effects do certain things to give the water feel. But we aren’t doing the scenes underwater, but we are in harnesses and on wires. There is movement. It’s not like we’re all sitting around pretending we’re underwater like this [stands up still], we’re swimming around, we’re moving. So that should be really beautiful.”
Willem Dafoe will reprise Nudis Vulko, who is typically an advisor and mentor to Aquaman, in Aquaman following his debut in Justice League later this year. The Aquaman movie is unique to others in its genre due to its fantastical setting underwater. Because going practical and filming underwater limits you, the film is opting to go dry for wet (film on land and add water in post), but even that is not without complications. Dafoe told Screen Crush in an interview that most of his scenes are underwater, which means that they put him in a harness and he performs motions as if he were swimming. This way that movement is still there, which should help make the scene feel more authentic when everything is gussied up with CGI later.
Ok, we’ll see how that goes.
In this week’s “Don’t we know most of this story?” story, one of the next Star Wars stand alone films is to be the story of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
I feel like we already know most of this story. I guess it would just have to be his childhood, up to the point of meeting his teacher, Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson).
Oh well, hopefully they’ll create a great early back story for him.
In this week’s “Crazy cameos” story, actor John Boyega spills the beans on some potential celebrity cameos in The Last Jedi.
Rumors have swirled that Prince Harry and Prince William have some sort of cameo in the movie, and in speaking with BBC Radio4 (via ScreenDaily), Boyega revealed the UK royals were indeed on set, as was another very handsome face:
“I think they took that scene out”, he deadpanned. “I’ve had enough with those secrets,” he laughed. “They came on set. They were there. I’m sick of hiding it. I think it was leaked, anyway. There were images. Every time I get asked, I have to dodge it. I’m tired of dodging it. They were there. Tom Hardy was there too.”
Of course they may all be under Stormtrooper helmets, so you wn’t ever know if it’s them or not. But I bet they got to have fun.
In this week’s “Hertzfeldt returns” story, after giving us so much wonderful, dark animated joy, filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt is going to give us a sequel to his World of Tomorrow.
The director has announced on Twitter that a followup is on the way with World Of Tomorrow: The Burden Of Other People’s Thoughts. That’s quite the subtitle, but also strangely appropriate for this current time we’re living through.
As for actual details on release dates or anything like that, there’s nothing just yet, but this is enough to give us something to look forward to.
In this week’s “T2 Idol” story, according to actor Robert Patrick, the liquid metal T-1000 in Terminator 2, he wan’t the first person cast for that role.
The first person cast was none other than Billy Idol. Yes, THAT Billy Idol.
According to Robert Patrick, the original casting for T-1000 had Billy Idol in Terminator 2 as the advanced prototype Terminator who pursues John Connor (Edward Furlong) and the T-800 series Terminator played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Patrick explained to The Hollywood Reporter, “Billy Idol was set to do the role of the T-1000, as I understand. I can tell you that I saw Billy’s image when I went to Stan Winston after I got the role.”
So how did Robert Patrick end up snagging the role instead? Why didn’t we end up hearing T-1000 give the Rebel Yell? Patrick explained, “Unfortunately, he got into a motorcycle accident and busted up his leg, so he wasn’t able to physically do what the role demanded.”
Well, ain’t that a kick in the head? Sure would have made that film different.
In this week’s “Told ya so!” story, Leah Remini had some things to say about Tom Cruise when asked during a Reddit AMA earlier this week.
“I’m just going to get straight to it,” one user asked. “Is Tom Cruise a good person?”
“No! Just going to get straight to it, no!” Remini responded. “There is a public persona of the guy who looks at you directly in the eye and shakes your hand and hugs you and is an attentive person to you and there’s the person behind the mask who is a completely different person.”
She added, “Someone could say we all have that — what we are to the public and who we are behind the scenes, but the people who are around Tom and work for Tom, not even people who are Scientologists, they will say he is diaboloical [sic]. People who’ve worked with me will say I can be an asshole – all actors can be. That is different. He’s very similar to David Miscavige, they could be twins.”
Miscavige is the leader of the Church of Scientology — his official title is Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center (RTC).
Last year, Remini told Larry King that Cruise thinks she’s “literally the devil” for leaving Scientology: “Tom and most Scientologists, all Scientologists are taught to believe that people like me are literally the devil, that we mean them harm.”
LOL – so much crazy. Yeah, this all just reinforces my feelings about Tom Cruise. It’s really hard for me to separate the man from the actor. He’s just icky.
Thanks for checking in! I’m outta here!