Welcome to The Extras! A daily dose of all the smaller movie related news, clips and just plain cool stuff that you might have missed!
We’re kicking things off today in a bit of a weird way, as this first little video clip is something that most of you guys, including me, will probably not want to see. Well, not yet at least. Thanks to its creator, Daniel Kleinman, the Skyfall intro sequence has now popped up online. Bond intro sequences are sort of a big thing for me, so I won’t have this one spoiled until I get to see it on the big screen in a couple weeks, but for those of you who aren’t too fazed, go ahead and hit play.
What’s that? Michael Bay has a couple of good looking young guys and girls auditioning for Transformers 4? Oh shock and horror! The ladies – which include Abbie Cornish’s sister Isabelle, Niccola Peltz (The Last Airbender), Gabriella Wilde (Three Musketeers) and Andy MacDowell’s daughter, Margaret Qualley – will be up for the role Mark Wahlberg’s daughter, while one of the guys – Luke Grimes (Taken 2), Landon Liboiron (Terra Nova), Hunter Parrish (Weeds), Jack Reynor (The Delivery Man) and Brenton Thwaites (Maleficent) – will play her racecar driving boyfriend.
While I never nerd-raged about them like some fans, I really preferred X-Men: First Class‘ more colourful costumes over the borderline fetishist all leather garb of the original three Bryan Singer X-films. With singer back in the driving seat for the First Class sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and the news that original costume designer Louise Mingenbach will joining him again, a lot of people are fearing that that the biker suits may be back. But Singer doesn’t want you to worry:
@BryanSinger: “For those of you wondering…no leather suits. #xmen“
The set of Thor: The Dark World appears to be as secure as my sock drawer, as every other week we’re getting new on-set spy shots. Today we see the reveal of Thor’s newest foes, the Dark Elves, who will be led by Christopher (Doctor Who) Ecclestone’s Malekith the Accursed in the sequel. You can check ’em all out over here, but here’s a sample of the character designs.
Keeping Thor-ish, Tom “Loki” Hiddleston spoke to GQ where he gave an update on the film as well indicating how the events and characters of this film were influenced by what happened in The Avenger, specifically Loki being Hulk smashed like a Looney Toon:
“Yeah! [laughs] He’s certainly eaten humble pie. The springboard for us in the second Thor film is at the end of Avengers you see Thor and Loki beamed up back to Asgard. The first question that we all asked was “what happens next? What does Odin have to say about the events of Avengers?” What’s Jane Foster been up to while she wasn’t involved?” It’s really exciting, actually. We’re literally half way through – we started at the start of August and we should be finished by Christmas. It’s going beautifully.”
Tim Miller may have been attached to FOX’s stuck in limbo Deadpool solo movie for ages now, but he is actually yet to make his feature film directorial debut. That’s about to change though as he will be directing an adaptation of “Forever War” author Joe Haldeman’s short sci-fi story, Seasons. The short story found in Haldeman’s “Dealing in Futures” collection follows “an ethnographic expedition to an alien world that winds up going terribly wrong.”
And here’s another reason to rage about IMAX pulling out of the country: Our lucky overseas cousins who check out The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in the super-sized format later in the year are going to get treated to a 9-minute long prologue for JJ Abrams’ rather secretive (and still stupidly named) Star Trek Into Darkness. The prologue will get shown at approximately 500 IMAX theatres and since Abrams shot certain scenes of the sequel in the native IMAX format, it’s probably a safe bet that these would be what would is featured in the footage.
Joseph-Gordon Levitt dropped by Collider to talk about just about everything he’s doing right now, from his Magic Mike inspired strip tease on SNL to how it was working with Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis on Lincoln and how his directorial debut, Don Jon’s Addiction, is coming along.
Isla Fisher is apparently in talks to join pseudo Jackie Brown sequel, The Switch. Well, at least that’s what the Elmore Leonard novel on which it will be based is called, whereas the Dan Schechter directed adaptation is currently still nameless. The novel is set 14 years before the events of Rum Punch, the story that Tarantino turned into Jackie Brown, and features a large number of the same characters. Fisher would be looking to play Melanie, the role originally played by an older Bridget Fonda. Already cast in the film will be Yasiin “Mos Def” Bey as Ordell and John Hawkes as Louis, characters formerly played by Samuel L. Jackson and Robert De Niro respectively.
In the crime tale. the trio get embroiled in the kidnapping of the wife – played by Jennifer Aniston – of a wealthy but corrupt real estate mogul, but their plan goes south when not only does the husband refuse to pay the ransom, but he actually doesn’t want her back, prompting the wife to cut a deal of her own.
Variety is reporting that vampiric viking Alexander Skarsgard (True Blood) is currently the top choice for the title role in director David Yates’ recently announced Tarzan film. He hasn’t been made an official offer yet (in fact, the whole film still needs to be greenlit), but there’s really nothing that I can fault about that bit of casting. Also looking to swing in (get it?) on the the action will be Samuel L Jackson, who is up for the role of George Washington (seriously) Williams, an ex-mercenary who helps Tarzan to save the Congo from a warlord who has taken control of a massive diamond mine. And if during all this saving, Jackson doesn’t find himself on a plane with some snakes, I’m going to be very disappointed.
Here’s a Red Band trailer for new horror anthology ABC’s of Death that features a whopping 26 different directors, and was shot in 15 different countries. While certainly ambitious, the film didn’t get the warmest reception when it hit the festival circuit earlier in the year though. Maybe it’s true what that old saying says: Too many directors spoil the celluloid cellular rampage. Or something.
The film will be available through VOD on January 31 and in theatres on March 8.
THR is reporting the casting choices to play Harry Osborn in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has shifted focus from the originally conceived bulkier, athletic type and more “darker and edgier”. And also skinnier, I presume. To this effect, three young actors have popped up as possibilities: Dane Dehaan (Chronicle), Brady Corbett (Martha Marcy May Marlene) and Alden Ehrenreich (Stoker). You’d have to think that DeHaan would be the top choice here, as he not only showed off his darker and edgier side in Chronicle but apparently followed that up with admirable efforts in John Hillcoat’s Lawless and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.
The publication also reveals that Harry (played in the Sam Raimi trilogy by James Franco) will now be a college kid who befriends Peter Parker. With Harry showing up, it now seems like only a matter of time before his dad, Norman, is revealed.
Christopher McQuarrie’s sophomore directing effort, Jack Reacher, has apparently impressed Paramount Pictures and star Tom Cruise so much that they want him to direct Mission Impossible 5. The Usual Suspects writer will certainly have his work cut out for him if he accepts the gig. Brad Bird’s Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is considered by many to be the best in the franchise and has the $695 million box office takings to back that claim up.
There’s no word yet on where the next installment will be taking agent Ethan Hunt and his team, but it has been revealed that Paramount will be hiring a different writer and not using McQuarrie to pen the script. I guess that Screenwriting Oscar really counts for as much as the paper mache one I have on my desk.
And tomorrow sees the release of the (hopefully) final installment in the Twilight Saga and as such, Evan over on Movies.com would like to bid it adieu with his Movie Fan’s Eulogy for Twilight. If you’re an easily worked up Twihard, then you may not want to click that link. Everybody else, prepare to laugh your pale, sparkly tuchus off. Here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite:
Though I barely participated with it, I will still miss Twilight. One can argue its quality but not its uniqueness. There will never be another of its kind. In the seminal Twilight Part 4a, to take just one example, we see a young man so distraught upon receiving a wedding invitation that he rips his shirt off in a fit of jealous rage. I repeat: He manifests his anger over an ornate wedding invitation by ripping off his shirt. It will be some time before we are again granted such a perfect encapsulation of modern camp.
And really is there any better way to end a post than with Arnold Schwarzenegger shooting a mini-gun while Johnny Knoxxville grins it up next to him? Because honestly, after discovering this new poster for The Last Stand, I really can’t think of one.
Last Updated: November 15, 2012
