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 start off today with a bit of a downer. Remember that gloriously geekgasmic rumour yesterday about how Joseph Gordon-Levitt could be Batman in the Justice League movie? Yeah, that’s probably not true. Hollywood.com reached out to JGL’s reps and they offered a very definitive “no” as to whether or not the young actor would be under the cowl. Sigh.
That doesn’t mean that it might not happen eventually, because him reprising his role from TDKR to became the new Batman just makes too much narrative and continuity sense, but you’re going to have to rely on your twisted dreams to see JGL all decked out in rubber any time soon.
Speaking of men who like to dress in tights and capes to punch people in the face… No, not Darryn, he punches like a toddler. With no arms. I’m talking about Superman! Thus far we’ve seen very few official shots for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, and that actually isn’t about to change. But what has popped up is this licensed promotional concept art by artist Kris Taguiam, which actually shows that the new costume could actually work in a comic book setting.
ShockTillYouDrop spoke to Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, the writers behind the big screen adaptation of badass Greek mythology based videogame God of War. With Clash of the Titans and Immortals covering similar ground (in a rather mediocre fashion, I might add), Dunstan spoke about how would this film differentiate itself:
“Those movies can inform the God of War to step in a more bold direction. Not to join those ranks, but to stand head and shoulders apart like other reinventions have done within that genre. The satisfying element is to look at those movies as a commentary on the genre and now say something different.”
Yes, please. Something different. And by different, I really mean “that’s actually good”. Melton also added this to the conversation.
“Sony games, you think they’d be sacred about the origin story and all of that, but they were encouraging us to make it different from those movies and if that means going in dramatic shifts, they were cool of it. And they’re involved.”
Dramatic shifts? They bringing in the sex mini-game, aren’t they?
British automobile manufacture Jaguar have announced that Emmy Award winner Damien Lewis (Band of Brothers, Life, Homeland) will star in a new short film titled Desire that looks to show off the the new Jaguar F-TYPE sports car. The film will co-star Shannon Sossamon and be directed by Adam Smith of Ridley Scott Associates. It will see Lewis as Clark, a man “who delivers cars for a living, running into trouble after a chance encounter with a mysterious, young woman (Sossamon) in the middle of a lawless desert”. And if you tilt your head about 47 degrees to the left and screw up your eyes just so, then this totally doesn’t look like a ripoff of the Clive Owen short films that BMW did a number of years ago. Totally.
As the clock ticks closer to the March 1st release date of Stoker, Korean director Park Chan-Wook’s English language debut, a rather gorgeous new poster has been unveiled. At first glance it seems to be a standard boring profile shot of Mia Wasikowska, but look closer and you’ll notice that what initially looked like lace filigree hugging her neck and shoulders is in fact a whole bunch of creepy little drawings. It’s like the page corner doodles of the most artistically talented and creepy teenage girl.
It seems like development on Ridley Scott’s adaptation of Joe Haldeman’s novel Forever War has been going for… well, forever. But there’s finally been some progress in bringing the epic sci-fi tale to the big screen. D. W. Harper, the screenwriter behind that other in-development time jumping tale of humans fighting aliens in the future, All We Need Is Kill, has been hired to take another crack at the script, with the film now being setup at Fox 2000.
Judging by how poor it looks in the trailers, if it turns out that the witches in Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, the other film that Harper has penned, is actually timey wimey E.T.’s, I actually wouldn’t complain.
I have never really heard about Hammer of the Gods, the Viking epic starring Twilight alum Charlie Bewley, but based on this poster and synopsis, I need to start paying attention. I mean, everyone has to die!
Set in the violent world of Viking Britain in 871 AD, Hammer of the Gods is the story of a young Viking warrior, Steinar (Charlie Bewley), sent by his father the King (James Cosmo) on a quest to find his estranged brother, who was banished from the kingdom many years before. Steinar’s epic journey across hostile territory gradually sees him emerge as the man his father wants him to be – the ruthless and unforgiving successor to his throne.
Cate Blanchett, the closest thing we’ll ever get to a real life elf, is apparently in negotiations to play the wicked stepmother in director Mark “Never Let Me Go” Romanek’s Untitled Cinderella Story. The film started life as a spec script by The Devil Wears Prada screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna back in 2010, but then fell off the table. But now that Hollywood seems to be done with the Battle of the Snow Whites, they’ll probably be turning their attention to everybody’s favourite blistered feet (because how comfortable could a glass slipper really be?) little princess wanna-be.
There was another Cinderella production starring Amanda Seyfried that’s been dormant for a while now. Don’t expect that to stay that way though.
Cracked.com posts a very compelling argument for Why the Men In Black Agency Is Just A Huge Con.
Contrary to what he says, Machete might actually need to start texting. A lawyer, that is. It seems that Robert Rodriguez’s grindhouse sequel Machete Kills might be delayed due to some legal wrangling. Essentially Overnight Productions originally held the right to Machete, and then worked out a deal with Quickdraw Productions to do the sequel. However, Overnight is claiming $2 million in damages and threatening to renege on their deal due to Quickdraw not providing them with key materials related to the film’s financials, some of which they need to work out exactly how much money they can make.
For all grown up Alexa Vega’s sake, let’s hope they sort out this mess soon.
Sir Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren spoke to ComingSoon.net about what it was like transforming themselves into famed director Alfred Hitchcock and his wife, Alva Reville, respectively, in Sacha Gervaise’s Hitchcock.
Disneyland might be known as the Magic Kingdom, but when Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4 billion they also acquired the true magic. Industrial Light and Magic, that is. Want to know how much of a big deal that is, then check out this list of 13 Indispensable Special Effects Breakthroughs By Industrial Light & Magic
Here’s a first look at Gary Oldman and Kenneth J. Williams on the set of Robocop that is so ridiculous that it’s awesome. I’d like to believe that Oldman is doing a Robert De Niro impersonation while Williams is doing an uncanny impression of an angry black man dressed in a police uniform, who is really not impressed by what you just said about his mother.
And finally, with just about everybody who’s ever held a camera’s name popping up on a list of potential directors for Star Wars: Episode VII, talk show host Conan O’Brien decided to take a look at one such unrealistic possibility. So if you’ve ever wondered what Star Wars would like if directed by 1990’s Kevin Smith, then you’re about to get your answer.
Last Updated: November 28, 2012
