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 kick off today with the first teaser poster for the new Dark Knight Ri- oops, my mistake. It’s actually the new teaser poster for JJ Abrams’ highly anticipated (but badly named) sequel Star Trek Into Darkness. Sorry, for all the mistakes, I have no idea why I kept thinking about The Dark Knight Rises when I started typing this.
After hearing almost nothing except how directors don’t want to take on the new Star Wars movie, we’ve finally got a bit of a positive change of heart. Well, maybe. Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr., somebody who is usually quite in tune with the industry’s leanings, went on a bit of a rant about actors/filmmakers committing career suicide, but during the tirade he let a little tidbit slip about Episode VII.
“I’ve also heard Jon Favreau is panting after this job, and even that David Fincher, who apparently worked for Lucas’s ILM in a menial job as a teen, might be game for one of these new films. Unfortunately, we are getting nothing out of Lucas Land on what they call speculation.”
I’ve loved just about every single thing in Fincher’s filmography, so while unexpected, he certainly would be an interesting choice. And the Jon Favreau that directed the first Iron Man would make one killer Star Wars movie.
You noticed how I specifically referred to Favreau’s Iron Man 1 effort in that previous story? That’s because it’s sequel just didn’t quite match up. And one of the biggest problems was that it was less of an Iron Movie and more of an extended preview for The Avengers. That’s something that’s not going to happen with Iron Man 3 though, if Samuel L Jackson is to be believed.
“I think my next time as Nick Fury is in ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier.’ Because I’m not in ‘Iron Man 3.’ “None of the Avengers are in ‘Iron Man 3.’ It’s a standalone ‘Iron Man’ movie.”
Keeping things Iron Mannish, James Badge Dale (Rubicon, The Pacific) spoke to Showbizz411 about the villain hierarchy in the threequel, in which he plays Eric Savin, an army man who after being blown to bits by a landmine ends up being rebuilt as the villainous cyborg Coldblood.
“Ben Kingsley (The Mandarin) is the mouthpiece. Guy Pearce (Aldrich Killian) is the brain. I’m the muscle. Being in a big CGI action movie is a weird departure for me. I’m more of a ‘put two guys in a room and we’ll just talk to each other’ style of actor. But I had a lot of fun. I learned to ride a horse. I got to beat up grown men in robot suits and shoot zombies with Brad Pitt.”
And before you get excited about Tony Stark vs Zombies, Dale is referring to World War Z in which he co-stars with Brad Pitt.
A Good Day To Die Hard has released a new featurette that has Jai Courtney explain a bit more about the relationship between his Jack McLane and Bruce Willis’ John McClane. And yes, before you ask, they do show that girl stripping out of her motorcycle leathers again.
Every time I see something like the great banter between father and son in this clip, I get all excited this fifth installment in the franchise. But then I remember that director John Moore is the same guy that made Max Payne and my enthusiasm drops to around prostate exam levels.
Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes Films had a bit of a mystery project, titled simply Almanac, that they announced last month, but it looks like the gumshoes over at Bleeding Cool have sussed out what it’s all about. And what it’s all about is ripping off Back To the Future II. Biff Tannen is not amused, butthead,
“The lead character, David, is a smart kid in high school but he’s finding dating hard. He’s drawn to Jessie, the typical popular girl, and decides that he’ll try to attract her by winning the science fair, and the college scholarship that will net him. Bless.”
“David’s late father was a scientist and so he looks through his Dad’s stuff for ideas – and he finds two things of note. One gives him the ability to time travel… and the other is a sports almanac. Anybody who has seen Back to the Future 2 can guess where this is headed.”
“Two more of David’s friends travel back through time with him to abuse the almanac. Timelines get messed with, we learn more about David’s Dad’s research and there’s apparently a couple of pretty big twists…”
Now kneejerk reaction aside, the whole almanac from the future deal, wasn’t really explored in full in Bob Zemeckis’ film and there’s still plenty of story potential there. And by story potential, I actually mean Baysplosions.
Speaking of Zemeckis, MTV interviewed the veteran director where he provided another Roger Rabbit sequel update. Besides for the usual almost quarterly response of “I want to make it! Somebody give me money!”, he spoke about the possibility of re-releasing a 3D version of the first film (he’d be up for it) and also how the sequel would look:
“If I were to do the sequel, it would be done just like the first one. It would look the same way, but we would present it in 3-D in its release. I would do all of the animation hand-drawn; 2-D, but using 3-D tools. It wouldn’t be like Pixar 3-D. It wouldn’t look like that… this would again be another period movie.”
There’s a new 60-second trailer out for Zom-Rom-Com Warm Bodies, which continues to look surprisingly great. I can’t believe that when I first heard of it, I simply dismissed it as Twilight with zombies, but the more I see the more I’m liking it.
While the review embargo is still firmly in place, the first few quick impressions for Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained have started coming in. And if you were hoping for a “super violent”, “brutally hilarious”, “thoroughly entertaining” “spaghetti comedy” for Xmas, well then you may have some deep seated psychological issues, but at least you won’t be disappointed this festive season.
Sam Mendes stepped out of his dramatic comfort zone for Skyfall to much fanfare, and now there’s talk of David Fincher perhaps being interested in making a Star Wars movie. So of course the next step would be to ask Tom Hooper, director of The King’s Speech and Les Miserables, if he would like to direct a comic book adaptation.
“I suppose I’ve always felt like I’ve had a kind of epic filmmaker hidden within me trying to get out, and John Adams was my first opportunity to sort of paint a world on a much bigger canvas which I felt very grateful for. But in the end there is something in a comic book drama that you get to build a world from the ground up and follow a vision through physically, which I think is exciting. I don’t know, we’ll have to see.”
How about making a James Bond film?
“Oh I’d certainly be willing to talk about it. The 10-year-old in me would think there’s probably no higher honor than talking about that… I think [Bond producers] Barbara Broccoli and Michael [G. Wilson] are making some really interesting choices about who they use at the moment, so I think they’ve reinvigorated that franchise in a brilliant way.”
I can just see it now: James Bond has to overcome his stutter so that he can break out into witty song after kicking the asses of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants for stealing bread.
Here are the first two pics released for new fantasy adaptation Seventh Son. Just like 97.3% (trust me, I did an online 2-hour stats course once) of all new Hollywood movies, the film will be based on a YA novel. Apparently though, quite a few liberties have been taken with the main characters (for Ben Barnes is rather big boned for a 10 year old) but nobody can deny Jeff Bridges looks like simply badass as the knight Gregory (who was a priest in the novel) who has only until the next full moon to train his apprentice Tom Ward (Ben Barnes) – the seventh son of a seventh son, and thus inheritor of an ancient power – to battle the evil witch Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore), whom Gregory imprisoned centuries ago, but who is now returning to unleash terrible dark magic on mankind.
Why is Julianne Moore taking make-up tips from Marilyn Manson?
Remember that new Wonder Woman TV show that we reported on last week? Yeah, the one that apparently starred an Amazon named Iris? Yes, Iris. Turns out we were all a little too hasty with our fan rage. Lead writer Allan Heinberg and DC Entertainment CCO Geoff Johns revealed on their prospective Twitter accounts that “Iris” was actually just a codename used during the casting process to keep the production secret. The Amazon will indeed be Diana Prince.
@allanheinberg: “Merciful Minerva! So much for using code names to avoid internet speculation. ;)”
@geoffjohns: “If a WW show happens her name is of course DIANA. Codenames (like IRIS) are used in casting a lot to try and avoid speculation.
#TV101 :)”
And now that that’s sorted out, we can now continue raging about all the other things about the series that we don’t like.
If you’re really quick with a pause button then this new TV spot for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey gives us the first glimpse at the Benedict Cumberbatch voiced Smaug. The great dragon will appearing very briefly in the film, but will feature heavily in the subsequent two films. Not surprising since one – The Desolation of Smaug – is actually named after him.
The very, and I mean very brief glimpse takes place at about the 0:06 mark.
Last Updated: December 3, 2012
