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!
The first few reviews for James Mangold’s The Wolverine have started coming in, with the general consensus ranging from “not bad” to “pretty good”. Most reviewers seem to have one criticism though: The film very successfully eschews standard superhero blockbuster tropes for the most part, but then devolves into the type of action-first plotting that it’s been deftly avoiding the entire time. This should have come as no surprise had they seen this new action-heavy Chinese TV spot for the film.
And sticking with everybody’s favourite bad-tempered Canadian (no, not Justin Bieber), Hugh Jackman has been explaining to folks why it is that Wolverine, easily the most violent of X-Men, hasn’t been in an R-Rated movie. We all know the real answer is “money”, but Jackman gives a decent alternate answer anyway.
“I said to [director] Jim Mangold, I said, ‘Look, we have to have a very, very good reason to deliberately exclude them because that’s what we’re saying, ‘This one’s not for you.’ ‘We have to have a really great reason to do that, not just, ‘Oh, that would be cool.’ Tonally, this is a darker film than what has been before, but in the end we decided that’s not what we want. We don’t want to exclude them from this story, and I don’t think we need to compromise on that darker side of Wolverine’s character.”
Oh for the love of Tom Cruise! It seems like every other week, we get another villain added to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and this week’s entry is Felicity Jones. Her role has been kept under wraps for a while, with many assuming she would be playing Felicia Hardy aka Black Cat, Spidey’s sometimes superhero crush, but now Ms Jones has thrown a pumpkin-shaped spanner into the works. While being interviewed, she declined to name her character but revealed that “I’m the Goblin’s girlfriend – I’m in a relationship with him, and his accomplice. I’m on the dark side.”
Now it’s been widely rumoured that this film’s Goblin will actually be Harry Osborne (played by Dane DeHaan) and not his old pappy Norman (Chris Cooper), and if so, that would make Jones’ character Lily Hollister, a young lady who accidentally stumbles into the Goblin’s hideout and gets infected with goblin serum transforming her into the villainous Menace.
For those of you keeping score, Menace would then be the 57th villain added to this film, give or take.
Oh Godzilla, you’re such a tease, showing off a bit of tail and… . Oh. Hi. This isn’t what it sounds like. I was referring to these new Comic-Con teaser posters for Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla. I’m not a macroherpetophile, I promise.
Safe House made a lot of money. Safe House writer David Guggenheim’s got a new novel coming out. Which of course means that somebody’s going to make a movie out of it. That somebody is Universal Pictures who have just snapped up the rights to Weaponized, which Guggenheim will adapt for the screen himself. Here’s the official blurb:
Kyle West is a wanted man. Having betrayed his former boss—billionaire government contractor Christopher Chandler—Kyle’s hiding in Cambodia, frantic for a way home, and finding more and more reasons to be paranoid.
In a moment of weakness, he swaps passports with a mysterious fellow American, Julian Robinson, in Cambodia on business.
This one decision plunges Kyle into a Pandora’s Box of intrigue that threatens to swallow him whole. He’s suddenly being pursued by Russian oligarchs, Chinese operatives, the CIA, and a beautiful woman trained to kill; because Robinson is certainly not who he seemed, and time is running out for Kyle to discover the truth about the dangerous man who stole his identity.
There’s a new Elyisum featurette out for the highly anticipated upcoming sophomore effort from writer/director Neill Blomkamp. The featurette is titled “Teck of Elysium” and features Blomkamp, Matt Damon and WETA’s Joe Dunckley talking about how they went about coming up with and creating the exo-skeleton that Damon’s character sports in the film.
Max Landis may be an over-caffeinated loudmouth sometimes, but the kid sure can write. He just won’t be writing Chronicle 2, the follow-up to his and director Josh Trank’s 2012 hit. Landis revealed on his Twitter account earlier today, that 20th Century Fox have decided to part ways with him on the project and will rather be doing their own thing with it.
@UptoMyKnees: I’ve been off Chronicle 2 for months now. Fox had a different direction they wanted to take the series, Josh was never attached.
@UptoMyKnees: Ultimately, I’m just very grateful to Fox for making a film as close to my original script as Chronicle was. For making the film at all.
@UptoMyKnees: They hired new writers on it. I’m sure they’ll announce soon. Just hope this answers the questions I’ve been getting everyday.
Just as bad things happen to good people, quite often talented actors find themselves in movie-stinkers. And just because all their turd polishing didn’t help to improve things overall, doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate 13 Good Performances in Terrible Movies.
I like Tommy Lee Edwards’ comic art, and I’m probably going to like Edgar Wrights’ The World’s, so yes, I do rather adore this new Comic-Con poster for the film created by aforementioned Mr. Edwards.
You have to hand it to Sony, generally when a film makes more of a mild ripple than a splash at the box office, the studio is quick to kick it to the curb to turn tricks for VOD money. But even though David Fincher’s English language remake for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, didn’t quite catch on with audiences, the studio is still determined to get the sequel, The Girl Who Played With Fire, off the ground. To that regard, Se7en scribe Andrew Kevin Walker has been brought onboard to take another stab at the script. This is of course after Steve Zaillan was paid a not insubstantial sum of money to already produce a screenplay.
When this movie would even get made is another story as well, as Fincher’s about to start production on Gone Girl, and star Daniel Craig is too busy playing “spy vs spy” for Sam Mendes, so even Walker churned out an acceptable script tomorrow, it still wouldn’t happen.
Speaking of things not happening, Walker was also involved in Fincher’s big budget adaptation of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for Disney. We’ve heard all about how the film was looking for money, and then it was looking for a replacement for originally signed star Brad Pitt, and at last glance, it was on it’s last legs. Turns out though, it actually had no legs at all. For some time now already it would seem, as along with the news of Walker’s appointment came the revelation that all the financial wrangling was actually just Australian investors trying to entice Fincher back to the project after he had already abandoned it months ago for being too costly and cumbersome.
Ha! How you like this for symmetry?! Just as we kicked off with ol’ Knife Knuckles, so we’re ending with him too, as Youtubers Glove and Boots pay tribute not only to the mutant hero, but also the stage musical prowess of Hugh Jackman himself with the hilarious Wolverine: The Musical.
Last Updated: July 18, 2013
