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 a 80’s cyberpunk anime version of Harry Potter because it’s the internet, that’s why.
- To the hardcore gamers out there who never read any Roald Dahl, the BFG is not just a “big f$%@ing gun” in Quake. It stands for “Big Friendly Giant”, the lead character in one of Dahl’s most loved stories, and soon it will also be a Steven Spielberg movie. The Oscar winning director will helm a live-action adaptation of the popular children’s book, to be penned by Melissa Mathison who also wrote Spielberg’s E.T. Spielberg has been circling several projects, and you would think that he currently has too much on his plate, but the director is apparently quite passionate about The BGF and is looking to tackle it next, with a 2015 release date even being a possibility.
- A Japanese remake of much-loved Oscar winning comedy-drama Sideways called Saidoweizu was released back in 2009, and I somehow didn’t know about it until now.
- Poster of the Day: The Strain
- And the Star Wars stories keep rolling in! Reports have been surfacing of the three original trilogy stars – Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher – being spotted in England where Episode VII will be shooting. It’s always been a very badly kept secret that the three will feature in the new movies, but we never knew the extent of their involvement, but Deadline is claiming that Ford’s Han Solo has “a gigantic role in the first of the next three films”. What’s more, actor Peter Serafinowicz (who voiced Darth Maul) has revealed a pic of himself with Hamill, witht the latter looking remarkably more svelte than he did a few months back, showing he’s definitely getting in shape again for something huge.
Deadline also claim that Attack the Block‘s John Boyega and newcomer Maisie Richardson-Sellers is on the short list to play the young new leads. They confirm that Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac have been tapped as well, however THR’s Borys Kit updated that claim saying that while Isaac was definitely picked for something and was already late in negotiations, he had to pull out due to other commitments.
- Two new pics for The Expendables 3 have popped online, giving us our first look at the entire team assembled together (I’m guessing the zimmer frames were removed digitally) as well franchise newcomer Wesley Snipes and old hand Jason Statham engaged in a dagger measuring contest.
- And just when you thought it was safe to go back to a camp populated by big breasted, clumsy girls and guys who can never start a car the first time, it’s been revealed that a Friday the 13th TV series is currently in development. Sean S. Cunningham, director of the of original 1980 slasher flick that saw hockey-masked Jason Voorhees lay waste to several teenagers at Camp Crystal Lake, will be executive producing this new show. Bill Basso (Terminator) and Jordu Schell (Avatar) have been tapped to pen the “hourlong dramatic series based upon the characters and settings of Friday The 13th”, which is apparently “re-imagines Jason in multiple time periods”.
Okay, then.
- Amazing visual effects is generally something you easily associate with the type of shiny, big budget blockbusters like Transformers and The Avengers, but sometimes its that subtle use of some techno-wizardry that is the most impressive. Especially in a smaller film that doesn’t instantly scream VFX, like director Nicolas Winding-Refn’s divisive (I say brilliant) slow burn, but exceptionally violent, thriller Only God Forgives.
- Some people go to prison and find redemption in religion or conscience, others find a rather large, dangerously friendly bunk mate called Bubba, but writer-director John McTiernan found his writing muse. The Die Hard and Predator director was recently released from prison after serving a 10-month sentence for lying to the FBI during an investigation, and revealed to Empire that while on the inside, he had penned a script for a sequel to 1999’s The Thomas Crown Affair, the last good film McTiernan would direct before getting caught up in his legal troubles (I’m not saying that him directing Rollerball had any impact on legal status, but I’m not saying it didn’t either).
Titled Thomas Crown And The Missing Lioness, this new film would deal with Crown getting involved in some ancient art thievery, as McTiernan explained:
“Nebuchadnezzar had two lion statues commissioned in 1100BC: a male and a female. Alexander the Great took them when he conquered Persia. Mark Antony had them taken to Rome. Constantine moved them to Constantinople. And at some point the lioness went missing. The movie is about what happens when it turns up at an auction. By the way, it’s all bullshit; none of that ever happened.”
McTiernan hasn’t pitched the script to any studios yet, but if he did and they greenlit it, it would hopefully see Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo reprise their roles as the titular art thief and insurance investigator turned love interest respectively.
- Even current Queen of Hollywood and the Internet’s Chosen Girlfriend/Best Friend, Jennifer Lawrence, had to start somewhere. And no, I’m not talking about her Oscar nominated turn in Winter’s Bone. She actually made her on-screen debut as a high school mascot in an episode of Monk, and you can check her and more out in Cracked’s list of 32 Mind-Blowing Early Roles of Famous Actors.
- The word’s “Bad”, “Reading” and “Twilight” are definitely not strangers to each other, but they become even more amusing when they’re referring to the Bad Lip Reading video of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
If you have anything you would like to contribute to Extras, whether it be interesting stories, funny videos, or artistic photos of yourself in morally questionable poses, feel free to drop a mail to kervyn@themovies.co.za.
Last Updated: April 29, 2014
