Extras! 02 June 2014

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!

• Seth McFarlane was on the Graham Norton show recently, promoting his latest gross-out comedy western, A Million Ways to Die in the West, and while there we learnt a few things: McFarlane is simply fantastic at different voices and impressions (naturally) and Emily Blunt really, really isn’t.

• So if you’ve seen this morning’s news about the clusterf*ck that currently is the Ant-Man directing gig, then you’ll know that Marvel are essentially left with two people who could possibly fill the gap left by Edgar Wright last week: Rawson Thurber and Ruben Fleischer. But looks like that short list may just have got even 50% shorter. According to The Wrap, the fact that Ruben Fleischer recently had a kid means that he will not want to jump straight into Ant-Man‘s hectic production schedule, but rather spend time with his family. This also means that he is apparently interested in helming the long-in-development Ghostbusters 3 which is nowhere close to starting shooting yet.

• Hollywood sure could stand to learn a few things from that Occam fellow and his favourite shaving instrument, as they tend to have a habit of over-complicating plots for the sake of drama. Just look at these 6 Movie Plots that Could Have Been Solved in Minutes to see what I mean.

• Poster of the day: Her

• Clearly not to be outdone by a tacky night club in Rivonia, James Cameron is apparently teaming up with the world famous Cirque du Soleil for some kind of Avatar themed live show.

• A pretty alarming story has been brewing over the last few days that Marvel Comics CEO Ike Perlmutter is planning to cancel their Fantastic Four comic book series as a means of spiting 20th Century Fox’s upcoming new movie adaptation. At first glance, this sounds utterly ridiculous since Fantastic Four is one of Marvel’s premier book lines, but unfortunately there is some really weird evidence that supports this, as apparently several artists have come forward with claims that they were instructed to not use the FF characters for any promotional artwork as a means of limiting publicity for the film. My bullshit-o-meter is still ringing on this one, but I’ll keep a close eye on it nonetheless.

• And because we need to constantly remind the Marvel Studios higher-ups what idiots they were for chasing Edgar Wright out the door, here’s a sample of the writer-director’s brilliance with a video paying tribute to his flair for visual comedy.

• Somebody call Jason Scott Lee out of whatever corner of obscurity he’s been washing dishes in for the last few years, and tell him that a new Bruce Lee biopic is on the way! Birth of a Dragon has just landed George Nolfi (The Adjustment Burea, Salt) to direct, and is looking to start production next Spring. Unlike 1993’s Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story – a film that played very fast and loose with the facts – this film will not be telling the martial arts legend’s whole life story, but rather focus on “the true story of Bruce Lee’s historic 1965 duel with Wong Jack Man, China’s most famous kung fu master at a time when San Francisco’s Chinatown was controlled by Hong Kong Triads. The story of the match is told from the perspective of Steve Macklin, a young disciple of Lee, who ultimately joins forces with Lee and Wong to battle a vicious band of Chinatown gangsters.”

• Nowadays you can’t even take two steps outside without tripping over a movie reboot. They’re freaking everywhere! And we may just be adding the cult classic Starship Troopers to that list. MAAAAAAAAYBE. Because either Annapurna Productions President Megan Ellison was watching Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi extravaganza over the weekend and decided to troll some journalists, or she just gave the first hint that something was in the pipeline.

• And now for some film school (because we do more than just have a running gag about being unable to write M. Night Show-Me-Yours-And-I’ll-Show-You-Mine’s last name correctly around here): How Samurai Films are responsible for Star Wars.

• Doug Liman’s got a big movie coming out soon in Edge of Tomorrow, and while doing some promo for the flick, IGN managed to ask him about Splinter Cell, the video game adaptation that he’ll be tackling next withTom Hardy, who will not only be starring as series protagonist Sam Fisher, but is also working out the story with Liman.

If you’re familiar with the game, then you’ve probably also realized that Hardy is a tad bit younger than the grizzled super-spy we’re used to seeing running around, taking out enemies who have a genetic defect that prevents them from seeing bright green lights in the dark. And according to Liman, that more youthful approach is intentional.

“I think everything about Splinter Cell will be younger. It’s a chance to come up with a new franchise that’s fresher, newer, younger. And Tom Hardy is such an incredible actor.”

And those bright green lights I mentioned earlier? Would they be in the movie along with all of Sam Fisher’s trademark gadgets and moves?

“Some of the tropes of the game will for sure be in the film. But also the fun of that is when you lose them, you know, just strip that stuff away and really make the character sort of have to operate without it”

• And speaking of Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow, in just more than a week’s time I would have already checked out the film in a press screening. Unfortunately, you guys aren’t as cool as me (my mommy says so), so you’ll have to wait a few days more to do the same. But if you want to not only shorten that wait by a day, but also get to hang out with some like minded movie geeks, and stand a chance to win some prizes, then you can join local film journo Spling (aka Stephen Aspeling) who will be offering a pre-screening of Edge of Tomorrow for his monthly Movie Buffs session.

It takes place at Ster-Kinekor Cavendish next week Thursday, 12 June, at 19:30 for 20:00. There will be the usual assortment of special guests and themed displays on hand, plus ticket holders will get a complimentary coffee, tea or cappuccino when they join up for a discussion of the film at Tribakery in Cavendish afterwards.

• And now for a cause that’s close to my heart: PLEASE STOP GIVING AWAY ALL OF A MOVIE’S BEST PARTS IN THE TRAILERS, HOLLYWOOD!

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: June 2, 2014