GUILLERMO DEL TORO, the mastermind behind PAN’S LABYRINTH and the HELLBOY movie franchise, and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA executive producer DAVID EICK are finalizing a deal to create the new TV series version of THE HULK for ABC, which is being produced by Marvel TV and ABC Studios.
Source: IMDB, ReportThreats.org
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman and set for release on March 11, 2011, ‘BATTLE: LOS ANGELES’ (internationally known as ‘WORLD INVASION: BATTLE LA’) stars; Aaron Eckhart (THE DARK KNIGHT, ANY GIVEN SUNDAY), Michelle Rodriguez (MACHETE, AVATAR), Bridget Moynahan, and Michael Peña (THE SHIELD).
Plot: A Marine platoon faces off against an alien invasion in Los Angeles.
This will not have any effect on the announcement a couple days back about the newly greenlit ‘BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD & CHROME’. SyFy probably timed the cancellation as a good news/bad news thing for BSG fans and RONALD D. MOORE.
Fox Filmed Entertainment Chairmen Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman announced today that Academy Award-winning filmmaker James Cameron has agreed to make Avatar 2 and 3 as his next films.
Cameron, who had always viewed “Avatar” as the creation of a new world and mythology, will begin work on the scripts early next year with an eye towards commencing production later in 2011. Cameron will decide if he will shoot the films back-to-back after he completes the scripts, but the release of the first, as yet untitled sequel, is targeted for December 2014, with the third film contemplated for a December 2015 release.
'BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD & CHROME' will focus on on the the 1st Cylon War and a 20's something year old pilot named WILLIAM ADAMA portrayed in the BSG series by EDWARD JAMES OLMOS
Syfy is readying an exciting all-new chapter in the Battlestar Galactica saga with a greenlight for BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD & CHROME from Executive Producer David Eick, it was announced today by Mark Stern, Executive Vice President of Original Programming, Syfy and Co-Head of Content for Universal Cable Productions. Universal Cable Productions will produce the 2-hour pilot with Syfy utilizing cutting edge CGI and virtual technology.
Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome takes place in the 10th year of the first Cylon war. As the battle between humans and their creation, a sentient robotic race, rages across the 12 colonial worlds, a brash rookie viper pilot enters the fray. Ensign William Adama, barely in his 20′s and a recent Academy graduate, finds himself assigned to the newest battlestar in the Colonial fleet… the Galactica. The talented but hot-headed risk-taker soon finds himself leading a dangerous top secret mission that, if successful, will turn the tide of the decade long war in favor of the desperate fleet.
Then again, we all saw the mediocre after-the-fact 3D conversion of the CLASH OF THE TITANS remake. Lucasfilm seems aware of the potential for a let down:
“Getting good results on a stereo conversion is a matter of taking the time and getting it right,” said John Knoll, Visual Effects Supervisor for Industrial Light & Magic. “It takes a critical and artistic eye along with an incredible attention to detail to be successful. It is not something that you can rush if you want to expect good results. For Star Wars we will take our time, applying everything we know both aesthetically and technically to bring audiences a fantastic new Star Wars experience.”
Production still from 'THE FIRST AVENGER: CAPTAIN AMERICA'
Source: DailyMail.co.uk, infdaily.com, comingsoon.net
Important to note: That is NOT CHRIS EVANS who is the lead in the upcoming THE FIRST AVENGER: CAPTAIN AMERICA but rather a stunt double.
Being chased by agents of the primary film villian THE RED SKULL and/or agents of H.Y.D.R.A. – there is non-unanimous confirmation as to exactly who they are.
Early still from 'THE FIRST AVENGER: CAPTAIN AMERICA': Either agents of the primary film villian THE RED SKULL and/or agents of H.Y.D.R.A.
James McAvoy (ATONEMENT, WANTED) has signed on to play a young Charles Xavier, aka Professor X, in “X-Men: First Class,” which Matthew Vaughn is directing for Fox.
Plot synopsis: X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, following the classic Marvel mythology, charts the epic beginning of the X-Men saga. Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were archenemies, they were closest of friends, working together, with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known. In the process, a rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men.”
It’s been touch and go for the last week, but KICK-ASS director Matthew Vaughn has been confirmed to helm X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, 20th Century Fox’s prequel to the lucrative franchise based on the Marvel Comics super-team. Not only have they signed Vaughn, directing his third movie in a row based on comic material, but Fox is confident enough in his abilities to set a release date for June 3, 2011, a little less than 13 months from today.
Plot synopsis: X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, following the classic Marvel mythology, charts the epic beginning of the X-Men saga. Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were archenemies, they were closest of friends, working together, with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known. In the process, a rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men.”
Source: ComingSoon.net
JAMES CAMERON on the focus of an ‘AVATAR’ sequel:
“Part of my focus in the second film is in creating a different environment – a different setting within Pandora. And I’m going to be focusing on the ocean on Pandora, which will be equally rich and diverse and crazy and imaginative…”
Source: IGN.com
Not too big of a stretch considering the AVATAR 3D experience was so successful financially. No specifics on when as of yet.
“George [Lucas] has publicly expressed an interest in doing Star Wars 3D. Right now there are a number of different technologies, there’s some criticism out there about some of the movies that have quickly changed to 3D, so you have to pick the right technology, you have to get it to a cost that makes sense, and you have to have the time of the director and producer — George — to actually go in there, because you can’t push a button and stuff goes in one end and comes out 3D…
“Saying all that, George remains very interested in doing the Star Wars movies, all six, in 3D, and I hope it will happen someday in the not too distant future.”
[Brian] Singer and 20th Century Fox have formalized his move from director to producer on X-Men: First Class. That is the bad news for X-Men die-hards who love the first two films Singer directed. Here’s the good part: he is leaving because Fox liked the script that Jamie Moss wrote from Singer’s treatment so much that the studio wants the film right away, envisioning it as the first leg of a trilogy. The hope is to have it ready for 2011 release.
Singer will join Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg as producers. He’s not available because Warner Bros and Legendary are locked into a summer production start on Jack the Giant Killer. They’ll begin casting shortly. It is a big CG project, and they are likely to either shoot 3D or convert it later.
JOHN CARPENTER's 'THE THING' Movie Poster circa 1982
Source: HeatVisionBlog.com
The latest from ‘THE THING’ remake. Ronald D. Moore’s on-again, off-again involvement with the movie is confirmed. He wrote an earlier draft of the script being used.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton will star in “The Thing,” Universal’s latest take on the shape-shifting alien who terrorizes a group of people in a remote facility.
Winstead will play a Ph.D. candidate who joins a Norwegian research team in Antarctica after it discovers an alien ship in the ice. When a trapped organism is freed and begins a series of attacks, she is forced to team with a blue-collar mercenary helicopter pilot (Edgerton) to stop the rampage.
Twentieth Century Fox has set Bryan Singer to direct “X-Men: First Class,” returning him to the franchise that began with the first two installments of the mutant series.
“This is the formative years of Xavier and Magneto, and the formation of the school and where there relationship took a wrong turn,” Singer said. “There is a romantic element, and some of the mutants from ‘X-Men’ will figure into the plot, though I don’t want to say which ones. There will be a lot of new mutants and a great villain.”
Source: FORA.tv THRALL WORLD stumbled across this interesting interview with LOST HIGHWAY and MULHOLLAND DRIVE director DAVID LYNCH who chats about a date he had with Star Wars creator GEORGE LUCAS sometime before the third and final installment of the hugely popular Star Wars franchise; RETURN OF THE JEDI was filmed. The purpose of the get-together? Lucas offering Lynch chance to direct the aformentioned and iconic movie.
Couple of quick notes – this offer came before Lynch was to inevitably direct the much criticized DUNE science fiction movie (which THRALL WORLD loved).
Also, in the interview Lynch mentions how Lucas showed him some pre-production artwork for “wookies”. This may have been wookie art or it may have actually been ewok art – we may never find out for sure – but if it was in fact ewok art then we can see how Lynch might have passed on the opportunity.
DEAD EWOK Action Figure
We all know by now that the ewoks weakened the Jedi movie by about a billion-fold. They clearly made the stormtroopers look much less dangerous and when Emperer Palpatine says “An entire legion of my BEST troops” is supposedly guarding the shield that is enveloping the presumed unfinished Death Star you really have to wonder what the heck was up with those clones!? For 20 years the ewoks would end up being an unfortunate testament to Lucas’s claim that the Star Wars movies were in fact geared more towards children as opposed to teens or adults.
But all does end well – eventually Lucas would make up for his error and we would all end up seeing the missing REVENGE OF THE WOOKIES scenes in the brilliant ‘REVENGE OF THE SITH’ installment. And with that in mind, if you go back and try to re-imagine that the ewoks are in fact wookies and not the other way around then you can reclaim a bit of that danger needed to give JEDI the weight it needed to be a fantastic overcoming-overwhelming-odds final act in one of the greatest stories ever told.
Check out the interview portion that deals with Star Wars below and the entire interview HERE.
Plot synopsis: TRON: LEGACY is a 3D high-tech adventure set in a digital world that’s unlike anything ever captured on the big screen. Sam Flynn (GARRETT HEDLUND), the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn (JEFF BRIDGES), looks into his father’s disappearance and finds himself pulled into the digital world of Tron where his father has been living for 25 years. Along with Kevin’s loyal confidant Quorra (OLIVIA WILDE), father and son embark on a life-and-death journey of escape across a visually-stunning cyber universe that has become far more advanced and exceedingly dangerous.
Directed by Joseph Kosinski and set for release in 3D and IMAX 3D theaters on December 3rd, 2010, TRON LEGACY stars; Michael Sheen, Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, John Hurt, Garrett Hedlund, Serinda Swan, James Frain, Bruce Boxleitner, and Beau Garrett.
Source: Sizemore.co.uk
Maybe. But don’t look for it on television. Not yet anyways. At the very least it gets the award for thee longest THRALL WORLD headline EVER…
Following in the footsteps of ‘District 9′ and ‘Paranormal Activity’ comes ‘SLINGERS’ – a sort of interstellar OCEAN’S 11 complete with the snappy dialogue and wit of say SNATCH.
Plot synopsis: Slingers is set in the year 2960 A.D., following mankind’s first interplanetary war. Humanity is now clustered into a finite, but still vast section of the universe known as Enclosed Space. Humanity won the war with an aggressive alien enemy, but at a cost. The way back to Earth is now cut off by an impassable barrier – a side effect of the blast that finally pushed the enemy back.
The show takes its name from a group of people thrown together on board an experimental spacecraft that is capable of Slinging itself to any point in space. In theory it’s the only craft capable of getting home. In reality the crew are using it to carry out a series of high tech heists and get even with those who are now exploiting their positions in the post war hierarchy.
Dominic ‘DM’ Monroe, a special ops war veteran becomes the de facto leader of this small team of thieves who rail against the decision by military command to just ‘stay where they are and make the best of it’. They’re determined to get home and if that means breaking a few rules and picking up a lot of enemies along the way then so be it.
Keep up with the latest at Sizemore’s official site HERE.
Joseph Kosinski and Sean Bailey, the director and producer of Disney’s new “Tron: Legacy,” and scribe Travis Beacham are teaming up for what is being labeled a reinvention of the 1979 sci-fi film, which at the time was the most expensive movie Disney had ever produced.
The original followed a group of space explorers aboard the USS Palomino who come across a lost ship, the USS Cygnus, hovering outside a black hole. Inside the Cygnus, the explorers meet a scientist, commanding an army of faceless robots, who explains his crew deserted him as he planned to go through the black hole. The explorers soon discover that the robots are the remnants of the former crew and that the scientist has no intention of letting them leave.
Read more HERE and watch the original trailer for the 1979 version below.
Source: AvatarMovie.com, ComingSoon.net
Caught the trailer in the theater before ‘SAW VI’. Cameron’s back is (again) against the wall with the rumored $200-300 million+ budget for the movie. But in his defense he had the same budget issues with TITANIC and then knocked it out of the ballpark with the stunning result.
The bottom line? THRALL WORLD couldn’t help but notice how incredibly REAL the aliens looked in a good portion of the trailer. It really was remarkable and will probably make or break the movies success. No SHREK or HULK cartoons here. They have upped the photo-realistic CGI to an eye-bending level and made THRALL WORLD a believer and we can’t help but wonder how much more of a difference watching it in 3D will make.
But we do hope the “going native” plot (a la DANCES WITH WOLVES, TORAL RECALL, THE LAST SAMURAI) has more behind it than the main character sympathizing with the aliens because an “evil” corporation wants a valuable gem which only seems to exist right underneath the aliens home.
Set to open in conventional 3D theaters and IMAX 3D on December 18th, 2009 and written and directed by James Cameron (TERMINATOR, TITANIC), ‘AVATAR’ stars; Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, and Giovanni Ribisi, Zoe Saldana, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Peter Mensah, Laz Alonso, Wes Studi, Stephen Lang and Matt Gerald.
Read more HERE and check out the official ‘AVATAR’ movie site HERE.
Bryan Singer said Sunday he’s interested in making another “X-Men” movie and has discussed the possibility with Twentieth Century Fox.
The American director made “X-Men” and “X2: X-Men United,” but passed on the third installment so he could make “Superman Returns.” “Rush Hour” director Brett Ratner ended up shooting that film, “X-Men: The Last Stand.” South African filmmaker Gavin Hood made another spin-off, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which was released earlier this year.
“I’m still looking to possibly returning to the ‘X-Men’ franchise. I’ve been talking to Fox about it,” Singer said at a talk at South Korea’s Pusan International Film Festival.
