Is Sam Raimi trying to make me look like an idiot?

Late last year I had the oppertunity to interview Bruce Campbell (which you can listen to here, or  read right over here).  During the interview, I asked Bruce if there had been any development on the Evil Dead 4 front, since Sam Raimi, the initial trilogy's creator, had announced he and Bruce had been talking about a fourth film.  Bruce told me he and Sam were both so busy on upcoming projects (a new directing gig for Campbell, and the Spider-man sequels for Raimi) that it most likely wouldn't happen, at least not for a while.  So after I interviewed Bruce, I immidiately posted an update on Evil Dead 4 claiming it wouldn't be happening.

Well goddamn you Sam Raimi, stop trying to make me look like a fool!  Cinematical reported today that Raimi, talking to Empire Magazine, revealed that he and his brother Ivan are already at work on a script for Evil Dead 4!  This is exciting news, but don't get too excited.  So far there are seven pages, and it sounds like they're just notes about what they'd like to do with Ash this time around, where they'd like the story to go.  But either way, thanks for breakin my balls Sam.

Where the Wild Things Are gets a Fantastic Trailer!

It's here folks! (and it was enough to bring me back to the blogs!) I've been waiting for the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze's return to film and adaptation of one of my favorite children's books by Maurice Sendak, for months now.  Based on what I see here, this movie is somehow going to exceed my expectations.  And the Arcade Fire!  What a perfect choice!  The only thing that could make this better for me would be a theater full of children crying their eyes out (oh wait, that's right, Jonze had to recut the movie a whole bunch just to prevent this from happening).  Regardless of whatever problems Jonze might've had getting this just right, it looks like he did indeed get it just right. Thanks to cinematical for finding this!

Weakends Episode 2: A New Format

Filmadelphia is finally trying to get on the ball! Since we've found ourselves far too busy to update the ol blog throughout the week, we've changed the format of Weakends a little bit. Instead of blatantly ripping off the /filmcast, we've decided to do our Top 5 Stories of the Weak. We round up all the news for the week and pick our top five and talk about em! Sounds exciting right? It gets even better, G.Rett and Tom have finally decided on a schedule and should actually be updating every Friday! (Maybe Thursday, any opinions on that?)

Also, we haven't given up on the blog. Although Tom is far too lazy, G.Rett is still going to try and make an effort to put some posts up throughout the week. Have no fear, filmadelphia is going to return in a big way with Weakends.

Check out the new episode right now!

Let us know what you think of the new format in the comments!

Show Notes:

Top 5 News Stories for the Weak of 11.7.08 - 11.13.08

5. Baz Luhrmann on the ending of Australia
4. Joe Johnston is directing The First Avenger: Captain America
3. Jeffrey Tambor says the Arrested Development movie is a go
2. Ridley Scott is directing Monopoly
1. The new Watchmen trailer

Buzz (The Dark) Knightyear

Check out this awesome trailer mash-up that just turned up over at cinematical. Woody as Joker, Buzz as Batman, and everybody's favorite Potatoe Head as Fox. Oh and Rex is Alfred. Just wait'll you see the Semi scene. Tom was so entertained by this he actually looked over from Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. Check it out above!

Cinematical is watching the Watchmen

Erik Davis over at cinematical got a chance to peep twelve minutes of Watchmen at a special screening set up by Snyder last night. Dave Gibbons, the artist on the book, was also in attendance. Check out the article to hear about the footage (which sounds amazing) and the Q&A that followed.

Interesting to note: Kevin Smith was quoted as saying there were two changes in the film, one major and one minor. In the footage described there is an opening montage that gets the audience acquainted with the revised history of the US according to the events in the comic. There is also the scene where Nite Owl and Silk Spectre break Rorschach out of prison, and this has apparently been changed to include a fight scene, rather than just a horn that immobilizes the guards. Could these be the two changes that Smith was talking about? They both seem rather minor to me, so perhaps there's another one lurking within the film somewhere? I'm not opposed to these changes, in fact I think the idea behind both of these rather sound like improvements, or at least welcome adaptive changes. Only time will tell I suppose, but the more I hear about this the more excited I get. Here's hoping the film lives up to the footage Erik got to see last night!

Interesting Trailer for Baz Luhrmann's Australia

MSN just put up the trailer (thank you cinematical) for Baz Luhrmann's new movie Australia, but no embed code (argh!). It is... an interesting trailer. It's certainly beautiful (and I would expect nothing less from the director of Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet) and the performances (Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman) look pretty excellent. It's really skimpy on the plot details though. I have no clue what this movie is about at this point. Maybe even less of one than I did before I saw this trailer. But what's really bothering me is why Explosions in the Sky is playing over the first half of the trailer? More importantly, why that specific song (The Only Moment We Were Alone)? I can see how the title of the song might fit into the very vague storyline we're given in the trailer. But these are the last images I would've imagined being put over that song. I'm a huge Explosions in the Sky fan (go buy their records now, they're fantastic [you might recognize them as the band that did the soundtrack for Friday Night Lights]), and with the extremely visual imagination that I have, I always imagine what kind of scene I would shoot over songs. Explosions in the Sky are especially good for this exercise because they're an instrumental band. Maybe it's only because I'm so familiar with this song, but it does not seem to fit the images that are presented in this trailer at all. It was not only jarring for me, but completely distracting.

Did anyone else feel that way about the music? How about the movie, first impressions?

Bill Murray Talks Ghostbusters 3!

The man behind one of my favorite characters in film history (Dr. Peter Venkman) just dropped an extremely juicy tidbit out at Fantastic Fest.  Check the video to hear the man promote his new film, City of Ember, which premiered at Fantastic Fest, as well as answer a few questions.  One of which was about his thoughts on Ghostbusters 3.  It sounds like he not only likes the idea of the guys from The Office writing it, but also states that enough time has passed since the second movie (which he apparently is not too fond of) to make a third one really work.  It sounds like doing the voice work for the video game got him really excited about the characters again.  

This has me all giddy and excited, like I'm ten years old again.  My one concern was that they wouldn't be able to get Murray to come back for another one.  With that concern remedied, I hope they get the ball rolling and fast track this mofo.  I want to see it on a 2010 release slate (which as it turns out, is exactly how IMDB lists it, although we all know how trustworthy that thing is).

Who else is pumped?

I officially HATE Brett Ratner

First, Ratner (the Rush Hour franchinse, X-Men: The Last Stand) wants to make a Guitar Hero movie (idiot) and now he wants to make... wait for it...

wait for it...

just a little longer so that the impact of this will be brutal...

A Joker spin-off! (and check out the link for equally stupid quotes from Ratner)

What the hell man! This is the worst idea I've heard in a long time. First of all, as much as I don't think the Joker should just never be considered for a villain again, I don't think he should be considered anytime soon. We need to let Ledger have that performance for a while. And second of all, I don't want to see more of this character! He's scary because he's batshit crazy and has no motives. If you give him his own movie, you have to explain motives, and thus the veil is lifted and the Wizard is revealed to be a crusty old man, and that would suck for The Joker. And god help Ratner if he tries to make him sympathetic. Argh! I hate that man!

By the way, he also mentioned doing a Halle Berry led Storm spin-off, which I'm neither here nor there about.

Anyone actually like this dude? Or think this is a good idea?

TMNT Upadte!

Apparantly, talk of a new live action Ninja Turtles movie has gone sour. Sort of. The other half of the creative team behind TMNT, Peter Laird, told MTV that they're at work on a "hybrid" TMNT movie. In other words, it will combine real actors and sets with CGI Turtles and most likely CGI villains. This should hopefully please fans of the original live action series, who hated the CGI film because it was too cartoony. There's also talk of bringing Steve Barron, director of the original, back for this installment. Everyone at slashfilm seems to hate this idea, but I don't know why. I frequently go back and watch this movie as it was the first movie I ever saw in a theater, and I like to see how my opinion of it changes as time goes on. I am always pleasently surprised and impressed with this movie, as it takes the premise seriously and sets it in a noir esque New York. This is the perfect world for the Turtles, and Barron really nailed a great color scheme with some awesome shadowy, grainy shots. I don't see why everyone thinks its a bad idea to get him back, when he was the one that made the Turtles into relatable, real characters.

What do you think? I'm all for more Ninja Turtles, and I really think Barron could succeed here.

(check out the slogan on the poster, hilarious!)

UPDATE: Ramis confirms Ghostbusters 3!

I won't bore you with the details, check out cinematical for the full quote from Ramis, but it sounds like everything I posted about a couple days ago is in fact true. Ramis' Year One writers are working on a script. The idea is for all four original members to come back as "mentors," Ramis specifically stating that according to Aykroyd, Dr. Venkman may even return (for those not in the know, there is some bad blood between Murray and Ramis, so Venkman's return was iffy). And Ramis confirms that the hope is the Apatow crew will produce and hopefully be involved in the acting side of things. Apparantly readers at cinematical found the Apatow crew as the new Ghostbusters problematic, where as I see it as the perfect fit, as the Apatow crew are to our generation what I'll call the Animal House crew was to theirs.

Thoughts anyone?

Live action Heavy Metal adaptation Directors!

That's right, the live action, David Fincher lead adaptation of Heavy Metal just had some director's names dropped. And let me tell you, these are some impressive names. But before we get to that (don't you hate when bloggers do that to you?) lets talk about the Ben Button drama. According to Heavy Metal publisher (and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator) Kevin Eastman, the project has moved from Paramount to Sony because "they were at odds with Fincher over another project, 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,' they wanted him to reduce the running time... and so they said, 'Until you step up to do what we want you to do with Benjamin, we're not going to green light any other of [your] movies.' And David said, 'Fine, fuck you, I'm going to set up [Heavy Metal] somewhere else." If anyone has been following this (and this should be a sufficient answer to the post I made a few weeks ago requesting more information from Peter Sciretta about the behind the scenes goings ons), Paramount really wants Fincher to reduce his 3 hour cut of Ben Button significantly. I heard he actually trimmed 15 minutes off for them and they still wanted more, so he said screw em. Thus, no Heavy Metal at Paramount. Jessica Barnes over at cinematical makes a good point in that Paramount probably didn't expect Fincher to call their bluff. Too bad for them!

But now the important news that you read that whole paragraph for (and if you didn't shame on you, I work hard on this stuff), the directors. Eastman has confirmed that Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labrynth, the upcoming Hobbit adaptation), Zack Snyder (300, Dawn of the Dead remake, and the upcoming Watchmen), and Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Carribean, The Weather Man, The Ring) are all attatched to direct a segment, and Fincher is expected to direct one as well. Apparantly, in contrast to the original animated version, there will be 8-9 segments. Here's hoping for more awesome directors.

Who else is excited as all get out about this!?

Lullaby getting a big-screen adaptation?

This sounds extremely vague, but it's popped up quite a few times over the past week or so, and since he's one of my favorite authors I figured I'd throw up a little somethin-somethin about it. Apparantly, Palahniuk, who is known for fucking with his audience, has been tossing the name of a director he calls "the Swedish David Fincher," Ulfer Jansen. He has no imdb, and all I can find about him on google are other blogs with the exact same Palahniuk quote about him. So who knows if he actually exists or whether he's attatched to the project or not. However, if Chuck P is to be believed, they're already at the casting stage, but the production is keeping said casting from Palahniuk for now.

Now miss Jessica Barnes over at cinematical ponders "don't you think if this was the real deal, Palahniuk would have been told that information?" While I'd normally be inclined to agree, I've read numerous interviews with him where he talks very candidly about Hollywood, and what it's like selling your work to them. In most cases with his properties, he has to sell the whole thing away to someone else to get it made, so it's entirely possible that he really has no idea who they're casting or when the start of production is.

Count me in on this if it's actually happening though. It seems like there are few people who agree with me, but having read all of Chuck's books except his most recent three, Lullaby is my favorite. It's some of his best writing, and I love how fantastical this story gets as it goes. He grounds it in a believable real world in the beginning, so that by the end you're totally with him when crazy, otherworldly shit starts going down. Hopefully whoever ends up directing this thing can acheive the same.

Anyone else excited? Does anyone else even like this book?

Disaster Movie is a Complete Disaster!

If you're anything like me, this weekends box office numbers were of extreme interest. Is it because Babylon, A.D. is going to be Vin Diesel's underrated masterpiece!? No, not even by a long shot. It's because Disaster Movie, the latest in the ____ Movie series, bombed! Finally! If you're not aware, this was written and directed by Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg, the pair of geniuses who brought us Date Movie, Epic Movie, and Meet the Spartans. Now the reason I'm joyously celebrating their latest movies epic disaster (get it? Oh, and 6.9 mil in its four day opening... ouch) is because the first three movies I mentioned opened at the top of the box office in each of their respective opening weekends. Thus Aaron and Jason were able to become rich and litter the box office with more pop culture trash.

So I'd like to thank you, movie-going public. For with your lack of interest (finally), we may see the beginning of the end for Mr. Seltzer and Mr. Friedberg (are they even real people? These sound like made up name's designed to keep some old hollywood execs safe from angry message boarders).

New Reitman movie!

I loved his dad, and now Jason Reitman is making a name for himself along the same lines as his father. He's got two acclaimed comedies under his belt, each with a little more brains and a little less insane than Ivan's work, and his next project sounds like a perfect fit. It's called Up in the Air, and its the story of a business man obsessed with getting a million frequent flyer miles. It's based on a book by the author of Thumbsucker, which was made into a decent little indy flick as well. Apparantly Clooney is in talks to star, which sounds great to me. He's got a very natural comedy about him, and I love seeing him play odd characters (O, brother where art thou? anyone?). This sounds like the perfect match-up for a great little comedy with a big presence. I'm excited for this one, count me in!

Note: Reitman also has a bunch of shorts that he's made as well, which I just discovered when looking at his IMDB page. Anyone know if these are available anywhere?

Nab the Tropic Thunder mockumentary!

One of cinematical's readers helped them put a link up to the free download of Rain of Madness, available only on iTunes. I'm gonna link you to the cinematical article instead of the download cause I don't wanna cut in on their traffic. But definately check this out, its a half hour documentary about the making of Tropic Thunder (but I think of the movie within the movie, not the movie itself), its free, and its funny! Peep the trailer above!

No more HBO Preacher

HBO is obviously really stupid. Mark Steven Johnson, regarding his long in-development Preacher adaptation: "the new head of HBO felt it was just too dark and too violent and too controversial." Can someone slap the new head of HBO in the face please? Wake up! You're HBO! People pay for your service because it means they can have unedited, edgy content that doesn't need to pass through some kind of censor. If you start censoring yourself, you're no different than any other TV station and there's no reason I should have to dish out extra cash to watch you.

Apparantly it was not only "a very faithful adaptation of the first few books, nearly word for word" but if I remember correctly their initial vision was to do the whole series, each issue was one episode. And now its likely that if it gets adapted at all it will be as a movie or something where things will have to be trimmed and cut. While I'll admit, there's some issues that could probably be left out or at least chopped up a bit, this is the kind of series that is just always so fun and surprising that it deserves this kind of a faitful adaptation. Hopefully another network like Showtime picks it up, but I'm doubtful. This is a sad day. Fuck you HBO.

Critics be Van Dammed

I'm actually really excited about this movie.  We all remember Jean Claude, right?  Right?  Well as the plot of this film goes, we don't.  Or maybe we do, but we just don't care anymore.  That's right, in his new film JCVD, JCVD plays himself: a down on his luck action star of the past in the midst of divorce proceedings.  When he ends up in the middle of an actual bank robbery, Jean Claude makes good on his Jean Claude action name by fighting off the robbers.  This sounds exactly like the story of My Name is Bruce, in which Bruce Campbell plays himself and is forced to save a town from zombies because the residents think he is actually Ash.  However, I don't care.  I'm excited for Bruce, and I'm equally excited for JCVD.  And if the critics can be trusted, not only has Van Damme finally made an honest to goodness good movie, he's put in an honest to goodness good performance as well.  The film just sort of got a release date, which you can read more about on cinematical.

Does anyone else think Jean Claude deserves this kind of performance?

An Open Call to /film

UPDATE: I was listening to the Afterdark /filmcast last night and none other than Mr. Peter Sciretta was on. Just as I was nodding off to sleep he began to discuss Ben Button. However, I nodded off to sleep literally as I heard him begin talking about it, and I remember thinking "You should stay awake for this so you can update the blog." I recall no further information. Thus I will have to wait until Dave Chen puts it online (which usually isn't until the end of the week) to update you on whether Peter pulls through with some answers.

I've got two things I wanna say to you. And one is pretty important. I follow you guys on Twitter, and Mr. Peter Sciretta, I want you to do your job! You are a great writer, and I really respect the fact that you stand out amongst your peers by holding strong opinions and sticking to your guns, even on the /filmcast. But the other day I saw a little Twitter convo happen between you and Erik Davis over at cinematical in which you discussed "what's going on behind the scenes of Benjamin Button," David Fincher's latest film. You ask Erik why no one is willing to talk about it, and Erik responds "because if we pretend mom and dad aren't fighting, maybe it will be true," and it is left at that. Then, today on /film, you posted the TV spot for Ben Button that premiered during the Olympics. After the trailer you said "I’ve been hearing all sorts of troubling things coming out of the post production of the project. Most movie journalists are afraid to report on what is going on behid the scenes, because it’s very gossipy." But then you never man up and report on it yourself. What is going on? As a journalist I thought you guys had journalistic duties. Just like the mailman, you know? Through the rain, sleet, and snow kinda stuff? No? Dammit, c'mon man I'm dying to know what's going on! If everyone already knows about it, why don't you quit bein a pussy and man up! You finish your article with "There is a bigger story going on behind the scenes…" What the hell is that? Why even report on it in the first place if you're just gonna back down and never go anywhere with it?

I still love you.

But there's another thing. Mr. David-Peter Chen! Let me be on the /filmcast! I love the /filmcast, and I was just gonna pussyfoot around trying to find a way to get connected to you, but I'm too eager! I'm gonna put a post up once a week about being on the show until you let me on! The journey begins now!

Check out these GREAT articles

The first two are from the cinematical team who do a lot of really great editorials. These guys and gals have great ideas and are fantastic writers, you should keep up with some of their weekly columns. The first, by the evil genius Eric Snider, is an excellent article breaking down and debunking the myths surrounding the changing of Harry Potter's release day. I don't know if we have any Potter fans reading, but this should lay things out pretty clearly and maybe sooth some of the pain of having to wait another 6 months for your movie. The second is from Eric Snider's evil doppleganger Erik Davis, and it is a plea to release Terry Gilliam's latest film, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, featuring the final performance of Heath Ledger. Erik makes a great case for this film, and I hope I'm not the only one that agrees with him on needing to give Gilliam another chance. He really is one of the great, creative forces from past and present cinema.

I'd also like to point you all in the direction of Mr. David Chen (or is it Peter Chen? Hmmm) the mastermind behind the /filmcast that I pimp so regularly here at filmadelphia. He wrote a great (spolier ridden) article about some of the racial issues addressed in Tropic Thunder. My hat goes off to you, Peter-David Chen, for digging deeper, especially with a movie I think most people will only remember fora fat Tom Cruise and a black Downey, Jr (which is not to say I didn't like it, I loved this movie). I enjoy the great cinematical debates, especially those that really get into the in's and out's of storytelling.

What did you think about these articles? Anything worth arguing about?

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer is gonna be Badass!

And here's proof!  This is a short film called Still Life by Jon Knautz, director of the upcoming horror flick Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer.  I was already excited about Jack Brooks because the trailer is great.  This seems like the kind of kind of movie that only low budget filmmaking can accomplish, and it looks like it's really going to pay off.  But now, thanks to cinematical, I have even more of a reason to be excited.  Watch this movie.  It's great!  The editing is very tight with some great shots, and it plays really well.  He shows off a lot of different kinds of talent behind the camera, and that makes me even more excited.  Obviously, this guy knows how to build a visual story, and a suspenseful one at that!

Oh yeah,  and that's Robert Englund.  Hell yeah.

Do you think this guy is gonna prove to be the next Peter Jackson or just a low rate Shyamalan?