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?

Polish Movie Posters! More awesome than ours!

A good friend to filmadelphia, Eric Smith over at geekadelphia just posted some awesome posters from Poland. These things are freakin gorgeous. As I was explaining to Eric earlier, I find the Empire Strikes Back poster to be masturbatory, meaning worthy of my masturbation. That's my favorite movie and that poster is just awesome.

My only concern with these is that, while they may be far more interesting and beautiful than their American counterparts, they are only awesome in retrospect. If we didn't know who or what Indiana Jones was, I don't think that poster would garner much interest from an American audience. But then again, as Eric pointed out, the culture is different there, and perhaps these posters tell them all they need to know.

Who wants one!

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?

Spielberg Pegg(s) Frost for Tin Tin

Apparantly Spielberg requested a meeting with Simon Pegg about whether he and frequent costar Nick Frost would be interested in playing characters called the Thompson Twins in Tin Tin. Here's how they're described on the Tin Tin wiki: "Thomson and Thompson (Dupont et Dupond) are two bumbling detectives who, although unrelated, look like twins with the only discernible difference being the shape of their moustaches. They provide much of the comic relief throughout the series, being afflicted with chronic spoonerism, and are shown to be mostly incompetent in their tasks." Now, while these sound like the perfect characters for Pegg and Frost to play, won't their extreme difference in appearance be a problem? It seems as though part of the humor is that they're exactly the same save for the stache. This news makes me scratch my beard a bit. I suppose since its a motion capture film, the can edit what the two look like, but I thought the point of motion capture was that the characters will actually look like their real life counterparts? Maybe not for this project though.

Stephen Chow(s) down Green Hornet

This is just a quickie to keep this thing on the sort of kind of regularly updated side of things. Stephen Chow, writer/director of Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer, and CJ7 (none of which I've seen... I know... all my geek credit is gone... I need to get on that... anyone wanna loan me some copies?) has signed on to co-star as Kato alongside Seth Rogen in the Seth Rogen/Evan Goldberg written Greent Hornet adaptation. Rogen mentioned long ago he'd love to have Chow play the part, and apparantly his wish has been granted.

But the news doesn't end there folks, he's also signed on to direct! This would seem to confirm that this will be a comedic version of The Green Hornet, although I don't know what anyone else would have expected from Rogen and Goldberg. Rogen was quoted a while back as saying they were toying with the idea of it being about Kato being more famous and recognizable than Green Hornet (Kato was originally played by Bruce Lee and is much better remembered by audiences); a story where the sidekick is more famous than the actual hero, which definitely seems like a premise ripe for comedy.

I'm gonna say I'm cautiously optomistic about this one, as I'm not familiar with the source material, or the director. But my yearning to see Seth Rogen don tights* ala Charlie in It's Always Sunny supercedes all of that. What do other people think about this choice?

*Our faithful (and possibly only) reader Dustin has informed me that Green Hornet doesn't wear tights, something I should have known based on all the pictures I've seen of the original show scattered about the net. As Dustin puts it, his costume is similar to The Spirits, just a suit and a mask over his eyes. Thus, my reason for being excited about this has been destroyed. However, Dustin assures me the source material is the kind of campy, fun stuff that Chow has made a career out of, so it sounds like a perfect fit. Consider me re-excited.

I Love Science Fiction movies! New Trailer!

Sleep Dealer, directed by Alex Rivera, just got a trailer, you can find it over at /film (I couldn't embed it, sorry). It looks pretty freakin sweet. I'm excited we're going to be getting a handful of new, decent sci fi movies over the next couple years. Here's the synopsis, via /film: "Set in a future where people can plug into a global computer network using installed body modified holes that tap in their nervous system. The U.S. has installed a wall along the Mexican boarder, but the country still allows outsourcing through node workers who plug in and control remote control robots. A private company has hijacked control of a small Mexican village’s water supply, selling it back to them at a higher price. Memo Cruz is a young man living in this isolated non-tech village, with dreams of working in high-tech factories up north. One day he builds a transmitter that allows him to tap into signals from around the world. But when this transmission is intercepted, it changes his life forever."

What do you think?

A Slim and Trim Looper Detail

Rian Johnson, director behind a personal favorite Brick, and the upcoming Brothers Bloom, has a sci-fi pic coming up. And this just tickles my fancy. In fact, maybe even tickles a fancy I hadn't fancied before. It's called Looper, and check out this logline: “Looper is set in a present-day world in which a group of hitmen are sent their victims from the future.” And /film updated this story with this quote: "there’s much much MUCH much more to Looper than that logline suggests. In fact, that quick description doesn’t even get to the really interesting hook of the plot, and the plot’s hook isn’t what the movie is really about anyway." So, the logline is first of all awesome. That sounds like such an amazing premise that could go so many different directions, especially with a director like this. And if that's not even the half of it? Count me in. This little snippet has really piqued my interest. Anyone else think this sounds like its got a lot of promise?