Helmer Colin Trevorrow, who made his mark with the low-budget indie Safety Not Guaranteed, has signed on to direct Jurassic Park IV for Universal and Steven Spielberg. Spielberg is executive-producing (he, of course, directed the first two films, while Captain America: The First Avenger’s Joe Johnston directed Jurassic Park III). Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver penned the script for part four. No word yet on what the film will be about — aside from dinosaurs, of course. But we do know that it will be shot in 3D and released on June 13, 2014. And in the meantime, the first film is getting a 3D re-release next month.
Archive for March, 2013
Hot on the heels of the first Kick-Ass 2 trailer which hit the internet last week, six new character posters for the forthcoming superhero sequel have been unearthed by Argentinian film poster blog cine1.com.ar. Showcasing the returning heroes Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl, the posters also give us our first proper look at Mother Russia, one of the films new villains, as well as Night-Bitch, Black Death, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse as… well, you all know his new name from the last trailer. Check all the posters out below, thanks to Total Film.
Kick-Ass 2 is in cinemas from August 2013.
They’re talking about remaking Escape from New York again. This has come up before, most recently in 2010, but also back in 2007 when Len Wiseman and Gerard Butler were attached. But now Deadline says that Joel Silver’s Silver Pictures is joining with Studio Canal to create a rebooted franchise based on the John Carpenter classic. Silver wants a new take on the story and is planning a trilogy, which will start with an origin story, presumably of Snake Plissken. The search for a writer is already happening. Call me crazy, but wasn’t one of the appeals of the original film and Kurt Russell’s Snake the fact that he was kind of mysterious? We knew a bit about his past, but there were enough gaps there that allowed us to fill it all in with our imaginations while he searched for Donald Pleasence’s missing president in the mean streets of 1997 Manhattan. An origin story could defuse all that. I mean the people who never seen the orginal will like it, but the die hard’s might be alittle upset.
Move over, Ethan Hunt. Here comes Napoleon Solo. Deadline reports that Tom Cruise, already the star of the Mission: Impossible franchise, is in “early talks” to star in another big movie based on a classic 1960s espionage TV series, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. The 1964-68 TV series followed Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin, operatives for the United Network Command for Law & Enforcement.
Warner Bros. has lined up their Sherlock Holmes helmer Guy Ritchie to direct the action film. Ritchie and his producing partner Lionel Wigram joined the project in late 2011. The studio’s long tried to make this particular TV-to-film adaptation happen, originally setting George Clooney to star and Steven Soderbergh to direct until Clooney dropped out. Deadline says Cruise is still involved with Mission: Impossible V.
2K and Gearbox have announced a partnership with the Academy of Art University to create an animated Borderlands short film. Through a new program known as the Borderlands Cooperative, 2K and Gearbox will provide resources to help students create the film before the end of 2013, and students involved will have the opportunity to interview for an internship at 2K. “During the spring semester, teams of students will create original short stories that take place inside the Borderlands universe,” 2K explains. “Any student, regardless of their discipline, can form a team and submit an original storyboard for consideration. A panel of Academy of Art University, 2K and Gearbox judges will select one story to become part of the Borderlands mythos, and the team behind that story will have the opportunity to interview for the internship.” Once a story has been selected by judges, animation students will work on it this summer through the fall.
“This partnership is a natural fit for 2K, Gearbox and the Academy of Art University,” 2K senior vice president of marketing Sarah Anderson told IGN. “The Academy’s mission is to prepare students for 21st century careers by providing real world experiences, and that’s exactly what the Borderlands Cooperative is all about.” Regarding the internship, Anderson noted that “the students responsible for the storyboard that’s selected to be animated will have the opportunity to interview for an internship at 2K. Our interns don’t fetch coffee. They roll up their sleeves and get on the job training and as such, one student will have an internship tailored to their interests and discipline so that they can get the most out of the experience.”“We design our courses in a way that puts students in a position where they have to think of all aspects of running a business,” Academy of Art University storyboarding professor Shaun Featherstone added. “In this case, the publisher and video game developers are looking to our class as they would a real firm.”
“Students have to not only come up with the creative, but determine what they need to get the job done, solve problems, work as a team, present to the client, and meet deadlines under extreme pressure. These are not homework deadlines. These are real. It is about as real world as it gets. There are hundreds of hard-working animators in the industry who haven’t had an opportunity to work on one of the most popular video games in the world, and these students are getting that opportunity before entering the profession.” In a separate statement, Gearbox president Randy Pitchford added “we are thrilled that our Borderlands universe has inspired so much creativity. We are happy to offer the Academy of Art University access to our digital assets so that its students’ creativity can be harnessed into positive career development efforts and, if we’re lucky, the creation of some great content that every Borderlands fan can enjoy.” The short film is expected to be revealed later this year. Borderlands 2, meanwhile, will receive a new Vault Hunter as DLC soon.
Actors Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts will join Zach Galifianakis in Birdman, a new dark comedy from director Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu. Before you get too excited, it’s not exactly what it sounds like. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Keaton will play an aging actor who once portrayed an iconic superhero — sound familiar? — as he gears up for a Broadway play based on a Raymond Carver short story in an attempt to reclaim his former glory. However, the show’s conceited leading man threatens to throw everything down the tubes. (Keaton, of course, portrayed Batman in the 1989 and 1992 feature films directed by Tim Burton, which should lend itself to this.)
Stone will play Keaton’s daughter, “fresh from rehab and now his assistant.” Watts will be an actress in the play, while Galifianakis will play the production’s “conniving” producer.
Fox Searchlight and New Regency hope to begin production this April.
Sooner or later, Robert Rodriguez is gonna run out of crazy ideas. But today is not that day, as the new Machete Kills poster below featuring Sofia Vergara and her machine gun bra indicates. What else is there to say?
M.A.G News 