Posts Tagged ‘20th Century Fox’
20th Century Fox has hired Rupert Wyatt to develop and direct a prequel to Planet of the Apes. Wyatt directed The Escapist which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival to medium buzz and decent reviews. I wasn’t taken by the movie, but I know it was one of Alex from FirstShowing’s favorite movies of that year. The screenplay, titled Caesar (named after the ape who leads the rebellion against the humans in Conquest), was written by screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, The Relic).
The film won’t have talking monkeys and will not end with chimps taking over Earth. Instead the film will be a hard science fiction film about humans that use science to create hyper-intelligent chimpanzees. Fox’s Tom Rothman has said the film takes place before the first film, and that it will be “a return to the social thematics that mark the first one, but with an entirely contemporary setting - Earth 2009.” Of course, he said that last year, so I’m assuming that will be updated to 2010 or 2011. The Lookout writer/director Scott Frank (The Lookout) was previously developing the film for Fox.
I’m still not convinced that we need another Planet of the Apes reboot at this point. The general public is going to need more time to forget Tim Burton’s remake. And the original films still work.
source: Fleming
Steve Martin is in talks to join Jack Black and Owen Wilson in Marley & Me/The Devil Wears Prada helmer David Franke’s bird-watching comedy The Big Year. Martin’s role was originally set to be played by Dustin Hoffman.
The film is based on Mark Obmascik’s 2004 book The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession which chronicles three top contenders in the 1998 American Big Year: one of the wackiest competitions in the US, where hundreds of bird watchers compete with the hopes of spotting the most species during the course of a year. The screenplay was adapted by Antitrust/The Man Who Knew Too Little scribe Howard Franklin.
Here is the official description from the book:
Every year on January 1, a quirky crowd of adventurers storms out across North America for a spectacularly competitive event called a Big Year — a grand, grueling, expensive, and occasionally vicious, “extreme” 365-day marathon of birdwatching. For three men in particular, 1998 would be a whirlwind, a winner-takes-nothing battle for a new North American birding record. In frenetic pilgrimages for once-in-a-lifetime rarities that can make or break their lead, the birders race each other from Del Rio, Texas, in search of the rufous-capped warbler, to Gibsons, British Columbia, on a quest for Xantus’s hummingbird, to Cape May, New Jersey, seeking the offshore great skua. Bouncing from coast to coast on their potholed road to glory, they brave broiling deserts, roiling oceans, bug-infested swamps, a charge by a disgruntled mountain lion, and some of the lumpiest motel mattresses known to man.
The unprecedented year of beat-the-clock adventures ultimately leads one man to a new record — one so gigantic that it is unlikely ever to be bested…finding and identifying an extraordinary 745 different species by official year-end count. Prize-winning journalist Mark Obmascik creates a rollicking, dazzling narrative of the 275,000-mile odyssey of these three obsessives as they fight to the finish to claim the title in the greatest — or maybe the worst — birding contest of all time. With an engaging, unflappably wry humor, Obmascik memorializes their wild and crazy exploits and, along the way, interweaves an entertaining smattering of science about birds and their own strange behavior with a brief history of other bird-men and -women; turns out even Audubon pushed himself beyond the brink when he was chasing and painting the birds of America. A captivating tour of human and avian nature, passion and paranoia, honor and deceit, fear and loathing, The Big Year shows the lengths to which people will go to pursue their dreams, to conquer and categorize — no matter how low the stakes. This is a lark of a read for anyone with birds on the brain — or not.
Outside magazine called it “A feathered version of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”. The 288 page book is available on Amazon in paperback for around $5.
source: THR
20th Century Fox has announced that a third film in the live-action/cg hybrid Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise will hit theaters in 2011. Titled Alvin and the Chipmunks 3D, the film will hit theaters on December 16, 2011. The film will be up against Steven Spielberg’s The Adventure’s of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, which opens one week later on December 23rd.
Lets just be glas they aren’t trying to find another play on the words Squeak and Threequel or Squeak and Three-D. The first two films grossed over $791 million worldwide. No other information has been released at this time. Do they have a script? Do they need a script? Is a director attached? Do they need a director? I’m kidding… kind of. I would expect that most of the cast will return (can you say payday?), including the Chipettes.
via: comingsoon
Fox have decided to hold back release on Oliver Stone’s Wall Street sequel, subtitled Money Never Sleeps, until September 24th. This will put it up against Kevin McDonald’s Eagle of the Ninth, Zack Snyder’s Legend of the Guardians and Andy Fickman’s You Again with Kristen Bell and Sigourney Weaver.
I was surprised to enjoy the trailer for this Wall Street 2 so much because, frankly, I haven’t reall liked an Oliver Stone picture in a very long time. There were a good few laughs in this promo though, and I was looking forward to an interesting cast biting into Allan Loeb’s apparently snappy screenplay. I guess that my looking will just have to extend even further forward now.
Variety is reporting something we have been speculating for the past month: Fox’s hit television series 24 will likely end after the conclusion of the current eighth season. The studio and network executives have declined to comment. But is this the end of the show? Apparently the studio is considering shopping the series to other networks, but interest will probably be limited due to the high costs involved.
Previously:
Last month it was announced that Billy Ray had been hired to pen the screenplay for a big screen 24 movie. All we know about the planned story for the feature film is that it will be set in Europe. Kiefer Sutherland and producers have said that the big screen movie would be “a two-hour representation of a day.” Ray’s filmography includes State of Play, Flightplan, Suspect Zero, Hart’s War, Volcano and Moon director Duncan Jones’ upcoming much-buzzed about project Source Code. He both wrote and directed Breach and Shattered Glass.
At the time, studio insiders cautioned that a 24 movie “is still very much in the preliminary stages,” and that there are “a number of factors influencing how quickly it moves ahead, including the fate of the TV show.” Fox had not yet decided if they want to order a ninth season of the series, although it has been expected that this will be the final season. 24 has lost over 10% of the show’s total viewership from last year, down over 15% in adults 18-49.
It is hard to imagine that Fox would spend the millions and millions required for a big screen feature if they weren’t impressed with the ratings enough to renew the television series for a tenth season. Stranger things have happened (Arrested Development was canceled and will eventually become a big screen feature). Sutherland is said to be eager in getting the series to the big screen. It would be nice to see a big screen 24, with a big blockbuster budget. But without the real-time structure, won’t it just another action film, but with the characters we’ve gotten to know from television? I wonder how it could/would be different.
A big screen movie would probably guarantee that Bauer will survive his eighth crazy day. Since first discovering the series in 2001, I had hoped that Bauer would someday die on screen, in the possible biggest twist the series could possibly pull. I know a lot of fans would hate for that to happen, but I think it would be the ultimate way to conclude the series — with CTU and Jack’s friends having to save the day without him, in his honor. Sutherland and 24 producers have always said that Bauer’s death was an extreme possibility.
Update: This story features a correction — Liev Schreiber has not yet read the screenplay.
Last week it was reported that screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie) has turned in a screenplay for Wolverine 2, and that a January 2011 start date decided for the comic book sequel. io9 reports that during that press conference for Repo Men, actor Liev Schreiber said he had dinner with Hugh Jackman last night, who has read the first draft of the sequel script. Schreiber, who played Sabertooth in the original film, says it is “still not clear whether or not Victor will be present in the Japan storyline.” Is Schreiber just playing coy or was he sent the script because Fox is considering adding his character to the next installment?
“In the Japan storyline as I remember it from the Wolverine comics, Victor wasn’t there. So I don’t know, of course I’ve got my fingers crossed because I love the character so much, to have the chance to do it again would be a lot of fun, but I’m not sure.”
Reading the above quote you would have no idea that Schreiber had talked with Hugh about the screenplay, even though he claims he has. Very strange…
Previously:
- McQuarrie’s draft is loosely based on the early ’80s mini-series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller that helped establish Wolverine as one of Marvel’s major characters.
- So what’s different in McQuarrie’s draft? Friedman says he’s been told the film features “a love story featuring a Japanese actress.” That suggests that the primary female character is switched from being Mariko Yashida, the daughter of Lord Shingen Harada. In the limited series, Mariko was forced into marriage with an abusive man, which Wolverine attempted to help her escape. Shingen drugs Wolverine and challenges him to a duel, who defeats him. Also involved is a female assassin named Yukio, who later became part of the extended X-Men universe. The female lead could still be the daughter of a warlord, or married to an abusive man. Maybe she’s married to an abusive warlord! More than anything else, I expect the script to make the female lead a more active presence than we saw in the mini-series.
- Fox has not yet settled on a director.
I just heard about an interesting pitch that apparently just sold to Fox. The writing duo of Sam Pitman and Adam Cole-Kelly pitched a comedy called Premature Maturation, which is essentially the Tom Hanks movie Big, but with an ensemble of middle school kids who transform into adults and get into crazy misadventures ala The Hangover. Talk about high concept. Word on the tracking boards is the pitch sold for mid-six figures. Pitman and Cole-Kelly will likely pen the script. No director or cast is attached.
Pitman and Cole-Kelly sold another pitch in November of 2009 to Paramount for an R-rated comedy titled The Misadventures of Fluffy. That project has been described as a road trip through New York featuring talking animals featuring “an element of social comedy reminiscent of the 1980’s film Trading Places.” Eddie Murphy is producing, and Pitman and Cole-Kelly are writing the screenplay.
Shadowlocked has confirmed with Star Wars and Alien art-director Roger Christian that Ridley Scott’s upcoming Alien prequel will be shot in 3D.
Christian, who ran into Ridley at a recent film festival, hopes to work on the film, and breifly experessed his excitement for the project:
“Ridley told me some of his ideas when we were here in Toronto. He has a very clear understanding of where this should go. They kind of stopped dead one of the greatest horror franchises there’s ever been, and it had legs to go on. So I’m hoping he’ll revive another three. The world certainly wants it, and the fans want it - everybody.”
Previously:
In May 2009, it was revealed that commercial director Carl Erik Rinsch was attached to direct a remake of Alien. We have since learned that it is more of a prequel than a remake. I was one of the few people actually interested in Rinsch’s involvement. Rinsch’s commercials show an amazing sense of imagination, visual effects artistry and composition (we’ve profiled his amazing commercials on the site). But apparently 20th Century Fox wasn’t happy with the Scott’s choice of director, holding out for the original helmer — Ridley Scott.
At the time I believed that would never happen. Why would Scott return to film a prequel of one of the most popular sci-fi film franchises of all time? Why compete with yourself? Producing the film seems like a much safer bet. Who knows why, but Ridley Scott signed on to direct a prequel to Alien.
The film will be a direct prequel to Scott’s original 1979 film. In a 2002 interview, Scott wanted to return “to where the alien creatures were first found and explain how they were created.” Chances are this idea would also be incorporated into the reboot. Jon Spaihts will write the screenplay, a job he earned after pitching the studio and production company Scott Free. Spaihts has no produced credits, but has written Shadow 19 and Passengers, both of which are also sci-fi space thrillers.
Empire spoke to Scott when he was out and about in London to attend the local festival premiere of his daughter’s movie Cracks, and the filmmaker threw out some really general statements about the film — they know where it’s going, the screenplay is now being written by Jon Spaihts, and then this more specific tidbit:
“It’s a brand new box of tricks. We know what the road map is, and the screenplay is now being put on paper. The prequel will be a while ago. It’s very difficult to put a year on Alien, but [for example] if Alien was towards the end of this century, then the prequel story will take place thirty years prior.” … “I never thought I’d look forward to a sequel but a prequel is kind of interesting. I’m looking forward to doing that.”
The last time The Shadow hit movie screens, things didn’t work out so well. The 1994 Alec Baldwin version directed by Russell Mulcahy suggested that the character might have a better home on radio and in the pages of pulp magazines and comics. Yet Sam Raimi picked up the rights to the character in 2006. For a variety of reasons he has yet to pull a film together. Now he’s a step closer, as Fox has bought into the character, so Raimi should have the go-ahead to tinker again in the pulpy hero genre that produced his own film Darkman.
Latino Review says that not only has Fox bought into Raimi and his company Ghost House’s plan to revive the character, but that Raimi is likely to tap David Slade to direct. Slade helmed the adaptation of 30 Days of Night for Ghost House before going on to direct the third Twilight film.
Just over a month ago, we heard that this version of the character might be considerably different from past incarnations. “I think the one thing going in is we all see The Shadow as more of a force of nature than a specific person in a secret identity,” said producer Michael Uslan. “The Shadow may actually be many people.”
Rumor quickly followed that Raimi could end up directing the film; easy to see why people would hope or assume that to be the case, given the director’s own predilection for pulp and superheroes. The Shadow is a character I really like, in some incarnations. He represents a great meeting ground between early comic heroes, detective fiction and urban adventure tales. It’s a cool mix, but making it work on screen isn’t so easy. Can Slade do it? I like Hard Candy, but 30 Days of Night did nothing for me. So curious to see what he’s done with Eclipse.
Slow news day today, so there are a couple of small news items bubbling up. One is that the script for Wolverine 2 has been handed in, and a January 2011 start date decided for the sequel to Hugh Jackman’s last mutant outing.
Roger Friedman reports that Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie) has turned in a script, and that it is, according to Friedman, “a little different than we originally thought.”
The basics are what we expected to hear: McQuarrie’s draft is loosely based on the early ’80s mini-series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller that helped establish Wolverine as one of Marvel’s major characters.
So what’s different in McQuarrie’s draft? Friedman says he’s been told the film features “a love story featuring a Japanese actress.”
That suggests that the primary female character is switched from being Mariko Yashida, the daughter of Lord Shingen Harada. In the limited series, Mariko was forced into marriage with an abusive man, which Wolverine attempted to help her escape. Shingen drugs Wolverine and challenges him to a duel, who defeats him. Also involved is a female assassin named Yukio, who later became part of the extended X-Men universe.
The female lead could still be the daughter of a warlord, or married to an abusive man. Maybe she’s married to an abusive warlord! More than anything else, I expect the script to make the female lead a more active presence than we saw in the mini-series.
Meanwhile, we still don’t know who’ll direct. Gavin Hood, the man behind X-Men Origins: Wolverine, has said he is not attached, and Friedman mentions that Fox has not yet settled on a director.
Furthermore, with January being ten long months away this script could very easily undergo rewrites. In fact, I would expect at least a couple of minor rewrites done in the next couple months, and if a director with a particularly strong sensibility is hired there could be significant changes made.
