Wednesday, October 16, 2013

MOVIE ROUNDUP (FIFTY SHADES, JURASSIC WORLD, OLDBOY AND MORE)


CHARLIE HUNNAM SAYS HE AINT GREY, STAR TREK IN2 HORIBBLE BOSSES AND AMERICAN OLDBOY IS JUST THE COVER



FIFTY SHADES OF GREY
Universal Pictures and Focus Features have recently announced that Charlie Hunnam will no longer play Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey.

"The filmmakers of 'Fifty Shades of Grey' and Charlie Hunnam have agreed to find another male lead given Hunnam's immersive TV schedule which is not allowing him time to adequately prepare for the role of Christian Grey," the studio said in a statement.

It has to be noted that Hunnam wasn’t that interested in the role initially and reluctantly signed onto the role last month.

Matt Bomer is said to be back in the running for the role, although casting for Grey is still ongoing.

Dakota Johnson and Jennifer Ehle are still attached to star in the August 1, 2014 release, which will directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson.

JURASSIC WORLD
A few weeks back we got confirmation that the fourth Jurrassic Park film would be titled Jurassic World. We also got news that Steven Spielberg would not be directing the film but would stay on as a producer with Collin Trevorrow stepping behind the camera for the latest installment. 

Deadline is now reporting that 12-year-old actor Ty Simpkins has landed one of the lead roles in the hotly anticipated sequel. The site also says that New Girl star Jake Johnson is reportedly in the mix for a role in the film, but that remains unconfirmed.

While most would know Ty as Harley in Iron Man 3, Simpkins has been acting for eight years and has had roles in Speilberg's War of the Worlds and both Insidious films.

Jurassic World will be shot in 3D and is planned to hit theaters on Friday, June 12, 2015.

HORRIBLE BOSSES 2
"Star Trek" and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit star Chris Pine has signed a deal to join Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day and Jamie Foxx in Horrible Bosses 2.


Pine will play half of a father-son duo who steal the main characters' idea for a new invention. Christoph Waltz was rumored to be up for the father role last week, but he reportedly won't be available.

Coming to theaters on November 26, 2014, the New Line sequel is directed by Sean Anders.

RAIDERS!
Back in 1982, two 11-year-old boys, Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala, set off to make their own shot-for-shot remake of Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark, spending a full seven years to complete what is now known as Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation.


A few years ago, the film managed to receive quite a bit attention with Spielberg himself praising it.

 
We now have word via Deadline that the film will be indeed moving forward.

"Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made," a 2012 book by Alan Eisenstock about the production, is set to serve as the film's source material. At one point, Ghost World creator Daniel Clowes was attached to provide the screenplay, but there's no word on whether or not his script is being used for this iteration of the project.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
Nintendo's Eiji Aonuma recently spoke with Kotaku about the possibility of a Zelda film and how the company would use the opportunity to embrace audience interaction in movie theaters.

“This is something that me and Mr. Miyamoto talked about,” Aonuma says. “If we were to make a Zelda title, if we had interest in doing that, I think really what would be most important to us is to be able to play with the format of a movie, make it more interactive, like you’re able to take your 3DS into the theater and that leads you into participating in it somehow. We wouldn’t want to make it the same as any other movie. We want to somehow change what a movie is.”


Unfortunately there are currently no plans to develop a Zelda film any time soon.

OLDBOY
Spike Lee’s Oldboy starring Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Olsen will be invading our screens on November 27th. The film is a remake of the Chan-Wook Park’s beloved 2003 film of the same name. With that being said there are many that have voiced their disapproval of this American remake of Oldboy,

Writer and co-producer Mark Protosevich, and stars Michael Imperioli and Pom Klementieff hit the stage at the New York Comic Con to discuss the film, but the large majority of the conversation boiled down to a single topic – how and why do you remake such an incredible film?

Protosevich insisted, "When the movie was announced, I appreciate and certainly I know there are people out there who are skeptical about our version." In fact, Protosevich recalled his own reaction to first hearing about the plan to remake Park's film before he was even attached to the project. "At one point, Justin Lin was going to direct it and I remember seeing that in the trades and as a fan of the original, my reaction was, 'Aw, really?' And so I understand that impulse. I get it. But in my circumstance, I was presented with this opportunity … to work with a couple of people [and it wasn't] a situation I was gonna turn down."

Those people were Will Smith and Steven Spielberg, but eventually, both decided not to follow through with it. However, at that point, Protosevich was already too immersed in the material to pull out. "I'd written a 30-page treatment and you really start to see the movie in your head. It really started to resonate with me and it meant a lot to me to see this through." After locking in Spike Lee as the film's new director, Protosevich recalled, "I came to New York and Spike and I had breakfast and then we sat in his office at NYU and we watched the original film together."

Read the Old Boy Manga and watch the film all you want, it's not going to convince the diehard fanbase that this remake is necessary just yet. Protosevich revisited one particularly distressing reaction to the project. "A friend shared with me a comment from the Internet where the reaction was, 'Typical Hollywood bullsh*t! They’re exploiting an existing piece of art just to make money!' And I do take issue with that because I dare you to show me somebody who would watch that original film and afterwards go, 'We're gonna clean up on this!'"

Park's feature is as dark and twisted as they come, and Protosevich proudly proclaimed, "We're just as psychologically screwed up, believe me." He also noted, "We all came from a place of honor and respect to the original. I love the original, and I think it's one of the great moviegoing experiences I ever had, and all of us involved were very much inclined to treat the material with as much honor and respect as we can."

But of course, respecting the original doesn't mean copying the original nor should it, so Protosevich pointed out a few differences. "I think one of the things that is different in our script and one of the things that I most remember from the film was the period of incarceration. We actually spend a little more time there and we shot for a week straight on this set that was just a small little room and Josh going through various makeups and transformations that correspond to different periods."

He also noted, "There are certain things that we felt were iconic to the original and we were absolutely going to use them. There were other things that I think we perhaps felt were culturally alien to what will be a western audience." Protosevich added, "There are also I think moments in the original film that are sort of these really unusual, unique visual moments that I think really, in a lot of ways, belong to that movie and to try to recreate them, that didn't feel right."

Protosevich dished out one particularly appropriate analogy that could put this whole thing into prospective. "What Spike and I often talked about was the idea of cover versions. Like, I love Neil Young's 'Like a Hurricane,' but Roxy Music does a great cover of it and I'm happy that both those things exist." On the other hand, he also noted, "If you feel that way about it, that it shouldn't even exist, there's nothing I can say or we can do that is going to change that opinion probably, because that's a very sort of fundamentalist belief. I just hope that perhaps there's a part of people who are open to the experience."

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