Frickin' Eh Movie News 07.08.09: Rainy Day Edition

Posted by Matthew Motiuk on 07.08.2009

A Blade spin-off, Deadpool taking an interesting turn, the title of the new Resident Evil movie, and more!

All moved in, all settled, I've got a couch coming soon and everything is unpacked. Everything worked out in the end, thank goodness. It wasn't an easy move, and hopefully it'll be my last for a long time, but at least it's over now.

I finally saw Watchmen, and it was . . . interesting. I have no knowledge of the graphic novel, but this was a pretty good movie. Definitely different than any other superhero movie, and parts of it dragged on, but all in all, it was pretty good. I'll have to watch it again in the near future. And I want my parents to watch the opening sequence, I have a feeling I missed a couple references, but as I said, definitely worth seeing. But let's look to some more current news . . .


The Mid-Week Box Office Time Machine

Alright, so last weekend saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen take the top spot narrowly with $42.3 million. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs just fell short with $41.7 million. Public Enemies opened at third with $25.3 million. The Proposal dropped from second to fourth with $12.9 million. The Hangover went from third to fifth with another $11.3 million. Up dropped from fourth to sixth, My Sister's Keeper went from fifth to seventh, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 dropped a spot to eighth, and Year One dropped from sixth to ninth. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian rounded out the top ten with $2 million.

There are two openings this weekend. The first is I Love You, Beth Cooper, what looks to be a fairly cheesy teen flick whose only redeeming quality may be Hayden Panettiere. The other opener of the weekend is Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen's latest, and what looks to be an exact clone of Borat. Neither looks particularly original, but I could see Bruno making a run for the top spot. We'll see next week.


Norrington and Dorff Reteam for Blade Spin-Off

The Sunday Mail reports that Blade director Stephen Norrington and Stephen Dorff, who played villain Deacon Frost in the film, are working on a prequel trilogy.

"It will be a prequel to the 'Blade' movies, Deacon's story," Dorff said, "It's a new trilogy the director has created. It will cool.

"We hope to shoot the first film next year. Frost is a character I have never been able to shake."

The original Blade, which starred Wesley Snipes, earned $131.2 million at the worldwide box office and was followed by two sequels. Norrington hasn't directed a film since 2003's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

I actually have never watched any of the Blade movies yet, even though I have had the intention to for a very long time. Maybe that's what I'll go rent and watch this week. But anyway, a prequel maybe isn't that bad of an idea. Losing Snipes is a risky move, considering he was the face of the Blade movies, but if they play it right, come up with a solid story, and execute it nicely, then I don't see this failing. Norrington's a good director and should be able to pull this one off. We'll just have to see, though.


T.J. Hooker Movie in the Works

"T.J. Hooker" is headed for the big screen as an action comedy with David Foster, Ryan Heppe and series creator Rick Husky producing, reports Variety.

Chuck Russell (The Scorpion King, The Mask) is in talks to direct. The writing team of Brent Maddock and S.S. Wilson will script the story, which focuses on the relationship between the title character and his father.

The TV series, produced by Aaron Spelling, debuted in 1982 on ABC and ran for five seasons, the last on CBS. William Shatner starred as a no-nonsense patrol sergeant, with Adrian Zmed, Heather Locklear, Richard Herd and James Darren as co-stars.

Ah yes, yet another old, forgotten television show being revived for the big screen. This is getting a tad old, I think. This is one they could just as easily leave dead as anything else.


Deadpool Will Be Chatting With the Audience

Empire chatted with Ryan Reynolds and asked him an interesting question about the upcoming "X-Men" spin-off, Deadpool, in which he'll reprise his role from the "Wolverine" movie.

Reynolds says Deadpool will breach the fourth wall: "Break the fourth wall? Oh yeah, he's got to. I want to see him break the Great Wall"... "The studio's working on a script and trying to find a director. The main goal is to make sure it stays close to the source material."

A release date has not yet been set for the film.

Interesting choice. As I always reiterate, I have no first-hand knowledge of the comics, so I don't know if he did this in the comics or not, but it just seems like a bad idea. I watched the show Better Off Ted, in which Ted addresses the audience, and it just seems hacky. I can see maybe how they could pull it off in a superhero movie, but I don't know, it has to be done exactly right, and I just don't know if they can hit it right. This is definitely the one detail that might hurt this movie, at least for me.


View-Master Movie? You Bet

"Fringe" co-producer/writer Brad Caleb Kane will be writing a movie based on the View-Master toy, which first came on the market in 1939.

He announced on his Twitter account that after he's done penning the sci-fi action-adventure Uprising for director Wolfgang Petersen and Columbia Pictures, he will take on the project for DreamWorks Pictures.

Kane says Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci ("Fringe," Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Star Trek) are behind the film and that it will be "like the old 80's Amblin movies: Goonies, Young Sherlock... In that vein."

As far as ridiculously stupid ideas for movies go, this is definitely up there. I mean, the View-Master? Really? I remember them. They were the things that you used to tell a story, not to tell a story about. Now granted, they have done some remarkable things for some absolutely ridiculous ideas, but the recent flood of sheer stupidity is getting taxing. Facebook, a text message, Battleship . . . can somebody just come up with a real idea on their own soon?


Next Resident Evil Coming in 2010

ShockTillYouDrop.com reports that Sony's Screen Gems is eyeing a September 17, 2010 release for the fourth "Resident Evil" installment, to be titled Resident Evil: Afterlife. The ending of the third film,Resident Evil: Extinction, left the door wide open for another sequel.

Paul W.S. Anderson revealed late last year he was indeed writing the next film.

As hinted at the end of "Extinction," the story will shift to Tokyo, Japan.

Sweet. I've got no problem with extending the Resident Evil franchise, I liked all three of the originals and there's plenty of room for a fourth one. Each movie continually evolves past the last, and hopefully this one continues the trend. It should, considering the shift to Japan and the fact that the fight will probably be taken directly within Umbrella. I'm looking forward to this already.


Baywatch Turning Into a Comedy

Paramount Pictures has set Jeremy Garelick to rewrite and direct Baywatch, a big screen comedy based on the syndicated series about lifeguards who patrol a beach in California, says Variety.

The film marks Garelick's directing debut. The writer, who most recently did an uncredited rewrite of The Hangover with Todd Phillips, has written Murray at Large for Phillips to produce and possibly direct at Warner Bros., and also scripted The Insane Laws at Columbia

DreamWorks bought the remake rights in 2005 and got a script by Jay Scherick and David Ronn that was heavy on action. Though he never saw the original TV show, Garelick saw an opportunity to turn it into broad comedy.

"It felt like the template to do a movie that was similar to 'Stripes' and 'Police Academy,' the comedies I loved growing up," Garelick said.

The script now focuses on two unlikely lifeguard candidates trying to catch on alongside the buff bodies that will be as abundant in the film as they were in the TV series.

You know, this doesn't sound like that bad of an idea. Especially the part of distancing himself from the original. That's probably for the best if they want this to turn out okay. It's also not going to be a straight-up spoof this way, either. This might be alright.


Clooney Taking On Jack Ryan?

The Daily Beast's Kim Masters revealed this bit in her article about George Clooney's move to Sony Pictures:

Clooney also appears to be looking for his next commercial opportunity now that the Ocean's franchise seems to be played out. A source says he expressed interest in playing Jack Ryan when and if Paramount attempts to revive the Tom Clancy series. Clooney seems to recognize that at this time in the world and this time in his life (he's pushing 50), it's time for some commercial maintenance.

Alec Baldwin originated Ryan in 1990's The Hunt for Red October. Harrison Ford played the character in 1992's Patriot Games and 1994's Clear and Present Danger. Ben Affleck played Ryan in 2002'sThe Sum of All Fears.

Well, this is far from conclusive, and even if Clooney is expressing interest in the role, that doesn't mean the studio is looking to restart the franchise. As much as I like Clooney and think he'd make a decent enough Ryan, why would they backpedal after making a much younger Ryan in the last movie? Too much of this seems like what-ifs and speculation, and I wouldn't be holding my breath on any of it.


Harry Potter's Advance Sales Beat Transformers

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, opens next week on Wednesday, July 15, but the film already represents 61% of daily ticket sales on Fandango.

Advance ticket sales for the new Potter movie are outpacing advance sales for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and the fifth Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, at the same point in those films' sales cycles (eight days before release date).

"Harry continues to be 'The Chosen One', especially among movie fans," says Rick Butler, Chief Operating Officer for Fandango. "'The Half-Blood Prince' is turning out to be one of our fastest-selling titles of the year, and has consistently been a top-seller ever since tickets went on sale on June 17."

I'm actually surprised by this, I wouldn't think Harry Potter would be that hot of a seller. It's a big franchise, but Transformers 2 was huge and had a lot of buzz, whereas I don't see a lot of buzz around this one. Obviously there is some, but it's still surprising. This is set to be a pretty big one, obviously.


Rapid-Fire: xXx (2002, starring Vin Diesel, Asia Argento, Marton Csokas)

Another cheap bin pick this week, but unlike my usual picks, this is one that probably belongs in the cheap bin. I present:

This is a straight up action movie, built solely for that purpose, along with selling Vin Diesel, of course. And that it does. It's action and intrigue, over the top and cheesy, and with Diesel right at the centre of it all. The problem with the movie is that it just feels kind of cheap all around. As the movie progresses it feels like a knockoff of other movies, and the plot gets more and more ridiculous as things go on. The entire movie seems like an excuse to combine extreme sports and action, and throw in some heavy metal along the way.

That said, if you're going to take it at that, both the action and the extreme sports are there, and there are some decent scenes and sequences. Some nice explosions, too, and overall it kind of fits together to make a decent enough movie, as long as you're only looking at it in itself. I haven't seen this movie in years (probably since it first came out) and it fell short of what I remembered, but the action doesn't disappoint. Over the top at parts, yes, but it's still decent enough action.

As far as the acting goes, this is one of Vin Diesel's less prestigious roles. While there's nothing really wrong about it, he plays virtually the same character far better in other movies, and as with everything else with the movie, the longer the movie goes on, the sillier and more frayed his character gets. Argento plays the sex interest alright, although she's not the stunning beauty you might expect in a film like this, and her performance leaves you wanting more. Csokas as Yorgi is a decent enough villain and looks the part for sure, and while he's nothing original, he isn't bad by any means. Samuel L. Jackson as Agent Gibbons is the shining star of the movie, the only truly good role that is acted very well and stays the same throughout. Everyone else is just background noise; it's the main four that draw the attention and keep it.

Overall, this is a weak movie, even as far as cheesy action movies go. I think one of the problems is that Vin Diesel is too serious sometimes. This could have been a Shoot ‘Em Up type of movie that parodied the action genre while still being an awesome action movie in itself; instead this is a weak attempt at a grittier James Bond or something of the sort, and it just doesn't work. It has its moments, but they're just too far and few between.


Closing Time . . .

Maybe it's the sudden lack of stress now that I'm finished moving and everything, but I haven't felt well rested all week, which is beyond frustrating, especially working nights. Hopefully I'll fall back into a good schedule soon. So until next week . . .


[All news, images, and other stuff from www.comingsoon.net, www.imdb.com, www.rottentomatoes.com and www.youtube.com.]