Frickin' Eh Movie News 11.18.09: End of the World Edition

Posted by Matthew Motiuk on 11.18.2009

Discussion on where Rambo V might be headed, new video game adaptation rumors, the unfortunate rise of a New Moon, MGM just can't get a break and 2012 ranting, plus more!

I went and saw 2012 this weekend with the guys I work with. The tagline for this movie really should have just been the word "epic" because that's exactly what it was. You go in expecting the world to get destroyed and that is exactly what happens, only this time it's literally the entire world, and it's nonstop destruction. There literally were no slow points; destruction followed a brief running, then more destruction, and on and on. It's a long movie, that's for sure, but you don't even notice it, there's just so much going on and it's done so well. If you want a realistic hypothetical telling of what the end of the world is going to be, then this is going to be it. Absolutely. Even possibly the worst last line of any movie ever can't stop this one from being great. I strongly disagree with *ahem* certain reviews and encourage you to see this one if you like spectacle. Emmerich is back at his best, and it's glorious. But on that note, let's jump right into the box office and news . . .


The Mid-Week Box Office Time Machine

Alright folks, so the end of the world proved profitable, as 2012 topped the box office with a very impressive $65 million, especially when you compare it to the last couple of weeks. In second place, Disney's A Christmas Carol fell from the top, making $22.3 million in its second week. The Men Who Stare At Goats remained at three with $6.2 million. Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire rose from obscurity (or, more specifically, twelfth) to fourth with $6.1 million. Honestly never even heard of this one. Michael Jackson's This Is It continued to decline from second to fifth with $5.1 million. The Fourth Kind fell from fourth to sixth, Couples Retreat remained at seven, Paranormal Activity fell from fifth to eighth, Law Abiding Citizen dropped a spot to nine, and The Box fell from sixth to tenth with $3.2 million.

Three openers this weekend. The first is Blind Side, a sports movie starring Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw. Secondly, Planet 51 opens, an animated kids movie with a pretty impressive voice cast behind it. And finally, the movie everyone loves to hate, The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Gag me with a spoon. This will be sure to top the charts, unfortunately; do not underestimate the power of teen (or tween, or whatever they're calling them nowadays) girls.


Twilight Proves Again It's Better to Appeal to Teen Girls Than Make a Good Movie

With five more days before its November 20 release date, The Twilight Saga: New Moon has already leaped over previous record-holders to become the top-selling pre-release title in Fandango's ten-year history. The new record forFandango's fastest-selling film was set on Saturday night, November 14, shortly after 8:00 p.m.

The Top 5 Advance Ticket-Sellers on Fandango (as of November 15, 2009) are now as follows:

1. The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)
2. Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith (2005)
3. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
4. The Dark Knight (2008)
5. Twilight (2008)

The latest chapter of "The Twilight Saga" is currently wolfing down 86% of weekly ticket sales on Fandango.

Thousands of Thursday night midnight showtimes for "New Moon" are already sold out across the country, from Albany, Georgia to Yuba City, California. Yet "New Moon" tickets continue to be available. To meet the fan demand, the nation's top theater owners are regularly posting brand new showtimes on additional screens.

"For many fans, it's clearly the year's most anticipated film event," says Fandango Chief Operating Officer Rick Butler. "Ever since tickets went on sale on August 31, it's been among our top five weekly ticket-sellers, as 'New Moon' has a strong pull on audiences. We're seeing a higher-than-usual number of tickets per transaction for this film, suggesting that moviegoers will show up en masse at theaters this weekend with their friends and family."

I feel sick, thinking that this is how the world works, but sadly, it is. I mean, selling out? That's just not right. And to beat The Dark Knight and Star Wars . . . makes me die a little inside.


Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania Movies On the Way?

ComingSoon.net's ShockTillYouDrop.com is on the Toronto set of Resident Evil: Afterlife where producer Jeremy Bolt told them this morning that Paul W.S. Anderson is still circling video game adaptation Castlevania at Rogue Pictures and that they are waiting on a script. This summer, James Wan was attached to direct the movie based on the Konami game, but his involvement is unknown now.

Bolt added that he and Anderson would like to adapt Konami's Metal Gear Solid for the big screen at Columbia Pictures.

Anderson is obviously a very good director, and he's done wonders with the Resident Evil franchise (it's a rare skill to keep movies getting consistently better and fresh in a series). I think his hand would lend well to Castlevania, maybe. What I don't see is him doing Metal Gear Solid. That's a very different movie that would benefit from a different kind of director, I think. But nothing is for certain, this is just what they want to do; we'll have to see in the coming months what anybody has to say about these.


Rambo V Veering Off Course? Or Back On Course?

Fast forward to today and Sylvester Stallone has now told StalloneZone that they've changed their minds about Rambo V:

I'm letting you know that Rambo has changed course and the story about hunting the man/beast will be done using another character in the lead. RAMBO himself will be heading over the border to a violent city where many young women have vanished.

There will be blood.

The interesting thing is that that's the storyline the trades originally reported the project was going to go with. It was in August when the trades said the "storyline for the fifth film revolves around Rambo fighting his way through human traffickers and drug lords to rescue a young girl abducted near the U.S.-Mexico border."

. . . What? So the movie is going to be two plots, with Rambo basically taking the backburner? How does that even make sense. Maybe I misunderstand what he's saying here. The story for Rambo, hunting the young women in Mexico, is something different (well, for Rambo) so hopefully they can keep it fresh, but I'm thoroughly confused and worried about this potential branching off, assuming I'm reading this right. Well, we'll have to wait and see what the official word is, I guess.


New Silent Hill Coming Soon?

Silent Hill special makeup effects designer Paul Jones gave ShockTillYouDrop.com an update about the sequel today on the Toronto set for Resident Evil: Afterlife.

"I was working on storyboards for that around the same time last year," Jones revealed. "It's going to be pretty crazy. There's a lot of cool stuff in there. Roger (Avary) has some awesome ideas and hopefully we're going to bring that to fruition sometime next year."

He would not comment on whether the script was complete, but he said that with a smile.

The first film, released in 2006, was directed by Christophe Gans and earned $97.6 million worldwide.

I don't honestly remember anything about this movie when it came out, besides the fact that I never watched it, and I've never played the games, so it hasn't really crossed my path in any way. However, I don't think it received all that good of a welcome, so bringing in a second one is a bit of a strange move. But we'll just have to see where this one goes, too.


MGM Might Be Up For Sale

On Thursday, it was reported that MGM may be auctioned off within the next few weeks, and now the studio has confirmed a possible sale in an official statement:

MGM said today its lenders have agreed to extend the forbearance until January 31, 2010. The lenders took this action in support of the Company's ongoing efforts to develop and evaluate long-term strategic alternatives to maximize value for its stakeholders. MGM appreciates the continued support of its lender group for the process it is undertaking. MGM also said today it is beginning a process to explore various strategic alternatives including operating as a standalone entity, forming strategic partnerships and evaluating a potential sale of the Company.

It looks like we'll know soon what will happen to properties such as James Bond and the Hobbit films.

This sounds like a very complex and multi-layered business that somebody on the outside (like me) doesn't have a hope in hell of understanding. From what I understand: they might sell off MGM to somebody, who will either absorb it into their existing movie studio (assuming a studio has that kind of dough) or operate it on their own, hoping to turn a profit. The latter seems somewhat more likely to me but again, I'm on the outside here.


Golden Globes Opens Up Five Animated Movies

There will be five contenders for the Best Animated Feature category when the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards nominations are announced at 5am (PT) on Tuesday morning, December 15, it was announced today by Philip Berk, President of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association voted last week to expand this year's number of nominations for Best Animated Feature to five.

The amended rule now reads: "Eligible films must be feature-length (70 minutes or longer) with no more than 25% live action. If less than eight animated films qualify, the award will not be given, in which case the films would be eligible for Best Picture. If less than twelve animated films qualify, the category will be limited to three nominations per year."

"The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards," hosted by Ricky Gervais, will be broadcast live coast to coast Sunday, January 17 on NBC (5 to 8 pm PT, 8 to 11 pm ET) from The Beverly Hilton.

I suppose this shouldn't be surprising, considering the increasing quantity of animated movies with the advent of new digital technologies. Although the animated film category was never really one of the more prestigious ones, so I'm not entirely sure of the real purpose here. We'll just have to see if it has any real effect come January.


Disney Stops Captain Nemo, McG Jumps Ship

Variety reports that Walt Disney Pictures has halted Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Production was tentatively scheduled to begin in February, but director McG is no longer on board.

Disney's next big water-based shoot will likely be Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, with filming expected to start in May under the direction of Rob Marshall. Johnny Depp is returning as Captain Jack Sparrow.

McG will concentrate on other projects that include Dead Spy Running, a Warner Bros. drama that Stephen Gaghan is writing.

This bit seems as more of a plug for Pirates than anything else. McG should have his hands full, between this and (hopefully) another Terminator movie on the horizon. Plus, him at the hands of a Disney movie seems strange. I'd rather have fresh ideas out there than constantly rehashing old works, anyway.


Cox Talks Scream

Courteney Cox hinted to The Associated Press what the setting might be for Scream 4. Cox reunites in the fourth installment with her real-life husband David Arquette and Neve Campbell, who plays the series' lead character, Sidney Prescott.

"There are really only a few of us that survived," Cox said, but she shrugged off rumors that her character, Gale Weathers, and Arquette's Dwight "Dewey" Riley will be killed off at the beginning of the film.

"They're probably back living in Woodsboro," Cox added, "I think that he's probably still deputy, and I've had a lot of kids. I don't know. I'm probably miserable, and then I'm sure a lot of murdering will happen."

It's interesting that she worded her quotes as if she doesn't know the plot, but with her signed on one would think she has some idea.

Kevin Williamson is currently working on the script. He told the New York Post recently that "there are a lot of twists and turns, so I can't promise anything. There are a lot of moving pieces, so we'll see -- but if you're a 'Scream' fan, I think you're really going to like it."

This bit seems far too speculative to me. It's very possible she has no idea what the movie is going to be; there's not exactly a whole lot going on right now for Cox, why wouldn't she pick up the role? As far as what she said, it seems completely her own opinion, because none of that sounds like what the new movie will be. But who knows? Maybe it is. Or maybe she's been instructed to throw everybody off the trail.


Profile: Curtiss Cook

I'm going to change things up this week and present you with the profile of a possibly unknown actor, Mr. Curtiss Cook.

Curtiss Cook grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and from elementary school started acting. He's kept it going from there, gracing television and movie screens in countless roles. He currently lives in New York.

Insofar as television goes, Cook has been in many shows; he guest starred in The Sopranos, Law and Order: Trial by Jury, Rescue Me, and Law and Order. His latest television credit has been as a guest star on the show The Good Wife, about a politician's wife who strikes out on her own as a defense attorney, while also maintaining her family. The show stars Julianna Margulies in the lead role. Cook appeared in the sixth episode of the first season; the show airs every Tuesday and has been extended to a full season.

Curtiss Cook has also had movie roles in the past, most notably a small role in The Interpreter and City Island. His upcoming roles include Breaking Point, also known as Order of Redemption, a crime drama set to be released in the United States on December 4; and most notably, he has a role in Shutter Island alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, being directed by Martin Scorsese. You can see him in this one on February 19, 2010.

Along the way, he's also found a side project in providing voices for some Grand Theft Auto; he is the voice of the street preacher in both GTA IV and Chinatown Wars.

Curtiss Cook is a talented and diverse supporting actor; check him out in some of these upcoming projects. Look at his IMDB page here if you want some more info.


Closing Time . . .

I know I have, in the past, bashed How I Met Your Mother, particularly the new direction the show has been taking steadily since the middle of the third season . . . but damn, do they know how to draw back in an audience. When last week's episode ended with Barney's re-entry, I got all tingly. So long as they bring him back in full form and start moving back toward what made the first and second seasons so good, they'll have a great show once again. Here's hoping I'm not disappointed anymore. Anyway, don't go see Twilight this weekend, and I will meet you all back here next week . . .


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