Frickin' Eh Movie News 2.24.10: Copyright Edition
Posted by Matthew Motiuk on 02.24.2010
What sequels could Bruce Willis be a part of? Who will play Blackbeard in the next Pirates film? Who has replaced Eddie Izzard in the next Narnia film? All this and more in the latest edition of the Frickin' Eh Movie News!
Everything is finally coming together and grinding down right to the wire at the end of the month here, which makes for a bit of a crazy final week. With moving, some school projects, and work all colliding together, it's going to be very interesting. But once it's over, and definitely in the coming weeks, it will all settle down and I'll have some time to breath. Until then . . .
The Mid-Week Box Office Time Machine
Last weekend's champion was the Scorsese-DiCaprio team with Shutter Island taking $40.2 million. Valentine's Day fell a spot to distant second with $17.2 million. Avatar actually rose a spot back up to three with another $16.1 million. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief fell from second to fourth with $15.3 million, and The Wolfman dropped two spots to fifth with $9.8 million. Dear John fell a spot to sixth, The Tooth Fairy fell a spot to seventh, while Crazy Heart rose a spot to eighth. From Paris With Love fell from seventh to ninth, and the top ten finished with Edge of Darkness dropping from eighth and making $2.2 million.
Two new openers this weekend. The first is The Crazies, a loose remake of a George Romero movie. This reimagining stars Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell. The second new movie is Cop Out. The latest from Kevin Smith, it follows two bumbling cops, played by Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan. This actually looks like it will be pretty funny. So take your pick if you're heading to the theatre this weekend.
DiCaprio Taking Prisoners
Leonardo DiCaprio is looking to play the lead role in Prisoners, a Warner Bros. Pictures suspense thriller that Antoine Fuqua was going to direct but has since dropped out of.
In the film, written by Aaron Guzikowski, a desperate father turns vigilante and abducts the man he suspects is behind the disappearance of his eight year old daughter and her best friend, after cops fail to find the little girls and release the suspect. The script made the most recent Black List of best unproduced screenplays.
Alcon Entertainment partners Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson are producing with Kira Davis and Adam Kohlbrenner.
DiCaprio can currently be seen in theaters in Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island and this July in Christopher Nolan's Inception. The actor is also narrating Hubble 3D, opening March 19th. He will likely take another project first before doing Prisoners.
Why is it that every second movie coming out nowadays is loosely a ripoff of Taken? I mean, seriously, that movie has taken the kidnapping-revenge story to an entirely new level. That said, I would love to see DiCaprio in a role like this – I think it would be very interesting to see him play this particular character. With a good director this could be a really fascinating film. Here's hoping it all turns out.
Avatar DVD News
UPDATE: Fox contacted us today saying that "Avatar" is not scheduled to be released on 3D Blu-ray in November. "3D is in the conceptual stage and 'Avatar' will not be out on 3D Blu-ray in November," the studio said. We'll let you know when they do expect it to be released in 3D.
James Cameron told The Wall Street Journal today that Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release the Blu-ray and "standard def" DVD for Avatar on Thursday, April 22, which is Earth Day.
"That's our plan as of right now, and that'll be pretty much bare bones," he said. "And then we'll do a value-added DVD and a 3-D Blu-ray in I think November sometime."
Cameron added that he hopes to do an Avatar sequel, but he wants to do it "cheaper and faster." He said the sequel will be "a continuation of the same characters. We're going to widen the universe in quotes, meaning the envelope of the setting of the story."
Cameron has previously said that they "have some story ideas for how to branch out into other moons of Polyphemus and the Alpha Centauri A solar system." Polyphemus, which is the primary for a system of moons, is the planet you see in Pandora's sky
Two points I do not agree with in this bit. The first is the idea of creating a bare bones release in April and saving all the good stuff for the 3D Blu-ray. This is going to piss of a lot of people, I imagine. If you want to see the movie in April but want all the special features, you have to buy it twice. And with 3D in its infancy, why force it on people? Of course I don't know what they mean by 3D Blu-ray, if it's a special setup or just an edition with glasses. We'll have to see. I would expect this just in time for Christmas to drive some sales. Secondly, Cameron seems like he's kind of half-assing a sequel here. Cheaper and faster is a good way to go to make profit, but not always to make a good movie. And when you're following something with the kind of acclaim that Avatar has gathered, I don't think you want to cut too many corners. But this is surely in its early stages; we'll see where it ends up in a while.
Nighy Replaces Izzard in Dawn Treader
In an interview with David Frost, "Pirates of the Caribbean" star Bill Nighy revealed that he's replaced Eddie Izzard as the voice of Reepicheep in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, scheduled to hit theaters on December 10. Izzard voiced the role in the second installment, "Prince Caspian."
I've always liked Nighy so it's good to see him take on a role like this. Even though I never like when original actors (or voice actors, in this case) are replaced, I think this is an alright switch, especially considering that it's not going to be a different physical actor, only the voice – and even then it will probably be pretty close. The bigger news is that The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is obviously moving forward, and that excites me a lot. I really did enjoy the first movie and the books, and while I haven't gotten around to watching the second yet, I will hopefully get to it soon. With all the uncertain news around this one, I'm glad to have some solid news.
Ian McShane Taking Up Blackbeard for Next Pirates
Ian McShane ("Deadwood") is in negotiations to play the villain Blackbeard in Walt Disney Pictures' Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, to be directed by Rob Marshall.
The Hollywood Reporter says McShane will play the legendary pirate--whose real name was Edward Teach--who piloted the ship Queen Anne's Revenge.
McShane will join Johnny Depp, reprising his role of Captain Jack Sparrow, and Penelope Cruz, Sparrow's foil and equal in many ways, in a story that revolves around the Fountain of Youth.
Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot wrote the script for the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is scheduled for a May 20, 2011 release.
Well, I've got nothing against this choice, that's for sure. McShane should be an excellent choice and make a great addition to an already good cast. I'm also excited to see how they work Cruz in as a foil of Sparrow. Hopefully they don't just make a female copy of him, I hate when they do that (Scrubs screwed that up a couple of times). I'm even more excited to see this now, as if I wasn't already.
Willis Talks Sequels
MTV talked to Cop Out star Bruce Willis over the weekend and asked him about some possible sequels that might be in his future.
Willis told them, "I think we're going to do a 'Die Hard 5' next year."
The fourth film was directed by Len Wiseman and earned $383.5 million in theaters worldwide in 2007. It was made for about $110 million.
So where does he see John McClane going this time? "It's got to go worldwide. That would be my contribution to it," he said, adding that he would like to see Wiseman return to the director's chair.
Willis also told the network that M. Night Shyamalan is still thinking about doing an Unbreakable 2. "I talked to [Shyamalan] over the holidays, and he is still thinking about doing the fight movie between me and Sam that we were gonna do," he said. "We chose to do the origin."
He says he's up for it as long as Samuel L. Jackson is.
First off, as many problems as I had with the last Die Hard, it was still a pretty entertaining film and I really don't see a reason for the series to end anytime soon. As long as they keep things going the same way, I think it'll be good. How it would work abroad would be a big question, though, and I'm not entirely sure I'd want to see it. McClane is an American hero, I'd like to see him stay in America. As for a new Unbreakable, my roommate just bought the movie and I'm going to try and sit down to watch it this weekend, but that's very exciting. And I'm with Bruce Willis on this one, if Samuel L. Jackson won't do it, it shouldn't be done. If he's all for it, and Shyamalan is on board, then I'd be excited to see this one.
Kevin James Join Vaughn in Ron Howard Comedy
Deadline Hollywood reports that Kevin James is joining Vince Vaughn in the untitled Ron Howard comedy at Universal Pictures.
According to the site, "Kevin and Vince will play best friends and business partners, and Vaughn is tortured when he observes his pal's wife getting intimate with another man in a restaurant. Should he tell?"
Howard will direct the film from a screenplay by Allan Loeb. Filming is scheduled to start in spring in Chicago.
Brian Grazer will produce with Vaughn. Imagine's Kim Roth is executive producer.
This should be a pretty good addition, both Vaughn and James are pretty funny, and with Ron Howard directing, this should be all in all a good time. Plus the story sounds good, too. You could play a lot of psychological torture with a subject like this. Wait for more news on this one in the future . . .
Shane Black Directing Doc Savage
Columbia Pictures has hired Shane Black (Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Lethal Weapon) to direct Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze who was originally published in American pulp magazines during the 1930s and 1940s.
Doc Savage was created by publisher Henry W. Ralston and editor John L. Nanovic at Street and Smith Publications, with additional material contributed by the series' main writer, Lester Dent.
Black will direct from a screenplay he is writing with Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry. Neal Moritz will produce through his Sony-based Original Film.
"Doc Savage is an icon, a character with limitless possibilities," said Columbia co-president Matt Tolmach, "We have had a great experience working with Neal to bring another classic character of the era, the Green Hornet, to a new generation of fans, and we think he and Shane make the ideal team to bring Doc Savage back to the big screen."
Ron Ely previously played Doc Savage in the 1975 Warner Bros. release, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze. That film was directed by Michael Anderson.
As with most subjects like this, I don't have any background knowledge of the story or history or anything, but it looks like an interesting topic to adapt for the present day. I am equally certain that it's a topic that nobody is really going to remember, so they're going to have to draw in some interest in another way, preferably with a strong lead actor. With Shane Black behind the wheel already they've got a good start, he's an amazingly talented director and he should be able to make this an excellent watch. We'll be hearing more on this one soon, I imagine.
Brooding: Rip! A Remix Manifesto
Thanks to the insanity of my life in recent weeks, yet again I did not have a chance to watch a new movie to provide a real Rapid-Fire. Instead of leaving it blank, though, I'm going to briefly talk about a documentary we were shown part of in my writing class, probably against my better judgment, because if my class is anything to judge by, my opinion on this matter is in the minority. That documentary is:
The point of the movie, and the claim being made, is essentially that all those silly copyright laws that make people money are archaic, useless, and should be immediately abandoned and tossed aside, to open the entire body of music and media to the public domain. The focus of the movie is about ‘remixes' although the better term would be mashups: artists like the featured one, Girl Talk, who take parts of different (copyrighted) songs and mix them to create something completely different. This is frowned upon by the people owning the songs, of course. The director then tries to shatter your conceptions of copyright and what should be public domain and allowable.
I have a lot of beefs with this film. Being a fairly conservative guy, I think that when someone puts a lot of time, money, and skill into making something, they should actually be paid for it. Maybe not to the extent to which they are paid, and maybe not in some cases (such as "Happy Birthday" which, as viewers of 30 Rock will know, cannot be sung on film without paying royalties), but people are entitled to their works.
While the movie is focusing on these mashups, the closest connection (at least that I saw) was to downloading music and media for free on the Internet, as previously done through Napster and now rising again through torrents and places like The Pirate Bay. There is a difference that I see, though. When downloading things, you are still paying credit to the original creator; when you download a song or artist or movie, you know it was them who created it. Personally, if I like something I download, I will buy it immediately, because if the creator did a good job they do deserve compensation for it. If it's shit that's a different story entirely.
Where the problem with mashups arises, for me, is that the people listening to these songs, and paying to hear these songs, credit the mashup artist (for the sake of this bit, Girl Talk) as the creator. The documentary itself makes the claim that these people are artists in their own right, with vast amounts of skill to create these mixes. Except anybody can make a mashup; my roommate has done them in the past, and I already have the software to do it myself. In the age of computers this is something anyone with a computer can do just as well or better than Girl Talk. The bigger issue for me is that the mashup artist is getting credit, when the people listening probably don't know that it's Freddy Mercury's voice, or Jimi Hendrix's guitar, or anything like that. And most of them will probably never give credit to them, will never buy a Queen CD, or anything like that.
My argument is flawed, and I obviously don't have the space here to try and flesh it out. Plus I'm sure you don't want to read it. Any argument in this field is filled with contradictions. My professor tried to link a copy of the film on our class website and was informed that he was breaking the National Film Board's copyright and would have to remove it or pay for a public copy. It is just an annoying idea that I felt like expanding on, plus it is a documentary. If you're interested in the subject, take a look at the film – as far as I know, you can view it for free on the National Film Board of Canada's website, and I'm sure there are other ways to get a free copy and break their copyright.
Closing Time . . .
I almost got to see Shutter Island this weekend but didn't, which was sad, because I'm really curious to see it. Cop Out would be my choice for this weekend if I made it, which is unlikely, with how much is going on. And then it's almost time for Alice in Wonderland - a thoroughly exciting event for me. But anyway, until next week . . .
