The Hush-Hush News Report 7.27.10: A Season For Change
Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 07.27.2010
News on Wolverine 2's director, Buffy slaying again on DVD, Daniel Craig's Dragon Tattoo, the Pixar/Muppet connection, Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson reuniting on film, Leon Kennedy in Resident Evil 5 and more!
Welcome one and all to the Hush-Hush News Report! I'm your host Jeremy Thomas and this week we have a lot of great news to cover! I could have gone Comic-Con crazy, but instead I decided to leave that to the already-excellent coverage provided by my cohorts Steve Gustafson in the Big Screen Bulletin and Shawn Lealos in the 3R's! of course, I couldn't leave them all alone, but…well, let's just dive in, shall we?
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Matt Reeves ("Let Me In," "Cloverfield") and Tony Scott ("Deja Vu," "Top Gun") have emerged as the two major contenders to helm the upcoming "Wolverine" sequel reports The Playlist.
The pair have emerged over other talent who were approached such as Kathryn Bigelow ("The Hurt Locker"), Timur Bekmambetov ("Wanted") and Daniel Espinosa ("Snabba Cash")
"Wolverine 2" will be based on a story by Frank Miller and Chris Claremont and is set primarily in Japan. Shooting was to begin in January but will probably be delayed.
Well, they certainly could go with some worse choices. I'm not going to stand here and claim that everything Tony Scott has turned into gold, because it's flat-out not true. I disliked Deja Vu and I felt that The Taking of Pelham 123 was merely okay. And let's not even get into Domino. But he's also made some great films, especially when they touch on the dark side of human nature. If anyone disputes that I challenge them to watch Man on Fire. He also does action very well and that's something Gavin Hood could have understood a bit better. On the other hand Matt Reeves is an up-and-coming guy who scored but with Cloverfield and looks to be doing some great stuff with Let Me In. Honestly I'm not disappointed that the others are out. Bigelow is one of my favorite directors but comic books aren't her style, Timor would have done well but he's busy making other good stuff and I know little about Espinosa. If I had a choice between the two I would probably go with Reeves, who has JJ Abrams cred and may be the best choice to revive this dying franchise.
Daniel Craig Is Chasing The Dragon
ComingSoon.net has confirmed that Daniel Craig will star in David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, based on Stieg Larsson's posthumously published crime thriller trilogy, "The Millennium Series." The deal includes two sequels based on The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest.
Adapted by Steve Zaillian, "Dragon Tattoo" describes the mystery surrounding the long-unsolved disappearance of an heiress. Journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Craig), recently dinged by a libel case, and young female hacker Lisbeth Salander try to resolve it, stirring up bundles of personal and industrial corruption along the way. The role of Salander has not been cast yet, though IndieWire and Showbiz 411 report that the more well-known contenders like Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Ellen Page, Mia Wasikowska, Keira Knightley and Anne Hathaway are no longer in the running. The current rumored contenders on the short list are Rooney Mara (A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Social Network), Emily Browning (Ghost Ship, Sucker Punch), Sophie Lowe (Blessed, Beautiful Kate), Lea Seydoux (Inglorious Basterds, Robin Hood) and Sarah Snook (the Australian medical drama All Saints).
Scott Rudin is producing "Dragon Tattoo," which Columbia Pictures will release on December 21, 2011.
Director Niels Arden Oplev's Swedish adaptation of the book, starring Noomi Rapace, has earned an impressive $101.7 million worldwide. The follow-up, The Girl Who Played with Fire, has taken in $54 million so far. The third installment, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, has not been released here yet.
Craig is currently filming Jon Favreau's Cowboys & Aliens.
Color me happy. Daniel Craig is an excellent choice to play Mikael, who was exceptionally played by Michael Nyqvist in the original. He has the look and he can handle the gravitas that is needed for the character to be a balance to the fiery and unbalanced Lisbeth. Plus, David Fincher directing Daniel Craig is a win in my book. On the other hand, I'm very unsure about the potential Lisbeths. This is going to be an extremely difficult role for whatever actress takes it on, not only because they are following up an instant classic performance in Noomi Rapace but because the role is a difficult one period. Based on what I've seen of her, I'm definitely opposed to Rooney Mara who sleepwalked (pun intended) through the Elm Street reboot. But if Fincher can pull good work out of her for The Social Network I might change my tune. Emily Browning has shown potential but never lived up to it; I know very little of Sophie Lowe or Sarah Snook and I only remember Lea Seydoux from her memorable moment with Prince John in bed. I have confidence in Fincher, but these potentials are not ones I am particularly excited over the way I would have been with Carey Mulligan.
What's After the Afterlife? Leon Kennedy, It Seems
When Shock Till You Drop spoke to Paul W.S. Anderson at Comic-Con a year ago, and broke the news to us that he'd be helming Resident Evil: Afterlife in 3D, he hinted that the fourth entry would kick off a new trilogy. Later, we caught up to Anderson and producer Jeremy Bolt on set and they remained hopeful that a fifth film was possible.
Do those plans still hold? Shock interviewed Anderson this afternoon, in anticipation of the big Resident Evil: Afterlife Comic-Con panel, and the director told us:
"We always take it one movie at a time. We put so much effort into them and it is a family affair. It is all about making the best possible movie now and then promoting well and getting it out there. Making sure it is seen in the right way. When the dust settles then you think about something else. For us, it is not a business, it is a passion. You don't want to start talking about the next baby until you make sure this one is okay."
While no official plans for a fifth film are underway, Anderson said he would like Leon Kennedy to make an appearance in the next installment. Leon was considered to be in Afterlife, according to Anderson, but the filmmaker opted not to include him due to story concerns.
As for Castlevania, a project Anderson has been involved with for some time, he says he is not involved in that anymore.
I will admit that I didn't follow the Resident Evil games after Resident Evil 2 or so. I just lost track; I'm not a console gamer, what can I say? I did play about ten minutes of RE5 for the PC and didn't like it. But I have followed the movies, and I need to say it: enough is enough. Resident Evil: Afterlife looks so far removed from the original film that it doesn't even look like the same franchise outside of Milla. And listen, I enjoyed Extinction. I even appreciated the goofy video game-ness of Apocalypse. But as much as people might want to see Leon Kennedy on the big screen, I don't think a fifth film will be worthwhile. As for the other bit of news here, I'm glad to see Castlevania is dead, or at least stuck semi-permanently in development hell. It's a good game but not ever game needs to be a movie and this would just hop on the vampire craze in film. No thank you.
Pixar Learns It's Not Easy Being Green
Key talent involved in Disney's upcoming live-action "The Muppets" movie visited Pixar headquarters this week to seek their help on the film says The Hollywood Reporter.
Key Pixar staffers John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Michael Arndt, Bob Peterson and president Ed Catmull were apparently there for the consultations with what is likely to be "Muppets" director James Bobin, producers David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman, and writer Jason Segel
The move is seen as Disney making use of its partnership with Pixar and drawing on the animation studio's expertise.
A few months ago Pixar helped shape up reshoots for Disney's upcoming sci-fi tentpole "Tron Legacy." The difference here is 'Muppets' has yet to be greenlit so the day-long meeting was to stem potential issues before they emerge.
I will admit that I smiled when I first heard they were bringing the Muppets back to the big screen. And if Pixar is involved…well, this is news for all Kermit fans to get excited over. If anyone can inject the right level of life and childhood glee into the Muppets these days, it's John Lasseter and the people at Pixar who haven't let us down yet. Obviously they're still in the very early stages, but I'm happy to hear this kind of thing. My only question—and this is, I feel, a legitimate concern—is whether they're going the animated route. Pixar has been branching out of animation slowly, and puppets would be a good start, but the studio's strengths are obviously in a CGI world. This will be a challenge for both the film makers and the studio, and I hope (and think) both are up to the challenge.
Sheriff Earl McGraw Moves To A Red State
Kevin Smith of Clerks, Chasing Amy and the recent Cop Out is switching gears for a horror film entitled Red State.
The exact plot is unknown and Smith has had a difficult time getting financing off the ground--largely due to the fact that the story is a political hotplate loosely inspired by the Westboro Baptist Church--but principal photography is starting very soon. Smith announced to Comic-Con attendees during a panel over the weekend the first actor to join the cast, Michael Parks. Parks is a cinema vet who leaped into pop culture territory when he was cast in Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn and has appeared in other Rodriguez/Tarantino productions.
Red State has a $20 million budget and Smith has said he is shooting to debut it at Sundance in January of next year.
I've been waiting to hear about Red State for a while now, like many people. I desperately want to see Kevin Smith stretch his boundaries, and horror is a good first step. Obviously, this is going to be a highly controversial piece, but some of his best films have been so I have no problem with that. Frankly, about anything Smith could do would be an improvement over Cop Out. (And before you complain Mr. Smith, I paid to see it so I can say that by your criteria.) Casting Michael Parks as the (presumably) the villain is brilliant. The guy has the age to play a Fred Phelps-type and the menace to be pretty great in the role; plus his character Earl McGraw from the Tarantino and Rodriguez films has made him recognizable enough to work as a memorable and bankable villain. Frankly, this film will bomb because of the political nature, but it could well be a great film from Smith and I'm looking forward to it.
Johansson Succumbs To Gravity
Scarlett Johansson has "verbally agreed" to star in Alfonso Cuaron's sci-fi epic "Gravity" for Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures reports The NY Daily News.
Set during an orbital repair mission, the story follows a male (Robert Downey Jr.) and female astronaut (Johansson) who are outside when debris from an exploded satellite threatens the rest of the crew.
Originally developed at Universal, Angelina Jolie was recently attached to star in the female role but left around the same time Universal passed on the project.
Cuaron ("Children of Men," "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) will direct and co-wrote the script with his son Jonas. Filming kicks off shortly in London.
Any film pairing Downey and Johansson together again gets me interested. When it's an Alfonso Cuaron film I just get that much more enthused. I've spoken before about my interest with this film and this is certainly positive news in my book. Johansson always brings the goods, but it's been a while since she's had a major film to carry largely on her own. This will be her chance since Downey's role is the smaller of the two. I have every confidence in the people involved and early news is definitely coming out well, including a bit about an extended opening sequence that would require a lot of photorealistic CGI. This sounds like one to look forward to and I am definitely in that boat.
Slayer Strips Go To DVD
Buffy the Vampire Slayer's eighth season is unfolding at iTunes.com. You'll find the first episode there now. New episodes will be available every week from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
A continuation of Joss Whedon's hallowed shows and based on the award-winning comic book series by Dark Horse Comics, the gripping saga of the vampire-killing legend picks up where the television series ended: thousands of slayers around the world have been activated, Sunnydale has been blown up and Buffy has relocated to Scotland. The iTunes episodes are available for $.99/$1.99 HD each, or with a season pass for $14.99/$29.99 HD.
All 19 episodes will make their official debut on DVD January 4, 2011 which will include limited edition Jo Chen packaging and a collectible reprint of Dark Horse Comic's first book in the series. The trailer for the series was shown at Comic-Con.
If you know anything about me on this site, you know I am a hardcore Whedonite. I love the Buffyverse and have followed both Buffy Season 8 and Angel: After the Fall in their canonical comic book continuations of the series. I very much enjoyed both, and felt that the comic format allowed Joss the creativity that he needed to fully realize his visions. That being said, I have some reservations about this. I've heard the preview and suffice it to say, the original cast is not back to voice them. The guy voicing Xander is fine but I'm not sure about the girl voicing Buffy; call me crazy but it's just not Sarah Michelle Gellar and thus it doesn't sound like Buffy. I'll still get it because I enjoy motion comics, but I'm not totally sold on this. It's not the "real season eight" fans have been wanting, but it's at least as close as we can get.
From The Great Capt. Smooth:
I just don't want Bacon playing his character from Footloose...as a villainous Dazzler. It would have a great soundtrack though.
And once again, you never fail to make me laugh with your comments, Smooth. Actually, that would be pretty bad-ass. Although personally, I say that if they don't do Sinister or Shaw, they should do Arcade. Bacon in a bow tie = WIN!
From jaked:
I think we're all better off forgetting they even made Ghost Rider and move onto some Marvel movies that will actually be "good"
What, like the fourth try at the Punisher? Yeah, no thanks.
From D White:
The Town looks amazing
It actually does. I have always liked Affleck more than the average bear, but I never thought he would be a great director. I loved Gone Baby Gone and this one has serious potential. Who would have thunk it?
From Guest#0199:
Given the fact that McCoy is pretty short in real life, I'm saying he'll be used on screen.
I love the idea that you can just sit down and watch all the episodes of Doctor Who. It would take you years to do that, man. Even longer if they had everything to put on DVD.
I'm shooting for far less than years. See below!
So, I mentioned last week that I was beginning a Doctor Who project, and it even got a comment (see above). With that being the case, I thought it was time to introduce a new segment to the Hush-Hush News Report. Thus, brought to you by the TARDIS, I proudly present:
Current Doctor
Current Series/Season: Season 2 (1964-1965) Episodes Watched: 36 Last Serial Completed:The Dalek Invasion of Earth - The First Doctor and his companions end up on Earth in the year 2164, when their old foes the Daleks have conquered and now rule with the aid of their "Robomen" slaves. As the group tries to stop the Daleks' master plan, Susan finds herself drawn toward one of the members of the human resistance, an act which may change the TARDIS's crew forever. Surviving Episodes Remaining: 625
The Hush-Hush Editorial Section: A Season For Change
So this morning at work, I was talking with some of my friends on my team about television series. When you work at Netflix, this is, not surprisingly, a common thing. And since I have been watching Doctor Who, we got on the topic of British television. Along the way it turned into a discussion of the BBC's generally short seasons, something I have noticed both from shows like Robin Hood and others like Being Human, which I just started watching this week. It got me thinking about how much that plays a factor into the quality of BBC shows versus our own stateside, and whether a shortened season would be good for us.
In America, it seems as if the twenty-two episode season is pretty standard. Outside of shows like 24 (for obvious reasons), mid-season replacements, early cancellations or strike-shorted seasons, it seems to be the measuring stick. It allows the studios to have a series that runs for the majority of the year with some time for breaks, some repeats and then of course the summer off-season. Most shows run that twenty-two episodes long and you can count on it. But is it really good for TV?
One doesn't need to look across the Atlantic to see that in many cases, it is shorter season shows that end up being greater quality. HBO and Showtime regularly run thirteen episode seasons. Both Dexter and True Blood currently run that long, as well as Starz's shows. Hung, which was an HBO hit, ran for a mere ten episodes. Entourage runs a shorter season as well. One has to wonder if this makes for a better show, since all of these networks tend to have better success with their shows than the basic networks. Is it truly the season length, or other factors?
I think, at the very least, it is a major part of it. With a thirteen episode season, the writers are able to not wear themselves out creatively. It also allows a greater budget per episode for effects, casting, production values and the like. More importantly, there is no need for "filler" episodes. Every show in a major network season has had them. They generally are the downfall of a show, as too many can lead to the show gaining a reputation for not being "must-see." Dare any True Blood fan miss an episode? Do people who like Dexter ever say "yeah, I missed the last episode but no big deal." They don't because every episode is used to its maximum potential and that makes all of them must-see.
I think that the networks would be well-suited to switch things up and follow the example that premium cable, British television and even some basic cable shows have done. A thirteen episode season would allow for two separate seasons: late January to April and September to December. There would still be ample opportunity for the summer "down time" and it would give more shows an opportunity to succeed. It would be less of a financial risk and for those shows that succeed, it would make the anticipation higher. One of the reasons that premium cable show returns are "events" has to do with the amount of time fans wait. They have it timed perfectly and build it up well. ABC, CBS, Fox and such could learn something from that.
Now, this won't happen. And it's not the networks' faults, so to speak—it's the way advertising revenue goes. Changing the way things like Sweeps Months work would never go down well and the sponsors don't like change. They hold the power. I can hold out hope though—and I do—that something like this will happen and the results will be highly positive. You have to admit, it would at least shake things up.
And that's all we have time for this week! Before I go, here's your Random Video of the Week: the premiere trailer for Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch. Fifty fanboy points if you can name all the obvious fanboy characteristics present in the trailer!
Until next week this is Jeremy Thomas, off the record, on the QT…
Thank you thank you THANK YOU for your article on television shows considering shorter seasons. I absolutely concur that shows would be higher quality and there would be more "must-see" tv if they tried to concentrate more quality in a shorter span. I can only hope that the network sponsors will figure this out sometime before the end of television as we know it (since more and more shows are debuting online first).
The only downside I see to the short seasons is when they only debut 6 or 7 episodes in their opening season (Hung, Eastbound and Down, etc). I feel like they need at least 10 episodes to develop characters you care about or a plotline that you wish to follow into another season.
I think all television would also benefit from less down time between seasons. Using the hard-to-follow LOST as an example, when shows take long breaks, viewers tend to forget smaller story arcs and plot points that travel season to season, which really makes the tv watching experience not as great. That's why tv on dvd and blu-ray is such a great thing. You can watch episodes and seasons back to back and I think that really helps catch the little things that make shows so great.
Anyway, thanks for your article. Great stuff.
Posted By: Nate (Guest) on July 27, 2010 at 02:00 AM
During that Sucker Punch trailer, the thing that really got my attention was the dragon. With How to Train Your Dragon doing great and if this goes well, not to mention the one in the final Potter, it wouldn't shock me to see dragons become the new vampires. Next thing you know, we may see a remake of Pete's Dragon. I'd probably pass on that...unless Pixar made it.
Posted By: The Great Capt. Smooth (Guest) on July 27, 2010 at 05:44 AM
I like Kevin Smith, but I wish someone would tell me why a movie about a Fred Phelps character is called "Red State". I (proudly) live in a red state, and we hate that douche-bag. In case Smith doesn't realize it, red states are very pro-military, and Phelps protests military funerals. Again, and I can't stress this enough...we detest him. Calling this film "Red State" is a total and unwarranted cheap shot. I thought the "Blue Staters" were supposed to be the "understanding" ones when it came to people disagreeing with their political views, but if Silent Bob can't even get this right, I doubt any type of civil debate of ideas could possibly work anymore. Let me be clear... Fred Phelps does not represent a political ideology, right or left... he is a mentally deficient pile of crap. It is that simple.
Posted By: WV4Life (Guest) on July 27, 2010 at 04:37 PM
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