Frickin' Eh Movie News 09.03.08: Labour Day Edition

Posted by Matthew Motiuk on 09.03.2008

At a new time, we've got a John Lennon biopic, a new Superman pitch, the Dark Knight breaks more records, and more!



Welcome to the new spot for the Frickin' Eh Movie News. I've been upgraded to the Wednesday spot here on 411mania.com. As you've probably noticed, I've also fashioned up a new banner for my new time slot – I like playing around with graphics, and it was a fun little project. For the moment, that's the only change, but we'll see what else comes up. So let's dive straight into the news.


The Mid-Week Box Office Time Machine

Alright, with this column in the middle of the week now, I am placed right between the two weekends, so I figure I might as well catch you up on both the past and future. So let's first take a look at the past week:

Tropic Thunder came out on top, followed closely by Babylon A.D. and The Dark Knight. The House Bunny and Traitor followed next. Disaster Movie opened at seven. I'm a little surprised Tropic Thunder held onto the top spot, but I wasn't entirely sure Vin Diesel would be able to top the charts anyway. Traitor did alright, and luckily Disaster Movie didn't climb very high. Now in the future:

It should be no surprise that Bangkok Dangerous will almost certainly take the top spot, considering it's the only movie opening, and Tropic Thunder will be several weeks old already. That's really the only thing on the horizon. So that's that.


Lennon Lives On

The story of John Lennon is headed for the big screen with Nowhere Boy, a biopic that will be directed by visual artist Sam Taylor-Wood, says The Hollywood Reporter.

Produced by U.K.'s Ecosse Films, the script from Control screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh will focus on the Beatle's childhood and subsequent journey to icon status. Filming is set to take place on location in Lennon's hometown on Liverpool.

Greenhalgh's script details the story of Lennon as a lonely teenager growing up as his aunt and the mother who gave him up fight for his love. His only escape is music, art and his fateful friendship with Paul McCartney.

The project is currently casting for the major roles.

Sounds good, and he's definitely deserving of a biopic. All of the Beatles are fascinating people, but Lennon is probably the biggest of them. Who will they get for the role, though? If I was to bet on this, I'd say a small British actor, not a big-name one. It just seems like the direction they'll go in. But we'll have to see, I suppose.


More Bastards

The Hollywood Reporter says that German star Til Schweiger (King Arthur, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life) has also landed a role in Quentin Tarantino's World War II movie Inglorious Bastards.

The Universal/Weinstein Co. feature revolves around a French girl's revenge on the Nazis and also follows a band of American Nazi killers. Both story lines eventually converge.

Diane Kruger will portray the part of a glamorous German actress who ends up helping the Nazi hunters infiltrate a movie premiere.

Schweiger will play a member of the Nazi killer team, headed by Brad Pitt's character, Lt. Aldo Raine.

Others in the cast include Christoph Waltz, Daniel Bruhl, Eli Roth, Mike Myers, Michael Fassbender, B.J. Novak, Samm Levine and Paul Rust.

The film starts shooting in Germany on October 13.

This is starting to build up quite the cast. It might not actually be that bad as long as Tarantino holds back on his love of blood and gore. Schweiger is a good fit for the film, and of course you need some sort of female, so Kruger is a good choice as well, although I'm not fully convinced of her acting abilities. The converging storylines should be interesting enough, as long as they're both treated equally and one doesn't fall apart halfway through or something. We'll just have to see, I guess.


The Dark Knight Continues On

While we await the four-day holiday weekend estimates on Monday, Warner Bros. Pictures revealed that The Dark Knight became only the second movie in Hollywood history to surpass the $500 million mark at the domestic box office on Sunday, bringing its total to $502.4 million. Titanic, the biggest blockbuster, remains in first on the domestic chart with $600.8 million.

Dan Fellman, head of distribution at Warner Bros., said he expects The Dark Knight to finish at about $530 million, though it could reach $550 million if business persists as strongly as it has.

The Christopher Nolan-directed sequel earned an estimated $19 million internationally from 62 markets this weekend. It has reached an international total of $416.7 million and $919.1 million worldwide, the 10th highest of all-time.

I am very pleased with this. I still want to see it beat Titanic, but I'm not a hundred percent sure that they'll do it. Hopefully. It's quite an achievement for everyone involved, though, and they've got huge shoes to fill with the next one. Until then, here's hoping they keep it going, people keep seeing it, and records keep breaking.


Passengers Trailer

ShockTillYouDrop.com has posted both the trailer and one-sheet for the Columbia Pictures thriller Passengers, opening in theaters on October 24.

In the film, Anne Hathaway plays a young therapist who is assigned by her mentor (Andre Braugher) to counsel five survivors of a plane crash. When they share their recollections of the incident – which some say include an explosion that the airline claims never happened – Claire is intrigued by Eric (Patrick Wilson), the most secretive of the passengers. Just as Claire's professional relationship with Eric – despite her better judgment – blossoms into a romance, the survivors begin to disappear mysteriously, one by one.

This looks fairly decent. I'm not sure if it would be worth paying for to see in the theatre, but it looks like an interesting idea that could turn out to be a pretty good movie. Take a look and see what you think for yourself.


Wanted Continues . . .

Mark Millar talked to Newsarama about Universal Pictures making a Wanted 2 and possibly Wanted 3.

The first film, based on Millar's graphic novel, was directed by Timur Bekmambetov and stars James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Terence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann, Common and Angelina Jolie. It has earned $258.3 million worldwide.

Millar says he was approached right after the premiere by producer Mark Platt about his thoughts on continuing the story:

"What I will be doing is providing them with a very small amount of stuff for a story, and that will be used as a basic story that they can build from. It will be a small outline that can possibly be picked apart and not used – but it will be something exclusively for the second film, and no one will ever really see it."

Given that the film version of the story differs from the comic book version in a number of ways (some quite substantial) Millar's outline will be set in the film's continuity, but will reach back to the comics. "It will be some of the stuff that we didn't utilize from the first book for the movie – like chapters three and four – there will be some stuff from that, so in the loosest sense it will be based on the book, but only very little," Millar said.

While I haven't seen Wanted yet, from what I've heard it's pretty good, so a sequel or two isn't that surprising. It's nice to see Millar's continuing involvement, although providing only bits and pieces seems a little strange. Continuing to use the original material is a good sign, though.


Rest in Peace Don LaFontaine

Donald LaFontaine, the voice actor famous for recording nearly 5,000 movie trailers, and nearly 350,000 commercials, programs, files and more, passed away on Monday, September 1st at the age of 68 because of complications from Pneumothorax. He was survived by his wife, singer and actress Nita Whitaker, and three children.

From his official website:

Over the past 25 years, LaFontaine cemented his position as the "King of Voice-overs." Aside from his continuing work in the trailer industry, he has also been the voice of NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and UPN, in addition to TNT, TBS and the Cartoon Network. By conservative estimates, he has voiced hundreds of thousands of television and radio spots, including commercials for Chevrolet, Pontiac, Ford, Budweiser, McDonalds, Coke, and many other corporate sponsors. At last count, he has worked on nearly 5000 films, including appearances as the in-show announcer for the Screen Actors Guild and Academy Awards. Based on contracts signed, he has the distinction of being perhaps the single busiest actor in the history of SAG.

Well, he will be deeply missed. He was an icon unto himself. It's amazing to think that he voiced 5000 movie trailers. Wow. That is a lot, not to mention all his work elsewhere. An icon has passed on, that much is for sure, and we'll miss him.


Millar Proposes a Superman Trilogy

Mark Millar (Wanted) talked to G4 about his proposed Superman movie project which has a mysterious American director attached. They pitched the idea to Warner Bros. Pictures and hope to get word over the next few weeks. If the studio decides to go with their version, they'd like to be shooting by next summer:

"I've had this plan for like 10 years for a big three-picture Superman thing, like a Lord of the Rings epic, starting over from scratch again with a seven-hour Superman story. One to be released each year." Millar said.

There's a video interview that you can watch here if you want. It's a bold idea he has, and he's definitely been giving it a lot of thought over the years. It might be the right time for it, considering the failure of the last Superman iteration, but at the same time, will they really be willing to go out on a limb like this again? It would be a huge investment they'd be putting into this, and the prospect of another epic Superman just after the last supposedly ‘epic' one might scare off the studio. It's all in Warner's hands, I guess.


Rapid-Fire: Spider-Man 2 (starring Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco)

Apparently Labour Day on Showtime means back to back movies, and now that my roommate actually lives in the apartment and has both TVs set up, we watched a couple movies on Labour Day, starting with Batman Begins, and followed by this one. So here we are:

If you've read my column in the past, you know I don't like Spider-Man very much – or at least the recent movie iterations – but I gave the second instalment another try, and was not very impressed. Or rather, it's just justification of my previous disdain for the series.

The problem here, in my mind at least, is that Spidey is a superhero. He shouldn't be some whiny teenager who pathetically pines after some woman. In a superhero movie, there should be mostly action, with some emotion thrown in there. Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are the perfect examples of that balance, and Spider-Man 2 is an example of what can go wrong.

The acting is abysmal, for the most part. Maguire is still one of my least favourite actors of all time, and he comes off whiny, annoying, and pathetic, which might be exactly what they were going for, but it is just plain annoying if you're trying to enjoy the movie. Dunst and Franco are passable, but nothing special. Molina is a bold choice to play the villain, and he's good in it, but he's weighed down by the rest of the movie. The only good characters are J. Jonah Jameson played by JK Simmons and the landlord, both of who are actually funny and have some good quips.

The movie is an overly emotional and dramatic movie that dwells far too much on the sappy parts and far too little on the parts and characters that could actually turn this into something worthwhile. I know my view of this movie is not the mainstream view, as far as I know, but that's just what I think. If you want some real action and a real superhero movie, look elsewhere.


Closing Time . . .

Well, that's it for my first Wednesday column. University starts up today, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes. Working and school will make things a bit busy around here, but I'll balance it. Alright, for everybody getting back to school, hopefully it's not too depressing realizing the summer is over already. Until next week . . .


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