Frickin' Eh Movie News 10.08.08: EAS Edition

Posted by Matthew Motiuk on 10.08.2008

A new Dracula, 300, and Indiana Jones, along with more Alice news, Sony shooting in 4K, and more!



I've discovered the new best place for me to write the bulk of this article: during my Earth and Atmospheric Sciences class, which is just so godawful boring that I can get a lot of work done. It's not so much boring as it's simply unnecessary to be there most of the time since the professor reads the slides word for word. However, I still go, and I'm now getting lots done during these lectures. In case you're curious or bored, today we're learning about culture and self-identity. Yes, it's thrill-a-minute action here.

But anyway, enough about that. I dragged my roommate into watching Zeitgeist the other day, not on purpose, really. He just kept passing through the room and getting drawn in, despite the fact he was trying to get a Physics project done. It's a very powerful movie that'll draw you in. Lots to think about. Which is why it happens to be my Rapid-Fire today. But you can find that later. For now . . .


The Mid-Week Box Office Time Machine

Alright, time to look forward and backward as always. The last weekend, to my incredible dismay and disappointment in the human race in general, Beverly Hills Chihuahua debuted at number one with $21.6 million. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist came in at number two with $15.3 million, and Eagle Eye dropped down to number three, pulling in $14.7 million. Nights in Rodanthe hung in at number four, followed by the debut of Blindness and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. Religulous (which has been advertised insanely around the university here) pulled in $3.7 million at number 7.

Coming up for this holiday weekend, we have RocknRolla a bit early on Wednesday in a limited release. This one looks sweet, the latest from Guy Ritchie and starring Gerard Butler, it will definitely be one to look for. For the rest of the weekend, we've got City of Ember which actually looks like it could be pretty decent, especially given my usual disdain for kid's movies. The Express, a sports movie and the story of Ernie Davis. For those of you (like me) who don't know anything about sports, it's a football movie, and it will probably be in the same vein as the last twenty football movies, so it won't be anything special. Body of Lies is the big one of the weekend for sure, though. Quarantine also opens, and it looks to be a fairly interesting horror movie. Body of Lies should top the charts, probably accompanied by City of Ember. Hopefully everything from last week drops down to make room, because if Beverly Hills Chihuahua is number one again, I'm going to have to resign from the human race.


Moss, Routh, and Others Face the Unthinkable

Brandon Routh, Gil Bellows, Martin Donovan and Carrie-Anne Moss will star in Unthinkable.

They will join Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Sheen in the suspense thriller produced, financed and distributed by Senator U.S.

Routh and Bellows play members of an FBI anti-terrorism team run by Agent Brody (Moss). With the help of a black-ops agent (Jackson), they're assigned by an FBI director (Donovan) to interrogate an American Muslim man (Sheen) claiming to have nuclear bombs planted in three U.S. cities.

The Gregor Jordan-directed film will start principal photography on October 20 in Los Angeles.

This actually sounds pretty good. The cast is starting to flesh out and look pretty good, too. Of course, Jackson and Sheen are still the stars. It'll be interesting to see how this one turns out in the end.


Indiana Jones 5 is Rolling

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Harrison Ford said Friday that momentum is building for a fifth movie in the "Indiana Jones" franchise and that George Lucas is already cooking up a suitable plot.

"It's crazy but great," the 66-year-old Ford said. "George is in think mode right now."

Hitting DVD and Blu-ray Disc on October 14th, Indiana Jones the the Kingdom of the Crystal Skullhas made $783.7 million worldwide compared to its budget of $185 million.

"It's automatic, really, we did well with the last one and with that having done well and been a positive experience, it's not surprising that some people want to do it again," Ford said.

I have yet to see the fourth Indiana Jones, but I'm not surprised that they're working on a fifth already. Of course, as I believe I've reported before, Lucas will only do it when he comes up with the right story. By the sounds of Ford, Lucas is already hard at it. Hopefully it turns out well and isn't just another attempt to make more money.


Dracula Returning in Sequel Form

ShockTillYouDrop.com reports that Bram Stoker's great-grandnephew Dacre Stoker and award-winning "Dracula" documentarian and historian Ian Holt have sold North American-English publishing rights of the Stoker-family-authorized sequel to Bram's classic novel "Dracula" to an alliance of Dutton U.S. (Brian Tart), Harper U.K. (Jane Johnson) and Penguin-Canada (Laura Shin).

AEI's Ken Atchity, Chi-Li Wong, and Michael T. Kuciak will produce the film adaptation with Blue Tulip's Jan de Bont, and are expecting to see it go before the cameras in June '09.

Well, this sounds very intriguing. It'll be interesting to see a sequel to Dracula instead of just another adaptation – and an official family sequel at that. Let's see how this one turns out, shall we?


Sony Shooting in 4K

Sony Pictures Entertainment will use 4K digital technology in the making of most of its filmed productions, it was announced by Sony Electronics.

"With the industry moving rapidly to embrace the improvement in quality that digital cinema can offer, we believe that 4K resolution gives audiences the best seat in the house," said Gary Martin, president of Production Administration and Studio Operations for Sony Pictures Entertainment. "That's why we will be making more of our filmed productions at full 4K resolution, scanning at 4K, using a 4K workflow process, and releasing a 4K DCP to theaters. The crisp and vibrant images provided by 4K are the only way to ensure that audiences both today and in the future will really be able to see the full range of what we can capture on film."

Sony Pictures has already released the summer blockbuster Hancock in 4K, with the motion picture grossing more than $600 million at the worldwide box office to date. Movies released in 4K can play in theaters with either 4K or 2K projectors. Among the next motion pictures to be digitally imaged in 4K by Sony Pictures, and available for 4K distribution, are expected to be 2012, Salt, and The Green Hornet, with more titles to be announced.

"This commitment from Sony Pictures continues the momentum that is building behind 4K," said Gary Johns, vice president, Digital Cinema Systems Division at Sony Electronics. "Exhibitors are realizing that 4K is a reality now, for enhancing their customers' experiences, and studio support is a critical element to take advantage of the superior resolution of Sony's 4K projection system. The growing number of 4K-equipped theaters will now have even more 4K content potentially available to offer their customers."

Huh. While I really don't think that increasing the visual quality of things makes them any better – I don't have an HD TV, big surprise – it's always interesting to see what the newest technologies can do. And movies won't do any better or worse just because they're shot in 4K. For a while they will, because Sony will be selectively putting out movies in 4K, and only the blockbusters, of course. Those who love the quality will be looking forward to this, I'm sure.


News on the Next 300

IESB.net talked to Watchmen director Zack Snyder about the proposed follow-up to his hit graphic novel adaptation, 300.

Snyder told the site he has spoken with the graphic novel's creator, Frank Miller, who will be writing and drawing the graphic novel that the second film will be based on. Work on the script for the movie won't start until after completion of the book, as Snyder doesn't want to have any input into the novel and wants it to be Miller's creation.

The director added that it will take place between the Battle of Thermopylae and the Battle of Plataea, the battle that narrator Dilios (David Wenham) is at the end of 300. There's a whole year between the two battles and plenty of room for more story.

Snyder said he would definitely direct the follow-up.

Well, I'm a little torn here. Half of me really wants to see more of the glory that was 300, but then again, part of me thinks they should just have left it where it was and be done with it. It won't be a sequel to 300 because the majority of the cast of 300 died at the end, so it will be a successor, not a sequel, exactly. But it still has a lot of potential.


Alice Gets Two More Cast Members

Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married) and Helena Bonham Carter will star in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland for Disney.

The movie, which stars Mia Wasikowska as Alice and Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, will use a combination of live action and performance-capture technology to tell the Lewis Carroll story, says The Hollywood Reporter.

Hathaway is playing the White Queen, a benevolent monarch who is deposed and banished by her sister, the Red Queen (Carter), who has an affinity for crying out, "Off with their heads!" The White Queen needs Alice to slay a creature known as the Bandersnatch.

Richard Zanuck, Joe Roth and Jennifer and Suzanne Todd are producing.

This just keeps getting better and better. The addition of Depp was a big one, and Hathaway is pretty big, too. It should be no surprise that Helena Bonham Carter is appearing in this, considering she is in just about every Burton film. This is going to be a big one when it's done.


Get Smarter

Variety reports that Warner Bros. Pictures is developing a sequel to Get Smart. Steve Carell would return to play Maxwell Smart.

The first film, also starring Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin and Terence Stamp, has earned $130 million domestically and $94 million internationally for a global total of $224 million. It cost about $80 million to make.

In related news, the studio has signed Carell to a three-year first-look deal. Carell has formed Carousel Productions, which will be run by Vance DeGeneres and Charlie Hartsock.

The Get Smart sequel is not part of the new overall deal.

Not too much of a surprise, considering they seem to give everything that turns a profit a sequel nowadays. I have yet to see Get Smart and I probably won't for a long time, since I don't care for Steve Carell, but from what I've heard it was a decent enough movie with people expecting a lot less. So this should do pretty well.


Yogi Bear Coming to the Big Screen

Warner Bros. Pictures is developing a feature version of "Yogi Bear," the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon, and Surf's Up co-helmer/co-writer Ash Brannon is attached to direct.

Joshua Sternin and Jeffrey Ventimilia, who executive produced "That '70s Show" and are writing the feature Tooth Fairy for Fox, are penning the screenplay. Donald De Line is producing via his De Line Pictures; Karen Rosenfelt is also producing.

The project is planned as a live-action/animated hybrid along the lines of Fox's 2007 hit Alvin and the Chipmunks. Much of the movie will be live-action, but Yogi Bear and sidekick Boo Boo will be done in CG.

Yogi's exploits take place in Jellystone Park, where he and Boo Boo get into good-natured mischief and must elude their nemesis, Ranger Smith.

Is this really the best idea? First, I don't know how many young people really know Yogi Bear. I can't recall ever watching more than a couple of the cartoons, and only because my dad always told us about it and would bring it up (we recently had two kittens named Yogi and Boo Boo). Second, I'm not a big fan of the live action/CG mix. That may just be because the last one was Alvin and the Chipmunks because that looked just awful, but I'm still not sure this will turn out very good.


Rapid-Fire: Zeitgeist (2007, directed by Peter Joseph)

I'm going to do a very unconventional Rapid-Fire this week. Usually, as you know, I cover a movie (usually at least a couple years old) or sometimes compare movies, but they are always mainstream movies. However, this week, I'm going to present to you a documentary available for free over the internet. I first heard about this when I was working at Bell Mobility, and we actually watched part of it at work, and I was hooked from that moment forward. And so this week I proudly present:

This is a conspiracy documentary, let's just get that out there right now. It covers three main conspiracies: religion, September 11th, and the all-encompassing conspiracy of banks essentially controlling the world. The entire thing is narrated by a narrator we never see, and most of the story is told by images, videos, speakers, and the narrator telling this massive story.

The movie has some very strange visuals, most notably at the end and the start, mostly the start. There's a long sequence of psychedelic images and godawful music leading into the movie, and it ends with some nice photoshopping of eyes. Those strange interludes aside, the rest of the movie is well put together. They definitely take a lot of time on the visuals, transitions, and the like, but it doesn't appear to have detracted from any other portion of the movie.

Now I am no conspiracy theorist, nor do I have the time or will to research every fact they claim in the movie. Some of it I have a hard time believing - but of course, if this is all true, then the reason I can't believe it is because they're controlling me - and a lot of it should probably be taken with a grain of salt. Personally, I have an interest in religion (or rather, against religion) and I'm studying History, so I found the religion portion of the movie absolutely fascinating, and I know 100% that some of the facts are true. I've briefly researched the 9/11 conspiracy on my own and it seems to be relatively consistent, and the movie makes some interesting points and comparisons, but no one really knows. The Federal Reserve Bank part, though, is the most far-fetched to me.

But that's the thing with conspiracies. They're often hard to believe if you believe what you've learned your whole life. And some conspiracies are just outrageous, in my opinion. But even at the height of my doubt during the movie, they make a point transcending the specific conspiracies they're covering: open your eyes. Live like an individual, do what you want, don't listen to the authority. And that I believe one hundred percent, and if you're going to take anything from this movie, it had better be that, even if you think the rest is poppycock.

The verdict? Watch this. This is the kind of movie that you should see, even if you don't agree with it, to see a slightly different perspective and start critically questioning things - even if it's the movie itself. Some of the things in the movie might be false; maybe the whole thing is. But if people start questioning the movie, they might start questioning other things, too, and that's a good thing. Apparently there's also a new addendum released for the movie telling people how to take action against the conspiracy, so those of you who downloaded it before, it's time to update your copy. For everybody else, get the whole thing and enjoy.


Closing Time . . .

Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend, which is nice. It means I don't have to go to school on Monday, and I probably don't have to go to work on Monday, either. I'll end up going home and seeing my family, too. My roommate and I came up with the idea of having a city Thanksgiving, too, with our friends, so that's on the agenda for Friday. It means I have to cook a turkey. Now that's going to be interesting. On another tangent, have you ever heard of turkducken? It's a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken. Who would do that? I'm very curious to taste one, though, although I don't know where I'd find one. But anyway, for all you Canadians, have a good Thanksgiving, and I will see you next week!


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