[Update: Slashdot has confirmed that this is not happening, but I suppose there’s always wishful thinking. Thanks to Fanboy Brian for pointing this out.]
Keanu Reeves apparently gave quite the keynote at the London School for Performing Arts. During his speech, he reportedly dropped some details about upcoming projects including two Matrix scripts that are currently in the works. Now, that’s cool and all but I’m kind of concerned. While I enjoyed the first film quite a bit, the second film was a bit of giant CGI mess, and the third did little to improve on that, if anything at all. A shame really, considering how much promise the original film had. They could have literally taken the story any number of directions — hell, I can remember three or four different conspiracy theories I had at the time. The fact that they’re thinking of add two new scripts to the pile, both featuring Neo in some capacity, will at least give them another chance to surprise us with an interesting twist. The films will also be in 3D, so take that for what it’s worth.Read more…
Karl Urban’s new Judge Dredd film (spartanly titled “Dredd”) is filming in South Africa even at this very moment. Some set photos have inevitably started to appear, including the titular Judge in full judicial kit riding the Lawmaster, his souped-up motorcycle. Reasonably-sized, yet ostentatious and ominous. A perfect for He Who Is The Law. All in all, I’m hopeful that the new film will be a little more faithful to the source material than the Stallone vehicle from the 90s. Less Batman and Robin, more Mad Max. Read more…
I really want to like X-Men: First Class, but past news about the film had me worried that it would meet even my lowest expectations. A badly-photoshopped and unauthorized pic of the film’s cast in their X-Men uniforms had me even more concerned. It appears that Fox agreed, releasing three new promotional stills showing the cast in their ’60s duds in response. It didn’t really strike me until the seeing the image above just how well-suited Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy are to play Magneto and Xavier, respectively. And yes, that’s January Jones in the catsuit as Emma Frost. As to how the movie will actually turn out, who knows? They’re still filming, which hardly bodes well for a movie that’s supposed to come out in June, but Matthew Vaughn is a good director, so I have faith. At least the film got me to utter one phrase I once thought impossible — “and Azazel is in this movie.” Read more…
Last weekend I attended MAGfest in Alexandria, Virginia. For those of you who aren’t already aware of the festival, it’s a relatively small convention held annually which features videogame-themed concerts, panels, guests, and more. while I was there I noticed a few posters for an upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog fan film. The movie is being produced by Eddie Lebron, the same man responsible for that niftyMega Man fan film released last year.Read more…
Entertainment Weekly recently publicized this high-res map of the entire Star Wars galaxy, which the writer notes “may not be new to some of the real die-hards reading this, but it was new to me.” I’ve never seen it either, though it was apparently published in 2009’s Star Wars: The Essential Atlas. It even maps major routes of travel through the galaxy, as well as marking each segment from Deep Core to Outer Rim. Finally, I can figure out whether or not Andara is a Core or Colony world. Just kidding. I’ve never actually had occasion to wonder that. But now, thanks to this map, I’ll never need to, either. Read more…
A few months ago, director Kevin Tancharoen released a short film that was intended as a pitch to Warner Bros. for a grittier, more realistic Mortal Kombat film. It was definitely a hit with the fans, but it didn’t succeed in getting picked up as a full-length feature. Bloody Disgusting reports that Tancharoen and the short’s star, Michael Jai White, got a deal almost as good, though: a ten-episode Mortal Kombat web series! Several of the usual suspects are slated to make an appearance in the series as well, including Shang Tsung, Liu Kang, Sub Zero, Durak, Kabal, Kitana, Mileena and Scorpion. There’s no release date for the series yet, but production will begin in Vancouver in February. Read more…
So that’s pretty much that. Ridley Scott announced today that his planned Alien prequel is dead, but he’s making a new film with ideas from the abandoned project. The new film, titled Prometheus, is being penned by Scott and Damon Lindelof, and Scott extolls its “unique, large and provocative” ideas. According to Scott, the film has “Alien DNA,” though he means in terms of concept and scope, not that actual xenomorph DNA will figure into the plot somehow. Fox, to their credit, has backed Scott’s plan and given the film a March 9th, 2012 release date.
Tron Costume Guy and I certainly liked Tron Legacy, even if my boss Mr. Pinto didn’t. So did lots of moviegoers. Disney, for its part, put a lot of time and money into promoting the film, banking on it being successful, and according to Ain’t It Cool News, the film’s profits have just about “hit the tipping point.” AICN reports that Disney is almost ready to announce a third Tron movie, a direct sequel to Tron Legacy. Obviously, nothing is confirmed yet, but Disney’s already working on a cartoon series to make sure the franchise continues to have legs, so it makes sense that another movie would be in the works. Just do me a favor, Disney: more Daft Punk, yeah? Read more…
I was pretty iffy on Sony’s upcoming Spider-Man reboot, but recent photos from the set have started to thaw my frigid heart. Emma Stone is Gwen Stacy incarnate, and Andrew Garfield looks quite good as Peter Parker. But as Spider-Man? We had no idea until today, when Sony sent out a promotional still of Garfield in his battle-scarred Spidey getup. And hey, it looks pretty good. Some tantalizing tidbits: are those mechanical web-shooters I see on his wrists? Do those claw marks on the chest scream “Lizard” to anyone else? And how did they convince the Harlem Globetrotters to give them enough blue and red basketballs to construct the costume? Read more…
Yeah, he looks as surprised as we do up there, but Elijah Wood’s reps have confirmed that he’ll be making a return as Frodo Baggins in the upcoming Hobbit films. Now, bear in mind here that Frodo isn’t actually in The Hobbit (the book) in any capacity; it’s been indicated that he’ll be used as a kind of framing device to introduce Bilbo’s story in the film. If it all pans out, we’ll probably see Frodo and Sam hearing Bilbo’s account from Bilbo himself. I was a little leery about the announcement at first, but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of seeing the band back together, you know? Read more…
There was news from Comic-Con that Legendary Pictures, the studio behind films like 300 and The Dark Knight, had secured the rights to make a new Godzilla film. They even released a totally awesome piece of concept art for the Big G’s new look, shown above. We haven’t heard any new news since then, though — at least, until now! Variety reports that Gareth Edwards, who directed the successful indie monster flick Monsters, is slated to direct the lizard’s latest outing. Hey, it can’t be any worse than the 90s Godzilla movie we got in the US. Right? Read more…
I Am Legend teased it. Fringe teased it. Once upon a time, it seemed like Warner Bros. really wanted to make it. But if you were looking forward to a Batman/Superman team-up movie, you’re in for a disappointment. WB producer Charles Roven stated in an interview recently that there are currently no plans to move forward with a Marvel-style shared film universe for DC Comics properties. With Chris Nolan’s Batman trilogy ending with The Dark Knight Rises and the Harry Potter franchise ending this year, though, the money has to come from somewhere, so it’s possible that the possibility will be reexamined at some point. Read more…
At one point, you couldn’t film a space epic without having to use scale models. Studios like Industrial Light and Magic were forced to craft these incredibly detailed models for use in creating some of the most memorable sci-fi films of our time. Fortunately, but the time Joss Whedon’s Firefly came to be, studios were able to rely on CGI, allowing them to fore go the trouble of crafting these models by hand.
Pixel artist Pierre Manry recently threw together this awesome little 8-bit homage to the recently released Tron Legacy. I haven’t seen the film yet — I know, shame on me — but I’ll probably make it to the theater tomorrow. From what I’ve been told, the film is absolutely fantastic. I’m just not sure if I want to see it in 3D, or not. I imagine it’s probably amazing, but is it going to be worth the inevitable headache? Until then, I suppose I’ll just keep watching this video, wishing someone would have actually made a game exactly like this. Kudos for using Mega Man sprites, by the way.
Marvel’s been dropping cameos of their lesser-known heroes into their movies ever since they took charge of their film universe. Anyone who saw Iron Man or its sequel caught glimpses of heroes like Nick Fury or gear belonging to Thor or Captain America; it’s all part of an effort to unify the film universe and make it easy to introduce new characters. It appears that 2011’s Thor will be no exception to this rule — rumor has it that one of the stars of the upcoming Avengers movie will be making a cameo. And that Avenger is none other than Hawkeye! It’s just a rumor, for now, but it makes a heck of a lot more sense than the other recent rumor that Demi Lovato snagged an Avengers role. Read more…
This spectacular Terminator T-800 bust sculpture was constructed out of Lego bricks by the talented Martin Latta. It’s a remake of a previous project that martin did, although this version features LED eyes: Read more…
Back when David Lynch released his film version of Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi classic Dune, Marvel Comics adapted it in comic form. It was penned by Ralph Macchio (no, not that Ralph Macchio) and illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz. And it was pretty cool! You can see for yourself by checking out Joe Bloke’s scanned edition of the whole darn thing, sprawling Arrakian vistas and gaping sandworm maws included. At least until it inevitably gets taken down, anyway. Read more…
I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with Bakugan. In fact, I wasn’t really aware of it myself until I asked my wife, who happens to work in retail, what had been selling really well. I half-expected her to say Pokemon but instead, she mentioned Bakugan Battle Brawlers. The title alone was very off-putting for me — I’m not fond of alliteration, you see — but I figured I should try to learn something about it, seeing as I moonlight as an anime journalist. Read more…
So, the last entry into the Terminator film franchise wasn’t so great. And neither was the one before it. In fact, the only good entry into the series since 1991’s Terminator 2 was the woefully short-lived TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Is there anything that can revive the franchise, or is it deader than most of humanity after Judgement Day? Maybe all hope isn’t lost. We can still get the gal that helped start the franchise to give it a shot in the arm! Gale Ann Hurd, who co-wrote and produced the original Terminator film, told Entertainment Weekly that she’d love to make another. Of course, right now she’s occupied with her gig as executive producer of the smash hit AMC series The Walking Dead, but we can hope that the powers that be (and the hedge fund group that currently owns the rights to the Terminator franchise) are listening. Read more…
Okay, so maybe Fanboy head honcho Michael Pinto didn’t particularly like Tron Legacy, but I did! And, at the very least, it’s captured the heart and mind of possibly the world’s biggest Tron fan. That’s right — Tron Costume Guy, who might himself qualify as a digital entity due to his status as a living meme, liked the heck out of Tron Legacy. He even got to review the film for Wired. He compliments the sequel’s logical extension of the plot from the first film, the great soundtrack and, of course, the visual effects. Now, before you say “Well of course he liked it! He’s Tron Costume Guy!”, remember that diehard fans are usually the hardest to please, not the easiest. At least that’s what I’m telling myself when reading a review of a movie from a guy dressed like the guy in the movie he’s reviewing. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 18, 2010 in Animation, Cinema
So as the end credits start to roll in the theater my friend turns to me and says “that sucked!” But my reaction was “Well they did about as good of a job that they could have…” The original Tron was an impressive film on a number of levels, but the heart of the film was that it represented a breakthrough of computer animation on the big screen — but as a film it was quite average. So the problem is that if you’re going to make a sequel over 25 years later everything that was great about the first film is going to be dated. Read more…
Photos of Superman’s nauseatingly bad costume for Superman Lives, Tim Burton’s aborted take on the Man of Steel, surfaced a few months ago. We knew it was bad, but it turns out it’s even worse than we thought. There was video taken of the suit in action, and … it defies words. It’s some kind of Tron-style Electric Superman Laser Floyd light show. If I didn’t know for certain that it was supposed to be a Superman costume, I would never have guessed. What were they thinking? Thank goodness someone had the wherewithal to nip this one in the bud. Read more…
The special one-night-onlyNorth American screening of the upcoming live-action adaptation of Gantz is happening on January 20th. Given the special circumstances surrounding the limit release, only select theaters will be showing the film. I remember how annoyed I was when I missed out on a screening of Princess Mononoke simply because I couldn’t find a theater in time, but this time Fathom Events will be looking out for us all. They’re providing a list of all the theaters that’ll be participating in the world premiere event. Better yet, you can search by zip code to find the closest theater nearby and even purchase advance tickets — not that I’d worry about it being sold out before you get there, but you never know. To see the list of participating locations, click here.
I still don’t get why people take the time to make these Star Wars poster parodies, but it would seem they’re becoming more popular. Back in October, I shared several examples of these alt-art posters and they proved to be somewhat entertaining, so here we are again with another set — this time, by artist Matt Ranzetta. While I personally can’t say I love the posters themselves, I can’t really knock Matt’s taste in cinema. They also fit the subject matter quite well, all things considered. I’ll admit that Cool Hand Luke made me giggle a little, though.
