September 29, 2005

Bond race 'entering final stages'

The protracted process of choosing a new James Bond is coming to an end, according to Hollywood paper Variety. Screen tests will end this week and four relatively unknown actors are in the running, Variety has reported. The contenders are Layer Cake actor Daniel Craig, 22-year-old Henry Cavill, ER star Goran Visnjic and Australian Sam Worthington, Variety said.

The 21st James Bond film, Casino Royale, will be based on Ian Fleming's first novel and released next year. Producers are thought to be looking for someone younger than the 52-year-old incumbent Pierce Brosnan. Writer Paul Haggis recently told the Hollywood Reporter: "We're trying to reinvent Bond. He's 28 - no Q, no gadgets." In the 1953 Casino Royale book, the spy was introduced as a more youthful, realistic and cold character than he has since become in the films.

Source: BBC News

Posted by lonnie at 02:34 PM

September 23, 2005

On The Set: Miami Vice

Some news and sneak peaks at the upcoming big-screen version of Miami Vice. The Colin Farrell Fansitehas posted the a batch of photos from the Florida set which show Colin Farrell dressed up as undercover detective Sonny Crockett. In other Miami Vice news, The Boston Herald chatted with actor Justin Theroux who co-stars as Det. Larry Zito. "It's not comedy, it's not ironic. It's a pretty much straight-up Vice story."

This is good news as I had feared that this new film would be a satire of the original series and as a long-time fan of the show I'm not sure I would have appreciated anything other than an authentic Vice story. Gritty, fast-paced and good storyline...that's what Vice offered when it was at its best and that is what I look forward to in the movie version. Here's hoping !

Miami Vice is slated for a July 28, 2006 release.

Posted by lonnie at 04:02 PM

The Number 23

Director Joel Schumacher (The Phantom of the Opera, Veronica Guerin) is close to signing a deal to team up with Jim Carrey for an off-beat drama entitled The Number 23. Carrey, one of my favourite actors, previously worked with Schumacher on Batman Forever. The film follows a man (played by Carrey) who becomes obsessed and haunted after reading a book that appears to be about his own life. The book disturbingly ends with a murder and the number 23 is woven throughout the story.
Posted by lonnie at 03:59 PM

September 22, 2005

Capote Trailer

Truman Capote seized on the grisly story of a farm family murder in Kansas and was able to turn it into a book. He spent six years researching "In Cold Blood," and claimed to have invented a genre, the nonfiction novel; later, Tom Wolfe and others would include "In Cold Blood" in their own movement, known as New Journalism. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, one of the finest character actors around, brings to life the controversial and colorful author.

View the trailer on the Apple Trailers website. You can read a short biography of Truman Capote on the PBS website.

Capote is slated for a September 30th, 2005 release in New York and Los Angeles with a wider distribution to follow.

Posted by lonnie at 10:23 AM

September 17, 2005

Terry a hit for CTV

CTV will rebroadcast a movie about Canadian hero Terry Fox this weekend as runners across Canada mark the 25th anniversary of the first fundraising runs for Fox's Marathon of Hope. Terry, an original movie produced by CTV and Shaftesbury Films Inc., will air 8 p.m. Saturday. It will be broadcast for the first time in Newfoundland, where Fox started his run, via the Halifax-based Atlantic Television network.

The first broadcast earlier this month captured an average of 1.3 million viewers. In Ontario, the movie beat out the season premier of The Simpsons in its time slot, according to a news release from the network.

The two-hour drama is based on personal journals Fox kept during his iconic journey across Canada in 1980 and interviews with his family and friends. Fox was 18 when he was diagnosed with bone cancer and his right leg was amputated above the knee in 1977. Moved by the children he saw undergoing treatment, Fox began his fundraising run in St. John's, N.L., on April 12, 1980, and ran the equivalent of a marathon every day until Sept. 1, when a relapse forced him to abandon the run just outside Thunder Bay, Ont. Over the course of 143 days he ran 5,373 kilometres.

A one-hour documentary on Fox will air again on CTV's W-Five program on Sunday.

Source:Canada.com

Posted by lonnie at 01:34 PM

September 14, 2005

The death of cinema?

An article from The Telegraph states that Steven Soderbergh's latest project, the high-definition digital film Bubble, will smash through the current "window" of four months between a movie's opening in theatres and its release on DVD. Soderbergh plans to debut his new film simultaneously on DVD, television and in art cinemas across America.

Soderbergh, who has directed big budget hits like Traffic, Erin Brockovich and Ocean's Eleven, said that the November release of the film "in every format at the same time" was "something that may be inevitable". He said that it may not "be for all films" and "perhaps not for a few years" but it was "where the film business is going. It is, I think, absolutely, the best way to go - give consumers a choice of how they want to see films." John Fithian, the president of America's National Association of Theatre Owners, said that "window collapsing", as it is known in America, would mean the death of the cinema.

Source: The Telegraph

Posted by lonnie at 11:18 AM

September 09, 2005

Superman Returns images

I managed to get a hold of some preview images of the upcoming Superman Returns movie. Enjoy!


Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor

Retro Supes

iPod?

Posted by lonnie at 11:51 AM

Marvel movie news

It was recently announced that Marvel Entertainment has secured a $525 million loan package that will allow it to produce 10 films based on its comic book characters, specifically Captain America, the Avengers, Nick Fury, Black Panther, Cloak & Dagger, Dr. Strange, Hawkeye, Power Pack, Shang-Chi and Ant-Man. Paramount will distribute the films, which will carry a price tag somewhere between $50 million-$165 million each. Marvel has started lining up writers and directors for the projects and rumours have British filmmaker Edgar Wright poised to direct Ant-Man. Wright, who wrote and directed the zombie spoof Shaun of the Dead, apparently plans on making Ant-Man a comedy.

In the comics, Ant-Man was Dr. Henry "Hank" Pym; he also fought crime under the pseudonyms of Giant-Man, Goliath and Yellowjacket. A brilliant biochemist, Pym discovered a group of subatomic particles and produced two serums from them, one that could reduce someone or something in size and another to restore them.

Source: IGN.com

Posted by lonnie at 11:34 AM