- Just in case you weren’t convinced that New Zealand’s WETA Digital was the go-to SFX house these days, 20th Century Fox will be using them to produce all of the genetically altered-primates in CGI for their film Rise of the Apes, a prequel to the classic sci-fi movie series which was begun by 1968’s Planet of the Apes. The movie will be directed by Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist) from a script by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (The Relic), and will be released in the U.S. on June 24, 2011. (Source: The Hollywood Reporter)
- Dashing my hopes for a female-powered view on Captain America, British actor Toby Jones has entered the final round of negotiations to become the movie’s second villain, Arnim Zola. He’ll join Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull as Chris Evans’ antagonists, and I think I’m starting to see how the storyline’s shaping up and will end with Cap on ice and Zola in a robot suit. (Source: The Hollywood Reporter‘s Heat Vision blog)
- Finally, if you’ve ever wanted to see all of Metropolis, the sci-fi silent film by Fritz Lang that inspired Blade Runner amongst others, head on over to the Film Forum in New York City today where they will be showing the film in its original complete version for the first time to audiences since its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in 1927. Hidden away in a private film archive in Buenos Aires, we have Argentine film archivists Fernando Peña and Paula Félix-Didier to thank for rescuing the movie from the bureaucratic red tape. The most interesting quote from the story?
“It’s no longer a science-fiction film,” said Martin Koerber, a German film archivist and historian who supervised the latest restoration and the earlier one in 2001. “The balance of the story has been given back. It’s now a film that encompasses many genres, an epic about conflicts that are ages old. The science-fiction disguise is now very, very thin.”
Additional screenings in other cities and a DVD will follow later this year. (Source: The New York Times)
Tag: movie news
Jim Henson Co. to return to the world of the Gelflings in sequel to Dark Crystal
If you’re a geek of a certain age, then you definitely remember the movie your parents may have taken you to where someone who sounded like Gonzo attacked an elf. (Whoops, spoilers?)
That movie was called The Dark Crystal, and as a young girl, I was confused by it because some of the voices I loved on “The Muppet Show” were coming out of bodies that were hunched over, vulture-shaped, and decidedly not silly or chicken-loving.
It wasn’t until I began my “geek awakening” in my teens that I learned that the Jim Henson Co. created the movie in 1982 to showcase their talents as puppeteers and legitimate storytellers, and would do again in 1986 with Labyrinth, and again in 1999 with “Farscape.”
It’s enough to make me wonder why puppeteers are so darn touchy about their craft.
Anyhow, the folks at the Jim Henson Co. are at it again, for Pip Bulbeck at The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the news that Daybreakers directors Peter and Michael Speirig will be heading up a sequel to that original 1980s film to be called Power of the Dark Crystal.
Partnered in the production will be Australian company Omnilab Media who have had their hands and wallets into such productions as Where the Wild Things Are and the upcoming Tomorrow, When the War Began. They’re bringing their own special effects house Illoura to the party, and giving them the control of the CGI elements.
The plot of the story, written by Australian Craig Pearce (Moulin Rouge!, Charlie St. Cloud) from an original script by Annette Duffy and David Odell, will go like this:
Set hundreds of years after the events of the first movie when the world has once again fallen into darkness, Power of the Dark Crystal follows the adventures of a mysterious girl made of fire who, together with a Gelfling outcast, steals a shard of the legendary crystal in an attempt to reignite the dying sun that exists at the center of the planet.
That kinda has me confused, because my quick refresher trip to Wikipedia noted that there were three suns which while in conjunction created the event which restored peace and harmony to the Crystal planet; now there’s a fourth sun inside the middle of the planet? I guess it’s just something I’ll have to overlook if I want to see Gelflings again (and I do).
No word yet on exactly when production will commence.
Summit Entertainment to manage The Impossible with Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor
It seems as if Summit Entertainment has a lot of faith in Naomi Watts these days, for not long after it purchased the rights to one film with with her in it, the studio decided to pick up another.
According to Gregg Kilday at The Hollywood Reporter, the latest buy was for a film called The Impossible, which will star Watts and Ewan McGregor in a story that’s based on some real-life events that took place during the 2004 tsunami that hit Thailand. The film will be directed by Juan Antonio Bayona from a script by Sergio G. Sánchez for two Spanish companies, Apaches Entertainment and Telecino Cinema, who are acting as co-producers.
Looking around at the various websites who also reported on this news, it doesn’t look like anyone from Summit, Apaches, or Telecino wants anyone to know exactly what the film will be about because there isn’t a more detailed synopsis available, not even over at Deadline Hollywood.
Filming will begin in August in Alicante, Spain before moving to Thailand in October; hopefully, we’ll have more concrete news by then.