This week, Walt Disney Pictures releases The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. To some, it's special for its literary roots, but to others, I imagine it's a blast back to a time when Disney was all about throwing real kids into amazing adventures. These days, they don't do it very often, but Disney used to rule the world of family adventures that sparked the imaginations of kids everywhere. Sure, they put out a lot of classic animation, but they also released a number of adventure stories where kids got to do the unbelievable, whether that be death-defying adventure on the high seas, or slipping inside a cartoon.
In honor of the release of Prince Caspian, I give you seven great Disney films where real kids got to have amazing adventures. Some are new, and some are quite old, but all of them are quite memorable.
Prolific producer Neal H. Moritz knows a whole lot about making patently un-scary horror flicks (his resumé is littered with two Urban Legends, three Skulls, a Soul Survivors, three people who Know What You Did Last Summer, and one Prom Night -- so far. Therefore simple logic dictates that, now that the mega-successful Goosebumpsbooks are about to leap into the multiplexes, Mr. Moritz should be in charge of the operation.
According to Variety, R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series is the second-best-selling pre-teen book series in the world, second only to the literary adventures of a certain young wizard. And while fans certainly have fond memories of the rather large book series (and a 1995 TV adaptation), this will mark the first time the Goosebumps will be doled out in cinemas. (Not surprisingly, there's also a video game on the way -- all from a company called "Scholastic.") Mr. Moritz will produce with his Sony-connected Original Films banner, and the team is presently on the hunt for stuff like actors, writers, and directors: "Moritz said they likely will cast unknown child actors and then pepper the film with well-known thesps in supporting roles, much like Warner did with the Harry Potter franchise."
Frankly I think this is a very cool idea. Horror should NOT be a grown-ups-only experience, and I'm really tired of my cheesy old favorites getting dusted off and promptly neutered for a new generation of pre-teens. The Goosebumps books were created with young audiences in mind, so this sounds like it could be the beginning of a very profitable relationship. (Yes, obviously Sony is thinking "franchise" here.)
This is just too cool not to share with you all, and I hope you pardon my indulgence. I know I should look at this cynically as yet another piece of ridiculous movie marketing, but I don't want to. My grasp on reality is officially slipping (or I've regressed into a five-year-old), because my cynicism has melted, and I am now convinced Wall-E exists. There is video proof. He is real.
My life will be forever incomplete because I want one for my very own. I want him to wheel around my house and chirp at me. Thanks, Disney/Pixar -- I will never be happy again. (It does make you wonder what happens to things like this. Seriously, Disney, if you need a home for one, call me. I will treasure him forever.)
Yes, I imagine right about now the folks at Marvel Productions are sporting grins wide enough to swallow their own ears. Iron Man held the number one spot for two weeks in a row, taking in $177 million since its release last week, making it the top grossing film of 2008 so far. The superhero blockbuster pulled in more than last week's two new releases combined, with Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz's comedy What Happens in Vegas edging out the Wachowskis more family-friendly adaptation of Speed Racer. Here's the final tally. 1. Iron Man: $51.1 million 2. What Happens in Vegas:$20.1 million 3. Speed Racer:$18.5 million 4. Made of Honor:$8.1 million 5. Baby Mama:$6.2 million
Just one solitary new release for this week. Will it be enough to dethrone Marvel's golden avenger?
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian What's It All About: A year has passed since the events of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, but when the Pevensie siblings return to the world of Narnia, they find that 1,300 years have gone by and the land is under the tyrannical rule of King Miraz, though young Prince Caspian is the rightful heir to the throne. Why It Might Do Well: Being the sequel to a successful flick ($65 million opening weekend with a total of $744 million worldwide) and the only major release hitting U.S. theaters this week, things are looking good for the Narnian economy. And the 88% fresh rating at Rottentomatoes.com can't hurt. Why It Might Not Do Well: I suppose if another Grand Theft Auto game should suddenly come out... Number of Theaters: 3,800 Prediction: $65 million
While the creative bits of my brain are hoping for comic greatness, I'm thinking that this upcoming feature is one of those projects that holds a lot of promise, but falls under the weight of all the dreamed-of possibilities. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Fable Works is producing a new computer-animated feature called Cereal Heroes, which will get characters designed by Kim Possible'sStephen Silver.
David Meinstein is writing the script, which focuses on "cartoon cereal box-mascots who are mistakenly brought to life when a plan to replace the world's fallen superheroes with characters from comic books goes awry. They soon find themselves on the run in an unfamiliar world that only they can save from destruction." My big question is whether they will be recognizable cereal heroes, fake cereal heroes, or faux replicas of cereal heroes? However, while the hopeful part of me would imagine that Silver's character designs would be for the other characters in the film, I imagine he'll be creating the cereal heroes. Getting the rights to all would be insanely expensive, but it would be free advertising, and probably the only obvious product placement that I could get behind. Can you imagine Snap, Crackle, and Pop bringing down baddies with Cap'n Crunch, Count Chocula, the Trix Rabbit, a certain Leprechaun, Tony the Tiger, and the rest?
The film is currently scheduled to hit screens in 2010.
Hollywood is fond of cannibalizing old cartoons and children's TV shows, but have you noticed that most of them are programs that no one cared about anyway (ahem Speed Racer ahem)? That's why today's announcement is special, because it looks like they're gonna make a film version of something that actually has a cache of devoted fans: Fraggle Rock.
That's right, children of the '80s! Dance your cares away; worries for another day. The 1983-87 HBO series about an underground race of Jim Henson puppets is on The Weinstein Company's fast track for production. Cinematicalreported way back in October 2006 that a writer had been found in Ahmet Zappa (son of legendary rocker Frank Zappa), but that's not who the Weinsteins are going with. (He'll be the executive producer instead.) According to Variety, the film will be written and directed by Cory Edwards, who made the mediocre and long-forgotten 2005 cartoon Hoodwinked.
Fraggle Rock will be live-action; it will be a musical; and it will be produced by the Jim Henson Co., which of course owns the rights to the characters. Variety says the TV show's five central characters, Gobo (whom Variety calls "Gogo"), Wembley, Mokey, Boober, and Red, will still be the focus. It sounds like the Weinsteins aren't interested in deviating much from the TV show's format, which is good.
No word yet on a tentative release date, but we'll definitely keep you posted. In the meantime, what do you think about this news? Are you excited? Apathetic? Apprehensive?
Ever since the numbers were released yesterday, anyone and everyone (as well as anyone who is everyone) has been talking Speed Racer -- specifically, how a $120 million Hollywood blockbuster could open with only $20 million at the box office. You can blame Iron Man, you can blame the marketing, you can blame the blogs for trashing the film all year long, you can blame Christina Ricci's weird haircut, or you can blame that judge on Project Runway for saying, "You can never have too much color!" Fact is, it missed the mark.
But what could've helped Speed Racer make more money in its opening weekend? The running time has been mentioned a lot in the past 24 hours, but a running time doesn't exactly woo audiences into the theater. Is the film's marketing 100% to blame? Should the trailers have been cut differently? Should they have stressed that this was a film for kids? Should they have added a little viral action into the mix? Or what about overall? From the beginning, were the Wachowski Brothers the right folks for the job? Should they have gone the animated route instead -- or maybe the animated 3-D route? Should they have made this a film for older kids; slap on a PG-13 rating?
In your opinion, what could've helped Speed Racer -- both in its opening weekend and in its development as a feature film?
Welcome back to another edition of Insert Caption -- the game where, in order to play, you need to really hate snakes. Hate 'em! Last week we asked you to write funny captions for a photo from Speed Racer, which hits theaters with a whole lotta color this weekend. Congrats to Anthony M. for painting a very bizarre, yet hilarious picture in our heads. (We still love ya BK!)
1. "Reasons To Burn Rubber (#5): Family-operated Burger King drive through. Fast. Hot. Creepy." -- Anthony M.
3. "Just keep your hands at 10 and 2, buckle your seatbelt, and are you sure you don't want to put some clothes on?" -- Nathan T. See full image and all captions
This week, well, you may know this guy from somewhere. Can't place the face? Here, we'll help -- it starts with an 'Indiana' and ends with a 'Jones'. Put it together and you have one of this summer's most anticipated films -- not to mention we've been looking forward to this sequel for the past 20 years. But before Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hits theaters on May 22, you're going to want to get reacquainted with an old friend -- and that's where we come in: The winners of our three favorite captions will take home one Indiana Jones The Adventure Collection DVD boxed set, which includes: Raiders of the Lost Ark,The Temple of Doom & The Last Crusade. That's it to the right; ain't it purty? (Click to enlarge.) In honor of our friend Indy, it's now time for you to start whippin' out those captions! Sound off below ...
At the Long Beach Grand Prix, the roar of high-powered race car engines fills the air, a deep bass thrum cutting through the smell of exhaust in the early summer heat. Tens of thousands of race fans have gathered to take in the metal-and-rubber reality of racing, but in the Long Beach Convention Center, a small group of journalists have gathered to talk about a big-screen fantasy vision of the spectacle roaring around us, Cinematical was there to speak with the people behind Speed Racer: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci and Matthew Fox, as well as producer Joel Silver.
Emile Hirsch, relaxed and fairly amused, is asked about embodying a classic character. "It's pretty cool." He laughs; "I was a very big fan of the show growing up ... I would just watch it every morning with cereal ... sometimes soda in the cereal. ..." I then asked Hirsch if, after reading the script, he was worried about being Mark Hamill to Matthew Fox's Harrison Ford, that Speed would be out-cooled by Racer X. "Well, now I am ..." The rest of the sentence is unprintable, but Hirsch then mocked Fox's masked mystery man and spoke sincerely about Speed's virtues: "Yeah, (Racer X) is so cool ... No, no, no; Speed's got the nobility; Speed does the right thing; Speed is ... Speed's cool."
I'm very pleased that my Cinematical colleague James Rocchi both enjoyed Speed Racer and published his review before mine, and here's why: I couldn't wait for the damn thing to end. This garish, aimless film wore out its welcome (and its crayon box) after about 25 minutes, but the cinematic eyesore just kept lumbering on for two full hours. I know it's tough to keep kids still in a movie theater even when they like the movie they're watching, so I can only imagine what parents will be dealing with as Speed Racer's merciless stretches of blah-blah-blah hit the screen. Aside from three or four mega-flashy racing sequences, Speed Racer feels like the pilot episode of a Fox TV series called The Generic Family from Plastic World.
A young man named "Speed Racer" grows up to become a hot-shot car racer (imagine that), but when he refuses to sign with an evil tycoon, it kick-starts a third-act conflict that can only be solved by ... car racing! There's the whole of your plot in a nutshell, but I've left out the resoundingly clumsy flashback structure, the nominally interesting but ultimately pointless side characters, and several absurdly "emotional" moments that might have made an impact if they didn't occur on sets made entirely of bright pink styrofoam and glitter. There's also an allegedly mysterious character called Racer X, a button-cute and entirely superfluous girlfriend character, and (wedged in clumsily whenever things get dull) a mischievous little kid and his monkey sidekick.
If you're still trying to decide whether you want to go to see Speed Racer tonight, maybe this will help your decision. Yahoo has posted the first seven minutes of the film, which you can check out above. Man, if car races looked half that cool, I'd be a total fan.
I know, some of you aren't getting the whole appeal of this flick, and frankly, I've never been interested in the story until this movie. There's just something about a real-life cartoon that looks all sorts of cool. (I've always wondered what a cartoon-turned-live action film would look like if it was created in a more cartoonish manner.) And major props for making the theme song front and center. I remember how ticked I was when I left during the credits of Spider-Man and missed the theme song I had waited the whole film for.
Check out James' review of the film here, and stay tuned for Scott's review at 11:30AM.
When word hit last year that John Waters was going to make a children's movie, I was all sorts of excited -- the King of Sleaze branching out into new and impressionable territory! I imagined kid-ified versions of his past films, or just what was in store for a film with the name "Fruitcake." But then there was nothing, and the Waterific news seemed like a distant memory ... until now!
The Hollywood Reporter posts that Parker Posey and Johnny Knoxville have signed on to star in the film. This will be Ms. Posey's first foray into the world of Waters, which is ridiculously long overdue, while Knoxville is following John right out of A Dirty Shame. There's no word on who they'll play, but this is what we know of the story: It focuses on a boy named after his favorite dessert. (ew) "He runs away from home during the holidays after he and his parents are caught shoplifting meat, then meets up with a runaway girl raised by two gay men [My Two Dads!] and searching for her birth mother."
Parker and Johnny could be ma and pop itching for some free meat, or maybe he's one of the gay men and she's the birth mother. Whoever they play, there is absolutely no way I'll miss this movie. Not with Waters and Posey together. I just wish this was the sort of film that would have a set visit. You can definitely expect to hear more from me as the cast fills out, but it will take a little while to get to us -- John plans to film it over a real winter.
Both of the upcoming animated releases that aren't Wall-E or Space Chimps got new trailers yesterday. Here's one for Igor (and here's a link to the poster we premiered a few weeks ago), and here's one for Kung Fu Panda.
Kung Fu Panda looks like it'll be just a step or two above -- *shudder* -- Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Igor, on the other hand, looks like a charmer: the premise is inherently nerdy, requiring viewers to think back to the original Frankenstein films (or at least Young Frankenstein, or Van Helsing in a pinch) to get the joke, and the trailer has a few big laughs.
The biggest upside of Kung Fu Panda coming out on June 6th: those of us who frequent AMC Theaters will no longer have to endure the Kung Fu Panda-themed pre-movie interlude exhorting viewers to shut up. I'm not sure how many more times I can listen to Jack Black tell me that he can hear me texting before I have an aneurysm. But I guess I should be grateful AMC is no longer airing that horrid Three Doors Down "Citizen Soldier" video pimping the National Guard (because no one screams "role model" to teenagers like the lead singer of Three Doors Down). That thing gave me nightmares.
Well, it was a surprise. MTV caught up with Jason Segel to pry more Muppet movie tidbits from him, and it seems he was happy to oblige. He revealed he's written a cameo for a veteran of The Great Muppet Caper.
"I have a cameo for Charles Grodin in it. It's a really brilliant cameo, I must say. I'm really proud of it." Maybe we will find out if he ever tried Hare Krishna.
As to who else might be making an appearance -- well, just about everyone. "At one point they need all the Muppets they can get." And no, it won't be full of raunchy adult humor found in Segel's Forgetting Sarah Marshall. No Muppets will get high or drop trou. "When I get into Muppet mode I turn into a 12-year-old boy," he protested. "I think them seeing me in those meetings, they had no doubt I would be OK with the tone."
If you still doubt Segel, you really need to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall and witness the glory that is the Dracula musical. It sealed the deal for me. (Has anyone else noticed the TV spots always show him singing the Muppet theme song? Such a savvy marketing team.) I vote for Steve Martin to reprise his role as the cheap champagne hawking waiter. I don't know why, but the expression on his face when they request straws still gets me. Or Michael Caine, because I think he deserves a special Oscar for turning in such a perfect Scrooge alongside rats and frogs. In case Segel is reading, offer up requests of your own.
OK, first off: Whoever decided to call this movie Beverly Hills Chihuahua needs to be fired really quick. I mean, seriously: Are we still cribbing titles off of Beverly Hills Cop -- which came out 27 years ago? You want your new kiddie flick to be remembered as fondly as Beverly Hills Ninja, Beverly Hills Bodysnatchers, Troop Beverly Hills, and The Taking of Beverly Hills? With all due respect to Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Slums of Beverly Hills, the phrase is practically the kiss of death where movies are concerned. (Makes me wish Axel Foley's first adventure had had a more accurate title, like A Detroit Cop in Beverly Hills or The Cop Who Laughed Funny.)
But somehow I doubt it's the title that's going to irritate you most about this trailer. Personally I couldn't get past the fact that the computer-generated canines look about as realistic as a bunch of Muppet puppies. And get this: I actually own a half-chihuahua / half-terrier (it's actually my sister's freaky little dog), so I guess I'm part of the intended audience for this thing. Anyway, check out the mind-numbing promo clip and then we'll talk blame.
Prolific producer 
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
While the creative bits of my brain are hoping for comic greatness, I'm thinking that this upcoming feature is one of those projects that holds a lot of promise, but falls under the weight of all the dreamed-of possibilities. 
Hollywood is fond of cannibalizing old cartoons and children's TV shows, but have you noticed that most of them are programs that no one cared about anyway (ahem Speed Racer ahem)? That's why today's announcement is special, because it looks like they're gonna make a film version of something that actually has a cache of devoted fans: -(2).jpg)
1. "Reasons To Burn Rubber (#5): Family-operated Burger King drive through. Fast. Hot. Creepy." -- Anthony M.
When word hit 
Both of the upcoming animated releases that aren't Wall-E or Space Chimps got new trailers yesterday. 
Well, it was a surprise. 
OK, first off: Whoever decided to call this movie 
