The franchise reboots may never end. According to ComingSoon.net (who spotted it on TrackingB.com), Shane Black has written a spec script for Lethal Weapon 5 without really telling anyone but Joel Silver.
The story would center around Riggs' impending retirement (and his, undoubtedly, being too old for ... well, you know). But before he leaves the force, he has to tackle one last case, and as there are no other police officers in Los Angeles, he hauls Murtaugh out of retirement to help him. Allegedly, both Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are interested, though no deals have been signed.
Now, I name drop Lethal Weapon enough that you undoubtedly know that the series ranks much higher in my life than it probably should. Watching it in my pre-teens not only taught me a choice vocabulary, it rocked my world with glimpses at a naked Mel Gibson. My problems with men probably stem from the pedestal I have placed Martin Riggs upon.
But, that doesn't mean I want a fifth movie -- I already sat through the fourth installment, and it wasn't that good. Black has penned some fantastic scripts in his time -- and I firmly believe A Long Kiss Goodnight is insanely underrated -- and I'd love to see him churning out action-comedies again. But not ones with Riggs and Murtaugh. Let Lethal Weapon lie, and write a franchise that can give us a new badass or two. Check out the video below of Seth Rogen and James Franco discussing Shane Black's movies from Moviefone's latest Unscripted chat...
Of all the films I'm looking forward to this fall, Blindness ranks fairly high up there. Canadian distributor Alliance has just made available a full trailer that proves to be fairly intriguing, as an optometrist (Mark Ruffalo) and his seemingly immune wife (Julianne Moore) cope with an inexplicable epidemic of sight loss.
I'm a sucker for most anything vaguely apocalyptic, and while this very well could turn out to be akin to watching the first act of Children of Men through a milk-filled mask (which I've done, mind you), the prestige behind the project* says otherwise. We have acclaimed screenwriter Don McKellar adapting Nobel-Laureate José Saramago's novel, with Academy Award nominee Fernando Meirelles directing a cast that also includes Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal, Alice Braga, and Sandra Oh.
I must say, going off that taste and last spring's teaser, I still like the look, sound, and feel of this one, especially Moore's little retort (you know the one), and that's not to mention that any trailer which employs John Murphy's underrated score from last year's Sunshine to set a rightfully ominous tone is always fine by me. We'll get to see (sorry) what trials and tribulations await the world on September 19th.
*Not to mention Rocchi's review of the film from its Cannes world premiere.
Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Blindness (click to enlarge), which enjoyed its world premiere as the opening night film of this year's Cannes Film Festival back in May. Starring Julianne Moore,Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Gael García Bernal, Blindness tells of a city overcome by a blindness epidemic where its citizens are stricken with instant "white blindness." As folks are quarantined off in an abandoned mental hospital, one woman who remains unaffected pretends to be sick in order to take care of her husband, a doctor, who's now blind. Based on Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago's novel, and directed by the very talented Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener), Blindness definitely looks to bring the creep factor -- and with this outstanding cast, I'm sure it will claim a spot as this fall's first great flick.
Don't close your eyes for too long, because Blindness hits theaters on September 19.
Considering the critical reception that a Roland Emmerich film usually receives, I am always a little surprised by the actors who are willing to sign on for one of his films. Although to be fair, it wouldn't be the first time that John Cusack had signed on the dotted line for a less-than-stellar project. The Hollywood Reporter has now announced that Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, and Oliver Platt are all in talks to join Cusack in Emmerich's apocalyptic thriller, 2012. According to THR, "Glover is in talks to play the President, with Newton in discussions to play his daughter. Platt is in negotiations to play the president's chief of staff."
Thanks to Erik, we now have a few more details about the story, and that it centers on an academic researcher (Cusack) who "opens a portal into a parallel universe and makes contact with his double in order to prevent an apocalypse predicted by the ancient Mayans." Emmerich co-wrote the script with fellow 10,000 B.C. scribe, Harald Kloser -- which is probably not a great selling point for most audiences. Columbia has projected a budget of $200 million for the end-of-the-world flick -- I guess all that destruction doesn't come cheap. But, Columbia has also stated that they're hoping to bring the thriller in under budget. Emmerich has promised to start production by July, barring any hiccups from a possible SAG strike.
2012 is scheduled to arrive in theaters on July 10, 2009.
I sat in on a roundtable luncheon for the film Blindness the other day; as far as roundtables go, it was a nice affair; there were four tables of journalists, and they rotated the talent through the tables, giving us about 15 minutes with each set. It's always interesting to me to talk to the actors and filmmaker about a film like this; it gives you a different perspective that you have from just watching the film.
A word of caution: There are spoilers in these interviews about certain aspects of the film, but I'm including them because they provide a good deal of context about the film and the motivations of the characters. If you prefer to go into seeing the film blind, as it were, you'll not want to read this until after you've seen it. If you do want to learn more about the film, the interview writeup is after the jump ...
This morning James and I and a couple thousand other press folks took in a screening of the Opening Film at Cannes 2008, Fernando Meirelles's Blindness, starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal. You can check out James' review here, and tomorrow I'll be attending a luncheon/roundtable for the film. And in related Cannes news, Jack Black arrived at the 2008 Festival de Cannes in style. He's here to promote Kung Fu Panda, which premieres later in the week. Check out our gallery of Black and tons of panda bears down below.
Meantime, though, my take on Blindness is that it's ambitious and good, but falls short of being great. In part, I think, this is because the source material was challenging to adapt to a visual experience, but it's also due to some clunky expositional voiceover that detracts from the experience more than it adds. I don't want to be told how this or that person feels or reacts, I want to see it.
Fernando Meirelles's new film Blindnessbegins with the rush and push of urban life; traffic, crowds, activity, purpose. And then, one man cries out: "I'm blind." He eventually makes it to an ophthalmologist, but there's nothing physically wrong with his eyes; he simply can't see. "It feels like I'm swimming in milk," he explains, and we see, through his eyes, the blank, empty swirl of what used to be the world. And then another person says they are blind, and then another, and soon those few, frightened voices form a chorus of chaos as "the White Sickness" spreads like wildfire and leaves a ruined world in its wake.
Adapting Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago's novel, Blindness feels like a curious mix of highbrow literary aspirations and lowbrow genre fiction; as the White Sickness spreads from person to person in a clear chain of connection and things fall apart, it'd be easy to dismiss Blindness as Dawn of the Dead for NPR listeners or Outbreak for grad students. Meirreles has taken a similar two-pronged approach before -- The Constant Gardener is an excellent critique of the failings of modern capitalism that also works as a strong, suspenseful thriller -- and while Blindness may not work as well as that film, it's also a clear case of a film, and filmmaker, failing to hit the mark occasionally only because they've set the bar so high for themselves.
Alpha and Omega focuses on "two bickering wolves -- one a disciplined, Alpha-bred wolf (Panettiere), and the other a fun-loving, comical Omega wolf (Long) -- who are captured and taken thousands of miles from their home. Determined to rejoin their pack, the two mismatched wolves begin a dangerous trek across unfamiliar terrain, battling the odds, the elements, the bears, and one another -- and finding love along the way." Look out, Milo & Otis! There's a new sheriff in town. It's too soon to tell what this will all shape up like, but at least they cast the leads pretty well. Panettiere is good at being terse and Alpha, while Long is pretty much Omega in human form.
No Christmas is complete without at least one viewing of the opening scene of Lethal Weapon, in which the happy melody of Jingle Bell Rock fades into the vision of a coked-out, topless Amanda Hunsaker preparing to pay for all the sins of 80s excess with one perfectly executed swan-dive off a high-rise balcony and onto the waiting windshield of a car below. I won't be so brash as to call it the best scene in the entire Lethal canon -- the 'death by surfboard' sequence in Lethal Weapon 2 is tough to beat -- but it's certainly up there, and fun for the whole family. It's also one of several Christmas-focused scenes throughout the film, another favorite of which would be the coke-deal gone bad in the Christmas tree lot, with Martin Riggs unwisely revealing himself as a cop to the bad guys before he has the drop on them -- what is he, suicidal or something? -- and then getting into a full-blown gunfight with several hoods amongst all those pine needles.
Lethal Weapon has some similarities with another Christmas classic, Gremlins, in that it draws a lot of its negative energy from the idea that if your life sucks, it's going to suck a lot worse during the holidays. The film's most resonating scene -- the one for which a set trailer reportedly had to be ready-made at all times for whenever Mel Gibson felt like he could act the scene -- comes with Riggs being overcome by the absence of his recently-deceased wife (those South African bastards) and putting a hollow-point bullet into his 9mm and putting the 9mm in his mouth. Just as he's about to depress the trigger, you can hear Bugs Bunny shouting Christmas tidings on the television opposite, and it looks like it's all over. It's easy to overlook how good the acting is here -- Mel is really firing on all cylinders in the scene. I have no idea if he's ever done a DVD commentary for the film, but if he has I'd probably want to listen to hear what he has to say about that scene.
Project Greenlight producer Chris Moore is already busy with his directorial debut, Killers, but now The Hollywood Reporter posts that he's also executive producing a miniseries and feature-length documentary based on A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. First published in 1980, the book follows the history of the United States from Columbus and Native Americans right through the twentieth century. However, instead of your ordinary historical book, Zinn critically looked at both the triumphs and tyranny of the country.
The project is titled The People Speak, and it's looking like it could be a pretty successful documentary, if the collaborators are any indication. The history will be brought together by music and readings that focus on the country's war, class, race, and women's rights struggles. Actors like Matt Damon, Viggo Mortensen, Marisa Tomei, Danny Glover, David Strathairn, Kerry Washington, and Josh Brolin will perform, while the likes of Eddie Vedder and John Legend will add some music into the mix. This collaboration will be topped off by Zinn himself, who will give introductions and historical contest to the pieces of the film.
As Moore describes it: "It's going to be a great piece of entertainment, but more importantly, something people can watch and learn and remember how great this country has been and how individual people have changed the course of history. It's going to make them think, laugh, and cry and be proud to be American." Yet the cynic in me is waiting for those people who will say all of this is anti-American. Hopefully, it will just be a well-received, good, accurate film that teaches as well as entertains. But what do you think?
When it comes to Michel Gondry films, I guess the wackiness just never stops. Cinemablend is now hosting the first poster for the comedy fantasy Be Kind Rewind and it's everything you would expect from the director who seems to have 'whimsy' as a middle name. Starring Jack Black and Mos Def, the film centers on two local video store employees who have to re-create an entire video store worth of films when Black accidentally erases all the tapes after a bout of 'personal magnetization'. Rounding out the cast is Mia Farrow as one of the store's most dedicated customers and Danny Glover as the owner of the struggling shop.
The first trailer for the flick arrived in August, and so far most of the marketing for the film has been stressing that same message of a fantastical 'DIY culture'. I guess in the end that is what I've always thought Gondry's movies were about; if you aren't happy with the way things are then create your own reality until you are. The official site for the film even gives you the opportunity to cut and paste your own face into some famous movie art. Ever wanted to be on the cover of Die Hard? Well, here is your chance. There is even a pretty elaborate gag involving a "homemade Internet". The poster for the film seems to keep the same feel as the website and even looks like it was made on the cheap with markers and pencil crayons -- but as anyone in the design business knows, sometimes it's the 'cheap' look that costs you the most. Be Kind Rewind opens in theaters on January 25th, 2008.
Check out the full-sized poster after the jump ...
For those who were confused, irritated or just plain disappointed with the ridiculous Yahoo Serious comedy Young Einstein, you'll be happy to know that everyone's favorite physicist is getting a legitimate early-years biopic soon. According to Variety, Lionsgate has purchased the worldwide life rights to Albert Einstein, which kinda sounds like they now own the guy and could make a clone army (that probably wouldn't be so bad). Lionsgate has also bought the rights to Walter Isaacson's book Einstein: His Life and Universe, which was the first biography to dip into the genius' private archives. Isaacson will also serve as a consultant on the film, which also gained access to Einstein's correspondence and papers, which are currently owned by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The story will focus on Einstein's life from about 20 to 40, at which age he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. The film will apparently show the man as a rebel who challenged existing scientific theories but will also deal with personal and romantic plots.
All I can say is, it's about time. But this is me, a total geek who wears Einstein t-shirts. Of course, this is also me, the guy who is really bad at science and has never really read much on Einstein's actual work. I'm mostly interested in his personality, which is why I'm excited to see him get a decent biopic. As far as I can tell or remember, there hasn't ever been a good Einstein movie -- even if you have a guilty spot for Yahoo Serious, his movie was by no means about the real genius. Aside from Serious, we've seen Walter Matthau play the guy in I.Q. and Michael Emil sorta play him in Insignificance. According to the IMDb, there are at least three Einstein biopics in the works, one of which is probably Lionsgate's. One of them is about the friendship between Einstein and Paul Robeson, played by (last we heard) Ben Kingsley and Danny Glover, respectively, and another is being directed by Liliana Cavani with Vincenzo Amato (The Golden Door) playing the lead (I guess Giovanni Ribisi jumped the gun when he said he was cast in that film). There's also a British TV-movie in the works with Andy Serkis as Einstein.
When Honeydripper opens, we see two young boys. One's fingers are pulling away at a string, while the other's are pounding piano keys painted on a piece of wood. While their music echoes only in their minds, their passion is palpable. This sweet scene is, in a way, a perfect metaphor for the work of John Sayles -- his films are, at once, both subdued and sonorous. However, where most of them seek to reveal hidden layers and webs, Honeydripper is a simple and plainly executed ode to the start of rock 'n' roll.
Tyrone "Pine Top" Purvis (Danny Glover) is the proprietor of the Honeydripper -- an ailing club in a town called Harmony, deep in 1950's Alabama. While he offers the stunning voice of Bertha Mae (Mable John), his competition, a hop free of a skip and a jump away, offers a loud and rowdy jukebox that draws in the crowds in droves. Pine Top has one last chance to save his club, or his landlord will rent the building to someone else. The plan -- bring in radio phenomenon Guitar Sam to perform for just one Saturday night. (This is a bit unheard of for the musician-turned-bar owner, as he considers guitar players to be dangerous.)
Many people may have done more for independent film -- producers who funded groundbreaking work, directors who brought crowds to theaters with groundbreaking work, pioneers who paved the way -- but, looking at the career of writer-director John Sayles, it's hard to think of anyone who's done more with independent film. Each of Sayles's movies is different , yet they all revolve around his central concerns -- life, morality, the struggles and rewards of life in America. His new film, Honeydripper, debuts at this year's Toronto International Film Festival -- a completely independent "rock and roll fable" about the birth of rock and roll, set in an Alabama juke joint in 1950. Sayles spoke with Cinematical in Toronto about re-creating the distant past on a shoestring budget, how he found young guitar man Gary Clark, Jr. , working with Danny Glover and Charles S. Dutton and recommended specific records where you, too, can hear the sound of rock and roll being born. You can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:
I once saw Leelee Sobieski in person after an awards show. I was dazzled by how young, slender and beautiful she looked, and at how tall she was -- she towered over Jack Valenti. Of course, even short little me was taller than the late, diminutive Mr. Valenti, but Sobieski stands over six feel in heels. Yet the thing that impressed me most when I first saw her act was not her physical appearance but her calm maturity. She was just 14 or 15 when she did James Ivory's A Solider's Daughter Never Cries. She was poised, independent and radiated intelligence, not an easy thing to do. Ever since then, I've been hoping that she'd have a chance to give another breakout performance. She kept busy until she headed off to Brown University, but her recent work has been mostly unseen -- I don't think Lying,Heavens Fall or The Elder Son have received US theatrical distribution yet, In a Dark Place went straight to DVD, and the less said about the dreadful Wicker Man remake, the better, though Scott Weinberg liked it more than I did.
Ever an optimist, a brief casting note caught my eye. Variety reports that Sobieski will star in the independent thriller Night Train. Evidently already in production, the film also stars Danny Glover and Steve Zahn. Tthe plot "concerns three strangers competing for a mysterious object on a train on Christmas Eve. Sobieski plays a seemingly sedate med student." Glover is always reliable and I usually enjoy whatever Steve Zahn does, so adding Sobieski to the mix sounds very promising. Debuting director Brian King also wrote the script; he previously penned Cypher. Sobieski has three other films waiting for release: as a fledging dominatrix in the comedy/thriller Walk All Over Me,88 Minutes (with Al Pacino) and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.
The franchise reboots may never end. According to ComingSoon.net (who spotted it on TrackingB.com), Shane Black has written a spec script for Lethal Weapon 5 without really telling anyone but Joel Silver.
UPDATE: Here's the trailer in 
Considering the 
In our animated future, we can not only anticipate Wall-E robots, Tintin, and dragon taming, but also the fuzzy and dangerous world of wolves. 
Project Greenlight producer 
When it comes to 
For those who were confused, irritated or just plain disappointed with the ridiculous Yahoo Serious comedy 
I once saw 
