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Psychotic Reactions
-- John Shea
29 May, 2003
I love seeing a great film getting cleaned up and then sent back to theaters so a younger generation can discover a masterpiece. Such is the case with Ridley Scott's Alien. According to FilmJerk, the movie will return to theaters with considerable amounts of cut footage restored as well as a remastered soundtrack to take advantage of modern sound systems. This will be a major release, aiming at over 2,000 theaters. If successful, look for the sequel Aliens to get the same treatment.
On the opposite side of the industry are two projects not exactly setting the hearts of serious movie fans on fire. Fox's From Justin to Kelly, a beach flick starring the finalists of the first season of American Idol has run into trouble with theater owners. They are less than thrilled that Fox intended to release the film to video a mere six weeks after premiering in theaters. Theater chains threatened to not play the film at all under the original plan, prompting Fox to push the video date back six more weeks. The explosive success of DVD has made video releases nearly as important as theatrical releases, prompting the constant shortening of time films spend in theaters. The other dubious project is Sk8er Boi, based on the Avril Levigne pop tune. Paramount has optioned the song and has hired David Zabel to adapt the lyrics into a movie. The basic idea is that a teen girl rejects a skater boy because her friends wouldn't approve. Later he becomes a huge rock star and she regrets dumping him. Not exactly deep material. On the bright side, it isn't meant to be a musical. Playing the song repeatedly in the movie is probably unavoidable though.
Random observation
I just can't decide which apalls me more. The wholly unnecessary Beverly Hills Cop 4 or the simply wretched Coyote Ugly 2. Making another Beverly Hills Cop stinks of greed. The second sequel was horrible so there can't really be anyone demanding this sequel. It's just a shameless attempt to cash in on a famous franchise with a star who clearly isn't making anything for artistic reasons. But then there is Coyote Ugly 2 and the concept just makes my skin crawl. The original managed to actually offend me by appealing directly to young teenage girls and then giving them the message that they should dream big and thus move to the city and dance on bars. The film pretended to be about empowering women but deep down it had a rather nasty mysoginist streak. Rather than making another such film, a better move would be to burn all copies of the original.
News
Old School 2: Will Ferrell, Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughn are all likely to return for a sequel to the comedy Old School. Dreamworks has extended its first look production deal with Montecito Pictures. That production company has been responsible for the comedies Road Trip, Evolution and Old School, of which only Evolution wasn't profitable. The new deal is for two pictures one of which is likely to be an untitled comedy formerly known as The Ugly Americans, written by Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer. Montecito would also like to find a project suitable for director Ivan Reitman (Stripes, Ghostbusters, Evolution). The company has several other projects in the works, including the Old School sequel and Sheldon Turner's adaptation of the Walter Kirn novel Up in the Air, which they acquired the rights to in April. (Variety)
Jame Cameron 3D Project: Director James Cameron is now convinced that 3D digital high definition is the wave of the future for movies. So delighted was he with the results in his recent documentary Ghosts of the Abyss that he has decided that his next project will be shot with high definition digital cameras. Just what that film will be, he isn't saying. But he is talking about the format. "I think (the movie) is going to be huge, and it's going to be a huge enabler for the 3-Dexperience," he said in a brief interview earlier this month at the Large Format Cinema Association conference and festival, devoted to works for Imax theaters and other super-sized movie screens. "I don't see a need for 35-mm film based on what I've seen over the last few years," he said. "Long term, it's all going to go digital." Film technology, he argued, "doesn't have much headroom left," while digital cameras are "improving all the time." Cameron is delighted with the ability to watch footage instantly, manipulate it easily and forego the cost of film stock. The downside is that digital cameras still lag well behind film cameras in terms of resolution. Further more, the lack of theaters with digital projectors means that the movie will still have to be transfered to film. A few years back, the notion of digital theaters had Hollywood studios frothing at the mouth but little has happened since. No system has emerged for the delivery of digital films and certainly no method has been developed to protect the films from being pirated. Coupled with the extremely high cost of installing digital projectors and a general lack of enthusiasm for the final product so far, the movement has gone nowhere. Perhaps Cameron will provide the impetus needed to spur on the transition but just as likely he could be banging his head on a wall. (Wired News)
National Treasure: Nicolas Cage is set to star in the film National Treasure for director John Turteltaub and Touchstone Pictures. Jerry Bruckheimer is producing. The movie is about an archaeologist-historian who is the eighth generation of a family that believed America's founding fathers hid a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence. The project is viewed as a tentpole film for the studio in 2004. Getting to this stage has been anything but easy. Nine different writers have tried their hand at the script before finally Marianne and Cormac Wibberly (I-Spy) turned in an acceptable draft. "The treasure and the lore is real, but the story is fiction," said Turteltaub, who's making his seventh film for the studio. "Most movies I've done came together very easily, and this is the first one I've been involved in putting together from scratch. It has been three years since I completed The Kid, but getting Cage was worth it." (Variety)
Labor Day: Jet Li (Black Mask, Romeo Must Die) is set to star in the action flick Labor Day for Disney. Shooting will start late this year. Robert Schwentke will direct the project. Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris wrote the original script, with Jack Olsen doing a rewrite. Schwentke and Mitch Brian will take another pass at it before filming starts. The movie is about a young assistant district attorney who has to prosecute the son of a crime lord. The DA's pregnant wife is kidnapped and he has to ask for help from her ex-boyfriend (Li), a Chinese gangster. Not only does he risk his career by working with a criminal but Li's character still wants her back. Hopefully this project will highlight Jet Li's abilities. Most of his American films have largely failed to capitalize on the high flying martial artists astounding skills.
Casting Couch
Garfield: Bill Murray will be voicing the title character in this CGI animated adaptation of the popular comic strip. (Variety)
Stay: Ewan McGregor (Down With Love, Attack of the Clones) is considering taking the lead in the thriller Stay. The script, by David Benioff (25th Hour), follows an Ivy League professor who's life turns upside down after preventing a student from committing suicide. (Variety)
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