GammaSquad via Variety is reporting that the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie may be getting a director soon. Jonathan Liebesman, director of Battle: LA and the upcoming Wrath of the Titans, is negotiating right now to take the helm of the franchise. The film is using a script from the Iron Man writing team of Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, but Paramount and Nickelodeon have employed the Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol team of Josh Appelbaum and Andrew Nemec to rewrite.
“I am totally available to reprise that role.”
Now that we got all that stuff out-of-the-way, here’s what we know about this movie: It’s a live action movie that wants to emulate Rise of the Planet of the Apes and use CGI characters replacing a motion captured actor in a practical environment. The Foot will be present (hopefully they won’t just gather and get their asses kicked methodically, oh wait, it’s the Foot, of course they will), and April O’Neil and Casey Jones will most likely be involved so that Kronner can yell “Casey Jones” anytime that new actor comes on in any other movie, a privilege normally reserved for Elias Koteas. [F–k Yeah!]
No word if Vanilla Ice will jump on board. I personally think this movie should not exist until ‘Keno’ gets involved. My boy needs work, and with Linsanity happening, I think Ernie Reyes can be your next superstar. I mean, did you NOT see Surf Ninjas? Actually don’t. It seriously does not stand the test of time. Nor did it stand the test of time when it came out. I did not know any better as a 10-year-old…
“Let’s surf and eat pizza!!! God the 90s were awesome. Now where did I leave my roller-blades and Spin Doctors cassettes? Oh – is that a Laser Disc of REALITY BITES?”
As was predicted in our previous update on this story, Deadline reports that Michael Fassbender will indeed take the starring role of Ridley Scott’s next film, The Counselor. There’s not a lot of major information regarding the film yet, seeing as production hasn’t even started (That’ll begin this May), but we do know that Fassbender will play a lawyer who misguidedly takes a stab at the drug business and suffers the consequences.
So far The Counselor is knocking it out of the park. A script written by the original author of No Country for Old Men, directed by the man behind the camera for Blade Runner, and starring one of this generations fastest rising talents. I can’t wait to see who’s next to jump aboard this awesome project and you can bet I’ll be paying close attention to all future developments.
So I am pretty sure that everyone has heard about Prometheus, the next Ridley Scott joint, which was supposed to be the prequel to Alien, but ended up being branched off into a separate story. That alone makes me excited just because Ridley Scott has always been a great director, and if anyone can actually bring a good story together and make it visually appealing without having to Michael Bay the crap out of it, I’m game.It’s never good when nowadays, you have Spielberg trying to out-Spielberg himself constantly.
I am really excited for this movie because I think if Alien was the most underrated sci-fi flick of all time (mostly due to the superior ‘Aliens’ from Mr. Titanic/Avatar himself). Plus the cast is not one to sneeze at with Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Michael Fassbender, Patrick Wilson, Logan Marshall-Green, and Noomi Rapace. So yeah, seeing the teaser, it looked awesome. Plus co-written by one of the creators of Lost (Damon Lindelof and John Spaihts being the other co-writer) it promises to be good times. Below is actually the new international trailer and I have not watched it yet. Shall we do that right now after the break?
So that was a subtle trailer. Just let you know that stuff is about to go down, maybe a face hugger or two, maybe some psychological issues, and some giant ass monumental about to wreck your crap. I’m sold. Even if I can’t tell if it comes off more Alien than Event Horizon…which isn’t a bad thing because Event Horizon still creeps me out. Just sayin’. I just expect raptors to show up and clever girl people when Sam Neill is on the screen.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance easily surpasses it’s predecessor, but not by much. They definitely ignored events of the first one and started from scratch, getting straight to the point with the opening sequence. Given that, it still seemed like the filmmakers were sort of relying on you having seen the first movie so you had a better understanding of what the Rider is even though they explained everything in five minutes. Nicolas Cage is at his quirky best in the film, acting half crazed in several scenes as he struggles to keep Ghost Rider within himself.
The plot of the movie reminded me a lot of the plot from Drive Angry, another Cage starring flick involving a satanic cult attempting to take a child that will be used to bring the devil to our world and create hell on Earth. The premise was the same in Spirit of Vengeance, but the execution was less ridiculous than it was in Drive Angry. The devil himself walks the Earth in Spirit of Vengeance, played by Ciarán Hinds. Hinds, who has most recently appeared in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy seems to be wasted in the role of the devil. (Or Roarke as he is known in the movie) I remember back to when Rome was still on HBO and he played the role of Caesar and just can’t pinpoint why he would accept this role except for the cash. The same could be said for actor Idris Elba, but he seems right at home in the role of Moreau, the French, wine drinking holy man who assists Johnny Blaze in trying to regain his humanity in this installment of Ghost Rider.
Nicolas Cage used to be a great actor, but now he has become a sort of caricature of himself in many ways. It’s known that he had financial troubles in recent years and it’s now common knowledge as to why he releases nearly six movies every other year. I’m not saying I won’t go see any Nicolas Cage movies anymore, I’m just saying he’s no longer the actor he once was, we just can’t expect anything spectacular out of him anymore performance wise.
Even though the movie’s plot was dog crap and typical of many supernatural movies in recent years, the special effects in regard to Ghost Rider himself were excellent. The first time you experience him in the movie he is definitely a creepy sight to behold as his movements as he walks toward a victim are choppy and erratic. His head tilting and screaming were also a bit disconcerting. This wears off later in the movie, but I thought they couldn’t have done a better job with the character who is pretty one dimensional in the comics anyhow. The action sequences weren’t all that bad either and was one of the main things that even kept me awake during the movie. I loved the concept of the Rider being able to change any vehicle he rides into a flame spewing death machine.
*Minor Spoiler*
I never looked much into the origin of Ghost Rider aside from his human host making a deal or being cursed, but in the movie we are treated to one. It turns out the Rider was formerly an Angel called Zarathos, the Spirit of Justice, who was sent to Earth to help mankind. Unfortunately he was driven mad after being captured by the forces of hell and now in his form as Ghost Rider he punishes everyone no matter the severity of their crime. I thought that was an interesting take on the character.
Overall I give Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance 2 out of 5 grizzlies.
It wasn’t as good as I expected, but it was definitely better than the first Ghost Rider movie. I honestly hope at this point that they might be done with trying to make Ghost Rider something more than he is. I wouldn’t think they would make yet another movie to attempt correcting the things wrong with this movie, but it is Hollywood so you never know. I think Ghost Rider is in the same boat as Punisher, he has a faithful following but not enough to elevate him into the box office smash hit like Spiderman or Iron Man. It was a nice try for the studio to make up for the first Ghost Rider though.
A new I Am Legend movie is currently in the works. Produced by Warner Brothers, and with a screenplay penned by Arash Amel, the reported follow up to the 2007 film has little else as of now. Writer Amel’s only other writing credits are two films that are currently in production, including a CIA thriller starring Aaron Eckhart called The Expatriate.
There’s little news as to what direction the film might go in, but since Will Smith’s character died at the end of I Am Legend, it’s unlikely that a sequel would be the right way to go if Warner Bros. wants to cast Smith in the lead, which they do. Then again, a prequel wouldn’t be much better, would it? It’d essentially be two hours of Will Smith watching everyone in New York die before his eyes while him and his dog just chill out and watch.
Thus far, the film, whose original is based off the novel of the same name by Richard Matheson, has neither a director nor a star. Warner Bros. are shooting to get the original film’s director, Francis Lawrence, back behind the camera. They’re also shooting to get Smith back in the lead, but the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.
To be perfectly frank, the 2007 I Am Legend was a great Will Smith action flick that worked extremely well as a standalone film. Making $585 million dollars worldwide on a $150 million dollar budget, as well as earning a positive 69% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film was both a critical and commercial success backed by a great performance by Will Smith.
Matheson’s novel has been adapted into films two times. The first being The Last Man on Earth in 1964, and a second time in 1971 with the name, The Omega Man. The fact that Hollywood execs are trying to squeeze out a sequel for a movie that was obviously meant to be stand-alone isn’t surprising, but it’s definitely disappointing. Personally, I hope that Will Smith denies it, but he’s got to put food on the table, right?
What can I say about Journey 2: The Mysterious Island? It was a little better than I expected and had some great visuals. Also, even though it seems like the Rock is just put into movies to lure the mindless masses into the movie theater, he actually kind of made the movie better than it would have been. The plot seems to be loosely based off of the first movie which I only saw bits and pieces of, but Josh Hutcherson (Soon to be in The Hunger Games.) returns as Sean Anderson who is an adventurer/scientist on a mission to find his grandfather Alexander Anderson who has gone missing and has apparently been looking for Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island for about half of his life. Really, it seems like they just cobbled together the pretense for them to head out and find the grandfather and mysterious island in about thirty seconds…. Which they probably actually did. Anyways, the Rock, who plays Sean’s gigantic, ex-Navy, stepfather decides to help Sean break a code sent from his grandfather in an attempt to be closer to him family wise. What Mr. The Rock didn’t count on was Sean being right that there is indeed a Mysterious Island. A Mysterious Island they have no way of getting off of before impending disaster strikes.
Really, the movie was never meant to be an Academy Award winner and it definitely wasn’t. With the acting talents of Vanessa Hudgens and Luis Guzman (As the father-daughter helicopter team that brought them to the island) intermingled with those of Josh Hutcherson and The Rock, they don’t measure up anything near to Michael Caine. What Rock doesn’t have in acting ability he more than makes up for in hilarity. There is a scene in the movie where he “pops” his pectoral muscles for about three minutes as he urges Josh Hutcherson and Guzman to bounce berries off of them. This as you know, is a sure fire way to win over any woman. The scene had me laughing my ass off, the Rock urging Hutcherson to “Feed them. They’re not going to stop until you do.” As funny as I found the scene, I can only imagine that young kids and their parents were probably left puzzled as to what in the shit they brought their kids to. But oh well, it made me laugh.
Grizzly Bomb 
