It seems at the moment, in Hollywood you need a franchise if you are going to be a player in the cinematic market. Since the massive success of Marvel Studios Cinematic Universe and the financial success of the Transformers franchise, it seems Hasbro is next in looking at a shared cinematic universe.
Continue reading Could A Hasbro/Paramount Shared Cinematic Universe Be A Reality?
It looks like Marky Mark has his sidekick to join him and his new funky bunch, also known as the Transformers. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Jack Reynor has been cast as the new lead alongside Mark Wahlberg in Transformers 4, directed by Michael “There’s No Such Thing as a Stationary Camera Shot” Bay. Reynor is fairly new to United States shores as his only major Hollywood release is the new Vince Vaughn comedy Delivery Man, which is due out later this year.
The Transformers franchise is undergoing a casting overhaul as none of the principles from the previous movies are returning as this is a new chapter in the saga. They are still looking to cast the daughter of Mark Wahlberg, and have already undergone screen tests in order to find the Megan Fox/Rosie Huntington-Whiteley replacement. Supposedly Reynor will play the boyfriend in this story, as it will take place four years after the “Chicago War” that played out in the third movie, Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
Michael Bay has said that he wants to make a different trilogy that continues the story, only with different characters and perspectives. For this franchise to pick an unknown makes sense as opposed to an established star where they might have to pay him backend on top of the initial paydays. I say good for this kid as he steps foot on to American soil and finds himself ready to take on Michael Bay and the popularity that will surely be put upon him. Shia LeBeouf was always a great choice and is a great actor, so hopefully this kid will bring the same type of charisma that he did in the first trilogy. Either that or he’ll be doomed to bar fights, pissing of Spielberg, and trolling for Lars Von Trier porn movie opportunities. Regardless, looks like he’s in for the Michael Bay right so buckle up.
Via THR
Comic Con is always an awesome time for us fan boys and girls. The smell of new comics on a mornings day, the greasepaint on some guy’s face who’s dressed as the Joker, and exclusive action figures.
It would seem that Michael Bay may be seeing the error of his ways. I remember by the time that Revenge of the Fallen had found it’s way out of theaters that I would ask questions like- “Why do we need the human characters?” “Can we just have a movie with only Transformers in it?” “Why all the forced toilet humor?” And even though it seemed like Bay had started to tone it down a little and just focus on his craft of blowing shit up, Dark of the Moon still had that wasted human element to it. I liked the character of Sam Witwicky and think that Shia LaBoeuf is a great actor, but after three movies of the character, his parents and his girlfriends, I’m kind of ready for a Transformers movie just about…. Transformers. It seems like the movies are at least 70% CGI with the Autobots and Decepticons onscreen for the majority of the movie so why not just have a movie focusing on their war against one another? I don’t mind the human characters acting as support but I don’t need a lovesick kid running around trying to prove his self worth to everyone.
Now come reports that the next Tranformers movie will still indeed be a sequel to Dark of the Moon, but will feature less comedy and not so many human characters. Josh Duhamel has been pretty candid about the fact that neither himself nor any other actors have been contacted in regards to the fourth Tranformers movie, courtesy of E! Online:
“I don’t think anybody’s doing it,” Josh Duhamel told us last night at the launch party for Sony PlayStation’s new PS Vita portable entertainment system. “I know Shia [LaBoeuf]’s not doing it. I don’t think Tyrese or Rosie [Huntington-Whiteley] or anybody else is doing it.”
“Whenever these movies make that much money they’re going to make as many as they can,” he said. “[But] I haven’t heard anything about it. They haven’t called me.”
If there were human characters that I didn’t mind, it would have been the soldiers including those played by Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson because they were all business about killing Decepticons and not how their girlfriend thought about their socioeconomic status.
I’d love to see the Autobots engaging the Decepticons on different planets throughout the galaxy as they did on the cartoon and the Transformers animated movie in the 80’s. I honestly doubt that the budget would be affected by having less “real” shooting locations, especially with how much money the studio knows that it’s going to make off the franchise. They could make the fourth movie about Optimus Prime trying to find his inner human whilst also looking for a female Transformer to settle down with and the movie would still gross almost a billion dollars worldwide. We can only hope that Michael Bay remains serious about toning down the cheesiness and five year old humor in his Transformer movies until the movie is finished. Am I expecting some sort of Academy Award winning performance from Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime? No. Nor am I looking for a deadly serious movie with the complexity of something like Inception because we all know that Transformers is a popcorn summer action flick. Just give us something true to the Transformers mythos and we’ll be happy.
So a few months back I wrote a Transformers article about Michael Bay possibly coming back for one or two sequels with the Robots in Disguise, even though he had already said that the third one would be the last of them. Days later Michael Bay came out and dispelled any rumors about himself returning to any more Transformers flicks. I didn’t even bother to update the article or write a follow up one because I was so sure this particular article would be coming, just not so soon. Check out the snippet below from IGN:
Paramount Pictures has now issued a press release officially announcing Michael Bay’s involvement:
Paramount Pictures announced today that director Michael Bay has signed a two-picture deal with the studio, which will commence this spring with the filming of Pain and Gain, and will be followed by the next installment in the hit Transformers franchise.
Following Pain and Gain, Bay will bring audiences a new take on the Transformers franchise as he begins production on the fourth installment in the hit series of movies based on the best-selling Hasbro toyline. The third, and most recent installment of the franchise, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Is the fourth highest global grossing film of all time with 1.124 billion dollars of worldwide box office success. Directed by Bay, the movie will re-unite the filmmaking team from the hit franchise, including producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Don Murphy, Tom DeSanto and Ian Bryce; and executive producers Steven Spielberg, Bay, Brian Goldner and Mark Vahradian. Paramount Pictures will release the film on June 29th, 2014.
So there you have it. That explosion-whore Michael Bay will be returning to explode even more, all over giant robots once again. Man, that sounded so dirty. But seriously, like Bay was going to pass up on this billion dollar franchise that is such a sure thing for him. This guy’s purpose in life is to make movies like this and the sooner he realizes that, then the better off we will all be. Don’t get me wrong, I hope that this Pain and Gain, Wahlberg-Bay-The Rock collaboration is at least a worthwhile movie to go see. I just don’t have very high hopes for anything besides napalm and half naked chicks from Michael Bay.
So until 2014 let the speculation begin about which actors shall return, which transformers shall kick ass and what form the story shall take! I for one am totally excited for another Transformers movie to come out. I enjoyed the third installment because it went back to it’s roots of non-stop action and a story that you could set your mind on cruise control for, unlike Revenge of the Fallen where you had to set your brain off completely to enjoy the toilet humor and bogus ass story. What’s everyone else thinking? Has the transformer franchise run its course or is everyone psyched for a new one? Comment below!
The world of espionage, spies, secrets, and traitors isn’t necessarily what the James Bond movies make it out to be, quite the contrary actually. The car chases, gunfights, sexy sidekicks, and dry martinis aren’t the job. Instead, the world of a spy consists of endless amounts of research, chain smoking, and a lot of talking. The conversations, though, can be as heated, if not even more so, than your run-in-the-mill gun battle.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which is based on the novel of the same name by John Le Carre, follows retired agent George Smiley (Gary Oldman), who must come back to work to find a Soviet spy that is hidden in MI6, nicknamed the Circus. The man in charge, Control (John Hurt), is convinced that a mole is hidden within the Circus after he does some intensive research and studying with information that he’s been given from a reliable source.
The possibilities, according to Control, are “Tinker” who is Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), “Tailor” who is Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), “Soldier” who is Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds), “Poor Man” who is Toby Esterhase (David Dencik), and “Beggar Man” who is Smiley himself. The beginning of the film reveals that there’s a Hungarian general who knows the identity of the mole. Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) is sent to retrieve the information, but the mission goes bad, alerting the Soviets of MI6’s suspicion.
This leads Smiley to be forced into retirement by Control, who soon after passes away. Smiley is then brought back and given some very valuable information by a man named Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), a rogue agent who travels around the world searching for information that may benefit the MI6 during the Cold War. Smiley listens to his story, and considering the failed Hungarian mission, as well as a successful Soviet operation named Operation Witchcraft, he pursues it further, enlisting the help of fellow agent and apprentice, Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch).
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a beautiful, intense, and sometimes extremely confusing spy film that trades in the usual action for something much more effective; edge-of-your-seat dialogue. The constant interaction between the characters keep things more than exciting, and the sometimes puzzling narrative is both saved and clarified by the use of conversation that literally had my heart racing. Gary Oldman’s flawless performance as George Smiley is a cinematic revelation. His calm and collected manner is sometimes eerie considering the situation, and the one time that he does raise his voice, it’s almost enough to frighten the viewer, especially considering the context.
Tom Hardy and Colin Firth are also absolutely amazing as spies who know things that everyone else wants to, but Mark Strong is surprisingly strong in his rather short but extremely necessary role. Personally, I’m a huge fan of his. I think he’s able to adapt to his environment extremely well, with enough diversity to successfully play both a bad guy and a good guy, sometimes in the same movie. It’s Tom Hardy though, that has probably the most screen time in the entire film besides Oldman, which is surprising considering how little he is shown in the trailer, and how far down he is in the opening credits. I’m not here to complain though, after his performances in Inception, Warrior and RockNRolla, he’s most definitely solidified himself a spot in being one of the best young actors in Hollywood today.
The direction by Tomas Alfredson is gorgeously mundane, and I mean that in the absolute best way possible. He recreates the 70s film style so well here that I felt as if I was doing a double feature with Marathon Man. You might recognize his name as being the director of the equally as fantastic vampire love story, Let The Right One In. Alfredson seems to have a knack for creating films with little action that are almost as exciting as a Transformers movie.
The film also plays as a retrospective, taking snippets of certain scenes and placing them in other scenes, which then leads them to go back to that original scene, but instead it moves forward a little bit. This allows the film to literally be a puzzle, with pieces being filled in left and right until the finale where everything is in place and the universal “aha!” moment is reached. Instead of me trying to explain it, think of it as an episode of How I Met Your Mother, how they flip back and forth between the present and other important times that relate to the story being told. You all know what I’m talking about, let’s just move on.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is brutally violent when it needs to be, dryly funny at times, but it’s also a fantastically plotted film that requires quite a bit of attention from the viewer. I’ll be honest, this and Warrior were the only two films of the year where I didn’t look at my watch once to see how much time there was left. For a two hour film consisting mostly of dialogue, that’s pretty damn good if you ask me.
5/5 Grizzly’s
Grizzly Bomb 