Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop totally SPOILER filled shop through the top five stories in comic based Film & TV news!
Tag Archives: Warner Bros.
Hero Express: ‘The Flash’ Movie Still Alive, New ‘Avengers’ TV Spot, and Animation Station!
Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop sometimes SPOILER filled shop through the top five stories in comic based Film & TV news!
‘I Am Legend’ Prequel (Or Possibly Sequel) In The Works
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?
Hero Express: Dark Knight Station – Rumors, Easter Eggs and Tickets Already On Sale
Welcome to Dark Knight Station, the Hero Express‘s main stop for all the news on The Dark Knight Rises.We’ll keep you up to date on all the biggest bat-news coming straight from Gotham City.
Mind the gap and avoid the shadows; This stop is the Dark Knight Station for January 11th, 2012.
Rumors of a Clearer Bane Voice are False – (FilmDrunk)
In the wake of the DKR prologue, reports sprouted up claiming that Christopher Nolan was already working to clean up Bane’s muffled voice, and theaters would soon be getting the new, clearer audio versions to play for audiences. However, Collider recently went to Warner Bros. and IMAX for confirmation, and both have officially stated that no altered versions of the prologue have been sent.
In the trailer that quickly followed the 8-minute preview Bane was a lot easier to understand, with the majority of viewers issuing a pretty vocal sigh of relief. Personally, I’m still not entirely clear on what Bane is saying in the trailer but I’m not desperately worried. As I’ve mentioned earlier, this isn’t something the entire production team would have missed – dozens of people worked on Bane’s character, not to mention the time and energy spent on audio and editing. It would be impossible for this to be an oversight.
It’s difficult to do with a film as wildly anticipated as The Dark Knight Rises but we all have to sit back and resist judgment for now. We’re picking apart a minor piece of the puzzle that will likely be inconsequential by the time everything comes together. Have a little faith.
Unreleased Footage from The Dark Knight – (/Film)
Here’s a little change of pace: Kevin Smith, of all people, recently sent out a tweet featuring several minutes of unused and alternate footage from everyone’s favorite Batman movie. It includes some clips of Heath Ledger‘s Joker that you might not have seen before.
The few seconds of Ledger that debut here are just as striking as the footage that made it into the final film. It’s a brief reminder of how memorable the character is, and how talented an actor Ledger was. It’s the long shot of The Joker exiting the hospital that does it for me, rekindling the chilling sensation I had when I first saw The Dark Knight‘s Clown Prince of Crime.
Continue reading Hero Express: Dark Knight Station – Rumors, Easter Eggs and Tickets Already On Sale
‘Akira’ Remake Put on Hold
The fall of our economy has been hard on everyone, including Hollywood, California, that magical place where even the litter is diamond-encrusted. It’s hard to believe, but big-budget studios have taken a pretty noticeable hit in recent years, and revenue continues to fall each year. It always helps to look for the good in bad situations and that’s just what this story is all about.
It looks like Warner Bros. has hit the brakes on Jaume Collet-Serra‘s upcoming adaptation of Akira while they make one last negotiation to work out the on-going budgetary and casting issues that have been plaguing production from the start. The Hollywood Reporter says that a call has been made requesting that the entire crew and production crew drop everything they’re working on until further notice. As one insider put it, “everyone has been sent home.”
This would be great news for Akira fans like myself. I’ve made it pretty clear that I’m not a fan of the way the remake was going. Besides some questionable casting decisions and storyline changes, Akira just doesn’t seem like it’s doable in live-action; anime, as you probably know, can go to some pretty wild places from time to time and Akira‘s subject matter requires an extensively realized cyber-punk world. I imagine lowering the budget would make this challenge even more difficult.
Hero Express: Dark Knight Station – Big Prologue Announcements, Interviews and Possible Spoilers
Welcome to Dark Knight Station, the Hero Express‘s main stop for all the news on The Dark Knight Rises. We’ll keep you up to date on all the biggest bat-news coming straight from Gotham City.
Mind the gap and avoid the shadows; This stop is the Dark Knight Station for December 3rd, 2011.
Official Announcement for the IMAX Prologue – (IGN)
News that a 6-minute prologue of The Dark Knight Rises would play with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocal at IMAX theatres has been pretty well-known for a while now, with rumours and talk about it going on for months, but now Warner Bros. has cemented it with an official announcement. The full transcript:
“Warner Bros. Pictures’ “The Dark Knight Rises” — the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy — is one of the most anticipated films of 2012, but moviegoers won’t have to wait until next year to see the six-minute opening sequence of the film. The film’s prologue will be unveiled exclusively in select 70mm IMAX® theatres worldwide. The announcement was made today by Dan Fellman, President of Domestic Distribution, and Veronika Kwan-Rubinek, President of International Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures.
The Prologue will be released in North America on December 16, and in the UK on December 21, 2011. Additional international dates vary by territory and will be announced soon.
In making the 2008 blockbuster “The Dark Knight,” Nolan was the first to use IMAX® cameras in a major motion picture release, and, as now, audiences were given an advance look at that film’s prologue months prior to the Summer 2008 opening. Nolan employed the extremely high-resolution cameras even more extensively on “The Dark Knight Rises”—including the film’s prologue—to achieve unprecedented crispness and clarity and a truly immersive experience for the moviegoers.
Christopher Nolan stated, “Our experience on ‘The Dark Knight’ shooting and projecting IMAX 15 perf 65mm/70mm film was inspiring. The immersive quality of the image goes beyond any other filmmaking tool available, and in revisiting Gotham, we were determined to shoot even more of the movie in this unique format. Giving the fans an early look at an IMAX sequence is a great way to draw attention to what I believe will be an incredible way to experience our story when it comes out next summer.””
The prologue is only set to play in select theaters, and the press release includes a list of all the theaters in North America and the UK where it will run, which you can check out at the bottom of the page. Make sure you are somewhere near one of those places when the day comes. I know at the strike of midnight on December 16th I’ll be at Scotiabank Theatre, cape and utility belt ready to go.
Grizzly Bomb 
