Rob Marshall to Direct Pirates 4?

Acclaimed (I guess) musical director Rob Marshall (Chicago, the upcoming Nine) is in talks to direct the fourth installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Director Gore Verbinski has already dropped out, and Johnny Depp is already signed to reprise his now-iconic role of Captain Jack Sparrow, but there's not much that could get me excited about this series anymore. They ran it into the ground with the second and third films, and even a story about Sparrow and Barbossa searching for the Fountain of Youth (as rumored) does little to pique my interest.

Rob Marshall might as well turn this movie into a musical. It'd be like Sweeney Todd, but with pirates. Set it in space, and have a crossover with the new Captain Blood remake, and they can start a whole new offshoot with some characters featured in both. It'd be like "CSI: Miami," but with secondary pirate characters. In SPACE.

Captain Blood...IN SPACE!

Yeah, you read that correctly. Captain Blood, the 1935 Errol Flynn pirate adventure movie that I once reviewed at Ben's Movie Reviews is heading for the stratosphere.

Almost exactly a year ago, I mentioned that the director of Clear and Present Danger had signed to develop a remake of Captain Blood for Warner Bros. Looks like that has fallen through, because the studio has greenlit a pitch from the Spierig Brothers (who?) that sets the classic tale in space. Fear not, purists - the central storyline remains intact - a doctor clashes with a French pirate who has captured the woman he loves.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa. (This is not my Batman glass.) The French? In space? I didn't realize this version of Captain Blood was going to be a comedy! (ZING!)

Say It Ain't So

More like "Twice Phallus Howhard." Yeah? Anybody?

One of my favorite up-and-coming actresses, Bryce Dallas Howard (pictured, total hottie), has gone to the dark side: she's signed to play a role in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. For those of you who care (if this describes you, I'm guessing you probably shouldn't be reading this site), Bryce will take over the role of Victoria from some other girl because Other Girl had prior commitments to some other movie. Whatever. It's not like I'm ever going to see this movie.

Seems like ol' BDH is jumping onto every huge franchise she can right now: with her stepping in as Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man 3 (best part of the movie), her minuscule role in Terminator Salvation, and now the Twilight series, she's looking to make some serious bank. She must still be trying to make everyone forget about Lady in the Water. Good luck, hot stuff - it's going to take a good while for that pile of mediocrity to leave the collective consciousness of America.

In better news, my home girl Gabrielle Union has joined the cast of ABC's newest not-targeted-at-females show, FlashForward. You may remember Union from Bad Boys II, or, more likely, from my Valentine's Day post over at the Solar Sentinel. I'm still on the fence about this show, but the addition this salacious female has almost tipped me to the "watching it" side.

Jonah Hex Poster

Here's the new poster for Jonah Hex. I've been talking about this one for a while, so I figured I'd throw the poster your way so you all could see it. (The only real reason I'm doing it is because Megan Fox is heavily featured.)

Ninja Assassin Trailer

James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) has a new movie coming out November 25th, and it looks like a Tony Jaa movie without Tony Jaa. Will I be seeing it? Definitely. Check this action out - it involves a lot of swinging rope weapons and slick action choreography.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

Man, I am on a roll tonight. Here's three more trailers for you guys.

First, the trailer for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland 3D, since I know that some of you are slobbering at the very mention of the flick. Wipe yourself off and check this out.



Next, the long-awaited red-band trailer for Hot Tub Time Machine. I've been touting this since day one, and I'm glad to see that the film looks hilarious. I'm hoping this one doesn't disappoint. If it's anything like this trailer, I'm sure I'll dig it.



Finally, Denzel Washington's newest post-apocalyptic movie Book of Eli gets a trailer. It's nowhere near as impressive/funny/entertaining as the other two, which is why I saved it for last. It's like I Am Legend with swords and chainsaws, so I guess I'll probably see it.

Comic Con 09: Tron Legacy Trailer

This was actually footage released to the Comic Con '08 crowd, but it has just become available for all to see. From what I understand, director Joseph Kosinski put this together to prove that technology has come far enough since the first Tron movie to warrant a second journey into that universe (kind of like Robert Rodriguez pumping out that opening scene for Sin City [you know, with Josh Hartnett] and shopping it around to Frank Miller and the actors to get the rest of the movie made).

I've never seen the original Tron (I hope to remedy this shortly), but this teaser trailer for the sequel looks really badass. I'm very excited about this movie now, whereas before I had little to no interest in it at all. I'd highly recommend checking it out below.

Here's the plot synopsis (thanks to Slashfilm for providing it): TRON Legacy is a 3D high-tech adventure set in a digital world that’s unlike anything ever captured on the big screen. Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) [a great up-and-coming actor - Ed.], the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), looks into his father’s disappearance and finds himself pulled into the same world of fierce programs and gladiatorial games where his father has been living for 25 years. Along with Kevin’s loyal confidant (Olivia Wilde), father and son embark on a life-and-death journey across a visually-stunning cyber universe that has become far more advanced and exceedingly dangerous.

Comic Con 09: The Prisoner

The AMC network ("Breaking Bad," "Mad Men") has produced a mini-series based on the 1960's cult classic TV show "The Prisoner." I believe it will be six parts, and it begins in November of 2009. At Comic Con this week, the network has released a nine minute sizzle reel to hook audiences and get them excited about what they're calling "the most anticipated television event of 2009."

The series stars Jim Caviezel as Number Six, a regular man captured and trapped in a utopia-esque environment called The Village. Ian McKellan (Gandalf, Magneto, you know who he is) co-stars as the leader of The Village who tries to convince everyone they've always been there and there is no life outside of his created environment. It looks like a great cross between The Truman Show, "LOST," and Michael Bay's The Island. Here's the nine minute preview from AMC.com. I'm really pumped about this.

Stan Lee Drops Huge News

Stan Lee recently dropped the bombshell of all bombshells at Comic Con. Are you guys ready for this? I don't think you are. Prepare yourselves...

When MTV's Splash Page asked Stan Lee about an upcoming Dr. Strange movie, he responded with the most outlandish bit of Marvel-related news we've ever heard.

"You know there are only so many movies that Marvel can do at one time or one after another, but I will promise you 'Dr. Strange' will be on the list. They just have to get to it. In fact, every one of the characters -- they're not going to let one go. Why should they?"

You heard it here, folks! Marvel is planning on making a movie about every single character in their entire library/universe! With approximately 2700 characters on the list, that's a LOT of movies. We're going to be seeing the most obscure characters in Marvel history trotted out on the big screen, so prepare yourselves and your unborn children, because this is going to take a while.

(NOTE: I'm aware these are just the ramblings of a really old dude. I don't honestly believe they're going ahead with a movie based on every Marvel character. This is simply a lesson to Mr. Lee in the trouble one can get into when using hyperbole instead of a normal answer.)

Gary Oldman Spouts Noise

In "I'm not believing this until I hear it from a legit source" news, Gary Oldman said that filming on Batman 3 will start in 2010. Keep in mind we haven't heard anything about a script being completed yet, let alone Chris Nolan signing on as the director.

Oldman's exact quote: "The next Batman is next year, so I think it's two years away." While this may seem confusing at first, I'm sure when he said Batman "is next year" he meant the filming, and the final product is "two years away."

As I said - I'm not buying into this yet. Michael Caine spouted off about how Phillip Seymour Hoffman was playing the Penguin and Johnny Depp was the Mad Hatter, and he obviously had not idea what the hell he was talking about. He admitted later that he "read it somewhere," meaning he was perusing the web like the rest of us and stumbled across the rumor, and later reported it as fact. The same could be said for Oldman - he may have heard an online rumor about the production start date and is reporting that as truth.

Then again, maybe Chris Nolan told him what's up and he just gave us all a big exclusive. Who knows? I'll keep you posted.

Downey and Galifianakis Together At Last

In a pairing I'm sure you've all been waiting for (that was sarcasm, for those of you who can't intuitively sense my tone of voice through reading words on a screen), Robert Downey, Jr. and Zach Galifianakis will join forces for The Hangover director Todd Philipps' newest movie.

The flick is called Due Date, and centers around a workaholic (Downey) who has to travel cross-country with a mismatched partner (Galifianakis) to see the birth of his firstborn kid. Sounds wacky. Why doesn't he just catch a plane? I guess that makes too much sense.

As Cinematical points out, there is some pretty heavy stuff riding on the line for this one: Downey's last comedy performance (Tropic Thunder) earned him an Oscar nomination, and ZG and Todd Philipps' The Hangover recently became the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time. Does any of that mean that Due Date will be any good? As long as we never see the kid, then I'm sure it'll be all right. Although The Hangover succeeded at the delicate task of featuring a baby and not becoming violently annoying in the process, so that's a good sign. "Not at the table, Carlos!"

DC Films Update

Warner Bros. recently revealed that they secretly hired Geoff Johns, Marv Wolfman, and Grant Morrison (all three of which are prolific comic writers) last fall and have been using the three gurus (guri?) as their own personal team to pitch and develop new ideas for DC comics-based movies.

Badass. This sounds like the first step towards making some real progress against Marvel, and I'm glad that Warner Bros. hired these guys so long ago (even if they haven't told us until now). So which projects are they working on? Johns has a new treatment for a Flash movie (which he would produce and Dan Mazeau would write), but we don't know specifically what Wolfman and Morrison have been working on. I'm still hoping for Ryan Reynolds as The Flash (Wally West only), by the way.

DC has also thrown down the gauntlet and has issued an open call for treatments of an Adam Strange movie and an Aquaman feature. Leo DiCaprio's Appian Way Productions is apparently attached to make the Aquaman flick, but that means that particular project is just one of approximately thirty the company has in development. Aquaman was featured heavily in an early season of HBO's "Entourage," where the fictional film broke the box office record for most money in a day. [Some news stations reported this as fact. Jackasses.]

Less famously, a television pilot for the CW was created under the working title of "Mercy Reef," featuring Justin Hartley as Aquaman with a "Smallville"-esque vibe. Coincidentally, Hartley went on to play the Green Arrow in "Smallville" and has been one of the high points of the show over the past few years. The pilot of the show was released on iTunes and actually became the number one most downloaded show at the time, but it wasn't picked up because the UPN and WB were in the process of forming The CW at the time and didn't want to take a chance on it with the fledgling network. I've embedded the trailer below (thanks to Slashfilm for the reminder).

Hong Kong Phooey: The Movie

Boo. Yah.

Joining the ranks of live action/CG hybrid cartoon adaptations is a show from the 70's - Hong Kong Phooey. I'm sure many of you have never seen or even heard of this show before, but I actually watched it quite a bit in my younger days. It was one of those Hanna-Barbera shows along the lines of Quickdraw McGraw and Snagglepuss, but this one featured a janitor dog who moonlights as a kung-fu-fighting crime fighter.

Yes, this movie has the potential to be terrible. But give Hollywood some credit this time - at least they're going for obscure-as-hell cartoons from the 70's instead of giving us a live action/CG hybrid of some of the garbage that passes for kids' television now. At least this gives me something ridiculous to write about...



Bonus note: I love Wikipedia's matter-of-fact statements veiled as complaints. "Although [he] appears to be the only anthropomorphic dog in the entire city where the series is set, no one ever connects his two identities."

Green Lantern Update!

Looks like that rumor of Justin Timberlake trying on the Green Lantern suit had some truth behind it.

The Hollywood Reporter now says that Timberlake, Bradley Cooper (The Hangover), and Ryan Reynolds are the big three in contention for the role. The trifecta had a deal worked out that expired this past Monday, so now they are free to accept offers for other projects. Various producers had different favorites, so they couldn't make a final decision, but expect the casting announcement soon.

Man, I wasn't even aware that Ryan Reynolds was in serious talks for the part. I love the guy, but I think his wise-ass sensibilities are much better suited for a role like Wally West (aka The Flash) than Hal Jordan. Cooper or Timberlake, for the win.

UPDATE: I was totally wrong. Ryan Reynolds has indeed won the role of Green Lantern. My feelings on the matter still stand.

Superman Returns Again?...and More!

I'm not going to bore you with the legal jargon, but the essence of the story is this - Warner Bros. and DC were in a courtroom battle (not a literal one, but that would have been awesome) with the heirs of Jerome Siegel (co-creator of Superman, durh) over the rights to the character, and the movie studios have been awarded the rights until 2013, at which time the entire Superman copyright will return to the heirs of Siegel and Shuster.

What does that mean? It means if Warner Bros. and DC want to make another Superman movie without paying a shizload of money to the heirs, they better get their asses in gear and put The Man of Steel up on screen by 2012. It also means there is a slight chance that there could be no more DC Comics involving Superman or Superman movies ever again after 2012, or (brace yourselves) that the heirs could sign a deal with Marvel and Superman would switch to the Marvel Universe! I'll give you a minute to let that sink in.

Also coming along the wire is news that Clark Kent may have a cameo in the yet-to-be-cast Green Lantern film, directed by Martin Campbell. But perhaps the studio has found their Hal Jordan and just haven't announced it yet - Justin Timberlake is the newest actor rumored to don the ring. But then again, Nathan Fillion and Rainn Wilson met with DC Comics today for an unidentified meeting, so perhaps the awesome fan-trailer posted a few months back could come true and Fillion could be the guy for the job.

My two cents? I'd prefer the once-rumored Chris Pine as Green Lantern instead of Timberlake, but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if he snagged the part. Most of you probably haven't seen him actually act (ahem, Black Snake Moan), but he's good when he wants to be. Superhero-good? We'll see. Fillion really would be great, but I honestly hope he turns it down to be Nathan Drake in Uncharted: The Movie. Again - there have been no real talks of him actually being in consideration for that role, it's just wishful thinking on my part.

Spidey 4 Getting Another Rewrite

"They're making a FOURTH one?!"

Looks like James Vanderbilt's plans for back-to-back Spidey flicks aren't going as smoothly as he anticipated.

Going into its second round of rewrites, Gary Ross is taking a crack at the script for Spider-Man 4. Production starts early next year, and the movie will be released on May 6th, 2011. Both Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst (blargh) are returning to reprise their roles, and Sam "Drag Me To Hell" Raimi is directing.

Is this news? Not in the truest since of the word, but I've talked about the movie here before and figure I'd give you a little update on what's going on with the flick. I also find it interesting that they brought "A-list writer" Vanderbilt onto the project, he comes up with this master plan for a huge story spanning (at least) two movies, and now the studios don't really dig what he's cooked up for them. I have no idea what he had planned, but I can almost guarantee that it'll be better than Spider-Man 3.

Tony Jaa vs. Live Alligator