You know what? I like the name of this post. Puns be damned.
Guess who’s back for more gravely voiced, neck snapping fun?! Why it’s Liam Neeson who will reprise the role of Bryan Mills for a third Taken movie. His payday? A very hefty $20 million which puts him in the big daddy group of top earners in Hollywood.
This is almost a no-brainer for EuropaCorp when you consider that Taken 2 made over $375 million worldwide off of a $45 million budget. Now the only thing to decide is who gets to be on Neeson’s bad side in the trilogy capper? I would like to suggest some little known about group of Inuit tribesman mafia in Alaska that does human trafficking through an intricate set of ice tunnels beneath the Earth.
Director Roland Emmerich has confirmed that Will Smith will not be continuing his role for Independence Day 2, mainly due to the fact that “he’s too expensive.” Personally, I was a big fan of the original movie, but perhaps Smith’s recent box offices catastrophes show that this is for the best.
If you keep up with any kind of movie news on a regular basis then you have at least heard some horror stories about the filming of World War Z. Brad Pitt’s production company gained the rights to the Max Brooks book in 2007 and quickly hired J. Michael Straczynski to bring the zombie apocalypse to the big screen. To make a long story short, Straczynski’s script was re-written by Matthew Michael Carnahan and filming began in 2011. The budget blew up way beyond the $125 million the studio handed out and production even ceased at one point. Damon Lindelof was brought on to rewrite the last third of the script, but due to scheduling conflicts could not, so his Lost co-scribe Drew Goddard finished it up and Brad Pitt and company went back in the fall of 2012 for seven weeks of reshoots.
With the film’s budget creeping near $200 million and press for the zombie flick not exactly on the positive side, one would easily write this off as another big budget disaster that a star could not escape, but a weird thing has occurred.
World War Z is actually entertaining.
Now I have not read Max Brooks’ novel, but I am dating a certified zombie lover and fan of his work so I did not go into this movie blind. The way World War Z is written does not lend itself to a movie narrative well so we get a singular story starring Pitt as former U.N. worker Gerry Lane. He has been out of work for three years and is a stay at home dad with a working wife. One day as they are stuck in Philadelphia traffic on the way to school all hell breaks loose. They narrowly escape the city and, using Gerry’s connections in the U.N., secure themselves a spot on an aircraft carrier.
Gerry is recruited to go out with a SEAL team to try and track down the genesis of the disease and by “recruited” I mean the government tells him he has to go or his family gets a one-way ticket back to the mainland. A dick move, for sure, but when you think about it, not that far-fetched for a government fighting against the end of the world. Gerry then begins a jet-setting adventure all over the world trying to discover what was the cause of the outbreak.
During these sections to South Korea and Israel, World War Z moves along at a brisk pace. It will feel a little “by the numbers”, but it did not distract me from the overall scope of the movie. Pitt is believable as the reformed family man who is trying to do his best to get back to his wife and kids while having the weight of the world on his shoulders. It won’t win any Oscars, but it is good for the material presented.
When the around the world trip stops is when you can tell Drew Goddard came on to help with the rewrites. If you did not know about all the production problems going into this then you will not pay this a second thought, but knowing made me get a distinctly different feel from the movie and the weird part is that it actually kind of works. World War Z goes from a quick pace to a tense, slow moving corridor explorer like Resident Evil (the game, not the movie). That is just one of the many things that confounds about this flick. This should not work! To completely change directions and stick the main star in a zombie filled lab instead of using the $12 million big battle in Moscow that was thrown away? Let’s just call it one of Hollywood’s great mysteries like, “why do people complain about Bane’s voice not knowing what an idiot he would have sounded like Mexican?” or “why were all the characters in The Last Airbender the wrong race?”.
I do wish World War Z would have upped the jump scare quotient and been a bit more gory. I will admit to having a small jump to begin the movie, but there were none to speak of after. Maybe that was because of the giant scope of the movie where zombies are seen in such great numbers that they do not hold the same scare as a one on one (or two or three) encounter in a confined space, which does happen in the final act of the movie as I said. As for the gore, don’t get me wrong, I am not asking for Saw levels of blood spillage here, or hell, even The Walking Dead but even for a PG-13 movie this is an almost bloodless affair.
When all is said and done, World War Z is a tale of everything going wrong in every way and ending up with the best possible results. This was a passion project for Pitt and while it may not be on par with a lot of the zombie fare that is saturating the market, it does have a big movie feel and is the very definition of a “popcorn flick”. Just go and have some fun with it…even though the world is ending.
Monsters University took the top spot at the box office this past weekend. That was expected. What was not expected was that the long-suffering Brad Pitt zombie flick World War Z would blow away expectations in its opening. The $200 million dollar film which went through multiple delays and re-shoots was only expected to bring in about $40 million. After a solid $25 million Friday it went on to gross $66 million, which is the largest opening in Pitt’s career.
Man of Steel fell off steeply, but still managed $41 million and has already passed Superman Returns gross in only two weeks.
1. Monsters University- $82.0 million/ $82.0 million
Now no one can really blame Carrey if he feels this strongly, but there is always the thought that could be simply a PR move to distance himself from any possible backlash when the movie is released.
In response, Mark Millar, creator and writer of the Kick-Ass comics, took to his blog to write a response to Carrey’s back down.
“As you may know, Jim is a passionate advocate of gun-control and I respect both his politics and his opinion, but I’m baffled by this sudden announcement as nothing seen in this picture wasn’t in the screenplay eighteen months ago. Yes, the body-count is very high, but a movie called Kick-Ass 2 really has to do what it says on the tin. A sequel to the picture that gave us HIT-GIRL was always going to have some blood on the floor and this should have been no shock to a guy who enjoyed the first movie so much. My books are very hardcore, but the movies are adapted for a more mainstream audience and if you loved the tone of the first picture you’re going to eat this up with a big, giant spoon. Like Jim, I’m horrified by real-life violence (even though I’m Scottish), but Kick-Ass 2 isn’t a documentary. No actors were harmed in the making of this production! This is fiction and like Tarantino and Peckinpah, Scorcese and Eastwood, John Boorman, Oliver Stone and Chan-Wook Park, Kick-Ass avoids the usual bloodless body-count of most big summer pictures and focuses instead of the CONSEQUENCES of violence, whether it’s the ramifications for friends and family or, as we saw in the first movie, Kick-Ass spending six months in hospital after his first street altercation. Ironically, Jim’s character in Kick-Ass 2 is a Born-Again Christian and the big deal we made of the fact that he refuses to fire a gun is something he told us attracted him to the role in the first place. Ultimately, this is his decision, but I’ve never quite bought the notion that violence in fiction leads to violence in real-life any more than Harry Potter casting a spell creates more Boy Wizards in real-life. … Jim, I love ya and I hope you reconsider for all the above points. You’re amazing in this insanely fun picture and I’m very proud of what Jeff, Matthew and all the team have done here.”
What do you think? Does this feel like a heartfelt move or a bit of damage control?
For those of you who (a) like me, are addicted to Kickstarter, or (b) like me, enjoy musicals (particularly funny ones), or (c) unlike me, have not yet grown tired of this zombie craze, then this is for you.
Ryan McHenry, the man who brought us Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal, has decided that a full-feature Zombie Musical is his next goal, and is using Kickstarter to raise just over $150,000 for the job. For as little as $1.50, you can become an executive producer or even have your own “____ won’t eat his/her cereal” clip made exclusively for you.
This is exactly what I look for from Kickstarter — fun ideas and fun incentives, and this campaign will definitely get some of my money.
After numerous years of rumors and promises it looks like Earth will be spending another 4th of July weekend fighting for our planet. 20th Century Fox has set that weekend in 2015 for the release of Independence Day 2.
Roland Emmerich will direct from a script he and Dean Devlin have written as the first of a two-part story. Bill Pullman is returning as the former President Thomas Whitmore as alien reinforcements arrive to have another go round with humanity 20 years after Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum welcomed them to Earth.
Smith will most likely not be coming back, but seeing as After Earth just took a Battlefield Eart sized dump at the box office and he has said no to Men in Black 4, he might want to rethink that decision. He needs a hit like a crack addict.
Robert Downey, Jr. is already a very rich man. Now he is most likely Johnny Depp, buy his own island rich. The cinematic Tony Stark has officially signed on for the next two Avengers movies.
Here is the statement from Marvel:
Marvel is pleased to announce the signing of Robert Downey, Jr. to reprise the role of the “billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist.” Under the two-picture agreement, Downey will star as Tony Stark/Iron Man in “Marvel’s The Avengers 2” and “Marvel’s The Avengers 3.“
There is no planned Iron Man 4 in the deal which should surprise no one since RDJ has been very vocal that he felt Iron Man 3 was a natural ending to the Tony Stark story and does not want the character to carry another movie.
This should also be a good sign for the other actors that have been having contract disputes with Marvel (Hemsworth, Evans, Ruffalo and Johansson) since it has been reported that Downey was holding out to try and get them more more money in their deals.
J.J. Abrams has gone on record saying that the production of Star Wars: Episode VII would not be a super secret ordeal and this may be the beginning of the truth.
Bleeding Cool has uncovered what they are calling a 100% accurate casting call for the return to the galaxy far, far away. Take a quick look.
-Late-teen female, independent, good sense of humour, fit.
-Young twenty-something male, witty and smart, fit but not traditionally good looking.
-A late twentysomething male, fit, handsome and confident.
-Seventy-something male, with strong opinions and tough demeanour. Also doesn’ t need to be particularly fit.
-A second young female, also late teens, tough, smart and fit.
-Forty something male, fit, military type.
-Thirtysomething male, intellectual. Apparently doesn’t need to be fit.
Now rumors have been heavy that the next film will focus on Han and Leia’s twins, Jacen and Jaina Solo. Does this casting call give you those impressions? Give us your best guesses as to who these possible people could end up being in the comments below!
Now this is more like it. While this may be the third trailer for Anchorman: The Legend Continues, it is the first one with actual footage from the movie.
In it, Ron and the Channel 4 News Team have gone their separate ways and are only spoken in legend, but when they are offered to help start the first 24-hour news network in the 80’s you know what that means…a Journey montage!
Anchorman: The Legend Continues releases on December 20th.
