So it's now official Henry Cavill will don the infamous red cape for the Zack Snyder helmed Superman reboot. Cavill, 27, is best known for playing the role of Charles Brandon on the TV series The Tudors. Cavill's latest film the very aptly entitled Immortals for the future Man Of Steel is slated for a US release this fall.
Znyder said in a statement: "In the pantheon of superheroes, Superman is the most recognized and revered character of all time, and I am honoured to be a part of his return to the big screen. I also join Warner Bros., Legendary and the producers in saying how excited we are about the casting of Henry. He is the perfect choice to don the cape and S shield."
There have been many rumours circulating the net as to who would be cast in this movie with everyone from the unlikely Leo Dicaprio to the likes of Mad Men's John Hamm and True Blood's Joe Manganiello but I think the casting of Cavill is a great indicator to the direction the franchise reboot is heading in. In my opinion it suggests that both Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures are intending to take the subject matter more seriously and move away from the campiness of the unpopular last incarnation of the character.
In other Superman casting news Malin Akerman (Silk Spectre 2 in Watchmen) seems to be the favourite to land the much coveted role of Lois Lane but will need to beat off stiff competition from actresses such as Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace, Prince of Persia) and Kate Hudson (Nine, Raising Helen) who have both been considered for the role.
A week has past again since my last blog post and for once I have a valid reason instead of the usual ‘couldn’t be bothered’ excuse, this time the lapse is due to the fact my Gran suffered a bad fall last weekend and had to be taken to the hospital. She has broken her right foot, bruised her hip and is understandably shaken up about it. The kind of cast she has on her foot does not allow her to walk on it so she has had to be kept in so between visiting her, worrying about her and my own health not being to great as of late I didn't have the time to post this past week.
So I missed out on talking about the casting for the new Batman flick and the online backlash that followed and various other movie related news that broke last week but family comes first you understand right? All five of you, I think it's five maybe more maybe less. I’d like to take this time to wish my Gran a speedy recovery and hopefully she will be back home soon.
Movie News
So let’s get down to movie news and first off Keanu Reeves recently revealed there is two more Matrix movies going into production and yes you guessed it they will be shot in 3D. Is it just me that didnae really think we needed a matrix 2 and 3 let alone 4 and 5? Sequels and remakes/re imaginings are all that seem to get made right now is Hollywood really out of new ideas or is this a case of the money men not wanting to finance an unknown commodity?
In happier news Ernest Borgnine, the star of such classic films as From Here To Eternity, McHale’s Navy, The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch and a whole host of great films spanning the last 50+ years turns 94 years old today and is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon as he is attached to numerous projects in development around Hollywood. So Happy Birthday Ernest and I hope to see you at the movies very soon.
Here's a movie trailer for a movie due for release on the 11 February this year and yes it's in 3D. (isn't everything these days?)
Drive Angry 3D
I'm actually interested in seeing this movie as I'm a fan of Nic Cage but the whole 3D thing really bugs me because most films aren't shot in 3D just converted so it never quite works right. 3D is just a gimmick not a technological step forward like CGI (when used right) or the THX "baffle wall" (speaker system enclosure behind cinema screen), anyhoo enough of this ramble.
So time for another mixed bag addition of the blog this time featuring the latest news from the UK Box office and movie news on three low budget films coming out this year. (one direct to DVD)
UK BOX OFFICE
1. The King's Speech £3.52m
2. 127 Hours £2.17m
3. Little Fockers £1.8m
(Isn't it about time this franchise focked off?)
4. Gulliver's Travels £1.55m
5. The Next Three Days £1.05m
Girl On A Bicycle
I came across this film by way of a referral by an acquaintance of mine who thought it was an interesting project. Here's the synopsis from the production company's website.
Synopsis
Paolo, an Italian Tour Bus driver, living in Paris and very much in love with his German girl-friend Greta, proposes marriage to her, only to encounter, the very next day, a Girl On A Bicycle, Cécile. She is a gorgeous young French woman with a glorious smile.
An Italian to his very core, Paolo finds that he is unable to get the image of this beauty out of his head. Following an almost unending series of bad advice given to him by his best friend, Jean-Michel, Paolo attempts to meet Cécile to put an end to his obsession and ends up hitting her with his tour bus. Since Cécile has two fatherless children aged four and six and now a broken arm and a broken leg, Paolo, who was reluctant to have children of his own, finds himself, not only having to care for Cécile, but to become a “father” to her children.
As Paolo races back and forth between his two lives day and night, trying to hide his misadventures with the beautiful Cécile from Greta, one lie builds upon another, until his life is totally upside-down. Will Love conquer all?
Doesn't really sound like my cup of tea but a little more digging around and I discovered more about the project. It's the directorial debut of screenwriter Jeremy Leven who wrote The Legend Of Bagger Vance, My Sister's Keeper and The Notebook and features in some way or other Paddy Considine star of Dead Man's Shoe's, In America and of course Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee although this is only confirmed on IMDB not the production company's own website. In the lead role is Vincenzo Amato the star of Soundtrack, Golden Door and Respiro as well as appearing in the dreadful Did You Hear About The Morgans? We did hear about it and it was crap, lol. I still don't get what I was supposed to like about the flick other than the puzzle of what role Paddy Considine play?
River Of Darkness
(Direct to DVD)
River Of Darkness is a horror film made by North Shore Productions on a budget of $3.26m and stars 3 professional wrestlers which doesn't make for the recipe of a great film on paper or on screen for that matter. It's directed by Bruce Koehler who's previous film End Game also starred River Of Darkness leading man Kurt Angle.
Plot, eh..... em...-coughs- I think basically three giant hillbilly brothers kill a lot of people and Sheriff Will Logan (Kurt Angle) has to track them down and beat them down or something like that. Anyway it stars as I said Kurt angle the Olympic gold medalist, pro wrestler and star of End Game and also features Kevin Nash the 7 foot ex pro wrestler who appeared in The Punisher and The Longest Yard remake. It also feature Sid Eudy the near 7 foot ex pro wrestler better known as Psycho Sid and Bill Laing actor/stuntman who appeared in The Mothman Prophecies and Unstoppable.
So why do you mention this film? I hear you ask well I'm a big fan of low budget horror movies yep that's right the guy that wrote the blog post on French Cinema also loves cheap n cheerful horror who'd of thunk it? I'm also a fan of the lead in this movie and believe given the right project he could create a good acting career for himself as he has great integrity.
Bruce Vs Frankenstein
The sequel to My Name Is Bruce sees the greatest B-Movie Icon ever Bruce Campbell match wits(?) with Mary Shelley's legendary monster and I for one can't wait. As a fan of low budget horror (as stated above) I am of course an even bigger fan of it's top star Bruce Campbell who in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times had this to say about the project.
Yeah, it’s “The Expendables, or more like the It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World of horror. I want to get so many horror movie stars that people can’t possibly not see the movie. I want to give them other stuff to do. I want to have Kane Hodder be very particular about what he eats. I want Robert Englund to be a tough guy, like he knows tae kwon do or something. I want to find out the hidden sides of all these people. Some will play themselves, some will play alternate characters as well. I may approach Kane Hodder to play Frankenstein. He could be Kane Hodder himself fighting himself as Frankenstein. It could be crazy. It’s a silly concocted story that we hope to do maybe in a year or so. My breaks between Burn Notice have been getting tighter because they’ve been adding episodes. They’re trying to trap me like a rat in the TV world, and I might just let them. There’s a script, it just kind of blows right now, so no one’s really seeing it. We gotta work on it. Definitely shoot it in Oregon all on a stage. It’s like the 300 of horror comedies. We want to make it a whole world. Someone’s gotta take Frank down for good.”
Rumours are rife on the web that Sid Haig, Robert Englund, Kane Hodder and Tony Todd will all appear alongside Bruce as well as a proposed cameo from Sam Raimi to round of the cast but nothing is signed yet. Burn Notice keeps Campbell busy these days so it all depends who is available when he gets the time to shoot it but when anyone signs on to this project I'll post the news here for the 1 or 2 people who are probably interested anyhoo..
Ip Man 2
Starring Action superstar Donnie Yen and is the sequel to the legendary Ip Man considered by many to be Yen's finest work and is my most eagerly awaited film of the year.
Thor
Latest from the Marvel universe of comic to screen adaptations and looks like it should be another blockbuster.
Red State
The latest from writer/director/actor Kevin Smith and sees him exploring the horror genre.
Anyhoo posting the latest movie trailers will become a regular feature on the blog as I now know how to do it, hey it only took me the best part of a year to work it out but hey ho I now know.
Saw this video and thought it was worth sharing on here as it isn't everyday you see a guy dressed in a superhero costume fighting crime for real well unless you live in Seattle that is. Phoenix Jones says "when he walks into an area, criminals leave because they see the suit and do not want to take him on." And to be honest I can see why someone dressed like that is either bats**t crazy or a legit tough guy.
He has already managed to prevent one crim from jacking a car, the would-be victim, known only as Dan (don't know why), was walking back towards his car in the car park when he witnessed the thieving wee numpty with a metal strip trying to open his car door.
Dan commented: "He started sticking it down between the window and the rubber strip."
Dan realising what was going down began to call 911, but said help arrived before he even finished dialling. He continued: "From the right, this guy comes dashing in, wearing this skin-tight rubber, black and gold suit, and starts chasing him away."
And the story gets weirder as this guy ain't the only costumed vigilante roaming the streets of Seattle there are 8 other members of his crime fighting team who collectively are known as the 'Rain City Superhero Group'.
Phoenix when being interviewed by the CBS crew said "I symbolise that the average person doesn't have to walk around and see bad things and do nothing."
Even though he has been stabbed and threatened with a gun many times while out patrolling he seems unwavering in his commitment to battling crime which makes him pretty cool in my book if a little nuts but hey who isn't nuts these days?
Well a belated welcome to 2011 from me and I hope you all had a great festive season I myself just about survived it without incident just a few days without the use of my left arm and frequent headaches that were annoyingly not caused by to much alcohol but I digress. For the last month and change I haven't really been posting as often as usual the reason being I was writing a short film script I was hoping to produce at some point this year well the you know what hit the fan when that short script ended up running at a rather lengthy 145 pages. It also flat out sucked, it's weird how in the moment when your writing something you think it's great but if you take a break from it for a couple of days you realise it just isn't at all, not even close. I think the main mistake with the script other than the length of it and it being well.... crap was that I took a strange dislike to my main character and just didn't want him to succeed or to be perfectly frank about it I didn't even want to write about him by the end of it which you'll agree isn't the best situation when writing any kind of fiction.
So as this project finds itself being shelved or saved to my project folder for laughing at at a later date I have started outlining it's replacement along with some other projects I'm considering undertaking. I realised while writing the script that I'm still not in any position physically and probably mentally to take on a filming project as of yet so my best bet at this point is to work on something that I can sell to a production house of network here in the UK that being said with very limited credits to my (no)name this will be easier said than done but it will give me something to keep my mind occupied with for the next few months at least.
My new project is a return to a familiar and personal favourite genre for me (thriller) and a welcomed break from the 'inserting my own health issues or traits onto the characters' style I have been utilizing recently. As usual this story will be set in Scotland, Glasgow to be exact and will be a larger canvas (multiply episodes) than usual for me. I won't be thinking how will I film that or how will I afford this? I will give myself the freedom to just write and see what happens. I already have a fairly solid idea of my lead character's mindset as well as a lot of the back story and twists I want to incorporate over the first series but outside of that I will just write and see where the story takes me. Anyhoo that's enough of this ramble.
So it's now official Henry Cavill will don the infamous red cape for the Zack Snyder helmed Superman reboot. Cavill, 27, is best known for playing the role of Charles Brandon on the TV series The Tudors. Cavill's latest film the very aptly entitled Immortals for the future Man Of Steel is slated for a US release this fall. 
