Whoo boy, it’s become an incredibly boring Friday afternoon in terms of any interesting film news. Time for a short-cuts like piece to cap off the end of the day.
Julie Taymor is calling her “Spider-Man” musical (which will feature music by U2’s Bono and the Edge) a “circus rock-‘n’-roll drama.” The villains in the musical will be Green Goblin, Carnage, Electro, Rhino, Swarm, Lizard and an invented character named Swiss Miss. Uh… ok. Apparently actor-singer Reeves Carney, who plays in Johnny Lang’s band, is “the leading contender” to play Broadway’s Peter Parker. [Vulture/NYPost]
According to the always specious Contact Music (i.e., don’t always believe what you read), “Two Lovers,” director James Gray was kinda pissed at Joaquin Phoenix for his inept performance on David Letterman in February and failing to promote the little indie film (which was actually pretty good and could have used the help. [Contact Music]
A teasers and two posters for Bong Joon Ho’s upcoming film, “Mother.” [Twitch]
A. O. Scott (the New York Times) and Richard Brody (the New Yorker) got into a spat over Ramin Bahrani’s indie film, “Goodbye Solo” (Scott loved it and effu’d; Brody scoffed at his gushing; Scott slapped back) proving even grown men who write for venerable print outlets can be as childish and idiotic as regular bloggers. [Spout]
From a subway drama to a train drama, Tony Scott like’s being on some kind of tracks apparently. He’s currently wrapping up a remake of “The Taking of Pelham 123,” and is now taking on an “action train drama” for Twentieth Century Fox called “Unstoppable.”We’ll admit the trailer for ‘Pelham’ looks much better on the big screen and it was thankfully, mostly free of Scott’s obnoxious stylistic tics, but we remain skeptical until he digs himself out of director jail and he’s been in deep these last few years. [THR]
Jon Favreau has been posting pictures of Sam Rockwell in character from “Iron Man 2.” It amounts to slicked back hair, a cardigan sweater (presumably not part of the ensemble) and dark glasses. [MTV] TMZ has images of Mickey Rourke sporting a new weavy-‘do for the villain he plays, reportedly a mix of the characters Whiplash and Crimson Dynamo.
Screenwriter turned director William Monahan (“The Departed,” 20 million other upcoming projects) has written the script for “The Essex,” and is in talks to direct. It’s a historical ship drama chronicling sea battles against the British during the War of 1812. [Variety]
“500 Days Of Summer” will open North Carolina’s 11th Annual The RiverRun International Film Festival. [IndieWire]
To the four people that care. We saw the Michael Mann “Public Enemies” trailer on the big screen last weekend when we went to see “Duplicity,” and yes, while we were initially disappointed by the decision to shoot digi for a 1930s period piece, it looks way less grainy and like shit on the big screen. Dare we say it look pretty good.
A different kind of Enemy. Evidently there’s a new graphic novel based on the seminal hip-hop group Public Enemy. Apparently there’s interest in Hollywood. It comes from anonymous tipsters so take with a grain of salt. [MTV]
This might be the worst “exclusive” we’ve seen in weeks. We feel weird even linking to it.
Ridley Scott says James Cameron’s “Avatar” and the technological headway he has made, has inspired him to make “Forever War” in 3D. We’ll admit with a title like “Forever War,” we barely know what that project is and it’s probably like “Kingdom of Heaven”– i.e., the semi-rare Ridely Scott project we don’t really care for. [FirstShowing]
Why is it that the photo-shopped Spidey musical looks like it’s the opening number from “Temple of Doom”? It’ll probably turn out to be like that anyway, but still…
Don’t they already have a comic based on Public Enemy? I mean, I have the first issue. And it was BAD, just terrible.
It was written by the main rapper, I don’t know his name because I just don’t care.
Hollywood is getting pretty desperate these day. Wonder when that started, actually.
@Tristan. you are correct, my bad. That story is just so… thin. A “maybe” exclusive?
How is a maybe an exclusive. i just skimmed it to be honest i was so mad at it.
It’s cool, I just wanted to make sure that they didn’t make two different series based on the group.
That would have just pissed me off even more.
did anyone else catch that the spelling of “Mother” in korean phonetics can also be read as “Murder”?
Just saw 500 Days of Summer at the opening of the Philly Film Fest — it was pretty funny and smart… but it’s just begging for all the hipsters to squeeze the life out of it.
Monahan had actually written a script about Captain David S. Porter way back in 1994. In his New York Press essay “Whale’s Jaw” he takes a few paragraphs to talk about Captain Porter and at one point writes, “While [Porter] was ashore on Nuku Hiva, he not only fought a bloody high-cinema war with the warlike Typees, he annexed the island, and committed the first act of extraterritorial American imperialism. Don’t even think of writing the screenplay. I’ve got it registered.”
Should be an awesome film. BTW, if you want to read Monahan’s masterpiece at New York Press check out Dining Late with Claude La Badarian (serialized in 2001).
Recently watched public enemies. though it was not yet color corrected, and vfx wasn’t complete, I was very distracted by the HiDef quality. Didn’t look like a period piece film, it looked like the behind the scenes special feature for a period piece film. But it could change a lot between now and July.
Tristan- its Chuck D. You should fucking care.
Hipsters squeezing the life out of 500 Days of Summer? I don’t really know what that’s supposed to mean. It has a very wide appeal which makes for an enjoyable experience for everyone 🙂