Movie Minesweeper - The Drawing Pins Edition

- Stan Bush may not be on the Transformers soundtrack, but Transformers are on his new album.

- Codemonkeys might be a nice stopgap until Scott Pilgrim gets off of the ground.

- Principal photography on Iron Man is over. And it seems like the Hilary Swank cameo rumours are true.

- The Jordanian animation outfit Rubicon is going into production on a new Pink Panther TV series. This time, the approach is a Muppet Babies come Tiny Toons one with the Panther and his 'pals' rendered as kids. As part of the deal, Rubicon get to license MGM properties in the Middle East.

- Righteous Kill - the De Niro/Pacino team-up movie - is to be distributed by Overture Films in the North American territories. And it also seems that 50 Cent is joining the cast. Has anybody got Russell Gerwitz' script for this one? I've been told it's a real winner.

- Shia LaBoeuf is reteaming with his Disturbia director D J Caruso on Eagle Eye. From that title alone it sounds like the plot could be virtually identical, but apparently not. The original premise comes from Steven Spielberg, apparently. Here's Variety's summation: [LaBeouf will play] a young slacker whose overachieving twin brother has died mysteriously. When the young man returns home, both he and a single mother find they have been framed as terrorists. Forced to become members of a cell that has plans to carry out a political assassination, they must work together to extricate themselves. Not only does this put Caruso out of the running for the Wolverine gig, it might mean LaBeouf won't be taking the lead in Death and Me after all...

- Former porn auteur Gregory Dark has wrapped Little Fish, Strange Pond a curious-sounding serial killer comedy with Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Liza Weil and Zach Galifinakas.

- Tom Cruise's links to Scientology (to put it mildly) have led to the German government prohibiting the filming of Valkyrie at any military locations. Paula Wagner has gone on the record saying "Aside from his obvious admiration of the man he is portraying, Mr. Cruise's personal beliefs have absolutely no bearing on the movie's plot, themes or content". Nice to know he admires a Nazi general so much. Ahem.
- Chimps in Spa -sorry, Space Chimps - is to be advertised via stickers on 100 million bananas, pineapples and salad packages.

- Gerard Butler, Idris Elba, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton and Ludacris have all signed up to appear in Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla. Poor souls.

- Ian Shorr's Exempt spec script has a very interesting premise: a problem kid sent to a private school falls in with a bunch of 'diplobrats', foreign kids with diplomatic immunity from the law. No wonder Benderspink are putting it into production. Another year at these two colleges and I'll probably have seen everything that could possibly happen in this film, but it certainly does make for an interesting milieu.

- M.I.A fantasy film Neverwas is to crawl out straight to DVD in July.

- A YouTube clip promoting the next six months or so of Focus Features releases has popped up. All manner of interesting stuff gets plugged, not least of which is David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises but least of which is Atonement. I'd recommend you check the full clip out.

- Gary Oldman might quit acting. Perhaps. One day.

- You can see the Tumb... er, Batmobile. In action. The video is called Batman for Mancow.

- Queen Latifah and Adam Shankman seem to want Steve Martin for their All of Me remake. Will he do it again?

- I think we already knew Oliver Platt was going to be in Frost/Nixon but his role in Nip/Tuck is news. He certainly likes those /s.
- Nicole Kidman is the new spokesmodel for Nintendo.

- The US Masters of Horror season one box set is limited to 20,000 copies. More than enough?

- The Wizard of Gore is getting good notices. Good. I like Glover, I love magic and I'm okay with gore - I want this to work.

- Kreacher is somehow essential to the last Harry Potter book.

Movie Minesweeper - The All News All The Time, No Opinion Edition

- Here's a team up for you: a film written and directed by Harold Ramis, produced by Judd Apatow and starring Jack Black and Michael Cera. Throw in Owen Wilson as executive producer and co-writers Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenerg and you're coming close to the entire opening credits of Year One.

- Also very interesting in the same Variety piece is the mention of Be Kind, Rewind being released this year.

- SuperheroHype have Lexi Alexander as the frontrunner for the Punisher 2 job, not John Dahl. That's the Punisher's loss.

- The Friends of English Magic have seen a nearly complete version of Stardust and... surprise surprise, they loved it.

- Bad Santa/Bad News Bears/Cats and Dogs screenwriters Glenn Ficarra and John Recqua (one out of three 'aint... er... good) have written and are to direct a based-on-a-true-story prison-break film for Luc Besson's Europacorp. I Love You Phillip Morris film is to star Jim Carrey as a married who father who ends up in prison, falls in love with his cellmate and then, once this cellmate is released, breaks out of prison four times to be with him.

- There's still likely to be a GI Joe movie, of course. Why - of course. There's bound to be a film about just about every brandnamed toy eventually.

- Legendary Pictures' Thomas Tull is co-founding the first videogame publisher to literally eat, breathe and sleep Hollywood. Not only will Brash Entertainment be Hollywood residents, every game they publish will be licensed from other films, TV and music properties.

- Luke and Jeremy Jackson have received a big shot of publicity by casting Tobin bell in their film Highway 61. I rather liked Bruce McDonald's Highway 61. In fact, I quite like all of the Bruce McDonald films I've seen (Highway 61, Roadkill and Hard Core Logo). He's one of my favourite directors of music-based films (music based in terms of content, not form). Any other Bruce McDonald fans out there?

- Kimberley Elise has been cast as Forrest Whitaker's character's wife in The Great Debaters, Nate Parker as his son.

- Kevin Bacon is to appear in Frost/Nixon as Jack Brennan, Nixon's chief of staff.

- Ginnifer Goodwin, Matthew Perry, Hilary Swank and Ben Foster say direct-to-DVD, I'm afraid. But they're the cast in place for Craig Lucas' Laws of Motion. Best of luck to you all.

- When a news story features both the word Lips and the word Transformers in the title, this isn't what many would be expecting.

- Aimee Mann's soundtrack to Magnolia is the best thing about the whole film. She's written a piece about Sgt. Pepper's for the NYTimes - which prompted me to think... why on earth wasn't Across the Universe slotted in for release on last Friday?

- Ratatouille has wrapped and the good people of Pixar had a party to mark the occaison. Amonsgt the other wrap party business, they found time to watch Lifted, the Wal-E teaser and a featurette on how motion capture was (surprisingly) used in the making of Ratatouille. I found the link at UpcomingPixar.

- Tim Story has given an interview to Blackfilm regarding his Fantastic Four sequel.

- Chitty Chitty Bang Bang herself has reached over half a million dollars at auction.

- I wish the Battlestar Galactica staffers could agree how long they've been planning to wrap up the show after the fourth season.

Nixon To Be Frank

The Daily Mail - and latterly the considerably less icky Variety - have reported that Frank Langella will reprise the role of Richard Nixon in the film version of Frost/Nixon. The right choice - who vetoed Howard's preferred Warren Beatty? Well, according to some, Beatty himself. That's very respectable.

Beaten By Beatty

Jeffrey Wells - who, amazingly, is neither embarrassed by nor being ironic with his little photo at the head of his Hollywood Elsewhere page - has reported that Warren Beatty is close to signing up as Nixon in Frost/Nixon. Disappointingly, this pretty much cements the film going ahead with Ron Howard as the director. Just a few days back, when we ran the Frost/Nixon script review and Angels and Demons was given a start date, I began fantasising about another director taking over from Howard. Now, and also according to Wells, it looks like Howard will be shooting Frost/Nixon this August then Angels/Demons in February of next year, the two of them then released in late 2008 like one of those Spileberg double-hitters.

Michael Sheen is reportedly being held over as David Frost from the theatrical version. That's good.

Frost/Nixon Script Review

With Angel and Demons now full steam ahead, Ron Howard's going to be too busy to direct Frost/Nixon anytime soon. Hopefully he'll end up passing and somebody we can really get excited about will step behind the camera. It seems like a no-brainer to offer it to Stephen Frears, but there are countless others. Neil LaBute springs to mind, just as an example. Soderbergh, of course - and I think he'd find it tempting.

Simon Reynold's thoughtful and encouraging review follows. I really have to thank Simon for the script reviews he's been writing for film ick - I enjoy reading them, first of all, but I also feel proud to be able to publish them.

We'll begin this time with a large piece of excerpted dialogue from Richard Nixon...

If we’re honest for a minute. If we reflect privately just for a moment...if we allow ourselves...a glimpse into that shadowy place we call our soul, isn’t that why we’re here now...? The two of us? Looking for a way back? Into the sun? Into the limelight? Back onto the winner’s podium? Because we could feel it slipping away? We were headed, both of us, for the dirt. The place the snobs always told us we’d end up. Face in the dust. Humiliated all the more for having tried so pitifully hard. Well, to hell with that. We’re not going to let that happen. Either of us. We’re going to show those bums, and make them choke on our continued success. Our continued headlines. Our continued awards, power and glory. We’re going to make those motherf***ers choke. Am I right?

Power is obviously something that fascinates Peter Morgan. He’s carved himself an impressive CV over the past five years writing films about some very recognisable and powerful men and women. Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, Henry VIII, Lord Longford, Queen Elizabeth II and Idi Amin have all been the focus of recent Morgan projects.

Next up we’ll see him tackle English football manager Brian Clough in a TV version of David Peace’s The Damned Utd and an adaptation of his own play Frost/Nixon, which unsurprisingly focuses on Sir David Frost’s 1977 interview with Richard Nixon. Michael Sheen and Frank Langella starred in the play, but there’s no word on whether or not either will return for the Ron Howard directed film. You can catch some of the (real) Frost/Nixon interview on YouTube.

The film revolves around David Frost - a light-weight talk show and satirist whose had success in the UK but has lost and American TV show and is about to see the plug pulled on his Australian one – as he attempts to secure anexclusive interview with Richard Nixon in the years after the Watergate scandal.

Frost quickly assembles a team to produce a TV special and offers Nixon $500,000 for the interview. Frost is small fry in the States and 60 Minutes’Mike Wallace has $300,000 on the table - but Nixon and his advisors feel they should go with Frost. Not only is he offering more money, he is also viewed as a lightweight by Team Nixon. Frost’s celebrity lifestyle and powder-puff interviews with the likes of the Bee Gees lead them to believe that Nixon can take his interviewer apart and perhaps, just perhaps, regain America’s trust and find a way back into politics.

Both these men are looking for redemption – this is their one shot and it’s akin to a brutal boxing match. Frost bats questions at Nixon, Nixon replies – then they break and Team Frost and Team Nixon patch their fighters up. Frost’s people want him to turn the screw, to put Nixon on trial. He rambles on and his producers want him to pressure the ex-President on Watergate. Nixon’s advisors try and keep him on track, it seems apparent early on that Frost is no match for the former President. There are twists and turns in the interview, powerful blows struck by both men, before a victor eventually emerges. Even if you know little about the Frost/Nixon interviews you can probably figure out who that is.

David Frost is someone whose always been in the British public eye and it’s interesting to see him as he was before many remember him. He is a playboy, a major celebrity, someone whose fierce drive and ambition have taken him further than many more talented than him. His search for credibility and American notoriety leads him to audaciously approach Nixon. Richard Nixon is portrayed as a man with regret heavily weighing down on his shoulders. His relationship with Frost outside of the interview is quite touching. In one scene he admires Frost’s laceless Gucci loafers, but when asking his Head of Staff Brennan his opinion, Brennan dismisses them as being too effeminate.

Nixon even tells Frost he would make a good politician. While Nixon is not much of a people person, preferring instead debate and discourse, Frost is effortless in the company of others, he likes people and people like him. “Say, maybe we got it wrong. Maybe you should have been the politician. And I the rigorous interviewer,” he says.

Frost/Nixon is a fascinating script by a writer on top of his game. Morgan writes with clinical precision, his style is somewhat similar to Jonathan Nolan. Even though they write completely different films, both have the ability to cut away the fat and tell an interesting story in an efficient manner.

When the post-Frost/Nixon-release awards season rolls around this film could well be front and centre. It is in some ways a companion piece to The Queen, and subsequently it suffers from some similar problems. The most obvious of which is the fact it is incredibly un-cinematic (even less so than The Queen). Stage plays are often difficult to bring to the big-screen, primarily because they are specifically designed for the more intimate theatre experience.

When you major set-piece is a television interview, how do you make that interesting? That’s something that director Ron Howard has to figure out if he ends up making this film. Frankly, I’m not sure he’s the right man for the job – his direction of The Da Vinci Code was horrendous, Dan Brown’s source material was hardly stellar but his book moved at fast pace, Howard made the film feel six hours long.

Frost/Nixon doesn’t necessarily require a big budget or even a home at a large studio (you could probably make the film for less than $10 million) but what it does need is a very good director who’ll attack the material with the same enthusiasm and vigour as David Frost did with Richard Nixon.

Simply superb. Thanks again, Simon. Personally, I've got no idea what your comments about Jonathan Nolan are based upon but I see we're eye-to-eye about Howard.

UK readers take note: Longford, as scripted by Peter Morgan, gets another showing on Channel 4 tonight. It's brilliant and, if you don't have a VCR or DVR or anything like that at all, I might even recommend you skip House to catch it.

Brush Up On Your Harr In Prep For Frears' Next

In 2001 it looked sure that Ron Howard was to direct The Burial, from Doug Wrights script adapted from Jonathan Harr's piece in The New York Times. Now it seems that Howard's involvement is history and Stephen Frears is being lined up to direct. Let's hope the same handover occurs with Frost/Nixon somewhere down the line - and sooner rather than later.

The original The Burial piece is online as a pdf file, with the first page below as a jpeg, to get you hooked. There's nothing more for me to say, the piece says it all, and better than I ever could - just read it.