Movie Minesweeper - The Sign Of A Better Biscuit Edition

Robert Zemeckis, Christopher Lloyd, Michael J Fox, The Lovely Bones, Tom Cruise, Kurt Wimmer, Futurama, Reboot, Steve Guttenberg, Steve Miner, Jessica Simpson, Jackie Chan, Johnny 5, Volker Schlondorff, Beowulf, Aardman, Dave McKean, Bond, 1-18-08, Dark Knight, Prince Caspian, Sean Bean, Family Guy, Heroes, Halo, Henson.

- Jim Hill would have us believe that Robert Zemeckis is planning to reunite Christopher Lloyd and Michael J Fox. Nope - not in any time travelling capers, but amongst the cast of A Christmas Carol - as Jacob Marley and Tiny Tim. He also seems to have plans to include Tom Hanks as Bob Cratchit. The best thing in the report, however, is the piece of pre-production art. You really should go see it.

- Stanley Tucci is in negotiations to star as child murderer George Harvey in Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones. Okay... not the approach to the role I had in mind, but I do trust Jackson and Tucci is rather brilliant.

- Tom Cruise is to play Edwin A. Salt in the Kurt Wimmer-scripted film. Oh dear. Terry George is in talks to direct. Wimmer's not much cop, and while I haven't read this particular script I don't expect much from it at all.

- Scott Weinberg has dug up the titles of the Futurama films.

- Embarrassingly naff TV show Reboot is being remade as a series of direct-to-DVD films. Tron is ropy, but good when it is good and great when featuring a light cycle chase (and happy at home on my shelf), but Reboot was just ropy.

- Who would be hilariously misguided enough to cast Steve Guttenberg in a comedy these days? Steve Miner, that's who. Guttenberg joins Cheri Oteri, Vivica A. Fox and Jessica Simpson in Major Movie Star. Apparently, the script has recently been revised by Oteri also. Lord help me. (Incidentally, Guttenberg has worked with both Sean McNamara and Miner now - he can retire 'happy').

- Talking of Guttenberg, Johnny 5 has turned up on eBay. The real Johnny 5.

- Jackie Chan is to produce and star in The Shinjuku Incident, a drama about Chinese immigrants to Japan during the 90s.

- Volker Schlodnorff has left the director's chair for Saint Joan after failing to agree with the producers' plans to create two cuts: a feature film and a TV mini-series. Place your bets: will they net Oliver Hirschbiegel as a replacement? He conceded to two versions of Downfall, after all - or is he too Hollywood now?

- Aardman's designs for Webbliworld can now be seen on the official site for the Puffin Books/World Wildlife Fund project.

- The world premiere of some Beowulf footage is coming, and soon. What I wouldn't give to be there.

- Dennis Gassner will be handling production design for the next Bond film. Good.

- Even if a Family Guy film really is coming, I would find it hard to care much at all.

- The Dave McKean short films DVD is almost upon us. Unsurprisingly, it has a great cover.

- Somebody has seen the teaser for The Dark Knight, apparently, and described it for us. Hypemongering plant? Probably.

- IGN have some Prince Caspian artwork. Nothing to get too excited about.

- Scenes in the Sarah Connor Chronicles pilot are being reshot due to 'similarities' to the Virginia Tech killings. Of course, this is no reason to reshoot the scenes at all - in fact, quite the contrary. These are just the subjects we need to be dramatising, considering, investigating, discussing.

- Weta's Warthog, from the live action Halo promo, is on display.

- Apparently, George Takei will be displaying super powers on the next series of Heroes.

- There appears to be a 1-18-08 teaser poster on display at Comic-Con. Perhaps. Fuzzy, but looks like the real deal.

- Sean Bean is to star in The Cache.

- Vicki Lawrence has 'won' a role in The Kentucky Fried Horror Show.

- A new line of Henson-designed toys called 'Jim Henson's Critters' is to be unveiled at Comic-Con. And very beautiful they are too.

- The line up for the Venice Days festival sidebar has been published.

- The ties that bind Dreamworks and Paramount may be coming loose. Awww.

- The Sno Cone Stand, Inc. is to star Tony Sirico and Morgan Fairchild. it's a get-rich-quick caper comedy.

- Andy Fickman is directing a remake of Escape to Witch Mountain. Not an entirely redundant remake, of course, but highly likely to be worse than the original.

Direct Download Link For Neil Blomkamp And WETA's Halo Trailer

This teaser was created to hype Halo 3 but it also teases us with Neil Blomkamp's vision of a live-action Halo universe.

I doubt we'll ver see that film. Shrug.

Peter Jackson Behind Halo Animated Series

[EDIT: This has turned out to be a little less clear than I at first thought... read on to the end of the post for all of the info]

The Halo movie may be dead in the water (or just sleeping, face down, liable to drown soon enough) but an animated series based upon the game is, I'm told, already very, very deep into production.

Apparently, Peter Jackson is behind the series, in direct collaboration with Bungie, the game's creators. It's also expected that he's directing at least one episode, as is be Neil Blomkamp,
the director attached to the Halo feature film.

Are we to see this very soon? Perhaps around the launch of Halo 3 in the Autumn? And where will we see it? My source specualted that the series might be, initially at least, exclusively available for download to X-Boxes.

This is likely to be the first look we get at the motion capture technology being prepped for Tintin, though the budget is bound to be far greater and the quality, almost inevitably, to be somewhat less impressive.

[EDIT: There seems to be a story online that may have been my sources' source - though they provided further info (admittedly, info they may have either assumed or invented).

Several people are now claiming this is all just the result of a misunderstanding, but I'm not convinced. It looks to me - as far as I can see, sniffing around various online reports and e-mailing everybody that I thought would have some inside info to share - that the project simply wasn't supposed to be announced yet. Will it be swept under the carpet only to be announced later?]

[EDIT: The original story has been edited, with the word 'animated' changed for 'interactive' or just plain removed. That could be the end of the chase...]

Direct Download Links For Joseph Kosinski's Halo And Gears Of War Scenes

Joseph Kosinski is to take the reigns of Logan's Run. Previously he has directed full-motion video sequences for videogames and commercials.

You can directly download his Halo and Gears of War clips right now. I could spend a few minutes picking them apart for you, but I don't think you'll need my help.

I'll say this for him, though - he's certainly got the ambition. Fingers crossed he'll learn a little before picking up the Logan baton and, indeed, his live action work is a shade more successful.: download the Leap commercial for example...

...though, admittedly, Beck does a lot of the work there, and it's sister ad, Race, is nothing more than a Jonathan Glazer rip-off.

He might pull this off, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Grind House 2

So, what are going to be the films to make up the second Grind House double feature?

Talking to VH1, Eli Roth discusses Thanksgiving:

The trailer was so much fun. It's all gore and nudity. It's all money shots, bodies being chopped up and people being stabbed and cheerleaders stripping on trampolines. It's three minutes of pure happiness. The feature will never live up to the trailer unless we just do 90 minutes of that. For Grind House 2 I think there's a very strong chance of shooting it. Quentin and Robert and the Weinstein Company love the trailer so much they're already asking me, "Where's the script for Thanksgiving?"

(He also suggests he turned down Die Hard 4, The Hulk and Halo to make Hostel 2)

And, in another chat, Tarantino spells out his plans for the future:

There's all these subgenres in exploitation movies and cinema in general that we like, and this gives us a license to explore them all ... I do have an idea in my mind for an old-school kung-fu movie that would be shot in Mandarin ... there would be a long version of it, with subtitles and all serious. Then I would cut another version way down, like they did in America, and dub it! Not to make it look silly, but you can't help but benefit from its humorous quality.

If the audience screams for Thanksgiving and Don't! or Werewolf Women of the S.S., and Rob, Edgar and Eli want to do it, we're all down.

And the then confirms, once more, that his next film will be Inglorious Bastards.

Madness At Latino Review

Thanks to a link at Jo Blo, I have just finished reading a script review of Guillermo del Toro's At The Mountains of Madness on the Latino Review site. Like (almost?) every script review El Mayimbe ever posts there, this is very positive, though this one may in fact be amongst the very most positive of all.

I recall their droolingly eulogistic Halo script review almost as fondly as I do laughing at the terrible halo script itself (thankfully, Alex Garland left the project and was replaced by D B Weiss- so who knows what we'll actually end up with?). El Mayimbe certainly likes to hype things up a little.

Does anybody out there have the inside knowledge necessary to lift the lid on this character? Is he an agent hyping scripts by his clients? Or just a very excitable chap? And how exactly does he get his hands on all of these scripts?