Movie Minesweeper - The If You Can't Read Variety For Yourself Edition

All of the following are reported in Variety. Just in case you can't read Variety for yourself, here's a little bullet point or so on each.

- Tom De Santo is to produce a feature film version of City of Heroes, the stupidly expensive MMORPG. The plan is to then get a TV spin-off running - TV superheroics are so much more cost effective. I can imagine the 'your hero, our world' promotions now when they try to get cheap IP from players of the game to exploit on the show. De Santo has made it clear that he wants to see superheroes versus aliens in the film, but I suspect that may be too much at once for the typical Batman or Spider-Man punter.

- Savage Steve Holland has another film coming (blah blah, number 38 bus, blah blah, two at once, blah blah). It's called National Lampoon's Ratko: The Dictator's Son. Sadly, Holland didn't write this one.

- Lionsgate have greenlit Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns. That's four Perry films from Lionsgate now, and not a single one of them any good.

- Orson Scott Card's Empire is being adapted into a screenplay by Oren Moverman. Great name. Expect the presidential asassination plotline to create plenty of controversy - more so, in fact, the closer Moverman's 'near future' world is to our own.

- Bourne boys Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass are bunking up again to adapt Imperial Life in the Emerald City. Damon's character is to be a composite of several real life figures, presumably to streamline the real life events into something like a digestible plot.

- Roland Joffe's t.A.T.u film is moving ahead, with Mischa Barton in the lead. Dear lord - this film is looking like such an easy target. Even if it's actually pretty very good - which it may well be - I can't see many people coming out and admitting they like it. Critics, eh?

- Menno Meyjes has two films still outstanding - Martian Child and Manolete. Before either of those hit the screen, however, he'll be underway with Last Battle Dreamer, a love story set amidst the Viking invasions. Not at all typecasting by nationality or pandering to low audience standards, Meyjes is looking for an American movie star type to play the Viking warrior lead and an English actress to play the noblewoman he ra... er... falls for.

- Naomi Watts is to take the lead in We Are All the Same, adapted from the non-fiction book that recounts how a white South African woman adopted a black child with aids, and then toured the world with the kid in an attempt to raise awareness. I think this has the potential to be incredibly interesting, if it isn't kept too simplistic. There's some complex arguments to be had here.

- Disney have inked a first-look deal with Stan Lee for any future creations he might cook up. Until he comes up with something, there's no idea how much of a waste this will turn out to be. Or not. Pressure's on, Stan.

Some Punishment

ShockTilYouDrop - them again - have the exclusive first look at the first Captivity trailer. It is about 50% shots down Elisha Cuthert's cleavage, about 50% not-strictly-accurate slogans selling the film on the basis of the MPAA's infamous punishments against the film's advertising campaign. The film will be better than this.

TATU, OMG!

There's going to be a film called Finding Tatu, the Russian popstars are going ot be in it and - apparently - Roland Joffe is going to direct it. He's going to get a hell of a lot of stick for this, particularly straight afyer Captivity. It looks like he's traded in his credibility quite finally now.

MoveHole have a casting breakdown for the film.

Punishing Joffe And Cohen

Why do people want to punish Roland Joffe and Larry Cohen - not to mention the many other folk who put in months of hard work to make Captivity? Why can't they see that only the distribitor, After Dark, is at fault, and only they need to be 'handled'.

Denying the film a rating is simply the wrong thing to do. Fining the distributor - as heavily as they want - makes a lot more sense.

Joss Whedon is supporting the 'Remove the Rating' campaign. How would he feel if Serenity had been denied a rating because of some dumb idiots marketing it in a grossly inappropriate way? He'd be punished by such a sanction as much as the distributor - providing, of course, he really wants people to see his films. If that's the real reason he makes them. I mean... what other commendable reason is there?

[EDIT: Please read the comments, and contribute - no matter what side of the argument you are on]

Abduction, Confinement, Torture, Termination, Complaints, Removal

A rather neat series of billboard ads for Captivity have caused a little bit of fuss. If you're in LA, rush out and see them now - they'll all be gone by 2pm today. If you're in New York, the taxi-top equivalents should last to around that time too, so take a look at what you're hailing.

The ad is comprised of four images, each one depicting a stage in a young woman's captivity, as it were: abduction, confinement, torture, termination. Elisha Cuthbert appears in the role of 'young woman'.

The Hollywood Reporter claim that the MPAA have denied approving the ad; as a result, they may deny the film a certificate, by means of punishment. This could make it very, very hard for the film to get booked into cinemas - certainly the chain cinemas which comprise 'something like' 99.9% of screens in America. Somehow, I doubt the MPAA will exercise this power and kill the film in this way, but they certainly could.

There's more bad news in the same piece - the CEO of the film's production company is quoted as saying "this movie is certainly a horror movie and it's about abduction, but it's also about female empowerment. We reshot the ending so the main character ends up in as much of a positive situation as the situation could allow" which, essentially, means they tacked on a happy ending. Shameful.

The ads were created by Art Machine Digital, who are also behind that delicious Hostel 2 slab of meat. In fact, they're a pretty strong agency with a lot of memorable work under their belt and I hope they're proud of this one - it sounds quite effective to me.

Please send me any images of the billboard you find online.

[EDIT: Anonymous directed me to the image above, and Sandra has some pics of the board in situ at her blog. Thank you both very much]

Not So Wild Stills In Captivity

Awwww, look. Elisha has a Teddy bear. You can click on any of these stills from Captivity to enlarge them, and find out just how out of focus a bunch of them are.

Russian Poster For Captivity

Captivity is co-written by Larry Cohen from a Larry Cohen story. Basically, then, somebody rewrote Cohen. Why his more recent scripts have all been 'polished' by somebody else, I don't know, but where I'm from Larry Cohen is a brilliant, bright and shining marquee name.

The poster is very big, as you'll see if you click on it, and I found it at Kino Express.