All Aboard The Spirit Train

Eva Mendes has been cast as Sand Saref in The Spirit. Saref was a relatively late addition to the strip and, for my money, one of the least interesting female characters.

I'd always assumed Ellen Dolan would have been heavily featured in Miller's adaptation, but if she's in the film at all, she's yet to be cast. Maybe the story will be set during her term as mayor? Or maybe she'll just be absent without explanation?

I do expect any number of characters to be missing, or at least heavily changed. Ebony White in particular who, despite actually being quite a well rounded character overall would probably draw fire for his more obviously 'minstrel' -like characteristics.

Beyond casting, it has also been announced that Bill Pope is to shoot the film. Pope's an often good but but wildly inconsistent cinematographer so I'm hardly excited by the news, but at least he has plenty of comic-book-look credentials having shot Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3 and Darkman.

Movie Minesweeper - The World's Longest Ticker Tape Parade Edition

This is going to take me most of the morning, most likely. I must really love you - all of you.

- SuperHeroHype have a cast line-up photo from Iron Man, weird, posed thing that it is.

- Is there to be a woman president on the 2008 season of 24?

- Uwe Boll's Bloodrayne 2 has been denied an R rating by the MPAA. So, whatever it is, it is also more 'adult' than, say, Hostel 2.

- Thor Freudenthal is to direct family film of Lois Duncan's Hotel For Dogs from an adaptation by Jeff Lowell.

- Wes Craven is suing Pauly Shore. That's one dream team we'll never see work together then. I hope Alexander Payne and Carrot Top get to collaborate before some kind of legal entanglement wrecks my dreams there too.

- Stephen King doesn't like the idea of Captivity. Neither does he like Kubrick's The Shining. At least he gives some idea of what upset him about The Shining, whereas Captivity apparently just 'goes too far'. Oh - and he's wrong. Kubricks' film is leaps and bounds ahead of the original book.

- Len Wiseman wants to direct Wolverine. The only thing keeping pen from paper must be the wait for Die Hard 4's opening numbers.

- MTV have some Shaw Bros. clips that are probably very worth watching, including one with commentary by Quentin Tarantino - but I don't know for sure as I'm in the UK, so they won't work for me. Sigh.

- The transfer of Criterion's Berlin Alexanderplatz set has met criticism, but has been easily, and conclusively defended.

- The Princess and the Frog's story reels run to 90 minutes and have been well received. Apparently, the film has a twist ending... place your bets now.

- Mamoru Oshii's next film is to be The Sky Crawlers, adapted from Hiroshi Mori's books. The anti-war fantasy features hothoused teen soldiers sent to die in wars that exist only to entertain. Oshii promises a love story in the midst of the satire and action.

- Enchanted is being seen as the starting point for a new franchise.

- Alex Cox has turned his unprodcued Repo Man sequel script, Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday into a comic book. I saw the link at TheBeat.

- Michael Bay wasn't a Transformers fan before taking the job. Of course not - but I wonder if this has rankled some fanboys?

- Daniel Benmayor's PSP commerical is like Peter Pan meets Parkour. I foudn the link at Feed.

- Openin casting calls are being held for two youthful roles in Harry Potter 6.

- Angela Bassett will star as Brenda, a Chicago single mother, in the next Tyler Perry film, Meet the Browns.

- Amy Adams is in negotiations to take the key role in John Patrick Shanley's film of his own play, Doubt. Her character is to get caught up in a tense, angry confrontation between those played by Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

- CAA mailboy Ben Dey pitched the comedy Coma Boy to Brian Grazer, and now it's to be a film.

- Lee Hall is adapting the Children of the Lamp books for Dreamworks. They're fantastical family sagas revolving around a dynasty of genies.

- Howard Deutch is to direct Bachelor No. 2, with Kate Hudson and Dane Cook in the lead roles.

- Suzie Templeton's Peter and the Wolf nabbed the big prizes at Annecy. See her previous film, Stanley and Dog for a (reputedly far less impressive, but impressive nonetheless) taste of her stop-motion skills.

- IESB have noted that John Carter of Mars is to be live action but feature animation. That's like almost every genre film these days, surely? Shot in live action, augmented with CG?

- The Scarecrow has been snapped on the Dark Knight set. So that settles that. Apparently.

- Just to be clear: Frank Miller isn't necessarily directing Trouble is My Middle Name. TheBeat wanted to make that absolutely clear.

- The NC17 rating for Hatchet has been overturned.

- Timothy Olyphant and Xavier Gens have given a Hitman interview.

- John Krasinski seems to be up for the Fletch role. So, what about Joshua Jackson?

- Alicia Keys' Big Pita, Little Pita are to produce Catfish, the story of the woman behind the biggest strike in US history.

- Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl is now set up to be a film from the Montecito Production Co.

- The Weinsteins are coughing up for a series of English language, made-in-Hong-Kong action films. Apparently, wire work will be kept to a minimum - and I know somebody who will be pleased about that.

- Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby are adapting Cowboys and Aliens into a feature script.

- My Zinc Bed is to star Uma Thurman, Paddy Considine and Jonathan Pryce - three out of three, I'd say. Anthony Page is to direct while David Hare is writing from his own play.

- Satoshi Kon has spoken to The Washington Post. Read it.

- Indiana Jones is headed to Hawaii.

- Images of an Alien/Predator combo turned up online. Not from Aliens vs. Predator 2, as it happens, but just a fake.

- Eddie Murphy is the father of Mel Brown's baby after all. What a surprise.

- You can watch Robot Chicken's Star Wars special with video commentary now.

- The Young Ones is returning to DVD, with new bonus features.

- David Strathairn is to appear in the American Tale of Two Sisters.

And, yes, I was right, this took hours.

Trouble Is Their Business

"If my books had been any worse I should not have been invited to Hollywood and if they had been any better I should not have come" - Raymond Chandler.

Clive Owen is to play Philip Marlowe in Frank Miller's film of Trouble Is My Business and the plan is, this will be the start of a series of Chandler adaptations. So, should this be a hit, Owen will be set for a nice string of gigs, though it's by no means guaranteed Miller would be sticking around.

Reporting on the deal, Variety lists various other Miller projects, past and future. Besides 300, Ronin and The Spirit, they remind us that Miller is working on a Sin City sequel. Don't take that as confirmation of anything.

What isn't clear is if the film adapts only the short story Trouble Is My Business or the entire collection of four stories now published under that umbrella title. I'd expect it will only be the one - it's quite involved and could easily fill out a feature film if adapted correctly. There's plenty of Hollywood stuff in this one, and if he fancies getting stuck into such in-jokes, Miller could probably make hay.

You can read an extended excerpt from the beginning of the story at Random House's site.

Film Of Ronin Stalled For Castlevania Adaptation

After Stomp the Yard made more money than was expected, Sylvain White became something of a hot property (note: money was the convincer, not some sudden awareness that he'd made a surprisingly good film - because he hadn't). He's been attached to numerous projects, most famously a film of Frank Miller's Ronin comic books. That film has now been shelved, at least temporarily, while White makes a film for the Castlevania videogames.

Now, the Castelvania games are fine - if massively overrated - but there's no suggestion at all that they're going to make for a good film so the project might as well be unrelated, should be considered as though it was cooked up from scratch. A script by Paul W. S. Anderson, directed by Sylvain White? That's looking a lot like the recipe for another Van Helsing.

Gothic horror sits uncomfortably with modern popcorn pictures, for me at least. After James Whale and Tod Browning and other, undoubtedly populist, filmmakers actually managed to make entertainments out of great gothic stories while retaining appropriate atmospheres, tones and Freud-baiting undercurrents, it seemed like we were on a slippery slope. Half way down, we whooshed through the house of Hammer, past the garish, lusty, liberated take on the same old stories, settings, characters but by then, a lot had shifted. Complete the shift, get up to date, and we end up with a gothic horror that's predicated entirely on style, on semi-buried subtexts, on pantomime pieces.

The last great gothic horror film classic - and I mean great - was Ridley Scott's Alien. It was surprisingly similar to the early Universal horrors, but used modern cinema technology in exciting, unparalelled ways, mixed in tropes from other genres, scrambled the signals, wove the gothicism into a tapestry. But this gothic weave was powerful, and almost every scene was clad in it like ivy creepers. It was a timeless, classic dread and a primal, animal sexuality that crept through the corridors of Alien.

We've had great horror films since with a splash of the gothic - and plenty of horror films that went all out with the gothic, but weren't great. Aesthetically, only Tim Burton seems regularly convincing in standing steady a few paces back up the slope but - so far - he hasn't tried to horrify us. I'm sure he could, though. And then some - if he went all out.

Could Castlevania be a grand gothic adventure? Sure. Will it be? Well, only if Anderson's script and White and his crew are interested in the idea. And why would they be? The commodity-gothic that they're needing to trade on, I expect, is the same thing tromping in and out of Hot Topic all day long. Gothicism as a can of spray-on cobwebs, not as a deep, scarlet romance of horror.

Expect Pirates of the Caribbean with Vampires instead of Pirates. At best.

Movie Minewsweeper - The Let's Try That Again, Shall We? Edition

- Darren Aronofsky is to record a commentary track for The Fountain and release it online. I saw this at Cinematical.

- Frank Miller still believes in a Sin City 2. I wonder if he also believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction. On the upside, he's now sold on 3D - after a screening of U2 3D. Does this mean The Spirit might get an extra dimension?

- Today's completely fabricated quote alleges that Tim Burton is set to direct a film about Marilyn Manson's recent divorce. At least we can cross another site off of the legitimate source list - and the first time I've ever heard of the site too. That's efficiency for you.

- Aardman are to launch their own channel on Joost. Fine - but I don't have an invite to use the service. Who's going to ask me in?

- K-Fed has landed a small role in Night Watch. How?

- Scott Sigler's Infested is to be filmed. Know the book? I don't. Any good?

- You can download the trailer to Wilson Yip's Flashpoint right now, if your right-clicker works.

- A Mister Lonely clip has turned up online. If Harmony Korine has any idea what he's doing he certainly hasn't worked out why he shouldn't be doing it.

- Luc Besson is to float EuropaCorp on the paris stock exchange. This was one of the stories I lost in the earlier Blogger meltdown.

- I still haven't stopped laughing about the Silver Surfer coin cock-up.

Sin City 2 Might Be On Hold, So How About...

...some Sin City videogames instead?

Red Mile have won the rights to produce games based upon Frank Miller's Sin City. Here's the quote from Miller:

Taking Sin City into the world of video games is very exciting - games offer a whole new way to bring audiences into Sin City. The Red Mile team has impressed me with its dedication to creating Sin City video games that will remain true to Sin City as I’ve always seen it.

Red Mile are also working on a Jackass game.

Movie Minesweeper - The Colder Than July Edition

- You can download and enjoy the My Blueberry Nights press kit in pdf form. The Hollywood Reporter Hollywood report that at the first press screening "a few fans tried to generate some applause, but the screening room quickly fell silent."

- Sean Hughes is to appear on Coronation Street.

- Thomas Jane won't be The Punisher again, and he's told Aint it Cool why. I don't really know a great deal about the comic books, but I can see how a good Punisher film would work. Chan Wook Park would be very at home with the material, for example.

- There's a rumour going round that 50 Cent might be the next Terminator.

- Lionsgate will pimp The Spirit in the UK and the US. Shooting is likely to start this summer, unless Sin City 2 isn't pushed back again. Though, apparently, it will be.

- Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont are to direct Red-Tails in Love, but they won't script it - at least, not the formal last draft. The writers are to be Peter Speakman and Michael Gavin.

- What Happens in Vegas is to star Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher. Chances are, we'll wish it stayed in Vegas.

- Richard Curtis' The Girl in the Cafe has been remade in German with Julia Jentsch in the Kelly McDonald role.

- Apparently, the zombies in Steve Miner's Day of the Dead rapemake - sorry, remake -
are 'sexier' than in the original. Like, literally. But are they sexier than in Return of the Living Dead Part 3?

- Screendaily are reporting remakes of The Long Good Friday and Mona Lisa. The directors attached? Paul W. S. Anderson and Larry Clark, respectively. Both stories are being relocated to the US. No director is yet attached to the Time Bandits remake from the same producers - which, hopefully, will mean it never happens. Ever.

- Jim Brown's Pete Seeger documentary is to open Silverdocs 2007. Springsteen has boosted Seeger's profile somewhat, this may be something of a minor hit - if only on TV.

- Has David Goyer cast Justin Chatwin as Magneto? Possibly. I heard Ben Whishaw was up for it, but I don't really know about that for sure either.

- Roger Moore, Ioan Gruffud, Alice Evans, Ruby Wax and Brian Blessed are to provide voices for Agent Crush, a CG spy spoof toon.

- Eliza Dushku has signed on for Rob Schmidt's The Alphabet Killer. Bet it isn't as pedestrian as Zodiac - but I doubt it will be as ambitious either.

- William Macy is to star in, produce and co-write Family Man for TNT. The show will be directed by Stephen Schachter, Macy's co-writer and frequent collaborator.

- Ye Olde Times is a film about Medieval fairs and re-enactments, set to star Jack Black and Tim Robbins, and it's up for sale at Cannes this year.

- MoviesOnline have a piece about the casino set for Ocean's 13.

- Hank Azaria is to direct Outsourced. If he can hold it together, he'll probably have a smash - the film stars Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, will likely be marketed as a Wedding Crashers reteam.

- Glenn Close, Larry Fishburne and Djimon Honsou are apparently up for the Death Race do-over. Joan Allen is reportedly a back up plan for - yeah, that's right, Larry Fishburne. No - Close, obviously.

- Jennifer Garner is cooking up a TV show 'by moms, and for moms' - The View with nappies?

- Development of The Princess and the Frog and Rapunzel is progressing nicely. Each of them is about to be done as a story reel, which brings them close to the actual animation process, providing all is in order. The reels for American Dog have been completed and screened, and the signs are good.

- Today is the anniversary of Jim Henson's death, in 1990. I've missed him ever since.

Ronin Rerun

Word got out in February that Sylvain White was to direct a movie of Frank Miller's Ronin. Today, the traes have it, so the news has finally gone wide. Sigh.

In the interim, I suspected the project might falter because Miller had suggested no future films would be made of his material unless he was directing them himself. Obviously there was nothing he could do to stop this one. So there's definitely nothing you or I could do either.

Frank Miller Update: Sin City 2 And 3, Spirit And The Dark Knight (Returns)

A new piece on Frank Miller in the LA Times reveals a few interesting things:

That The Spirit begins filming this year, two Sin City sequels are in the pipeline (I heard this was the case - two films being shot as though one, released a few months apart)... and the next Batman film might well not have the title we were expecting. Here's the piece of the article on that front:

...borrows its title from Miller's 1986 masterpiece, The Dark Knight Returns. "They finally got the title right," Miller said with a pretend sneer. "I was wondering when that would happen."

Of course, they may just have borrowed the first three words and not the fourth, but that's not the inference here, and it's starting to sound like they've gone the whole hog. Will that cause a problem?

Banderas In Sin City 2, Depp In Sin City 3

Speaking to VH1, Robert Rodriguez got round to the small matter of Sin City casting and whipped out a couple of surprises:

[Johnny Depp] was interested in doing the Jackie Boy character that Benicio played, but he was doing that movie Libertine in Europe and it just kept getting pushed and delayed and went right through our shooting schedule. But there is a better role for him in [Sin City 3, based upon Hell and Back]. I kept going, 'Gosh, Jackie Boy is a small part, he could be really good [as Wallace].' When he wasn't available, I thought maybe it was meant to be.

When I showed [Antonio Banderas] the first sample of the work, he went, 'Man I'll do anything in that. I'll be the hunchback. You have to bring me onboard, that looks amazing. So Frank met him that time too and he said, 'I have got to find something for that guy. I've never met him before. He's amazing.' [We're] looking at the cast of characters and to see where he can fit.

There's plenty more in the full interview - but nothing on Ava Lord casting, more's the pity. Rosario Dawson will make fetishists very happy, however, with her comments on the costuming. Bring out the gimp indeed.

Peter at Slashfilm has more from Rodriguez, this time about the feature behind the trailer, Machete. In brief, the plan seems to be to shoot it quickly and cheaply in the middle of the Sin City 2 production, and release it straight to DVD at the same time as Grind House arrives on disc.

Sin City 2 Clues In Actors' Schedules?

Angelina Jolie will be busy with Wanted this summer; Brad Pitt will be busy with State of Play.

Rose McGowan, however, looks to be free for the Sin City 2 shoot, heading off to Stephan Elliot's Susan Cabot biopic Black Oasis later in the autumn.

Anybody know what Rachel Weisz is up to in June and July?

These are the best clues we have for sorting out who will be Ava Lord and who won't - not to mention sussing out that Pitt-as-Dwight rumour.

Jolie Wanted, Who Will Kill For Her Now?

Seeing as Angelina Jolie has now joined the cast list for Wanted, I think we can safely assume she won't be in the next Sin City. As expected. But now, perhaps, we know why she'll be at the ComiCon this summer.

Wanted is sounding like a very, very entertaining film, and hopefully not an entirely hollow one either. Fingers crossed for something at least on a par with 300.

Variety Talk Frank Miller, Confuse Matters

According to Variety, Frank Miller is writing a sequel to 300. Well, a sequel of sorts - he's adapting another 'mythic tale from Greek history'. Of course, according to the new golden rule of Frank, Zack Snyder couldn't return as director - Miller's apparently to direct everything himself after his upcoming Austin summer with Rodriguez.

They also claim in the same piece that Jessica Alba is playing the 'title role' in Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For, so, they've clearly got some crossed wires somewhere.

Sin City 2 Shooting In June

Lots of Dame to Kill For talk today. Rosario Dawson said it in real life at ShoWest, Frank Miller said it in the virtual universe of Second Life: Sin City 2 is to re-enter pre-production within the next six weeks or so for a June shoot.

I expect to start hearing reports about the laid-off art crew getting laid back on again any second now.

Who will play Ava Lord? Angelina Jolie's pregnancy caused the initial delay in production but now her sudden availability might be the catalyst for what does appear to be a sharp u-turn; some reports claimed Rachel Weisz was up for the part; I've personally been told Rose McGowan was under consideration.

Here's my bet. I'll place one chip on Jolie, two on McGowan and leave Weisz well alone - not expectations based on anything I'm keeping secret, just a gut feeling.

Reel Talk From Frank Miller

NBC have a streaming 13-minute interview with Frank Miller online. He's dressed like a 1980's MOR act, maybe a saxophonist or lead in a Huey Lewis cover band. If Top Gear were to need a new presenter, he certainly looks the part.

Very little of the interview is news, and Miller is asked to expound on the same subjects as ever, but you might want to sit through it for the brief detour from retread banality: he reveals (spoiler alert!) that the screenplay for Sin City 2 has a clearer central plot and is less episodic; the new plot elements deal with Nancy and 'the aftermath of Hartigan's suicide'.

At time of writing, 300 appears to be on for the biggest March opening ever. Gotta love inflation.

Sin City 2 Ready To Roll?

Frank Miller sez: Sin City 2 could be shooting as soon as the spring.

Well, with so many preproduction staff let go and the lead role of Ava Lord very much up in the air - neither Angelina Jolie or Rachel Weisz seems to be available in the next few months, perhaps lending much credence to the Rose McGowan tales I was told - this may be wishful thinking, or maybe just spin from Mr. Miller.

We'll see, but I personally doubt this film will be going before lenses anything like this soon.

Frank Miller's Ronin

According to the IESB, Sylvain White is to direct an adaptation of Frank Miller's Ronin. Where will it all end, this Miller-Mania?

I'll volunteer now for directing duties on Frank Miller's Shopping List. Maybe the cast of Foodfight can be reunited?

300 2

First Showing are chasing a rather odd rumour: that Frank Miller is to devise a cinematic sequel to 300. Now, this is probably more dependent on the first film's box-office take than finding subsequent historical events to dramatise so if the film is the smash geekdom is anticipating (but see Serenity, Slither and Snakes on a Plane for a few clear warnings) then I expect this impossible sounding follow-up will in fact come to pass.

For And Against Zack Snyder's 300

There have been some early complaints that Zack Snyder didn’t keep the tone of Frank Miller in his adaptation of 300. I don’t think this is true at all, but as I had more time to digest the film, I realized Snyder had cut more out of the book than I thought.

While I think the Spartan camaraderie and warrior ethic comes through, I would like to have seen more of it. The movie feels too rushed towards the battles. I wanted to see some of that grueling march to the Hot Gates, I think Miller rightly emphasizes what hell the Spartans go through even before the battles take place. A few scenes would be all it took. I was disappointed the “Stumblios” story was cut entirely, as one of my favorite parts is when Leonidas finally calls him Stelios. I wrote in my earlier review that Leonidas is not necessarily front and center of this film. Perhaps Snyder wanted to keep that tone and that’s why this storyline was cut, but it was a moment in the graphic that really established the awe the Spartans hold their King in. And that’s something that is slightly lacking for Leonidas in the film.

There's some stuff that is just too freaky--those giant orcs/trolls/zombies or whatever are just really out of place and ridiculous. Leonidas fights the big one from the promo poster and all I could see was Aragorn fighting the troll before the Black Gates--it was so obvious Snyder had that in mind. Again, I would have preferred more from the book and less from Snyder's "Whoa, that would look COOL" imagination!

There’s been a lot of hype about the sex scene. I’m not saying this as a Gerard Butler girl, but just about every press report and test review I have read has mentioned how 'hot' it is. I was disappointed. The snippets we saw in that high octane trailer at ComicCon and the various reviews that mentioned it led me to think it was going to be a lot sexier--raw and fierce like the movie is. The love scene is very slow, lots of (for lack of a better word) "flowiness." Basically, what you see in all those trailers is it, there's not much more. It's very romantic and touching, but I wish it had been a little more intense. I wanted it to have the feel of a man who knows he's going to his death--and a woman who knows it's the last night she has with him. Instead, it’s something like you might have seen in Lord of the Rings if Aragorn and Arwen had gotten around to it—albeit with more nudity. For a film willing to go all out in every other respect, I wish it had maintained it when it came to the sex.

I don’t want to sound like I am ragging on the film—I still feel 300 is one of the coolest rides you will have in 2007. It should satisfy just about everyone, from the Gerard Butler lovers to the Frank Miller fans. There’s just no way to hate a movie where a volley of arrows really do blot out the sun.