Mike Markus dropped me a line to let me know the Hellboy 2 site is now live. I had a quick look and found lots of good stuff. Go, enjoy.
I'll be back tomorrow with a replacement for Movie Minesweeper and the beginning of a new era for film ick.
Hellboy 2 is currently filming in and around Budapest - as any Maddy Gaiman fan will tell you. I've had the good fortune to be able to read a copy of the script and, putting that together with the on-set snaps that have appeared so far, and the little bits and pieces to have popped up in the news, I'm getting quite a clear idea of how this one is going. This post might have some failry heavy spoilers in it, so go forward carefully.
Neil Gaiman has been shadowing Guillermo del Toro on this set, to get pointers for when he directs Death and Me later this year (why not remind yourself of my script review of that one?) and, really, the plan seems perfect. This is quite easily the most Gaimanesque of Del Toro's projects, he'll understand just what's going on, probably be able to look past the specifics, which will seem so natural to him, and see how Guillermo handles this kind of material.
The script picks up with a dazzling magical robbery at an auction house. The film's chief villain is a scheming elven prince, in this scene shown as just a 'shadowy figure'. He's after a piece of an ancient Crown and has some amazing tricks to help him nab it:
A darkened corridor where other STEWARDS wheel auction lots to and from a sales room.
The STEWARD notices an open window at the end of the corridor. He leans out and looks down. Ten stories below - a snow-covered alley.
Suddenly, he sees the SHADOWY FIGURE above the window frame, clinging to the smooth granite wall!
STEWARD
What the h-
Quick as lightning, the SHADOWY FIGURE covers the steward's mouth. When he withdraws his hand, the steward's mouth has VANISHED!
The Shadowy figure grabs the hapless man by the lapels, hauling him outside and dangling him over the void.
Far below: a spiked wrought-iron fence.
The Prince has enlisted some rather creepy creatures to help him out with this crown heist - a thuggish Troll called Wink, eight foot tall and "with grey skin and a huge scar over his left, empty, eye socket. His right hand is missing and he sports a heavy iron mace instead"; and a horde of horrible, scrabbling, flesh-gnawing... well, I won't spoil the surprise. But they are famous creatures of folklore given a new, sinister spin. And they like to feed on calcium. Brrrrr.
This huge army of tiny terrors create chaos, and while the BPRD arrive at the auction house after the Prince appears to have fled, they still have a lot of havoc to control. Their personal spin master Tom Manning is in too, to try and shield them, to force a positive media profile and to keep Hellboy, Abe and Liz top secret.
The twist this time is... he fails completely. Liz goes absolutely supernova - quite necessarily - but the resulting explosion blows Hellboy flying through the air:
Like a cannonball, HB flies out of the upper floor window.
A ball of flame, he arcs downward.
Below, the onlookers scatter as the massive Red Giant lands in their midst, cracking the pavement.
Liz and Abe go to the window and look down. A TV CAMERA LENS ZOOMS IN ON THEM BOTH.
Liz (into her radio)
HB? HB?? Are you alright?
The scene ends with:
Manning hurries forward, witness to his worst nightmare. A sea of camera flashes explodes on a grinning Hellboy.
And the opening credits roll...
This plot this time picks up with Liz and Hellboy deep into a relationship. In fact, as we're introduced to them, they're in the middle of a superpowered domestic disupute. Like last time, their romance is a key strand to the film, if not, indeed, its heart. And it definitely provides a very sweet conclusion (which some might see as a cliffhanger).
Threaded in with that twine of plot are two more spinning directly out of this opening sequence: the Elven Prince has an epic, deadly plan that will spell disaster for the human world; the public become aware of the BPRD and their 'freaks'; and a third that doesn't so much: ectoplasmic man Johan Krauss becomes the new head of the BPRD field team. Kraus is brilliantly conceived and portrayed - he's like a movie adaptation of something from Nintendo's Geist game and gets some brilliant moments in the action set-pieces as well as many crackling verbal confrontations with Hellboy.
Along the way, we meet the Elven Princess, who shares a link with her twin brother that verges on all that Skeksis/Mystic business; Abe Sapien falls in love enough to start listening to Barry Manilow records; there's a massive, massive, massive (think Ghostbusters... or even Ghostbusters 2) confrontation with a tree elemental on the streets of New York; Hellboy ruins a Bowling Alley; a very Gaimanesque (there's that silly word again) expedition occurs to a secret Troll Market; Del Toro proves several more times just how much of a clockwork fetishist he is; the Tonight Show turns nasty; and there's a dragon on the loose in Russia, an army coming to life in Ireland and a very strikingly described Angel of Death.
Here's the biggest spoiler material maybe, so be warned once more: there are brief cameos for two deceased characters from the first film. Professor Broom appears in an origin flashback for Johan Krauss, while a post-credits sequence (legal issues permitting - this film is coming from a different studio) will resurrect Kroenen, apparently in set-up for a third chapter.
All of this is to say, frankly, there's so much incident packed into this episode that any issues you may have had with the first film's pacing will surely be forgotten. This is a bigger story, on a more epic canvas, but the intimate, intense heart still beats bright red.
I think Hellboy 2 stands every chance of being far, far better than the first film - which, to be clear, I loved, particularly in its longer cut. The same character abounds, despite the upshift in scale, and the essential elements are all intact. I contemplated giving you some of Hellboy's best wisecracks - his insults and cruel names for Johann Kraus are often laugh out loud funny on the page - but there's no way the typed word will do them justice the way Ron Perlman will.
This is what adventure films should be like and, perversely, Neil Gaiman is really the last filmmaker who needs to be taking notes.
[EDIT: And (spoiler alert still standing) how did I forget to mention that the very explicit homage to American Werewolf in London is followed directly by a tribute to Q, The Winged Serpent? It was one of the sweetest moments in the whole script]
Pan's Labyrinth is now available on Channel 4's 4OD video on demand service alongside some of their great home-grown programming, including Derren Brown's The Heist, the most exciting TV show ever broadcast - if you haven't seen it, go there and see it now).
To whet your appetite for a 4OD outing, here are eight direct-download links for scenes from Del Toro's most beloved film:
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. Obivously, the 4OD compression and encoding is much, much better.
I'm deep into writing the next installment of Under the Hood but I think I need a break, so here's a Movie Minesweeper for you. According to survey results received so far (keep 'em coming!) most of you like Movie Minesweeper... and those of you that don't have given me ideas on how to improve it. So, I will certainly try.
Now though, here's a rush edition to get us up to date.
- Supergirl is headed to Smallville. How long until a Supergirl movie is greenlit, do you think? I suspect she might even beat Wonder Woman into cinemas.
- The IESB have ten clips from Joshua.
- Salma Hayek and Steve Buscemi are starring in Keep Coming Back, directed by William H. Macy.
- Daniel Simpson is to direct Born, a genuinely creepy, offbeat-sounding horror yarn in which Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany will be terrorised by little bits of clay. Bettany's character is an animator and his creations come to life and 'act out a nightmare', which presumably puts the human leads in danger. Guillermo del Toro, Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin are producing while Clive Barker is listed as an executive producer. Barker and Simpson co-wrote the script with... Paul Kaye? What? That Paul Kaye? I do hope so.
- Thomas Wheeler's The Arcanum is to be a feature film. That means actors will have to be found to play Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, H. P Lovecraft and Marie Laveau, the story's line-up of demon battling occult investigators. The plan is to kick off a franchise. It would be a crying shame if this slips into LXG territory. Those who know the book probably have some idea of the similarities to A Killing on Carnival Row which has Neil Jordan as a director - which is a shame for The Arcanum's producers because he'd be perfect for their film too.
- Variety nabbed a very small image of production art from Pixar's Munchausen-alike, Up. I thought I'd reproduce it here for you, so enjoy.
- On the Hook has Frank Langella, Laura Harring and Elliott Gould on the cast list. Two and a half out of three 'aint bad.
- Alexander Nevsky (sounds familiar...) has formed Hollywood Storm, hist first US based production outfit. Nothing in the Variety piece about their first projects, The Black Rose and Magic Man.
And... now I've run out of time. If the phone would stop ringing...
More later after, after I've taught my student and been to see that new Fantastic Four film. Fingers crossed for both of those...
Yesterday was a very busy day for me, culminating in an evening at the theatre, under the spell of Derren Brown. But I'm back now, and I'm determined to catch up. So expect a few Movie Minesweepers today, to say the least.
- There's a neverending graveyard of movie projects that never came together. Premiere have compiled a 20-strong list of the more interesting, including a number of film ick faves that never were: Mark Romanek's A Cold Case, The Onion Movie (no, really), Ridley Scott's Tripoli, Richard Goleszewski's Tortoise vs. Hare, Cameron Crowe's Phil Spector biopic and, perhaps the greatest loss of them all, Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Premiere have managed to scrounge up status reports on some of the films, and it isn't exclusively bad news.
- Michael Davis already has a script written for a Shoot 'Em Up sequel.
- A new adaptation of Hell House could be on the cards. Could Richard Matheson be the next Phillip K. Dick, getting a whole slew of options sold in the next few years?
- Guillermo Del Toro has told his fans on a forum that Danny Elfman is scoring Hellboy 2. He's also promised 30 distinct creatures in the film.
- The redband trailer for The Brothers Solomon requires age verification.
- Ronald Moore has given a video interview that is up at Collider. The big scoop is that he's working on an I, Robot sequel.
- On a very similar note, Billy Ray has told SciFi that he's scripting a Westworld remake.
- Brian Yuzna has been discussing Beneath Still Waters with UGO, also touching on House of Re-Animator as they chatted. Will we ever get to see it...? Yuzna is optimistic.
- Time magazine are explaining Why Pixar Is Better.
- IESB are reporting that Steve Pink is to direct Fletch Won and... wow.... Joshua Jackson is to play the title role. That's incredible.
- US readers can preview the first episode of Meadowlands online. The password you'll need is not secret, but it is 'secret'. I found the link at BigScreenLittleScreen.
- According to ShockTilYouDrop, the next Tobe Hooper film is to be called Training Ground. The film is about backpackers being picked off by Al Qaeda terrorists after they steal the plans for a series of attacks on the US. Seriously.
- Guillermo Del Toro has stopped by the message boards at DelToroFilms to spill some details of the Hellboy 2 cast: John Hurt is back for a cameo. Myers is not back. Universal has NOT authorized a brief Kroenen cameo/epilogue - yet. Johann will be played by John Alexander (body) and Tomas Kretschmann (voice). Dougie will play 4 characters. Brian Steele will play 4 characters. Anna Walton is the actress playing Princess Nuala. Luke Goss plays Prince Nuada, Silverlance. Roy Dotrice plays King Balor.
- After 26 years in the same pill-littered ghetto, Pac Man is to have some new mazes to race around.
- Paul Dini has plenty to say about the closure of Warner Bros. Animation.
- Just Jared has pics of Keanu Reeves on the Night Watch set.
- Ever wondered about the real world salaries of fictional characters? Pam from The Office makes about 23,000 a year, for example, in her role as a receptionist.
Later this year - if all goes well - Neil Gaiman will be directing his first feature film. It's an adaptation of his Death: The High Cost of Living mini-series, and - of course - he's scripted it.
This was the film he was discussing with Guillermo del Toro at the meeting a couple of weeks back, as I suspected. I've now had this 100% confirmed.
What more do I know? That the film will most likely shoot in late autumn, early winter, and in the UK, though the comic takes place (mainly) in the US. I'm also pretty sure that, as he's discussed before, Shia LaBeouf is almost certainly going to play the male lead (he certainly talks about it enough) - in the comics he was called Sexton Furnival; and that Death, or Didi as she calls herself in her mortal form, has snagged the interest of one famous young actress in particular. The Death hunt is done, if the deal works out, and soon she'll be named.
No news at all on who will play the Eremite or Mad Hetty, though it's hard to believe Miriam Margolyes won't get offered the latter role once casting moves into top gear.
Gaiman has mentioned that there is some business in the film's script that there was simply no room for in the comic - something about Buddhist monks 'running around', for example.
I really want to read this one - the original comic is one of my very few favourites, as was true of We3 and you know how head-over-heels I ended up with that one. If anybody out there has a copy, you know where to send it.
You can download the first issue of the miniseries as a PDF. That should get you off to the bookstore to buy the whole thing pretty sharpish, I'd imagine. And pick up Fragile Things while you're there. It's Gaiman's latest published book, a collection of short stories (and the occaisonal poem) and it is, to be absolutely clear, the very next book you should buy.
According to the LA Times, Guillermo del Toro (hurrah!), Alfonso Cuaron (hurrah!) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu are trying to set up a five picture, 100 million dollar deal with a willing Hollywood studio.
The maths breaks down something like this: five films, two in Spanish, one directed by each of the three named above and the slack picked up by Carlos Cuaron and Rodrigo Garcia. That sounds like at least two majorly Oscar nominated films, two all-time cult classics and all the potential of the remaining two films to be either or both or something else entirely.
Universal seem to be set to close the deal after other studios balked at the price tag (foolishly, if you ask me).
Luke Goss has given an interview to ShockTilYouDrop, in which he's given away not-much-at-all about his role in Hellboy 2.
I play 'the Prince' and in simplistic terminology he's the nemesis. The great thing about him is he's not trying to take over the world, he's a rounded character that's not just driven by greed and I think people are going to enjoy the depth Guillermo brings to him.
And that's about all there is. Interesting? Maybe not. We expect no less from Guillermo. The film is going to be very, very good, I'm sure.
According to Rich Johnston, and his Lying in the Gutters column, Guillermo del Toro is in talks to secure the film rights to Tom Manning's Runoff. Apparently, del Toro's quote for the book cover was a sweetener in that deal. Here's the quote:
Tom Manning has created a world that is as bizarre as it is recognizable. As scary as it is moving. The terse plotting and vivid characters in Runoff collapse the sweet flavor of Americana into a cyanide capsule that is easy to swallow, easy to like, and hard to survive. May we all get poisoned by Tom more often.
More details in Rich's column.
Here's the best new film announcement in a long time.
Vincenzo Natali has been brewing up Splice for some time, and now, the light is brillaint, blazing green, shooting will take place this summer. Natali co-wrote the script with Doug Taylor and Antoninette Terry-Bryant.
Natalia has described the film as being about "the Bonnie and Clyde of genetics", a young pair of scientests who become superstars after cooking up all manner of new animal oddities by gene splicing existing species. Ignoring one particularly dodgy question of ethics, human DNA ends up in the fold - I'm betting that the consequences are hugely dramatic.
And interesting. And entertaining. And very possibly rather provocative.
Natali has one of the best resumes of any director his age - if not any director any age, including those now under the ground. Cube. Cypher. Nothing. Getting Gilliam. A wee bit of Paris Je T'aime. Splice will no doubt raise his profile, boost the cult credentials of his back catalogue even further.
Amongst the executive producers you'll find Guillermo del Toro - alongside his Angry Film compadres, Don Murphy and Susan Montford.
In a new interview at MoviesOnline, David Goyer admits that he has served as a consultant on a number of big superhero franchises.
I think we can exclude Spider-Man from that list... and Singer's films too... aren't all of the others really bad? Without exception? In the last ten years or so, at least.
Correct me in the comments below by reminding me, oh-so-ironically, that the Goyer scripted Blade II became a thing of beauty in the hands of Guillermo del Toro. And then let me remind you that there's always one allowed to prove the rule. Apparently.
Coming Soon have updated with the official synopsis for Hellboy 2 - how could I not bring it to you?
With a signature blend of action, humor and character-based spectacle, the saga of the world's toughest, kitten-loving hero from Hell continues to unfold in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Bigger muscle, badder weapons and more ungodly villains arrive in an epic vision of imagination from Oscar®-nominated director Guillermo del Toro.
After an ancient truce existing between humankind and the invisible realm of the fantastic is broken, hell on Earth is ready to erupt. A ruthless leader who treads the world above and the one below defies his bloodline and awakens an unstoppable army of creatures. Now, it's up to the planet's toughest, roughest superhero to battle the merciless dictator and his marauders. He may be red. He may be horned. He may be misunderstood. But when you need the job done right, it's time to call in Hellboy (Ron Perlman).
Along with his expanding team in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Development--pyrokinetic girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair), aquatic empath Abe (Doug Jones) and protoplasmic mystic Johann--the BPRD will travel between the surface strata and the unseen magical one, where creatures of fantasy become corporeal. And Hellboy, a creature of two worlds who's accepted by neither, must choose between the life he knows and an unknown destiny that beckons him.
These three new stills from The Orphanage are distinctly creepy, but the trailer is even more persuasive. Director Juan Antonio Bayona appears to have a red telephone straight to my fear centre.
In a new interview with VH1, Doug Jones has revealed a whole heap of interesting Hellboy 2 bits and pieces.
Firstly, it seems that David Hyde Pierce will not be providing the voice of Abe Sapien this time around. As per the animated films, Jones will be speaking the role himself. I'm not so sure about this being a good idea.
Secondly, Abe isn't Jones' only character this time round. He'll also be playing three other make-up jobs:
The Angel of Death - "It's another eyeless thing with huge wings, and he's got a weird little ribcage. He's beautiful. I'm going into my fittings this week."
The Chamberlain - "His head is way up here, and he's very, very cylindrical in shape with these arms that just hang down to the side."
And a "befuddled old wizard" - "He's the closest to human. He's this old-looking, saggy-skinned, weird-eared sort of fella that I'll be showing up as. I'm not sure if there's dialogue for him yet. He was a recent addition."
Guillermo del Toro has been in London for the Baftas, where he collected the 'best foreign language film' mask with Pan's Labyrinth, and most deservedly so. Speaking to various members of the press, he let slip a few bits and pieces about his eventual Tarzan movie, here and there.
"The idea is to try to do a version unlike any other, in the sense that Tarzan's formative years growing through the jungle are incredibly tough and brutal."
"There's always this idyllic sense of the jungle being like a Disney set and I want to portray how this guy becomes the toughest animal in the jungle."
It could be any number of years before this film enters production, so let's try not to let our interest peak too early.
The IESB sez: Joel Schumacher would fancy directing a film of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Luckily, that's as far as the story goes, there's no indication he'll ever get his wish or that this is more than idle chit-chat.
Phew.
The Sandman's sister Death is still slated to come to the big screen in a film written and directed by Gaiman, Executive Produced by Guillermo del Toro and starring Shia LaBeouf. There: that washed the taste of Schumacher out of my mouth.
Though the version I have here on my desktop is doubtlessly a couple of drafts away from a shooting script, I have this weekend been reading Guillermo del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness. This pass of screenplay is adapted from the Lovecraft novel by del Toro and Matthew Robbins and runs to 100 pages, excluding the cover sheet.
It's tricky for me to review this script with full objecticity, perhaps, as I'm undoubtedly a fan of Guillermo's work and have develped a pretty good idea of his visual style, tastes and preferences. I haven't found it too hard to imagine details of how many of these scenes might be realised, and that's not exclusively due to their (frequent) vividness on the page. Nonetheless, I'm going to give it my best shot, and try to alert you to some of the highlights, and maybe lowlights, of the pages as they stand in this draft. Spoilers will follow - though they're probably nothing to be considered too extreme, only read on if you don't mind me setting up some preconceptions.
The very first high point I noted while reading turned out to be my personal favourite moment in the entire script. Miskatonic Professor William Dyer (never named as William in Lovecraft's novel, his first name as used here comes from his appearance in The Shadow Out of Time) and graduate student Walter Danforth are negotiating a deal to mount a history-making expedition into the antartic. A strange fossil has come to their attention, and seeking glory - as well as Great Big Answers to Great Big Questions about Life, The Universe and Everything - they're planning to trek to the place of it's excavation in search of evidence to 'sustain it's provenance'. Unfortunately, Danforth has already promised he mother of his unborn child that he won't be leaving, that he'll turn Dyer down.
Anne watches from outside a window as Danforth and Dyer discuss the deal and as it is cemented with a handshake. Here's the conclusion of this brief, but crucial, moment as scripted:
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