Direct Download Links For New Beowulf Trailer

More mythic mo-cap murder and moral murkiness in medium, big and bigger standard-res and 480p, 720p and 1080p. So to speak.

Direct Download Links For The First Beowulf TV Spot

See a nice, short, sharp burst of new Beowulf in small, medium, large or 480p, 720p and 1080p Quicktime.

Direct Download Links For New, Red Band Beowulf Trailer

This Bewoulf trailer is apparently an internet exclusive. How come a film getting released, we hear, with a PG-13 is getting a red band trailer you might ask. No idea, I might answer. I wish I only had a clue about that.

Choose from FLV and Quicktime versions.

Direct Download Link For The Comic-Con Beowulf Teaser

This is seriously fascinating stuff. The Comic-Con trailer for Beowulf is now available in 720p Quicktime and crummy old FLV.

A lot of bad Beowulf news surfaced recently and none of the footage so far released lived up to my expectations - in CG terms at least - but I'm still hopeful that this will indeed be a great, great film.

Direct Download Link For The Beowulf Podcast

Need something to listen to on the way into work tomorrow? May I recommend the Bewoulf podcast? Download it directly or go via iTunes.

Direct Download Link For International Beowulf Trailer With More Material

The international trailer for Beowulf has footage not in the US cut. Enjoy.

Direct Download Links For The Beowulf Trailer

You can finally see how Beowulf struts his stuff.

Take a big standard def version for now, with HD coming imminently. In the meantime, I have to go, quickly...

[EDIT: Here's the HD platter for you. 480p, 720p, 1080p]

[EDIT: Thanks to those of you who added links in the comment section]

The LA Times Talk Beowulf

Two Beowulf pictures have turned up in a new LA Times piece. I'll pop them at the bottom of the post.

[EDIT: And now better versions have turned, up so I put them even further down. These new versions seem to show Zemeckis' framing, which was quite a thrill. Thanks to all of you who mailed them over]

The LA Times discuss the film at length, though defininetly not from the viewpoint of having seen the whole thing because it's some ways from being complete. Here's a hit-list of their intriguing tidbits (not all new news, and many of the points probably not quite true, but it is nice to see them compiled) and, sadly, it isn't all good news:

- The film is "a minimum of PG-13". Honestly, the script was definitely R-rated, so I was surprised and disappointed to hear "the producer and director purged the script of foul language, used an array of blood colors ranging from crimson to green and dreamed up gravity-defying nude scenes." Gaiman misses the swearing, and says so.

- Grendels mother's feet appear like "sharp stilettos merged with bestial hooves".

- Beowulf battles Grendel in the nude but "Beowulf's naughty bits are obfuscated by random objects in the foreground", a la Austin Powers, but not for (deliberate) laughs.

- The characters age from teenagers to septugenarians, courtesy of the CG skins on their motion captured skeletons.

- Neil Gaiman said of Crispin Glover's casting: "Then we got on the subject of Crispin. Bob said he would never work with him again because he never hit his mark and didn't understand how scenes cut together. But as he went on, you could see Bob realizing that was completely irrelevant if Crispin was in a motion-capture suit covered in dots, every move recorded."

- Oh, and mentioned here only as a curiosity, we learn that Ray Winstone's character in Indiana Jones IV is called Mac.

Er... This Is Weird... More On The Ripley Film And A Christmas Carol

The Michel Gondry/Ripley story has taken an odd twist...

Bob Hoskins really let the cat out of the bag when he mentioned Zemeckis' upcoming Christmas Carol film. Now the beans have been spilled, however, Variety have fleshed out some of the details: Jim Carrey will be playing Scrooge, sure, but he'll also be playing the ghosts of past, present and future.

According to ImageMovers, Zemeckis' outfit that are producing the film at Disney, Hoskins hasn't actually signed yet. Hopefully they won't boot him for his loose lips.

The same Variety piece goes on to discuss Jim Carrey's crowded schedule: Christmas Carol, I Love You Phillip Morris and Ripley's Believe It or Not. Regarding the latter they say "Paramount, armed with a Steve Oedekerk rewrite, is trying to find a schedule that will allow Tim Burton to direct, even as he completes post-production on Sweeney Todd".

So, was Gondry just a back up? Was he a plan B that won't ever be taken? Or just a human poker chip, used to influence Burton?

Or did the rumour spark up some other way? Perhaps somebody just invented it with no foundation - I mean, it wouldn't be the first time.

I put a call in to Partizan to see if there's any comment - saying Gondry hasn't signed is too easy an out, really, and leaves half of the story untold - and, hopefully, they'll respond.

In the meantime: the director of Ripley's Believe it or Not appears to be none other than Tim Burton.

Eye To Eye With Beowulf

You might recall the big heap of Beowulf images I posted here at film ick. They originally appeared online at Aint it Cool and, after they were quickly pushed into pulling them down, I hosted them for a week or so, until the legal quagmire got too deep. Until now, they were probably the best idea I had of how the film was shaping up. The billboard images from last week added a little too - including our first look at Grendel.

Just now, though, I've been reading Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman's script (excitingly, the script bears the name of the cast member it belonged to, but I won't reveal who in case they get into trouble) and I'm even more excited for the film than I already had been. And you probably already know I'm absolutely nuts for Zemeckis and Gaiman, not to mention 3D cinema.

Simply put, this script exceeded my every expectation. Not only is it a lean, vicious retelling of the story, but as it whips along it drips evocative images from every paragraph.

Be wary of spoilers as you read on...

So, here's a little from the opening to whet your appetite. We begin in Herot, the greatest mead hall in all the land as a rowdy crowd of thanes celebrate their victories. Hrothgar, "as fat a King as you are ever likely to see", is carried in on his portable throne, "draped in nothing more than haphazardly wrapped bed linen as if he just came from f*cking". He beats on his chest to be put down, and then proceeds to hand out treasures.

His first award is for Unferth his "wisest advisor, violator of virgins and boldest of brave brawlers" - but Unferth is busy at the 'p*ss pit' asking "So, if Christ Jesus and Odin got into a fight, who do you think would win?"

This raucous party, half drunken orgy, half celebratory ceremony is quickly cut short:

Suddenly THE GREAT DOOR EXPLODES as if something of tremendous force rammed into it, splintering the wooden frame and buckling the great iron hinges... but the door holds.

HROTHGAR'S eyes go from sleepily closed to wide as saucers. PEOPLE start sitting up, worried. Warriors reach for their swords and kinves and spears.

There is a pause. A BEAT OF SILENCE which goes on almost longer than we can bear and then...

There is a second EXPLOSIVE RAM to the frame of the massive door, breaking it free from its hinges and causing the wood to splinter.

For a brief moment, we see the SHADOW OF A MONSTER from behind the broken door.

Then it enters. Candles snuff out with the cold wind that accompanies it. HROTHGAR rises in his seat, terrified.

HROTHGAR
My sword! My sword!

Unferth and Aesher draw thier weapons. The horror on their faces hints to us the nature of the monster which has erupted into the mead hall. They stand frozen in astonishment.

THE GREAT FIREPIT suddenly ROARS larger and wilder than before, consuming the spit and pig in its flame. What was once a warm source of heat suddenly becomes dangerous and ominous.

We see the MONSTERS SHADOWS cast onto the heavy stone wall of the hall by the golden light of the firepit. It isn't just one shadow, it's many shadows overlapping eachother, dancing wildly together to composite a figure of massive size. The interloping shadows overtake the SHADOW OF A THANE... it lunges forward and lifts him up above it's head... there's a HORRIFYING RIPPING SOUND and the shadow thane is suddenly two shadows, a pair of legs and an upper torso.

And the destruction continues, until Hrothgar confronts the monster. It flees, still semmingly unafraid, just somehow done here. Hrothgar identifies the monster as Grendel.

Next:

GRENDEL, silhouetted by the cool light of the full moon, shambles into his lair - a cave mouth inside of which there
is a placid pool of clear water. He is dragging the bodies of TWO DEAD WARRIORS into the cavern.

Grendel drops the bodies of the dead warriors into a corner f the cave where the bones of mean, both bleached and fleshy, litter the floor. It is a strange and unnverving place.

A mask is dropped onto the floor. A mask constructed from the skulls of two baby whales and decorated with bits of human hair and bones... painted with mud. From its size we can imagine that Grendel likes to wear it.

Someone else is there...

GRENDEL'S MOTHER is sitting a little way away, in the shadows near the cave pool and swathed in a dark cloth. What we can see of her skin glitters, like gold.

Grendel's mother's VOICE is melodious and young.

GRENDEL'S MOTHER
Grendel? What have you done?

Grendel turns suddenly, surprised by her voice - like a boy who has been caught masturbating.

GRENDEL
Moth-er? Where are you?

GRENDEL'S MOTHER
Men? Grendel, we had an agreement. Fish and wolves and bear and sometimes a sheep or two. but not men.

GRENDEL
You like men.

GRENDEL'S MOTHER
These men are too fragile, Grendel. They do me little good. And you must be more crafty. Bring them to me alive, at least... with their seed intact. You see, they will hurt us if they can. They have killed so many of us, the Giant-breed, the Dragon-kind.

As you can see, Gaiman's up to his usual tricks with folklore in the greater context - Dragons alongside Giants alongside Grendel.

Months later, Grendel attacks again. Hrothgar despairs:

HROTHGAR
When I was young, I killed a dragon, in the Northern Moors. But I'm too old for dragon-slaying now. We need a hero, a Siegfried, to rid us of this curse upon our hall.

UNFERTH
I say we trap the beast. Brute strength fails against such a brute. Let us use cunning.

HROTHGAR
These creatures know cunnng, Unferth. They are cunning.

UNFERTH
Our people wait for deliverance, my King. Some of them pray to the Christ Jesus to lift this affliction. Other sacrifice goats or sheep to Odin or Heimdall.

They need a hero and, of course, that's where Beowulf comes in. He journeys across a tempestuous sea to find Hrothgar, and to pledge to kill Grendel.

After his first meeting with the King, they immediately spark up a banquet in Herot, knowing it will lure the monster in...

This first confrontation occurs around the fourty five minutes mark - so you know it won't be the last. But it is fought as though it is. Bloody, relentless and absolutely without restraint they set about each other with everything they have, and anything they can grab. Smashing, punching, headbutting, kicking, biting, slashing, throttling... the repeating, resounding slam of viscera on viscera again and again and again.

There is no out-and-out victor this time, but one side does far more than draw first blood and the stakes are set even higher for their future confrontations.

What we have, in essence, is a bloody, sweaty dragonslaying story but at full scale, visually and narratively. The mythology is suitably epic, the images make the saga resonate at every turn, the ideas are teased out subtly, exposing the depth of the story in ways that, perhaps, we care about far more than most of the poem's original audiences would ever have even dreamt of. This is the Beowulf that makes sense for a 21st Century audience without perverting or denying the truth of the original tale.

A few years back, Zemeckis had recruited Gaiman to write another screenplay for him, adapted from Nicholson Baker's The Fermata. Like the original book, that script full of upfront sexuality and featured a protagonist of dubious morality, to say the least. Zemeckis was looking to make a resolutely adult film, away from the all-ages fare he was best known for. He just has: Beowulf will satisfy that desire also, without a doubt.

As such, I think Beowulf might be quite a hard sell to casual audiences - a motion capture film, released widely in 3D is something we might assume to be family fare, not a lusty, grimy epic. Another marketing problem might be that the characters' outlooks are also a little alien, in some respects, though truly universal in most. I don't the numerous references to incest will help much either.

Where I have no doubt it wil succeed, however, is with critics and movie lovers. This is the bareknuckle version of The Lord of the Rings and I think people will honestly be knocked onto their behinds. On the page, it is hard, fast and perfectly under control and with Zemeckis in charge, I think we can expect a bullseye that splits the target.

On page 110 of the script, Gaiman and Avery have noted 'We are utterly convinced of it: this is where our budget is going'. They've certainly got a point - though I won't tell you just what incredible, but hellish, spectacle they have invented. But I might note on every page 'this bit won't be cheap either' - and that, I suppose, is one of the amazing assets of the performance capture technique. Fashinoning an epic battle between man and winged beast above the moors (just for example - hint hint) would take, relatively speaking, little more resource than creating a small, intimate scene in the King's chamber. In making Beowulf in this fashion, Gaiman, Avary and Zemeckis have been able to imagine whatever it was they wanted, knowing that their only limitation was the vision of Zemeckis, the cast and crew - and if you ask me, that's no kind of limitation at all.

Bewoulf opens in the US in November. Go see it.

Robert Zemeckis' Christmas Carol

Bob Hoskins has been speaking to Empire and revealed that he's reteaming with Robert Zemeckis for a version of A Christmas Carol. Superb.

Hoskins won't be playing Scrooge, however - he's just gonna be Mr. Fezziwig. The lead role has instead gone to Jim Carrey. The film is going to be created using Zemeckis' beloved performance capture - preumably at Disney, as part of the new set up there.

This might finally be a truly great version of this overfilmed yarn - possibly definitive, and slamming a cork in the bottle before any more mediocre/sub-par rehashes trickle out. Here's hoping, anyway. I'll cross my fingers from now until, oh, I dunno Christmas 2010 or whenever the film is eventually released.

And as I've been reading the Beowulf script this morning, Zemeckis is very much in my good books at the moment (not that I haven't always loved his films).

Seems Like We Know How Beowulf Is Going To Begin

TheBeat are reporting that IDW will be publishing a Beowulf comic book adaptation, and published the first page which you can see below. It seems to suggest how the film will begin, don't you think? I'm actually really excited by this sort-of-glimpse-type-hint.

Chris Ryall will write, Gabriel Rodriguez will... er... art.

The Look Of Zemeckis' Mars Story

Berkely Breathed has been interviewed by Ken Plume, who asked about working with Robert Zemeckis on Mars Needs Moms:

I haven’t started working with him, as he’s finishing Beowulf. But his folks seem dedicated to preserving the look of my art. They were fanatical about this with Polar Express. We’ll see. You never know really. It’s all a gamble in Hollywood.

I think he can trust Zemeckis. Well, I trust him anyway.

Spielberg And Jackson Each Directing Their Own Tintin Film

Here's yet another case of Robert Zemeckis being at the cutting edge of film technique and technology...

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are each directing a film in a planned trilogy of Tintin movies, with no indication yet of who will direct the third. Perhaps this deal was instrumental in The Lovely Bones landing at Dreamworks.

Now we know the next two films from each of the two directors - unless Spielberg squeezes another film in the middle somewhere. I'm quite confident Jackson's film will be the better of the two. For obvious reasons.

Apparently, a 20-minute test reel already exists, demonstrating the motion capture technology and the resulting images.

Spielberg said "Herge's characters have been reborn as living beings, expressing emotion and a soul which goes far beyond anything we've seen to date with computer animated characters". Yeah, right, Steve. I don't believe a word of it. I bet they're great, really great, but what, exactly is lacking emotion or soul in, say, King Kong, Gollum, Buzz, Woody, Sully or Mike? And this old claptrap about motion capture offering more nuance and 'reality' than conventionally animated characters is starting to get very, very tiring. It simply isn't true.

Jackson said "We're making them look photorealistic; the fibers of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. They look exactly like real people - but real Herge people!"

I hope they know what they're doing. Polar Express was a warning shot over the heads of the mo-cap world, perhaps, and if Zemeckis can come a little unstuck with this tech, I don't know what hope anybody else will have. Beowulf is going to be the tester - if that works, then it can be done; if not - who knows? Monster House style caricature might be the only attainable answer, for now at least.

Full Lovely Bones Script Review

After the preview the other day, I thought I'd now give you something more of a full Lovely Bones script review. I've had a couple of reads, from top to bottom, and some days for the impact to settle. I'm really still rather impressed.

Apparently, each copy of the script has one word different than the others. It stands to reason that this will be a word that can be changed without drawing too much attention, and a word that has many alternatives. I'm guessing the code word is a colour - the colour of make-up mentioned on page 2, in fact.

And which colour do I have? That really would be telling. Somebody could get fired for that.

The only other review I've seen so far was a negative one. Out of interest, let's take a look at their allegations - but be warned, SPOILERS LIE AHEAD!

Jackson doesn't get into Susie's head - well, I beg to differ. I know Susie Salmon almost as well from this script as I did the novel. With an actress, and with costume, lighting, camera, editing and so on adding their input too, the movie Susie is bound to be fully rounded. You may think that Susie's remove from the other characters - she's dead, in heaven, and narrating - will deny her the chance to define herself through interaction. The truth is, Susie gets plenty of chance to interact with the events on Earth - and the events on Earth even get a little moment when they can interact with her (more on which in the next paragraph).

The incursion of the supernatural into everyday life feels showy rather than integral - again, I don't agree with a word of the claim. Susie is in heaven - that's pretty darn integral to the very core concept of the piece. And as for Susie's interactions with life on Earth, see my previous point. Make up your mind, dissenter: do you want Susie to sit back passively or do you want her to react to the events she sees unfolding?

Jackson's screenplay leaves in most every plot point from the book, including the crucial scene in which Susie returns to earth, inhabits the body of another girl, and has sex with the boy she loved at 14 - nobody has sex with anybody. It may be implied that it takes place off screen, but frankly, it didn't read that way to me. The kiss that occurs is possibly quite enough. And Jackson does an incredible job of weaving all of the plot points into a trim narrative, tightly paced with strong cause-and-effect maintained throughout.

So much of the novel's action is stuffed into the screenplay, in fact, that little of it registers as important - I think, perhaps, this reaction might be expected from somebody who hasn't read a lot of scripts but not from somebody who has. All of the events are there, but to a reader without a sense of how the pace is related on the page it may seem simply like one-thing-after-another. To my eye, however, it was very clear where the emphasis was placed. Some scenes are very big, some not so much, and the arrangement is very well judged.

We lose the sense of Susie as both caring participant and omniscient narrator, seeing into the souls of those left behind - Susie is clearly shown to invest and care, and while the voice over takes care of the narration her ability to see all takes care of the omniscience. In fact, Susie's heaven works quite a lot like cinema, in many ways, blowing up huge images of the scenes she surveys, putting them behind the proscenium of a gazebo. Once the film is finished and in the cinema, the way Susie relates to these images will be identifiable to an audience, at some very basic level - and it will even enhance their sense of immersion in the film overall as a result.

Let's just hope Jackson doesn't punt and cast Dakota Fanning in the role - I wouldn't expect anything of the sort. I predict AnnaSophia Robb might be a serious contender - but, so far, only Jackson and co. know what they're really thinking.

So, I don't think any of those criticisms fly. Do I have any of my own? One main one, really.

Sometimes, and thankfully not too often, the script feels a little too square-on-the-nose. It certainly isn't heavy handed, but there's not much required to see what they're getting at, and they still put in quite an effort to make sure you're up to speed. This is the sort of stuff pruned away in post-production, most of the time, as it proves obviously redundant. And if rehearsals go well, I wouldn't be surprised to see half a page or so, in a line-here and a line-there, evaporate before they even shoot.

As I was reading the script, one word kept coming to mind, over and over: Zemeckis. If there's one film that The Lovely Bones most resembles, it's possibly Contact. Clearly, there's a lot of difference between the two plots - but there is some carry-over. They both feature very personal heavens, for one thing. And the flashback scene in Contact in which David Morse dies and leaves a constellation of popcorn? That's very similar to some of Susie's chases through heaven (in fact, cross that scene in Contact with the chase through Malkovich's subconsious that Spike Jonze stole from Michel Gondry's Smirnoff ad and you're probably halfway to imagining the finished item already). The most salient comparisons are less narrative, however, and much more subtle, and mainly formal.

Contact aside, the main reason I kept thinking of Zemeckis is because this script reads like the kind of film he excels at. There's a rich vein of thematic material, some shocking scenes, a very sly, subtle sense of humour and some great characters for the cast to get their teeth into - and there's a truly unfettered, wildly creative visual design to several sequences that requires cutting edge visual effects and digital image technology. Wait until you see the scene with Mr. Harvey in his bathroom, washcloth over his face. It's pure Zemeckis - if perhaps a little more cruelly nightmarish than most of his sequences.

There's quite a lot in The Lovely Bones that is violent and disturbing (as there should be for a film about the rape and murder of a 14-year old girl), and it is sometimes portrayed graphically, sometimes simply implied - animals being killed, their corpses being dismembered; Susie's murder, of course; a very gory-sounding fantasy sequence of her father avenging her death against her killer, Mr. Harvey; several moments of real danger and jeopardy, including Susie's sister at risk of the same fate as Susie. I think a few viewers might find this sits a little uncomfortably with them - films about little girls shouldn't contain images like these, should they? That's what the hordes boringly roared about Tideland, if you remember. Personally, I think a film about child murder simply has to contain scenes that are shocking and affecting, that it would be irresponsible to take the sharp corners and hard edges off of this subject matter.

Jackson is a great director, and if he can keep a tight hold on the reins, this is going to be one of his best, a genuine classic. As this is the man who kept an iron grip on nine units for Rings, I think we're safe.

Finally, I think it's worth noting that while Heavenly Creatures is the number one point of comparison in all discussions of The Lovely Bones, The Frighteners crosses over plenty too (a film, incidentally, produced by Robert Zemeckis). Both deal with how the dead posess the living (figuratively, and for brief moments literally), both deal with small communities gripped by grief, both deal with characters in the afterlife, both deal with terrible murderers, both deal with terrifying chases through nightmare worlds. And, counting this one script review for Bones, both have been rather unfairly maligned.

Gore Verbinski To Ditch Pirates, Robert Zemeckis To Send Moms To Mars

Jim Hill is good to his word. As promised last week, he's been at Berkeley Breathed booksigning events, and hoovering up scoops.

For one: Gore Verbinski is looking to ditch Pirates - even though Johnny Depp is close to signing for a fourth installment. Why would Berkeley Breathed know? Because Verbinski's preferred project is an adaptation of his Flawed Dogs children's book.

Breathed's latest is Mars Needs Moms, acclaimed by many to be his best work to date. The great news is that this looks set to be adapted into the first film for the Disney-Robert Zemeckis collaboration, the motion-capture studio announced earlier in the year.

Despite obvious conclusions, I'm not sure Zemeckis will direct, but it is entirely possible. Either way, it should make for a good first project, something to show the world what the new unit is capable of.

Vincent Comin' Atcha, Knick Knack Back On The Shelf?

When The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D is re-released this October, a newly steresocopic remix of Vincent, Burton's early stop-motion short that simply begs to be read as autobiography, will be added to the start of the show.

Where this leaves Knick Knack, the Pixar toon that preceeded Nightmare last year, I don't honestly know, but it may still be in there, censored bosoms and all. Here's Chuck Viane (again), speaking to The Hollywood Reporter:

When you have an evergreen title like Nightmare, it is very important to give the fan a chance to sample something new. Each year on bring backs, we are going to try to add some value.

Bring-backs plural. I guess we'll be getting another chance to see Chicken Little before too long, then - and a good thing too, it was only on 84 screens first time around. Real-D has given Disney a fresh reason to repeat cinema engagements.

Estimates have the 3D cinema count approaching 1000 in the US by the time Nightmare returns in October, possibly hitting 1200 in time for Beowulf in November.

Regarding the 3D projects Robert Zemeckis is setting up at Disney, Viane hints that an announcement is drawing near. Expect to see John Carter of Mars in the title list somewhere.

Gump Happens... Again?

Cinema Blend have posted another of their very dubious sounding pieces, this one about a pending Forrest Gump sequel. According to the possibly deluded figment, Steve Tisch and Wendy Finerman have resolved legal issues with Winston Groom, author of the original Gump novels and an Eric Roth script from 2001 is being pulled out of the mothballs. Cinema Blend discuss the possibility of Hanks returning, claim it is likely that Gary Sinise will reprise his role as Lt. Dan... but don't even make a passing reference to Gump director Robert Zemeckis. I think we have almost no chance of ever seeing this film in cinemas.

For the record, I'm a big fan of the original Forrest Gump. It reminds me of Invasion of the Body Snatchers in many ways, but is much wittier and more well made.

Jim Hill Has The John Carter Dish

According to Jim Hill Media, Robert Zemeckis and John Lasseter are to produce John Carter of Mars as a motion capture film (reported here yesterday) to be directed by Andrew Stanton (reported here weeks ago). They also reveal that the Zemeckis and Disney deal was behind the Mouse House's pursuit of the John Carter project.

Zemeckis, Stanton and Lasseter: how could this get better? Perhaps by signing Neil Gaiman to write the screenplay...

Is John Carter Of Mars To Be A Disney And Zemeckis Motion Capture Project?

I've recieved three e-mails in the last half an hour all suggesting the same thing, but I have to ask you: could John Carter of Mars really be Robert Zemeckis' next film, after Beowulf? Gossip in motion capture circles, such as they are, seems to be suggesting so.

As reported earlier, Zemeckis and Disney are teaming to open a state of the art Motion Capture facility. As reported even earlier, the rights to make a movie of John Carter of Mars are heading to Disney. It seems to add up, so I'm off to investigate... Zemeckis or Pixar, both prospects sound pretty remarkable to me.

[EDIT: Could Heidi MacDonald be the source of these rumblings? A comment left below suggest so. She couched it as pure speculation, however, whereas I'm told it is a genuine possibility. We'll soon find out]