By Jason Apuzzo. • Pressure is mounting on Peter Jackson to direct The Hobbit, which he’s already co-written. Jackson is now facing the same question faced by George Lucas long, long ago: when do you let a franchise take over your career? Answer: when the franchise makes north of $1 billion.
• Sam Raimi will apparently be directing Disney’s 3D Wizard of Oz prequel, Oz: The Great And Powerful. Rumors flying that Robert Downey, Jr. may star. If Raimi does this properly, the box office on this will make Alice in Wonderland look like Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
• Ridley Scott currently preparing 1, maybe 2 Alien prequels. First prequel will focus on mysterious ‘space jockey’ alien from original film. Hints also dropped that prequel may be in 3D. Short of a Blade Runner follow-up, this is about the only thing Sir Ridley could do to get me to watch his films again. He’s got a lot to answer for after Kingdom of Heaven and Robin Hood … not to mention Matchstick Men.
• Star Kristen Stewart eager to tackle new 2-part Twilight: Breaking Dawn. No wonder! It’s currently Hollywood’s only major franchise based around a woman.
• The trailer for Sofia Coppola’s new film Somewhere is out and it looks good. Note how much Sofia communicates without resorting to dialogue. Looking forward to this.
• In the wake of the Killers debacle, pundits are asking whether Katherine Heigl is actually capable of playing a likeable character. That problem hasn’t hurt Woody Allen for over 20 years.
• Click here to watch Kevin Costner describe his oil/water separator on ABC’s Good Morning America. This snappy little device is easily the best thing to come out of Waterworld, aside from Dennis Hopper’s eyepatch.
• Click here to see the trailer for Centurion, the new ultra-violent movie about ancient Roman warriors in Great Britain. Nice to see a flick that takes the pro-Roman side, for once. Could do without the excess gore, though. [Didn’t they have predator drones back then?]
• The Feds have OK’d speculating in box office futures, and this is extremely bad news for Knight and Day.
• The Real White House Gate Crashers are about to crash Bravo’s new Real Housewives of D.C. series. Did anyone not see this coming?
• With states getting fussier about their images, it’s getting harder for filmmakers to receive tax credits, which is why more filmmakers should shoot in Mexico – since the Mexican government doesn’t seem to care about its image at all.
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Megan Fox talks about two of her rumored projects: Fathom and Red Sonja. In Fathom she would be playing a “young woman named Aspen who learns she is a member of a race of aquatic humanoids who possess the ability to control water.” Someone on Bobby Jindal’s staff needs to call this chick fast.
And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood …
Posted on June 15th, 2010 at 2:57pm.
The Feds have OK’d speculating in box office futures . .
It would be interesting to see how the vote split and if it were along party lines. Mainstream Hollywood has made itself a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic party and so far the results in terms of copyright law and other perks have been pretty good payback.
If I were a, say, a conservative activist in Hollywood, I’d be whispering in someone’s ear that the possibility exists that after 2012 a new broom could be in office and unless they start hedging their bets there might be some changes made, law wise.
Peter Jackson should just direct the Hobbit and they should just get this whole debate over with. What else is he going to do with his career?
That’s funny about the White House gate crashers. They’re a whole symbol of the Obama administration.
As for Peter Jackson, Ridley Scott, Sam Raimi and all their prequels, sequels, whatever. Can anyone come up with a new idea? Sorry, but I’m just tired of seeing the same stories over and over again. These people are paid massive amounts of money, and this is the best they can do?