Day: June 15, 2010

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.

By Jason Apuzzo. Yesterday we posted on the new Atlas Shrugged adaptation that just went into production this past weekend.  Word comes now today from Deadline Hollywood that the film’s original director and co-producer, Stephen Polk, is threatening to sue over being dumped from the project two weeks before its start.

What’s more, Polk opens up to Deadline about the fact that the film has gone into production with such an apparently low budget, and without major stars headlining it.  Polk seems to believe that the trigger was pulled on the project too soon, with major talent (Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron, for example, had been mentioned as possible Dagney Taggarts) potentially available to come on board.

Only time will tell how much of this is true.  One important point: according to the initial Variety article about all this, producer John Aglialoro was going to lose the feature rights if the project wasn’t in production by this past weekend.  I don’t know how this squares with Polk’s version of events.  People spend entire lifetimes in Hollywood waiting for major talent to come aboard their projects.  Would Jolie of Theron ever really have signed on to this?  Maybe.  But the question becomes: how long is a producer with rights-issues likely to wait?

In any case, none of this looks good.  It’s obviously bad to kick-off a production with a lawsuit, and this one has the potential to be devastating given the already limited resources of the production.  Needless to say, having the original director now bad-mouthing the project isn’t helping either.

My instincts tell me that given the way this Atlas Shrugged project was structured – as a 4-part film series – there was no way a major A-list actress like Jolie or Theron was going to commit to it without: 1) guaranteed studio distribution; 2) a gigantic paycheck.  That’s the reality of the situation, so it’s possible that Mr. Polk is being a little unrealistic here.

Either way, we’re still going to wish the makers of this film the best as they forge ahead under challenging circumstances.

Posted on June 15th, 2010 at 11:50am.