Category: 1. Jason Apuzzo

New Reagan Movie Lowell Park has a Director

A young Ronald Reagan in Dixon, Illinois.

By Jason Apuzzo. According to today’s New York Post, Charlie Carner (an acquaintance of mine) is apparently going to be directing a new movie about the young Ronald Reagan called Lowell Park, based on a novel of the same name. According to the Post, Lowell Park deals with the story of Reagan’s days as a lifeguard in Dixon, Illinois, when he became something of a local legend by saving a lot of bathers from drowning.

According to The Post:

“The novel tells the story of a young woman, Jenny, who time travels back to the summer of 1932, and falls in love with a young Ronald Reagan who is spending his summers as a lifeguard at Lowell Park in Dixon, Illinois, the small town where ‘Dutch’ Reagan grew up,” says a press release from The Empire Film Group, which hopes to begin rolling the cameras next summer, while celebrations of Reagan’s 100th birthday are still in swing.

So Lowell Park is a time travel project, as well. Sounding a little bit like Back to the Future? We’ll see how this goes …

This project, by the way, is not the one that was reported on here several months ago involving Mark Joseph and his group. And I would remind people, incidentally, that Ronald Reagan was also featured on-screen this summer in Farewell, featuring Fred Ward as Reagan.

Posted on November 3rd, 2010 at 9:00am.

UPDATED: Aint It Cool News Raves over Four Lions + New Chris Morris Interviews

By Jason Apuzzo. Aint It Cool News raves over Chris Morris’ Four Lions today. Here’s the money quote:

FOUR LIONS recalls the fearlessness of Ernst Lubitsch’s TO BE OR NOT TO BE, which made light of the Nazis before the tide of World War II had turned in favor of the Allies. But while Lubitsch’s film was castigated for being way too soon at the time (it hit theaters a scant three months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and, coincidentally, two months after the tragic death of its star, Carol Lombard), Morris’s ingeniously scabrous satire feels long overdue.

This extraordinarily courageous and funny film opens Friday in select theaters, at which point I’ll be reposting my review of it.

[UPDATE: Here’s a lengthy new interview with the film’s director, Chris Morris.]

[UPDATE #2: I’ve also embedded another interesting interview with Morris below.]

[UPDATE #3: Chris Morris talks to The Wall Street Journal here.]

Posted on November 2nd, 2010 at 2:47pm.

UPDATED: Jeffery Deaver Writing New, Post-9/11 James Bond Novel

By Jason Apuzzo. USA Today features an interview today with novelist Jeffery Deaver, who is writing the new authorized James Bond novel, which will apparently be set in the present day. Here are some key details about the forthcoming novel revealed in the interview:

  • It’s set in the present day – specifically, 2011.
  • It follows a young James Bond, age 29 or 30, who is a young agent in the British secret service.
  • The new Bond is an Afghan war vet.
  • Bond will be fighting what Deaver calls “post-9/11 evil.”
  • A young Moneypenny will put in an appearance.
  • Bond will not smoke (?!), but martinis will make an appearance.

I’ve read all of Fleming’s Bond novels, and I’m not really convinced Deaver is the best choice for this assignment – but we’ll see how it all goes.

Bear in mind that all of this probably has very little to do with what will happen with the film franchise. There’s some internet chatter right now about how this may signal the end of Daniel Craig’s run as Bond – but I doubt that very much, as Craig’s films have done boffo business worldwide, and basically revived the Bond movie franchise. In any case, the 007 novel series – which continues on, with the authorization of the Fleming estate – and the MGM film series have existed in separate narrative universes for some time now.

[UPDATE: MGM is now saying that we can expect the next Bond film by November 2012.]

Posted on November 2nd, 2010 at 2:03pm.

UPDATED: Stallone Rises … Then Falls

By Jason Apuzzo. Check this out above, from Sly Stallone on Twitter …

Stallone rises!

[UPDATE: … and now Stallone falls. He’s now walking back these remarks above, telling The Hollywood Reporter that his comments were not directed at Obama specifically, but were “a reference to all career politicians.” Sure, Sly. Did the heat get to ya?]

Posted on November 2nd, 2010 at 11:01am.

UPDATE: Tom Cruise would be the Lead in any Top Gun Sequel

Good to go: Tom Cruise, back when he was Tom Cruise.

By Jason Apuzzo. I wanted to update people on a story that we covered previously. Apparently the screenwriter on the proposed Top Gun sequel, Christopher McQuarrie, has come out and said: “There is no Top Gun 2 in which Maverick is not the starring role.” It had previously been reported that Cruise’s Maverick character would only have a relatively minor role in the sequel.

We’ll see how this plays out. I’ve already expressed my thoughts on this proposed project here.

[UPDATE: Tony Scott has confirmed that if a sequel happens, he will be directing it. Scott also told the Wall Street Journal the following about the proposed project:

“It’s not a reboot, it’s not a reinvention, it’s not a remake,” Scott insisted. “The world of ‘Top Gun’ today is very different. It’s really computer geeks sitting in Nevada playing war games. It’s the end of an era for fighter pilots, but those fighter pilots then become test pilots, and the planes now that they go to fight are drones, but while they’re perfecting [the drones], they fly them.” … “David Ellison is the guy that inspired me,” Scott said. “He’s a pilot. People kept talking about ‘Top Gun 2’ and talking with Jerry [Bruckheimer] and talking with me [about the possibility of doing it], but it wasn’t until David came and he showed me these visuals of what the Air Force is doing today that I said yes, I want to be involved. So it’s not a reboot at all. It’s a totally new movie.”

We’ll continue to keep you updated about this as we learn more.]

[UPDATE #2: And here’s more from Tony Scott about the film, from over at the MTV Movie blog.]

Posted on November 1st, 2010 at 1:43pm.

Kevin Smith’s Red State Poster

By Jason Apuzzo. Kevin Smith, movie maestro of white trash, has just put out this teaser poster for his new horror thriller about homophobic Christians, Red State.

He’s apparently hoping to debut the movie at Sundance.

I think the poster more or less speaks for itself.

[UPDATE: Smith is apparently intending to score the film with speed metal and country music. Perfect. What we have here, apparently, are the makings of a white-trash version of Machete – i.e., a hyper-political exploitation thriller being used to revive the career of a director whose career is gradually hitting the skids.

I doubt this strategy will work any better than it did for Robert Rodriguez, though.]

Posted on November 1st, 2010 at 9:35am.