Sci-Fi Storm

Peter Jackson revealed on Facebook a couple more castings for The Hobbit: Evangeline Lilly (Lost will play Tauriel, a Sylvan elf created for the movie, and Barry Humphries (best known for one of his alter egos, Dame Edna) will play the Goblin King.

About Tauriel and Lilly, Jackson said, “Her name means ‘daughter of Mirkwood’ and, beyond that, we must leave you guessing! (No, there is no romantic connection to Legolas.) What is not a secret is how talented and compelling an actress Evangeline is; we are thrilled and excited she will be the one to bring our first true Sylvan Elf to life.

“I’m also highly excited that Barry Humphries will be portraying the Goblin King, in much the way Andy Serkis created Gollum. Barry is perhaps best known for his business and social connections as the long-time manager of Dame Edna Everage. He has also been an ardent supporter of the rather misunderstood and unfairly maligned Australian politician, Sir Les Patterson. However, in his spare time, Barry is also a fine actor, and we’re looking forward to seeing him invest the Goblin King with the delicate sensitivity and emotional depth this character deserves.”

In anticipation of the the release of the Blu-ray [sfs=1121]Lord Of The Rings Trilogy Extended Edition[/sfs] on June 28th, Warner Home Video is having a “Middle-earth Midnight Madness” event starting at noon on June 27th at Best Buy’s West Los Angeles location, 11301 W. Pico Boulevard, which will include a costume contest, cast members, and more…and the winner of the costume contest can win an awesome prize, a VIP “Tour of Middle-earth” – an all-expense-paid trip to New Zealand (Auckland, Wellington, Queenstown), courtesy of Air New Zealand and Weta Workshop. Read below for the full press release.

(continue reading…)

Deadline is reporting that Benedict Cumberbatch, who stars as the title character in Steven Moffat’s BAFTA-winning retelling of Sherlock and is already lending his voice to the character of the Necromancer (a.k.a. Sauron) in The Hobbit, will play a second role in the films with a tad more physical presence – he will also portray the dragon Smaug via motion capture. Cumberbatch has been very busy as of late, with supporting roles in the upcoming Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and War Horse films, and an expected second series of Sherlock also on the horizon.

Also announced today is the casting of the role of Bard, which has gone to Luke Evans, who previously played Apollo in the recent Clash of the Titans and will play Aramis in the upcoming The Three Musketeers and Zeus in The Immortals.

A bit of the “I Toldja!” – in an interview with producer Rick McCallum for czechposition.com, he confirmed that there only have 50 “third draft” scripts for the live action Star Wars series, not 50 hours “in the can” as was so widely reported, but we seriously doubted…but he also gave a lot more information about the show than we’ve gotten so far.

The article primarily dealt with how the Czech Republic may for into plans to produce the series – the country is a developing hotbed for TV and movie productions due to costs and locations available. And some of the Lucas and McCallum produced “Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” was shot in the capital of Prague, as was most of Red Tails, a Lucasfilm production about the Tuskegee Airmen that will be released next January. And it looks like this Star Wars series may got shot there as well – but don’t go buying your airline tickets yet.

“The TV series is on hold, but that has nothing to do with the Czech Republic; it has to do with [the episodes being] so ambitious,” McCallum told Czech Position. “We have 50 hours of third-draft scripts, but the problem we have is there is a lot of digital animation; we don’t have the technology yet to be able to do them at a price that is safe for television. Since we would be financing them, it would be suicide for us to do this [now]. So we are going to wait three or four years.” And perhaps even more distressing is that even then, he thinks it might be impossible. “Network television and cable television as we know it are completely imploding, so we’re not really sure that in five years’ time we can release a dramatic one-hour episode because it is all reality TV now,” he added.

But we get a hint of the plot. “Basically, it is like The Godfather; it’s the Empire slowly building up its power base around the galaxy, what happens in Coruscant, which is the major capital, and it’s [about] a group of underground bosses who live there and control drugs, prostitution,” McCallum said.

Well, at least we have an idea of what we may never see…

Mike Fleming over at Deadline is reporting that Disney has given screenwriter and Lost executive producer Damon Lindelof a seven-figure paycheck to work on a script, about which the only things we know are that it is a large-scale SF picture, and that it has a working title of 1952, but the latter could mean anything. Lindelof is in high demand: Cowboys and Aliens is getting tons of great press and doesn’t even open for more than a month, he rescued the Ridley Scott Alien prequel plot and made it a standalone film, and he’s expected to run full bore for the Star Trek sequel before working full time on this project.

But this isn’t just a movie…they’ve used the buzzword “multiplatform”. So expect games and web tie-ins at least.

OK, this may only be for a game…but this looks awesome! Check out the cinematic introduction for the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO game from BioWare and LucasArts below! No release date has yet been set.
(continue reading…)

If you’ve been waiting to actually SEE former Doctor David Tennant in his role of late night horror TV host/vampire hunter Peter Vincent in the upcoming Fright Night remake, now you can. See the trailer that debuted during the MTV Movie Awards below…the new version stars Anton Yelchin (Star Trek) as Charlie Brewster, who suspects new neighbor Jerry Dandrige (Colin Farrell) isn’t as nice guy as he seems – and is a vampire. Only no one believes him…except the host of a late-night horror movie program (Tennant).
(continue reading…)

A new trailer has been released today for the upcoming Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a remake of sorts of the classic Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, which chronicles how an ape named Caesar became intelligent – and leads a revolution. See it below…Rise of the Planet of the Apes is directed by Rupert Wyatt and stars James Franco, Brian Cox, Frieda Pinto, John Lithgow, Tom Felton, David Hewlett, and Andy Serkis as Caesar, and will be released in the U.S. on August 5th.
(continue reading…)

So, I got a kick today, as a week ago I posted an article pointing out that Lucas never said he had 50 episodes “in the can” (i.e. completed and ready to air) like a lot of the news outlets seemed to think. Yet late yesterday the New York Post posted an article still saying the episodes were in the can, that was reiterated by The Hollywood Reporter today – both articles were later corrected. Deadline also followed the Post’s article, but I only saw it after the corrections to the other two so I don’t know if they had likewise made the same error. Anyways, I get to feel smug for a few minutes about my being correct a week before some of the major industry rags. 🙂

But in the meantime, E! Online has a fun article about “Five Ways to Keep New Star Wars TV Series From Sucking”. Although honestly, “No Jar Jar” should be higher up on the list. And we could easily expand it to 10 ways…or 20 I’m sure.

Back in March two possible titles for the two upcoming The Hobbit films had possibly been learned: An Unexpected Journey and There and Back Again (the last being the book’s subtitle). We now know these titles are official, and in that order. We also now know the release dates: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will debut on December 14th, 2012, with The Hobbit: There and Back Again following on December 13th, 2013.

At last, it will make them easier to talk about…