Sci-Fi Storm

The Hollywood Reporter’s cover story this week is about the upcoming Marvel super-hero movie Thor, directed by director/actor Kenneth Branagh, and how the director has staked his career on the $150 million production. Thanks to THR, here is the whole article:
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Peter Jackson posted a cool video from the sets of The Hobbit on his Facebook page, showing some of of what the recreated from The Lord Of The Rings, a welcome/dedication ceremony, and more.

Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, which was previously made into a TV mini-series by NBC in 1980, has been optioned by Paramount for a feature film. The option was previously held by Universal starting in 1997, with various people attached over the years including Steven Spielberg, but they never got the project going. Note that this doesn’t mean it is any closer to production – just that a new studio is holding on to the rights.

The Martian Chronicles is a complex story – can it be done in a feature film’s time limits?

To celebrate the upcoming release of Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, The Walt Disney Company will be hosting a star-studded gala to benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of America at Disneyland, Anaheim, CA on May 7th, 2011. Individual tickets for the premiere event are priced at $1,000 and are now available for sale at www.piratespremiere.com. Disney is donating 100% of the proceeds from the ticket sales directly to Boys & Girls Clubs of America, whose mission is to enable all young people, especially those who need it most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens.

Read more below, but here is a short new featurette entitled, “From Disneyland to the Big Screen”, about making the Pirates Of The Caribbean attraction into a big screen franchise.

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Actor Michael Shannon (Agent Nelson Van Alden in Boardwalk Empire) has signed on to play the evil Kryptonian General Zod in the Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel movie, opposite Henry Cavill’s Superman and Amy Adams’ Lois Lane. “Michael is a powerful actor who can project both the intelligence and the malice of the character,” according to Snyder.

Now, kneel before Zod!

Andy Serkis, perhaps best known for his motion-capture and voice acting that turned Gollum from just CGI into an actual character in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, will add another role during production of The Hobbit films – but this one will be behind the scenes. THR is reporting that Serkis will be the second unit director – which means he will be directing production of secondary footage while Peter Jackson directs the primary shooting (primarily those with the main characters). This could include stunt and action sequences, as well as motion capture. Serkis has done a little directing already, primarily with video games, but plans to go on to live action directing after completing The Hobbit.

Will Smith will join his son Jaden (The Karate Kid) in front of the camera for an upcoming SF film co-written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. While no title was given, it may be the One Thousand A.E. project mentioned by the director in the fall while promoting The Last Airbender. Smith was originally tied in as a producer (and still is), along with his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, Shyamalan, James Lassiter and Ken Stovitz (for Overbrook Entertainment, Smith and Lassiter’s production company).

What little is known of the plot: “The story takes place far in the future where a young boy has to navigate an abandoned planet on a space ship that has crashed. On board is his estranged father.”

Men in Black 3, starring Will Smith, is filming in New York from March-June 2011. Casting people of all types for work as PAID extras.

Grant Wilfley Casting is seeking people for background work on Men in Black 3.

Seeking the following types:

men and women with character faces; people who are less than 4′10 or more than 6′5; plus-sized people; men and women to play 1969 New Yorkers — hippies, beatnik poet types, 60s celebrity look-a-likes, bikers, models, etc… (must be willing to get their hair cut/styled to fit the time period).

Open Call Date: Wed. April 6, 2011
Time: 10am-12pm for SAG
1pm-4pm for NONSAG
Location: 405 West 59th Street
(at 9th Ave) New York, NY 10019

I’ve been hearing from various different directions that some of the clues laid for the plot of the Total Recall remake, given in the announcement that Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) has joined the cast, could mean that in this version there is no trip to Mars.

In both the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger film and the original story, the protagonist, Douglas Quaid, wishes he could go to Mars, but can only afford the memories of such a trip, along with some added extras like being a secret agent, as implanted by the Rekall corporation. When they try to implant the memories, something goes wrong – suppressed memories surface, and it turns out he IS a secret agent, and the answer to what happened to him lies on Mars!

In the details that were given for the new version, Quaid still comes to believe he is a spy, but he is somehow embroiled in the situation between Euromerica and New Shangai, two large nations on the brink of war. Cranston will play the leader of Euromerica, who may be planning to attack New Shanghai.

Mars could still be in the cards, but I’m wondering if this might be a little closer to a Bourne-type thriller.

As rumored last November, the long developing remake of Dune is dead. Paramount failed to come to an agreement to extend the rights, and now the option has lapsed. Producer Richard P. Rubinstein says, “I’m going to look at my options, and whether I wind up taking the script we developed in turnaround, or start over, I’m not sure yet.”