Sci-Fi Storm

At last! Before anything else could go wrong, filming has finally started on The Hobbit. Most recently held up to Peter Jackson’s ulcer, which capped off a long and torturous history for the production. Hopefully production proceeds without issue.

As if to prove it, they release pictures of Jackson inside Bilbo’s house on Bag End…

Director Darren Aranofsky (Black Swan), who has been in the midst of pre-production for Wolverine with Hugh Jackman awaiting the green light, has abruptly quit the production. Fox has confirmed with a statement from Aranofsky: “As I talked more about the film with my collaborators at Fox, it became clear that the production of ‘The Wolverine’ would keep me out of the country for almost a year. I was not comfortable being away from my family for that length of time. I am sad that I won’t be able to see the project through, as it is a terrific script and I was very much looking forward to working with my friend, Hugh Jackman, again.”

Aranofsky split from actress Rachel Weisz last year, and they have joint custody of their son.

Michelle Ryan (Bionic Woman, Jekyll, Doctor Who “Planet of the Dead”) has signed on to star with Harry Treadaway (City of Ember) and Honor Blackman (The Avengers, Goldfinger) for a British zombiepocalypse comedy movie called Cockneys vs. Zombies.

With the extremely poor performance of Robert Zemeckis’ Mars Needs Moms movie, which only took in $6.9 million 5th place finish in its opening weekend against a reported $150 million budget, it appears that Disney has fired the final torpedo in the salvo that will sink Zemeckis’ planned remake of the Beatles’ classic Yellow Submarine, cutting the project loose even after the cast and crew were hired. Disney has reportedly also been disappointed with Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol as well as motion capture in general (which was used for Moms and was planned for Submarine) which contributed to the decision. However, Deadline has an inside source that says the decision was made some time ago. Zemeckis is free to find another studio should he choose to shop it around.

TheOneRing revealed a couple weeks ago (but flew under my radar until now) what is likely (but not confirmed) as the full titles of the upcoming two films based on The Hobbit – which is good, as it is awkward writing articles with the words “the two The Hobbit films”…whereas The Lord Of The Rings films were fortunate to have had names already to draw from, The Hobbit did not. So one of the titles will take it’s name from the subtitle of the novel, There and Back Again, while the other will adopt An Expected Journey (or possibly The Unexpected Journey – I personally prefer “An”.)

Just what I always wanted – Jar Jar’s tongue lashing out in 3D…according to Deadline, a joint press release has been put out by Lucasfilm and Twentieth Century Fox that a 3D release of The Phantom Menace will hit theaters on February 10th, 2012. No word on whether there will be further revisions to the movie…

Always dreamed of traveling to Tatooine and taking in the sites, like Mos Eisley, Toshi Station, and of course the place that Luke Skywalker grew up, the Lars Homestead? Well, you can (turmoil in Tunisia notwithstanding). However, some of the locations have fallen into disrepair, including the homestead exterior, and a group would like to fix that. They estimate they need about $10,000 to fix up the exterior, and they are almost 79% of the way there. They have some great photos as well so you can see the various locations, not just of Tatooine, but the Cairo of Raiders Of The Lost Ark and others.

What of the Lars interior, you ask? It’s still there, and in decent condition – it just happens to be about 150 miles away from the exterior, and is actively used as a hotel – one without power, apparently…

Just a quick recap of any remotely genre related awards gained at last night’s Oscar festivities, beyond the periodic Hugh Jackman/Wolverine references: Inception was the big genre winner, taking Cinematography, Visual Effects, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing; Queen Amidala – or more accurately, Natalie Portman – took home the Best Actress award for her role in Black Swan; Toy Story 3 won Best Animated Feature, as well as Randy Newman taking the Best Original Music, for the TS3 song, “We Belong Together” (and gave on of the best acceptance speeches of the night); Alice In Wonderland won for Art Direction and Costume Design; and Wolfman won for Makeup (it didn’t have much competition). Tron: Legacy went home with nothing, having only had one nomination in Sound Editing – inexplicably not nominated for at least Visual Effects. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 also received none, but was the subject of an interesting musical montage thanks to AutoTune…

Side note: Star Wars: The Clone Wars fans may have heard a familiar voice. Tom Kane, who narrates the beginning of each episode, was the announcer.

The Japanese live-action version of the anime series Space Battleship Yamato (known as Star Blazers in the US) has torn up the box office in Japan – but there has been no word of a US release, dubbed or otherwise. But Deadline is reporting that an American live-action version is in the works. David Ellison, through his Skydance Productions (which financed True Grit), is negotiating the rights, and plans to hire Christopher McQuarrie to write the script. What is interesting is the article says that Star Blazers was “based on” the original Space Battleship Yamato – it was really an edited/dubbed version, with mostly only minor changes for the American audience (like rather than glorify a Japanese WWII battleship, they re-christened the ship the Argo from Greek mythology, and to tone down some of the more adult themes and Japanese patriotism), but the article makes it seem more like two independent but similar productions.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a dubbed version of the Japanese version though…I’m not sure I could sit through a feature-length visual eye-fest while having to keep reading subtitles…

Ghostbusters saw some renewed interest in the past couple of years, and a script has been done – so why isn’t it getting made? It’s been long said that Bill Murray has been squeamish on doing another sequel – but Ivan Reitman reportedly said in Germany this past weekend Murray had read the script. Apparently that’s not true. Murray says he has NOT read the script, and although he admits he really should read it, Ghostbusters 2 really turned him off from doing sequels in general – despite the fun had with the cast and crew.

All I know is that if there is another Ghostbusters movie – whoever the cast is – my kids want to see it. It may not be the same for me, but I think there is an audience…