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Monday Night Poll: How Much Will 'Avatar' Make Opening Weekend?
Filed under: Action, Animation, Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Box Office, 20th Century Fox, Movie Marketing, Oscar Watch
Avatar isn't being released until December 18th, but if you're already sick of hearing about it, you better plug up your ears. The hype machine for James Cameron's magnum opus has been hard at work leaking details, images, snippets, and trailers since way before this year's San Diego Comic-Con or the extensive profile in October's New Yorker. Cameron, who has never been one to bite his tongue, told Playboy, "We know from the exit polling that the response [to Avatar] was 95 percent ecstatic. Most of the five percent negative response is from the fanatic fans who imagined the movie in their minds but now have to deal with my movie." Also, that when it comes to giving birth to a movie, he's crowning. Yum!
Bon mots from Cameron aside, Avatar could be a real game-changer as far as 3D films go – and hell, it's a refreshing change of pace from the sequels, prequels, remakes, and re-imaginings we're forced to sit through. (Plus... giant blue cat people!!!). It's definitely in the running for numerous Oscars. In fact, Oscar experts at In Contention currently have the film for consideration in eight categories, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Not only that, Variety reported that James Cameron, stars Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana, and producer Jon Landau will be doing a live webcast on December 3rd that will allow fans the chance to ask questions of the crew and sneak peeks at previously unseen footage from the film. The webcast will be broadcast on MTV two days before Avatar hits screens.
So, are you a betting man or woman? How much do you think the Avatar exposure will pay off opening weekend? Will Na'ivish become the new Elvish? Let's start with under $20 million. Going once, going twice... Vote below!
The First 'Iron Man 2' Poster Appears!
Filed under: Action, Paramount, Fandom, Newsstand, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Posters
Marvel Studios, Paramount and Jon Favreau have given you an early Christmas present. Yahoo! Movies has debuted the first poster for Iron Man 2, and as cheesy as it is to go nuts over marketing, it's an awfully cool poster. It's their exclusive, so you'll have to click the picture to see the entire thing, but I've given you a tiny preview above.
The best part? Those of us who didn't get to see the pants-wetting footage at Comic-Con finally get a glimpse at War Machine! There's something deliciously geeky about the buddy cop stylings of this poster. I could live quite comfortably in a world where Iron Man 2 was something akin to a super-suited Lethal Weapon, couldn't you?
Of course, as nice as the poster is, it's no substitute for seeing these guys actually take flight. Faverau has hinted via Twitter that we might see the first Iron Man 2 trailer this Christmas, and that it'll be attached to that other Robert Downey Jr. franchise, Sherlock Holmes. Maybe if you're very good boys and girls, Santa will grant your wish, and we'll get it a few days before Holmes hits theaters. I can't think of a more festive way to ring in the holidays than with a flying hero of red and gold.
First (Official) Look at 'The Karate Kid' Remake - Updated with More Photos
Filed under: Action, Sony, Family Films, Newsstand, Movie Marketing, Remakes and Sequels, Images
Update: Check out three more images in the gallery below.
The initial trauma over Columbia's remake of The Karate Kid seems to have passed for the children of the 1980s, enough that the first official image (not counting the teaser poster Erik Davis posted in September) shouldn't be salt in the wound. Instead, you might be thinking "Hey, for the first image of The Karate Kid, shouldn't there be, you know ... karate?" Yes, yes there should. But instead People Magazine gave us a tender look between the new kid, Jaden Smith, and his mentor, Jackie Chan. 1980s children will be relieved to know that his name isn't Mr. Miyagi, but Mr. Han, and he's a maintenance man who befriends the troubled and unhappy boy who's been relocated to China. He also can kick major ass.
Smith and Chan give a few excited quotes for Kid. Smith reveals he trained for four months with the film's fight coordinator, Master Wu, which was probably interesting enough to warrant its own training montage. As he became wise in the way of karate, he learned discipline that extended all the way to his personal habits. "His dad told me that Jaden had changed," says Chan. "When he takes his shoes off, he doesn't throw them in the corner, but puts them away neatly!"
Admittedly, there could be some lovely Chinese eye candy in this. One sequence will take place on the Great Wall of China, so we're in for at least one (hopefully) breathtaking sequence that could actually rival any crane kick Ralph Macchio performed. The Karate Kid hits theaters on June 11, 2010.
Warner Bros Will Make Clint Eastwood Fans' Day
Filed under: Action, Classics, Warner Brothers, Distribution, Newsstand, Home Entertainment
If you're lucky enough to be graced with cash or gift cards this Christmas, and you have a big hole on your DVD shelf where Clint Eastwood ought to be, Warner Bros will be happy to help you out. On February 16 they're releasing a massive, 19-disc collection Clint Eastwood: 35 Films, 35 Years at Warner Bros that celebrates the actor / director / producer. Included will be a booklet and a feature length documentary by Richard Schickel. The retail price will be a hefty $179.98.Warners didn't release a complete list of those 35 films, but it spans the tender years of Where Eagles Dare all the way to 2008's Gran Torino. I imagine there will be some crossover with what you already own, like the entire Dirty Harry collection and The Outlaw Josey Wales. But most of his output from the late 1970s onward was done at Warner Bros, so all those films you've forgotten he ever made -- The Gauntlet, Bronco Billy, Honkytonk Man, Tightrope, Firefox, Heartbreak Ridge, A Perfect World, Pink Cadillac -- and can't find on DVD will make this a must have for the fan who needs everything.
Or almost everything. If you're looking for his directorial debut Play Misty For Me, or forgotten gems like Thunderbolt and Lightfoot or The Beguiled, you'll have to wait until Universal or MGM decides to put out a boxed set of their own. On that day, you better reinforce your bookshelf with steel frames to support the other 30 odd films he's done, even without Francis in the Navy.
New to Me: Purple Rain and Stunt Rock
Filed under: Action, Drama, Music & Musicals, Columns
As the perpetual young'en on the staff, it only seems fitting that I start chronicling my encounters with whatever classic or otherwise noteworthy titles that I'm just now dusting off and catching up with. For the first in this series, I find myself tackling a double feature of '70s/'80s rock kitsch - Stunt Rock and Purple Rain.
Scenes We Love: L.A. Confidential (Again!)
Filed under: Action, Classics, Noir, Mystery & Suspense, Scenes We Love
It's the most wonderful time of the year! The time of year when I watch L.A. Confidential a dozen times because "It's Christmassy!", complain that it didn't win Best Picture, and fall in love with Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce all over again. It's not as if I don't watch this at any other time of the year, but this film is like my holiday heroin. It's the perfect antidote to the holly and the ivy. Yeah, I posted a scene from it earlier this year, but as its been taken down by YouTube, I figured I'd post another in honor of the upcoming holidays. There's not a lot of scenes available (my favorite Rollo Tomasi moment still eludes me), but luckily one of the reader favorites was up for grabs. So, today's Scene We Love is indeed a scene we all love: "She is Lana Turner."
It's also good timing, as this week we finally get to see a glimpse of Pearce in The Road. It's another one of those maddening cameos he likes to tease us with (no spoiler intended, it's just a fact), and I constantly wish he'd take bigger and more high profile roles. A Bedtime Stories is all well and good, and I have great hopes for Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, but I long for him to land another role like Lt. Ed Exley.
Go below the jump for the scene
Interview: James McTeigue, 'Ninja Assassin' (Part 1)
Filed under: Action, Warner Brothers, Interviews
Director James McTeigue has been working on films since the late 1980s, back in his native Australia. He was second assistant director on Dark City and first assistant director on Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. He started working with Andy and Larry Wachowski as an assistant director on The Matrix, and they've been collaborating on projects together ever since. The Wachowskis wrote the first feature film helmed by McTeigue, V for Vendetta, and he provided second-unit direction on their most recent film, Speed Racer.
Ninja Assassin, which opened this week, is the latest movie McTeigue has directed, with the Wachowskis on board as producers. You can read William Goss's review for more details about the action/fantasy film. Cinematical sat down with the director in late September during Fantastic Fest, just after the movie played the festival. He was very pleased with the fest screening and happy to talk about the film.
Jeremy Renner Wants To Be An Avenger
Filed under: Action, Paramount, RumorMonger, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek
Now that Iron Man 2 is in the finish stages, and Thor will kick off filming in January, the casting rumor mill must now find some new grist in The Avengers. (Not Captain America, oddly enough. We'll just skip right over that one!) Empire sat down with Jeremy Renner, who revealed that he'd been in talks with Marvel Studios and Avengers' writer Zak Penn about tackling the part of a superhero. While he's reportedly been linked with Captain America on some dim corners of the Internet, Renner is thinking he might like to play another Avenger : Clint Barton, better known as Hawkeye. "I don't know if I'd be right for Captain America. I met with the Marvel guys, actually, but we didn't talk about Captain America. But one of the writers, Zak Penn, we've become friends over time and he was thinking maybe Hawkeye could be interesting. He sounds like an interesting character."
Renner stressed "no offer has been made ... I think there's a little ways from that" but he also speculated that Hawkeye might cameo in Thor or in First Avenger: Captain America. But Thor has an awfully big cast at this point, so tossing in an Avenger cameo seems a bit dubious, though there's always room in a post-credit sequence. Iron Man 2 would have been the ideal place (Mr. Clint Barton and the Black Widow go way back) but the ship would appear to have sailed on that one.
A Trailer for Jean-Claude Van Damme's 'The Eagle Path'
Filed under: Action, Trailers and Clips
It's time for the second feature written, directed, and starring the Muscles from Brussels Jean-Claude Van Damme. First we had The Quest, a story he whipped up with the help of Frank Dux (the man Bloodsport was based on). Now there's The Eagle Path. Once called Full Love, this sucker is all-out classic Van Damme with faux serious acting, violence, and of course, the potential love of a sexy woman -- and you can check out a trailer for the film after the jump, courtesy of THR's Heat Vision Blog. Van Damme plays "Frenchy," a military vet and former mercenary who hides from his past by working as a taxi driver in East Asia. When he picks up a sexy woman one day, he becomes obsessed with the idea of improving her life and decides to do so without her approval. With help from his special ops friends, he sets out to "save" her, and as the official synopsis says: "War is hell, but nothing they've done could have prepared them for this."
From what you can see in the trailer, that "this" involves a bad*ss special ops friend in a wheelchair, some mustachioed undercover work, and a whole lot of action carnage. Oh, if only they could score this with some '80s music. It would be like going back to the good ol' days of Van Damme.
Asian Trailer Watch: 'Bodyguards and Assassins'
Filed under: Action, Foreign Language, Trailers and Clips
Just as fans of American action movies should be readying themselves for the explosionpalooza that will surely be Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables, which brings together every big-name, bad-guy shooter of the last 20 years, so should fans of Hong Kong martial arts flicks begin bracing themselves in anticipation of the unholy ass-kicking that will be on display in Teddy Chan's upcoming film Bodyguards and Assassins. It tells the story of a group of (mostly undercover) bodyguards who must protect the revolutionary political leader Sun Yat-sen from an onslaught of highly trained assassins sent on the behest of the Emperor to quell the tide of reform in Hong Kong in 1905.
Think of it as 16 Blocks, but instead of a tired Bruce Willis protecting a witness as people shoot at him on the streets of New York, it's the amazing Donnie Yen and a pack of other Asian martial arts stars escorting a political leader across a wildly elaborate recreation of downtown HK at the beginning of the 20th century while a horde of assassins strike using darts, arrows, acid, and all manner of bladed weapon. The production design alone looks outstanding, but you'll soon be forgetting all about the set building once the fists, feet, and other limbs start destroying everything in the newest trailer for Bodyguards and Assassins (thanks to Twitch for the find).
I've included the previous B&A trailers below as well, but it's the action heavy one on top that's most likely to pique your interest -- aside from the bizarre choice of trailer music, this is one of the most blood-pumping, face-pounding, throat-grabbing, sword-chopping, pole-swinging montages I've seen in a while.
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Discuss: Who Would be the Most Profitable Director if ...
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