#397. Movie Buzz
1. Wolverine a victim of Weapon P
As in Piracy. Almost a month before the film's release, a work print of the movie with some missing footage and a few unfinished effects sequences, but reportedly near DVD quality, was leaked to the Internet.Online file-sharing and peer-to-peer sites had it up on April 1, and it was no joke. This humble Movie Buzz scribe saw it posted on his regular online haunts while looking for, er, stuff; still, in the name of not wanting to ruin the fun of watching Wolvie rumble in his full CGI-enhanced glory on the big screen and in THX come late April, he just surfed away from the temptation.
According to a report on Dark Horizons, 20th Century Fox executives then scrambled to get the copies yanked after learning of the leak.According to the website, such leaks of work prints are far easier to trace to the source than handheld camera jobs and telesyncs of finished prints (which by then have been reproduced in the thousands).Our money's on Deadpool. He's a real d*ck that way.
2. So fast, so furious
Fast & Furious, the fourth movie in the F&F franchise, smashed aside all competition to break boxoffice records and set a US$72.5mil (RM260mil) benchmark for an April opening date.The previous record holder was Anger Management with US$42.2mil (RM152mil) in 2003.F&F, which sees original stars Paul Walker and Vin Diesel reuniting to bring down a drug lord, also scored a US$30.1mil (RM108mil) international haul.Looks like there's still a lot of gas in the tank for the franchise, despite the critical drubbing this fourth outing took ... expectedly.Last weekend's champ, Monsters vs Aliens, pulled in US$33.5mil (RM120mil).
3. Arterton to offer Perseus a quantum of solace
Gemma Arterton, who played the unfortunate Ms. Fields in Quantum of Solace, is set to play the Greek goddess Io in the upcoming Clash of the Titans remake.Io was not featured in the original movie, which was stop-motion animation maestro Ray Harryhausen's last film before he retired.
In the remake, directed by Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk), Io will become romantically involved with Perseus (Sam Worthington), the human son of Zeus.Arterton told Empire magazine that the remake will focus more on Perseus' quest - a hint that there may be fewer Mount Olympus moments than there were in the original.
4. Giving vampires' image a lift
If 30 Days of Night proved that screen vampires could be horrific again, then the upcoming Elevator Men is out to show that these bloodsuckers don't really have romance in mind when it comes to dealing with us blood-banks-on-legs.According to The Hollywood Reporter, Summit Entertainment - which ironically produces the lovey-dovey vamp-gal romance series Twilight - has picked up this rather grim script by former DreamWorks exec Marc Haimes.
The report said Haimes wanted to show the dark side of what happens when people try to get close to nasty things ... like vampires.The bloodsuckas of Elevator Men do really cruel things to humans, playing traumatising mind games with them before - well, you know. And sure enough, one of those games apparently DOES involve an elevator.
5. The Thing about script revisions ....
Mark the name Eric Heisserer. The upcoming scriptwriter may soon be known for rewriting remakes.According to reports, Heisserer has been tapped to revise Ron Moore's script for the upcoming remake of John Carpenter's The Thing (which itself was a remake).And, says BloodyDisgusting.com, Heisserer was also tapped earlier to rewrite Wesley Strick's screenplay for the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Given that Moore (who counts Battlestar GalacticA among his credits) and Strick (Arachnophobia, Wolf, Doom) have established genre credentials, this Heisserer fella must be pretty good ... in the studio execs' view at any rate ... to be given the job of polishing their material.Well, we fans will find out for ourselves when the movies are out.
