Röyksopp revealed a while back on their site that work on their fourth LP was completed. Additionally, April was mentioned as a potential release month. Senior is a sort of companion to last year’s Junior. The band has described Senior has having an introspective autumnal feel in comparison to Junior’s spring energy.
They’ve also launched a Track of the Month feature on their site, with a previously unreleased song or alternate mix being made freely available each month. You can get at those here upon logging in.
Fox has renewed Fringe for a third season according to an EW report. Meanwhile, TV by the Numbers reports that the pickup is for a full 22 episodes. It’s no secret the show’s ratings have been down this year, but at the same time giving Fox a foothold at a new time slot. Anyway, fans can stop fretting over nothing as a third season is coming. Fringe stars Anna Torv, John Noble, Joshua Jackson, Lance Reddick, Jasika Nicole and Blair Brown that balances episodic sci-fi mysteries with the overarching story of colliding universes.
Fringe is currently on hiatus but will resume airing on April 1st with a mythology-heavy episode dealing with Peter’s past. Fans should know what that means.
The Coen brothers’ version of True Grit has added Barry Pepper to its cast, according to Variety. He’ll portray “Lucky” Ned Pepper, an outlaw in the western played by Robert Duvall in the original 1969 adaptation of the Charles Portis novel. Pepper joins Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin in the film, along with newcomer Hailee Steinfeld.
The period western follows a 14-year old girl (Steinfeld) who teams with a United States Marshal (Bridges) and another lawman (Damon) to find her father’s killer (Brolin) in Indian territory. The first adaptation focused on the Marshal while this one, as scripted by the Coens and truer to the novel, will be from the girl’s perspective.
True Grit is currently targeted for release on December 25th.
Michael Giacchino has signed on to score Andrew Stanton’s John Carter of Mars, according to MovieScore. While Stanton has directed Finding Nemo and WALL-E and Michael Giacchino has found great success scoring several Pixar films (The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Up), this will be their first collaboration. Giacchino also scores ABC’s Lost. John Carter of Mars is Stanton’s live-action debut although it will heavily feature advanced performance capture technology for the Green Martian characters. Stanton co-wrote the script with Mark Andrews, another multi-skilled vet of Pixar, based on the stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
The original novel, A Princess of Mars, began its serialization in 1912 and spawned eight other novels and several shorter tales over the following thirty years. A Civil War veteran of the Confederate side, John Carter finds himself taking refuge in a cave after an Indian attack when he is mysteriously transported to Mars. Due to the lower gravity, Carter has superhuman strength on the planet, which helps win him favor among the Tharks, a tribe of Green Martians made up of four-armed warriors twice the height of humans. When these people capture Dejah Thoris, princess of the humanlike Red Martians, Carter plots to save her and her people from their oppressors while winning her love along the way.
The film’s quite excellent cast is made up of the following:
Taylor Kitsch (John Carter) – Confederate veteran of the Civil War.
Lynn Collins (Dejah Thoris) – A Red Martian princess.
Willem Dafoe (Tars Tarkas) – High ranking warrior member of the Tharks, one of the Green Martian tribes, who ultimately allies with Carter.
Samantha Morton (Sola) – The daughter of Tars Takas, who has an unusually soft side for her species and must hide it.
Dominic West (Sab Than) – The prince of the Zodangans, which is a tribe of the Red Martians.
Polly Walker (Sarkoja) – A tyrannical Green Martian who delights in having Dejah as a prisoner.
Thomas Haden Church (Tal Hajus) – An ambitious Thark, one of the tall four-armed Martians, waiting for his chance to be ruler.
James Purefoy (Kantos Kan) – A Red Martian captain of a floating warship.
Mark Strong (Matai Shang) – Ruler of the Therns (descendants of the White Martians) with godlike status.
Ciarin Hinds (Tardos Mors) – Grandfather of Dejah Thoris and leader of their tribe.
Bryan Cranston – A fellow veteran of the Civil War accompayning John Carter at the story’s beginning.
Daryl Sabara (Edgar Rice Burroughs) – Fictionalized nephew of John Carter.
John Carter of Mars is currently in production and scheduled for release summer 2012.
In an exclusive from Heat Vision, Huge Weaving is in final negotiations with Marvel to portray Red Skull in The First Avenger: Captain America. Red Skull is Captain America’s biggest nemesis, a vicious Nazi commander personally trained by Hitler. Just as Captain America finds himself frozen and later thawed in modern times, Red Skull also conveniently makes that temporal transition in the comics to continue the battle. It would seem that Marvel is open to having the same thing occur in the movies as Weaving’s proposed contract would include options for several films, not unlike Samuel L. Jackson’s deal to play Nick Fury in nine films. That doesn’t inherently mean Red Skull would return, but Marvel’s definitely keen to keep the option open with the same actor behind the mask.
Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer, Jumanji, Jurassic Park III, The Wolfman) is directing The First Avenger: Captain America, which remains without a lead actor. That should be sorted out relatively soon what with shooting scheduled to begin in June. For what it’s worth, my pick from the supposed list of current contenders would be Wilson Bethel. He’s got the look and I liked his performance in Generation Kill.
The First Avenger: Captain America is scheduled for release on July 22nd, 2011. Aside from bookends in modern times (ie. expect to see Nick Fury welcoming Captain America back from the ‘dead’), the movie will be the origin story of Steve Rogers as Captain America fighting in World War II against the Red Skull and all manner of Nazis.
Yahoo has premiered the new full trailer for director Ridley Scott’s take on Robin Hood.
Russell Crowe stars as the titular hero along with Cate Blanchett (Maid Marion), Kevin Durand (Little John), Mark Strong (Sir Godfrey), Matthew Macfadyen (Sheriff of Nottingham), William Hurt (William Marshall), Danny Huston (King Richard) and Scott Grimes (Will Scarlett). Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Man on Fire) wrote the screenplay.
I’d say it looks good, although after Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven if we really need another historical war/action film from Ridley Scott. The aesthetic is the same, and we’ve already seen similar duels and bigger battles, only this time the action will be PG-13. I realize it’s generally a different story, but after watching the trailer I can’t help but feel I’ve already seen this, and perhaps in better form.
Robin Hood is scheduled for release on May 14th, 2010.
Disney unveiled a pretty spiffy teaser trailer for Tron Legacy in front of Alice in Wonderland last weekend before releasing it to the net a couple days ago. Tron Legacy picks up a nearly three decades after the original with Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), looks into his father’s disappearance and finds himself pulled into the digital world of Tron where his father has been living for 25 years. Bruce Boxleitner returns as his character, and is joined by Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen, John Hurt, Beau Garrett and James Frain. Joseph Kosinksi is making his directorial debut on this one.
Besides the visuals, the most exciting thing about this movie is that it’s being scored by Daft Punk, and yes, that’s their new music in the trailer. Even if the movie is a total bust, at least there’s that.
My big fear for this movie is that the Garrett Hedlund won’t be a satisfying lead. I can’t say I’ve seen him in anything, except for Troy apparently, though I don’t remember him at all. It’s just that all the parts of the trailer that make me hesitate in my anticipation involve him. To be sure, I’ve seen way too little to make any real call, but he reminds me of Hayden Christensen and his physicality of Chris Pine, neither of which is a positive mental connection for me. That shot of him walking into the distance makes me think of the 30 Rock episode where Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy tries his hand at acting and forgets what humans look like when walking… hopefully he delivers in the final product.
Here’s the second full trailer for Iron Man 2, courtesy of Yahoo.
Iron Man 2 hits theaters on May 7th, 2010 with Jon Favreau in the director’s seat once again. Robert Downey Jr. stars as Tony Stark, with Gwyneth Paltrow also returning. Don Cheadle replaces Terrence Howard as Rhodes. Mickey Rourke, Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell claim new characters Whiplash, Black Widow and Justin Hammer, respectively. Samuel L. Jackson will also be featured again as Nick Fury. Justin Theroux (Tropic Thunder) wrote the screenplay.
Time is closing in on the production start for David Cronenberg’s next feature film, The Talking Cure. The big news from Deadline is that Christoph Waltz dropped out in order to take a role in Water for Elephants, which lead Cronenberg to now-frequent collaborator Viggo Mortensen as his replacement. Vincent Cassel, another returner from Eastern Promises, has also joined the cast according to the French distributor. I believe this will make Mortensen the most used lead actor by Cronenberg, and in three straight films to boot, beating out the two films with Jeremy Irons.
The Talking Cure is based on a play by Christopher Hampton. Here’s the premise:
Overshadowed by portents of the coming wars, Zurich and Vienna are the setting for this tale of emotional vicissitude and intellectual debate. The Talking Cure is an intimate picture of the birth of psychoanalysis and of two intense and inextricably interwoven relationships. Carl Jung uses Sigmund Freud’s “talking cure” on Sabina, a young Russian hysteric with whom he will fall in love. Impressed with Jung’s results, Freud anoints him his successor, but when Jung develops his own theories they part ways. Sensitive and intelligent, The Talking Cure illuminates the origins of one of the twentieth century’s most influential schools of thought.
Mortensen will portray Sigmund Freud, with Michael Fassbender playing Carl Jung and Keira Knightley as Sabina. The nature of Vincent Cassel’s role isn’t clear. Production is scheduled to kick off on May 17th for 10 weeks in Germany.
It’s Cronenberg, so needless to say I’m psyched. I’ve got my fingers crossed for an end of the year release date.
Goldfrapp recently unveiled the first music video accompanying their fifth album, Head First. “Rocket” gets a very vibrant and quite literal video interpretation. Look out for the little cameo by Will Gregory, the other half of the band opposite frontwoman Alison Goldfrapp.
Gorillaz have unleashed another preview of its Plastic Beach album in the form of “Superfast Jellyfish”. The track features guests Gruff Rhsy and De La Soul. Check it out at YouTube.
Plastic Beach is the third true LP from the Gorillaz and will street the week of March 8th.
Update: Jolie’s casting has turned out to be false.
There’s a report in from Vulture that Angelina Jolie is set up for an Alfonso Cuarón film called Gravity. It’s seemingly a science fiction film that would star Jolie as the last surviving crew member on a space mission desperately attempting to return to Earth and her daughter. Jolie’s character would apparently be virtually the only one in the movie. Shades of Moon? Cuarón wrote the script with his [adult] son Jonás. The two also collaborated on an animated short called The Shock Doctrine in 2007.
That’s not a whole lot to go on, but it’s Alfonso Cuarón and he gave us one of the best sci-fi films of the last decade with Children of Men. Even better, the movie is set up with Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures who have a pretty stellar record over the last few years of supporting directors and their visions. Cuarón and sci-fi will have me in the theater without knowing anything else. Hopefully we’ll be in for a treat, assuming this goes forward.
HBO’s new miniseries The Pacific is quickly coming up to its March 14th premiere and over the last couple weeks HBO’s put together some new commercials for the big event. Like Band of Brothers before it, The Pacific is executive produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman. Many of the directors and writers also worked on the first World War II miniseries. The three lead characters are Joe Mazzello, James Badge Dale and Jon Seda.
Dwayne McDuffie told MTV that in addition to next week’s Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, he has also written scripts for two other upcoming DC Comics animated movies. Naturally, he can’t reveal what they are yet, but clearly the line of direct-to-DVD animated films is going to be continuing for quite some time. Those are in addition to the confirmed Batman: Under the Red Hood since we know Judd Winick is the writer on that one.
Chances are at least one of the movies involves the Justice League if only because that’s where most of his DC history lies. He was involved in one way or another with two-thirds of the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited shows along with writing a couple dozen issues of the Justice League of America comics. He’s also written a couple arcs for Batman series and he’s the creator of the Static character, although he’s it’s rather doubtful he’d be the star for any of these movies. At the end of the day, it’s anyone’s guess what these movies are, but rest assured there are a number of DC animated movies on the way.
Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville) just premiered his latest film, The Illusionist, at Germany’s Berlin International Film Festival and with that comes a first look at the movie in motion. Thanks to Twitch for the heads-up. The clip also features an interview with Chomet, but unfortunately there are no English translations.
The Illusionist is based on an unproduced script from 1956 by Jacques Tati and Henri Marquet. It is about an aging stage magician who is finding it harder and harder to stay in the limelight as his audiences flock to newer entertainment in the form of rock and roll. He’s forced into smaller and less-glamorous venues until he meets a young female fan who believes he can truly perform magic. Their relationship forms the crux of the story.
Now that the film is done, hopefully we can anticipate some news about its theatrical release. Twitch also has a review up from the festival.
Röyksopp revealed a while back on their site that work on their fourth LP was completed. Additionally, April was mentioned as a potential release month. Senior is a sort of companion to last year’s Junior. The band has described Senior has having an introspective autumnal feel in comparison to Junior’s spring energy.
