Film Industry News

Indiana Jones 5 - Crazy & Cool

(filmonic.com)               Despite saying publicly in May that he felt he had “dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished” with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull  Shia LaBeouf will still be involved in Indy 5.
Last June LaBeouf said Spielberg had “cracked the story”, which was followed by an update from Harrison Ford in September who said the film is in the “process of taking form” and “Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and myself are agreed on what the fifth adventure will concern”.
Now the latest update from LaBeouf suggests we are in for a crazy time.
From ShowBiz Spy:
    “They’re script writing right now,” says Shia. “I got called into Steven’s office and he pitched a little bit to me and it sounds crazy, it sounds really cool.”
Earlier this year Shia said Transformers 3 was going to be the “craziest action movie ever made”, so i’m not sure where Indian Jones 5 will rank on his crazy-o-meter, but Spielberg and Lucas must have come up with something special if the guy who has worked on Michael Bay’s biggest movies thinks it’s crazy.

"Angry Birds" Feature To Try Aardman or Pixar Look
(Variety)              An Angry Birds film is in development as part of a large cross-merchandising franchise, reports Variety.
The film (which may end up playing instead as a series of shorts) will be based on the hugely popular iPhone application from Rovio that has the player using a slingshot to shoot different types of birds at villainous pigs.
As far as adapting the property goes, plans are unclear at this stage as to the specific format. Rovio's CEO Mikael Hed mentions either shorts or, possibly, a feature film (or both) and likens the intended final product to both Aardman Animation as well as Pixar.

Transformers 3: Chicago Can't Get Rid of Them!
(seibertron.com)                  The crew working on Transformers 3 refuses to leave Chicago, AKA Seibertron.com's capital. If we look at the bus reroutes, it would imply work there in some form would continue until Friday.
With that little time, it's likely nothing big will happen, but no one can say for sure in this hobby full of surprises. It could be clean-up, or it could be the scene that ties everything together.

State of the VFX Industry: Is Working for “FREE” Worth It?
(bobbyboom.blogspot.com)            Returning home from Siggraph this year I had a major concern on my mind and I wanted to expose this concern as well as offer up some potential food for thought. I had an opportunity to talk to just about every major studio and a lot of mid-sized studios during the week of Siggraph.

My main concern is that artists are being taken advantage of!

I understand that the global economy has been in the dumps by-and-large and that job seekers are willing to jump at any opportunity due to these precarious times for fear that there may not be jobs available. Although I do not feel that the market is saturated I do feel the result from this thinking is that some studios are taking advantage of the economic hype which is resulting in artists taking less money, covering 100% of their relocation costs or worse, working for free.

One issue I want to raise here is that the entertainment industry is doing exceptionally well despite the overall state of the economy. This article shows trends from 1995 – current 2010 in movie ticket sales and things look great! We all know how well Toy Story 3, How to Train your Dragon and Despicable Me have been doing and there is a lot of buzz in Hollywood that animated films are saving the entertainment industry. This article notes a dip in video game sales in July but reports confident signs of sharp recovery.

I had one mid-sized studio tell me recently that they have more money than they know what to do with, yet have decided to have new employees pay for 100% of their own relocation costs and take lower wages than were previously offered because they can do it and people are willing to go for it.

In addition to this, I can't tell you how many emails I get from "new studios" that have ”a great idea to have our students and alumni work for free on their project in exchange for gaining valuable work experience."

I don't know about you, but I find this absolutely absurd and do not support it in any way. Students pay a lot of money to learn their craft and they should be compensated for the skills they have gained.

It is clear that some studios are taking advantage of the "state of the economy," and what is most alarming is that job seekers are unknowingly adding fuel to the fire by taking jobs that pay sub-standard or do not pay at all.

There's no doubt that the world has become smaller and more accessible through the internet. Outsourcing and remote working is common place in most every industry. With this change in global workforce it is inevitable that there will be these kinds of changes in the way people do business. However, as we navigate through the evolution of these times it is important that companies see the importance of ethics in business. Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. There is a happy medium that needs to be found.

I'm proud to see some of the big boys operating from a place of valuing their artists first. I hope they continue to lead the way as an example for up-and-coming and mid-sized studios.

As far as artists go; I urge you not to work for free. In doing so you are encouraging a downward spiral of diminished returns for yourself and future generations of artists paving the way for much lower wages.

If a lot of inexperienced entry level artists are working for free on a given project, the quality of that project is going to suffer in the end. When it comes time to shop around your demo reel, the very slight benefit of this free "experience" will be far outweighed by the low-quality work on the demo reel, or the poor reputation of the project within the industry.

If you have the skills you will get a job. You may need to be patient, but the jobs are there. The world is large and the opportunities are vast and wide. Just as the global evolution of business is happening, so too are your opportunities. Industry jobs are no longer just in California and New York. There is a whole world of opportunity out there and you will need to be flexible in where the opportunities take you; especially in the early years of your career. Perhaps they will be in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, England, Spain, India, South Africa or in the comfort of your home office.

Some may ask, "Isn’t it better to at least work for free so that I can get some experience?" I personally believe that it would better serve an entry level artist to work on their own project, or with a few friends, helping to shape their own voice and storytelling abilities. In doing so they ARE gaining experience and it will show in the quality of their work.

My advice to you is that no matter what you do or where you work, to make the best judgment for your situation and I encourage you to not be taken advantage of, ever! You're worth more than that.




Captain America Scene Filmed in Trafalgar Square

(WENN)                    Extras for director Joe Johnston's Captain America: The First Avenger filmed a scene at Trafalgar Square in London, England on Sunday that takes place on VE Day (the day when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich). The extras were seen hugging each other and dressed in period clothing.




Spy Kids 4 To Stop Time

(Heat Vision)                   Jessica Alba is reteaming with Robert Rodriguez a third time for Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World. She has previously starred in Sin City, co-directed by Rodriguez, and has a role in the helmer's September 3 release Machete.

Heat Vision says the new "Spy Kids" film is a reboot of sorts. Alba will play a retired spy who has been reactivated. Her character is the mother of a baby and two preteen stepchildren.

The actors cast in the preteen roles will be the new "Spy Kids." Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara played the Spy Kids in the first three films, that also starred Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino as their superspy parents.

The trade adds that other roles seeking to be filled include Alba's husband, "a slightly nerdy investigative reporter, and the villain, known as the Time Keeper, whose goal it is to stop time."

Banderas, Vega and Sabara are expected to return in supporting roles. Shooting is scheduled to start on the 3D film next month.




Disney's Animated 'Prep and Landing' Wins 4 Creative Emmy Awards

(voices.washingtonpost.com)                  Disney's "Prep and Landing" was animation's big winner at Saturday's Creative Arts Emmys.

The ABC holiday special was named Outstanding Animated Program and also won three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Individual Achievements in Animation: background key designer William M. George III; art director Andy Harkness; and storyboard artist Joe Mateo.

More than 70 trophys were awarded at the Creative Arts ceremony, which kicks off the week leading up to the Aug. 29 Prime-Time Emmy Awards broadcast.





"Super 8" Creature Gets Rubber FX

(Wired)                  Neville Page, the conceptual artist responsible for designs in Star Trek, Cloverfield, Piranha 3D and the upcoming TRON: Legacy, teased information to Wired about the creature design in his next big project, Super 8.

Though he's light on details, Page does reveal that he was tasked with designing the creature after the teaser trailer was created and that J.J. Abrams showed him the footage to help get him excited.

"When that door blows open," he says, "it's the ultimate reveal. It's Elvis or something."

What's more, Page hints that Abrams won't resort entirely to computer animation to bring the monster to life and that the writer/director will rely on some classic special effect work.

"I'll bet you anything there's going to be a rubber something or other at some point," says Page.




Chris Wedge Barks At "Monster Dogs"

(darkhorizons.com)               Animation filmmaker Chris Wedge ("Ice Age," "Robots") is looking likely to make his live-action directorial debut on a film adaptation of the Kirsten Bakis novel "Lives of the Monster Dogs" says Heat Vision.

The story is set in a remote Canadian village populated by hyper-intelligent dogs genetically engineered by mad Prussian scientists.

Revolting against their masters, these talkative and bipedal dogs turn up in modern New York where a student chronicles their glamorous lives. The story takes a kind of tragic twist as the creatures revert to their animal states for longer and longer periods.




ImageMovers Digital Artist To Part With Personal 'Fortress of Solitude' Cubicle

(buildingthefortress.blogspot.com)                  A little over a week ago, Disney announced the closing of the studio I work for, Image Movers Digital. Only after releasing 1 motion picture, the mouse is shutting us down.

December 30th is my end date. And I am hearing out options with what to do with my Fortress.

Obviously, destroying it is my last option. I don't have room for it at home, and can't see myself getting the exact same desk configuration at a new job.

So with that said, I'm just putting the word out there that I may be parting with it. Either selling it on ebay or finding a local nerd/comic book shop to take it off my hands. I think its too beautiful and I've put too much love and time into this.

Full Press & Photos:    http://buildingthefortress.blogspot.com/




Dreamworks Animation Goes Part Live-Action With "Enemies"

(darkhorizons.com)                   Having dabbled once or twice in hand-drawn but sticking mostly to computer graphics, Dreamworks Animation is now considering dipping its big toe partway into the live-action arena with "Imaginary Enemies" reports Risky Biz Blog.

Joe Syracuse and Lisa Addario are penning the script which follows a group of imaginary friends who've gotten fed up with being the scapegoats for bratty kids who blame them for their own misdeeds.

When those kids grow up, these imaginary friends come looking for some payback. Mike Mitchell ("Shrek Forever After") is developing but hasn't signed to direct the project as yet.

Right now though the discussion is about making the project part animated and part live-action (ala "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"), with the animated elements representing the imaginary world and its inhabitants.




Fantastic Four Reboot Set for Summer 2012: Out With The Old, In With The New

(examiner.com)                      Twentieth Century Fox has plans to reboot the Fantastic Four franchise despite the success of the first two movies. The studio has tossed out writer/director Tim Story along with FF cast members Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans and Ioan Gruffudd. The question is why?

Yes it's true that diehard fanboys grumbled about the movies—wanting them to reflect more of the flavor and excitement that FF creator's Stan Lee and Jack Kirby packed into the comic book series, but the films did do well at the box office— Fantastic Four took in $330, 579, 719 million worldwide and FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer took in $289, 047, 763 worldwide. So why the sudden change in direction.

The "official" word is that the studio wanted to get more gritty and serious, more in line with The X-men movies and Wolverine, but several insiders claim that the studio wanted to rein in the excessive production costs and salary demands— the first movie's budget was $100 million and the second was $130 million.

The studio has already announced that the Fantastic Four reboot, or Fantastic Four: Reborn (which is still a working title), is next film production in line, right behind the upcoming X-Men: First Class. There is buzz coming from the studio that they intend to go CGI all the way for the Thing (played by Michael Chiklis in the previous films), and that British actress Alice Eve (28), who starred in She's Out of My League, is a strong contended for the part of The Invisible Woman (previously played by Jessica Alba), as is Amber Heard (Pineapple Express).




'Star Wars' Producer Taps Weta For 'Panzer 88'

(latimesblogs.latimes.com)                Gary Kurtz, the producer of the first two "Star Wars" films and the man who walked away from the franchise in 1980, is not the excitable type. He speaks in even tones and pragmatic terms, but there was a clear tinge of eager energy in his voice when he sat down recently to discuss "Panzer 88," his first foray into effects-heavy feature films since the 1980s.

"It's a good, good project, you haven't seen anything like it for a while," Kurtz said of the spooky wartime adventure that is planned as a $20 million independent film and will begin shooting in the winter. "It's a visceral, reality-based story with horror overtones, and the idea is to have be like the best of the graphic novels these days."

The plot follows the five-man German crew of the Ilsa -- a King Tiger, the biggest tank of its day -- on a mission to the frigid and fearsome Russian border, where they tread into an ancient mystery by stirring a powerful entity. The original screenplay was written by Aaron Mason and James Cowan; they share the writing credit with Peter Briggs, who will direct. Briggs, who co-wrote the screenplay for "Hellboy," finds himself back in the paranormal territories of the Third Reich, but he said this film hopes for a different caliber of character emotion and a "Band of Brothers" sort of ensemble.

The project has the same sort of mash-up cinematic spirit as Jon Favreau's upcoming "Cowboys and Aliens" (classic western meets UFO invasion) or the 1980s John McTiernan  classic "Predator"  (commando adventure meets sci-fi horror). For "Panzer," the hybrid is between the supernatural and the battlefields of World War II;  to fans of a certain age, the premise might stir an old comic-book memory -- "Haunted Tank" and "Weird War Tales" often marched into similar battle zones of the macabre.

The project has stirred interest already with horror fans due to the participation of Weta, the visual-effects and film prop house in New Zealand that has become an elite brand name with credits such as "The  Lord of the Rings" films, "King Kong" and "Avatar." Richard Taylor, the design and effects supervisor of Weta Workshop, said via e-mail that, like the Oscar-nominated "District 9," there's a chance with "Panzer" to make a visually compelling film with a nimble production.

"It has been fantastic being involved in the early stages of a project that has already had such a significant body of preparatory production work done," Taylor said. "It seems that Gary and Peter have explored all production scenarios and analyzed all and every film-making option in an effort to produce an epic film on a respectable budget."




How Computer-Generated Images Are Ending Art

(uiargonaut.com)                  Summer was a bad time for movies this year. Between “Iron Man 2,” “Robin Hood” and, God help me, the latest installation in the “Twilight” saga, it’s not hard to see why many shunned theaters like they were the plague.

To get my movie fix, I turned to Netflix and TV, catching up on “popular” movie offerings I had missed out on. I was not impressed.

Somewhere between the flashy-but-hollow “Avatar,” the braindead-made-for-12-year-olds “Transformers 2,” and the trying-too-hard “Star Trek,” a realization hit me — I hadn’t seen a good movie in ages.

What happened to the days of real-life action, of true comedy via social commentary, to the intelligent scrip-writing and the raw, masterful directing?

Three letters: CGI.

That’s computer generated imagery for those not in tune with the lingo, and it’s the reason why cinema today will never be as great as it was.

CGI in relation to cinema got its start in the late ‘70s, when a little-known movie called “Westworld” used basic raster graphics to simulate a two-dimensional view of the protagonist robot of the movie.

Science fiction was quick in picking up the CGI torch, and by the end of the ‘80s, movies from “Star Wars” to “The Abyss” used CGI in varying forms

The ‘90s continued the trend, with James Cameron’s “Terminator 2” leading the way. By the turn of the century, CGI was considered an integral part of movie making, every bit as important as shot composition, script and acting.

Then, in 1999, a travesty happened which signaled the direction Hollywood was taking. “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace,” which sacrificed story, characters, plot and actor in favor of flashy CGI, was unleashed on the public and went on to gross nearly $1 billion, becoming the twelfth highest-grossing film of all time.

The message was sent — put in flashy CGI and the money will flow in like Niagara Falls — and everyone in Hollywood took notice.
In the decade since that abomination, Hollywood movie budgets — not to mention ticket prices — have ballooned in size to accompany the plethora of CGI shot, while principal actors and intellectual scripture became second-class, overtaken by flashy light saber battles, vibrantly-colorful animated backgrounds, and the ever-nauseating camera spirals and rapid moves.

CGI is a wonderful tool that, when used properly, allows us to visualize a world that otherwise could not exist. However, the basis of any good movie is still grounded in the realities of relatable, intellectual scripts and heartfelt, dramatic actors.

Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy is perhaps the best use of modern CGI in support of principal actors and scripture to help tell the story and all of its subtleties. Unfortunately, such films are the exception rather than the rule.

“Lord of the Rings” proved such use of CGI is viable. It became the fourth-highest grossing series, trailing only “Harry Potter,” “Star Wars,” and “James Bond,” all of which had more than three films, in addition to earning critical acclaim.

Why didn’t Hollywood take notice?

Because, as it turns out, it’s easier to throw around $100 million to create flashy CGI explosions and robots than to spend eight years developing a script, choosing the perfect shooting locations and hiring talented actors.
It is because Hollywood producers, with a few notable exceptions, will always take the easy way out. CGI has given that option, and it is killing modern American cinema.




Warner Plans to Adapt David Goyer's Sci-Fi Trilogy

(Deadline)              David Goyer's upcoming science fiction novel Heaven's Shadow has already been marked for film adaptation, according to a report at Deadline.

Goyer, best known for screenplays like Batman Begins and Blade as well as directorial efforts that include Blade: Trinity and The Unborn, plans to release his book in July of 2011 with two planned sequels, "Heaven's War" and "Heaven's Fall" to be released in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Warner Bros. has preemptively purchased the film rights and is eyeing the property as a potential franchise.

The series deals with an extraterrestrial object en route to Earth and the ensuing reaction on the part of mankind.

Goyer is next expected to complete Warner's Superman reboot.





Academy Announces Scientific & Technical Achievement Longlist

(screendaily.com)                The scientific and technical awards committee of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences has selected 15 scientific and technical achievements for further awards consideration.

The list is made public to allow individuals and companies with similar devices or claims of prior art the opportunity to submit their achievements for review. The deadline to submit additional entries is August 31.

The committee has selected the following methods or devices for further consideration:

OBQ/DOALL (Industrial Light & Magic);

Queue (Rhythm & Hues);

Race Render Queue System (DreamWorks Animation);

Qube (PipelineFX);

Misterd (Pixar Animation Studios);

RQS/Depgraph Render Management System (DreamWorks Animation);

Cue3 (Sony Pictures Imageworks);

Alfred – Job Queuing and Distributing Rendering System (Pixar Animation Studios);

XGen – Arbitrary Primitive Generator (Walt Disney Animation Studios);

Expression Analysis for Facial Motion Capture (Weta Digital);

Efficient Global Illumination System for Computer Graphic Films (PDI/DreamWorks Animation);

CineSync (Rising Sun Research Pty Ltd);

Timecode Slate (Entertainment Technology);

NAC Servo Winches (NAC Company); and

Cannon-Less Turnover System (Performance Picture Vehicles).

After thorough investigations are conducted on each of the entries, the committee will meet in early December to vote on recommendations to the Academy’s board of governors, which will make the final awards decisions.

The 2010 Scientific and Technical Awards will be presented at the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills on February 12, 2011.




Piranha 3D Gets A Sequel

(comingsoon.net)             Dimension Films today announced that the studio will make a sequel to Piranha 3D. Here are excerpts from the press release:

After earning rave reviews from top critics, wild cheers from audiences around the country, and $10 million in its opening weekend boxoffice, Dimension Films is pleased to announce that PIRANHA 3D – THE SEQUEL is in the works.

PIRANHA 3D producer Mark Canton stated, "We are thrilled that audiences are not just loving PIRANHA 3D, but cheering for it. And it's fantastic that so many critics are really getting the movie and recommending it. We can't wait to get to work on the sequel."

 

Shia LaBeouf on Indiana Jones 5

from Movies - Den of Geek

It’s not a big update, but it’s still a little bit of info on the next Indiana Jones film…
It's probably best that we skip the part of this story that would inevitably look back on Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, and Mr Shia LaBeouf's involvement in it, because we suspect by this stage that we all know each other's position on it.
Instead, we're going to concentrate on the latest round of chatter for the planned Indiana Jones 5. This has been a movie that's been an inevitability since Crystal Skull made so much money, and since George Lucas ran out of Star Wars movies to make.
And now, it seems likely - although not surprising - that Shia LaBeouf will be returning. He's given Showbiz Spy a quick update on the planned film, when he revealed that "they're script writing right now".
He then said, "I got called into Steven's office and he pitched a little bit to me and it sounds crazy, it sounds really cool."
"Crazy" and "cool"? We'll let you digest those in the comments below.
As for a start date for Indiana Jones 5, director Steven Spielberg is attached to War Horse next, which will account for much of the next year. Thus, the earliest it could shoot, we'd imagine, would be towards the end of 2011, with an eye on a summer 2012 release. That's speculation on our part, however.

New details revealed for X-Men: First Class

from Movies - Den of Geek

Setting, story and character details have emerged for Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming movie, X-Men: First Class
Now that Matthew Vaughn seems to have finished casting for his ensemble X-Men: First Class movie (although we said that this time last week, and watched as three more names were subsequently added to the call sheet), the film can get set to go before the cameras in the coming month. And, thanks to a conversation between its producer, Bryan Singer, and AICN, we've now got much more of an idea as to what the film will be about.
Singer confirmed to the site that the movie is going to be set in the 1960s, and will adopt a feel appropriate to the decade. So, we'll see John F Kennedy as president of the US and, basically, be seeing a First Class story that's set before the one that we've seen in the comic books.
As for what we can expect to see in the film, AICN reports that "We will see how Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr met - and how they dreamt of a future with Mutant and Human kind. They're going to be in their late twenties. Xavier - as played by James McAvoy will not be in his wheelchair to begin the film - but we will see how he wound up in a wheelchair.".
Also, "We'll see McAvoy and Fassbender's Magneto formulate what it is they are attempting by creating the X-Men," and it's also been confirmed that Sebastian Shaw - as played by Kevin Bacon - will be the villain of the piece.
Singer also confirmed that the film has a James Bond influence to it (not least for its European feel, and adopting of the technology of the time), and that we'll be seeing the Hellfire Club in the movie too.
X-Men: First Class is set for release on June 3rd 2011. And you can read the AICN piece right here.

"Piranha" Director Takes On Space Pirates

(darkhorizons.com)                       Director Alexander Aja ("Piranha 3D," "The Hills Have Eyes") has selected his next project, a film adaptation of Buichi Terasawa's manga and animated series franchise "Cobra: The Space Pirate" reports Deadline.
Described as a tent pole-sized live action sci-fi franchise, the story is set in a future where merchant spaceships and ruthless brigands sail across space. Cobra is a notorious rogue pirate with a large bounty on his head who teams up with a hunter and seeks a lost treasure hidden on Mars.
The animated series was hugely popular across Europe which is how Aja knows the property. Aja and Gregory Levasseur will pen the script and both will produce alongside Marc Sessego and Alexandra Milchan.
 







Transformers 3 Wraps Up Chicago Shoot This Weekend, Moving To Detroit
(tformers.com)             Transformers 3 filming will continue in Chicago this weekend before wrapping up and heading to Detroit.
According to On Location Vacations, shooting will take place on Friday August 20th and Saturday August 21st, several downtown locations, including 433 W Van Buren.
Helicopters will be used for aerial photography.
Filming in Detroit is reportedly going to take place Packard Plant on East Grand Boulevard, an abandoned car manufacturing plant for the Packard vehicle company.

Dracula: Year One Gets Pandora Resident
(cinemablend.com)          

   Encore says Sam Worthington is set to star in Alex Proyas’s long talked about Dracula: Year One. Whether that means he’ll be a vampire or the movie’s human protagonist is unclear. He’s merely pegged as having the “lead role”. Since it’s Sam Worthington, that probably means human vampire battler.

Fighting monsters seems to be Worthington’s stock and trade, though I find his continued casting in big-budget effects movies somewhat inexplicable. On the whole he’s proven himself to be terrible. His best performance to date happened in Avatar, a movie where he’s rarely ever actually on screen. That says something about his ability as an actor. I expect this sort of casting from McG, Alex Proyas should know better.


Sony Sends Cease and Desist Letter to Skyline Producers

(reelmovienews.com)                 Ah, here we go, David vs. Goliath all over again. Recently, we posted the teaser trailer for a film called Skyline, which, in a nutshell is a new alien invasion movie. Well, Sony has an alien invasion movie of their own in the works called Battle: Los Angeles, and they've sent a cease and desist letter to the producers of Skyline.

So what's the beef? Well, hilariously enough the producers of Skyline, Colin and Greg Strause, own and run the visual effects company Hydraulx, which is also handling the effects work on Battle: Los Angeles. According to The Wrap, Sony is accusing the Strause Bros. of "ripping off equipment and ideas for their lower budget production."

"We utterly deny" using' Battle LA' equipment on Skyline," said Greg Strause. "That’s highly offensive. It’s completely untrue. We’ve been in the alien invasion business for many years before Battle LA. The first movie I directed was an alien invasion, called 'Alien Vs Predator: Requiem.' That’s one of the reasons they came to us, we do computer generated aliens well."

While I doubt mentioning AVPR is going to win them any fans, speculation is that Sony is merely trying to delay the release of Skyline, which bears a striking similarity to Battle: Los Angeles, but for less than a quarter of the price tag. Sony's epic reportedly cost $100 million while the Strause Bros. turned theirs in for only $20 million. It's amazing what you can do when you own your own VFX company. Battle is set to hit in March 2011, whereas Skyline will get a head start in November of this year.

The Strause Bros. claim that Battle producer Neal Moritz was told about their movie last fall, a claim Moritz rejects. What's more, Sony was apparently shown footage from Skyline and offered the opportunity to distribute it earlier this year. The studio turned the film down, only to pay closer attention after the film's trailer was a huge hit at this year's Comic-Con, which caused them to worry that Skyline is an imitation of their product.

We think Sony's just pissed that it got beaten to the punch by a lower-budget production, and one that looks like it will be profitable. Sure, Skyline doesn't have Aaron Eckhart, Bridget Moynahan or Michelle Rodriguez, but it's got some good buzz. Depending on how it performs at the box office, it could spell success or trouble for Sony's film.


DreamWorks Animation Starts Seeing Imaginary Enemies

(comingsoon.net)                Married screenwriters Joe Syracuse and Lisa Addario are penning Imaginary Enemies for DreamWorks Animation. Mike Mitchell (Shrek Forever After) is developing the project with the writers, but he is not on board to direct at the moment.

Risky Business explains that the project "will be told from the point of view of the imaginary friends who had long been used as scapegoats by unscrupulous children looking for someone else to blame for their misdeeds. Eventually fed up, those imaginary people come looking for some payback when the kids are grown up."

According to the trade, discussions are taking place about a possible live-action/animation hybrid that would represent the split worlds of the imaginary and the real.


Stop-Motion Animated Addams Family Feature Moves Forward

(dreadcentral.com)             It looks like things are progressing pretty nicely for the latest adaptation of the brilliant work of Mr. Charles Addams. In addition to being in old school stop-motion animation and directed by Tim Burton, the Illumination Films and Universal Pictures project has signed on Ed Wood screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski for the project.

Per Deadline New York Alexander and Karaszewski board an Addams Family project that [was] first revealed in March, when [producer Chris] Meledandri bought the rights to the ghoulish, darkly humorous drawings that Charles Addams created for The New Yorker.

"[The] project [is] based on artwork that Tim absolutely loves," Karasewski said. "The retrospective in New York of Tim's own artwork showed how much of an influence Charles Addams was to him. We want the tone to be as darkly funny and subversive as the Addams drawings, and we've come up with an approach that nobody has ever done before."


James Cameron Hasn't Forgotten About Battle Angel

(screenrant.com)                   Before Avatar was even released, the word “trilogy” was getting tossed around and many were clamoring for details about sequels to a film they hadn’t even seen yet. Director James Cameron wasn’t just finishing up a fifteen-year-old labor of love, he was committing to a franchise and a brand that – at this point – has taken on a life of its own.

Further Avatar films were inevitable, but the prospect of two sequels potentially shooting back-to-back calls into question the future of other films Cameron’s had on the back-burner – specifically, Battle Angel.

Coming Soon recently sat down with Cameron to talk about Avatar’s upcoming theatrical re-release and he spoke briefly about Battle Angel and his desire to see it happen:

    “It’s still on my radar. It’s a story I love. We wrote the script back before we started Avatar and again, we gotta figure out where it lies. I don’t have infinite time.”

For those unfamiliar with Battle Angel, it’s based on the manga-turned-anime series Battle Angel Alita, which tells the story of an amnesic female cyborg who becomes a bounty hunter. The film would utilize the same 3D motion-capture technology as Avatar and Cameron has stated it would encompass the first three volumes of the manga.

Like Avatar, Battle Angel would mark the first chapter in a trilogy – so you can see why many Battle Angel fans aren’t holding their breath just yet. With Avatar at the apex of its popularity, launching another ambitious franchise simultaneously may seem daunting even for a filmmaker as fearless as Cameron. However, don’t count out the possibility just yet.

While Cameron remains understandably excited about further explorations of Pandora, he hasn’t definitively decided that Avatar 2 will be his next film:

    “I’m perfectly comfortable going back to that world. The question I haven’t answered for myself yet is am I comfortable going back to that world right now or do I do another movie in between?”


J.J. Abrams' Super 8 to Film in Weirton, West Virginia

(Production Weekly, The Associated Press)                  Production Weekly has learned that J.J. Abrams will start shooting Super 8 in late September on location in Weirton, West Virginia. Produced by Steven Spielberg, the Paramount Pictures film is targeting a summer 2011 release.

Meanwhile, reports by The Associated Press have turned up the news that Weirton residents have received letters on the filming. The shoot, scheduled to last two to three months, is said to take place primarily on the town's Main Street. The plot, "revolves around a 14-year-old boy and is set in a steel town in 1979."


"Wolverine 2" On The Fast Track

(Darkhorizons.com)               With the "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" sequel lining up to be shot early next year, Hugh Jackman has dropped out of the comedy "Avon Man" which was scheduled to start shooting this October reports Deadline.

No director is currently attached to the sequel which Christopher McQuarrie ("The Usual Suspects," "Valkyrie") penned. The storyline adapts one of the most acclaimed "X-Men" comic storylines which revolved around Logan visiting Japan where he falls in love and takes on some ninjas.


Sony Imageworks Director of Technical Training Passes

(animationmagazine.net)                 Sande Scoredos, who had an impact on thousands of animators and visual effects artists as the longtime director of technical training and artist development for Sony Pictures Imageworks, died Aug. 14. She was 63.

Scoredos came to Sony in 1996 to set up its training department, having previously held a similar job at visual effects house Rhythm and Hues.

At Imageworks, she lead the founding of the IPAX academic outreach program in 2004. Under her leadership, Imageworks’ training program offered more than 50 courses, from life drawing, sculpting and acting to specialized classes in animation, effects, compositing and production management.

She also worked as manager of training for Wavefront Technologies, she designed the worldwide training program and curriculum, instructing professionals in the use of 3D computer graphics and animation.

Scoredos also taught computer graphics for production at the studio and university level and as a UCLA graduate, she works with local educational programs program and also teaches a yearly production course at MIT. She served on various industry and academic advisory boards and was an active ACM SIGGRAPH committee member and chaired the SIGGRAPH 2001 Computer Animation Festival and is the Curator Chairwoman for the SIGGRAPH 2008 Computer Animation Festival.

Born in Colorado Springs, Colo., she is survived by her husband, John, and her sister Perri MacHugh Silver, who lives in Secretary, Md.

A memorial service is planned for Aug. 21 at 4 p.m. at the Conejo Mountain Memorial Park, 2052 Howard Road, Camarillo, CA 93012. The family requests donations in lieu of flowers be made to The Angeles Clinic Foundation, 2001 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 560W, Santa Monica, CA 90404.

A tribute to Scoredos at Sony Pictures Imageworks will be announced.


'Avatar' Sequel Process: Creatures and Environments Before Script

(mtv.com)              Eight months after the record-breaking release of James Cameron's "Avatar," and with an expanded re-release just weeks away, the writer/director already has a massive trove of notes for a sequel. Eventually, he'll weave together plot strands from that hodgepodge of Pandora-based brainstorming.

When that process might begin — from notes to script — is anybody's guess, but as Cameron's longtime producing partners, Jon Landau, told MTV News, the filmmakers aren't going to wait for a draft before they begin to re-create the world of "Avatar."

The creative team will begin work on creature and environment development "as soon as Jim locks in on some of those notes," Landau explained. "We don't have to wait for a script for that. And there are also certain things we designed from the last movie that didn't make it in that I'm sure will make it in on the next movie."

For now, Landau described his producer role as a two-fold job. "I'm a sounding board for those ideas [in Cameron's notes]," he said. "And I'm looking to see how we can do what we do better — researching technologies and talking to people and pressing all those frontiers."

Filming on the first "Avatar" began in 2007, and whenever the sequel goes into production, Landau anticipates significant technological innovations when it comes to cameras and the capabilities of Weta Digital, which created the visual effects for the first flick.

"It's not like I'm thinking, 'OK, let's do it again and we'll do it exactly the same way,' " Landau said. "Let's do it better. Let's do it more cost-effectively. Let's be training our people now and getting them involved. If you look at 'Titanic' to 'Avatar,' what happened in the visual-effects world is that everything became more cost-effective, more time-efficient and at a higher visual quality. It doesn't mean when you look at 'Titanic' now, you go, 'Oh that's a bad movie.' It's the same thing now."

Just don't prod Landau to explain what he means by "now." Asked what his ideal start date for a second "Avatar" would be, he said simply, "Most definitely this century."


Sylvester Stallone Forced To Use CGI - "Looked OK, Though"

(monstersandcritics.com)                   Sylvester Stallone has joked that he had to use computer-generated images (CGI) in new movie The Expendables – because he couldn’t find any volunteers to get their heads blown off.

Stallone said on Australia’s Sunrise breakfast show that he “hates” special effects.

He told presenter Fifi Box: “I hate CGI, but when we were making the movie, I had to blow some guy’s head off.

“There was a lack of volunteers for that, strangely enough, so we had to use CGI.”

He added: “In the end it looked OK, though.”

VFX Artist Pay Fail, VES Meets NASA, & Imagineers Event...

Montreal's Fake Studio Fails to Pay VFX Aritsts

(variety.com)              

  Not long ago I got a call from a Time magazine reporter working on a story on the visual effects business. As we discussed the dire financial straits of many vfx companies despite their growing importance to studio movies, she asked, "Don't these people have business plans?"

I told her she was proceeding from the false premise that people start vfx companies to be business owners. Most people who go into vfx do it for the same reason people become actors: They love the work. But when they fail as businessmen, the result is too often misery.

The latest bad news from the vfx biz comes from Montreal's Fake Studio, part of the Camera e-Motion Group. A handful of artists who worked for Fake on the 3D vfx for Dimension's "Piranha 3D" have yet to receive payments due in April. Their plight has inspired a great deal of anger in vfx circles, where hearing "unpaid artists" and "Montreal" opens the old wound of Meteor Studios and the problems artists had getting paid for New Line's "Journey to the Center of the Earth."

One of the unpaid artists, Manny Wong, told Variety that with the Meteor incident in mind, he negotiated a payment-in-advance deal, but upon arrival in Montreal, he liked the atmosphere at Fake enough to forego advance payment. He says the producer was "very upfront" with him about the pic's financial difficulties through two crises that threatened to shut down the picture. Then Fake management said it hadn't been paid by the client and couldn't pay the 3D team anymore from its own pockets. Months later, payment is still due.

Last week Dave Rand, a veteran of Meteor who has become something of a watchdog for abuse of vfx artists, posted about the Fake and its unpaid artists on his Facebook page. Marc Cote, an owner of Fake, responded with a note admitting the company is in arrears and saying it is "making arrangements with all of the creditors … to reimburse them as quickly as operations permit." He continued: "Short of shutting down the company we cannot reimburse everybody's debt in one shot. … We are 100% committed to reimbursing this debt."

It's been common for vfx shops to get behind on debts and wind up paying past debts out of current receipts; that's why one analyst calls the entire vfx business "a Ponzi scheme." Fake's problems seem to fit that pattern. Earlier this week a Dimension spokesman said Fake has been paid. Cote was in production and did not respond directly to Variety's inquiries, but we did hear from Louis Turp, a consultant working with Cote on "options and strategies for the future of the company." Turp quoted Cote saying, "It won't happen again" and added. "Cote always fulfills his obligations."

It's easy to paint Cote and Fake as villains, but these problems are endemic in the vfx business, and the response has been mostly finger-pointing. Studio execs blame unprofessional management of vfx companies. California artists call for an end to runaway production. Some artists call for a union, others despise the idea, and no existing guilds are rushing to organize vfx artists.

"The show must go on" has been the showbiz mantra, and the movie biz has counted on artists taking that to heart. But the patience and goodwill of vfx artists aren't infinite. Whether the solution is market-based (i.e., artists negotiating ruthlessly and walking off immediately if a payment is missed) or a union, it's becoming clear that the status quo will not hold. Something has to give.




Visual Effects Society Meets NASA 

(cgw.com)                  The Visual Effects Society has announced that NASA astronomer Dr. Rich Terrile will be the featured speaker at the VES Production Summit on Oct. 23 at the Ritz Carlton in Marina Del Rey. He will speak on how the future of evolutionary computation and artificial intelligence will impact the entertainment industry and its business models ... Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood will present a panel of artists from Look FX on the making of "Lost," on Aug. 26. The Gnomon series is sponsored by the VES ...




DreamWorks Animation's Casts for "Boo U"

(Heat Vision)                Seth Rogen has signed on for Boo U, according to Heat Vision.

The animated film (from Igor director Tony Leondis) is being developed by DreamWorks animation for release in 3D. Rogen will play a ghost who is forced to return to ghost school and improve his haunting skills.

The studio is eyeing a 2012 release for the film.



James Caan Hates Computer Tricks

(bloomberg.com)                    James Caan at the HollyShorts Film Festival in Los Angeles. Caan, 70, recently announced finalists in a short-film competition offered by his Openfilm LLC. Photographer: Todd Williamson/Directors Guild Of America via Bloomberg
David Arquette

David Arquette at the HollyShorts Film Festival in Los Angeles. Arquette made a 3-D movie "The Butler's in Love." Photographer: Todd Williamson/HollyShorts Film Festival via Bloomberg

Tough-guy actor James Caan is disturbed by Hollywood’s obsession with computerized special effects.

“It’s a little depressing,” Caan said at a press conference for the HollyShorts Film Festival in Los Angeles. “Everything is CGI (computer-generated imagery) and directors who don’t want actors to distract from their prowess.”

Caan, 70, announced finalists in a short-film competition offered by his Openfilm LLC. The winner gets $50,000 in cash and $200,000 in financing to adapt the short to feature length.




'Underworld 4' Locked In For 2012
             
(latinoreview.com)                   'Underworld 4' Locked In For 2012 Screen Gems apparently doesn't think we've had enough of werewolves and vampires, because there's another "Underworld" film on the way. Don't worry folks, it's not arriving in theaters until January 20th, 2012. Len Wiseman is set to direct the 3D feature that will star none other than Kate Beckinsale.

The story is said to focus on the character Seline as she let's one of her two daughters have at it in the never-ending war between werewolves and vampires. Clearly Screen Gems is trying to work out a possible new trilogy with one of the daughters, what a surprise. Well, at least they're trying to totally capitalize on the vampire and werewolf craze which more than likely will finally slow down in 2012 along with the "Twilight" series.




'Spider-Man' Reboot Is 'Risky,' Says David Fincher

(splashpage.mtv.com)            Earlier this year, director David Fincher was reportedly on Sony's shortlist to direct the "Spider-Man" reboot, alongside fellow filmmakers Wes Anderson ("Rushmore"), and Marc Webb ("500 Days of Summer"), who eventually got the job.

Even though he won't be directing the newest cinematic adventures of Peter Parker onscreen, Fincher told MTV News that while he feels that the reboot is exciting, it also carries some drawbacks as well.

"It's risky," offered Fincher. "They're taking some risks. It's not like they're [getting] a conventional director. They're going at it in a different way... They're rolling the dice. I think that's always exciting."

Back in 2009, Fincher revealed that he had been under consideration to direct the first "Spider-Man" film, but ultimately passed because he didn't connect with the material.

"I took a meeting and I easily got myself out of that one," related Fincher. "I've never been interested in [superhero movies]. I just could not imagine someone getting bit by a radioactive spider."

Despite Fincher's attempt to divorce himself from superhero movies, Andrew Garfield — the latest actor to portray Spider-Man — is also starring in Fincher's upcoming film "The Social Network."

"I can't imagine [Garfield] in spandex, I can't imagine him being comfortable," said Fincher. "He's a wonderful actor, he's incredibly skilled and empathic and a lovely guy. So it's nice to see that."

Fincher is also attached to produce Eric Powell's "The Goon" as an animated feature.


Marvelous Mechanized Magic: September 18th with Legendary Disney Imagineers - Host Neil Patrick Harriss

(laughingplace.com)                The 1313 Disney Club has begun to roll up their sleeves to again create an amazing evening of entertainment. The Club members are Celebrating 55 Years of Marvelous Mechanized Magic on September 18, 2010.  The event honors Walt Disney's animatronics / MAPO. Walt Disney’s imagination has developed into a world wide industry. Garner Holt will be displaying some of his own animatronic characters. Some will be “plugged in” and functioning. Some of the greatest hands that worked on these creations will be there from Rolly Crump “Berry Tales” to “Star Wars robots” and vintage Disney animatronics.

The very famous X Atencio will be gracing us with his stories involving animation and attraction design. We will be hearing from Kathryn Beaumont who portrayed Alice (“...Wonderland”) and Wendy Darling (“Peter Pan”). That should fill the evening, right? No, there is more. To round out the evening there is the fantastic artist Floyd Norman. Alice Davis, the original “designing woman” will be wowing us with her stories of clothing Disneyland characters from Small World to Pirates. And finally, the ever entertaining, the legendary, Bob Gurr will join us by being transported by a 5/8 scale Monorail. He will continue to illuminate the darker recesses of the transportation side of the Park.

I suggest that you get on-line at http://www.the1313club.com/Events.html and purchase your tickets




"Aliens" To Get Special Edition Cleanup 

(techland.com)                    James Cameron really is doing all he can to become the new George Lucas, isn't he? Not content with adopting the heavily greenscreened, CGI-created atmosphere of the Star Wars prequels with Avatar, now he's going back and "fixing" earlier movies even though no-one asked him to. Bleeding Cool caught Cameron's reference to a new Aliens special edition in a recent interview:

    I just did a complete remaster of Aliens personally with the same colorist I worked with on Avatar. It's spectacular. We went in and completely de-noised it, de-grained it, up-rezzed, color-corrected it, end-to-end, every frame, and it looks amazing. It looks better that it looked in the theaters originally. Because it was shot on a high-speed negative, that was a new negative that didn't pan out too well and got replaced the following year. So it's pretty grainy. We got rid of all the grain. It's sharper and clearer and more beautiful than it's ever looked.




'CGI Kills The Scare' Warns Horror Director

(rabiddoll.com)                 A mysterious hole unleashes a terrifying army of pint-sized demons in director Alex Winter's 3D remake of "The Gate," a film inspired by movies from his childhood.

As for the tiny minions of "The Gate," Winters says that they will be a combination of armature puppetry and CG scale models. A lot of physical effects are planned for the film too.

"The minions … in the original 'Gate' are largely designed in order to be made into suits that can be worn by human beings," he said. "But today I don’t need to put a guy in a suit anymore, so it doesn’t need to be so anthropomorphic. I can come at the minions in a completely different way, which is very liberating. … Nevertheless, it will all be done with very much the spirit of the original in mind."

With CG playing such a significant role in many of today's horror films, Winters is hoping to seamlessly incorporate it into "The Gate" without compromising the film's impact. He feels genre films are often seriously hurt by the technology's pitfalls.

"It’s not scary and there’s a reason for that," Winters said. "I mean, the thing is, when someone scares you, whether in a movie or in real life, your mind will subconsciously always be looking for a way out. And what happens with these CG horror movies is they give your mind a way out. You’re not scared by what’s happening on the screen cause your subconscious mind is going: it’s an animation. It’s not real, they’re not really there, that’s not really happening to them. Your brain just shots off, and you have no visceral reactions.

"You have to use CG sparingly and it has to look very photo-real, and it has to be organic. And when it isn’t, audiences don’t care."




"Power of the Dark Crystal" Storyboards Online

(powerofthedarkcrystal.blogspot.com)                Below are a few rough storyboards and sketches for Power of the Dark Crystal. Click on the images to enlarge them. Enjoy!

Take a look:    http://powerofthedarkcrystal.blogspot.com/2007/02/production-sketches.html




Demo:  PTEX, The Primary Texture Tool for Disney Animation

(forums.cgsociety.org)                There were many drawbacks to traditional texture mapping methods that led to the development of Ptex:

• UV assignment was a tedious task, and making good UVs on complex models was difficult.
• Texture seams could produce visible artifacts especially with displacement maps.
• Large numbers of texture files were required creating a significant I/O bottleneck.

Ptex addresses all these issues by eliminating UV assignment, providing seamless filtering, and allowing any number of textures to be stored in a single file.

Ptex was used on virtually every surface in the feature film Bolt, and is now the primary texture mapping method for all productions at Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Pixar did a special guest technology presentation at Siggraph showing off their PTEX technology working inside Autodesk Mudbox. Amazing technology that everyone is scrambling for.

Take a look:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNgy2CYEvfI




John Woo Eyeing Liam Neeson for Flying Tigers

(The Hollywood Reporter)                  In an article at The Hollywood Reporter talking about how director John Woo is working with the Creative Artists Agency and IMAX to super-size his $90 million, 1940s bilingual aerial battle epic movie Flying Tigers, Woo mentions who he's interested in for the lead role.

Flying Tigers is based on the volunteer fighter squadron formed to help the Chinese fight the Japanese before the U.S. entered World War II. The film will tell the story of the special team set up by Lieutenant General Claire Chennault in Yunnan Province and how it fought against the Japanese Air Force in Myanmar and South-West China.

Woo said he had a CAA client in mind when mulling who should play the lead role of U.S. Army Air Corp Lt. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault -- the contentious American officer whose volunteer Flying Tigers squadron trained the first generation of Chinese fighter pilots taking on Japan in WWII.

"It's got to be a star but it's hard to find the right one, because at that time Chennault was almost 50 years old. Ideally, I've been thinking of Liam Neeson as the title actor," Woo said. CAA confirmed it represents Neeson but declined comment on "Flying Tigers."

The trade adds that playing opposite to Chennault will be a young Chinese actor in the role of a pilot in training. For that role, Woo mentioned someone like Liu Ye (City of Life and Death).

Woo is co-writing the Flying Tigers script with Chris Chow. Shooting is scheduled to start in the spring for a planned late 2011 release.




Stan Lee Develops 'Battle of Tao’, A Las Vegas- Style Show

“Spider-Man” creator Stan Lee is developing a Las Vegas- style show, “The Yin and Yang Battle of Tao,” that will include audience participation.

Lee said the show will be performed at a casino owned by a major hotel company, though he declined to identify the venue.

“It has audience involvement, something that I believe has never been done before,” Lee, 87, said.

The story revolves around the eternal struggle between good and evil and will feature newly created characters, Lee said.

The project is among several that Lee is developing through his Los Angeles-based POW! Entertainment Inc. He’s also talking to TV networks about airing his “Heroman” anime series in the U.S. The 26-episode cartoon, which features a boy who uses a giant robot to battle bad guys, is shown in Japan by TV Tokyo Corp.

Life of a VFX Intern, Avatar 2 Cuts CGI Violence, & Piranha 3D For Best Anim Feature...

• 5 days ago

‘Iron Man 2′ Helps Disney Beat Estimates

(blogs.wsj.com)            
  After the bell Tuesday, Disney reported fiscal third quarter earnings of $1.3 billion as revenue climbed to $10 billion. The company saw a 43% improvement to earnings from its television units as ad sales and distribution fees increased.

Disney also recognized a 30% increase in its movie studio revenue as films such as Toy Story 3, Iron Man 2 and Alice in Wonderland were released in the fiscal third quarter. Overall, the company topped both top and bottom line estimates set by Wall Street and looks to trade modestly higher Wednesday morning.

Spooky new poster surfaces for Skyline

from Movies - Den of Geek

After the intriguing trailer for Greg and Colin Strause’s Skyline, comes an equally arresting first poster…
Colin and Greg Strause may be the directors of the Aliens Vs Predator - Requiem, but we're hoping that their forthcoming Skyline will cleanse our minds of that earlier, woeful movie.
The trailer, which we saw last week, hints at an alien invasion movie of the Independence Day variety, and while it doesn't have the soaring budget of that movie, there are some neatly imaginative visual effects, including the glimpse of a moment where thousands of humans are sucked up by a vast extraterrestrial vacuum cleaner.
The new poster depicts a similar scene, with thousands of people swept into the sky like so much confetti, and it's an eye-catching, arresting design.
The brothers Strause have reportedly financed the film entirely out of their own pockets, with much of the movie shot in and around Greg Strause's California apartment over the space of about a month.
At the very least, Skyline should look good, since the pair have an impressive history as visual effects designers, with their CVs filled with big names such as The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and Avatar. They were also at least partially responsible for the numbing CG car chases in 2009's Fast & Furious, but we'll quietly gloss over that.
It's been years since we saw a really good new alien invasion movie, so we're hoping that Skyline can plug the gap when it appears on 12 November.

New poster and trailers hit for sci-fi indie movie Monsters

from Movies - Den of Geek

Northern Mexico is overrun by giant aliens in the new poster and trailers for the forthcoming independent sci-fi movie, Monsters…
In it, a North Mexican city is overrun by a murderous breed of alien creatures that have hatched from a crashed NASA probe, and Whitney Able and Scoot McNairy (both veterans from US television shows such as CSI and My Name Is Earl) play a pair of ill-starred lovers fighting for survival.
Derivative though Monsters' storyline is, the trailer is encouragingly atmospheric, and its effects are remarkable considering British director Gareth Edwards' miniscule budget, which reportedly amounted to around $15,000. The monsters themselves are barely glimpsed, but evidence of their destructive presence is everywhere, with the South American location providing a memorable post-apocalyptic backdrop.
Monsters will be screened as part of Film4's FrightFest on 28 August, and will go on general cinema release from 12 November. Until then, feast your eyes on the new poster, as well as the film's trailers. The official UK promo and its international variant can be viewed below.
While both look great, we're most intrigued by the moment in the international trailer where an unseen creature pulls a fighter jet into the depths of a swamp...

UK trailer

Click on the poster thumbnail for a full view...

 

Sylvester Stallone on The Expendables 2

from Movies - Den of Geek

So, Mr Stallone: given that The Expendables has made lots of money, how far have you got with writing the sequel?
It's never been much of a secret that Sylvester Stallone was planning for The Expendables to be his new franchise, especially now that he's decided to retire Rambo once and for all. And inevitably, in the build-up to the release of the film in the US last weekend (with preview screenings all weekend in the UK), a lot of chatter was concerned with fresh talk of an Expendables 2.
The chat over the past seven days had been that any potential sequel would be dependent on the film's box office performance, and that, in theory, the wheels could start moving this week if the film made enough money.
Well, given that the movie took over $35m at the box office in the US in its opening weekend, the biggest in Stallone's career (although inevitably factors such as inflation do come into play, if you want to be picky), it's fair to say that The Expendables 2 is very, very likely.
The Hollywood Reporter took no time in chatting to Stallone once the projected weekend numbers were in. And when it asked whether he'd penned the script already for the next adventure, he told the site that, "It's plotted out in my mind's eye. I believe this group has to continue to evolve. It just can't become the same people. So, how do you get new people introduced into the group, and how do you have some of the other people leaving? Those are the challenges."
Sly, might we suggest: the challenge is first and foremost to get Arnie and Bruce to spend a bit longer in the film (Stallone has already stated that he's keen to get The Governator back). And then also to check out the ten people we recommend for the sequel. If you're reading Mr Stallone, you can find that here.
The Expendables is released on Wednesday in the UK, incidentally, even if we suspect many of our fellow Brits took advantage of those preview screenings we talked about earlier. Good on ‘em too, we say...

Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator: 25 years on

from Movies - Den of Geek

Stuart Gordon’s enduringly messy 1985 horror Re-Animator reaches its quarter-century this year. And it’s as campily thrilling as it ever was, says Ryan…
1985. The year Michael J Fox drove into the 50s in Back To The Future, Sylvester Stallone took on the might of communist Russia and won in a single boxing match, and a group of working class kids found pirate treasure in The Goonies.
But there's one, far more antisocial film that leaves its bloody footprint on that year and stands as arguably one of the greatest horror pictures of the decade: Stuart Gordon's gloriously, unapologetically bloody Re-Animator.
Where else can you see a cat with a broken spine return from the dead, or a man choked to death with a corpse's sentient intestines? What other movie of the era had the audacity to splatter the screen with so much gore, nudity and dismemberment, while at the same time providing audiences with moments of laughter as well as gross-out horror?

With the help of writer William Norris, first-time director Stuart Gordon took one of cult writer H.P. Lovecraft's lesser short stories (even the author himself regarded it as little more than a piece of work-for-hire hackwork) and brought it to the screen in spectacular fashion.
Jeffery Combs stars as the young scientist Doctor Herbert West, a pompous, hubristic genius whose self-concocted serum has the power to re-animate the dead, but with one distinct drawback: when awakened from their terminal slumber, the recipients of West's potion are violently, mindlessly deranged.

Heading to the quiet halls of Miskatonic University after an unfortunate incident in Switzerland (his prototype serum caused his last professor's head to explode), West encounters Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), an idealistic undergraduate who enjoys a blissful relationship with the Dean's radiant daughter, Megan Halsey (Barbara Crampton).
Installing himself in Cain's basement and resuming his crackpot experiments, West's haughty air and outlandish theories soon make him the target of faculty member Dr Hill (David Gale, brilliant beneath an unfortunate, hat-like wig), and as West and his newfound friend Cain begin testing their experimental potion on first a cat, then a corpse in the university's morgue, matters soon get completely out of control.

Ostensibly Re-Animator's leads and moral centre, screen couple Abbot and Crampton are completely upstaged by Jeffery Combs' extraordinarily camp turn as West. His portrayal of a smug young genius, apparently oblivious to the death and chaos he's creating, is one of the funniest in horror cinema and recalls Vincent Price's hammy turns in Roger Corman's classic run of Edgar Allan Poe movies. David Gale is almost as good, and his bickering scenes with Combs fizz with energy and charisma.
Check out the scene where, after Combs' West petulantly snaps pencils during a lecture, Gale delivers the killer line, "Mr West, I suggest you get yourself a pen!" It's hissed with such biblical vehemence that what would otherwise be a mildly amusing moment becomes unforgettably hilarious.

Finding an actor game enough to not only spend most of a film playing the part of a severed head, but also "trysting with a co-ed" in one of the most graphically amusing visual puns in cinema history, couldn't have been easy, but Gale takes on these duties with lip-smacking relish. According to the excellent feature-length documentary on Anchor Bay's special edition re-release, Gale's wife uttered a horrified, "How could you?" when she first saw Re-Animator in the mid-80s.
Then again, Re-Animator arguably pushed the boundaries of taste and decency further than any other horror of its time. So filled with gore, sex and nudity that its makers didn't even bother submitting it to the MPAA for a rating, effects man John Naulin once said that he used 24 gallons of blood on the film where most horror movies only called for two.

Naulin deserves a special mention, in fact, for the staggering range of practical effects he managed to create on a shoestring budget. Rubbery head decapitations aside, the scale of his achievement, considering his lack of time and funds, shouldn't be overlooked. A moment when a revenant corpse is despatched with a bone saw through its chest cavity is ickily convincing.
From description alone, Re-Animator probably sounds like any other sensationalist gore flick made in the last 30 years. But while its premise is messy, the film itself isn't, and its writing, acting and direction display, not only an encyclopaedic knowledge of horror cinema, but also a genuine affection for its source material, even if Lovecraft himself would perhaps have disapproved of its anarchic treatment.

That Re-Animator was well received by mainstream critics, who normally treated the horror genre with contempt, is further proof of the quality of its production. And where other genre movies released the same year, including Tobe Hooper's weird misfire Lifeforce and turgid, derivative monster flick, Creature have been justifiably forgotten, Re-Animator retains its bloody, irreverent allure.
Like one of West's revived corpses, Re-Animator is as biting and antisocial now as it was 25 years ago, and refuses to slumber quietly in its grave.

Pirates of the Caribbean 4 Wraps Hawaii Shoot

(hawaiimagazine.com)  

     It's time to bid "Aloha!" to Capt. Jack Sparrow and his crew.

Hawaii location shooting ends today on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth installment in Walt Disney Pictures mega-blockbuster action-comedy series.

“Mahalo to everyone in Hawaii who made our PIRATES 4 shoot such a great one,” executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer wrote on his Twitter account this morning. “You taught us “aloha” isn’t just a word.”

Right back 'atcha, Mr. Bruckheimer!

The Pirates 4 production celebrated the end of Hawaii filming last night with a hush-hush wrap party … location still unknown to this uninvited writer. The Pirates 4 crew and cast—which includes Johnny Depp reprising his role as Capt. Jack Sparrow, Geoffrey Rush as Capt. Hector Barbossa and Penelope Cruz as new Capt. Jack love interest/foe Angelica—now moves on to California and London for more filming.

Hawaii location filming of Pirates 4 began June 14 on Kauai’s Napali Coast, continuing at multiple sites on the island through late July. The production then moved to Oahu, with the bulk of filming taking place at Kaneohe's Heeia Pier aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge (upon its Hawaii arrival, mistakenly believed to be the previous films' Black Pearl). Other Oahu production locations included Halona Beach Cove—aka From Here to Eternity Beach, where Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster famously rolled in the surf in the 1953 movie.


VFX Helps U.K. Post-production Stay Afloat

(Variety.com)                  London-- While most entertainment business sectors in the U.K.are undergoing tumultuous budget cuts or worrying about downsizing, thefolks running post-production houses are relatively sanguine. Sure,even the post biz stumbled a bit during the economic downturn, but thefuture now holds plenty of promise, particularly for those who createvisual effects.

In fact, thanks to a concentration of talent and taxincentives, Blighty's share of the film visual effects market hasnearly doubled from 2005 to some 20% of the worldwide biz.

AnshulDoshi, global chief operating officer and group managing director U.K.of post conglom Prime Focus, allows that the economic crisis of 2008was "devastating."

"Several films that had gotten funded were puton hold, and that meant there were big gaps, and we had to work on alow-margin basis to keep going ahead," Doshi says. "But as the industryhas recovered, a lot of visual effects have come into the U.K."

GaynorDavenport, chief exec of trade body U.K. Screen Assn., says,"Post-production facilities have, of course, felt pain like everyoneelse as a result of delays in productions being greenlit; however,overall, the post-production sector held steady last year, withactivity building over 2010 and good visibility into 2011."

London-basedhouses have certainly kept busy. Double Negative created vfx forChristopher Nolan's "Inception," Paramount's "Iron Man 2" and "ScottPilgrim vs. the World." Cinesite did work on Disney's "Prince ofPersia: The Sands of Time." Framestore took on Angelina Jolie starrer"Salt" and "Avatar."

Framestore chief exec William Sargent notesthat many post houses -- along with the U.K. studios -- are operatingat full capacity, and downplays the effect that the recent abolition ofthe U.K. Film Council will have on business.

"We operate (apart)from government," he says. "We have relationships with studiosthemselves. It's simply business as usual for us."

Sargent addsthat many in the post industry work on projects that aren't U.K.-basedor funded, and that any whispers of business being turned away can onlybe the result of there being too much work.

Doshi says that whilethere had been an overall softening in post-production prices, thespike in vfx work is ending the slowdown.

"Vfx is coming back in a big way," Doshi says.

The3D business has created opportunities for vfx houses. In April, PrimeFocus introduced View-D, its proprietary process for the conversion of2D to 3D stereoscopic images, in Blighty, following its internationallaunch in October. One of the first projects the group completed wasthe conversion of Warner Bros.' "Clash of the Titans" to 3D, done ineight weeks.

While critics slammed the pic's 3D look -- a verdictother 2D to 3D conversions have suffered -- auds flocked to the pic,and Doshi predicts more post houses will tap into the 2D-to-3Dconversion market. Prime has already spent $10 million on the sector."London is the only other hub that has large visual effects that candeliver a whole big show," he says.

Dennis Weinreich, managingdirector of film and TV post-production at Pinewood Studios, says anytalk of doom and gloom in the U.K. post biz is isolated. "We have neverknown a busier time than the one we're currently in," he says.

Pinewood,which is housing "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," workson some 30 pics a year, including sound and excluding internationalwork.

But Weinreich says he does see a softening ofpost-production in some areas, with fewer medium- and low-budgetpictures being made.

A big part of Pinewood's post business comes from outside the U.K. -- and not just work from U.S. majors.

"Rightnow we're enjoying a fabulous relationship with producers in Spain(Pinewood worked on Alejandro Amenabar's 'Agora')," Weinreich notes."We also do a lot of work on films coming from Russia."

Weinreich adds that business is supported by "good working relationships with many of the big houses in town as well."

KeithWilliams, CEO of Goldcrest Post, which focuses on sound (it has housedprojects including "Brighton Rock" and "The Imaginarium of DoctorParnassus") says that inward investment has been a key driver of bizthe past few years.

"Hollywood is going to make more films thananywhere else other than Bollywood, and while the past few months havebeen slower, business is starting to look better," he says. "The mostinteresting thing for us, like the entire U.K. film industry, is to seewhat happens in the next few months after the government announces theSpending Review in October. There was a huge fear in the election thatgovernment would change the tax credit, and thank goodness it didn't.The U.K. may not be the best in Europe in terms of tax incentives, butyou know what you're going to get year after year."


Toy Story 3 Is the Top Toon of All Time!

(Walt Disney Pictures)              It's official! Disney•Pixar's acclaimed Toy Story 3, directed by Lee Unkrich, has become the highest grossing animated film of all time with the $920 million it has grossed globally since opening in mid-June. This weekend, the computer-animated family comedy should become only the second Disney movie to cross the $400 million mark domestically, as it shoots to become the ninth highest grossing movie in North America by summer's end. It's currently Disney's fourth biggest global hit.

In a statement released earlier today, Rich Ross, Chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, said:

“In 1995, the talented team at Pixar introduced a cowboy, a space ranger and their friends who have gone on to become some of the most beloved characters in the world. The success of Toy Story is due to the tremendously creative and innovative team at Pixar, led by John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, and our incredible marketing and distribution teams around the world. In Toy Story 3, director Lee Unkrich, producer Darla Anderson and the incredible team at Pixar have given audiences a film that continued the rich storytelling and character building that have become synonymous with every Pixar release.”



Animated "Rango" Gets Some Game

(destructoid.com)                  If an animated movie is coming out you can pretty much guarantee that it's going to have a kid friendly videogame land alongside it. It appears that the Johnny Depp led Rango will be no different as employees from Canadian developer A2M, who brought us Naughty Bear, are already listing the game on their resumes.

Normally a game based on a children's movie would hardly be news as they are a dime a dozen, but Rango really looks interesting as a film and I'm hoping it tumbles over to the game.  Not only is there an odd Fear and Loathing vibe going on, but we have a plethora of classic Western themes and tropes along with a giant floating fish. Plus, with the quality of the last Toy Story game I have unreasonably high hopes for all children's movie-based videogames.

It should be noted that this game could have nothing to do with the movie. The release year is the same, and A2M has worked on plenty of licensed games in the past, but that doesn't confirm that this game and the movie are the same.


Josh Hartnett Time Travels Into "Tomorrow"

Josh Hartnett and director Paul McGuigan ("Lucky Number Slevin," "Wicker Park") are re-teaming for the time travel thriller "Tomorrow" for Worldview Entertainment reports Quiet Earth.

Michael Gould penned the story of a man who travels "back and forth through time and space, trying to prevent the murder of his family."

Shooting is scheduled to begin later this year in Louisiana.



Spyglass poised to Produce "The Hobbit"

(examiner.com)              The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times are reporting that Spyglass Entertainment is near reaching an agreement with MGM and its creditors which would have Spyglass running MGM.

The deal would reportedly make Spyglass founders Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum 4 to 5% owners of MGM, and compensate them for managing the company. MGM's creditors would become shareholders in return for forgiving the company's debt.

Barber and Birnbaum would drastically reduce MGM's overhead and produce just a few movies a year – including the James Bond series and the two planned Hobbit movies. (Spyglass would remain a separate company.)

In related news, TheOneRing.net is reporting that the excitement over a possible August 21 announcement about the Hobbit films was premature. They state that their own investigations have found  much of the report by the Noldor Blog to be "incorrect and wildly speculative, at best."

So, while there might not be an August 21 announcement coming down the pike, Hobbits fans can be encouraged by the MGM news. The movies might just get made yet. 




Prime Focus CEO On The Global Appetite for Visual Effects

(knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu)                 Mumbai-based visual entertainment services firm Prime Focus contributed a tenth of the special effects in James Cameron's blockbuster film Avatar. Riding on that success, it wants to spread its wings globally by leveraging its Indian base, says its founder and global CEO Namit Malhotra. He spoke with India Knowledge@Wharton during the 2010 Wharton India Economic Forum in Philadelphia.

An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

India Knowledge@Wharton: Could you please explain to us what Prime Focus does?

Namit Malhotra: Prime Focus is a global visual entertainment services company servicing the feature film, broadcast, television, commercials, and new media businesses. We provide technical creative solutions, which is basically technology and creative solutions for any audiovisual content that needs to be made and we provide it in an integrated fashion across each of these areas of the entertainment business.

India Knowledge@Wharton: You now have facilities in Vancouver, London, and most recently, Hollywood, which you made through some acquisitions in the U.S.

Malhotra: That's right.

India Knowledge@Wharton: It is interesting that your company has grown at a time when a lot of companies are shrinking. Could you explain that?

Malhotra: For the first 10 years since we started in 1995, we were an India-centric company. Up to 2005, we stayed in Indian territory. In 2006, we started to put together our international strategy on how we could leverage our learnings of the Indian market across the global marketplace. We started by taking up a position in the U.K. Then, in December 2007, we made our North American acquisitions. This is all part of our global plan to connect and integrate the service offerings across markets because the language of film and cinema and any audiovisual content remains the same. The technology remains the same. And in these times when economic conditions have become more difficult, we need to be able to present a global solution to these global markets where there are financial challenges. The opportunity and the interest in what we do have become only greater.

India Knowledge@Wharton: To some degree do you think the film industry has been buffered during the downturn?

Malhotra: I wouldn't agree with that although the box office tends to be its own indicator. You saw [some] interesting films. Two that I would like to name came in December last year. One was Avatar which is a game changer in the film business worldwide. And there was a film in India called Three Idiots, which again was a game changer. It changed the entire Bollywood numbers. No film had ever grossed anything close to the numbers they grossed.

On the one hand you still have inadequate financing and structured money. The number of projects and the number of people that could work on those projects come under pressure. But the box office is obviously a function of the quality of cinema and people's interest. If the right project comes along, revenues don't necessarily get impacted even though the production of content could be because of the lack of financing upfront. It's interesting. These two films have created interest in the revival of the industry in India and in Hollywood. As I see it, more films are back in the running and there is greater optimism amongst global financial investors in the entertainment business.

India Knowledge@Wharton: You mentioned James Cameron's Avatar and you contributed 10% of the visual effects for that movie. It was 80% of the visual effects for another big film -- The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

Malhotra: That's right.

India Knowledge@Wharton: Do you think it is necessary for Indian film companies to look westward for expansion -- to look to Hollywood? Was that a central part of your own strategy?

Malhotra: Yes. A company like ours is a technology and creative solutions company. We believe that we have to be able to service our capabilities and technology with people and systems through a global market place. That is the structure of growth for any company out there in that space. In our particular case, that it is clearly the way we need to be. We have to take advantage of our positioning in India and now in the rest of the world to provide this global solution rather than operate in these bifurcated zones the industry tends to get divided into.

If you think about it, films in India get distributed worldwide. 'Avatar' was also one of the highest grossers in India, which is very unique to Hollywood films doing business in India. So what we find is that in a globalized world -- when films are traveling everywhere -- film companies like ours are tagging behind and going where the filmmakers go.


George Lucas Attends “Last Tour To Endor” Celebration

(disneydreaming.com)                   Star Wars creator George Lucas attended the “Last Tour To Endor” celebration at Walt Disney World over the weekend to say goodbye to the famous Star Wars ride at the park until it re-arrives all spiffed up next year.

Photo:     http://www.disneydreaming.com/2010/08/16/george-lucas-last-tour-to-endor-celebration/


VFX Sup Talks 'Scott Pilgrim': Inside The Creation Of The Six Fights

(mtv.com)                "It was all pretty tricky." That's how "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" visual-effects supervisor Frazer Churchill describes the film's inimitable look — part manga, part 16-bit video game, exploding on every frame with bright colors and pulsing graphics. That's also a crazy understatement.

Each of the film's fight scenes offers a master class in the very latest in moviemaking technology, from the use of cutting-edge CG software to on-the-ground practical effects work. "Tricky" is putting it lightly. It was damn hard work, and although "Scott Pilgrim" performed disappointingly at the box office this weekend — opening to just $10.5 million in ticket sales — what director Edgar Wright and his team managed to pull off on the screen is deserving of wide acclaim.

Last week, Churchill called up MTV News to chat about the film's six fight scenes — each one a battle as Scott (Michael Cera) attempts to defeat the evil exes of his true love, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) — and reveal the secrets about each one's creation (Beware of spoilers below).

First Fight: Matthew Patel
Of the six fights, this one was the most challenging. It begins when Pilgrim's band is playing a concert only to be interrupted by a very angry and acrobatic Patel. From a technical standpoint, the difficulty came from merging so many elements: kung fu choreography, a CG Bollywood dance routine, women hurling fireballs and more.

"It's the most piecemeal in its construction," Churchill said. "Lots of blue-screen photography, matte painting, stunt work and CG. When Scott jumps off the stage into that manga-esque vortex, that's made up of motion picture photography done on-set, digital still photography, and graphics and speed lines drawn by hand from what Edgar's brother, Oscar Wright, who was the concept designer, gave us. I shot with the second unit DP for an entire day just to get the scrolling backgrounds."

"When you put it together, you have these very high-tech images with a very low-fi feel, which is part of the appeal of 'Scott Pilgrim' and its camp, manga, 16-bit feel," he explained.

Second Fight: Lucas Lee
Throughout the shoot, Wright placed an emphasis on stage craft, always wanting there to be a physical manifestation of an effect that would be added in post-production. Perhaps at no time did that emphasis become more intricate than during Pilgrim's battle with Lee (Chris Evans).

"That was such a complex set of challenges," Churchill said. "We were shooting with actors and a lot of stunt performers. We shot a lot of high-speed stuff in front of a blue screen. Whenever the image flashes in the finished shots — every punch, sword clash or something — those were actually flashes that we had on-set with photo flashbulbs. We got through over 7,000 bulbs — you can only use them once — and then we add our own flash with CG. When someone dies and bursts into coins, we'd empty buckets of silver Mylar so the actors had something to react to. You get that marriage of digital and physical effects."

Third Fight: Todd Ingram
Todd (Brandon Routh) is a rival musician whose superpowers emanate from his vegan diet. In the graphic novels on which the film is based, those powers are represented by just a series of rings. That sort of simplicity wouldn't work for the movie.

"We needed something more sophisticated," Churchill explained. "Our reference for it was that old logo for RKO Pictures with the radio transmitter. We made the rings feel uneven and have these optical aberrations with color bursts."

"There's also this complicated shot where Scott gets thrown through a brick wall," he continued. "One pass is shot with a camera close to Todd and then the action is shot again with a wide shot, so that when Scott is thrown and the shot snaps back from tight to wide, that's actually a morph from two different camera positions. Michael is there on a rig being thrown across the room, and then we take over with a digital version of Michael to go through the pre-made hole in the wall, and then there's a stunt person on a rig flying through the wall, and we add digital debris."

Fourth Fight: Roxy Richter
Roxy (Mae Whitman) is a ninja capable of disappearing into thin air. The trick for Wright and Churchill was to make those disappearances visually compelling.

"When she disappears, we bring in a blue screen so then we can erase her in the shot," Churchill said. "We add in black CG smoke and we also wanted something more, so there's white smoke too, which was a practical effect that we did on-set, as well as those flashbulbs. Plus we did a lot of lens flares and movement graphics. We spent a whole day just flashing different lights at the camera so we'd have a lot of stuff to work with."

For her fight scene, Whitman didn't have to mess around with any dangerous weaponry. "She's actually fighting with a pink ribbon," Churchill said. "She learned to ribbon dance. Then we replaced the ribbon with a CG razor belt."

Fifth Fight: Kyle and Ken Katayanagi
The fifth fight again takes place during a concert, as Scott's band and the Katayanagi twins battle with their music: Sound waves cause physical destruction and giant monsters eventually appear to help in the fight. To get those effects right, filmmakers actually had to create an entirely new computer program.

"Wherever the band plays, there's visualized music. We wanted that to feel like it was happening in time to the music," Churchill explained. "Our CG supervisor, Andrew Whitehurst, wrote this piece of software that we called the Wave Form Generator. Nigel Godrich, the music supervisor, would break down the tracks into their separate components, give us the rhythm, the bass, the drums, the vocals, and we would use them to drive the animation. The software would convert these sound stems into animation data, so when the band is playing, the graphics and the dragons are moving in time with the music."

"For the dragons, I had these weather balloons on-set so that people would have something to react to," he added." I'd raise them up however high they needed to be. Whenever we did the fights, we'd have music playing back on-set. It was like a music video."

Sixth Fight: Gideon Gordon Graves
This climactic fight, which takes place in a nightclub with a "Super Mario Bros."-style brick pyramid in the middle, was an exhausting affair.

"Oh my god — we were on that pyramid for weeks," Churchill said. "The heat rises. It was intense. Again we had physical manifestations of the digital effects — a lot of photo flashes, and Scott's sword had red LEDs and we added flames and the sword. All the stuff that looked like manga was shot on a blue screen. There was a ton of choreography and stunt work. There are just all these additional layers of craziness."

The fight ends with Scott triumphant and Gideon flickering as if caught in some kind of computer glitch. While Wright storyboarded each scene well in advance, this flickering effect was something he came up with in the editing room.

"That wasn't planned. That came up in post," Churchill said. "When Edgar was cutting the scene, he wanted a suitable end for Gideon. He came up with this idea of him glitching and malfunctioning. He's breaking down."

"The thing about the film is each fight is completely different," he continued. "It's not like you establish one thing and then you redo it over and over. Each fight required us to create a whole new set design, a whole new look, a whole new way of doing things."



James Cameron Advised Del Toro to "Get Out" of The Hobbit Project

(comicbookmovie.com)                Before Guillermo Del Toro's eventual departure from The Hobbit, James Cameron had been telling his long-time friend (and new production partner) to defer to Peter Jackson and "just stay in your corner."
James Cameron may have a bit of outspoken fanboy in his blood, too.

Of course, I say that in jest. Whether you are a fan of his work or not, there is no denying that James Cameron is one of the more powerful and influential directors in our era, especially within the sci-fi and fantasy genres. Backed by his track record in film-making, he seems to never be short on opinions or advice.

In an interview with Australia's Herald Sun, Cameron speaks briefly about his newly-formed partnership with Guillermo del Toro. In May, del Toro announced his departure from The Hobbit, which being produced by Peter Jackson, auteur of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Two months later, del Toro announced that he will be taking the helm of the film adaptation of HP Lovecraft's At The Mountains Of Madness, with Cameron producing.

Cameron mentions that he had been waiting a while for Del Toro to become available. The Hobbit had been mired in messy delays due to MGM's difficulty to find financing for the LOTR prequel. Cameron reveals that he had been "telling him for a long time to get out of [The Hobbit] because there is only room for one captain on the ship" Cameron goes on to say, "Instinctively I knew that Peter was going to take over and do the movie."

Here is the excerpt from the interview:

    "I was telling him for a long time to get out of that thing because there is only room for one captain on the ship," Cameron says. "Instinctively I knew that Peter was going to take over and do the movie.

    "Guillermo, to his credit, didn't listen to me and wanted to do continue and had some great designs - and I have seen all the designs. Of course he would have done a spectacular job, but don't we want to see Peter do it? He should do it and Guillermo should do his thing.

    "That's what I told both of them - you should just stay in your corners."

Confirmed: Karl Urban to play Judge Dredd

from Movies - Den of Geek

Karl Urban will definitely be playing Judge Dredd in the new movie. And that helmet will be staying firmly on his bonce…
Hats off to the folks at Bleeding Cool, who revealed the news a month or so back that Karl Urban was the leading candidate to play Judge Dredd in the forthcoming new movie. It got it bang on the money too, for the news was confirmed over the weekend at Movie Con in London.
It's also been revealed that Dredd this time around won't be taking his helmet off. Common sense prevails there.
Empire now reports producer Andrew Macdonald as saying, "Our idea is to make a very hard, R-rated, gritty, realistic movie of Dredd in Megacity, so we've got to get the tone right. He's not going to take off his helmet. His bike is going to feel real. He's going to hit people and it's going to feel real."
Pete Travis will be directing the film, which is going to be shot in South Africa, from a script by Alex Garland that's had the involvement of John Wagner.
Here's the original Bleeding Cool story from back in July and here's what Empire had to say over the weekend.

 

James Cameron on Avatar sequel, Avatar Special Edition trailer

from Movies - Den of Geek

As Avatar heads back to cinemas in its Special Edition guise, James Cameron chats about his plans for the sequels. Which may be a little less violent…
James Cameron may have already made enough money out of his blockbuster Avatar to ride around in a solid gold Bentley wearing a hat fashioned out of thousand dollar bills, but the veteran director isn't even close to finishing with the world of Pandora yet.
As the first film in his franchise returns to the big screen for its extended Special Edition, he's been divulging a few more details about its sequel. Talking to MTV, Cameron revealed that he intends to set the next film under the sea, returning to his affection for all things nautical last displayed in The Abyss and Titanic.
"I think what we should do there is [...] because we'll have to have characters that are in and under the water [...] is that we should actually capture them underwater," Cameron said. "It's not the same as going diving, but I like to keep my diving, which I do for pleasure, separate from work."
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, meanwhile - news of which comes of us via IO9 - Cameron hinted that the second Avatar could be considerably less action-packed than its predecessor.
According to the story, Cameron met an Amazonian tribe who, like the residents of Pandora, were attempting to protect their land from a corporation intent on mining their land for fuel. The director put a group of them on a bus to a special screening of Avatar, reportedly, the first film they'd ever seen.
Speaking to a tribal elder afterwards, Cameron was told, "In this movie, they solved their problems by fighting. We are not afraid to fight, but we have decided to try to solve our problems through dialogue."
The director revealed that, although he has a story arc planned for the sequel to Avatar, his trip to South America has "altered the story line somewhat."
"So, this movie needs a better message," Cameron said. "It made me think."
So, will Cameron put aside the exploding trees and robot knife fights of Avatar for its sequel? Will Avatar 2 boil down to an undersea peace conference? And most importantly, will the people of the Achuar tribe, having sat through almost three hours of Avatar, ever dare set foot in a cinema again? Only time will tell.
Meanwhile, a second trailer for the extended version of the first film, Avatar: Special Edition, has been released and you can see it here:

Paramount Takes on Sci-Fi Project Last Man Standing
 

 LMS: Killbook of a Bounty Hunter is your first glimpse into the LMS graphic novel series. It is a character bible and prologue book that introduces you to Gabriel, the hero of our story, as he personally unravels to his audience the intricacies of his world, set in a time-transcending and parallel universe that is inhabited by a roster of colorful and deadly characters. Join Gabriel in his quest for revenge and the journey he will embark on by traveling through more than 200 pages of history, character art, bios, and other forms of pleasure and pain.

I Spit On Your Grave



Plot Summary: A remake of the controversial 1979 cult classic, "I Spit on Your Grave" retells the horrific tale of writer Jennifer Hills, who takes a retreat from the city to a charming cabin in the woods to start on her next book. But Jennifer's presence in the small town attracts the attention of a few morally deprived locals led who set out one night to teach this city girl a lesson.

They break into her cabin to scare her. However, what starts out as terrifying acts of humiliation and intimidation, quickly and uncontrollably escalates into a night of physical abuse and torturous assault. But before they can kill her, Jennifer sacrifices her broken and beaten body to a raging river that washes her away.

As time passes, the men slowly stop searching for her body and try to go back to life as usual. But that isn't about to happen. Against all odds, Jennifer Hills survived her ordeal. Now, with hell bent vengeance, Jennifer's sole purpose is to turn the tables on these animals and to inflict upon them every horrifying and torturous moment they carried out on her... only much, much worse.

3D Animated 'Terminator 3000' Begins

(comingsoon.net)    

        Hannover House, the entertainment distribution division of Target Development Group, Inc., has entered into a feature film development venture with Vancouver-based Red Bear Entertainment, for Terminator 3000, envisioned as a $70-million dollar budgeted, 3D animated feature film based on the characters and situations introduced in the original Terminator feature. Hannover House C.E.O. Eric Parkinson previously served as C.E.O. of Hemdale Home Video, Inc. and Hemdale Communications, Inc., and handled the distribution of the original Terminator feature.

Story details for Terminator 3000 are being kept under close wraps, but the writers and production team have a stated goal of minimizing violence in order to obtain a PG-13 level of material.

Hemdale produced and distributed director James Cameron's original Terminator feature, but released the sequel rights in 1990 to Carolco, which later transferred the rights to ultimately end up under the control of Halcyon Media. Santa Barbara based Pacificor, LLC prevailed in the most recent auction and transfer of rights to the franchise in January, and retains approval and licensing authority over the proposed Terminator 3000 project.

Hannover House and Red Bear Entertainment will release details of the production timing, financing and principal production personnel later this year, in advance of a proposed January, 2011 start.


'Avatar' Re-Release Visual Effects: What To Expect From Nine More Minutes

(moviesblog.mtv.com)                Cameron ran through what we can expect to see when the re-cut "Avatar" hits theaters.

The Death of Tsu'tey
"There's a pretty powerful emotional scene at the end which is Tsu'tey's death... which happens off-camera in the original release. [In the original film] he kind of falls off the back of the shuttle and that's the last that you see of him, but here we follow through. We have this emotional scene with Jake [Sully] and Neytiri and some other Na'vi that gather around him in the forest," Cameron said. Incorporating that footage back in was a no-brainer.

"When I [told the 'Avatar' team] I'm taking out Tsu'tey's death, they said, 'What? You can't do that!' They had all fallen in love with it [because] it's a pretty powerful moment," he said. "It's such an amazing accomplishment on [visual effects supervisor Timothy] Webber's part because the emotionality in the CG is really quite stunning."

Hunting the Sturmbeest
"There's a big scene we called the Sturmbeest hunt," Cameron said. "The Sturmbeest is an animal that basically will be new to audiences because all of the Sturmbeest stuff got cut out. Once I took out the hunt, I took out the scene where I establish it [and] I took out the moment where it appears in the final battle. All that stuff's now been reinstated so there's gonna be a lot of Sturmbeest in your diet."

Na'vi Uprising
"We've got a scene where the Na'vi attack the bulldozers after the scene where they've mowed down the willow glade," Cameron said. "It's kind of [an] action scene plus the aftermath with the human troopers finding the bodies of their friends. It's sort of like the stepping stone of the escalation to war. We sort of jump over all of that in the [original] film. [Human leaders Colonel Miles Quaritch] and [Parker] Selfridge just say, 'OK, all right, let's go take 'em out.' But this sort of shows that there are steps in the process."


Will 'John Carter of Mars' Go 3D?

(slashfilm.com)                        While Andrew Stanton’s John Carter of Mars was never envisioned as a 3D movie, I’ve been hearing a lot of rumbling in recent months that Walt Disney Pictures is pushing to release the film in 3D. I’ve even heard they’ve ordered some 3D tests to convince director Andrew Stanton that post conversion 3D isn’t as horrible as the big baddies on the Internet say it is. Ironically, the film which launched the 3D craze,  James Cameron’s Avatar, was actually very much inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ original novels. So it is interesting that Avatar is now becoming a heavy influence on the big screen adaptation of the books.

As far as I can tell, nothing is yet set in stone in terms of releasing John Carter of Mars in 3D, but it sure is looking that way. Who knows if the growing public perception of post converted 3D (ie Bad 3D) will be enough to convince Disney. But one recent development has got me thinking… if John Carter does get released in 3D, what does this mean for Pixar’s long in development, already-delayed, BraveThe Bear and the Bow (formerly titled )? Brave is set to hit theaters on June 15th 2012, while Disney just announced a June 8th 2012 release for John Carter of Mars.

Would Disney really release two films within a week of each other? Generally Disney likes to release one movie per month, but sometimes during the Summer seasons, they have released two movies with different audiences a couple weeks apart. But what about a week apart?

Also, if Carter does go 3D, would Disney release two 3D movies within a week of one another? The bottleneck of 3D screens have improved over the last year. James Cameron recently said that there are now 8000 international theaters equipped for 3D, compared to the 4,000 when Avatar was released. But I doubt that the same studio would release two big tentpole 3D movies within 7-days of each other.


(Bookshelf)    The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation

(ebookxyz.com)  
Take an in-depth look at the art and techniques of stop-motion animation. The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation helps experienced stop-motion artists enhance their craft by exploring the professional methods and advanced technology used by top film studios today.

This book features expanded coverage of the basic principles of animation, including specific applications for character performance and visual effect compositing techniques. All the newest technology is touched on, including detailed information on camera rigs, effects, and shooting stop-motion in stereoscopic 3D. Discover new puppet building techniques, including the technology behind the rapid prototyping of computer models for stop-motion production. You’ll even find a thorough history of early feature-length stop-motion films. The practical techniques and skills presented are enhanced by interviews with many of the most celebrated stop-motion artists as well as coverage of the work of several artists working in the online stop-motion community.

Whether your focus is low-budget indie filmmaking or big studio productions, The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation provides a comprehensive look at both the latest methods and the artists who are driving the revival of stop-motion animation.



Barry Levinson To Live In An "Isopod"

(darkhorizons.com)               Veteran director Barry Levinson ("You Don't Know Jack," "Wag the Dog") is apparently going to direct the indie sci-fi thriller "Isopod" reports Production Weekly.

Story details on the project are unknown, but shooting kicks off next month in the Carolinas.

At last report Levinson was attached to direct a biopic on activist Jack Healey and an adaptation of Anatoly Kuznetsov's novel "Babi Yar."


Live Action VFX vs CGI Cartoons

(lovefilm.com)                  These days - whether you look at Avatar, Beowulf, or Cats & Dogs - it’s not always easy to tell the difference between live action and an animated film. Digital effects allow directors like Zack Snyder and George Lucas to put actors in an entirely imaginary landscape, to bend the laws of physics and command the elements. Fantasy films dominate the box office and digital effects companies are booming even through the recession.

You might think that these CGI movies would threaten the popularity of animation, but not a bit. Animated film is also booming. Last year’s five nominees in the Best Animated Feature category outclassed the ten nominees for Best Picture - even though the Academy omitted the year’s best animated film (Ponyo).

This week, the two big studio releases are both live action remakes of cartoons, even if Jerry Bruckheimer’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice would like to pretend it owes more to Goethe than Mickey Mouse. M Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender is a feature version of the Nickelodeon Ameri-anime series, Avatar.

Could this be a trend? Over the last decade and more we’ve seen Hollywood plundering comic books for material - will cartoons be next?

Full Press:    http://www.lovefilm.com/features/detail.html?section_name=newsletter&editorial_id=26866



Costly "Battleship" Setting Sail in Rough Waters

(Hollywood Reporter)            As "Battleship" steams towards a start date this month, the pricey adaptation of the Hasbro board game is entering deep, treacherous waters.

With a budget of $200 million (£128.3 million) or more and no major movie stars on board, the Universal project is raising eyebrows among industry insiders who question whether the expensive gamble will pay off when the film comes out in 2012.

"It's a big bet like many, many big bets from many studios," Universal chairman Adam Fogelson told The Hollywood Reporter. "We will be nowhere near the high point and nowhere near the low point of what people are spending."

But several huge questions hover over "Battleship" -- which begins filming in 15 days in Hawaii -- that simply don't apply to other big-ticket movies. In "Battleship," Universal has a director, Peter Berg, with some experience in action films, but he's not a brand name in the genre. And the concept is based on a board game that has sold more than 100 million units and raked in $1 billion-plus. This comes at a time when some studio executives wonder if the public is tiring of the presold concepts to which Hollywood has been clinging.

By far the most significant entry from the relatively new regime of Fogelson and co-chairman Donna Langley, "Battleship" is based on the Hasbro game about naval strategy that has been around since World War I. Berg has come up with a modern twist: making "Battleship" a movie about an alien invasion at sea.

But the grief and financial woe brought about over the years by oceanic epics -- think "Waterworld" -- is a part of Hollywood history.

Adding to the pressure: new bosses at Comcast waiting to finalise the acquisition of NBC Universal from General Electric Co. Aside from "Despicable Me," the studio has been on a cold streak and at the same time is developing a reputation for bloated budgets.

Universal's "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," opening Friday, cost $80 million-$90 million (the studio puts the number at closer to $60 million) -- rather pricey for a genre movie based on a cult comic book. Last year, the studio spent $100 million on the Adam Sandler comedy "Funny People," compared with the more modest $60 million that Paramount, DreamWorks and Spyglass spent recently on a comparable film, "Dinner for Schmucks."

Executives even considered scuttling "Battleship" in June, sources said. Such a move isn't unprecedented: Universal did that with "Cartel" five weeks before the Josh Brolin crime drama was to shoot this year in Mexico City, and with "American Gangster," the Russell Crowe-Denzel Washington crime drama that came back to life with a smaller budget.

Fogelson denied the project was ever in jeopardy and said the studio was firmly committed based on Berg's vision for the film. Berg, whose previous movie was 2008's "Hancock" for Sony, is the son of a naval historian, and he wrote a high-school essay about how the Japanese could have won the Battle of Midway. He also directed the 2004 feature "Friday Night Lights" and 2007's "The Kingdom," both for Universal.

"He has a very strong passion and affinity for this material," Fogelson said. "He is a fan of the history and the current state of the military. He knows that world really, really well, and he is inspirational when he is talking about it."

Fogelson said he wasn't concerned about Berg's relative lack of experience on action films.

"He made 'Hancock,' so Will Smith thought he was a good choice for an effects-driven spectacle that cost a lot of money," he said. Hancock grossed $624 million worldwide on a $150 million budget. Unlike "Battleship," however, it featured a big movie star in Smith.

Fogelson maintains that "Battleship" doesn't need a big star and in fact is well-cast. The topliners are Taylor Kitsch ("Friday Night Lights") and R&B singer Rihanna, making her feature debut.

"Taylor is on the shortlist of actors in this range," Fogelson said. "Rihanna has no shortage of opportunities and choices."

Fogelson was not worried about audiences warming to a movie based on a board game, either.

"You're talking about a property that worldwide has more awareness than most, if not all, of Hasbro properties that preceded it," he said. "Worldwide, more people have played Battleship than played with Transformers." The first two films in the latter franchise have grossed more than $1.5 billion worldwide for the studio, and a third is shooting in Chicago.

Fogelson said Universal carefully evaluated specific aspects of the game that would work for the film. "The game has not included a battle between Earth and alien forces," he acknowledged, but he cited several aspects of it that will be reflected in the film.

"There's the fact that you can't see your opponent, the underlying emotional reasons behind who plays the game and how they play the game," Fogelson said. "There's absolutely a way within the story that's been constructed here to take advantage of the game's name and elements that will make the movie fun."

Fogelson also said the studio has planned carefully in preparing to shoot on the water, dismissing critics citing the "water issue." If water movies were invariably troubled, he said, "Disney shouldn't have made 'Pirates of the Caribbean.'"

That franchise has brought in $1.6 billion; Disney, in fact, has tightened its script for the now-shooting "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" to make it less water-based than the previous films.

Universal was swamped with negative press in 1995 when it produced Kevin Costner's "Waterworld," which had a budget that soared to a then-record $175 million. The troubled production had to deal with a set-destroying hurricane, and Costner seemed lost at sea as a director. James Cameron also faced much-publicized challenges while making "The Abyss," which ended up grossing $54 million in 1989.

One way Universal has kept "Battleship" from capsizing was organizing the shoot in a way that keeps it on land as much as possible. At this point, the plan calls for only five days of production on the water, with the remainder of the five-week shoot in Hawaii land-based. The rest of the sea action will be shot on soundstages in Baton Rouge, La., and the production will be CGI-heavy.

One heartening reality Universal and Berg can recall as they press forward: It wasn't until 1997, almost a decade after "Abyss," that Cameron headed back to the water with a hugely budgeted project that throughout its production was seen as teetering on the brink of disaster. That, of course, was "Titanic."


Bugs Bunny CGI/Live Action Hybrid Theatrical Film Planned

(Deadline)               Warner Bros. is planning to bring Bugs Bunny to the big screen in a live-action film, reports Deadline.

David Berenbaum, the screenwriter of Elf and The Spiderwick Chronicles has been hired to draft the film which, like the studio's upcoming Yogi Bear, will blend live action with computer animation.

Bugs Bunny, who recently celebrated his 70th birthday, has not appeared on the big screen since 2003's Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Other "Looney Tunes" characters recently made a theatrical resurgence with a CGI short before Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. Two more shorts are planned before WB family films later this year.



Disney Unveils New Star Tours 2 Video - New Destinations?

(insidethemagic.net)                     At the tail end of the Disney Parks panel presentation during the first day of Star Wars Celebration V, Imagineer Jason Surrell, with help from C-3PO himself, actor Anthony Daniels, offered the audience a glimpse at a new video for Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, the upcoming update to Disney’s popular Star Tours attraction.

The video is a “commercial” of sorts from the Star Tours company promoting three of their exciting intergalactic destinations, Bespin, Alderaan, and Endor:

Moments after premiering for the Celebration V audience, the Disney Parks Blog revealed this video will be shown in the queue of the revamped Star Tours attraction when it reopens in 2011 after being “reimagined” into a new 3D experience. But Disney still insists they “cannot confirm that you will travel to any of the destinations shown in this video,” still leaving fans guessing where Star Tours II will take its passengers.

The only confirmed destinations thus far are across the sands of Tattooine for a little pod racing and through the city skies of Coruscant.

Prior to showing this video as the presentation’s finale, Surrell and Daniels showed off concept art from the original Star Tours and fielded a few questions from the audience. But Star Tours II information remains tight, as any questions asked about it by fans were met with the response, “Too early to say.” It was said often enough that Daniels even jokingly prompted the audience to chime in, repeating it along with Surrell.

When asked about the meaning of the new Star Tours tag line “The Adventures Continue” (note the plural on “Adventures”), Surrell would not comment any further than to reply, “You know, the reason the Bothan spies die is because they possess too much information. I possess similar information about our plans and I’d like to stick around for a while.” But the fact that the updated version of Star Tours will feature multiple different experiences is no secret.

Two months ago, Al Weiss, president of Worldwide Operations for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, revealed on the D23 web site that the new version of the attraction will not only include many variations but also some level of audience interactivity. So Surrell needn’t worry about any bounty hunters coming after him any time soon… or at least not for what he did or did not say at the Star Wars Celebration V presentation.

Star Tours has already “powered down” at Disneyland for the update and will be closing at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando on September 8. Both versions of the attraction are expected to reopen with enhancements some time around May 2011.

VIDEO - Take a look:   http://www.insidethemagic.net/2010/08/disney-unveils-new-star-tours-2-video-hints-at-possible-new-destinations-at-star-wars-celebration-v/


A Super-Secret Hobbit Announcement May Be Coming Aug. 21

(scifiscoop.com)                 Do you remember the magic of The Lord Of The Rings? This movie is one of the best remembered films till date and Peter Jackson is finally getting The Hobbit back on track again. According to the Noldor Blog the mini museum of Weta Cave has just closed to the public and word has it that the related Lord of the Rings/Hobbit movie sets and the props that were taken out of the storage as this was done as a urgent decision. The Weta Cave was also called for a small secret private function on August 21st thus suggesting a super secret Hobbit announcement of its arrival.





Man Upset With Sci-fi "I Am Number Four" Movie Effects

(yourmurrysville.com)               A Murrysville man told Franklin Regional officials he disapproved of how a movie production used the district's campus.

David Hood told Franklin Regional officials on Monday that he was concerned about gun fire that he heard coming from the school overnight last month. He said he contacted the police and told the noise was from the filming of "I Am Number Four," a science-fiction film using the campus for production.

Hood questioned whether weapons were being used on campus for the film. He said with numerous signs advertising a weapons- and drug-free school zone, he doubts weapons would be allowed.

"I don't believe the board would even approve weapons being on the property," Hood said.

Dennis Majewski, director of district services, said crews used a movie prop to fire blanks during filming but a gun was not used.

"It was a device they manufactured specifically for the movie. It did shoot blanks," Majewski said.

He said representatives from the film crew went to nearby homes to inform them that work was being done overnight and they might hear noises. The production also received permission from the municipality to conduct work.

Hood, who lives on Stewart Court, said residents of his street were not notified by film crews of the noise even though it is relatively close to the school.

Officials said they were unaware of any issues with the production at the school. Hood thanked officials for letting him bring his concerns to their attention.

"I know you have the zero tolerance (policy)." Hood said. "I just felt it was a disgrace."

 The James Clayton Column: The true horror of Toy Story 3

from Movies - Den of Geek

Spoilers lie ahead for Toy Story 3, as James considers just why it's managed to upset and scare him quite so much...

There are spoilers ahead if you haven't seen Toy Story 3 yet.
Toy Story 3 is a very upsetting film. It's even more upsetting than last year's Pixar tearjerker, the ‘boy scout, old man and a flying house' adventure story Up. Reflecting on the final instalment of the Toy Story trilogy, I'm left feeling touched, but yet deeply unnerved.
Much has been made of the movie's ability to make the most emotionally-uptight adults cry. Yes! Even big manly grown men are emerging from the cinema weeping like little girls! How shocking!
Because we live in a society that sees tears as alien abominations that threaten all reason and order, Toy Story 3 is probably the most dangerous and disturbing flick currently in cinemas. It's more frightening and potentially more lethal than Splice (sickening genetic experimentation), Piranha 3D (pop-up monster fish with pointy teeth gatecrashing the beach party), Knight And Day (Tom Cruise reaching new heights of bat guano craziness) and The Expendables (an army of geriatrics armed to the false teeth and high on testosterone).
There should be signs placed outside the multiplex to warn of Toy Story 3's likely impact and point cinemagoers to less distressing diversions, like the pick ‘n' mix stand or Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore (in 2D, of course, because 3D film might strain your eyes and make you feel like you're being attacked by a giant German Shepherd).
If you haven't seen Toy Story 3 yet, I'd suggest you don't read the rest of this article in case spoilers ruin the experience for you. In fact, I'll take this opportunity to advise you not to see the film now it's done the business. You can probably do without the trauma and the extra expense of a 3D film ticket.
If you've spent years cultivating a reputation as a heartless bastard without a soul or any sense of compassion, avoid the movie like the plague. It'd be a tragedy if your credibility and career as a bouncer, repossession agent or professional wife beater crumbled because you lost your nerve for a couple of hours and went to see the last stand of Woody, Buzz and Jessie the Cowgirl. Once again, Toy Story 3 may actually be road to ruin masquerading as an innocent motion picture about children's playtime.
Meditate on the movie and you realise that it's brightly coloured packaging for vast themes of abandonment, rejection and death. On the surface the film says, "There's a snake in my boots," and "you've got a playdate with destiny!" with a big acrylic smile. What it's really stating is "every footstep is dogged by your inevitable demise!" and "you exist in a cruel and indifferent universe that is going to chew you up, spit you out and discard you without mercy!"
The only moment that saves Toy Story 3 from sinking to Million Dollar Baby or Grave Of The Fireflies depths of despair is the deus ex machina sequence where the toys are rescued from the incinerator by the trio of Pizza Planet aliens and ‘The Claw'. In my opinion, not cutting the movie short at that point and leaving our miniature heroes to a flaming climax was a cop out and a missed opportunity to deliver the most miserable finale to a ‘family-friendly' movie ever, but that might just be me.
I feel the same about the optimism at the end of Pixar's post-apocalyptic masterpiece WALL·E as well. Aside from my sadist streak though, I appreciate the need to give audiences a reassuring happy ending to the saga rather than melting misery. With Pixar holding back, Studio Ghibli's Grave of the Fireflies retains the honour of being the most heartbreaking animated movie of all time.
Despite this, if you consider Toy Story 3 from a different perspective (maybe by putting a fishbowl on your head, going five days without sleep and drinking twenty five litres of cherry cola before you take in the movie), it might be the most frightening horror film of the new millennium.
Take the scenes where Mr Potato Head undergoes the identity crisis of extreme metamorphosis when he becomes Mr Tortilla Face and Mr Gherkin Body respectively. Likewise, look at the ultra-unsettling Kubrick-esque sequence where Andy's toys encounter the toddlers at daycare for their first ‘playtime'. See also the ultra-creepy Big Baby character and the aforementioned incinerator cliffhanger and you realise that perhaps a ‘U' rating is a huge error. This is pure horror - more than any Alien, Predator or Halloween film has ever delivered.
Toy Story 3 is even more disturbing if you think about it ideologically. The overwhelming sense of inevitable death and destruction and the premise that we are all helpless, insignificant little beings in an ambivalent and uncaring world may precipitate an existential crisis in the minds of viewers.
You could come out of the screening at the point of spiritual catastrophe. That big acrylic smile and the catchphrases it calls out ("To infinity, and beyond!") are really metaphysical affirmations that nothing really means anything, that life is a fragile, futile and pointless speck in a great indifferent cosmic schema.
Toy Story 3 could potentially kill God, though that deus ex machina ‘saved by the Claw' scene and the hope that follows it means that the final nail isn't hammered into religion's coffin. There is still possibly a force of greater good out there, depending on whether you see the fish tank as half empty or half full or believe in aliens.
Those who can't face the idea that there is no divine power behind it all don't completely get off, however. The cruelty and torment wrought on the toys suggests that if anything God's creation is - to quote Mr Pricklepants - "a place of ruin and despair, ruled by an evil bear who smells of strawberries."
If it came in black-and-white and was in Swedish it'd be an Ingmar Bergmann film. Truly, Toy Story 3 is terrifying. Pixar have delivered the effective, excellent end to the series and made another animated masterpiece. They've also simultaneously created a computer-generated black hole of pscyhe-shattering horror that could potentially split the world into small fragments and bring about the greatest spiritual crisis since the Reformation.
I feel numb and empty. I just wanted to play Sheriffs and Space Rangers in my bedroom, but now I find myself grasping around in a void with the sickening whiff of strawberries hanging in the atmosphere, a crippling sense of abandonment and isolation colouring my insignificant existence.
All we are is plastic playthings in the inferno. Gulp.

Ice Spiders: Spiders and spice and everything ice.

Courtesy Syfy

It's probably my gamer roots, but when I think of ice spiders, I think of 1) giant spiders made of ice, 2) giant spiders that shoot ice instead of webbing, or 3) a synchronized ice-skating team made of spiders.  Ice Spiders contains none of these.
No, Ice Spiders is exactly what it says on the tin: spiders that happen to be in an icy climate, a ski lodge, to be precise. This is like calling Jaws "Wet Shark" and Predator "Swampy Alien." The title's technically accurate, but it seems a bit lazy. And that pretty much sums up Ice Spiders.
Once it became clear that there are no actual spiders made of ice, shoot ice from their rear ends, or are otherwise ice-like, then one can only turn to the ski lodge itself.  I'm a simple man with simple tastes.  If giant monsters are going to terrorize people at a ski resort, I expect the following set pieces, in no particular order: a fight on a ski lift, a guy snowboarding away from a pursuing spider, and an avalanche.  Ice Spiders delivers on two of the three.
What Ice Spiders does not deliver is a coherent plot, good acting, or realistic spiders. Realistic, of course, being a figurative term since the spiders are dog-sized, survive in the frigid temperatures, and seem hell-bent on eating people. The CGI is almost uniformly bad. Vanessa A. Williams – not THAT Vanessa Williams, the other one -- is unbelievable as Dr. April Summers, but Patrick Muldoon as Dan "Dash" Dashiell is worse.  Muldoon is Keanu Reeves-lite: He talks like a Valley guy and mumbles his way through his lines.  There's a hilarious bit where Ice Spiders attempts to justify its genetically engineered monsters by having Dash verbally attack every silly plot point.

James Cameron: 'Live-action 'Avatar' Would Have Been Terrible'

(sfgate.com)                  James Cameron says his epic 3D movie "Avatar" could have been "terrible" if he had not spent millions on groundbreaking visual effects.
The "Titanic" movie maker labored over his pet project for a decade, and spent a staggering $260 million making the movie, which used motion-capture technology to bring the digital characters to life.
Zoe Saldana's movements and facial expressions were used to create realistic characteristics for her blue-skinned alien Neytiri, and Cameron is adamant that the movie would have lost all impact if they had relied on traditional filmmaking techniques.
He tells Empire magazine, "Here's the thing: if it had been in live action, she (Saldana) would have been in blue make-up and it would not have had the power. Her eyes would not have been those eyes.
"The blue make-up would have looked terrible. I know -- every time I go to a convention where someone decides they're going to be a Na'vi, I'm reminded why we didn't do it."


Paramount Takes on Sci-Fi Project "Last Man Standing"
(Heat Vision)              Paramount Pictures has picked up the film rights to "Last Man Standing: Killbook of a Bounty Hunter" (LMS), a coffee table book from Heavy Metal Publishing, reports Heat Vision.
Scott Aversano will produce along with the book's creator, Daniel LuVisi. Peter Levin Russell Binder and Stephan Lokotsch will executive produce. Heavy Metal describes the book as follows:
LMS: Killbook of a Bounty Hunter is your first glimpse into the LMS graphic novel series. It is a character bible and prologue book that introduces you to Gabriel, the hero of our story, as he personally unravels to his audience the intricacies of his world, set in a time-transcending and parallel universe that is inhabited by a roster of colorful and deadly characters. Join Gabriel in his quest for revenge and the journey he will embark on by traveling through more than 200 pages of history, character art, bios, and other forms of pleasure and pain.

‎WETA Gets Behind WWII Horror 'The Devil's Rock'
(bloody-disgusting.com)
              Island Bay Studios announced that short film director Paul Campion is hard at work building sets for his first feature-length project, The Devil's Rock, a film described as "WW2-German-bunker-overrun-by-occult-demon-mayhem."

Richards vision is to capture the oppressive damp concrete claustrophobia of an underground base and introduce elements of unimaginable unstoppable malignant horror which see the base’s occupants slowly picked off and terrorized.

Written by Paul Finch, Paul Campion and Brett Ihaka, The Devil's Rock is award-winning short film director Paul Campion's debut feature film. His short films "Night of the Hell Hamsters" and "Eel Girl" have screened at every major genre film festival worldwide.

"The film is set in the Channel Islands on the eve of D-Day. Two Kiwi commandos, sent to destroy German gun emplacements to distract Hitler's forces away from Normandy, discover a Nazi occult plot to unleash demonic forces to win the war."

Academy Award winning New Zealand company WETA Workshop (Avatar, District 9, Lord of the Rings, King Kong) will create the film's physical effects, whose ensemble cast includes Craig Hall (Love Birds, Boy, 30 Days of Night, The World's Fastest Indian, King Kong), Matthew Sunderland (Out of the Blue, Under the Mountain), Gina Varela (Xena, Siones Wedding, Power Rangers) and Karl Drinkwater (A Song of Good, Lord of the Rings, Spartacus: Blood & Sand).