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October 15, 2006 - October 26, 2006

News for Oct. 26, 2006

'We've got to kill a hobbit. You pick one'

10/26/06, 2:18 pm EST - Xoanon

In an extract from his biography of Peter Jackson, Brian Sibley, tells of the director's early struggles to make The Lord of the Rings. In 1994, the director Peter Jackson and his writing partner Fran Walsh, fresh from the success of Heavenly Creatures, were signed to an exclusive three-year “first look” deal by the Miramax founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein. “First look” deals allow a studio to pay overheads for writers and directors to come up with ideas. The studio then gets the option to turn those ideas into films. With the deal signed, Jackson and Walsh set to work on the screenplay for their adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series: by 1997, they had completed a draft script that abbreviated the trilogy into two films.

Having completed their 92-page outline, Peter and Fran flew to New York for creative meetings with Miramax, which took place in a room nicknamed “the sweatbox” after the small airless rooms where, in the early days of film, movies got shown and discussed. In the middle of summer, with no windows and no air-conditioning and the obvious tensions involved in presenting a treatment for an ambitious movie project, the room lived up to its name. [More]

MGM Makes More Plans for Terminator 4 and The Hobbit

10/26/06, 2:13 pm EST - Xoanon

From The Hollywood Reporter (via movieweb.com): Sands hopes to resuscitate MGM with several big new films. He's packaging the fourth "Terminator" film -- it will be titled "Terminator blah blah, not Four," Sands joked -- with a new star likely to fill the Arnold Schwarzenegger role. "It's like the "Batman" or "Superman" franchise in that it lends itself to having different actors in the roles," he said.

Sands is in discussions with New Line Cinema to get the rights to produce two prequel films to "The Lord of the Rings" series, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, he said. Other projects he mentioned include a sequel to "The Thomas Crown Affair," set to star Pierce Brosnan, and a remake of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", according to The Hollywood Reporter.

News for Oct. 23, 2006

Game on for Halo despite studio pullout

10/23/06, 3:14 pm EST - Xoanon

Reports that it was game over for Peter Jackson's Halo movie are being shot down by industry insiders. Universal and Fox have pulled out of the movie deal but Microsoft and Jackson are reporting business as usual. "If you remember during King Kong Peter explained how King Kong was gonna be before Lord of the Rings and it fell over and back it came again...it's just part of film making," says Weta Ltd spokesperson Jamie Wilson. Rumours of a budget blow-out have been denied. Jackson and his producing partners, including Microsoft, claim Universal and Fox asked them to reduce their profit take. They declined, confidant the project is safe. Recently the game Doom was made into a feature film that barely broke even at the box office. [More]

Serkis: Beowulf Is The Future

10/23/06, 3:09 pm EST - Xoanon

Andy Serkis, who co-stars in Robert Zemeckis' upcoming Beowulf film, told SCI FI Wire that the movie's computer animation is a glimpse of things to come. "I think that more motion capture is [being] used in film, and it's becoming part of the mainstream and used in a mainstream way," Serkis (King Kong) said in an interview. "It is ... especially [true] with video games and the convergence of video games and film. It's actually a really interesting time for actors. Robert Zemeckis has just made Beowulf with Anthony Hopkins and John Malkovich, Ray Winstone and all kinds of high-profile and serious actors creating these characters. They are creating the movements. They are creating the personalities, and it's the manifestation of those characters which is being handed over." [More]

DVD Tuesday: Nacho Libre, Monster House & More!

10/23/06, 2:53 pm EST - Xoanon

A ton of interesting new films are out on DVD this week. Take an early look on our 'DVD Tuesday' feature...every Monday! Check out some TV goodies like 'Addams Family - Volume 1', 'Bewitched - S4' & 'Greg the Bunny: Best of the Film Parodies'. Some great animation out today as well, 'Batman Beyond - S2', 'Beavis and Butt-Head - The Mike Judge Collection' & 'Justice League Unlimited - S1'. Some Blu-Ray & HD DVD offerings include; '12 Monkeys', 'Italian Job', 'Monster House' & 'Out of Sight'. Personally I'm interested in 'Reservoir Dogs 15th Anniversary Edition', 'SCTV: Best Of The Early Years', 'Sesame Street - Old School' & 'Bikini Girls from the Lost Planet' (Best title...EVAR)! Check out the whole list here! [More]

News for Oct. 22, 2006

Guinness lists record-breaking feats in the movies

10/22/06, 11:27 am EST - Xoanon

Guinness has adjudged the Most Expensive Movie Ever Made to be the 2005 “King Kong” -- at $207 million, compared to $200 million each for “Titanic” (1997) and “Spider-Man 2.”

Highest salary ever paid to a film director prior to production: The $20 million Peter Jackson earned for megging “The Lord of the Rings.”

Most Oscars for a movie: “Ben-Hur” won 11 in 1959, and its record was matched by “Titanic” in 1997. More recently, it became a three-way tie when “The Return of the of the King” won all 11 of its nominations. [More]

Jack Black: leading hombre

10/22/06, 11:21 am EST - Xoanon

Say what you want about Jack Black. Few, if any, leading men in movies are as willing to abase themselves on camera with such garish high spirits. Something in Black's agitated swagger and warped seemliness appeals to the insolent slob in all of us and makes "Nacho Libre" a plausible star vehicle. Black cloaks his characteristic manic quirks behind a faux-Mexican accent and a doofus haze as Nacho, a sweet-natured dolt who dreams of being a wrestling champ, but must settle for making dreary bean soup for monastery orphans. [More]

Disappearing Serkis act

10/22/06, 11:18 am EST - Xoanon

Penny Wark writes: I am looking for a globally famous man yet I suspect I will not recognise him. If you know him as Gollum or King Kong you will understand the difficulty. So I study the people in this achingly fashionable hotel where, because we are in West Hollywood, the look is one of contrived casual beauty. A woman is being interviewed for a job and I know she is doomed because she is plump. [More]

News for Oct. 20, 2006

Andy Serkis Uses His Words

10/20/06, 12:07 pm EST - Xoanon

The versatile Andy Serkis, known mostly for playing characters such as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy or King Kong in, well, King Kong, can now add voice actor, writer and director to his growing list of credits. Serkis recently told Sci-Fi Wire that even though he has been busy as an actor with other projects, like the upcoming The Prestige and the action-adventure Stormbreaker, he also found time to work on the story and direct some of the sequences for an upcoming animated video game for Playstation 3 called Heavenly Sword. The story of Heavenly Sword centers around a warrior named Nariko who, when her village is attacked, takes up the fight against an evil king and his army using the Heavenly Sword. [More]

News for Oct. 19, 2006

Genius Products Brings Dragons, Kong, and Scrooge to DVD

10/19/06, 9:56 pm EST - Xoanon

Genius Products has announced release dates for 3 new animated DVDs covering a variety of genres and styles...On November 21, Genius Products will be unveiling Kong: Return to the Jungle, a 3-D CGI animated movie that stars legendary movie monster King Kong in a sequel based on the original 1933 movie. Read the full press release for Kong: Return to the Jungle here.

Pre-Order 'Kong: Return to the Jungle' today

PR For Games: Ubisoft On Promoting Kong, Steel, Creed

10/19/06, 9:48 pm EST - Xoanon

PR For Games: Ubisoft On Promoting Kong, Steel, Creed At the 2006 PR for Games Conference, Ubisoft senior public relations manager Michael Beadle presented an overview of the publisher's distinct PR strategies for three of its largest recent titles, including Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie and two upcoming titles, the Wii-exclusive Red Steel and the much-hyped Assassin's Creed. [More]

HD DVD Kong puts users in control

10/19/06, 9:43 pm EST - Xoanon

From videobusiness.com: OCT. 19 Universal Studios Home Entertainment’s long-awaited HD DVD version of King Kong, headed to stores Nov. 14, will have the studio’s U-Control high-definition bonus features. The disc has a suggested retail price of $39.98 and comes to stores the same day as Universal’s Deluxe Edition of the Peter Jackson film. The HD DVD version will include a picture-in-picture feature that allows users to access and watch cast interviews and behind-the-scenes footage while the movie plays. The disc also has a “My Scenes” bookmarking feature, which allows viewers to store scenes by clicking the “B” button on their remote.

Pre-Order 'King Kong' on HD DVD today

News for Oct. 16, 2006

From King Kong to The Birds?

10/16/06, 10:21 pm EST - Xoanon

October 16, 2006 - Universal Pictures and Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes production company have been developing a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock suspense classic The Birds for over a year now. The powers-that-be are reportedly eager to take the next step in the development process and attach a star. According to TMZ.com, Universal is poised to make an offer to scream queen Naomi Watts (The Ring, King Kong) to star in the film. [More]

DVD Tuesday: Over the Hedge, The Omen, C.S.I. New York & More!

10/16/06, 4:14 pm EST - Xoanon

A ton of interesting new films are out on DVD this week. Take an early look on our 'DVD Tuesday' feature...every Monday! Check out some TV goodies like 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents - S2', 'Big Love - S1' & 'C.S.I. New York - S2'. Some great animation out today as well, 'Nick Picks Boxed Set', 'Over the Hedge' & 'The Very Best Of Sabrina - The Animated Series'. Some Blu-Ray & HD DVD offerings include; 'Reds', 'Gone in 60 Seconds', 'Dark Water' & 'The Brothers Grimm'. Personally I'm interested in 'Over the Hedge' & 'Predator: The Boxset'! Check out the whole list here! [More]

News for Oct. 15, 2006

Kong EE NZ Street Date: November 1st

10/15/06, 4:42 pm EST - Xoanon

Mark writes: I was just over at the Gameplanet Store when I saw that they have the King Kong Deluxe Extended Edition listed for pre-order, with a price of $39.95 (NZD). But the most interesting bit was that they had listed the release date for the item as November 1st. Previously we had only known of the US release date of November 14th, which is 2 weeks after the NZ release. [More]

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