Miscellania: Flatlining at Fury Road Hotel
Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 7:00PM • Ellen Page to lead the remake of 1990s film Flatliners [/Film]
• Leonardo DiCaprio walks the walk he talks. He joined a coalition of groups with combined holdings of 2.6 trillion dollars to defund climate change. (At this rate he'll win the Jean Hersholt before an actual Oscar) [New Yorker]
• Any mention of Twin Peaks is still making us tear up, given the Log Lady's recent death, but the 3rd season casting is well underway: Amanda Seyfried and Peter Sarsgaard are joining [Empire]
• Do Dump or Marry...American Horror Story: Hotel edition [MNPP]
• Speaking of... Ryan Murphy has already offered Gaga Season 6 as well [Twitter]
• I don't really watch SNL (way too many DOA skits) but loved this bit with Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton opposite Hillary Clinton as bartender "Val". She does a pretty fun Trump impression [YouTube]
• Belgian director Chantal Akerman, whose most famous film was 1975's Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and whose new film No Home Movie we just covered for NYFF, has passed away suddenly at only 65 years of age [The Guardian]
• You can learn a lot about filmmaking from George Miller's speech on Mad Max Fury Road [Mentorless]
• Claire Danes finally broke her silence on that whole infamous early Aughts scandal when she took up with Billy Crudup. [Pajiba]
• What are the best performances and films from the past 5 years? Sati goes all in for Mad Max Fury Road from this year but it's fun to be reminded of a few others [Cinematic Corner]
• Will Smith confirms that Jared Leto was The Joker at all times on The Suicide Squad set. [Complex]
• Rooney Mara is still being asked about the whitewashing of Tiger Lily for Pan. Still has nothing useful to say about it beyond feeling "bad". Than why take the role, Rooney? It's not like you're hurting for offers! [People]
• 50 Cent, who is no longer popular as far as I'm aware, blames the slightly declined popularity of Empire (still mega popular) on its gay content. Charming. [Towleroad]
• Marvel is trusting its in-house writer's program. Black Panther, due in theaters in 33 months, hasn't been written yet, but will likely go to Joe Robert Cole, who is part of the program that Nicole Perlman (interviewed here) was in before Guardians of the Galaxy [Variety]
• Ashley Judd now sharing with press that a studio mogul offered her an Oscar nomination for sexual favors. Gross. ("If only Oscar nominations were that easy to come by" - Everyone who has never received one.) [Variety]
• Channing Tatum stepping behind the camera for the first time as director for teen with gun murder drama Forgive Me Leonard Peacock [/Film]
• Not everyone is happy about Warner Bros choice of writer/director on their feature film version of The Flash the novelist Seth Grahame-Smith (Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter). (Also why do an unrelated film when the TV show is so good?) [CHUD]
• 15 best films from Fantastic Fest? FSR has a genre-loving list that includes festival titles we l-o-v-e like The Witch, the soon to open Crimson Peak, and even an Oscar submission, Belgium's Brand New Testament [Film School Rejects]
• George Miller claims that two more Mad Max sequels are coming. Don't hold your breath. Remember that Fury Road was in pre-production as early as the late 90s! [Tracking Board]
Reader Comments (12)
Guys, this stab at a DC film universe is probably dead by the end of 2016 anyway. Pan (a project with the same writer) is getting TERRIBLE reviews, so, regardless of whether Batman v. Superman flops (which it has a strong chance of doing), they'll probably be bringing in a new screenwriter to make a script (which probably takes more time than the month to month and a half they'd have if there was no delay) and pushing back the start date of Wonder Woman to a late April/early May timeframe and the Justice League start date to sometime in September. Coincidentally, those probable pushes put both those projects within the possibility of getting cancelled if Batman v. Superman tanks. What the DCXU becomes after that, if it becomes anything, is entirely reliant on Suicide Squad. If it fails, the DCXU is placed into history's dustbin. If, though, it succeeds, the DCXU is going to be a place where solo movies are handed not to Green Lantern, The Flash and Superman (as currently planned), but to Sinestro, Gorilla Grodd and Brainiac.
First and foremost, BVS will be a financial hit on concept alone (a critical hit is a different story). Also, Wonder Woman will already be shooting by the end of this year, so they won't suddenly stop making that if the 2016 movies fail. Lastly, to Nathaniel, DC keeps its TV and film universes separate, so that's why they'll be two different Flashes.
Anyway, onto the other topics:
- I wash my hands on the Rooney Mara/Tiger Lily thing because it's clear the filmmakers didn't care to cast a Native American and I barely care about this film in general.
- Not a fan of Channing Tatum's "acting" but I do wish him the best with his directorial debut.
- Martha Marcy May Marlene and Scott Pilgrim Vs The World are definitely in my top ten of the decade so far.
- Sadly, 50 Cent - who is nowhere near as popular as he once was but is slowly finding more relevance again because of his show Power on Starz - isn't completely off base. Just this past Saturday one of my co-workers said he doesn't like the show because of the gay romance/sex. Obviously, this is just one example but unfortunately, I imagine there's a lot more people out there who feel that way.
- Ashley Judd's story just... I don't know what to say to that without cursing up a storm.
- They'll sooner be Mad Max: Fury Road sequels than there will be Avatar sequels, lol... Not that I'm necessarily clamoring for either.
I'm bummed about Chantal Akerman's death as Jeanne Dielman is truly one of the greatest films ever made and certainly one that everyone must see. She will definitely be missed.
Why do I get the feeling that Ashley Judd's talking about Harvey Weinstein...?
And yeah, Rooney Mara's an idiot, I can't even really muster up anything other than that.
Daniel -- i know that's WHY but it just seems dumb to me to have two of everything. will the public really be okay with two versions of everything?
phillip h-- lol on the Judd thing.
Phillip H - " one of our industry’s most famous, admired-slash-reviled bosses." Who else could it be? Jezebel thinks so too!
I don't think it is Weinstein actually, since I believe Judd said she never ended up working for him. She did a few Miramax pictures (at least Frida from what I remember). Unless she is trying to throw people off. Either way, I'm sure a lot of execs display this type of behavior.
Daniel Armour: 1. Yes, the fall start date is what they're PLANNING ON, but things change (remember, in early 2013, the plan was for Will Beall to be writing the Justice League movie, and look what happened after Gangster Squad turned out to be a bad movie) and Pan (a movie with the SAME WRITER as the current plan for the Wonder Woman movie, Jason Fuchs) flopping would be a good reason for said plans to change. 2. With DC's pitch of being "artist driven", they're NEVER going to go into production without a completed script, and finding a new interested writer and that writer finishing a full script will cause a substantial delay of when Wonder Woman starts filming. 3. The entire fun of a Batman and Superman team-up or fight concept is in watching a duality play off one another. Is Ben Affleck playing a happy Batman, like Adam West did (West is our ONLY happy Batman, by the way), pulling the same atypical portrayal Man of Steel did on Superman? No? Than they've completely bungled what the actual concept should be! There is no duality here, just two angsty violent a-holes going head-to-head. 4. Batman v. Superman's budget is going to be higher than Man of Steel's. Try somewhere in the $260-300 million range. So, even IF WB gets back an equivalent of the 40-50% of people that they lost with Man of Steel on concept alone (and let's be clear, that's not only a VERY big if but they definitely lost 40-50% of the original customers with Man of Steel), their BEST case scenario is probably "we just barely broke even" ($600-700 million). 5. Suicide Squad is a movie about a team of villains and, if that's wildly commercially and critically successful relative to it's budget and Batman v. Superman isn't, that will result in exactly what I describe at the end of my first comment.
Sad to hear the passing of Akerman. I can't say that I "enjoy" her films, but I've watched a number of them in film school, and I can certainly see what she went for and why it mattered.
Looks like 'Pan' is another of those terrible, unnecessary live-action remakes.
Saw the SNL skit with Clinton. Made me cringe. Am I the only one who thinks that she should drop out of the race? The contrast between her and Bernie Sanders is stark.
are we supposed to be shocked a studio executive sexually harassed and actress?
Pam, Phillip H. and Ryan: Since she specifically mentioned the timing (while she was filming Kiss the Girls), it's most likely it's Scott Rudin she's talking about.