Now IGN has confirmed my suspicion*, and added a whole bunch of info about GI Joe, which has been officially greenlit. The site says the film is budgeted at an astounding 170 million dollars (you can’t even get Snowjob out of bed for less than 5 mil these days, and that’s just the start of the expenses). They also explain that the movie is shooting early next year not to beat the strike but rather because if Paramount doesn’t get this thing into production ASAP they could lose the rights to the toyline. Also, a list of additional writers mentioned by the Hollywood Reporter are not taking cracks at the whole script but rather polishing certain scenes in Stuart Beattie’s draft. I imagine they’ve assembled a trio – John Lee Hancock and the team of Brian Koppelman and David Levien – in order to beat the November 1 strike date.

Expect legitimate news about GI Joe to start pouring out in the coming days, and expect the movie, which recasts the Real American Hero as an international anti-terrorist force based in Brussels**, to blow chunks. Sorry, but Stephen Sommers is directing it. I’ll eat my words should the film turn out to be good. Or if there’s a famine and I can’t find anything else to eat.

* Other suspicions I hope to have confirmed: water is wet, sugar is sweet and your mother swallows.

The Pitch

"It’s this or a Spartan Cheerleaders movie. You really want that?"

The Humans

Will Ferrell (Dick), Chris Kattan (Monkeybone), Dan Hedaya (Joe Versus the Volcano) Molly Shannon (Year of the Dog), Richard Grieco (If Looks Could Kill), Jennifer Coolidge (Best In Show), Michael Clarke Duncan (Daredevil), Chazz Palminteri (Jade), Loni Anderson (Stroker Ace)

The Nutshell

The Butabi brothers, Steve (Ferrell) and Doug (Kattan), live to party– so you’d think they’d be better at it. A chance encounter with Richard Grieco (himself) turns their fortunes around.

So it’s surprising to find that Roxbury is actually pretty good, if formulaic. Perhaps it’s an advantage that the characters as performed on TV were almost completely undefined– for the film, somebody actually had to sit down and ask, ‘who are these people and where did they come from?’ The answer: a nouveau-riche immigrant family from the Middle East, and here’s where it gets interesting. Although the leads never play it up (Ferrell does his Dumb Guy voice, Kattan* does his Annoying Guy voice) this is, by default, one of the only Hollywood films ever to star sympathetic Arab American characters in a present-day, nonpolitical context.

The Package

We get a surprisingly generous package of supplements here– it’s all newly-produced stuff, though Ferrell and Kattan only appear in EPK footage. Making the List is the most interesting of the featurettes, with interviews from several real-life club professionals. Best bit: a veteran doorman concedes that the Butabis would probably have no trouble getting into his club, due to their novelty factor.

Judging from this year’s excellent Zodiac and his spot-on adaptation of Richard A. Clarke’s Against All Enemies (which Robert Redford is currently set to direct), it’s fair to say that James Vanderbilt has finally recovered from the frustration of 2003’s Basic to become one of Hollywood’s most justifiably in-demand screenwriters. And while the Academy will probably deny Vanderbilt a much deserved nomination for Zodiac, the fact that he just landed Spider-Man 4 might make this bullshit eventuality a little easier to stomach.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Vanderbilt won the gig by scaling back the supervillain circus that was Spider-Man 3 in favor of a more "character-driven approach". Cynically speaking, this could be an effective cost-saving measure for Sony, particularly if Raimi, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst opt out. That said, after the last movie, I’ll gladly take a revamped cast-and-crew if it means getting a sturdier narrative (and an absence of undercooked religious metaphor).

Vanderbilt’s also rewriting Wolverine for Gavin Hood at the moment. I had no idea he was a geek. Since Vanderbilt’s going the less-is-more route on Spider-Man 4, I’m going to guess that Dr. Curt Connors will occupy the sole villain position, though the nice thing about Spidey is that he’s no shortage of enemies. 

You guys have not yet decided on the Black Freighter.

I’ve decided on it! I want to do it. It’s just whether or not we get the money for it, and we’re working on it.

You’d shoot it for the DVD?

Yeah, that’s what it would be for.

The Black Freighter I’m asking about is the comic within the comic in Watchmen, a horrific pirate tale that parallels and comments on the arc of one of the main characters in the story. It’s the most obviously extraneous bit in the sprawling graphic novel, and has always been cut from every draft of the script to date. But Snyder’s detail oriented, and he wanted to include the Black Freighter somehow.

Now he can. Moviehole has broken the story, and I can confirm it: Warner Bros is coughing up the dough to film Tales of the Black Freighter and include it on the DVD of Watchmen. This was confirmed last week by Zack and his producer and wife Debbie when I visited the set of Watchmen; they told my group of visiting journalists some more stuff about the eventual DVD of the film that I can’t talk about – embargoed!* – but rest assured, you’re going to want to pre-order this bad boy.

I think that Warner Bros ponying up for the Black Freighter sequences indicates that they’re happy with what Zack has been shooting for the last month (I know I’m happy with what I saw). That’s especially nice since in that same exclusive interview he told me that the studio didn’t quite get what Watchmen was all about. And even better: now that Gerard Butler has left Escape From New York, he’s free to star as the shipwrecked sailor!

In the immediate wake of Brett Ratner unofficially announcing his departure from the remake of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York (originally to be helmed by Len Wiseman), the new Snake Plissken, Gerard Butler, has decided to flee as well (citing the ever ambiguous "creative differences"). This is especially unfortunate because the studio had just brought on the capable Jonathan Mostow to rewrite Ken Nolan’s lacking-in-purpose draft. Though Mostow only had an option to direct, his steady, workmanlike presence on the project offered the first glimmer of hope since the fucker entered development. If the movie’s going to happen, I could live with Mostow directing it.

One positive to Butler’s exit is that it might free up the Scottish star to play Jimmy Malone in Brian De Palma’s Untouchables prequel. Failing that, he’ll at least have plenty of time to chase pussy.

I have no idea when Mostow began his rewrite, but it looks like he’ll have another week to retool Nolan’s screenplay: the WGA is indicating that they’ll delay the strike for another week. Though Mostow might be happy to hear this, I have a number of friends who were killing themselves over the last week to meet the Thursday 12:01 AM deadline. They might be a tad miffed over this last second extension.

I’ve actually been impressed by the massive fumble that has happened with the marketing of this movie. This summer things were at a fever pitch, with the internet buzzing and clues, hints or rumors popping up every couple of days, but everything has died down in a big way. Or was it a fumble after all? Did someone at Paramount realize this tease tease tease approach was going to burn out the core fanbase long before the movie came out?

This capitulation pretty much destroyed Sluizer (he also had the misfortune to direct the uncompleted River Phoenix movie, Dark Blood), but I have a feeling Bekmambetov will thrive; he did, after all, make his bones with the Roger Corman-produced, female Gladiator ripoff, The Arena. And bully for him! This just means Wanted, the f/x-laden adaptation of yet another firearm-fetishizing graphic novel, doesn’t quite count as his English-language debut. It does, however, appear to be of a piece with his previous work – which is to say it’s gonna be greased stupid.

James McAvoy stars as a straight-laced regular joe whose quotidian life gets a squib infusion when Angelina Jolie* sidles up to him at a pharmacy and announces that she knew his father. Stifling a boner, McAvoy informs the inveterate homewrecker that his father died the week he was born. "Au contraire," contends Ms. Jolie. "He was one of the greatest assassins who ever lived." Before McAvoy can retort "Were you really fucking Ethan Hawke during that sex scene in Taking Lives?", bullets start whizzing to and fro, and, sure enough, we’re stuck inside of Wooville with the Ringo Lam blues again. And then Morgan Freeman shows up.

Though the trailer for National Treasure: Book of Secrets still holds the 2007 honor for Best Nonsensical Utterance from an Academy Award Winner, Freeman fires off a worthy runner-up here: "If no one ever told you bullets fly straight, what would you do?" Excellent question. I suppose I’d finally get the living room furniture reupholstered, but, failing that, I might just curl up next to a hissing furnace with a volume of Koontz. A second later, Freeman informs McAvoy that his deceased father "could conduct a symphony orchestra" with a pistol. Pretty good. That said, seeing as how my dad told me he once saw George Szell guide the Cleveland Symphony through Beethoven’s 7th wielding a newborn infant, I’m probably not as impressed as I should be.

Seriously, this looks very standard-issue, but you get what you pay for. Wanted is scheduled for wide release on March 28, 2008.

It’s very hard not to enter 300
with a skewed opinion before the first frame rolls by. Frank Miller is
a cornerstone in comic book history, as much as nearly anyone before
him. Though creators named Lee and Eisner and Kirby and Kane are
pioneers, their impact faced serious threats as the world changed in
the 1980’s. Comic books had endured swells when the medium became more
marketable in the wake of the 70’s, but it never got the adult market
like it deserved to [Eisner’s ‘Dropsie Ave.’ trilogy notwithstanding.
If you have not read it, just buy it.
Trust me]. Miller’s seminal work in the 80’s and early 90’s did a
massive job towards adding credibility and maturity to the medium, most
of his contributions true to the hype. That said, the man does polarize
people, especially in how he’s approached the latter phase of his
career whether in beating a dead horse [The Dark Knight Strikes Back, a couple too many Sin City stories] or segueing into film [the Sin City film arguments here at CHUD.com have been… interesting]. There’s considerable baggage once he enters the equation. After Sin City (my theatrical review, Devin’s theatrical review, regular DVD review, uncut DVD review)proved that his creations not only work on film but can be lucrative, 300 takes the idea many drastic steps forward. In fact, after 300 I find it harder to not only watch Sin City but be interested in it.

Leonidas
is an amazing central character for a film, a hero who rushes to face
his enemies. One who craves a good death. It’s extremely rich cinema,
especially in a time where heroic icons in films both modern day and in
retro epics tend to feel the need to deliver a cool line or do their
work in a way more cool than functional. The really great send-off in 300,
the "we’ll fight in the shade" line, doesn’t even come from Leonidas
but rather a soldier who looks a little like David Lee Roth circa Women and Children First.
Leonadas is a man of action, vividly displayed here in Snyder’s
sequences which merge several cameras, several speeds, and several
perspectives in a manner that truly works as muscular and exciting
filmmaking.

There’s a definite sense of "been there, done that" at times, but 300 always gets back on course whenever Butler and his men are front and center.

Additionally,
there’s a treasure trove of supplements on the second disc, mostof
which are not only worth seeing but ones which actually enhance the
experience. Though I personally find the film to be extremely
heightened, it’s nice to see that the crew involved historians and made
the effort to have the DVD be as informative as possible without losing
the electricity and skull-smashing fun of the film.