Gore Verbinski | SpoutBlog

Professing Our Love for Clue: The Movie. Today in Film Bloggery 02/25/09

By Christopher Campbell posted 9 months ago

Who knew that the 1985 board game adaptation Clue had so many fans? These people certainly weren’t around 24 years ago when the movie opened 6th at the box office, behind even the terrible Santa Claus: The Movie in its third week (I’ll admit, though, Santa Claus is one of my dear guilty pleasures). But suddenly, via the internet, loyalists are everywhere, up in arms over news that a new Clue adaptation is moving forward as if the original were as popular a film as the 1985 box office champ Back to the Future (which grossed as much as 14 times more than Clue).

Well, I am with the devoted to an extent. I have loved Clue since seeing it in the theater, and am embarrassed to admit it was probably the film that introduced me to the comic talents of Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn and Michael McKean (what can I say except that I was 8 and hadn’t yet seen Rocky Horror, Blazing Saddles or Spinal Tap?). But I’m not joining the protest, because I know we’ll always have the original movie. Plus, I recognize that it was anything but an original idea (never mind that it was based on a board game; hasn’t anyone see Murder By Death?). And besides, the new version, to be directed by Pirates of the Caribbean’s Gore Verbinski, hardly sounds anything like either the game or the first film. “Global thriller and transmedia event”? I don’t know what that is, but it isn’t the Clue I played.

After the jump, the internerds weigh in on their love for Clue or (gasp!) their excitement for Verbinski’s effort:

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Hollywood

Mamma Mia! Conquers the UK. Trade Roughage 12/17/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 11 months ago

Sure, The Dark Knight is conquering the world, but Mamma Mia! has just surpassed Titanic to become the highest grossing movie of all time in the UK. Compared to the Batman flick, which has only earned $88.8 million in the UK’s territory (shared with Ireland and Malta), Mamma Mia! has made $132.2 million.
Following their 2007 share of Michael Cera’s breakthrough, directors Jason Reitman and Greg Mottola are sharing in the rise of another young talent: Jesse Eisenberg, who stars in Mottola’s upcoming Adventureland, will next star in Reitman’s The Wedding, which sounds like The Graduate in more ways than one.
Gore Verbinski will helm a movie about a real-life, married, role-playing 53-year-old diabetic who spends 20 hours a day online as “a musclebound entrepeneur” with a virtual wife. To acquaint yourself with the whole story, particularly why his real spouse is pissed, check out the Wall Street Journal article upon which it will be based.
30 Rock genius Tracy Morgan will star as an African dictator in Freshman Roommates, which asks the question what if those Nigerian prince scams weren’t scams.
Harrison Ford is making another comedy in which he (likely) ends up with a much, much younger woman, this time played by Rachel McAdams.
Please, please, please, Academy, nominate “Dracula’s Lament” for Best Original Song Oscar.

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Uncategorized

Adults Take the Multiplex. Trade Roughage 09/12/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

According to Variety, four new films are competing for the attention of adult moviegoers this weekend, with The Women attracting the +25 ladies and Righteous Kill, Burn After Reading and Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys attracting the men, I guess. The prediction is that Perry’s film will win the box office, because it will attract the black audience while Righteous and Burn are expected to split their (white?) demo. And, well, women don’t actually go to the movies. Right?
Universal and Focus have made a deal to invest in and co-produce the latest from Oldboy director Chan-wook Park. The new film, a risque vampire pic titled Thirst, is apparently the first Korean production financed and picked up for distribution by a U.S. studio prior to its being completed and released locally.
In case you want to know more about the Gore Verbinski-Johnny Depp motion capture film, Rango, Variety has a short follow-up, which spotlights the involvement of ILM. Though it doesn’t really add much to the original news, I’m a little more intrigued now about the future of animated features and whether or not mo-cap companies like ILM, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Animal Logic (none of which, it’s noted, develop their own projects) could soon give Pixar and DreamWorks a run for their money.
Ray Winstone will replace walk-off Robert De Niro in Martin Campbell’s Edge of Darkness, which will apparently actually be good and so doesn’t fit with De Niro’s career goals of late.

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Hollywood, Indies

Johnny Depp is the New Tom Hanks. Trade Roughage 09/10/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

Wes Anderson has been hired out by Universal/Imagine to script a remake of Patrice Leconte’s Mon Meilleur Ami (My Best Friend), about a cabby hired out to pose as Daniel Auteuil’s pal. If Anderson also directs the film, I can see Bill Murray as either role, but let me suggest that the other be played by Richard Dreyfuss for a perfect What About Bob? reunion.
Pirates of the Caribbean collaborators Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp are apparently going the way of Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks, but better, for a computer-animated film titled Rango, which will feature motion-capture technology unlike anything we’ve seen before in an animated feature.
After sparking my interest again with Black Book, Paul Verhoeven is disappointingly returning to the genre of erotic thriller, according to Variety. He’s in talks to direct a movie about an intern who’s doing his boss’ wife, which is of course described as Risky Business meets Fatal Attraction.
At the midway point of the Toronto Film Festival, The Hollywood Reporter notes the fest’s lack of Oscar buzz, except for the awards talk surrounding The Wrestler, Martin Landau (Lovely, Still), Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married), Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky) and even Dakota Fanning (The Secret Life of Bees).

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Hollywood

Leo Does Akira: Trade Roughage 02/21/08

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

Weird. Leo DiCaprio will produce a live-action, “two-part epic” based on the classic manga/anime Akira. The story will be adapted to take place in New Manhattan, “a city rebuilt by Japanese money.” The HR story actually doesn’t specify whether or not Leo will star in the thing, but if so, I imagine they’ll also “adapt” this skull-head getup so that Warner Brothers can actually see what they’re paying for.
Gore Verbinski is going to make a cartoon, and this one is not going to star Johnny Depp.
Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman will adapt Black Hole, a graphic novel about promiscuous teens passing around a mystery STD (hot), for David Fincher to direct.
Isn’t it a little weird that Variety editor Tim Gray doesn’t actually make a Best Picture prediction in the Best Picture prediction video above? Does this give credence to the “Juno is the new Crash” nightmare scenario that’s been floating around? Or is he just contractually not allowed to disappoint his advertisers?