When I was a kid, I wished for a sequel to Barry Levinson’s not-so-loved yet respectable-for-its-groundbreaking-effects film Young Sherlock Holmes. I was simply all about young detectives at the time. I wasn’t about to read any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s actual books, but I loved Encyclopedia Brown and the Three Investigators (the kids who were friends with Hitchock) and was curious about Nancy Drew (I never dared read her stories because they were for girls).

Anyway, that bit of backstory is hardly important to the news that Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes already has a sequel in development, but I wanted to mention it simply because I’m ecstatic that my wish for a Sherlock Holmes 2, even if not directly a follow up to the teenaged adventure, have been finally granted. At the same time, the news also allows a great deal of movie geeks to play Nikki Finke and shout “toldja!” regarding the rumor that Brad Pitt is playing Holmes’ nemesis, Moriarty, in the second installment — and likely also appears in the end of the first film (out this Christmas).

The sequel is being written by Kieran and Michele Mulroney, neither of whom worked on the original installment, and I have a suggestion for them before they begin: let this franchise be a trilogy, and make Sherlock Holmes 2 end on an Empire Strikes Back-level downer. Contrary to what some people might think, Holmes had been known to lose a case here and there (Rachel McAdams’ character in the film is actually one of the most famous to outwit him), so it won’t be too unsettling to see him fail big time. Perhaps he’ll even go into a dark period involving lots and lots of cocaine, and he won’t snap back into action until the third film.

Anyway, that’s my idea. Unlike others, I haven’t read the script for the first Holmes nor have I read all of Doyle’s tales of the detective, so maybe it’s not a likely scenario. Still, if Pitt’s the villain, it’ll be fun to see him win — maybe in a re-imagining of “The Final Problem,” only Holmes is sent to his supposed death at the bottom of Reichenbach Falls while Moriarty gets away?

Feel free to correct me or provide your own plot ideas in the comments below. First, check out what the other film blogs are saying about this news after the jump:

…Read more

I’m not in the mood to trash Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for the billionth time today, but the hot story on the blogs appears to be Indy related, so I’ll try to get through this disappointing story as quick as possible. According to Shia LaBeouf (in an interview with the BBC), Steven Spielberg has “cracked a story on” a fifth installment of the franchise, and the young actor thinks “they’re gearing that up.”

Of course that means little except that the series has survived despite having “nuked the fridge” (a term actually spawned by the ridiculousness of the fourth film), and it will continue grasping through life with some level of radiation sickness (aka further crappiness) as a result. Because I’m something of a cinematic masochist (you have to be in this line of work), I’ll probably see the next sequel, and the next, but I’ve got lower expectations for this thing than I’ve had for any movie ever greenlit.

Let’s see if any other bloggers feel the same way after the jump:
…Read more

Both are broadly classifiable as science fiction, but Alien is basically a horror flick and Aliens has all the conventions of a war film. That’s a pretty slick transition from one type of movie to another, especially since the switch was so immediate within the series. Most movie franchises don’t play with genre in such a way until they’ve gone through a number of sequels, and even then the series usually just simply takes its characters into outer space, a la Moonraker, Jason X and Leprechaun 4.

Genre jumping isn’t that easy, though, unless a franchise inhabits a whole universe in which to expand through. Like Star Wars, for example. Originally a film series, the Star Wars franchise spread out into novels, which has allowed for dips into the romance genre and now horror. That’s right, an upcoming novel by horror author Joe Schreiber, titled Deathtroopers, takes the Star Wars universe into frightening territory described by Schreiber as “in the vein of The Shining and Alien, with a little dose of William Gibson mixed in.”

So, if Star Wars can venture into the horror genre, what other movie franchises should attempt a genre jump? To toy with the idea, we’ve selected five film series in need of a change and suggested a possible redirection of genre for each.
…Read more

• 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.

Harrison Ford’s newest movie Crossing Over opens this weekend may never open ever (see comments below — Ed.) and it looks like a mashup of Babel and Crash. In the trailer, Ford seems to be going through the motions of a role we’ve become used to seeing him in: the gruff older man who gets angry about something and decides to take matters into his own hands. It’s most reminiscent of his Jack Ryan character in Clear and Present Danger, right down to shots that look pretty darn close to each other.

It’s more of a reminder that so many of Harrison Ford’s films in these past few years have fallen flat on their face both with audiences and at the box office. He tried to do comedy with Anne Heche in Six Days, Seven Nights, and again with Josh Hartnett in Hollywood Homicide. Neither one of them worked. He also missed with the romantic drama Random Hearts and the drama/actioner K19: The Widowmaker. There was brief respite from his lackluster roles with What Lies Beneath, but then he turned to mediocrity with Firewall. Then came the new Indy, which granted, wasn’t his fault. He was great it in, but the writing was just too bad to get past.

Crossing Over doesn’t look like it’ll bust Ford out of the boring movie mold he’s encased in, so here are some suggestions for him to turn things around. Despite the fact that this guy could retire tomorrow and live off of his earnings forever, he seems intent on continuing to act. Let’s hope he pays attention.

…Read more

Forget about Don Cheadle replacing Terence Howard as James Rhodes / War Machine in Iron Man II, which smells a lot like the “we’ll threaten to replace Tobey Maguire with Jake Gyllenhaal” tactic that Sony used for Spider-Man II –– Hollywood has been doing this for years. It was bad enough back in the days of television with Dick Sargent replacing Dick York in Bewitched, but now it’s becoming pretty commonplace for producers to replace actors in iconic roles. Although now it’s more common due to monetary concerns, which seems to be what has taken Howard out of the War Machine suit, it’s also common to see an actor ankle a role because they don’t like the source material, or the direction the character is taking. We’ve put together several different re-castings, which all happened for a variety of reasons: money, dissatisfaction with the script, test audience reactions, and actors just growing tired of playing the same character. Check them out after the break.

…Read more

While I’m still upset by all the bad buzz related to Indiana Jones and the Movie That’s Not Even in Theaters Yet, I find this story at least a little uplifting, as it’s for a great cause. Harrison Ford, who sits on the board of directors at the environmental organization, Conservation International, appears in a new PSA focused on the harms of deforestation. To show us how much it hurts the earth, Ford’s seen having his chest hair yanked out, a la Steve Carell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

But does it really hurt, Harrison? Because you didn’t scream or wince at all. I know you’re a tough guy action hero, but it would really drive the point more if we could see the man behind Indy/Han Solo/Jack Ryan/President Marshall/etc. start yelling and maybe even shed a tear from pain. Nevertheless, I appreciate the sentiment, especially the way you’re capitalizing on your latest Indy movie to bring us this important message. I can’t wait for the next PSA where you get hair plugs put in to illustrate the ease of reforestation.

If the rumors (or are they predictions?) are true that Harrison Ford/Indiana Jones dies at the end of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time George Lucas completed a franchise by killing off a returning character. But would it actually mean the end of the series?

While there has been additional speculation that Shia LaBeouf could continue the franchise as Indy Jr., there is now the possibility that Ford would actually return for a fifth film, if asked. In an interview in USA Today, the actor says he’d consider it, as long as it doesn’t take another 20 years. So, no death for Indy, then?

…Read more

April 1 proves that there are essentially two types of people on the internet––nay, in the world!––those who think rickrolling is funny, and those who really, really don’t. I’m the latter, somebody at YouTube is the former, and the philosophical gulf keeping us apart is not easily reckoned with. Oh, internet…I love you, but you’re getting me down.

But because the last thing I want is for you to forget what day it is only be taken in by nefarious pranksters, here’s a round-up of fake movie stories I’ve come across on this agonizing day of digital torture. Hey let’s make this interactive––you can vote for where each one falls on the Painfully Unamusing Scale in the comments!

• Peter Jackson will follow up The Lovely Bones by directing both The Hobbit and The Hobbit 2. [If It's Movies]
• Benicio DelToro drops out of the remake of The Wolfman, to be replaced by “[Snarl] Busey, fathered by Gary Busey during an affair with a coyote six years ago during a trip to New Mexico.” [FilmDrunk]
• Harrison Ford will star in Han Solo. Written by Carrie Fisher, the belated Star Wars sequel “will tell of the Space Pirate’s post-Return of the Jedi life – his rocky relationship with Leia, their mischievous Jedi-training twins, and principally, Solo’s ongoing battle with The Hutt’s.” Sic. [Moviehole]
• Leonardo DiCaprio, whose character––spoiler alert!––ostensibly died at the end of Titanic, will nonetheless be back for Titanic 2: A New Voyage. Reports Fandango: “One version that has been slowly leaking onto the Internet finds DiCaprio’s character, Jack Dawson, last seen submerged and turning blue, being picked up by a Portuguese trawler and miraculously thawed out.”
• IGN has a trailer for a movie based on The Legend of Zelda. It’s really elaborate and totally humorless, so who knows––based on the game-to-movie track record, it would not be outside the realm of possibility if this were real.
• David Edelstein apologizes for suggesting that Harvey Weinstein might have limited the late Anthony Minghella’s potential. Oh, wait––this might be a real story. I don’t even know anymore!!! They shoot film bloggers, don’t they?
  

• Oh, good: Indiana Jones and the Dorian Grey-ing of Harrison Ford Into Shia LaBouf will premiere at Cannes! Maybe. No one’s seen the thing yet, but according to Variety, “The cast, which includes Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf and Cate Blanchett, have already been notified to pack their black-tie outfits for the French Riviera’s red carpet unspooling even though the fest has yet to confirm its official lineup.” Because celebrities pack suitcases 10 weeks in advance.
• Theatrical exhibition conference ShoWest will confer a special “Freedom of Expression Award” to Ang Lee and James Schamus, for releasing Lust, Caution with an NC-17 rating instead of cutting the film to get an R. National Theater Owners president John Fithian is inexplicably trying to push studios to revitalize the NC-17 market, even though even Lust, Caution made just under $5 million domestically, and in fact was a super-hit in China…where it was cut to appease the censors.
• Semi-Pro, which opens today, suddenly bears the dubious distinction of being the final release from New Line before the studio is subsumed into the clusterfuck that is Time Warner. It may not exactly send the studio out with a bang: although the comedy is said to be “tracking well among males under 25″ it’s nonetheless expected to “open well lower than Ferrell’s most recent films.”

From Alex Balk’s Tumblr:

I haven’t seen it anywhere yet, and I’m wondering why more people aren’t talking about how this summer’s new Spielberg movie, Indiana Jones and The Latest Terrible Movie Title From George Lucas, will change the dynamic of the presidential race. I have to believe that if the movie does well it’s going to seriously help John McCain with undecided voters, who will figure, hey, if Harrison Ford can still handle all this action in spite of the fact that he’s 71 years old, so can McCain.

No, Harrison Ford is not actually 71, but he’s so close that this can’t actually be funny as a joke, so we’ll call it a serious line of cultural-political inquiry.

For their latest Photoshop contest, Something Awful invited amateur image editing masters to revamp movie posters, to replace the title of the movie with an appropriate song title. My favorite is this take on Raiders of the Lost Ark. Imagine if George Lucas and Steven Spielberg actually adopted influences from DEVO. If Indy 4 was going to be anything like the Whip It video, I might actually care.

[Via BoingBoing]