Yesterday we pointed to a clip showing that everybody and their Pokémon-loving little brother seems to be endorsing Obama. Well not so fast, my friends, we’ve got them right where we want them. What if some legendary Hollywood directors produced attack ads for the McCain camp? Then we’ll see who has an eleven point lead! Folkinz points us to a clip of what it might look like if John Woo, Kevin Smith, and Wes Anderson went GOP. Although it would never happen in reality, anything is possible on the internet!
The Wes Anderson piece at the end is particularly good. If McCain just put guys in yellow jumpsuits running through the background in slow-mo in a few of his ads, I think he’d get at least a two point bump. The John Woo bit is pretty funny, but it could have used a much bigger budget, to the tune of ten million or so. But with McCain’s current fund raising woes, it’s not likely. Maybe Palin can hire Michael Bay to do some ads for her inevitable 2012 bid. They’d better start financing and preproduction right now.
A little film called The Dark Knightopens tomorrow tonight, and it’s so highly anticipated and it has received so much positive buzz that one expert is predicting it could gross anywhere between $100-150 million. I’m going to to do him one better and broaden that gap further to $100-900 million. Good thing this isn’t The Price is Right.
And speaking of down-on-their-luck, alcoholics, Jeff Bridges will play one — a country singer, though, not a superhero — in the T Bone Burnett-scored musical Crazy Heart, which will also star Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall.
John Woo is known for announcing about 20 new directing gigs a year, so don’t get too upset if he doesn’t actually end up helming the comic book adaptation Caliber.
Can we expect a whole new marketing strategy for Tom Cruise’s Valkyrie? United Artists has just hired a new chief of marketing and publicity, Michael Vollman from Paramount, to replace the resigned Dennis Rice.
Documentary site SnagFilmshas acquired indieWIRE. Congrats and good luck to our SpoutBlog friends at iW, including Eugene Hernandez, who has a new position and will oversee content on both sites.
Speaking of Jean-Claude Van Damme, it’s been a long 15 years since John Woo came to America to direct the Muscles from Brussels in Hard Target, and I’m ready for the action auteur’s return to Chinese cinema already. In the last decade and a half, Woo has delivered some embarrassing work while in Hollywood (I know, except for Face/Off, we all agree). But now he’s back with Red Cliff, an epic Chinese film costing about $80 million, which makes it the most expensive Asian-financed film ever.
The film, which takes place in the 3rd century (China’s Three Kingdoms period), was partially brought to the Cannes film market, where more than 8 minutes were shown to buyers. And now, courtesy of Trailer Addict, we get to see a bootleg of the reel (visit the site for a much bigger version). Unfortunately, it’s difficult to tell if it’s actually going to be worth the wait and the money (this past weekend showed us, with the release of The Children of Huang Shi, that not all China-set epics are good). Nevertheless, it is interesting and exciting to see what Woo has been doing back on his native soil. And who doesn’t enjoy watching Tony Leung over Ben Affleck?
Yesterday, in response to David Gordon Green’s talent being (presumably) wasted on Pineapple Express, I brought you my picks for the 5 worst directorial sellouts of all time (or, as I should have titled it, 5 Worst Attempts at Mainstream Success). And now, as promised, are my picks for the best, because occasionally a great filmmaker can take a seemingly sellout gig and deliver a masterpiece.
(tie) The Godfather(1972) and The Godfather Part II(1974) - Everyone should know that Francis Ford Coppola didn’t want to make the first Godfather film. He wanted to make smaller movies, such as The Conversation, which he was able to make at Paramount only because he directed The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. I prefer the film he wanted to make, but there is no denying his first two Godfather films were worth Coppola’s time and, more importantly, ours. …Read more
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
filmcouch-114
A little film called The Dark Knight opens tomorrow tonight, and it’s so highly anticipated and it has received so much positive buzz that one expert is predicting it could gross anywhere between $100-150 million. I’m going to to do him one better and broaden that gap further to $100-900 million. Good thing this isn’t The Price is Right.
