While at the Dubai International Film Festival over the weekend, Terminator Salvation director McG “announced” that a fifth installment of the Terminator franchise is definitely in the works, although The Halcyon Co. revealed over a year ago their plans for a trilogy. That McG is back to helm the installment must mean Halcyon is happier with the way Salvation looks than some of us are.
F/X artist-turned-director Stephen Norrington is finally following up The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with the remake of The Crowthat’s been talked about in Hollywood for awhile. I wonder if Jason Statham is still interested in playing the lead.
Oh yeah, the weekend’s box office results: well, The Day the Earth Stood Still managed to just barely edge out The Happening to be the higher grossing of the year’s lame eco-sci-fi films. The animated film you never heard of, Delgo, couldn’t make a million bucks on more than 2,000 screens, while the Bollywood film you never heard of, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, cracked a million bucks on about 100 screens. And a ton of limited specialty films, including new releases Gran Torino, Wendy and Lucy, The Reader, Doubt and Che, all had better per-screen-averages than did the #1 film, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Remember when trailers would name-appropriately trail the movie? Me neither. I don’t think anyone does. But occasionally trailers are still shown after the main feature. Back to the Future Part IIIwas advertised at the end of Part II, and The Matrix Reloadedended with a preview of The Matrix Revolutions. As next installments of cliff-hanging series, though, these sequels were like the old serials from which trailers received their name (in one of multiple explanations).
I suggest that previews of big movies starring the main actor of the film you’re currently seeing also follow this model. Why? Because after watching this teaser (boy does it tease right) trailer for next summer’s Terminator Salvation, which is showing with The Dark Knight and which stars TDK’s Christian Bale, I’m too distracted by my excitement for the nex season to fully concentrate on the blockbuster at hand. Wouldn’t it be better if Warner Bros. instead slipped this trailer in right before the Dark Knight credits with an announcement like, “you’ve just seen Christian Bale in The Dark Knight; see him again next summer in … ”
A roundup of favorite comments about the trailer itself (as opposed to its placement) after the jump:
Trailers for novels aren’t the newest idea in the world, but I still think they’re a neat concept. Unfortunately, they can sometimes actually do harm to a book’s appeal, as in the case of Amanda Goldberg and Ruthanna Khalighi Hopper’s Hollywood-set novel Celebutantes, which arrives in stores tomorrow. The book has four dramatized “trailers”, or clips, pulled from its pages, the best of which is viewable above. Yes, I said the best of which. And if you think that one is bad, then check out the three other truly embarrassing clips at the book’s MySpace page.
So if they’re so bad, why am I sharing them (and possibly helping to promote the book)? Because I wanted to point out that these are the work of McG, who directed the two Charlie’s Angelsmovies and is currently working on the next Terminator sequel, titled Terminator Savlation: The Future Begins. The actors in these “trailers” are Katrina Begin (featured in the above spot), Cloverfield’s Mike Vogel, My So Called Life’s “Rickie”, Wilson Cruz, and TV actresses Autumn Reeser (The O.C.), April Bowlby (Two and a Half Men) and Michelle Borth (Tell Me You Love Me). None of these people are completely talentless (yes, even McG is better than this), so I’ll state the fault is with the writing of the two authors.
After four seasons of Entourage, could this novel be any less interesting to fans of film-industry-set fiction? Celebutantes seems even dumber and less relevant an Oscar-themed satire than Christopher Guest’s recent disappointment For Your Consideration. It’s no wonder that Entertainment Weekly called the book “silly” and gave it a “C+” grade (it was reviewed alongside another Hollywood-themed novel titled Oscar Season, which fared a little better with a “B”). The magazine also notes that the book’s authors are the offspring of producer Leonard Goldberg (Charlie’s Angels) and actor Dennis Hopper. You’d think they would have a little more insight.
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.
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