It’s not too surprising to learn many movie bloggers aren’t fans of Mad Men. They’re movie geeks, not TV viewers, and they probably spend their Sunday nights re-watching favorite horror flicks and Dark KnightDVD extras. That’s why a lot of sites commenting on the news that Jon Hammis joining Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punchfocus on the movie and the Watchmendirector more than on the actor. Which is fine for now, even if it makes the casting decision seem questionable, because ultimately this career move is going to help Hamm acquire fanboy fans, and that’s one thing he needs in order to truly become the next George Clooney.
After all, Clooney’s first major film role after becoming a star on TV’s ER was Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s vampire picture From Dusk Till Dawn. And Snyder’s movie isn’t too far off, regardless of the fact none of us really know what Sucker Punch is going to be like other than maybe a Return to Oz knockoff. That movie will bring Hamm to Comic-Con, which will potentially gain him more followers who think he’d be perfect for a Supermanmovie (Clooney played Batman soon after FDTD). And so on.
Many Mad Men fans might prefer for Hamm to concentrate on dramatic roles as he segues into a movie career, but like Clooney, Hamm is likely better suited for genre films and silly comedies first. He certainly has shown he enjoys and can do comedic acting via 30 Rock, SNL and a FunnyorDie sketch that already got the geeks’ attention with his portrayal of Lex Luthor. Might he try being cast in a Coen Brothers film next? Or should he reconnect with the makers of The Ten and make David Wain & co. his goofball collaborators instead?
The only Clooney career step I’d like Hamm to avoid is the big budget, non-geek-centric action movie. He doesn’t need a Peacemakeror a Perfect Storm, and we kinda hope he got that sort of thing out of his system with The Day the Earth Stood Still. Plus, Hamm is already entering the film biz later than Clooney. When he was Hamm’s age, Clooney’d already made two of his best films, Out of Sightand Three Kings.
Let me know what kind of films you’d like to see Hamm do and what you think would be good for him to do. Before commenting, though, check out what some other film bloggers are saying about his latest film choice after the jump:
Director Zack Snyder has succeeded in doing the impossible: he has adapted the “unfilmable” graphic novel, Watchmen, to the screen. While there’s no doubt that he has made the movie with surprisingly little deviation from the source material, that doesn’t mean he has made a good film. In many ways, Watchmen is a case study in the inherent differences between the comic page and the screen. Success on screen, even if the adaptation is faithful, is not guaranteed.
The story (in case you didn’t piece it together from the constant barrage of trailers and posters clogging the internet since last summer) revolves around a group of costumed super heroes whose fates intertwine with the events of the twentieth century. Set in an alternate 1985, the world is on the brink of nuclear holocaust. The action is set in motion by the murder of The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a retired hero with dubious morals. The outlawed heroes fight to avert impending doom, and spur to action the only one among them with the power to single-handedly save the world, Dr. Manhattan. Played by a blue CGI mock-up of a naked, impossibly ripped Billy Crudup, Dr. Manhattan is the result of an experiment gone wrong. He is the only hero with supernatural powers, which are inconceivably vast, and has become the lynchpin in the United States’ defense strategy against the Soviets. His powers have gradually separated him from the plight of humanity, illustrated by his failing relationship with Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), a sexy, second-generation heroine.
There’s a concern that the web of back-stories and sizable cast of characters could render the film inaccessible to those who haven’t read the graphic novel. On the contrary, I think the Watchmen virgins are at an advantage going into the film. Snyder covers a dizzying amount of material, staying true to the core of the original story even while making some significant cuts. For Watchmen fans, I think the problem is not the cuts, but rather the treatment of some of the material that’s left in. Hollywood seems to assume that comic books are ready-made storyboards, in need only of several million dollars of CGI to come to life. In many ways, Watchmen is a collection of examples which show why the formula is much more complicated than that.
I had a chance to see Quantum of Solace last night, and while I didn’t enjoy it as much as Casino Royale (is Daniel Craig already wearing out his welcome as the new Bond?) it does have some spectacular action sequences. However, if the Blonde Bond wasn’t enough to shake up the franchise for long, what could happen if Bond were re-imagined by some of Hollywood’s top filmmakers? There are a lot of different things that could be done with the character if someone were given free rein to reinterpret Bond as they saw fit.
After the jump, we imagine the five hypothetical films that five wildly different working filmmakers might make if Bond were put in their hands. We’ve taken a bit of license here (although not a license to kill), so use your imagination with the Bonds that could be, no matter how extremely loosely interpreted.
In May 2006, Legendary Pictures announced that they had acquired the rights from Blizzard Entertainment to make a World of Warcraft movie. There was the sound of enormous rejoicing from gamers around the world and then … a great silence. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in joy and were suddenly silenced. Since then, the silence from Legendary and Blizzard has been fairly deafening. Two years later and still no news on the project. Apparently it’s still in development but they haven’t hired the “someone along the lines of a Zack Snyder, Christopher Nolan type” they wanted to direct the project.
With a planned release date of 2009 impossible to meet at this point, why not just scrap the whole thing? They could save themselves the embarrassment of spending over $100 million dollars on a movie that’ll end up tanking at the box office and become a pack-in freebie with the next expansion set. There’s a growing mountain of reasons not to make this movie; take a look at them after the break.
So Warner Brothers showed about 2 minutes of Watchmen footage on an awards show this week, and they’ve now put that footage online. I’m pretty sure this is the same as the brief “sizzle reel” they showed alongside the three full scenes at the roadshow a couple of weeks ago. So there’s not much new for me to say about it, other than that I really do wish Zack Snyder was a little less enamored with motion effects, but then, post-Changeling, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to take slow motion seriously again. What say you?
It wasn’t that long ago that Activision announced they’d struck a deal with Brett Ratner to develop movies based on their video games –– and that he wants to direct a Guitar Hero film. Now the pendulum is swinging back in the other direction as Electronic Arts just announced that they’ve struck a three video game deal with Zack Snyder.
We caught up with Zack at last night’s Watchmen event to find out the details. As it turns out, he’s a late-night gaming addict, even in the middle of trying to finish a huge Hollywood movie.
We were invited to a Warner Bros. event tonight to see 26 minutes worth of footage from the Watchmen film that’s due out on 03.06.09 next year, and it was pretty impressive stuff. Even the ice cold comic book fan inside of me enjoyed it, and I didn’t think The Dark Knight was worth all the hype everyone was laying on it. As far as a graphic novel turned into a film goes, Watchmen looks like it’ll set the bar for future adaptations.
Director Zack Snyder was on-hand to setup the footage and talk about what’s been done so far, and he was joined by costume designer Michael Wilkinson and production designer Alex McDowell. Interestingly enough, it took place in the same place where they held a similar event for 300. Head after the break to get a full rundown on the footage we saw, and what Snyder and company had to say about the film that’s still six months away. Forgive me if I slip into a bit of fanboyism, because this is one of my favorite comic book properties.
During Spout’s coverage of Comic-Con last week, my ears perked up during the Entertainment Weekly: Visionaries panel when Watchmendirector Zack Snyder started railing about the disconnect between video games and Hollywood. It’s nice to know that the director of next year’s mega-tentpole hopeful doesn’t want the marketing department at Warner Bros. to rush something craptacular to the waiting masses. Just like Steven Spielberg did in 1983.
When the trailer for Watchmen hit the web a few weeks ago, I was as pumped as anyone. I’ve always been a fan of comics, but when I finished reading Alan Moore’s opus for the first time, I closed the back cover, starred into space, and solemnly said, “This changes everything.” Seriously, it’s that good. And the trailer looks good, it appears to be a faithful adaptation of the source material.
The key word here is appears. The visuals are stunning, some sites even took the time to do shot by shot comparisons with the book. But I’m not worried at all about that, I’m more concerned with how the film will be edited. Like most comics/graphic novels, Watchmen is practically a story board waiting to be transformed into a film. But what made the book so revolutionary was not the art, it was the story, and the way the story was told. Watchmen is a dense web of complicated interconnected stories. Multiple generations of characters deal with epic personal, philosophical, and political struggles, all woven into one masterwork.
Watchmen, the book, excels at the graphic novel version of cross-cutting. Several pages contain nine panels that are set up like a checkerboard, alternating between two separate stories that intimately inform one another, albeit across expanses of space and time. On the one hand, this seems like source material for a final-scene-of-The Godfather level of powerhouse editing. But on the other hand, it could just be a huge mess.
After the jump, Snyder says why he feels up to the challenge…
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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It’s not too surprising to learn many movie bloggers aren’t fans of 
