Fun THE DEVELOPMENT HELL THREAD: Where Abandoned Movie Projects Go to Die!

[ant-mac]

The 1978 version still remains my absolute favourite.

I doubt that Version No. 5 will alter that.

The first and second versions are tied for me, but for different reasons...

However, the original novel actually had a definitive resolution to the events that you seldom see in a film.

 

[Doctor Omega]

SAMUEL L. JACKSON TO STAR IN THE BLOB REMAKE





Back in 2015, director Simon West (Con Air, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) announced he was working on yet another remake of The Blob. Since then, all’s been quiet on that front -- until now.

In a lengthy interview with the Toronto Sun while doing the press rounds for Kong: Skull Island (guys, if you haven’t seen the movie yet, you really should; it’s actually a lot of fun and has a great new spin on Kong's origin story), Nick Fury himself, actor Samuel L. Jackson, not only confirmed he will appear in the remake of the classic 1958 slimy monster movie, but also revealed that the film’s producers have finally received financial backing from China, meaning the production machine should kick off sooner rather than later.

Here’s the bit of interest from the interview:

“I’ve been preparing to use it my whole life. I’ve been running from or chasing King Kong, Godzilla the Wolfman, whatever, since I was a kid (in Chatanooga, Tenn.). We’d go home and pretend to do all that stuff. So I’m doing Kong for the same reason I’ll probably be doing The Blob. I just got a call the other day (where the producers) said they finally got their money from China to do Blob. I mean, I do a lot of movies, a lot of independent movies, for different reasons. But I’m a fan, and a lot of times I choose a movie because it’s something I would have chosen to see when I was a kid. How do you say no to that?”

How do you say no indeed? The original 1958 movie about an amorphous alien life form that grows and grows as it consumes everything in its path then starred movie legend Steve McQueen and was a boatload of awesome B-movie fun. Thirty years later, in 1988, an okay-ish remake starring Kevin Dillon and directed by Chuck Russell (The Mask) slimed its way onto movie theaters.

 

[Doctor Omega]

Is This Reboot Doomed from the Beginning?





It’s been seven years since the last Narnia movie, and to be honest, many of us have been hoping they would just let sleeping lions lie. But The Silver Chair has just been confirmed… and the future is looking very confusing.

After many years of vague news pieces about activity on the Narnia front, The Mark Gordon production company has announced that the fourth movie of the series has a director: Joe Johnston, known for Jumanji and Captain America: The First Avenger. It also has a script, which was completed in mid-2015.

Producer Mark Gordon shocked us all by announcing that The Silver Chairwill reboot the series. “It’s all going to be a brand new franchise. All original. All original characters, different directors, and an entire new team that this is coming from.” And none of the old cast.


With the rights for The Silver Chair passing from studio to studio — first Disney, then Walden Media, and now The Mark Gordon Company — this is just another step in Narnia’s confusing journey to screen.

An opportunity to save the franchise?

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is quite unanimously considered the best and most accurate adaptation of the three Narnia films. But Prince Caspian followed, and while fans still enjoyed it either despite or because of its innovations to the original story, it made a disastrously small amount of money. So much so, that it brought about the end of Disney’s involvement with the franchise.

Then came The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, produced by Walden Media, and despite a few memorable moments, it felt like a nail in Narnia’s coffin. The badly-put-together Voyage felt like a confirmation that there would be no more sequels. It just wasn’t good enough.


At this point, it’s not that we don’t want to see more Narnia movies — in fact, the lack of them is painful given their potential — but with the minds that put together the first 2 films (and possibly got a little too excited with the second one) gone, it feels like any further movies would just be disgracefully watered-down adaptations of the source material, and we’re probably better off without them.

However, that’s not about to stop the studio that now has the rights to the films. The Silver Chair definitely deserves to be made, and have its themes of perseverance, faith and freedom properly depicted, and the new filmmakers are hopeful, assuring us that the next film will be “absolutely the best Narnia movie yet.”

“C.S. Lewis’ story is iconic and epic but also tender, personal, and emotional,” Gordon said, indicating that the new director would help bring all of it to screen. And as fans of the Narnia books and the message of The Silver Chair, we agree. But it’s also a bizarre choice for a Narnia reboot.


‘The Silver Chair’s’ uncomfortable position
The same dilemma that doomed Prince Caspian now haunts The Silver Chair’s production: filmmakers will have to decide if they want to gear this story towards children, or towards an older audience.

While Narnia is known for being a family-friendly series, The Silver Chairis one of the darkest books, dealing with powerful themes of enslavement, brainwashing and oppression, and some particularly terrifying scenes. In a way, it poses as a transition between the more innocent days of the Pevensies and the upcoming Last Battle. It’s when C. S. Lewis’ themes of faith and loyalty become the most pointed.

It’s hard to imagine how a The Silver Chair movie could bring in a new audience. A huge element in the story is a sense of disenfranchisement with what Narnia has come to. Eustace comes in expecting the magical land his cousin spoke to him about, the Narnians struggle with what the future holds, and Caspian literally dies.
In the books, these are potent themes when read in juxtaposition to the stories before it — but for an audience that hasn’t experienced The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian or Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it might be hard to understand why the characters are feeling what they’re feeling, and even make sense of the tragedy of Caspian’s family.


The Silver Chair was written to follow Voyage as closely as possible. After all, the book itself is set only a few months after its predecessor. It has now been 7 since Voyage, and no one particularly remembers Eustace Scrubb, or what he was like before Narnia changed him. It’s hard to see how the story’s power can hold after such a lengthy absence… and even more so if he’s not going to be portrayed by the same actor.

There is some interesting potential in Jill Pole, the main protagonist of The Silver Chair. It seems likely that a big name would be cast to portray her; one that can draw in an audience for a confusing film like this one, and somehow capture audiences in the same way the Pevensies did with the first few movies.

But Narnia is unique in that, while it follows a certain group of characters, those characters aren’t necessarily the main point of view of all the books. In the books, Jill loses her position as our point of view in The Last Battle, to King Tirian. While that could be changed for the sake of continuity, Jill has one of the least fascinating storylines out of all the Friends of Narnia, and it seems strange that the entire new franchise would be held up by her as a main character — one that is only present for two out of the seven books.

So where is this reboot even going?


Confusing implications for the future
While it is true that Will Poulter, at 24, is probably too old to reprise his role as teenage Eustace Scrubb, the actors who played the Pevensie children are at the perfect age for The Last Battle, if it were to be made within the next few years. However, even if they were to agree to bring in the old cast, it seems unlikely that writers will go with the last book next; it’s possibly the most controversial one of the bunch, and not really viewer-friendly as a second movie.

Which makes what they’re trying to do incredibly confusing. Are they going to start from The Silver Chair and then come up with spin-offs before finally reaching The Last Battle?

As fascinating as Narnia is, the best moment in its timeline for further adaptation is definitely the Golden Age of the Pevensies. Included in this period of time is The Horse and His Boy: another rather controversial book for its unfavorable representation of people of color, but which could be excellent if tackled by the right writers, and actually provide a much-needed chance for Middle-Eastern representation in fantasy. And it could include the now adult Pevensie actors.

It makes sense that for the sake of upcoming movies, filmmakers might want to start from a clean slate. But while they can start from scratch, they can’t erase the previous movies from our collective memory. The expectations, the love, and the disappointment are still there… and they will undoubtedly affect the future of this franchise.


Whichever way you look at it, it’s hard to be excited for further Narnia movies the way we might have been years ago. It feels a bit like that ship has sailed. While we all want to believe that they’ve finally found a way to properly resuscitate one of the most beloved stories of all time, it’s going to take a lot to convince us that it’s worth watching.

Currently, The Silver Chair is estimated to be released around Christmas 2018.

 

[Doctor Omega]

The Silver Chair is About a Bullied Girl, Says TriStar President





The Hollywood Reporter recently published a wide-ranging interviewwith Hannah Minghella, the President of TriStar Pictures. Minghella shared thoughts on reviving the Narnia franchise with the fourth book in the series, the theme of The Silver Chair, and the character of Jill.

Why did you acquire the Narnia franchise given that it’s been seven years since the last one? And why begin with Silver Chair, the fourth book in the series, rather than just start over?

Disney made the first one, which was a wonderful movie. I don’t think the world is necessarily ready for or asking for a remake of that film. Silver Chair is a perfect moment to rejoin the franchise because it introduces a new character, a young girl named Jill, going into Narnia for the first time. Thematically, the story of a young girl who is being bullied but who has to find the courage to stand up not just for herself but ultimately all Narnians has such strong positive messaging.

She also offered these comments about the concept of filmmaker-driven films behind TriStar Pictures:

Has the mandate at TriStar changed in the two years since you took over?

I’ve slightly expanded the mandate. We’re genre agnostic and budget agnostic at TriStar. The common denominators for all TriStar films are they are original or elevated or filmmaker-driven in some way.

With Tom Rothman charged with turning around big Sony, is he more hands off with TriStar?

TriStar has always been a division where everybody’s going to be a little bit more hands off, right? Because this whole idea of TriStar is to bring in filmmakers and advocate for them and create a space for them to really be the creative leaders of their movies. So, yes, Tom is a little hands off with TriStar. And I take that both as a sign of his commitment to making filmmaker-driven movies and also his confidence in me and the team we have.

 

[Doctor Omega]

New “Van Helsing” Movie




The “Van Helsing” reboot will be a part of Universal Pictures’ “Dark Universe” initiative.


https://www.imdforums.com/threads/universal-monsters-dark-universe.2540/


The studio is pressing forward with it, despite the underperformance of “The Mummy” reboot which took in $390 million worldwide.

The trade says because of that, the studio will be putting more time toward script development on Dark Universe movies and are also said to be eyeing Channing Tatum for the “Van Helsing” movie as that project’s script is now undergoing a final polish.

 

[Doctor Omega]

Oh dear.....

https://www.imdforums.com/threads/alien-franchise.3040/


Fox Reportedly “Reassessing” Future of the ‘Alien’ Franchise in Wake of ‘Alien: Covenant’


Alien: Covenant Sequel Uncertain as Fox Reassesses Alien Franchise


The Alien Franchise May Be In Serious Trouble

 

[Doctor Omega]

Your thoughts on this movie......

A doll living in 'Barbieland' is expelled for not being perfect enough and sets off on an adventure in the real world. A Live-action feature film based on the popular line of Barbie toys.

 

[Doctor Omega]

“Black” Comic Becomes A Film






Studio8 has picked up the film rights to adapt the indie comic mini-series “Black” into a feature with comics scribes Kwanza Osajyefo and Tim Smith 3 onboard to produce.

Dubbed “X-Men” meets “The Wire,” the story is set in a United States where only African-Americans possess superpowers. The discovery is made when a Brooklyn teen named Kareem Jenkins is racially profiled and shot by police.

He lives to tell the tale and connects with others who share similar powers and uncovers a wide conspiracy to keep the knowledge of such superpowers from the world – especially from the black community.

No writer has yet been set. Studio8 has a distribution deal with Sony Pictures which will likely release it.

 

[Doctor Omega]

Director On “Cannonball Run” Remake Tone





Appearing at the Television Critics Association panel for his new YouTube comedy series “Ryan Hanson Solves Crimes on Television,” filmmaker Rawson Marshall Thurber spoke a bit about one of his upcoming projects – the remake of 1980s cross-country car race classic “The Cannonball Run”.

The original films followed eccentric competitors in a no rules, utterly illegal wacky race – characters played by the likes of Burt Reynolds, Roger Moore, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Fonda, Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Telly Savalas, Adrienne Barbeau, Farrah Fawcett, Dean Martin and Jackie Chan.

Thurber, who is helming “Skyscraper” with Dwayne Johnson next, confirms to Slashfilm that Tom Lennon and Ben Garant are penning the script and he’s still waiting on that for the moment. He does have an idea of the tone though:

“I think we’re living in a post or current Fast and Furious world. So I don’t think Cannonball can out-Fast and Furious the Fast and the Furious. That’s its own thing, but we definitely want to harness that with the fun of Oceans 11 and put those together. It’ll have to be a different thing than Fast, but should have some great car action, obviously.”

“Skyscraper,” which Thurber admits owes a lot to “Die Hard,” “Towering Inferno” and “Cliffhanger,” begins filming in a week. Thurber is also working on a sequel to the comedy “We’re the Millers” with a script by Adam Sztykiel all done, but the complication now is scheduling.


SHARE

 

[Doctor Omega]

Liman On Cruise’s “Live. Die. Repeat. Repeat” Arc





Doug Liman’s acclaimed and darkly humored sci-fi action war film “Edge of Tomorrow,” now titled “Live Die Repeat,” marked a welcome change for its star Tom Cruise because his character of Bill Cage is anything but a hero.

Ultimately he finds his courage to fight and even save the Earth, but in a recent chat with Cinema Blend, Liman says the upcoming part-sequel, part-prequel “Live. Die. Repeat and Repeat” will give Bill Cage a real story arc which we’ve yet to see in full:

“You know, it’s a sequel that’s a prequel. That being said, he has a way better arc in the sequel. Because in Live Die Repeat, he’s basically saving the world because he lives there. He really is just trying to save the girl. He has not necessarily become less of a coward [by the end], and he hasn’t necessarily become a better person.

As a matter of fact, that was something that was important to Tom. When we were making the movie, we would joke that he’s only saving the Earth because he lives here. He would choose to just leave and go be somewhere else if he could.

So his character never really makes the transformation. Vince Vaughn’s character doesn’t really make the transformation in Swingers. I love anti-heroes, and sometimes I love them for their anti-heroness, so you don’t want to necessarily lose that. That being said, he has a proper arc in the sequel, which is why I’m so excited to make the movie.”

How that arc will play out is anyone’s guess, though the nature of the film’s time jumps would seem to posit the idea he somehow stops the war with the Mimics from ever happening. Liman and Cruise will likely have more to say later this month when interviews over their most recent collaboration, drug-running drama “American Made,” start being published.


Doug Liman Offers “Edge of Tomorrow 2” Details



The awkwardly titled “Live Die Repeat and Repeat,” the upcoming sequel to the well-regarded sci-fi tale “Edge of Tomorrow,” looks like it’s still on the way and director Doug Liman has spoken a bit more about it during press rounds for his new film “The Wall”.

Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse have penned the script for the follow-up which will see the return of Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) and Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) and Liman confirms that it boasts a more comedic tone and smaller scope. It will also serve as both a prequel and sequel and won’t be a war movie:

“It’s mostly not on the battlefield, so there’s a whole new arena of fights we’re going to be using a lot of the technology, but also, because it is a prequel, it’s a lot of the precursor stuff.

I think what people tend to do with sequels is they just make them bigger. And I’m like, ‘No, a sequel should be smaller.’ You did the first film as sort of the ad campaign for the sequel, so now you don’t need as much action.

In the case of Edge of Tomorrow, people obviously loved the comedy and they loved the situation.. so we can do way more focus on Tom’s character and Emily Blunt’s character, and there’s a third character in the sequel that’s gonna for sure steal the movie. We can focus on that. I don’t need an action sequence every two minutes.”

Liman also says this isn’t a regular sequel, rather it’s a companion movie which will complete a ‘two movie-franchise’:

“I see this as a two-movie franchise; there’s the completion of the story we set up in the first movie and the relationships between Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt – because, remember, at the end of the first movie, she doesn’t know who he is – and that’s gonna launch us into an amazing new direction. It does pick up right where we left off, but it doesn’t keep going forward because we’d screw with time because the aliens screwed with time.”

The plan is also to explore the nuts and bolts of the world more in addition to amping up the humor. Liman and Cruise’s next collaboration, “American Made,” opens September 29th.

 

[Doctor Omega]

Del Toro’s “Fantastic Voyage” To Film Next?





A new report over at Omega Underground indicates that 20th Century Fox is aiming to begin production on the remake of 1966’s “Fantastic Voyage” in January in Toronto.

The story revolves around a team of scientists who have been shrunk to atomic size and sent in a miniature submarine inside the body of a scientist to save his life.

In early 2016 came word that beloved filmmaker Guillermo del Toro was in talks to direct the project and, should this be true, it would be his immediate next project following press commitments for his upcoming Fall title “The Shape of Water”.

The project would mark a reunion of sorts for del Toro with his “Blade 2” scribe David Foyer working on the script, while his friend James Cameron is producing alongside Jon Landau and Rae Sanchini.


The original movie's trailer......

 

[Doctor Omega]

Your thoughts on this proposed movie.....

A modern twist on Oscar Wilde's story of a man whose self-portrait ages while he stays eternally young, where the central character is a woman.

 

[Doctor Omega]

St. Vincent To Helm Female “Dorian Gray”

Experimental rock musician Annie Clark, a.k.a St. Vincent, has been set to direct a new film adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.

The Victorian-era story, the only novel Wilde ever published, follows a hedonistic man whose self-portrait ages while he stays eternally young.

The twist with this new take is Dorian will be a woman. David Birke (“Elle”) has been hired to write the script.

Clark made her filmmaking debut at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival with the short film “Birthday Party” which was a part of the female-driven “XX” horror anthology.

 

[Doctor Omega]

 

[Doctor Omega]

“License to Drive” Gets A Remake





A remake of iconic 1988 comedy “License to Drive” is currently in the works over at 20th Century Fox.

Corey Haim, Corey Feldman and Heather Graham starred in the story of a teen who, after failing his driver’s test, decides to go for a night on the town with his friends and with his grandfather’s prized 1972 Cadillac Sedan de Ville. Trouble ensues.

The new take switches up the genders, offering female leads in a script being penned by Alisha Brophy and Scott Miles (“White Girl Problems”). John Davis is producing.

 

[The Seeker]

I like St. Vincent, but this is another movie made too many times.

 

[Doctor Omega]

WWE star John Cena and comedian Kevin Hart are reportedly being looked at to lead an upcoming big screen reboot of iconic TV series “Knight Rider” at The Weinstein Company according to Screen Rant.

The site’s sources suggests that the project is being conceived as an action/comedy in the vein of the “21 Jump Street” film and would have Cena in David Hasselhoff’s iconic role of Michael Knight alongside Hart as his talking AI-enhanced car KITT.

The likes of Chris Pratt and Danny McBride have been speculatively linked to the project in the past, but what’s described is a very different direction from a proposed take on the property by Hasselhoff recently in which he said he has a “dark, Logan-inspired drama” in mind and has discussed the idea with director Robert Rodriguez.

Back to the original show.....

KNIGHT RIDER (1982).....

https://www.imdforums.com/threads/knight-rider-1982.6601/

 

[Doctor Omega]

Rebecca Thomas Finds “Intelligent Life”





Filmmaker Rebecca Thomas (“Electrick Children,” “Stranger Things”) has been hired to direct the sci-fi film “Intelligent Life” for Amblin Entertainment.

Ava DuVernay (“Selma”) was originally attached to direct with Lupita Nyong’o to star but both left the project due to other commitments.

The story centers on a United Nations employee who monitors outer space and makes contact with a beautiful woman who may be an alien.

Thomas will do some additional writing on “Jurassic World” scribes Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly’s original script and a subsequent draft by Jay Roach.

Frank Marshall, Peter Saraf and Trevorrow will produce. Thomas recently signed onto helm another sci-fi project, “Malignant,” at 20th Century Fox.

 

[Gavin]

The site’s sources suggests that the project is being conceived as an action/comedy in the vein of the “21 Jump Street” film

No, no, no, no, no, no, no !!!!!!!!

Why do they keep doing that?

"People loved this old TV series, lets make a movie where we make fun of how stupid it was"?

 

[Janine The Barefoot]

Hmmmmm...

The only thing about any of this that actually appeals to me is Robert Rodriguez as he's good buddies with Guillermo DelToro whom I worship and admire and I also like his work. Unfortunately, I didn't like the original show that much.... well, OK who wouldn't want a car that could do all that? And I think the remake of MacGyver should never have made it out of the room the idea was pitched it..... So, for me, I just don't see anything good coming out of it and if @Gavin is this upset about all of it then....how dare they!!!!!!!!!!