Screener

Len Wiseman goes from ‘Underworld’ to ‘Nocturne’

Len Wiseman, who has been floating around different projects for the past year or so, is in talks to direct a pitch for 20th Century Fox “based on an original idea about a group of people who survive the end of the world and the mystery surrounding how they got to that position,” tentatively called Nocturne.

The idea doesn’t sound original at all.  In fairness, they may be withholding the secret sauce.  Considering the project is looking for writers, it’s also possible they haven’t figured out exactly what will be in the secret sauce either.  Because Wiseman’s been attached to a number of projects that haven’t come to fruition (out of proportion, I think, to the amount of films he’s actually directed), I’m skeptical of this project.  Last year, for example, he was attached to direct Motorcade with Tom Cruise starring, but now that project will star Ryan Reynolds with Jon Cassar directing.  He was also supposed to direct a video game adaptation Gears of War and Atlantis Rising, in which the famed city of Atlantis declares war on the world.  However, this announcement does provide a good opportunity to rehash all the movies/television shows/books that have used the same plot point as Nocturne.

“Flash Forward”:  This brand new ABC show centers on an event where almost every person in the world has a vision of themselves six months in the future.  Everyone abandons all activity and tries to figure out what their clue meant.  It borrows a little bit from “Lost” and sounds strongly apocalyptic.  It also is a little too similar to the “mystery surrounding how they got to that position” part of Nocturne’s plot description.

2012: It’s coming out this Friday, and has a soft spot for those that enjoy the architectural demolition derbies that come along with the apocalypse.

“Left Behind” series:  There’s a reason The Passion of the Christ earned so much money.  A religion angle is not only plausible, but profitable.  This popular Christian series, which was made into a movie starring Kirk Cameron, follows a group of sinners who are left behind after the Rapture for being unbelievers.  It takes them some time to figure out what happened, and then to identify and usurp the Antichrist.

The Road: Coming out this fall.  The apocalypse, but with two people against man-hungry cannibals with a side of post-apocalyptic depression.

The most interesting part of this spare plot description is that the characters themselves seem to be flummoxed about their position.  Were they knocked out and woke up in a nuclear bunker?  Did they get unplugged like in The Matrix?  If it weren’t for the fact that the “mystery” part was just used in “Flash Forward,” I would be more forgiving of this pickup, but it will be up to the assigned writers to prove me wrong.

Zhang Ziyi to star in book club hit 'Snow Flower and the Secret Fan'

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a novel about a secret language, nu shu, used by women in China.  Often written on fans, the language provided a rare opportunity for women to interact with each other in 19th-century China, since the women's feet were bound, they remained cloistered in their homes, and were subject to their husband and sons.  Written by Chinese-American writer Lisa See, the novel follows two such women who were chosen as laotong (old sames) by a matchmaker, a rare form of friendship that requires being born on the same day, in the same birth order, and having other complementary characteristics.

The novel's historic setting and theme of friendship made it a big hit on the book club circuit.  So perhaps it's no surprise that two middle-aged wives, the book club stereotype, are producing a film based on the book, though they bring some unusually high-powered connections to the table.  The producers behind it?  Wendi Murdoch, wife of Rupert Murdoch (the president and CEO of Newscorp.), and Florence Sloan, wife of Harry Sloan (the chairman of MGM).  They just added actress Zhang Ziyi to their list of producers.  The star of Memoirs of a Geisha, another book club hit, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has a rare appeal that extends across cultural boundaries.  Her role in production could also help the film get past China's film quota, which limits the amount of foreign films that are exhibited each year.  Wendi Murdoch is Chinese-born, and Florence Sloan is Malaysian and Chinese.  For a cross-cultural, Chinese-based production like this, their cultural fluency will be a prized asset.

The project is in search of a distributors and backers at the American Film Market, though the production has already set a start date for next year.  While the project is commercial and has a global audience, it's worth noting that so far it is being produced outside the studio system.  Certainly those currently on the project are uniquely suited to the task, but was Memoirs of a Geisha's $162 million gross on an $85 million budget just not good enough for the big studios?  Or did the producers of the project snag the rights before anyone else?

Two Matt Damon trailers in one day

Two trailers of movies starring Matt Damon in one day?  And just after I wrote about him yesterday?  I guess there's a reason I consider Matt Damon one of my favorite actors.  Oddly enough, his highly lauded Bourne movies leave me cold, but his memorable roles in the Ocean's series, Good Will Hunting, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and The Departed, among others, always make me eagerly anticipate his films, even more uneven ones like the recent The Informant!

The first trailer is for Invictus, which releases on December 11.  It's a feel-good, based-on-a-true-story kind of tale that appeals to Oscar voters.  Damon plays a rugby captain who is enlisted by South African President Nelson Mandela to win the 1995 World Cup.  Mandela hopes the economic and racial divisions within the country can be mediated by national pride.  The trailer has some heartbreaking looks at the Johannesburg slums, last seen in District 9 (albeit in a sci-fi context).

Next up is The Green Zone, which was pushed back and is now set for a March 12, 2010 release.   Paul Greengrass, who helmed the Bourne movies, directs.  It shows all signs of being your typical action thriller, but distinguishes itself with its hyperreal historical setting.  Damon plays a CIA agent who has been tasked with finding the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  When they don't show up, he tries to find the misleading source and get to the bottom of the intrigue.

Currently, Damon's filming The Adjustment Bureau.  They've been shooting in New York City's  West Village, with trailers set up on Greenwich Avenue a couple weeks ago.  From Darren Aronofsky, the movie centers on a politician (Damon) and the mysterious ballerina he falls in love with (Emily Blunt).  I seriously hope there is an element of Vertigo or Ghost in here--who doesn't love a good romantic mystery?

Casting underway for Coen Bros.' 'True Grit'

The Coen Bros.' remake of True Grit, a classic Western follow-up to their modern Western hit, No Country for Old Men, has lined up two more actors.  Matt Damon is in talks to take on the Texas Ranger role, and Josh Brolin is in talks to play the hunted man.  In the movie, a fourteen-year-old girl (who has not been cast) enlists the ranger and a U.S. Marshal to help her track down her father's killer.  The role of the marshal, an Oscar-winning role for John Wayne in the 1969 original, will be taken on by Jeff Bridges (The Dude in The Big Lebowski).  With top producers Scott Rudin and Steven Spielberg behind the film, and a fast-track from Paramount, this movie is scheduled to head into production this spring, for a release the following year.

Why has the 40-year-old film, based on the novel by Charles Portis, interested the filmmaking duo?  Let's consult the archives.

1. Weird, affected dialogue.  In Roger Ebert's review of the original, he notes that "Portis wrote his dialog in a formal, enchantingly archaic style that has been retained in Marguerite Roberts' screenplay."  The Coen Bros. are known for utilizing accents and unusual speech, which is already present in the original work.

2. The Eye Patch.  George Clooney has his pomade in O Brother, Where Art Thou?  Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men has his bowl cut hairstyle.  The Dude has his bathrobe and his white Russian in The Big Lebowski.  This irresistible bit of costuming (working in tandem with Wayne's star image) just amplifies the characterization of Wayne as an "unwashed, sandpapered, roughshod, fat old rascal with a heart of gold well-covered by a hide of leather" (from Ebert's review).

3. Cash, Crime, Cover-ups and Complications.   The U.S. Marshal and the Texas Ranger are both in it for the money.  According to Ebert's review, the ranger "claims he has a reward for the killer (who also, it appears, plugged a state senator in Texas)."  Sounds like an ulterior motive could come in play--a complication--in Coens' treatment.

Many of the Coen Bros.' films include journeys to either find the booty or hide it (the baby in Raising Arizona, the buried treasure in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the kidnapping/money in Fargo, the money in No Country for Old Men).  Inevitably, things do not go according to plan, and Coen Bros. take pleasure in piling on the complications and twists to make things interesting.

The Challenge:  According to many reviews, John Wayne makes the movie.  The absence of Wayne's star presence could be a problem.  In fact, both Roger Ebert and the Variety review use the same word, "tower," to describe Wayne's presence.  Ebert notes that "one of the glories of True Grit is that it recognizes Wayne's special presence...He is not playing the same Western role he always plays. Instead, he can play Rooster because of all the Western roles he has played. "  He also mentions a parodic scene that works because of Wayne's star image.  Making this movie without Wayne will require screenwriting and directing magic.

Playing films across borders: 'Agora'

We live in a global village, where worldwide distribution of Hollywood blockbusters is standard practice.  But many films don't play well overseas, and some never get picked up to play across borders.

One such example is Agora, a historical epic.  It was passed over for domestic distribution at Cannes, where it appears price was one of the main issues--though concerns about length led to filmmakers chopping 21 minutes from the film, which previously ran almost two and a half hours.

While the movie was made in English, it had its box-office debut in Spain last weekend, where director Alejandro Amenábar (Abre los Ojos, The Others, The Sea Inside) is famous.  It earned $7.9 million in three days, and $17 million through Tuesday, making it Spain's top opening of the year (It beat Ice Age 3!).  U.S. distribution is back on the table, and other foreign buyers, who normally would wait for a U.S. pickup, are interested solely because of its performance in Spain.

As for the film itself?  The trailer is sure to point out all the by-the-book elements of a historical epic: angry mobs, period costumes and sets, impassioned speeches made to leaders who will go on to make terrible decisions painfully apparent to the modern audience.  The movie's epoch, the fall of the Roman Empire, includes a high-drama invasion of Alexandria.  But most intriguing is the movie's heroine, Hypatia (Rachel Weisz), an astronomer, teacher, and mathematician who is killed by newly empowered Christians.

The movie was made for $70 million, a pricy sum when you're betting on foreign sales.  And while the trailer didn't wow me, I think Amenábar is a talented director who seems quite capable of handling an historical epic.  But until this film gets picked up, American audiences will have to wait to see for themselves.

Outside of the theatres, movies are produced and shown online

Since their inception, movies have always been shown in theatres.  It's only everything else that has changed.  Yesterday, CNET News published an ominously-titled piece entitled "End of the world as Hollywood knows it."  DVDs and movie rentals, according to media reporter Greg Sandoval, are on the outs, depriving studios of a valuable revenue stream.  What's more, downloading or streaming movies from illegal sources is socially acceptable, free and so easy it's hard for people to resist.

Of course, Netflix, iTunes and Hulu are examples of legitimate ways the internet movie business has been monetized, but, especially for ad-supported streaming sites, the revenue isn't yet substantial.  While the internet appears poised to decimate the DVD and movie rental business, the new medium also shows potential for lowering the cost of film production.  If production costs shrink, it may make decreasing revenue streams a bit less frightening.

Lionsgate announced that it will produce a film with Massify, an online movie-production networking site.  The project will be a "high-concept, male-driven comedy short based on a script from our community," with plans to expand the premise to a feature film.  Crew will be drawn from the ranks of the Massify community.  The intermediary process (from short to feature) helps reduce risk by offering audience feedback before the movie goes into the more expensive production of a full-length movie.  Plus, the viral potential of the internet will be at the filmmakers' fingertips.  Even if this movie never gets off the ground or registers as more than a blip, its experimentation with production makes it part of the vanguard of internet production.  Earlier this year, an animated short was created using collaboration via Facebook.  The result was "Live Music," good enough that Sony Pictures picked it up and is now showing it in festivals.  It's also worth noting that Intel, which creates a software used by the animators, sponsored the project--corporate tie-ins also appear to be part of the wave of the future.

Modern Love column heading into theatres

For those that read the New York Times, the "Modern Love" column is often one of their first stops in the Sunday Styles section.  The stories can be contemplative, whimsical, bizarre, and cute--sometimes to a fault.  A couple who adopts a dog, a daughter who searches for her birth mother on Facebook, and a woman who refuses to let her husband leave her are all fodder for the column.  In fact, the last story sounds a lot like the forthcoming movie Serious Moonlight, in which a woman (Meg Ryan) holds their husband hostage in her house in an attempt to save their marriage.

Columbia Pictures now has a first-look deal with "Modern Love," with the idea that they can use the material for romantic comedies.  As much as I like to mock the  column, I think the stories, which are all based on the authors' real experiences, are more nuanced than typical romantic comedies.  While the film genre tends toward the obvious or unbelievable, the unusual circumstances remain believable since they are, in fact, true.  While some of the stories are small in scope, most seem condensed to fit into a column.  The addition or a few details and subplots could easily fill up a 100-page screenplay.

Still, the series of columns may lend itself better to the second production deal it has in the works, which is an HBO show about a fictional male editor of the column, who has recently divorced, as well as the stories in the column.  It sounds like a (slightly depressed) male version of the Carrie Bradshaw role from "Sex and the City."  In television form, the show would be able to take advantage of the column's consistent tone, in my mind an asset.

These deals are but the latest New York Times articles to be acquired with an eye for adaptation.  Since signing a contract with the paper, the ICM agency has successfully sold several of the paper's stories--but at least it's another revenue stream for the Old Grey Lady in a tough climate for journalism.  Just don't let them make a movie about balloon boy.

'Whip It' breathes life into the coming-of-age genre

Yesterday's advance screening of Whip It! included some unusual invitees: members of New York's roller derby team, who came clad in outfits of sweatbands and striped stockings.  The audience was

raucous and frequently laughed out loud, which always makes a movie that much more fun.

What's surprising is that Whip It! uses a stock plot and situation to make a fast-paced, original-feeling movie.  Here's the coming-of-age tale 101:

1. A girl in a small town dutifully, but grudgingly, follows her parents' idea of her life.
2. Until she's pulled into a new activity in which she discovers herself.
3. She must hide this new life from her parents, who would disapprove. 
4. This leads to a crisis point where she can't lead both lives at once (and/or gets found out)
5. At which point she must reconcile her two worlds.

In Whip It!, this activity is roller derby (cue training montages).  The movie does a great job initiating newbies into the ins and outs of the game, and by the end you'll be just as appreciative of the double-leg whip as I was.  But how can a movie that follows so closely to a set genre seem so original and fresh?  I've come up with a few answers.

The acting: Ellen Page does a superb job as Bliss Cavendar .a.k.a. Babe Ruthless.  You're with her the whole time.
The soundtrack: Like all Fox Searchlight movies, the movie has a killer soundtrack, featuring catchy songs from indie bands.  You'd want to listen to it at the gym or before going out with friends.
The feminism: The roller derby girls are sexy but tough.  In one scene, they're showing off the bruises on their bottoms to each other, to the delight of some nearby boys.  It's  funny and revealing: the girls

admiring their bodies for their power and toughness, and the boys because it's a female body.  Takeaway: girls don't need to be dainty to be admired.  Ellen Page also dumps a boy without a second thought because it appeared he was cheating on her, without a second chance.
The dialogue: The movie may use a stock plot, but the dialogue feels genuine.
The details: Good comedies get jokes from authentic, not gaggy, costuming and props.  There's the pink furry phone in Legally Blonde and Jason Segel wearing Ugg boots in I Love You, Man.  In Whip It!, it's the pig aprons the girls wear at the diner they work at.  You really believe that they have to wear them, Ellen Page meets the boy she has a crush on while wearing this ridiculous, stuffed pig apron.  They are laughably hideous, and just the kind of thing you'd be forced to wear in Bodeen, Texas.

Whip It! opens this Friday, and hopefully its originality will be rewarded at the box office.

Just how big will Michael Jackson's 'This Is It' be?

In a month, the King of Pop will give a last performance in This Is It.  Sony paid a reported $60 million for worldwide rights to Michael Jackson's concert rehearsal footage, in a deal brokered just after the musician's death.  Kenny Ortega, who was the director of the concert (and has also directed and

choreographed the High School Musical series), is also directing This Is It, which will also include interviews.

I've checked out the trailer for This Is It, and despite the fact that Michael Jackson was a little after my time, to be discovered in my teens along with the Stones and the Beatles, the trailer really communicates the excitement and energy of his music: it's timeless.  The stages are huge, the dances are frenetic, and the few clips of Jackson speaking depict him as a reserved, grateful performer who was passionate about his music and a perfectionist.  There's nothing negative, and there's certainly no hint of his drug use or the way I often thought of him: captioned in a newspaper article, his body and face shielded by his hand, a handkerchief, coat or umbrella.  Will the movie continue in this vein, or will it give hint to the struggles that Jackson faced?

Yesterday, Movietickets.com reported that over 160 shows had sold out, and advance ticket sales for the film were about 82% of the site's business.  It's definitely on track to recoup its $60 million.  While the movie is only set to be released for two weeks, I'm sure Sony has a third week in reserve if the movie dramatically exceeds expectations, just as the release of the Hannah Montana concert movie

was extended due to demand.  Over 30 million people watched television footage of his memorial service, and a good percentage of that audience will be willing to pay to see the movie.

With more studios pursuing special event, limited releases, the success of this movie could provide another positive case study for this type of release, which is currently used much less frequently than more common wide or small-to-big releases.  Moviegoing is a "special" event for many, and releasing a picture for just two weeks is one way to add value.  For example, this Friday, Disney will re-release Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3D as a double feature.  Originally, Disney had scheduled these two movies at different times leading up to the release of Toy Story 3, but apparently changed its tune.  My guess is that in a recession, a double feature offers a greater value proposition and is more likely to draw in families.  While This Is It will appeal to a largely different audience, including regular concertgoers, films using limited release strategies are ones we'll be watching in our Monday feature "Weekend Roundup."

Hollywood makes another trip to the toy store

Toy-inspired movies have been the latest symbiotic relationship in Hollywood.  Monopoly, Transformers, Clue, Candyland, and a plethora of action figures have all been picked up by various

studios, often with eye-raising by those covering them.  Sure, there have been successes--who would have thought a movie based on a theme park ride, Pirates of the Caribbean, could have been so compelling?  Or that the truly awful Transformers 2 could make so much money?  While Hasbro has been the main seller for these toy-based adaptations, Mattel has just joined the scene, and one of the most iconic--and culturally contested--American icons will have her own movie: Barbie.  No stranger to direct-to-video movies, the blonde, 39-23-33 doll will be played by a real person, since Universal has decided to make the movie live-action.  No word on whether Barbie will be a doctor, cowhand, superstar singer, or any of her other chosen occupations.  Since Columbia is also pursuing a deal to make a movie out of He-Man with Mattel, I decided to pick my top ten toy adaptations that haven't been made yet.  In some cases, it's scraping the bottom of the barrel, while others might just show up in a new deal--I was about to put Hot Wheels on the list, but turns out back in 2003  McG put his directing dibs on the project.

10 Toy Adaptations just waiting for a buyer

1. Nerf
2. Easy Bake Oven: a modern adaptation of Hansel and Gretel

3. Tonka trucks
4. Chutes and Ladders: an adventure game, with kids trapped in a maze and required to use their smarts to break free.
5. Mr. Potato Head (a Toy Story spinoff?)
6. My Little Pony (this property may be firmly entrenched in direct-to-video)
7. Trivial Pursuit: like Inception, a thriller that takes place "in the architecture of the mind."
8. Operation: If botched surgery works on network television, why not in movies?
9. Play-Doh.  Like the upcoming Lego adaptation, but with Play-Doh instead of Legos.
10. Strawberry Shortcake: this one could actually get made

When it comes to toy adaptations, you never know...