Movie News: 08 23 07
Eva Mendes and Scarlett Johansson ride “The Spirit,” Hollywood’s remake frenzy continues, Javier Bardem has “Nine” and young Hitchcock comes to the screen.
Eva And Scarlett Ride “The Spirit”
Eva Mendes and Scarlett Johansson will be joining Samuel L. Jackson and Gabriel Macht for writer/director Frank Miller’s big screen adaptation of Will Eisner’s 1940s comic strip “The Spirit.”
Mendes will play the role of Sand Saref, “a beauty with dangerous curves,” while Johansson has agreed to play Silken Floss, a temptress and accomplice to the film’s villain, The Octopus. (played by Jackson).
The film’s lead role is portrayed by Gabriel Macht, best known for small supporting turns in “The Good Shepherd” and “Behind Enemy Lines.”
The story centers on a detective who fakes his own death so he can fight crime as “The Spirit,” a masked vigilante in a crime-ridden Gotham known as Central City.
Frank Miller says his film adaptation will be a contemporary tale with a “timeless feel.”
“The Spirit” is expected to begin shooting in October in New Mexico with a theatrical release set for 2009.
“Logan” Runs Again
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Brothers and producer Joel Silver’s remake of “Logan’s Run” seems to be in the “running” once again.
Commercial director Joseph Kosinski will make his directorial debut on the sci-fi thriller, which
which will follow William F. Nolan’s 1967 novel closer than the previous 1976 film which starred Michael York.
Kosinski is said to have come to Warners with a presentation that included graphic art and animated pre-visualization which aims to create realistic environments at a modest budget.
The new screenplay for “Logan’s Run” is being written by Tim Sexton and sees a future society that demands the death of everyone upon reaching a certain age. Anyone who veers from that destiny is dubbed a “runner” and is hunted by operatives known as Sandmen. Logan is a Sandman who is himself forced to go on the run.
Bryan Singer was attached to develop and direct the feature in 2004, but left the project to do “Superman Returns” instead.
Emmerich Goes On Remake “Voyage”
In other remake news, director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) is in talks with 20th Century Fox to remake the 1966 sci-fi action flick “Fantastic Voyage.”
The original “Voyage” was directed by Richard Fleischer and starred Raquel Welch and Donald Pleasence. It tells the story of a scientist who is dying of a blood clot and who’s only chance for survival involves five of his colleagues being miniaturized in a ship and then injected into his bloodstream. Hey, it worked in 1966.
Emmerich recently completed “10,000 B.C.,” which will be released March 7 by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures. He will produce “Voyage” along with James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment.
No start date has been set for the production.
But wait! There’s more…
New York Couldn’t “Escape” A Remake
Director Len Wiseman (Live Free of Die Hard,Underworld) is in final negotiations to helm a remake of the 1981 John Carpenter/Kurt Russell classic, “Escape From New York” for New Line Cinema.
Set in the near future when Manhattan has been turned into a giant maximum-security prison, “Escape” centers on Snake Plissken (played by Gerard Butler), an anti-hero who’s coerced into rescuing the President after Air Force One crashes onto the island. Incarcerated for robbing a federal reserve bank, Plissken is given twenty-four hours to complete his mission before a poison is released into his system.
Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down) wrote the script, which will combine Plissken’s origins, along with the plot of the original movie.
Penelope Cruz Checks Out Javier Bardem’s “Nine”
Variety reports The Weinstein Company is in talks with Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard and Javier Bardem to star in the film adaptation of the musical “Nine”. Director Rob Marshall is to be courting Sophia Loren and Catherine Zeta-Jones to also star in the movie.
Bardem will play director Guido Contini, who experiences a creative and personal crisis as he tries to balance all the women in his life. Cruz is in talks to play Carla, Contini’s mistress, while Cotillard is to play his wife, Louisa. Although they have not yet committed, Zeta-Jones is being courted to play the director’s muse, and Loren his mother, who appears as a ghost.
The musical was a stage adaptation of Federico Fellini’s classic, “8 ½.” Michael Tolkin will be writing the film’s script, with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston.
Young Hitchcock Scares Up “Number 13″
Actor Dan Fogler (Balls of Fury) recently talked to MTV News about his next starring role as that of legendary film director Alfred Hitchcock in the comedy/thriller “Number 13″.
Folger says “You see Hitchcock for two weeks out of his life in [his] early 20s. He just finished his first movie, which is supposed to be a comedy, but it’s not. So he’s freaking out about it and realizes that if he just switches a few things, it can become a thriller. [And] that’s how he finds his niche.”
Hitchcock’s real-life “Number 13″ (or “Mrs. Peabody”) was only partially completed before it was pulled from production in 1922. Despite decades of searching, neither the footage nor the script has ever been found, making it more than likely that everything associated with the film has been entirely lost.
The fictional “Number 13″ takes its inspiration from Hitchcock’s prevalent themes of suspense and mystery, placing the director as a man wrongly accused of murder. Folger says “The lead actor [Ernest Thesiger], who commissioned me to make the film, basically wants to make a comedy, but he’s just not funny. He suddenly disappears, [so] Hitchcock does some interesting editing to make the character look like he got killed [in the film]. And [since] the actual actor has disappeared, everyone starts wondering: Did Hitchcock kill him? They start to suspect me in [a fake] murder.”
Sir Ben Kingsley will portray Thesiger and Ewan McGregor will play the editor who suspects Hitchcock of murdering the actor. No start date has yet been set.