Grab a coffee, some breakfast and fall into The Pit!

• The Sunday Mail is reporting that Stephen Dorff and director Stephen Norrington are teaming up for a new trilogy set in the Blade universe. They are reporting that the films will showcase Dorff’s Deacon Frost rising through the vampire ranks.  Unless this is planned as a Straight to DVD series of prequels, I don’t see it happening. Who wants a Blade film without Blade? Plus after The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, who is going to go to theaters for a Norrington film. A Norrington STDVD, that I think I’d give a shot.

• As usual with video game news, I’m a bit delayed/behind. Game Informer’s July issue featured info on the return of Max Payne, and boy has he aged badly! The new game takes place 12 years after “The Fall of Max Payne” and I’m gonna assume that it follows the ending where Mona died. In the new game, Payne was cut from the NYPD and works in security for a wealthy family in São Paulo, Brazil. Of course, something goes wrong, there is betrayal, murder, and our film noir hero will be forced to save the day (or at least try to survive through it).

• The folks over at Topless Robot have written what has to be the BEST review/FAQ for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Click here to check it out and please, for the love of all there is, stop going to see it in theaters!

• There is a View-Master movie in the works. Why?

• The upcoming comedy Grown Ups will be teaming up ex-SNLers including Adam Sandler, Maya Rudolph, Rob Schneider, Tim Meadows, David Spade, Chris Rock, Norm Macdonald, Tim Herlihy and Colin Quinn as high school friends that meet up 30 years later.  Dennis Dugan, who helmed the disappointing I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, will be directing the flick.

• I didn’t realize just how much I missed the animated film spoofing TV series The Critic until I stumbled on 10 webisodes that were made between 2000 and 2001. How in the world did I not know about these? I might do a full spotlight article on them, but for now you can check out the first 3 webisodes on youtube.

From now to the end of the year there will be a wide variety of adaptations hitting theaters.  From books to video games and remakes, no properties have been left untouched by Hollywood. Read on for a full list of adaptations that will be hitting theaters in the fall/early winter.

September

9/5

• Bangkok Dangerous (based on the 1999 film)

9/12

• Towelhead (based on the novel by Alicia Erian)
• The Women (based on the 1939 film)

9/17

• Appaloosa (based on the novel by Robert B. Parker)

9/19

• The Duchess (based on the biography Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Forman)
• A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (based on the short story by Yiyun Li)

9/26

• Choke (based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk)
• Miracle at St. Anna (based on the novel by James McBride)
• Nights in Rodanthe (based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks)

October

10/3

• Blindness (based on the novel by José Saramago)
• How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (based on the memoir by Toby Young)
• Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (based on the novel by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn)
• What Just Happened? (based on the novel What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line by Art Linson)

10/10

• Body of Lies (based on the novel by David Ignatius)
• City of Ember (based on the novel by Jeanne Duprau)
• Quarantine (based on the 2007 film REC)

10/17

• Max Payne (based on the video game)
• The Secret Life of Bees (based on the novel by Sue Monk Kidd)
• Flash of Genius (based on the New Yorker story by John Seabrook)

November

11/14

• The Road (based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy)

11/21

• Twilight (based on the novel by Stephanie Meyer)

December

12/5

• Frost/Nixon (based on the play by Peter Morgan)
• Punisher: War Zone (based on the comic book series created by Gerry Conway)

12/12

• The Day the Earth Stood Still (based on the 1951 film)
• Doubt (based on the play by John Patrick Shanley)

12/19

• The Tale of Despereaux (based on the novel by Kate DiCamillo)
• Yes Man (based on the autobiography by Danny Wallace)

12/25

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (based on the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
• Marley and Me (based on the autobiography by Josh Grogan)
• The Spirit (based on the comic book series created by Will Eisner)
• The Time Traveler’s Wife (based on the novel by Audrey Niffenegger)

12/26

• Revolutionary Road (based on the novel by Richard Yates)

Welcome to the weekly recap for the past week (8/24 through 8/31). Here is a list (by section) of some of the news that we covered, just incase you missed something.

Film News

• Robert Downey Jr., from Hero to Villain? Master Mind
• She’ll Be Back? Hopefully! Terminator 4 News
• Maniac Cop 4??? Hell Yeah!
• Another Grease Sequel? Tell Me More!
• John Lennon, the Nowhere Boy

TV News

• Details on Smallville’s 8th Season and New Pictures
• American Idol Adds a Fourth Judge!
• Another Nathan Fillion Show Gets Picked Up, Castle
• The Countdown to the New 90210
• Gossip Girl, First 5 Minutes of Season 2 is Online!

Book News

• Being a Scot, a Book by Sean Connery
• Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer, Book Trailer

Filmmaking Resources

• Make-Up: How to Create the Two-Face Look, Batman
• Affordable Web Hosting, Powweb
• Helpful Book: Film and Video Budgeting

Trailers (Movies, Video Games)

• New Max Payne Trailer!
• Everybody Wants to Be Italian, Movie Trailer
• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Video Game Teaser
• MadWorld, Video Game Trailer

Reviews

• DVD Review: Superman Doomsday
• Book to Film: Atonement (Archived)
• Book to Film: The Kite Runner (Archived)
  

Best Thing Ever

• Kermit the Frog and Christian Bale are the same person!

A new trailer has been released for John Moore’s adaptation of the best selling video game, “Max Payne”. Mark Wahlberg is Max Payne, a former police officer turned DEA agent whose family was brutally murdered and is on the run from the police for a murder that he was framed for. Add in a conspiracy, cultists, and an assassin (played by the lovely Mila Kunis) out to avenge her sister’s death, and you have one hell of a thrill ride. I loved the game and I have high hopes for the film. Keep reading to watch the new trailer, along with links to the old teasers!

Read the rest of this entry »

Latino Review has gotten their hands on two new posters for the upcoming film adaptation of “Max Payne”. The posters, which are completely badass, focus on the title character portrayed by Mark Wahlberg. You can check them out here.  The film co-stars Chris O’Donnell, Beau Bridges, Ludacris, Mila Kunis, Donal Logue, and Amaury Nolasco. I gotta ask, where are the Mila Kunis posters?

Learn everything you could ever want to know about Max Payne here.

I started off my panels at Comic-con with the Fox panel which promised both Keanu Reeves and Mark Wahlberg, and then threw a cherry on top with a surprise visit from Hugh Jackman! Keep reading for a rundown of the 20th Century Fox Panel.

The Day the Earth Stood Still
Director Scott Derickson came out with cast members Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly. Keanu talked about what it’s like to play an emotionless alien (heh) and Derickson talked about modifying, but still doing justice to the original 1951 film. They assured us that there would be a Gort (though there previously hadn’t been a sign of him in the released footage), but they had taken liberties in updating the space ship. To be honest I can’t get on board with this film. The original is a classic and there was more violence in the three clips they showed during the panel than the entire original film.

Max Payne
This movie looks like it’ll be this year’s Shoot Em Up. It’s got intense and stunning action, but with a little tongue in cheek. I’m not quite sure where the demons fit in (I guess I didn’t get that far in the video game), but Mila Kunis is hot and Mark Wahlberg makes an awesome Max Payne. The film looks like it’s shot very uniquely and they mentioned that they were implementing technology of a new-to-the-industry slow motion camera called Phantom to recreate the “bullet time” of the video game. Mark Whalberg, Mila Kunis and Ludacris were all there to talk about the film. Whalberg was really funny, but was also majorly into the self promotion. I think he mentioned every single film he’s been in during that panel throughout different stories and references.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Everyone was getting up to leave the panel when…surprise! Hugh Jackman came bounding out onto the stage saying he literally just stepped off a plane from Australia. They’d just wrapped Wolverine, and he’d walked off the set with a handful of footage and hopped on a flight to Comic-con. Before he showed it, Jackman hopped off the stage, high fiving the crowd as he made his way through to shake the hand of Len Wein, creator of Wolverine, for starting his career. Jackman seems so humble, gracious, and like an all around awesome guy. He was so enthusiastic about the film and he really built the crowd up. Then he showed some amazing footage that gave us a great look at the Wolverine/Sabertooth (Liev Schreiber) relationship, as well as a glimpse of other mutants in the flick such as the Blob, Deadpool, and Gambit. The crowd went absolutely nuts for it.