Category: News

The Hollywood Reporter named Pixar’s John Lasseter its Innovator of the Year.

The trade paper noted that the animator has smoothly inherited the mantle from Disney’s Nine Old Men, the animators who created the classic films.  The last of them, Ollie Johnston, passed away recently.

“Heart. Inventiveness. Inspiration. These are Lasseter’s own hallmarks,” the paper wrote, “visible in everything from the free education available to Pixar employees to the imaginative way he works with Pixar’s ‘Brain Trust’" a group of directors who play a pivotal role on each film.”

"He’s been an extraordinary force in innovating and renewing excitement about the animated feature in this country," says film historian Charles Solomon. And, he says, he did so "at a time when it was falling into the doldrums."

At a memorable to Johnston, Lasseter said, "We weren’t embraced at that time by many of the people leading (Disney). The Nine Old Men were starting to step away and retire. But it was the Nine Old Men who embraced us. They wanted to teach us everything that they knew. They recognized, more than anybody else, that they were handing the torch off."

He laughs today that he runs the animation studio where he was fired in 1983 which eventually led him to Pixar. Lasseter is a team player and cheerleader, but the paper also notes he’s willing to jettison that which does not work rather than go with a lesser product.

“His quest for perfection has led him to let go of actors who don’t work out, as he did with one actress who was meant to play the title role of Tinker Bell, a film in Disney’s newest direct-to-DVD animated franchise, the Disney Fairies. It has also led him to part ways with filmmakers who don’t share his vision — as he did with Chris Sanders, who was originally attached to direct Bolt,” the paper wrote.

Lasseter’s crew will be releasing its next production, Bolt, November 21.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Universal has picked up the movie rights to the upcoming Viper Comics graphic novel Villains. Universal reportedly paid a mid-six-figure sum for the rights, which could prove profitable if the lesser-known property enjoys the same super-hero buzz that other films in the genre have yielded. Sean Bailey produces via his Idealogy banner, and Matt Jennison and Brent Strickland are set to write the screenplay. Jennison and Strickland are also working on the stalled Wonder Woman for Warner Brothers and Joel Silver.

Villains, not to be confused with the current Heroes volume on NBC, is a four issue mini-series by Adam Cogan and Ryan Cody. Villains focuses on Nick Corrigan, "an aimless 20-something who discovers that his aging neighbor used to be the notorious supervillain known as ‘Hardliner,’ now retired and living in hiding for the past few decades. Rather than turn him in to the authorities, Nick decides to blackmail him in exchange for lessons in the fine art of career super-crime. But the old pro is about to teach his student some lessons he’ll never forget."

The original series was originally published by Viper Comics in 2006. A second mini-series is set for this fall, which should provide solid source material if Villains does well enough at the box office to warrant a sequel.

How do you guys feel about Villains heading to film? Psyched? Meh? Think there’s other super-villains that should get their big screen licks in first? Personally, I’d love to see The Hood first.

Three more stills from Star Trek have appeared in the United Kingdom’s Empire magazine.  The current issue, now on sale, has a cover story on the making of the film.  Since not everyone stateside can easily find the magazine, we present the images for your viewing pleasure.

Marvle this morning released a teaser for a new event in the Marvel Universe.  No creators, timing or content was released with the teaser. We’re going to guess that it maybe a part of the 2009 Dark Reign event spinning out of the end of Secret Invasion.  It does not resemble the future Iron Men seen in last week’s New Warriors.  Any guesses?

While Tony Stark is drunk on booze, Robert Downey Jr. is drunk on Tony Stark. Marvel has announced that the actor will once again don the superheroic lush’s iron clad boots for Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3 and The Avengers. While it was widely assumed that RDJ would return, this is the first official word from Marvel Studios themselves. It’s also the first casting decision made for The Avengers, insuring that at least some continuity will carry over in the Marvel movie-verse.

Additionally, Jon Favreau and Don Cheadle have also made deals with Marvel. Favreau is officially announced as the director for Iron Man 2 and will serve as executive producer on The Avengers. Favreau had publicly declared his hopes to direct The Avengers, but conceded that it was an unlikely scenario given the close proximity to working on Iron Man 2.

Cheadle, meanwhile, has officially dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s to play Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes for Iron Man 2. Marvel notes that "Cheadle is also signed on to perform the same role in The Avengers and subsequent installments of the Iron Man franchise." It’s almost a sure thing that War Machine will pop up in Iron Man 2 so that he can team up with Stark and the other heroes in The Avengers. Cheadle’s official casting is sure to crush some spirits that were hoping for a last minute Terrence Howard revival.

Interestingly enough, Favreau is the only one of the three not officially signed for Iron Man 3. Months ago, Marvel was reportedly set to drop the director from Iron Man 2 due to financial disagreements. That, as it later turned out, was Terrence Howard’s downfall instead. Still, it appears that the studio is keeping Favreau’s involvement at a slight arm’s length in case the money problems pop up once again.

Either way, it’s exciting to have some official movement on Iron Man 2 and The Avengers. The next few years should be pretty solid for comic book fans. (more…)

This past weekend I was in California to attend my brother’s wedding. It was a lovely afternoon; they held the ceremony in the upstairs loft apartment attached to the back of their house, and the reception in their back yard. I still can’t figure out how they fit 120+ people in that space, but they did. And my brother looked so ecstatic, and my new sister-in-law so beautiful, and I remember thinking, “He’s finally paired off the way Robin and I are! Another happy ending!”

On the plane ride back to New York, JetBlue’s satellite TV reception wasn’t working properly on many of their channels (aside from that our flights were terrific, and I highly recommend JetBlue — there’s no first class to fight through and get sneered at, the seats were comfy with plenty of leg room, it’s the first time I haven’t had to ask for a seat belt extender, and the new T5 terminal at JFK is spiffy indeed) so the crew arranged for us to see the normally-charged second-run films for free. Comics geek that I seem to be less and less, I opted not to watch The Incredible Hulk, in favor of back-to-back viewings of Get Smart and Baby Mama.

I enjoyed both movies more than I thought I would. I like how Get Smart was updated for the 21st century just enough to have Maxwell Smart be internally believable as mostly competent but just a little accident-prone. Lots of identification there, you betcha! And although the age discrepancy between Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway saddened me, at least there was a decent in-story explanation for it. Besides, they’re both fun actors to watch, and easy to root for as they follow the formulaic plot to its climax and wind up (as did the characters in the original series) together, set to have further open-ended adventures.

Baby Mama was a terrific vehicle for all the main actors involved, wasn’t anywhere near as cringeworthy as the ads made it seem, and had a Happy Ending. Multiple Happy Endings, in fact, all featuring the apparently ultimate goal of all women — to give birth. The premise had Tina Fey’s character unable to conceive, but (and I don’t think I’m spoiling something which was pretty heavily telegraphed throughout the film) she winds up pregnant towards the end after, of course, having established a Real Relationship with a guy (is it my imagination or is Greg Kinnear always cast as the thinking woman’s love interest?) who doesn’t hesitate to call her a dick when she acts like one (probably my favorite bit of dialogue). Anyway, amid the smiles and occasional chuckles there’s even a running gag about how fertile a decidedly middle-aged Sigourney Weaver is. It seems in Hollywood every woman gets pregnant right away, preferably after she’s fallen in love with the right guy — a pretty tortuous theme for someone like me who’s wanted a kid as much as Fey’s character did but lives in the real world.

But there’s something inherently appealing about pairing off, whether with your True Love or a Mini-You, signifying completion. Hey, I’m a sucker for happy endings too. I often lament that more comics don’t have happy endings or, for that matter, endings of any kind. Most Big Two stories prefer to go the serial route, like soap operas and, well, life.

So maybe comics have the right idea after all, concentrating on happy voyages rather than happy destinations. (more…)

At long last, the 1968 written The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test from Tom Wolfe is heading to film. Fox Searchlight has picked up the rights for the novel, with director Gus Van Sant and writer Dustin Lance Black attached to the project. Richard Gladstein and his Film Colony banner will produce.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a drug-addled new journalism epic in the vein of Hunter S. Thompson. The novel follows the hallucinogenic exploits of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest novelist Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, proponents of psychedelic drugs, as they drive across the country. Their vehicle of choice is a DayGlo painted school bus named "Furthur." Some prominent figures featured in the novel include The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan and Timothy Leary. Sadly, the Kool-Aid man does not play a prominent role.

Gus Van Sant and Dustin Lance Black recently collaborated on the upcoming Milk starring Sean Penn and Josh Brolin. The film debuts on November 26, 2008 in limited release.

Van Sant has directed high quality films such as Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester, one of Sean Connery’s final films before retiring. Black is a writer on HBO’s successful Big Love, a series about a Mormon polygamist and his very large family.

Producer Richard Gladstein originally enlisted Van Sant and Black for Kool-Aid with an eye for a 2009 release, but he was unable to find financing. Now that Fox Searchlight is backing the film, development should move much quicker.