M Night Shyamalan Talks The Last Airbender
M Night Shyamalan has been doing limited press to promote his new film The Happening, and has been talking about his big screen adaptation of the popular Nickelodeon Anime-influenced animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender.
When the hostile Fire Nation threatens to enslave the Water, Earth, and Air Nations, a reluctant and irresponsible twelve-year-old named Aang, who must forgo his selfish wandering to learn to master his latent powers and face his destiny as the Avatar, the Chosen One who can restore the world order. Night describes the film to SciFiWire:
“It has martial arts and spirituality and the supernatural, and it has Buddhist philosophy and Hindu philosophy–really, everything I talk about–all in one movie,” Shyamalan said. “It has a mythology. It’s Shakespearean. It’s all this incredible stuff, and it has a balance. All these movies are plays on magic, whether it’s Lord of the Rings or The Matrix or Star Wars even, and each one of them relates to me in a different way, in its belief system.”
Not that Night would compare the film to any of the previously mentioned films.
“I wish I could put my finger on what it is like to say, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings,’ but it’s not really like that,” Night told RopesofSilicon. It’s its own thing. We have been striving to find the right balance between a fantasy world, and anchoring it in a reality you can’t quite put your finger on, but you know it’s real.”
Night also confirms The Last Airbender will be completely live-action and possibly even PG-13.
“It will be tough to keep it PG from PG-13. It will be tricky. I don’t know how to make a PG movie so that’s going to be much harder, because with R, everything was no problem,” Shyamalan told ComingSoon. “The great thing about it is it’s almost like they don’t ever really touch each other based in this world. They kind of do a form of manifesting something and then it comes at the other person and they manifest something. It’ll be great to do it as extensions of what the characters are feeling, and there’ll be much more CG.”
And Night insists in his interview with ROS that you’ll be amazed at the depth and realism that he will create with CGI:
“I feel more confident that I can make the CGI something that when you see it, like when you see two years from now and you see the trailer for The Last Airbender you will go, “Wow,” because you instinctively know that there is depth and reality to that moment of CGI.”
Shyamalan is currently deep into the design process and set construction will begin in August. I have yet to watch the animated series, but have heard a lot of great things about the series (shockingly from people you would never expect to be watching cartoons on Nickelodeon). The mix of asian philosophy, magic, and mythology has certainly gotten my interest. The Last Airbender is being targeted for a July 2nd 2010 release.
Rowling Conjures Up Court Appearance
J.K. Rowling's hoping a little legal hocus-pocus will make an unauthorized Harry Potter book disappear.
The megaselling author took center stage in a Manhattan federal court Monday and testified that the planned reference guide, The Harry Potter Lexicon, "constitutes wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work."
Rowling, 42, and Warner Bros. Entertainment filed suit last October against Steven Vander Ark, owner of the Harry Potter Lexicon website and Michigan-based RDR Books. The complaint accused the defendants of copyright infringement and claimed the publication of an encyclopedia without permission violated Rowling's intellectual property rights and undermined her ability to issue her own definitive guide to the fantasy world she created.
"Words she slaved over…now appear in a book under the name of somebody else," Rowling's attorney, Dale Cendali, told judge Robert P. Patterson in opening remarks.
For her part, Rowling said the battle over Lexicon has "decimated my creative work over the last month" to the point where she's been forced to set aside her latest novel.
"I really don't want to cry," she said, when quizzed about how she felt about the publication of the guide.
Cendali said RDR's enterprise was a thinly veiled attempt to cash in on the phenomenally successful Potter books, which have sold more than 400 million copies and spawned five feature films that have grossed more than $4.5 billion.
Defense attorney Anthony Falzone, however, cited fair-use doctrine, which he believed gave RDR and the website's editor more than enough leeway "to organize and discuss the complicated and very elaborate world of Harry Potter."
That sentiment was echoed by cocounsel David Saul Hammer, who told the judge on Friday that while the publisher does not plan to contest Rowling's infringement claims that a sizeable chunk of her work was used without authorization, RDR's book shed scholarly light on the subject of Potter and was therefore protected.
Vander Ark, 50, has argued that he is within his right to put out the reference guide, retailing for $24.95 a pop, because it's culled from supplemental material generated by his Harry Potter Lexicon website, which Rowling has acknowledged being a fan of.
However, Rowling has likened the move to a plot by You-Know-Who.
She claims the site merely recycles copyrighted material she developed on her own, including listing characters, magical creatures, potions, spells and other Potter tidbits. At the same time, she argues, Vander Ark's tome leaves out original commentary and fan-based debates that she believed made the site so unique and helped enhance the experience.
Publishing such a companion guide for profit could seriously harm the revenue stream of professional writers and ultimately do a disservice to devotees of their work, she asserts.
"If RDR's position is accepted, it will undoubtedly have a significant, negative impact on the freedoms enjoyed by genuine fans on the Internet," Rowling says in court documents. "Authors everywhere will be forced to protect their creations much more rigorously, which could mean denying well-meaning fans permission to pursue legitimate creative activities."
As it stands, Rowling is not asking for damages or seeking to shut down the website, but just aims to block the guide's release.
The nonjury trial is expected to continue through the week.
It'll be up to the judge to determine whether RDR's book is a legitimate fair-use claim or constitutes what Rowling's camp says is a ripoff for monetary gain.
City of Ember Movie Trailer
The latest fantasy novel adaption from Fox Walden is City of Ember. Based on the 2003 novel by Jeanne Duprau, Ember follows two kids, Lina and Doon, who live in the City of Ember, where the sky is always dark. As Ember’s power source begins to fail and the lamps start to flicker, they search for clues that will unlock ancient mysteries about the city and save the people of Ember. The film stars Bill Murray, Tim Robbins, Saoirse Ronan, Harry Treadaway, Toby Jones, Martin Landau, Mackenzie Crook, Mary Kay Place, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste.
I’ve been waiting for a really long time for a good children’s fantasy film like the stuff from my childhood (Henson’s Labyrinth anyone?). My theory is that most of the recent films, Narnia and the recent Potter films included, have forgotten the ingredient that makes these type of stories worth watching - that being the fun. But the whole point of being in a fantasy world is to enjoy some of it’s magic and wonder. And while story is very important, too much story can lead to too few of these fun and wondrous moments I’m talking about. And while this teaser trailer is only a minute and a half in length, not nearly enough to give a full indication of the film, I can see that the almost steam-punkish production design could easily lend itself to the fun and wonder that I was previously referring to. But tell me what you think in the comments after watching the trailer below.
City of Ember hits theaters on October 10th 2008.
Katie Holmes in talks to play Wonder Woman?!
Oh No. I can hear the collective sigh of fanboys from around the world as I type the following bit of news: Katie Holmes is in talks to star in a big screen adaptation of Wonder Woman.
In the past I’ve been very fair to Tom and Katie (unlike most of this country), and I even think Holmes is a good actress. BUT, yes there is a BUT - isn’t Katie just a little too small for the role? The superhero is probably best known for her curvaceous long legs, but Katie is only 5′9” and that’s according to her publicity materials (read: probably shorter). I did a google search to find out exactly how tall Wonder Woman is, and the consensus seems to be that the modern day character is 6′3″while the older version was much shorter (5′11″ was “amazonian” height for a woman in the 1960’s). Plus, let’s be honest, with the Tom Cruise backlash, she just doesn’t have the star/name value to carry a superhero movie.
The good news is that the movie is only in the discussion state. I honestly don’t see the appeal of a Wonder Woman movie at all. Sure, you’ll have a good looking woman kicking ass and taking names in small tight latex/spandex. There is no way Hollywood will be able to put a woman in superhero gear flying an invisible plane on the big screen and make it remotely believable (even in the on screen fantasy world). And besides, how lame of a weapon is the Lasso of Truth? But that’s just my opinion.
source: StarPulse