Rose McGowan to Wield Red Sonja’s Sword
Rose McGowan has been the go-go dancer with the machine-gun leg, and now she’s going to be the She-Devil With a Sword.
The titian-haired former Charmed star has signed on to play the titular mythical comic book hero in Red Sonja, to be produced by fiancé Robert Rodriguez and directed by Highland: Endgame helmer Douglas Aarniokoski, Millennium Films and Nu Images announced Friday.
“This is an amazing property and film for our company,” studio exec Avi Lerner said. “Working with the talented Robert Rodriguez, having Rose McGowan as Red Sonja and Douglas Aarniokoski directing is a fantastic combination. We could not be happier.”
The action flick will find Red Sonja, a Marvel character who first appeared as she is now in the Conan the Barbarian series, seeking vengeance against the evildoers that destroyed her family and then realizing it has fallen upon her and her kickass ways to save her Soviet-area land of Hyrkania from the sorcerer Kulan Gath.
Red Sonja was first brought to the big screen, B-movie-style, in 1985, with Brigitte Nielsen as the title warrior and Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Conan-esque Lord Kalidor.
McGowan, who most recently starred in both parts of the Quentin Tarantino-Rodriguez double-feature Grindhouse, appeared in a range of darkly funny films before settling down as Shannen Doherty’s replacement on Charmed, including Scream, Jawbreaker and Monkeybone.
The 34-year-old actress also currently cohosts The Essentials on Turner Classic Movies.
Shooting on Red Sonja is expected to kick off in October. Millennium and Nu Images are currently scouting locations in Michigan and other U.S. spots.
Gerard Butler Might Still Escape From New York
Rumors of Gerard Butler’s (300) departure from the Escape From New York remake have been greatly exaggerated. Butler, who has been doing press for his new romcom P.S. I Love You, insists that he hasn’t dropped out of the project, but is taking a wait and see position. In October, New Line hired Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines helmer Jonathan Mostow in to rewrite, with an option to direct. The actor points out that no start date has been slated. If everything lines up again, Butler might indeed take on the character of Snake Plissken.
Originally Len Wiseman was attached to the project, and most recently, hack director Brett Ratner denied involvement in the project after weeks of fanboy protest over the rumored possibility.
source: NationalPost
Cameron, Spielberg Remember Winston at Funeral
Stan Winston wasn’t just a monster mogul. He was also a kid at heart, a Beatles fan and a Hollywood visionary.
That’s according to colleagues who gathered in Los Angeles on Sunday to remember the Oscar-winning special-effects master, who died June 15 at age 62 after a seven-year battle with cancer.
“He inspired a generation of fans,” James Cameron, one of the F/X maestro’s closest collaborators, said at a private memorial service at the Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary.
“I think that just maybe the words of a bunch of people who didn’t even know him personally may be his best tribute,” Cameron continued before reading aloud a number of online tributes from fanboys at Ain’t It Cool News. The Titanic helmer also revealed that he spoke to Winston the day before his death and proclaimed their mutual love.
Winston, who died of multiple myeloma, earned Academy Awards for creating the out-of-this-world monsters in Cameron’s Aliens and Terminator movies, as well as the eye-popping dinos populating Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park.
For his part, Spielberg hailed Winston’s extraodinary ability to turn artists’ imaginations into reality.
“What Stan did is that he took our dreamshe took all of our dreamsand he blended them with his own dreams,” said Spielberg. “He then workshopped those dreams with pencil, clay and, later years on, the computer. He would basically give life to all of our ideas. He would make them come to life.”
Other showbiz associates and friends in attendance: Aliens star Sigourney Weaver; actor Robert Patrick, who played the T-1000 cyborg in T2; Iron Man filmmaker Jon Favreau; and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his True Lies sidekick Tom Arnold.
Son Matt Winston recalled that after a tearful goodbye to his family, filled with kisses, hugs and laughter, the last song his father heard was the Beatles’ “All My Loving.”
Spike Doing Time Traveler Thing
Spike Lee did Clockers. In keeping with the theme, his next project: Time Traveler.
Per Variety, the filmmaker will cowrite and direct the drama based on the memoir by Ronald Mallett, the physicist famed for working on plans for a real-life time machine
The 63-year-old Mallett was one of the first African-Americans to receive a doctorate in theoretical physics and currently teaches at the University of Connecticut. But he’s perhaps best known for his obsession with bending time to his own will.
His inspiring pursuit was documented last year on an episode of public radio’s This American Life. When he was 10 years old, Mallett’s father died suddenly of a heart attack and ever since, Mallett sought to make time travel possible so he could rewind to that fateful day and change his dad’s fate.
“[It’s] a fantastic story on many levels [and] also a father-and-son saga of loss and love,” Lee told Variety.
Lee apparently has a soft spot for time traveling.
The helmer was previously attached to the Fox thriller Selling Time, about a man who trades years off his life expectancy for the chance to relive the worst day of his life. He’s since exited that project. Lee’s next film is Miracle at St. Anna, about a division of all-black soldiers trapped behind enemy lines during World War II.