Guy Ritchie Attached to Direct Sgt. Rock for Joel Silver
Fresh off working with Guy Ritchie on Rocknrolla (due this October), mega-producer Joel Silver says he’s tapped the British director/major Madonna fan to see through his long gestating comic book adaptation of Sgt. Rock. AICN got the succinct scoop…
Moriarty: But you do that with properties. You stick by them, like SGT. ROCK. You have developed that for a long time now…
Joel: I’m going to make that. I’m going to make that very soon. With Guy Ritchie, I think.
Moreover, Sgt. Rock screenwriter John Cox, who also adapted Virgin Comics’ wartime-set Virulents due in 2009, has posted Silver’s statement on his MySpace. Years ago, Sgt. Rock was planned as a big budget Schwarzenegger vehicle, and last year Cox briefly threw around Kiefer Sutherland’s name for the title role, but no actor has been set. What’s cool about the film is that it will apparently keep the comics’ gruff World War II setting instead of going the Iraq-update route, and rather than an origins story, Cox has said it will focus on Rock after he’s seen considerable combat/bloodshed.
Not sure what I think of Ritchie’s involvement. He’s never tackled a project this large and multi-faceted, but his early films have cockney flare for days. What do you think?
New 1-18-08/Cloverfield Trailer and Title, Christmas Speed Racer Trailer
I’ve been hearing in the past couple weeks from a number of sources that a new 1-18-08/Cloverfield movie trailer will premiere in front of Beowulf on November 16th. Our friends at ComingSoon seem to be pretty sure that this is actually true. I mean, it does makes sense as it’s Paramount big film before the release of the JJ Abrams-produced monster movie. Will the movie be called 1-18-08? Cloverfield? Overnight? We might find out on November 16th.
SciFi has also learned that a Speed Racer trailer will be released sometime around Christmas.
“…it’s pretty spectacular. So you’ll see it pretty soon,” said producer Joel Silver.
I’m guessing that the trailer will be attached to National Treasure: Book of Secrets or Sweeney Todd. The Disney sequel seems more likely as Speed Racer is rated G.
Wonder Woman Movie Still Dead
So Warner Bros has hired new directors for Justice League spin-offs of The Flash and The Green Lantern, but what about Wonder Woman?
“We’re kind of pausing on Wonder Woman now. Let them go ahead and do [Justice League] first,” Joel Silver said in a news conference while promoting Fred Claus. “And if that comes together, Wonder Woman will be a part of that story. And then we’ll see where we go from there. But we struggled with it for a while. I hope that we can solve it and make it one day.”
Doesn’t sound good for the Amazon Princess. That last line leads me to believe that unless Justice League, The Flash and The Green Lantern aren’t all hugely successful, Warner Bros will probably never be interested in making a Wonder Woman movie. Earlier this month it was rumored that Warner Bros president of production Jeff Robinov had instituted a new rule that they are “no longer doing movies with women in the lead.” The studio has since denied this claim, but actions speak louder than words.
source: Sci-Fi
Saturday Box Office: SuperBad Dips, but Still Headed for $31M
The Judd Apatow-produced SUPERBAD (Sony), written by KNOCKED UP star Seth Rogan and directed by Greg Mottola (THE DAYTRIPPERS), couldn’t hold up the furious box office pace it set on Friday, but, even with its estimated 12% Friday-to-Saturday drop, the raucous teen comedy still delivered a very solid $10.64M. With an anticipated $8.5M on Sunday, SUPERBAD will wrap up the weekend with a phenomenal $31.24M.
RUSH HOUR 3 (New Line) added a stronger than expected $8.7M on Saturday, and the Tucker/Chan/Ratner action-comedy has a revised 3-day estimate of $20.81M. That’s a 58% drop as opposed to the expected 60% drop that was
expected. It’s likely that a fair number of teens bought tickets to see RH3, then crossed over to see the R-rated SUPERBAD. THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (Universal), also PG13-rated, may have also been boosted by kids crossing over to see Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and friends. The Damon/Greengrass thriller grabbed approximately $7.93M on Saturday, and BOURNE’s 3rd weekend will likely be $18.7M or so, just a 43% dip.
Joel Silver’s mess THE INVASION (Warner Bros) only managed $2.14M on its 2nd day of release. The $75M body snatcher tale, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, is headed for a miserable $5.5M weekend. The film, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel (DOWNFALL), was supposed to be released last year, but Warner Bros and Silver didn’t like the original cut. So, Silver called in the Wachowski brothers (The MATRIX Trilogy) and James McTeigue (V FOR VENDETTA), who added some action sequences. In the end, nobody could salvage this misfire.
MGM/Weinstein’s THE LAST LEGION continued to sputter through its opening weekend with an estimated $957,000 Saturday. With a cast that includes Ben Kingsley, Anthony Hopkins, Colin Firth and Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai, the film may sell tickets abroad, but it will finish the weekend with just $2.49M.
There was more good news for the well-reviewed MGM comedy DEATH AT A FUNERAL, directed by Frank Oz (IN & OUT, DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS). The US Comedy Arts Festival winner on 260 screens picked up another $530,000 or so. The dark comedy will have banked $1.23M by Monday morning.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s THE 11TH HOUR (Warner Independent) suffered a 37% Friday-to-Saturday drop at its 4 locations, but it will still finish the weekend with an estimated $62,000. Its $15,531 PTA is the best of the weekend, edging gritty Brazilian doc MANDA BALA: SEND A BULLET (Slowhand Releasing) with $12,185 on its single screen and SUPERBAD with a PTA of $10,483.
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