Tyrannosaurus Rex Concept Art
Some new concept art from Rob Zombie’s Tyrannosaurus Rex has appeared online over at the official Tyrannosaurus Rex Myspace page.
Not much is known about the movie so far, although now we know someone gets their face removed in a boxing match. Sounds good so far.
Tyrannosaurus Rex Poster
A poster for Rob Zombie’s Tyrannosaurus Rex has appeared online. This is the first time Zombie has come forward with anything that gives a glimpse of what to expect, and we still haven’t a clue what its about. However, I suspect it isn’t about a dinosaur cloud…but who knows?
Breck Eisner’s Creature from the Black Lagoon Remake Moving Forward
“Let’s dance, Tom.”
In the dizzying sinkhole of modern remakes, enough time has passed with 1954’s Creature from the Black Lagoon to dampen fanboy squabbles over a new studio effort. Of course, the sci-fi horror reboot still needs to impress, and that responsibility falls with its director. While I hoped to see John Landis or Rob Zombie strike up fresh chills and gills in exotic locales, director Breck Eisner (Sahara, son of Michael) tells ShockTilYouDrop that his planned remake is moving forward, complete with locations scoped out in South America, a fully created, newly envisioned creature, and less than two percent aspiration to be the next Mummy 1, 2, 3, 9.
Eisner didn’t draw comparisons to the tone of The Dark Knight (watch for an oncoming avalanche from countless PG-13 assigned directors), but did bring up fashionable parallels to The Wolf Man (the original) and Universal’s other classic monsters (but not, you know, Sommers’s The Mummy).
“We debated tone a thousand times. For me tone is the most interesting thing a filmmaker has and so the Creature is a creature, it’s not a monster. That’s my number one thing about the movie. We’re not going to turn him into a monster. He’s still going to be empathetic, he’s still going to be deadly, he’s still going to have a misguided means of expressing his interests in a woman, but it’s uniquely the Creature. …It will deliver of action and excitement, but I want it to be scary. The Creature was scary when it first came out in ‘54 - it’s not scary today - but that’s what updating means to me, updating the tone of the original.”
In other words, don’t worry too much, it won’t be Sahara with a man in birthday suit. Intriguingly enough, Eisner references Werner Herog’s Fitzcarraldo for inspiration and says he’ll shoot partially in the Brazilian city of Manaus where Herzog and Klaus Kinski notoriously went nuts. The titular lagoon(s) has been chosen as well. When can we expect this then?
“I want to get [Eisner’s remake of George Romero’s The Crazies] done, get it into post-production then head to the Amazon for ‘Creature.’ Oddly, I’m waiting on the height of the Amazon river before we start shooting - it drops 50-feet in October and November. But we’ve got the boat set and everything ready to go.”
Eisner says he’s reworking the script by Gary Ross (Seabiscuit) and confirms that Spectral Motion (Hellboy, Fantastic Four) is a lock for the SFX. I’m really curious to see any artwork or the script for this, so please leak them. Mixing studio-pleasing action with genuine scares is nearly as hard to pull off as horror comedy, but Eisner’s well liked and most in the know feel his best days and visions are in front of him. Creature > McConaughey’s spray-on tan adventure.
via AICN
Conan Director Rumors Continue, Doomsday’s Neil Marshall Now In Mix
A few days ago Rob Zombie was said to be up for the skull-and-horn adorned director’s chair on the 2009 Lionsgate tent-pole Conan. The plethora of dried blood and fur, swords, mating calls and battle cries that drenched my imagination when I heard this rumor was lovely. Zombie could do both the classic barbaric character and John Milius’s wild original film supreme justice. Of course, now we now know that Zombie’s next film will be Tyrannosaurus Rex, with word growing that it’s a hardcore flick about bikers, set for late summer 2009. No Conan for him.
Another name swirling in the rumor mill is Xavier Gens, who helmed the flashy video game flick Hitman. I do not want to see Gens’s $100 million Conan. He needs to sharpen his teeth hard on non-iconic material like Vanikoro first. The other name circulating right now is Neil Marshall, who batted a nice fanboy double with Dog Soldiers and the cave-horror crowd pleaser The Descent.
Marshall’s Mad Max-meets-cliche-apocalyptic-virus semi-epic Doomsday opens in March, and I’m sure its reception on the Net will play into his chances for the Conan gig. If the producers wish to wait that long. At 38 and with his career on the come up, we still haven’t seen Marshall’s biggest visions, but his work thus far has focused too much on the visceral and there’s a British B-movie filter at play that doesn’t work for me for this flick. What a Conan epic needs is a director who will not compromise at all, like Milius. You know that scene in Conan the Barbarian where Arnold is nailed to a cross, and suddenly his eyes explode and he rips into the neck of a lingering vulture with no-hands and keeps biting until it makes you shockingly hungry? I remember seeing that and going “Note to self, I have never and will never see that again in a movie.”
That’s what I feel Zombie would have brought (here come the “redneck profanity doesn’t belong in the Hyborian Age” quips.). To me this film is not about the action, it’s about the R-rating and the most gung-ho macho expression fathomable. If Marshall or Gens snags it, my attention automatically refocuses on Matthew Vaughn’s shoot-the-moon take on Thor.
Who do you want to bring Conan back?