Zac Efron Meets With HSM Director
Zac Efron Meets With HSM Director
Questions as to whether or not Zac Efron would be appearing in High School Musical 3 seem to have been answered this Saturday.
The Disney hunk was spotted at a “secret” meeting with the HSM series director, Kenny Ortega, in Los Angeles.
Ortega was carrying what looked to be the new script, as the two chatted it up while enjoying weather.
Later the same day, Zac showed off his Calvin Kleins while stopping to get some gas. Chatting with photographers after not being able to get the gas pump to work, a paparazzo came to the rescue and paid $20 for Zac to get some petrol.
Sam Raimi Excited to Read Spider-Man 4 Script
Don’t count director Sam Raimi out just yet. The Spider-Man series director is waiting to read James Vanderbilt’s (Zodiac) latest draft, which he says is due in a few months, before he decides if he will helm the project or not.
“I’m excited to read it,” Raimi told SciFi. “I’m hoping it’s as great as our discussions were about it and hoping it feels right for me, because I love Spider-Man, and I’m hoping I’m well-enough rested to, like, really embrace it and hoping that Sony wants me at that time to direct it. So if all those things come together, I would love, love to do it. But this is a lot of unknowns about the future.”
Raimi also reiterated that he would “hate to recast anybody” new in the key roles, and “can’t imagine that” actually happening. I have the feeling that Raimi was a little less excited to do a fourth film six months ago. It’s funny how time changes everything. I just hope that Sony gave Raimi room to develop a story with Vanderbilt that he is comfortable with. It seemed clear that Raimi wasn’t interested in including Venom in the third film, but was forced to by the studio. The overcrowding of characters was one of the main reasons the film failed with audiences. Oh yeah, and the Jazz bar sequence, which Raimi has no excuse for.
Sequel Talk: Pineapple Express, Hulk 3, Sex and the City 2, Bad Boys 3
Hollywood loves sequels, and the readers of movie blogs love to hear the early talk of them (even if it never develops into anything). So lets take a look at the recent sequel gossip going around the interwebs.
Seth Rogen and James Franco are already talking about the possibility of the first comedy sequel produced by Judd Apatow - Pineapple Express 2?
“Yeah, I’m waiting for the sequel,” Franco revealed to MTV at Sunday’s Movie Awards. Rogen added, “Yep, we’ve talked about it.”
When asked who will play the villain in the next Incredible Hulk movie (if the demand warrants a sequel), director Louis Leterrier says that Samuel Sterns (played by Tim Blake Nelson) is introduced in his film and of course, will eventually become The Leader. [comics2film]
At the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, Will Smith told Hollyscoop that he has an idea for Bad Boys 3.
“We need Bad Boys 3, but Michael is too expensive now, he’s way too expensive.”
Even series director Michael Bay admitted that it might never happen even though they’ve talked about doing another one.
“I don’t know,” said Bay. “We talk about it, but we all make too much money.”
Meanwhile The Daily Mail claims that the producers of Sex and the City are “exercising the sequel option in all of the stars’ contracts. They want it to be a franchise and think they can stretch it over at least a trilogy.” But can you really believe the British tabloid paper’s sources?
Thanks to reader Marcus for contributing.
Confirmed: Stephen Sommers to Direct GI Joe Movie, Stuart Beattie to Pen Script
Variety has now confirmed a rumor that hit the movie websites a couple weeks ago: The Mummy series director Stephen Sommers has signed on to direct a big screen live-action G.I. Joe movie. The studio is hiring a writer immediately, IESB is reporting that Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean, Collateral, Derailed, 30 Days of Night, Spy Hunter) is the man for the job. And they probably know, because they were the ones who broke this story a few weeks back. Paramount is fast-tracking the project for a summer 2009 release, which means production will begin this February. Variety claims that Sommers was officially hired after making a pitch to Paramount head Brad Grey and production president Brad Weston on Wednesday.
With characters like Cobra Commander and Serpentor, GI Joe has the potential to be an fun accessible army action film like never seen before. And with so many movies set in Iraq hitting the big screen, a Joe movie has the ability to offer something much different than the norm. Let’s hope Sommers doesn’t screw it up. I’ve genuinely hated most of his later films (Deep Rising, The Mummy Returns, Van Helsing). But I always stuck up for The Mummy.
I’m sure casting announcements will begin in a couple months. We’ll be able to tell what type of movie this could be when we start seeing a list of names. I’m betting that Sgt. Slaughter is probably too old to play himself in this one (which is probably a good thing). They also need to watch out how much patriotism they jam onto the screen. If they don’t get the dosage right it could piss of core conservative fans. If they put too much patriotism, it could scare off everyone else. Patriotism in large doses can be pretty scary. If done right, this could be the next Transformers (sans giant robots…). If done wrong, it could come off as a long inforercial for the U.S. Army.
G.I. Joe started in 1942 as a WWII military magazine comic strip. In the mid-60’s the character became a series of military-themed 12″ articulated action figures produced by the Hasbro toy company. The company later relaunched the action figure line in a smaller, 3 3/4-inch scale in the early 80’s. A comic book and animated television series followed. Over the 1980s, G.I. Joe’s increasing popularity supported an array of spin-off merchandising that included posters, t-shirts, video games, board games, kites, animated movies, and an ongoing animated series.