There’s a new trailer out for the Joe Carnahan-directed A-Team, and this one seems specially designed for the person who saw the first one and said, “Hmm, not ridiculous enough.”  Besides more of the parachuting-a-tank-out-of-an-airplane-and-shooting-other-planes-with-it scene, we’ve also got:

• Liam Neeson as Hannibal pulling the old Shawshank Redemption trick… for a cigar.  Just buy it at the commissary, show off.
• “I ain’t flyin on no planes!” is now “Oh hell naw. I ain’t steppin foot on any type a aircraft.”  Well la di dah, looks like someone‘s dating an English major.
• Instead of BA saying “I pity the fool!’, he just has “PITY” and “FOOL” tattooed on his knuckles. …Right, because just saying the line would’ve been stupid.
• District 9‘s Sharlto Copley as Murdock tries to jump start a van with a defibrillator.  About which Hannibal says “My kind of guy.”  Aw, I love that electricity-ignorant f*ck.
• RAIL GRINDING DOWN A SKYSCRAPER, OOH WHA AH AH-AH!
• BASE jump to parachute snagged on the skids of passing helicopter.  You know they planned that sh*t too.

As you all know, I grip it and rip it and live life with a lot of flair on a daily basis, but even I might have to keister a couple Red Bulls to get through this.  Ooh, and I almost forgot: Brad Cooper shirtless.  I knew there was a reason I had that vaseline out.

[available in HD at Apple]

Hollywood Execs don’t really know sh*t about comedy, which is why they originally wouldn’t finance The Hangover, which starred Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms, who were famous only to people who watch comedy.  So Todd Phillips let his nuts swing, traded his upfront fee for 15% of revenue, and the main stars (Cooper, Galifianakis, and Helms) made less than $1 mil between the three of them.  Now that it’s sequel time, the chickens have come home to roost, and those chickens are money.  Reports Deadline:

I’m told Galifianakis, Cooper and Helms will each be paid in the vicinity of $5 million against 4% of first dollar gross. Director/producer Todd Phillips will be paid around $10 million against 10%. For Phillips, there are also escalators and bonuses that insure if the sequel does anywhere close to the original’s $467 million worldwide gross, Phillips will not make less than his income on the original. That meter is still running, and it has passed the $50 million mark.

Those stars did not have options locking them into a sequel. What they did have were teams of managers, agents and attorneys who negotiated together. [...] Reps of the thesps were dug in for a long battle when the studio initially came to the table offering each actor $3 million against 1% of the gross,  with a deadline attached. That deadline passed, and I heard that twice during the talks, Warner Bros chief Jeff Robinov walked away from the table and pronounced that the sequel was off.

The sequel will be considerably more expensive than the first film—upfront salary alone for the trio and Phillips is around $25 million, and the original costs $34 million all in, and Warners is paying over 20% of first dollar gross.

I believe the script is currently being worked on by Todd Phillips and Scot Armstrong, but there might be others contributing.

Armstrong previously collaborated with Phillips on Road Trip, Old School, Starsky & Hutch, and School for Scoundrels.  I’d be glad if they had him and not the screenwriters for the original back, because *whispers* the script wasn’t that good. So the cast had double leverage — the studio needed them, and they didn’t really care if a sequel got made.  I’d kill for that kind of power in business negotiations.  My usual intimidation method is to slowly eat my Lunchables with a huge buck knife.

(Good job, Brad Cooper, you don’t want a baby growing in that womb)

An actor pulling out of a project isn’t huge news in itself, but at a time when plenty of leading men should consider firing their agents *cough* Gerard Butler! *cough, cough*, I thought it’d be nice to focus on someone making a good decision for a change.

Bradley Cooper has pulled out of McG’s next film, a romantic comedy called This Means War.  The July start date for the Fox romcom overlapped with the start of The Hangover 2. Reese Witherspoon is still attached.  Fox has had this one for a long time; it was originally intended as a Martin Lawrence film. The movie revolves around two best friends, inseparable since childhood, that fall in love with the same woman (Witherspoon) and go to war against each other. THR says the “ensuing battle escalates to mammoth proportions, with New York City demolished in their wake.” [/Film]

Yeah, you had me at “a Fox rom-com from McG.”  It sounds like Bride Wars meets Charlie’s Angels.  Please, someone lead this one down to riverbank and put a bullet in its skull.

(Wouldn’t want to cheat the ladies out of shirtless Brad Cooper)

The A-Team movie just released a batch of new pictures from the movie, in case you’re one of those people who prefer their photos not projected in rapid sequence to create the illusion of motion.  I just wish we could decide once and for all whether keffiyah scarves are for hipster pussies or special forces guys so I can exercise my God-given right to punch hipsters without worrying about getting my trachea stomped.  As Nathan Hale famously said, “I regret that I have but two fists with which to punch hipsters in their stupid face.”

[via ComingSoon]

(This scene was so extreme Vin Diesel started skysurfing on it.)

I posted the crappy, bootleg version of the new A-Team trailer last week, but now the official version is up and you can see Rampage, Liam, Brad Cooper, and the District 9 guy in glorious regular resolution. It’s still a dopey concept based on a dopey show, but it appears they’ve done a great job updating the plot.  By which I mean OMG SKYDIVING ON A TANK, SO XXXTREEEME!!!  *Rockstar Energy Drink enema*

No one seems to know whether they won’t actually kill any of the bad guys like in the original.  One of them is wearing a gas mask in the trailer — tear gas and tranq guns instead of bullets, perhaps?   Maybe instead of killing bad guys, they just drug em up and date rape them.  Seems plausible.  I mean, they are driving around in a van.

Read the rest of this entry »