Pictured: early negotiations.

Last week I told you about how Christopher Nolan was courting Matthew McConaughey for his upcoming sci-fi epic, Interstellar. It was said at the time that most actors don’t turn down Chris Nolan these days, and now comes word that McConaughey has responded “Buckle up, sugar, this ain’t my first barbecue.” Of course I’m paraphrasing here.

McConaughey said the much-talked-about deal is done in a phone interview this morning from New Orleans, where he is currently filming the upcoming HBO crime series “True Detective” with Woody Harrelson.

Mother of God, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson on the same set? That’s enough chill vibes and shirtlessness to send Willie Nelson’s tour bus to the sun!

Nolan’s projects are notoriously secretive, and McConaughey revealed no details other than to say “I’m confirming” that he had accepted the role.
There’s no other casting news about the project. The script, by Nolan’s brother and regular collaborator Jonathan, is said to involve “time travel and alternate dimensions and sees a group of explorers travel through a wormhole.” [StarTribune]

I hope McConaughey plays the fresh meat, so-let-me-get-this-straight character that all good sci-fi movies need to help explain the plot. “I love goin’ through wormholes, man. See, that’s the thang about wormholes – y’all get thousands of years older, and ah just staaaay the same age, alright alright alright.”

I swear to God, if he gets another Oscar snub for his shirtless, acoustic rendition of “Ladybots of Tampraxus B-004″ I’m going to throw flaming trash cans off the roof of my building.

Hearing Matthew McConaughey talk about his career at the McConaughey panel at SXSW, you couldn’t shake the perception that success came pretty quickly and easily for him, on account of him being such a handsome, chilled-out good ol’ boy. After rough couple of years where he took too many easy paychecks for crappy rom-coms (his Kate Hudson Period), McConaughey is back on a hot streak (despite his historic Oscar snub), so it figures that the biggest director in town wants to work with him. According to Deadline, Christopher Nolan has offered McConaughey the lead in his planned sci-fi epic, Interstellar. McConaughey hasn’t accepted yet, and Deadline points out that actors rarely say no to Chris Nolan, but who knows? You never know when McConaughey might want to take a year off from acting to go to St. Barth’s and drop acid and play naked bongos with spider monkeys or something, change his whole perspective on shit.

Interstellar was originally set up in 2006 by Steven Spielberg, when Paramount owned DreamWorks, and after Spielberg became intrigued by Caltech physicist and relativity expert Kip S. Thorne and his scientific theory that wormholes exist and can be used for time travel. It was Spielberg who set Jonah Nolan to write the script, which made it easy for Christopher Nolan to come aboard after Spielberg left the project. After all, the Nolan siblings have a collaborative track record, with Jonah hatching the short story that became Christopher’s first hit Memento, and following that with two Batfilms and The Prestige. Christopher Nolan signed on in January to write a script that merged an original idea of his with the script that Jonah wrote. The ambition is a film that will depict a heroic interstellar voyage to the farthest borders of our scientific understanding.

I’d love to see a film where Matthew McConaughey plays a ramblin’ spaceman, piloting his flat-bed spaceship with his dog in the back all over space and time, making good times and chill buds, never staying in one place long enough to get attached.

ALIEN LIFE FORM: Greetings, Earthling. Welcome to Melron-4.

MCCONAUGHEY: Oh hey, I remember you, man. I think I got that hoodie I borrowed in the truck.

Chris Nolan writes “GROWLY VOICE” and underlines it three times

The Justice League rumor mill has been working overtime for months now – for years, if you count George Miller’s thankfully-scrapped attempt to bring it to theaters – and with all the problems facing our country and planet, I can think of few things more important than the whens, hows, and whys of Superman broing down with Batman and Mighty Mouse. Last we heard, WB had sh*tcanned Will Beall’s script, which is probably a good thing. A. because it proves that someone actually read it (remember: no one ever reads anything in Hollywood), and B. because Will Beall last wrote Gangster Squad, a film which included the line “I miss that red snatch.”

Which brings us to today. LatinoReview, who have a pretty decent track record breaking comic book scoops, claim that Christopher Nolan, despite saying over and over and over again that producing Man of Steel would be his last involvement in superhero movies, has “taken over the DC Universe at Warner Bros.”

“Chris Nolan has completely taken over the DC Universe at Warner Bros. So anything having to do with these superheroes goes through him now. [...] He’s going to be involved in Godfathering/producing the movie. While Zack Snyder is also going to be producing, and also, possibly, the director.”

And, according to their story, having Nolan involved, with Justice League happening before a Batman reboot, would mean in turn that Christian Bale would be back as Batman.

Latino Review’s sources tell them that Nolan is shaping Justice League as a team-up between Man of Steel star Henry Cavill and Christian Bale, reprising his role as Batman. As Latino Review’s El Mayimbe puts it, Superman will arrive and find Bruce Wayne somewhere in his peaceful retirement, tell him he’s putting a team together, and get all the new action started. [CinemaBlend]

Ooh, the old “I’m puttin’ a team together!” I hope it includes a “gettin’ dressed” montage a la Gordy Gekko in Wall Street 2, where Superman pulls on his big red boots and straightens his codpiece. Anyway, I don’t doubt LatinoReview’s scoop insomuch that I’m sure Warner wants all this to happen, it just seems like there are a lot of ifs and scheduling issues to work out. For one thing, this plan assumes that Man of Steel will be a billion-dollar franchise, which is certainly possible. But it didn’t quite work out that way with Superman Returns, and that came out when Bryan Singer was arguably a lot hotter than Zack Snyder is now. And Chris Nolan just seems too… British… to want to do another comic book movie. But hey, if JJ Abrams can direct both Star Trek and Star Wars, why can’t Chris Nolan handle every non-Marvel superhero movie? Eventually we’re just going to have six directors doing all the blockbusters.

Chris Nolan is certainly talented, and better than 95 percent of the alternatives. but his “gritty” approach to Batman started to annoy me about halfway through TDKR. His style seemed to get grittier even as the story stayed just as silly as any non-Nolan comic book movie. Maybe that effect won’t be as pronounced with him just producing? I don’t know. Look, I’m just excited to see Superman and Batman party down with Antman and Mothra and Silent Bob and the whole Justice League gang down at the Peach Pit. That Skeletor doesn’t stand a chance. Read the rest of this entry »

Forget the Justice League and DC Comics movie rumors for now, because we’re ready to just focus on the movies that have actually been made and will definitely be on large screens for us to view with our own eyes. Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel hits theaters on July 14, 2013, and the film is already being served with the lofty task of making us believe that Superman Returns never happened.

Seriously, I’m not just being a cynical jerkface, because that’s actually sort of the intention of Man of Steel. According to the film’s producer, Christopher Nolan, in a recent interview, he wants us to close our eyes, clear our minds and pretend like there has never been a Superman movie before. I have no problem doing this.

“We tried to approach this as though there’s never been a Superman movie before, but at the same time respecting the canon and mythology. There are the pillars that you have to respect, and I’m not about to break them. But it is fun for me to bend them and mess with them.”

Adding how important is for him to plunge into Clark Kent’s origins and depicting on screen in a very realistic way.

“Traditional Superman fans know what it’s all about, and they will hopefully love and associate with the character anyway. But the people who aren’t die-hard Superman fans still need to associate with the character, and that needs to have some realism in today’s world, certainly, in sense of a science as opposed to mythology attached to it as well.” (Via Shockya)

That might explain why in the newest Man of Steel poster released today, Superman is wearing handcuffs. Sure, you could argue that unless those handcuffs are made of kryptonite, they wouldn’t be able to hold Superman, but it’s because they want us to relate to Superman, the same way we relate to our meth addict cousin, G-Flavor, who keeps getting sent to prison. Oh well, I’ve got dibs on his egg nog this year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pfister, speaking with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune:

Q: What’s most important in shooting a film?

A: What’s really important is storytelling. None of it matters if it doesn’t support the story. I thought “The Avengers” was an appalling film. They’d shoot from some odd angle and I’d think, why is the camera there? Oh, I see, because they spent half a million on the set and they have to show it off. It took me completely out of the movie. I was driven bonkers by that illogical form of storytelling.

In conclusion…

Actually, I made a similar complaint in my Avengers review, that there were certain shots, especially in the beginning, that just had random detritus (leaves, bushes, etc) framed in the foreground that were only there so they could show off the depth of the 3D. It didn’t ruin the movie, but it was still lame. Nonetheless, I’m excited for the inevitable pissing contest between humorless Dark Knight Rises apologists and humorless Avengers apologists. I bet it will be humorless!

Okay, so that was the blatant link bait, here’s a more interesting bit:

Read the rest of this entry »