The Harry Potter ripoff parade has been in full swing for a few years now, long enough for the derivative books to get made into derivative movies. On that note, here’s the trailer for Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Zeus comes alive and goes after this kid who he thinks stole his lightning. Poor Zeus. He was just lying in the grass of Sunday morning of last week, indulging in his self defeat.
Meanwhile, Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, king of all things lame and crappy, has bought the rights to a series of films based on the ‘Nicholas Flamel’ books.
Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House, has already published three books in the six-part series — “The Alchemyst,” “The Magician” and “The Sorceress” — and will publish the fourth, “The Necromancer,” in May. The books detail the adventures of fifteen-year-old twins Sophie and Josh Newman as they travel around the world with the immortal alchemist Nicholas Flamel.
See, because the ancient prophecies tell them that they’re the chosen ones who will save the world. Hey, I have an idea for movie. There’s this kid. He’s not special, he can’t do magic, and in the climactic finale, he shuts the hell up and brings daddy a beer.
Chris Pine was charismatic and likable in Star Trek, and thanks to some mild acne scars, just not-pretty enough for me to not hate him. Most recently, Variety reports that Pine is in talks to take over as Tom Clancy hero Jack Ryan in a Paramount reboot of the franchise. I just hope he can do as good a job as Rod Hardfellow did in Queer and Pleasant Danger. Pine will have some big shoes to fill, and gaping buttholes.
Alec Baldwin originated the character in 1990’s “The Hunt for Red October,” Harrison Ford played him in 1992’s “Patriot Games” and 1994’s “Clear and Present Danger,” and Ben Affleck played Ryan in 2002’s “The Sum of All Fears.” The studio and producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mace Neufeld are working with a script draft by Hossein Amini, based on an original concept.
This is really exciting news because Chris Pine might maybe play a character in a movie as yet to be determined. And it’s from the producer of G.I. Joe and the upcoming Asteroids movie, so you know it’s going to be good. As long as they find a director and a budget and a script and a place to shoot it and some other actors. Really, I don’t see what could go wrong.
(Mickey Rourke to play that vicious killer who you can’t help but want to hug the sh’t out of)
The backstory: In 2006, Phil Carlo wrote a book about mafia hitman Richard “The Ice Man” Kuklinski, which was then optioned by producer Lorenzo “Asteroids” Di Bonaventura. But when Carlo heard Bonaventura wanted to cast male stripper Channing Tatums in the lead, Carlo refused to extend Di Bonaventura’s option on the book. At the time, Carlo said he thought Mickey Rourke would be a better fit. Which brings us to today, and Page Six reporting that Mickey Rourke has agreed to star.
After our story appeared in August, Rourke met with Carlo. “We hit it off beautifully,” Carlo said. “We’re producing it together. We’ll shoot in the spring in New York, New Jersey and Florida.” “He’s really looking forward to being the Ice Man, and I think he’ll do a great job,” Carlo told Page Six yesterday. “He’s talking about it being his ‘Raging Bull.’ ”
Just for the fun of it, Kuklinski killed 50 vagrants under the West Side Highway before he was 18. “Because it was bums, the police had no idea there was a serial killer on the loose,” said Carlo. Then, Kuklinski turned pro and claimed 150 more victims for the Gambino family, using guns, knives, strangulation and poison.
I for one am shocked that an Italian guy wanted to make a movie and the first actor he thought of was Mickey Rourke. And that the first comparison he threw out was Raging Bull. Truly shocked. I will bet $1000 that when Carlo met with Rourke he pretended to shadow box him at first and then went “Ehhh!” and slapped him on the back and then they went out for a nice plate a spaghetti.
ROURKE: “So this hit man… did he have a parrot?”
(Frankly, I’m more scared by the picture on the left. Is the butler there because… I got served?)
Producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura was recently trying to extend his option on a book about a mafia hitman, but the author turned him down… because he couldn’t stomach the thought of Channing Tatum in the lead role.
Phil Carlo tells us that after he penned “The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer” [about mob hitman Richard Kuklinski] in 2006, the book was optioned by di Bonaventura, producer of Transformers and G.I. Joe.
When the 18-month option ran out last month, di Bonaventura asked to extend the contract for two more weeks [don't you normally have to pay for that? Isn't that like going to a restaurant and "asking" for a steak?], hoping he could complete financing for the movie. But Carlo says that when he heard Tatum was being wooed to star, he decided not to go ahead.
“I had to turn him down. I really hated the idea of Channing Tatum. I told di Bonaventura that this is not the guy to play one of the most feared killers of the 20th Century,” Carlo said. “I think Mickey Rourke would really be good. He’s got that sense of danger, and there’s a similarity between the two. But it’s not Channing Tatum.” [NY Post via Videogum]
Four out of five dentists agree, that’s a burn. But that’s really mean. Channing Tatum may have only played mumbly wiggers thus far, but… uh… at least he’s not Cam Gigandet? And I know this is neither here nor there, but I like to imagine Channing Tatum and Josh Hartnett sitting across the table from each other playing “Go Fish.” So much squinting!
Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, the Hollywood a-super producer behind-a dis-a year’s Transformers 2, Imagine That, and G.I. Joe, made headlines a few weeks back when he announced plans to make a movie based on the Asteroids arcade game. But IGN recently caught up with him, and he reassured fans that there’s a lot more to the idea than just triangles and polygonal blobs (haha, because that would be stupid!). Here’s the quote, and I warn you, you might wanna put on a helmet because this is going to make you bang your head against something.
“It’s funny because people say there’s nothing in the game, but that’s not entirely right,” he said. “I was attracted to Asteroids, plain and simple, because I think what it tells you is that there’s going to be this big thing in space. We’ve crafted a really strong, deep mythology for the thing.”
Yeah, there was this big thing in space, and it was called the Big Bang. The mythology is that first there was the big bang, then there was Lorenzo Di Bonaventura. F*ck you, universe. F*ck you in the black hole.
“Without divulging too much about it, it’s two lead characters - two brothers - who have to go through a seminal experience to figure out their relationship, against this huge backdrop.”
Wait, didn’t they already make this movie? I’m pretty sure they did, it was called Seminal Brothers 6. They figure out that their relationship involves double teaming white girls. This discovery came pretty early in the movie, from what I remember.
