The Vacation “reboot” (which actually sounds more like a sequel, but that’s another story), has stalled over “creative differences,” according to THR. Specifically, over whether it should aim for an R rating like the original, or PG-13, in order to reach a larger audience and dolla dolla bill y’all.

New Line has put the brakes on the high-profile reboot of the classic Chevy Chase comedy, which is set to star Ed Helms as a grown-up version of Rusty Griswold on his own family road trip from hell. The movie was scheduled to shoot in Atlanta in July and was in active preproduction. John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein wrote the script and are to make their directorial debut on the reboot-slash-remake. Christina Applegate is also on board to star as Helms’ wife and original franchise stars Chase and Beverly D’Angelo were to make cameos. |THR|

As of now, no one knows who was in which camp in the disagreement. Daley and Goldstein last wrote Horrible Bosses (R) and Burt Wonderstone (PG-13). The conventional wisdom (and movie studios are nothing if not conventional) is that PG-13 comedies are a safer bet at the box office, since they’re drawing from a larger pool of possible audience members. Of course, that didn’t hold true for the last two movies these guys wrote - Horrible Bosses, $117 million worldwide; Burt Wonderstone, $22 million worldwide. And let’s be honest, a big part of the reason most of these beloved eighties comedies are remembered so fondly is because we saw them when we were kids, when “shitter’s full” was still kind of naughty, and thus something you’d watch over and over. But you show me a studio exec that cares more about a film’s legacy than its opening weekend and I’ll show you an eight-dicked unicorn. Obviously I’m a little bit biased, being a cuss-mouthed cocksucker, but the idea that a PG-13 comedy has a better chance of making money than an R-rated one seems dubious at best. What are the most successful recent comedies you can think of? The Hangover? Bridesmaids? R. R. The most successful comedy reboot? 21 Jump Street? Also R. Meanwhile, how’d that PG-13 remake of Arthur starring Russell Brand work out?

All I know is, you know your project is in trouble when you’re having creative differences before Chevy Chase has even read the script.

Anyone will tell you, writing scripts is hard. Then when you’re done, getting anyone to read it is even harder. That’s why the real movers and shakers of Hollywood just bypass the process altogether and get movies greenlit based on board games or breakfast cereals. And today we’ve entered an even braver, newer world, now that New Line is developing a project based on a one-frame illustration (pictured below). Basically, The Rock’s former assistant was stoned trolling DeviantArt one night, found an illustration he liked, brought it to The Rock and the director of Journey 2, they got it in production at New Line, and bingo bango, some screenwriter now has the worst job since the guy who had to write Bazooka Joe.

The picture in question was drawn by Alex Panagopoulos, a Greek software engineer turned fantasy artist.

Very typical of the Greek economy.

It features a little girl asleep in bed while a small brown teddy bear — brandishing a laughably small wooden sword and shield — holds an enormous, fanged monster at bay. And in the fashion of a motivational poster, a caption reads “Teddy Bears: Protecting innocent children from monsters under the bed since 1902.” (The teddy bear was invented in 1902 by Morris Michtom, who was inspired by a political cartoon featuring President Theodore Roosevelt and a bear he refused to shoot.)

Speaking of which, when are we getting a Teddy Roosevelt movie? That guy busted trusts, shot Spaniards on horse back, rode moose across rivers, and gave an 80-minute speech after getting shot in the chest with a .38 from point-blank range. Teddy Roosevelt makes Abe Lincoln look like a doddering eunuch.

Oh right, I suppose you want to see the picture.

Read the rest of this entry »

Peter Jackson is set to make history today after confirming rumors that The Hobbit would be cut into three movies instead of two, the first time in history that an adaptation of a book will take longer to watch than the book does to read. “Watch The Hobbit?! Aw, c’mon, Mrs. M, can’t I just read the book?”

Part one is scheduled for December, part two for December 2013, and part three summer 2014. Peter Jackson explained his approach, which I like to call “Tantric Filmmaking,” in a personal note on his Facebook page:

It is only at the end of a shoot that you finally get the chance to sit down and have a look at the film you have made. Recently Fran, Phil and I did just this when we watched for the first time an early cut of the first movie – and a large chunk of the second. We were really pleased with the way the story was coming together, in particular, the strength of the characters and the cast who have brought them to life. All of which gave rise to a simple question: do we take this chance to tell more of the tale? And the answer from our perspective as the filmmakers, and as fans, was an unreserved ‘yes.’

We know how much of the story of Bilbo Baggins, the Wizard Gandalf, the Dwarves of Erebor, the rise of the Necromancer, and the Battle of Dol Guldur will remain untold if we do not take this chance. The richness of the story of The Hobbit, as well as some of the related material in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, allows us to tell the full story of the adventures of Bilbo Baggins and the part he played in the sometimes dangerous, but at all times exciting, history of Middle-earth.

Read the rest of this entry »

(*cashes 10-dollar check from Google*)

According to Deadline, Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis are set to star in a “raunchy road comedy” We’re the Millers. Or as I like to call it, today’s installment of “Dang, It’s Too Bad Kristen Wiig Can’t be in Everything.”

Jennifer Aniston is circling We’re The Millers, the New Line comedy about a pot dealer who pulls together a fake wife and two kids to pose as an RV road-tripping family so that he can smuggle 1000 pounds of pot cross country. Dodgeball‘s Rawson Thurber is directing. Aniston is in talks to play the fake wife, who’s actually a hooker. Her Horrible Bosses costar Jason Sudeikis is eying the role of the family patriarch (he’s the pot smuggler). The kids are juvenile delinquents. The raunchy comedy, described as a “warped Vacation,” has a script by Wedding Crashers scribes Bob Fisher & Steve Faber. [Deadline]

It seems like every time someone writes an R-rated comedy, the studio sticks them with either Jennifer Aniston or Cameron Diaz. Neither of them are terrible, but come on, when’s the last time either of them actually made a movie funnier? And they sort of turn every project they’re in into a blander, too-broad version of what it started as. They’re the focus group’s choice, but no actual person’s choice (a phenomenon I like to call “Seacresting”). It sucks. It’d be like if every time a comedy needed a male lead, they called up John Mayer and Ashton Kutcher.

(Oh sure, and the fast mouse is the racist.)

Noted Mexican George Lopez is set to voice Speedy Gonzalez in an upcoming movie for New Line. The company was careful to note that this won’t be the “racist”, Looney Tunes version of Speedy that you’re used to, in which Mexicans are unfairly depicted as lightning-fast cartoon rodents.  From Reuters:

The character has often courted criticism that the ethnic characterizations of him and his compatriots (especially lazy cousin Slowpoke Rodriguez) are stereotypically racist and severely outdated.
Aware of this, New Line and the producers plan to update the brand with a modernized sensibility.
“We wanted to make sure that it was not the Speedy of the 1950s — the racist Speedy,” said the comedian’s wife Ann Lopez, who will serve alongside him as a producer. “Speedy’s going to be a misunderstood boy who comes from a family that works in a very meticulous setting, and he’s a little too fast for what they do. He makes a mess of that. So he has to go out in the world to find what he’s good at.”

Mira, Speedy, ju need to eslow down.  Ju selleen los oranges muy, muy queeckly.  Ju makeen jour cousens look bad.  Ay yay yay, we’re so esleepy.

Read the rest of this entry »