A fourth Mad Max movie has been threatened for a long time now, but I didn’t start to take it seriously until The Daily Telegraph confirmed the production and director George Miller (who directed the first three) went on ABC news (the Australian one) to talk about it. He says that despite the recent rumors about Charlize Theron and Bronson’s Tom Hardy, no cast is confirmed. I’ve got the whole clip after the jump, but I wouldn’t recommend watching it because it’s really boring and the screencap above is about as much of the cars as you’re going to see.
Why am I not excited for Mad Max 4? Because they’ve already made this movie 100 times. George Miller made it three times himself. Neil Marshall made it last year, it was called Doomsday (for comparison, watch this clip and then watch this), with Rhona Mitra playing Mel Gibson. The original starred Mel Gibson as a cop wandering through a barren wasteland following an apocalyptic war. It’s a timeless story, because as any Gibson will tell you, the Jews are always starting wars. The only solution is having an awesome car.
UPDATE: THR has seemingly confirmed the production, reporting it has $100 million budget without studio backing. And no, I don’t know how that’s possible either.
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Tada, it’s the trailer for Toy Story 3. Probably none of the creative team actually wanted to make a Toy Story 3, but then your mom probably doesn’t like blowing dudes on the corner either. …Okay, bad example. Point is, money. Anyway, forced to come up with a plot, it seems Disney-Pixar stole a page from the Transformers 2 playbook, in that the story begins with the kid about to go off to college. What are his old toys to do now that he no longer needs them? But rather than crying or humping Megan Fox’s leg or perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes, the toys get sent off to a daycare center, where they get yanked and sucked and licked and fondled roughly against their will — pretty much like an evening at Roman Polanski’s house. HEYO! Haha, good one, Jay. So then, the toys decide to escape the daycare center, and yadda yadda yadda, Tim Allen becomes Mexican. Trust me, it doesn’t seem nearly as racist as it did in person.
[Also available in HD at Yahoo]
National Lampoon’s Vacation (the one where they go to Wally World) has already had three sequels, which in the mind of movie execs, makes it ripe for another.
New Line is developing a sequel of sorts to the 1983 comedy classic, with David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers, Fred Claus) attached to produce and possibly direct. New Line is meeting with writers to write the script but the take is already developed: the story focuses on Rusty Griswold, the son of Clark Griswold, the protagonist of the initial movies portrayed by Chevy Chase. The younger Griswold is now a father himself and takes his family on a road trip vacation. The characters would acknowledge that first trip, making the movie more of a sequel than a reboot.
The original “Vacation” is a Warner Bros. property but as soon as New Line became part of the studio, exec Sam Brown began sifting through the parent company’s titles to see what was available in terms of rights. He eventually found “Vacation,” a movie he has watched more than any other in his life, and brought it to New Line president Toby Emmerich and production president Richard Brener, who jumped at the possibilities.
They’d probably jump for a frozen herring too. This is the problem with the movie business in a nutshell: the execs are too stupid or lazy or cowardly to read new scripts (or to ask the opinion of people they pay to read scripts for them), and instead spend their time trying find out which movies they already made that they can make again. What is this, karaoke? Grow some balls, you pussies.
(We call this position ‘Congress of the Crotch’)
Neve Campbell was something of a sex symbol back in the day, perhaps due to the fact that she can’t OPEN HER DAMNED EYES ALL THE WAY! OH I’M SORRY, IS IT TOO BRIGHT FOR YOU IN HERE, HARTNETT? (*clears throat, shuffles papers*) Another thing that was popular in the 90s was Scream. That’s why Bob Weinstein is greenlighting Scream 4, hiring Neve Campbell, and spraypainting his Jnco pants*. And just like that, it’s suddenly cool to make your girlfriend wear that mask during sex again.
“I’m heading back to my franchise films,” Weinstein declared, citing plans to shoot sequels to “Hellraiser” and “Scanners” in 3D. Also on the slate are remakes of “Short Circuit” and “An American Werewolf in London.” “These films are our strength, and we are committed to doing them in style.” In addition, the company wants to shoot “Halloween III” in 3D, aiming to release it in October 2010. Dimension also is remaking the cult classic “Children of the Corn.”
“Scream 4″ will start production in April or May as the first of a new trilogy, and the company is talking to Wes Craven to direct, Weinstein reports. In addition to Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette will return to the “Scream” franchise. [Variety]
Phew, they got Courteney Cox and David Arquette? I was worried this wasn’t going to have any bankable stars.
*unconfirmed
Ghost Rider is right up there with Catwoman, Daredevil, and Elektra when it comes to being filmed with cameras made of sh’t. But at least that means no sequels, right? Well… Variety reports that Columbia still owns the project and claim to be in talks with David S. Goyer (Batman Begins, Jumper, Blade) to supervise writing on a sequel — with Nic Cage “expected to return” as star. But it sounds like it could just be talk to keep Marvel from making it.
The activity on “Ghost Rider” follows a flurry of activity on Marvel characters at almost every studio but Disney, which acquired Marvel Entertainment in a $4 billion deal. Fox is: rebooting “Fantastic Four”; mobilizing a “Wolverine” sequel and several “X-Men” spinoffs; is quietly developing a new version of “Daredevil” and working on a Silver Surfer film [holy punctuation, batman! -Ed.]. Sony recently set James Vanderbilt to write the fifth and sixth installments [!!] of “Spider-Man,” and Universal continues work on “Sub-Mariner.” Paramount continues as distributor for “Iron Man 2” and several others expected to include “Thor” and “Captain America.”
The activity is necessary for those studios to keep the superhero properties. If the properties atrophy, they can be reclaimed by Marvel Entertainment, which happened with Iron Man, which languished at New Line before Marvel turned it into the self-financed blockbuster.
I don’t like this David S. Goyer idea — if you’re going to make a terrible Nic Cage movie, just go the whole nine and make a terrible Nic Cage movie, don’t hire the guy who wrote Batman Begins. Do it like you did it the first time, hire the guy who wrote a movie about Michael Keaton turning into a snowman. (Seriously though, last time they hired the guy who wrote a movie about Michael Keaton turning into a snowman).
