I always lumped 1998′s SLC Punk, starring Matthew Lillard as a punk from Salt Lake City, in with Waiting, as in, movies that were sorrrta cult classics, mostly because certain groups of people really wanted to see a comedy about that subject matter, even if neither of those movies were very good. But yeah, those 15 are so people are going to be really excited, because word on the street is that director James Merendino is putting together a sequel.

Late yesterday, director James Merendino announced he’d be making Punk’s Dead to explore what happens when the rebellious get older. “I made SLC Punk when I was a kid, and accordingly, the story is naive, and, as just a coming of age story, not finished,” Merendino said. “The characters are facing  big questions, 18 years later, as outsiders, Punk rockers… What relevance do  they have in a world where all statements have already been made?”

Wasn’t that… the reason for being a punk in the first place? Or was Sid Vicious just wearing swastikas because he hated Jews?

The announcement vaguely noted that “most of the original cast” would return, but a source close to the production has confirmed that Lillard is on that list. Contract deals are not finalized, but Lillard, Annabeth Gish, Devon Sawa and Michael A. Goorjian are all preparing to return for the project.
The production is currently aiming to shoot this August with eyes on a 2014 release date.

The last time I thought I saw Devon Sawa was in Rise of the Planet of the Apes as the ape handler who really hates apes, but it turned out to be Tom Felton. Anyway, if I remember correctly, SLC Punk ends with Matthew Lillard’s character deciding to go to law school. Which would make the sequel basically the most depressing thing ever. “SLC Punk 2: Giving Up, and the Occasional Spin Class.” “SLC Punk 2: Punk’s Dead, but I Play Golf on the Weekends.”

Any day I get a press release from WWE’s film division (yes, WWE has a film division, AMERICA!) is a good day, and it sounds like my prayers for a 12 Rounds sequel have finally been answered! Remember 12 Rounds? It starred John Cena in what was basically a cross between Die Hard 3 and Saw meets every action movie ever? Believe it or not, it was actually the top-selling DVD in the country for a brief period a few years back. And now, the 12 Rounds franchise continues, with Randy Orton! Who’s also a wrestling guy!

To the press release!

12 ROUNDS 2: RELOADED

Arriving Just in Time for Father’s Day, The Action-Packed Sequel Comes to Digital HD™ May 21 and Blu-ray and DVD June 4

JUST IN TIME FOR FATHER’S DAY! Hey, Dad, what do you want? An easy chair? A foot massager? Some reading glasses? F*CK THAT, THIS AIN’T YOUR GRANDMA’S FATHER’S DAY! You’re getting a DVD about a wrestler solving crimes! It’ll go great with the subscription to the New Yorker I bought you last year! OOOOOOH WAH-AH AH-AH! (*drops People’s Elbow on cat*)

LOS ANGELES, CA (April 29, 2013) – A twisted genius and a good man are going head-to-head in the ultimate game of cat and mouse! Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and WWE Studios unveil a brand new chapter in its thrilling action franchise with 12 ROUNDS 2: RELOADED. The second installment, starring WWE Superstar Randy Orton, debuts on Digital HD on May 21 and on Blu-ray and DVD on June 4 – just in time for Father’s Day.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Dodgeball is one of those weird in-between movies, where it seems kind of weak in comparison to Zoolander or Anchorman (both getting sequels by the way) or Wedding Crashers back in the heyday of Stiller/Vaughn/Wilson brothers comedies, but compared to pretty much any movie Vince Vaughn made after 2005, it’s like a unicorn that poops money. And that must be good enough for Fox, because they’ve announced production on a Dodgeball sequel. No word yet on who’s directing, but if it’s Ben Stiller, I’d be a little more interested (Rawson Michael Thurber directed the first).

Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Films has set Clay Tarver to write the script for a follow-up to the hit 2004 comedy.
Fox and Red Hour are up for another round of dodgeball.
The studio and the production company run by Ben Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld have tapped Clay Tarver to pen a script for a long-talked-about sequel to the hit comedy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.
While Fox, Vaughn and Stiller have long mulled the idea of a sequel, little action had been taken. It was even a joke on an episode of Ricky Gervais’ Extras in which Stiller guest-starred.
Now the sequel will focus on Vaughn and Stiller forced to team up to fight an even bigger threat, according to sources.
Tarver co-wrote with J.J. Abrams the 2001 thriller Joy Ride but has spent much of his time in the comedy world and has a familiarity with niche, subculture activities.
He is working on Quantum Hoops, which centers on a nerdy basketball team at Caltech, set up Disney and also being produced by Red Hour. He wrote Men Making Music, about the world of competitive barbershop quartets, also at Disney and being produced by Abrams. And he worked with Mike Judge on Meat in the Freezer, a satire about hunting for HBO Films. [THR]

He’s great at writing niche subculture movies, though it doesn’t seem to matter what that subculture is. He just has a great sense of group, I guess. That’s the thing about a subculture, you throw in a fat guy, a funny ethnic guy, and a wisecracking lead, and you’ve got yourself a chuckle party, it doesn’t matter if they’re playing quidditch or planning jihad. In any case, I’ll continue to be underwhelmed by this news until they announce that the plot will focus on Rip Torn’s character. Of course, I say that about everything.

Hey, you kids remember your old buddy Thor? I liked the first Thor alright. Chris Hemsworth was well cast (other than his shaved chest, which was weird), and I liked that Marvel got Kenneth Branagh to direct, who’s well off the beaten path of the usual directors they hire for these kinds of movies. It turned out passable, except for Jaimie Alexander and her gang of pointless characters, or whatever they were called. Now there’s a sequel, Thor: The Dark World, with direction by some no-named called Alan Taylor. I did a lot of research on this, and it turns out the bad guy is a big black thing, and Natalie Portman is sad because all the other girls hate her in Viking heaven. Something like that. I dunno, man, it looks really boring.

Read the rest of this entry »