Screenhead

Excuse me while I recover from the paroxysm of hilarious laughter I just had.  My stomach hurts SO bad right now.

But anyway, apparently, Michael Bay’s huge embarrassing failure that was the Friday the 13th remake is toes up.  So much so that word is already out saying that Friday the 13th two is going to be Jason’s last dance. For good.  In perpetuity throughout the universe.

Now you see why I was just laughing my ass off.  Seriously, what are you going to do to Jason Voorhees that hasn’t already been done DOZENS of times?  Stage it in Florida, get him to walk under a space shuttle booster?  Hurl him into the sun?

…okay, that might work.  Marcus Nispel, call me–I’ll write Jason an ending like no one’s ever seen before!

But seriously–considering that Jason’s already had two “final” movies, I kind of doubt that this one will be his REALLY final movie.  Especially with fans actively clamoring for a second Freddy Vs. Jason installment.

With Paranormal Activity due to make $100 million in the US this week (and expect another hunk of change to be spent by worldwide audiences), details of director Oren Peli’s follow-up are beginning to emerge. It’s not clear whether Peli will helm Paranormal Activity 2, but his next film will be Area 51.

The film is another fake documentary, this time dealing with aliens rather than peeved-off spirits. Over at Latino Review, they managed to get a look at the 40-page plot treatment that will act as a basis for the cast’s dialogue improvisations. However, while Paranormal Activity was mostly believable (although who in their right minds would leave the door open every night?), Area 51’s outline already has contrivances. The story involves a young geek named Chris who seems obsessed with extraterrestrial activities. Convincing his two best friends to gon on a road trip to Las Vegas, as well as obligatory girl (who believes her father was abducted), Chris hooks up with an ex-employee of the military zone known as Area 51, and is told of government-alien relations and the provision of human test-subjects. Needless to say Chris and co decide to break into the grounds and uncover the truth.

It sounds like a mix between PA and the X-Files. And just as unpallateable. No alien-obsessed geek has friends. Nor would he be allowed to put a telescope on some girl’s house to record the night sky. And Area 51, which actully exists, isn’t exactly an easy place to approach, especially when you have three people who haven’t exactly boned up on military camoflague tactics. Now, most horror films get by without ever having to appear realistic, but the effectiveness of this new subgenre called “reality horror” entirely depends on whether you believe it’s real or not. And if Peli isn’t careful with his characterisation and plotting, he may well create a disaster.

The film’s budget is five million dollars (a big leap from PA’s $15,000), so expect some special effects, and even some CGI if we’re lucky. But let’s hope that Peli’s film will be as creepy as Paranormal Activity was.

It is now very, very unlikely that we’ll be getting another installment of the celebrated Pixar classic Monsters Inc any time soon, and frankly, that’s probably for the best.

Seriously, the way they ended the last one was going to make for some serious problems if a sequel were to come up.  The whole idea that children’s laughter was several orders of magnitude stronger than their fear, and that solved the monster energy crisis, was pretty much as final as it got.  Who would go back to scaring children?  There’s no percentage in it any more.

But former Monsters staffer Pete Docter is apparently neck deep in something else, and Pixar’s newest project is about a few weeks in, if the advance word is to be believed.

Of course, we’ve all been  wrong before on this sort of thing, but I have to admit that the smart money right now says no more corporate monsters any time soon.

Now here’s a strange bit of news for all you Marvel “true believers” out there.  Apparently, the second Ghost Rider--yes of COURSE there’ll be a second Ghost Rider--is not going to be a “reboot”, but in fact will function approximately like what Casino Royale did for the Bond series.  Here’s the world from director David Goyer:

“It’s not exactly a reboot…I hate to say it’s more realistic, because he’s got a flaming skull for a head, but it’s a bit more stripped down and darker.  It’s definitely changing tone.  What ‘Casino Royale’ was to the Bond movies, hopefully this will be to ‘Ghost Rider’…this story picks up eight years after the first film…It doesn’t contradict anything that happened in the first film, but we’re pretending that our audience hasn’t seen the first film.  It’s as if you took the same character where things ended in the first film and then picked it up eight years later, he’s just in a much darker, existential place.”

Ghost Rider.  Will be darker and more existential.  Why does this have the ring of the phrase “train wreck” to it?  And if they bring back Nicholas Cage, that should REALLY make things weird.

Author Stephanie Meyer talks about her story in the recent New Moon Featurette.  Actors offer their insight into their characters and how they relate to Meyer’s story. It’s like a who’s who of Twilight vampires.

If you are like me, who loves to see how scenes are created, then you’ll love this featurette because it’s all about setting up the scene.  I have posted this scene in full, but this is how they created the scene and made the actors look so strong and violent.  Even the stunt coordinator talks to us about setting up the violence. 

While watching, see if you can catch Robert Pattinson holding a cup of tea while wearing his robe as the stunt coordinator goes over some moves with him for the scene.  Somehow it’s surreal to see an actor holding a cup of tea while discussing a fight scene with a crew member — it’s so British.

Ridley Scott is one BUSY individual.  But let’s face facts–the man’s got like thirty hojillion projects in the works right now, so his announcement that he’s considering an Alien prequel needs to be taken with a grain of salt.  A grain of salt about, say, the size of a Buick.

But he’s clearly been thinking it over, and even has some possible strategies.  Dig the word:

“It’s a brand new box of tricks. We know what the road map is, and the screenplay is now being put on paper. The prequel will be a while ago. It’s very difficult to put a year on Alien, but [for example] if Alien was towards the end of this century, then the prequel story will take place thirty years prior.”

There are possibilities here.  After all, I seem to remember that one of the earliest parts of Alien described an alien ship that crash-landed on LV 426.  Checking Wikipedia confirms my scattered memories, so a great point for an Alien prequel would be, what is that ship, and how did it get jam-packed with xenomorphs?

Of course, it’s a fair bet that that’s a Predator ship that was seeding the planet for use as a hunting ground, so they may have already kinda sorta covered that already.  Still though, I find myself plenty interested in where they’re looking to go with this one.

For those of you hoping that there would be a Monsters Vs. Aliens sequel, bad news for you today.  It’s just not going to happen.  Sorry, that’s it, game over, at least for now.

Apparently despite the fact that this essentially decent cartoon cleared nearly two hundred million at the box office worldwide, and picked up who knows how much cash on DVD, that wasn’t enough for Dreamworks, who went on record with this:

“I’d like to tell you there’s a perfectly rational, clear and easy answer as to why not, but there isn’t,” studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg told a group of industry analysts on Tuesday. “There was enough of a consensus from our distribution and marketing folks in certain parts of the world that we would be pushing a boulder up a hill.”

They make some sense, actually–what were they going to do, have more monsters?  Bring back the rest of the aliens?  No, they probably pretty much did all they could here, and so they called it quits while they were very, very much ahead.  A prudent move for Katzenberg et al.

So okay, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that, assuming the Earth doesn’t crash into the sun or something first, that there will be a sequel to James Cameron’s upcoming blockbuster Avatar.

And in order to stage Avatar 2, there’s whispers afoot that it may actually go out past the planet of Pandora and into other targets.  Check out this advance quote:

“What would you think if I told you that should a sequel to AVATAR happen, it might not even take place on Pandora? It’s all up the air as of now. But remember I’m telling you this. Pandora is not the be all and end all of the Consortium.”

Well, you know, everyone said G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was going to be a monster hit too, but as of the weekend of October 18th, it STILL hasn’t made its shooting budget back yet that I can tell, despite having made nearly a hundred and fifty million bucks at the domestic box office.

I wonder if that won’t happen here too….

So here’s a chunk of news that feels like nothing so much as concentrated happy sauce–Hatchet 2 is looking to get started.

The big problem, of course, is scheduling.  Adam Green is a tough guy to catch these days, and Tony Todd, always a genre favorite, isn’t much better.

The teaser poster, which you can see at right, has been vetted and declared legit by no less a presence than Green himself, but it’s just a teaser poster.  Chances are we’ll be getting a whole new poster before things go too much farther.

The hope is that shooting will begin before the end of the year, but considering that the end of the year isn’t that much farther off  (seriously, folks, November is just a few days away), so hopefully we’ll get to see another installment of Hatchet–that sweet Old School American Horror–someime next year, possibly even summer if things go as planned.

On October 31, Nordstrom and Summit Entertainment invite Twilight fans to take advantage of a special opportunity to meet select cast members of The Twilight Saga: New Moon at select Nordstrom stores. The cast appearances are being held to celebrate the highly-anticipated November 20 release of the second movie in Summit’s Twilight film saga. Nordstrom launched an exclusive clothing and jewelry collection inspired by the mood and spirit of the film in early October.

Customers can visit nordstrom.com/newmoon for more details about how to acquire VIP access on Saturday, October 31, at 8:00 a.m., to be one of 75 customers to meet the cast.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon cast members will visit the following Nordstrom stores: 

    November 5- Topanga (Canoga Park, CA)**

    November 8- Park Meadows (Lone Tree, CO)*

    November 9- Natick Collection (Natick, MA)*

    November 10- The Galleria (Houston, TX)*

    November 11- Mall of America (Bloomington, MN)*

    November 11- Cherry Hill Mall (Philadelphia, PA)*

    November 11- Stonestown Galleria (San Francisco, CA)*

    November 12- Perimeter Mall (Atlanta, GA)

    November 12- Southcenter (Tukwila, WA)*

    November 13- Aventura Mall (Aventura, FL)

    November 13- Scottsdale Fashion Square (Phoenix, AZ)*

    November 14- Fashion Place (Murray, UT)*

* These malls will also host a talent question and answer forum in the mall which will be open to the public.

** 125 customer VIP packets will be available for the Topanga event only. The mall will not host a talent question and answer forum.

Select Nordstrom stores will also offer customers advanced movie screening passes as gifts with purchase (see nordstrom.com/newmoon for participating stores and details), and will host in-store styling parties on November 14 and 15. Customers can visit nordstrom.com/newmoon to learn what events are taking place at their nearest Nordstrom store and sign-up for email alerts.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon directed by Chris Weitz and starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner will be released November 20, 2009. In the film, the romance between mortal and vampire soars to a new level as Bella Swan (Stewart) delves deeper into the mysteries of the supernatural world she yearns to become part of–only to find herself in greater peril than ever before. Following Edward Cullen’s (Pattinson) departure from Forks, Wash., and Bella discovers his image comes to her whenever she puts herself in jeopardy. In time Bella’s frozen heart is gradually thawed by her budding relationship with Jacob Black (Lautner) who has a supernatural secret of his own.