Call it another casualty of the Great Recession, folks, but MGM is weighing its options in the face of horrendous losses.
As much as we’d all like to blame their lone theatrical release for the year (Fame! Nobody cared about it…nobody watched this crap! Fame! Go ahead, sing along! It’s fun.) for being the millstone around MGM’s neck, as it turns out, it was weak DVD sales that brought down the beast. MGM had a monster library of titles, weighing in at over four thousand titles, and now it’s all up for bids. Also up for sale is the James Bond franchise, and even the roaring lion logo.
Interestingly, though, it may not be as up for sale as we think–seems that MGM’s creditors are taking a pass on collection action for a while, and meanwhile, MGM’s pumping all the cash it can scrounge into its upcoming movies Red Dawn, the Hot Tub Time Machine and The Zookeeper.
Oh, sure, they’re pretty fair releases…a remake and two good comedies featuring solid comedy actors…but enough to save the studio? Scuse my lack of conviction on that one.
But only time will tell if MGM will still be selling off all its assets or if this year will turn it around.
When I first heard about Hot Tub Time Machine, I shook my head and thought, “No way. What a weird idea.”
Now, Chevy Chase is the latest to join the cast of the comedy being directed by Steve Pink. The three leads are John Cusack, Rob Corddry, and Craig Robinson, along with Lizzy Caplan, Crispin Glover, Lyndsy Fonseca, and Clark Duke.
The story is a hard one to swallow. It involves a hot tub that turns out to be a time machine and takes the three old friends back to their days of glory. Chase gets to play a crazy repairman, who at times seems “completely off his rocker,” yet is the only one who can return the friends to the present day.
Before you start having naughty thoughts, the hot tub in question is a time machine and she actually won’t be in it.
Lyndsy Fonseca will play Jenny, the girlfriend that slipped away from John Cusack’s character in 1987, whom he revisits when and some friends accidentally travel back in time via their Jacuzzi.
Hot Tub Time Machine also stars Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Crispin Glover and others. Steve Pink is helming the project, which has started shooting in Vancouver.
The Hollywood Reporter sends word that Lizzy Caplan, Crispin Glover and Sebastian Stan have joined the cast of upcoming time-travel comedy Hot Tub Time Machine for MGM.
The film will follow a group of friends who go back to the ski-lodge where they went to party as teens. They end up transported to 1987 through their hot tub.
Caplan will play the lone woman – April – while Glover plays Phil, a one-armed, accident prone bellhop at Silver Peaks Lodge. Stan is set to play the ski-jock nemesis of one of the characters.
Other cast members include John Cusack, Rob Corddry and Craig Robinson. Shooting started this Monday in Vancouver.
The road-trip comedy Sex Drive duo, Sean Anders and John Morris are taking on another male-type of movie called, of all things, Hot Tub Time Machine.
According to Hollywood Reporter, this new venture is a high-concept male comedy taken on by MGM. Jason Heald is writing the screenplay, which revolves around a group of adult male friends who, bored with their lives, visit a hot tub where they once partied. After knocking a few back, they find it can transport them to a time two decades earlier and to their younger, raunchier selves.
