Screenhead

The Other Guys set photos appear at a couple of places on the Internet. I am surprised because a couple of days ago I posted a piece about Mark Wahlberg working on The Fighter with set photos and behind-the-scene clip.  I doubt he is working on two films simultaneously.  I just don’t know which one came first.   Anyway, the movie stars Wahlberg and Will Ferrell who play the other guys to all-star cops Samuel Jackson and Dwayne Johnson in the cop comedy. First Showing has more set photos of The Other Guys.  Simply click on the picture and you’ll go to the rest of the pictures.

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Mark Wahlberg has continued to train for the movie The Fighter, and he is in fighting shape to be joined by Christian Bale and director David O. Russell.  Production plans to start in July. 

Variety reports that the story is based on Boston fighter “Irish” Mickey Ward and how he was helped to the world lightweight championship by half-brother Dicky Eklund. Eklund once decked Sugar Ray Leonard and went the distance against the boxing legend before forfeiting his career to drugs and crime. He redeemed himself by training Ward through his Rocky-like run to the title.

Wahlberg is set to play Ward, a fighter who was losing bouts and was ready to hang up the gloves when his brother came back into his life. Bale is set to play Eklund, whose drugs and robbery spree drew him a 10- to 15-year sentence in state prison. There, he kicked drugs, became a model prisoner and emerged as a changed man who helped his brother reach the glory that eluded him.

Other actors have considered playing roles in this movie, but it looks like Wahlberg and Bale have nailed it.

Mark Wahlberg and James Franco have joined the cast of upcoming romantic comedy Date Night for 20th Century Fox.

The film follows a couple (played by Steve Carell and Tina Fey) who find their routine date night becomes much more than just dinner and a movie.

Wahlberg’s character is a successful securities expert who flirts with Fey’s character. Franco plays a not-too-bright con man and petty criminal.

Other cast members include Leighton Meester, Taraji Henson and Kristen Wiig.

Shawn Levy will direct.

I read at First Showing that Christian Bale is set to star with Mark Wahlberg in Prisoners. Now the Hollywood Reporter is saying the same thing, but more of a speculation, with the fact that Bryan Singer is interested in directing the film, though, it’s not official yet.

A Bale and Wahlberg movie would drive the financing and fast track production easily; especially if Singer comes aboard, too.  

The script is pretty awesome as well.  Small-town carpenter’s 6-year-old daughter and her friend are kidnapped; he comes head-to-head with a young, arrogant detective in charge of the investigation.  The father is a Bible-reading, deer-hunting survivalist. The cop drive, basically, is to get to the city. Feeling failed by the law, the father captures the man he believes responsible and begins to torture him in a desperate attempt to find out what he did with the girls, whom he’s convinced are still alive.

The story, casting and direction speculation means a great opportunity for all three to have sure fire hit.

The trades are reporting that Mark Wahlberg will star in the dark thriller Prisoners for Madhouse Entertainment.

Penned by Aaron Guzikowski, the film follows a Boston man who turns vigilante after six-year old daughter and her best friend are kidnapped. He takes matters into his own hands by kidnapping the man he suspects responsible.

The project now needs a director, and with the studio keen on releasing this soon, expect it to be in production shortly.

Max Payne is one of those fairly pleasant movies that’ll require your brain to be partially malfunctioning to enjoy fully, but once you’ve had a couple vodka stingers or something similar, you’ll definitely be in a frame of mind to enjoy it.  After all, it takes a kind of brain damage to fully appreciate the bringing together of Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Beau Bridges and Ludacris, which if you’re playing Celebrity Bingo qualifies as a Royal Sampler.

See, Max Payne is one of those hard-boiled gumshoes that…oh, wait.  No. I’m thinking Humphrey Bogart.  Max Payne is a barely contained sociopath. And the reason why Max Payne is a barely contained sociopath is because his wife and baby were killed one fine day by drug addicts.  This left Max to pick up the pieces of his shattered life and use them to cut open the throats of pretty much every criminal that so much as wanders into frame.  As he progresses through this gigantic killing spree that will wind up bankrupting New York from the sheer number of lawsuits it’ll be facing, he’ll discover conspiracy in the hallowed halls of corporate power, extending even into his own department.

I remember my jaw dropping, slightly, when I found out Mila Kunis was in this—my exact words were, “My God, is that MILA KUNIS?”—because she is not who I think of when I think of action heroine.  Thankfully, she’s also not what the director thought of as an action heroine either because she’s not in this wreck for more than like ten minutes or so.

And someone needs to get Mark Wahlberg back into an acting class, hasta pronto, because his Max Payne will go about blasting the first thing he sees at literally any opportunity, and his facial expression will not even change when he does so. That may be the creepiest part of a movie where people on a regular basis hallucinate dark angels flying around and snatching them up and carving them into teeny bits.  Seriously, Mark—you want to change facial expression when you’re blasting those gangbangers with twelve-gauge buckshot fury?  Maybe arch an eyebrow or quirk the upper lip, something to show that the TAKING OF HUMAN LIVES ON A GRAND SCALE is registering in that hunk of dryer lint you laughingly call a soul?

That’s the creepiest part, by far.  The second creepiest part is how anyone accounts for the “valkyries” being hallucinations when they’re actually seen pulling people out of windows and cutting them into teensy bits.  The biggest problem with that, of course, is no one does.  This is why the bit of brain damage comes in handy, because then you won’t notice these teensy-tinsy gaping plotholes and will instead look at the monsters and gasp over how COOL they look.

Because they really DO look cool.

And that’s Max Payne in a nutshell.  It LOOKS cool.  It SOUNDS cool.  And if you’ve got a mild case of brain damage to ignore the massive structural failure that is a plorline, you’ll probably even find it cool.  And you’ll probably even be happy to note, that based on the ending, a sequel is almost certainly guaranteed.

Meanwhile the rest of us will go watch movies that don’t require a baseball bat to enjoy.

Variety reports that Sony Pictures has acquired rights to the Adam McKay-direction action comedy The B Team.

Written by Chris Henchy and McKay, the film stars Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as cops. It is being produced by Gary Sanchez Productions and Mosaic, and is being pushed to production as soon as possible.

No release date was given.

Here are two “Saturday Night Live” sketches with Governor Palin.  They are funny, practically hilarious.  Is that Mark Walhberg looking irascible?

 Wonderful rap song!

There has been rumors going around that Mark Wahlberg will star opposite Edward Norton and Vincent Chase on the big budget firefighter movie “Smoke Jumpers.” Well, in an interview from Collider, Mark denied these rumors saying that Jason Patrick got the role after all. That’s too bad since I really like Mark as an actor and would love to see him in another action/drama film.

I know Jason Patrick will probably do a good job, but I still feel like Mark could do it better. But the person to look out for in this film is actor Vincent Chase.

Vincent has been missing in action for quite some time now. Appearing in this movie is probably a good career move for him. The movie has a strong script with many great actors and that will probably bolster Chase’s career back on track.

20th Century Fox has provided a new Max Payne movie trailer at its official website. The film, based on the popular video game, opens October 17^th. The film stars Mark Wahlberg, Chris O’Donnell, Beau Bridges, Ludacris, Mila Kunis, Donal Logue, and Amaury Nolasco.

The updated site tells of a maverick cop determined to track down those responsible for the brutal murder of his family and partner. Hell-bent on vengeance, his obsessive investigation takes him on a nightmare journey into a dark underworld. As the mystery grows deeper, Max (Wahlberg) is forced to battle enemies beyond the natural world and face an unthinkable betrayal.