It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of Platinum Dunes. The company, who continues to remake classic horror films (usually poorly) has demonstrated repeatedly that they don’t really get what made the films they’re remaking so beloved in the first place. I feel bad about that, because producer Brad Fuller seems like a nice guy and as though his heart is in the right place. The problem is that I get the feeling that he loves these movies but doesn’t really understand them. The company’s new remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street seems to bear this out.
To be fair, the Elm Street reboot is arguably the closest the PD guys have come to getting one of these things right – and that it comes on the heels of last year’s tolerable rebooting of Friday the 13th almost makes me feel optimistic that maybe they’re starting to figure it out. Unfortunately, for every thing that Sam Bayer’s Elm Street update gets right, there’s at least one other thing it screws up.
The marketing department for Platinum Dunes’ remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street is kicking things into high gear. We’ve had set reports, a new trailer, and assorted other goodies over the past few weeks–and today we get a new character banner featuring none other than Mr. Krueger himself.
I like this piece of advertising–but I will say that it confirms what I hadn’t realized until recently: Jackie Earle Haley is really fucking short. I’m not saying that because Rooney Mara looks huge (I understand the concept of foreground and perspective–thank you Intro to Humanities!) but because looking at Haley in this pic makes it pretty clear he’s a thin and tiny guy. I’ve got no problem with that–Englund wasn’t big either and he made it work–but I’m just finally noticing that this guy is a lot smaller than I realized.
Anyway, enough of my pointless digressions about Jackie Earle Haley being smaller than I thought. Check out the new banner above (click for a larger version) and expect lots more Elm Street news between now and April 30th.
We’re creeping ever closer to the April release of Platinum Dunes’ Nightmare on Elm Street remake and the buzz is starting to build. Some of the larger sites posted reports from their set visits yesterday and then last night saw the debut of the new one sheet for the film. Peep it out above.
The Samuel Bayer directed remake finds Jackie Earle Haley taking on the role of Freddy Krueger. Rooney Mara is your new Nancy. Some still released on foreign sites yesterday have me more interested in the project–mostly because it appears as though Bayer and company have tried to recreate some of the iconic scenes from the original.
As far as the poster goes, I like it. Now let’s hope the movie can exceed my already low expectations…
It’s been awhile since we’ve heard anything about Stephen Norrington’s planned reboot of The Crow–so long, in fact, that I was kinda hoping it had de-railed. No such luck, as website Mania caught up with the filmmaker recently and got the scoop on where the project currently stands. Here’s a hint: if you wanted a Crow reboot, you’ll like this story.
Norrington tells the site the project is moving toward a studio greenlight. “The producer and visual effects people are crunching numbers,” Norrington said. “We’ve opened discussions with major cast but nothing is final yet.”
Plans are currently being set to shoot the film–which follows a modified mythology with new characters–sometime during the summer. That could very well change, but the tentative plan is to start filming later this year.
The film is an updating of Alex Proyas’ 1994 original, a cult classic film that was not only successful but based on a popular comic book well before comic films became all the rage. Brandon Lee played the title character and died in a tragic set accident before the film was completed.
We haven’t heard much about the proposed remake of John Carpenter’s Escape From New York lately, which was a good thing as far as I was concerned. No news meant it was most likely dead, and that’s perfectly fine with me. Oh, there was a moment after it was initially announced, when they were talking about Gerard Butler playing Snake Plissken, where I was mildly interested–but that moment passed when Butler was no longer attached.
Anyway, it turns out the remake isn’t dead–in fact, it’s moving onto the fast-track at New Line according to movie news site Vulture. According to their sources, screenwriter Allan Loeb’s new script is so great that New Line’s all set to push full steam ahead on a new version of the cult classic.
“A big reason for the fast track was creative: Loeb nailed the humor in Plissken without slipping into camp, and he changed Snake’s rescue-mission target from a president to a female senator, thereby upping the banter quotient. But just as big a factor was economic: They found a much cheaper way to turn Manhattan into a giant prison.”
Okay, if this statement “he changed Snake’s rescue-mission target from a president to a female senator, thereby upping the banter quotient” doesn’t convince you this whole thing is headed for disaster, then you’re way more of an optimist than I am. What the fuck is up with inserting women into Carpenter updates this week? First The Thing gets a female main character, now this…
Vulture has a lot more details on what you can expect from the new film (which will now probably get made). You’ll have to go read them over there because I’m now too depressed to bother pasting them here…
I’m looking forward to Alexandre Aja’s Piranha remake, not because I expect it to be particularly good, but because it looks very gory (something I can always get behind) and I generally tend to like Aja’s films (Mirrors being the one exception). So, it’s with great disappointment that I bring news of the film’s release date shift.
The LA Times is reporting that The Weinstein Company has pulled the film from its April release window and will now release it in August at the earliest. The cynical amongst us are taking this as one more sign that the Weinstein company is in dire financial straits, but the LA Times article insists the move is really about avoiding direct competition with the comic book adaptation Kick-Ass. That makes sense on some levels–as does moving to August or later. May is the start of the summer blockbuster season and Piranha would certainly sink without a trace in those shark-infested waters (ooh, see what I did there?). August is where the dregs of the summer season go to die, and Aja’s film would certainly have a better chance of making some money in that release window than in May-July.
No official release date has been announced (which makes the fact that they put the teaser trailer on Avatar all the more hilarious to me), but once again the Weinsteins look nearly inept. Didn’t these guys rule the world at one point? What the hell happened?
Expect more on this as details come into focus. In the meantime, check out some gory new stills at Bloody-Disgusting.
In roughly a month horror fans will finally get to see Universal’s remake of The Wolfman–and we’ll finally know if all the delays, rumor and innuendo about its troubled path to the screen were true or not. Until then, here’s a look at the first 30 second commercial advertisement for the film.
All I’ll say is that this ad and the trailers make The Wolfman look like it’s going to be action-packed fun with loads of style. Hopefully it’s not a case of cramming all the good stuff into the
Benecio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, and Hugo Weaving star in the film, which hits theaters on February 12th.
Last time we heard anything about the remake of Juan Antonio Bayona and Guillermo Del Toro’s The Orphanage, it was bad news. Filmmaker Larry Fessenden had been attached to the project as a director, but was now no longer involved with the film in that capacity. With no director, things got pretty quiet.
Variety says that’s about to change, however, with today’s news that Mark Pellington (he of The Mothman Prophecies and Arlington Road fame) is in final negotiations to direct the film. It’s an interesting choice, but I still think a Larry Fessenden version would have been more impressive. I liked Arlington Road so maybe Pellington can bring something interesting to this film.
Fessenden’s not totally out of the production, either. He may not be helming the project, but he did write a script for it with Del Toro. Current reports indicate that’s the script that will be in use when filming eventually commences.
The original film is a spooky ghost story about a woman who takes over the orphanage where she spent her childhood. Things get creepy when she realizes her son is playing with the same “imaginary friend” who terrified her as a kid. It’s one of the more interesting films of the past decade and I say give it a rental if you haven’t checked it out.
I’ll keep you posted on production dates and the like for the remake as the details emerge.
Video ETA has posted a release date for the DVD and Blu-ray version of Steward Hendler’s Sorority Row remake. They actually posted it a few days back but I was saving it for a day when there wasn’t much news. My apologies to all two of you who’ve been sitting on the edge of your seats refreshing the site every ten seconds waiting for this vital information to turn up…
Anyway, according to the site, the film will be available on February 23rd. This makes my headline a lie, unless you celebrate Valentine’s Day eight days after the rest of the world. Sue me. I suck at coming up with post titles on the best of days, so I’m not letting something like the calendar fuck this one up.
Sorority Row stars Audrina Patridge (thanks to the person who pointed out I was spelling her name wrong every time I posted it a few months back), Briana Evigan, Rumer Willis, and a lot of other chicks. When a sorority prank goes wrong and leads to murder, the sisters cover it up. Unfortunately for them, a masked killer knows what’s up and starts knocking them off one by one. The film underperformed at the box office, but maybe it’ll find an audience in the home market. Probably not, though. I just like to be an optimist.
In the wake of the official trailer debut late last week, I now bring you two new photos from Breck Eisner’s updating of George Romero’s The Crazies. They’re not particularly earth-shattering, but I think the movie looks pretty good so I figure I might as well give it some love here at the site. Plus, that picture above kinda looks like it could have been ripped out of Left 4 Dead…
The film follows a small town Sheriff (Timothy Olyphant) and his wife (Radha Mitchell) as they try to restore order to their small town after a toxin in the water supply turns the citizenry into murderous maniacs. Look for The Crazies to make its theatrical debut on February 26th.
It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of Platinum Dunes. The company, who continues to remake classic horror films (usually poorly) has demonstrated repeatedly that they don’t really get what made the films they’re remaking so beloved in the first place. I feel bad about that, because producer Brad Fuller seems like a nice guy and as though his heart is in the right place. The problem is that I get the feeling that he loves these movies but doesn’t really understand them. The company’s new remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street seems to bear this out.
