Archive for the ‘Rumors’ Category

The BBC is reporting that Harrison Ford has said the he, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg have agreed on a “germ of an idea” for the fifth installment of the Indiana Jones saga.

“The process works like this,” he said. “We come to some basic agreement and then George goes away for a long time and works on it.

“Then Steven and I get it in some form, some embryonic form.

“Then if we like it we start working with George on it and at some point down the line it’s ready and we do it.”

For those of us who thoroughly enjoyed the fourth film, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, this is extremely good news. Ford will be pushing 70 soon and I would love to see everyone’s favorite archeologist back in action.

Since Indiana Jones films haven’t always been released in the order in which they occur (Temple of Doom happens before Raiders of the Lost Ark), I’d like to see them try to get Sean Connery out of retirement and reprise his role as Henry Jones, Sr. again.

And I want to see Sallah one more time.

In any case, I’m excited. Excited for more details. You know…personally…

According to Latino Review, David Goyer, the co-scribe of The Dark Knight and Dark City, has been hired to write the next live-action installment of the Superman franchise.

You can read the full report here, but here are the highlights:

Thomas Tull, the head of Legendary, got tired of all the discussion and decided chingate, let’s do it.  So he went to Goyer and Goyer had an idea that actually takes the movies back to the John Byrne incarnation.  Modern.  Believable.  FUN!  So Tull got Goyer hired.

The film will not be called Superman and will be called THE MAN OF STEEL.

Other bits of news include the fact that Brandon Routh and Bryan Singer are not expected to return.

Perhaps to me the most interesting bit of news in the original report is that Mark Millar was never in consideration to write Superman because apparently Paul Levitz hated him.

This could be the Superman movie we’ve all been waiting for, the villain is reported to be Brainiac and it’s not an origin story.

So, take that for what it’s worth.  It makes a lot of sense that Christopher Nolan would go back to David Goyer after he turned in good work for his last two super-hero properties, but Goyer isn’t exactly the name I would think of for something as light and Boy Scout-y as Superman needs to be.  But Christopher Nolan seems to know what he’s doing in the DCU, so we’ll all wait and see.

I got a note from Jerk-Bot, one of our favorite and most entrenched sources wanted to remind me about what no one else is saying in this rush about Captain America news (including us yesterday).

Here he is:

The thing not getting mentioned in all the articles bringing up Chace Crawford’s name, as well as John Krasinski, is that this is a “wishlist” … actors they’re sending the script to. And it doesn’t mention that they’ve sent the script to others, including Ryan McPartlin and Jensen Ackles. I still wouldn’t rule the latter out, though this “Friday Night Lights” guy, Scott Porter, is apparently high on their list.

From what I’m hearing, at least …

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

A lot of people have been buzzing about, talking about Frank Darabont’s adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s zombie masterpiece The Walking Dead.

What not a lot of people have been talking about is casting of the lead, Rick Grimes.

Big Shiny Robot! has talked to a few different sources about names that are in the ring for the series and we’re pretty happy.  There are a couple of sources we talked to with varying reliability, but these names all made a lot of sense, so we want to throw these out there and get the conversation going.  If you don’t know about Walking Dead and have never read it, it’s perhaps one of the best comics being published today.  Grab the first trade from Amazon right here and you won’t regret it.

The most reliable sources point us to Jamie Bamber as in the running for Rick.  You might remember him from Battlestar Galactica playing Lee Adama.

I’m in the midst of watching BSG for the first time now and I have to say, this would be a great choice.  He’s a strong actor, has the right look and handles televised drama really well.

Next on the list is Mark Pellegrino, who is on Dexter and plays Jacob on Lost.

He has a little bit less of the look, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t work.  He’s an incredibly talented actor and any show would do well with him at the helm.  And really, doesn’t he look like a guy that would make the hard choices in a zombie apocolypse?

And then the last name on the list.  Stuart Townsend.  The “would-be”  King of Middle Earth.  The “would-be” Asgardian….

I’m assuming he could work, but I haven’t seen him in much of anything as he seems to always get replaced at the last minute.  If he does get cast, I’d expect that to happen again.  But who knows.

As far as all three of these possibilities, I’d actually be really happy with any of them.

What do you guys think?

An incredibly trusted and wise source of Big Shiny Robot!s has consulted his trusted and wise source at the Marvel/Paramount camp about the recent flurry of casting rumours that have plagued the internet in the last week (yes, we’re guilty, too.)

Here is what our good friend had to say:

According to MY studio guy, the rumors about Chad Michael Murray (One Tree Hill), Ryan McPartlin (Chuck), Jensen Ackles (Supernatural) and other unknowns/television actors reading for Cap are true.

Apparently, when the script came in with World War II sequences (featuring the Invaders), the studio heads decided it was beyond their means to make this movie AND afford A-listers like Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.

Sure sounds like everyone’s high on McPartlin, who evidently just lost out on the Superman role to Brandon Routh.

As for Spidey, the Logan Lerman rumors are just that … rumors. Apparently Sony is waiting for James Vanderbilt’s script to come in (he’s balking on whether Peter Parker is still in school or just out). And they haven’t even come to terms with director Marc Webb yet.

So it seems as though pretty much all the rumours about Cap have been true, and the rumours regarding Spider-Man have been bunk.

In any case, there’s been a lot of news about Captain America coming out of the floodgates from Joe Johnston as well, and his take on the character, the costume, and the story was actually pretty interesting.  He said that the classic Cap costume in the film appears because they use Cap as a USO publicity tool, but Steve has that desire to lead and tries to ditch the costume, but realizes the worth of it when he notices that it’s an effective tool as a symbol of leadership.  So he begins to shape the costume into something more akin to the present-day Cap costume.  It’s a take on the character and the costume I’ve never heard, but I’m actually pretty in love with.

Also, he says the Red Skull is the villain, which isn’t a huge surprise, but interesting to get a confirmation of nonetheless.

In any case, check back here frequently for all the news that’s fit to print!

UPDATE:  A lot of sites are running quotes to our piece here and saying “The top three choices for Cap are these guys”.  This article says no such thing.  These guys read for the part.  That’s all our man said.  We have no idea who’s at the top of the list, but these three have read for it.

Chad Michael Murray is the latest name to be rumoured for the coveted role of Captain America that rightfully belongs to Matt Damon.  I have seen nothing he’s been in and have no idea who he is.

This is a stretch, I know…  but we’re running this purely as a rumour and that’s all it is at this point.

I got some info from an anonymous fellow who frequents some forums that some of us Robot’s visit.

This is what he had to say:

So I work in a place outside of LA where some celebrities frequent. Chad Michael Murray is one of these people. He was in the other night and one of his friends with him told me that the casting for Cap is down to Chad and one other person. He didn’t tell more who the other person is perhaps he didn’t know, but I found it interesting. The friend told me that he’d have to lend Chad all his comics and teach him about the background of the character.

Not a ton of info, but I thought you guys might find it interesting.

Take it with a grain of salt.

Personally, I still want Matt Damon to play him.

What do you guys think?

UPDATE: The fact that he’s reading for the role has been confirmed.  Check out our article about it here.

With a very special thanks to our good friend Jeff Vice, the film critic at the Deseret News, we were pointed out to an article on Empire Magazine’s website that has some pretty compelling evidence (granted, it’s via twitter) that the Iron Man sequel is in all actuality an Incredible Hulk prequel of some kind.

And we all know how much I love prequels…

From their story:

Now, we don’t often indulge idle speculation here at Empire, but something Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau said today on his Twitter feed has sparked our imagination, and could be a major reveal in terms of the plot of The Avengers movie.

Favreau retweeted a question from a follower, who asked ‘Does ‘Iron Man 2’ take place before or after Hulk movie?’ Favreau succinctly replied, ‘Before’.

They went on to speculate that this validates the theory that Hulk is going to be the bad guy.  Jeff Vice further speculated to us:

And if they’re following existing Avengers continuity, 616 at least, that means Loki is the real villain, since he sets Hulk up for the fall.

What do you guys think?

It would seem so.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, George Lucas is producing a CGI animated musical featuring faeries.

It’s being directed by Kevin Munroe, who directed the slightly underrated CGI Ninja Turtles movie a few years back.

A lot of people are probably going to be laughing at this news, but there isn’t a lot of news there.  There’s a film in production, it has fantasy elements.  The director is competent, the producer has an excellent track record, doubly so if the story originates with him.

Personally, I’m excited to get more details.

A report from The Heatvision Blog over at the Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that AMC has picked up Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, but they also insist that the pilot is going to be shot:

AMC is looking to extend its perfect development record with the pickup of two new drama pilots, “Walking Dead” and “The Killing.” They mark the fourth and fifth pilots ordered by the basic cable network, with its first three, “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad” and “Rubicon,” all going to series.

This is very promising news about the project.  I’ve heard some casting rumours and I’m very happy with that direction, too…  And when the pilot is shot, whether it gets to be a series or not, we’ll have some live action Walking Dead to look at.

To read the full report, click here.

As we all know by now, (500) Days of Summer director, Marc Webb, is taking on the Spider-Man reboot from Sony. However, The Risky Business Blog over at THR had a little bit more to add to this news surrounding some possible details about what form the reboot will take:

Webb, who has options on two sequels, will now tackle a Jamie Vanderbilt script that sees a “Spider-Man” movie that will look and feel very different from the big movies that went before it.

The plan for the movie is to be in the $80 million range and feature a cast of relative unknowns (so you can quash those Rob Pattinson or Gordon-Levitt rumors at this point). And the story will be pared down to center on a high school kid who is dealing with the knowledge that his uncle died even though the teen had the power to stop it.

The touchstone for the new movie will not be the 1960s comics, which were the inspiration behind the movies by Raimi, who grew on up on them, but rather this past decade’s “Ultimate Spider-Man” comics by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley where the villain-fighting took a back seat to the high school angst.

Even though (500) Days of Summer is all we have to judge Webb on right now I remain optimistic because frankly, that film was one of the best things I saw in all of 2009. On top of that now, some news that they might be heading in the ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’ direction is even more good news in my opinion. Bendis has done amazing things with the Ultimate version of our wall-crawler and I think a lot of them would work well on the big screen – at least more-so than some of the campy 60’s Spider-Man stuff Raimi was trying to translate (which, don’t get me wrong, for the most part he did very well).

As you read, production will start this year, so I have a feeling we are going to be getting quite a bit of news and rumors off and on about this reboot throughout the year.

And I thought I’d get a break after Spider-Man 4 was cancelled….