Time for another batch of rumours and stories.
1. Ain’t It Cool News reports that Liam Neeson may be the actor who replaces Brian Cox as the voice of Aslan in the upcoming film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. (My sister Michelle’s ecstatic reaction: “I don’t know if I want a sexy Aslan! That could be scary!”) If true, this could be at least the third film this year — after Kingdom of Heaven and Batman Begins — in which Neeson teaches a young man how to use a sword.
2. My colleague Steve Greydanus has an interesting theory about the surprisingly huge success of Fantastic Four, a mediocre at best movie that most critics had dismissed, which nevertheless made almost double what the studios expected and thus helped to end this year’s record-setting box-office slump. He writes:
Here is what I think is an important part of the answer:
Until FF, the big movies of summer have all — quite rightly — come with warnings not to bring the kids.
Even properties with built-in kid interest, such as Batman and Star Wars, have been the subjects of media and critical cautions that these films are too intense for young kids. And they are — and there’s nothing wrong with that.
As a result, though, the family market has been neglected. Yes, there have been traditional “family films” like Herbie: Fully Loaded and Madagascar. But families seem to crave films outside of the “family film” mold, i.e., cartoon-style comedies (whether live-action or animated) about children / families or anthropomorphic animals, cars, robots, etc, flatulence humor, kicks in the groin, etc.
Based on its marketing, FF, supposedly a “funny family action film,” seemed to fit the bill. Its initial success, like last year’s National Treasure (also not a great film, although much better than FF), may suggest that family audiences crave the same kind of thrills and action as teenagers and young adults, but without the heavy violence or sexual content. In fact, families may be so desperate for acceptable fare of this type that they will even embrace movies that are mediocre (National Treasure) or lousy (FF).
Unfortunately, it also seems, at least at the moment, that it may not be necessary that the movie be actually family-friendly — only that it be marketed and perceived that way. With FF, a running thread of trashy exploitative content, mostly in connection with the character of Johnny Storm, keeps it from being family-friendly, but it didn’t keep the studio from marketing the film to families.
3. Speaking of box-office, E! Online wonders if this Saturday’s release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince may interfere with the box-office prospects for Tim Burton’s remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which would seem to be targeting a similar audience. Ironically, the Tim Burton movie is being distributed by Warner Brothers, the same studio that produces the Harry Potter movies. The article notes that the previous book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, came out the same weekend as Hulk (2003), which grossed $62 million in its first three days — an impressive income to you and me, perhaps, but at the time, it was still perceived by some as a disappointment.
4. Reuters reports that there is some disagreement among the actors working on Steven Spielberg’s next film, about the murder of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics, as to what the theme or message of the film really is. There is also some debate as to whether the film’s source material — reportedly a book called Vengeance, written by George Jonas, one of my favorite Canadian pundits — is all that reliable.
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