Blogging has been extremely light lately, thanks to a bout of food poisoning and the need to catch up on work afterwards. Here are a few news items that came along in that time.
1. The Hollywood Reporter says Universal and Imagine are planning a remake of The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). That’s reason enough to be concerned. It also says the director attached to the project is Brett Ratner. That’s scary. It also says the actor attached to the project is Eddie Murphy. That’s depressing.
2. Speaking of projects that need to be cancelled, Devin Faraci says he was told by producer Joel Silver that the Justice League movie has been “tabled”. Yay, if true. Meanwhile, UGO.com is spreading a rumour to the effect that Terminator 4 might have been cancelled, too. On a happier note, TV Guide says Fox has decided to renew Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
3. The Globe and Mail says evangelist Charles McVety, who claimed credit for Bill C-10 when it first became a news item two months ago, has backed away from that claim now, but he does say the bill doesn’t go “far enough”, because it affects only tax credits and not grants or subsidies.
4. Speaking of Canadian tax credits, FilmStew.com looks at how the tax credit created under Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau in the early 1970s led to a rise in … Canadian horror films! Horror films like the original versions of Black Christmas (1974) and Prom Night (1980)!
5. Variety says Universal has hired Australian director Shane Abbess to make Source Code, a “time continuum story” the details of which are currently under wraps. Abbess’s previous film was the low-budget angelic thriller Gabriel (2007), which I don’t think I had ever heard of before, but it sounds interesting.
6. Variety says “Phoenix Pictures and the Gold Co. are partnering on ‘Amish Gone Wild,’ centered on two Amish teenage brothers who go to Las Vegas for one last hurrah before joining the church.” For an interesting documentary about this ritual, known as Rumspringa, check out Devil’s Playground (2002).
7. Kenneth R. Morefield passes on this amusing tidbit from a recent visit to Blockbuster:
Oh, and as a side note, some of you may know that Blockbuster makes a big deal out of refusing to stock NC-17 films but will stock unrated foreign films or made for cable soft porn like Red Shoes Diaries. I was surprised then to see Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution on the shelves. I was more surprised to see the studio had apparently caved to pressure and released an expurgated version of the film to that it could get into Blockbuster stores. Funnier still was the advertising banner on the DVD: “The ‘R’ rated version NOT seen in theaters!” Ah, yes, normally we get the promise in a Director’s Cut of all the stuff you couldn’t see in the theater (in an “UNRATED” director’s cut). Here we get the “selling point” that the film is new because they took out all the stuff you COULD see in the theater. Bizarre.
8. MTV News says Uma Thurman was offered the part of Eowyn in The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) and regrets having to turn it down because she had a young child. It occurs to me that Sean Connery was reportedly considered for the part of Gandalf, too, in which case this trilogy could have turned into an Avengers (1998) reunion. I wonder who Ralph Fiennes could have played.
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