Variety says Steven Lisberger, the writer-director of Tron (1982; my review), is now developing a movie called Soul Code: Lisberger will direct the story of a tech pioneer who has perfected a way to download and transfer a person’s memory. Script examines what happens when her memory is placed into a much younger woman’s body. . . . Lisberger met [Jessica] Chobot, a comely tech guru with a devoted following among the geek set, at a “Tron” screening and was... Read more

I just saw an ad on TV for The Brothers Solomon, and it occurred to me that I have heard not a single peep anywhere about a screening for this film. Then I checked to see who had produced this film, and discovered that it is being distributed by Screen Gems, a studio with an established track record of foregoing press screenings. I’m guessing we can add this one to the list, then. UPDATE: Apparently there is a preview screening... Read more

Variety reports that Vadim Perelman, writer-director of House of Sand and Fog (2003), has been hired to direct Atlas Shrugged: Perelman will work from a draft of the script penned by “Braveheart” scribe Randall Wallace, who managed to boil down the Rand manifesto of 1,100-plus pages into a 127-page script. The drama revolves around what happens when great industrialists and thinkers go on strike and the world grinds to a halt. Wallace will remain involved, and in a recent meeting... Read more

The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw on The Margate Exodus, the title of which was apparently trimmed to simply Exodus before it premiered at the Venice International Film Festival this week: I was intrigued, but perplexed by another British film, Penny Woolcock’s Exodus; it’s a dystopian fantasy that parallels the Biblical story of the same name. Some time in the future, a firebrand fascist leader called Pharaoh (Bernard Hill) leads Margate as a secessionist city-state, and herds all the undesirables into a... Read more

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest. Mr. Bean’s Holiday — CDN $4,400,000 — N.AM $18,992,000 — 23.2%The Nanny Diaries — CDN $1,750,000 — N.AM $15,262,000 — 11.5%Superbad — CDN $9,860,000 — N.AM $89,335,000 — 11.0%Stardust — CDN $3,420,000 — N.AM $31,092,000 — 11.0%War — CDN $1,710,000 — N.AM $16,979,000 — 10.1%The Bourne Ultimatum — CDN $20,010,000... Read more

Last month, I noted that The Simpsons Movie had grossed more in its opening weekend than any Pixar film — indeed, more than any animated film that was not a sequel to Shrek (2001) — so I figure it is only fair to post an update on that film’s situation. Put simply, it looks like The Simpsons Movie will become the first movie ever to gross over $70 million in its opening weekend and not gross over $200 million before... Read more

The Vancouver International Film Festival starts in three and a half weeks, and the press conference for it is still two days away … but the “sneak preview guide” was distributed this weekend to various locations throughout the city, and a PDF file of the “film notes” portion of the guide is available here. Happy browsing! Read more

It’s a slow news day here at FilmChat, so for those who follow Bible movies as obsessively as I do — if not more so — here is an update on Promenade Pictures and its plans for a series of CG-animated Bible epics, beginning with The Ten Commandments. If you go to Promenade’s official website and click on “Films”, the first thing that comes up is six paintings under the heading “Epic Stories of the Bible”, each of which is... Read more

As always, take this with a shaker full of salt, but Moriarty at Ain’t It Cool News posted this wild Star Trek XI rumour yesterday: Okay, first thing that surprised me: I think Leonard Nimoy is sort of the star of the movie. I think a lot of this movie is about Spock. Nimoy-aged Spock, mind you. How? Okay… you know the scene in BACK TO THE FUTURE 2? Where Doc Brown explains alternate timelines? Well, this is sort of…... Read more

Last night, at a preview screening of Death Sentence, I saw two trailers in a row that made significant use of sacred music — and all in the service of selling hyperviolent action movies. First, there was what I presume is the green-band trailer for Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem. (Trailers don’t have green bands or red bands in Canada.) It is a lot like the red-band trailer, but with some of the gorier bits cut out — and towards the... Read more