It’s been a while since we’ve had one of these, so let’s just dive back into it:
• It’s now confirmed that Robert Downey Jr. will star in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. (The actor’s interest in the role initially was reported last month.) The Warner Bros. production is based on a forthcoming comic by producer Lionel Wigram. Ritchie polished the script, written by Anthony Peckham. [Variety]
• David Fincher’s planned remake of Heavy Metal has hit a wall at Paramount Pictures, where new production executives feel the content is too risque for mainstream audiences. So Fincher, Blur Studio and Heavy Metal magazine publisher Kevin Eastman are shopping for a new home. [Hollywood Insider]
• Don’t be surprised if one of the longest lines at Comic-Con is for the July 24 Summit Pictures panel. That’s because it will feature the cast of Twilight, the big-screen adaptation of the wildly popular YA novels by Stephenie Meyer. (Frankly, I’m shocked we haven’t seen an announcement of Twilight graphic novels, OEL manga or otherwise.) The movie’s promotional push starts with the cover of Entertainment Weekly (above) and then kicks into high gear in San Diego. “… Twilight is one of the movies sure to pop at the biggest marketing launch platform I can think of right now,” writes Variety‘s Anne Thompson. “Is there one bigger? Cannes is one thing. Sundance and Toronto another. But the impact of Comic-Con on the movie-marketplace is huge.” [Thompson on Hollywood]
• Hellboy II director Guillermo del Toro talks about 14 influences that shaped his style, including the Wein-Wrightson Swamp Thing and Jack Kirby’s The Demon. [EW.com]
• Hellboy is the only franchise in recent memory to jump from one movie studio to another. [The Hollywood Reporter]
July 10th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Why are they calling Heavy Metal a “remake”? Surely we’re getting new (at least to the screen, whether derived from material in the mag or not) stories, and not the same ones with Harry Canyon, Captain Stern, Taarna, and the rest? Wouldn’t that just be a “new Heavy Metal movie” rather than a “Heavy Metal remake”?