Random News of the Week (August 11 - August 17, 2008)

George Lucas talked about a 5th INDIANA JONES film this week and it looks like he's heard the fan's for once. Shia Lebouf's character "Mutt" may go the way of "Short Round" and never be seen or heard or discussed again. He said, "Indiana Jones is Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford IS Indiana Jones. If it was Mutt Williams it would be ‘Mutt Williams and the Search for Elvis’ or something.” I'm not sure why George is suddenly bashing the character HE helped create? I actually didn't hate Mutt as much as everyone else did. I thought he was more interesting than most of the rest of the script.

A CANDYMAN remake is in the works about the mysterious figure that appears when you stare into a mirror and say his name 5 times. The only problem is, you lose your life. Word is that it will be a more true to adaptation to the Clive Barker story.

Looks like JUSTICE LEAGUE is back on track. After the success of DARK KNIGHT, we are going to see every comic property under the sun adapted and greenlit as Hollywood beats the comic book film dead horse. George Miller is still in charge and shooting starts in Australia next year.

The X-FILES movie "bombed" so badly. It was a complete disaster but since it didn't cost much to make, it wasn't a huge loss in the studio scheme of things. When producer Frank Spotnitz was asked if there will be more X-FILES, he said "I've always said I thought The X-Files could go on forever, provided there was an audience that wanted to see those stories. We'll see." Clear as mud. Basically, if I had to guess, I'd say it's over.

In what is already a massively troubled project, PUNISHER: WAR ZONE is now getting the word that it has been cut from a hard R to a PG-13 to compete in the same markets that DARK KNIGHT successfully competed in. The big difference being that DARK KNIGHT had a great script, director, and actors. PUNISHER does not. It had to rely on the heavy violence as a reason to even watch what will surely be a "terrible" film. Remember folks, there was a reason Thomas Jane dropped out of this.

Unbelievably, Mike Meyers has joined the cast of INGLORIOUS BASTARDS along with Simon Pegg, Brad Pitt, and Eli Roth. Tarantino knows how to direct seemingly weak actors (John Travolta anyone?) and make them seem beyond cool so this is probably a good thing.

Lucas talked about his work to convert the 6 Star Wars films to 3D and do yet another re-release as the last drops of blood are squeezed from the rotting carcus of this film version of a turnip. It looks like we are still a ways away due to some technical problems. Lucas said, "We worked on some, with a company that was developing the technology a few years ago to convert films into 3-D, we worked with them. But the system works great. It's just not very practical. What we've been working on since then is to develop a sort of practical way to do it. And we will get there. It's just a technological challenge."

Writer and sometime director, David Goyer (BLADE, BATMAN BEGINS) is working on a more true adaptation of H.G. Wells, THE INVISIBLE MAN. Goyer says "It's very steam punk...I took what being invisible could mean to the next logical extreme. We do a lot of crazy things in it that are sort of far beyond what anyone's done with it yet. It involves Scotland Yard getting their hands on the current Invisible Man and basically saying, 'Wow, you'd be a really good secret agent to send into Imperial Russia right now.'" I watched BLADE TRINITY again lately and that movie "sucks!" I thing Goyer is a very strong writer and has a catalog of work that he can really be proud of there but on the director side of things, it is MUCH weaker. Maybe THE UNBORN will be good.