Random News of the Week (November 24 - November 30, 2008)

The cast for Miyazaki's next film, PONYO has been announced and it is yet another all-star line-up. Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Cate Blanchett, Liam Neeson, Lily Tomlin, Betty White, Fankie Jonas, Noah Cyrys and Cloris Leachman will all lend their voices. The story centers on a 5-year-old boy and his relationship with a goldfish princess who longs to become human. The English language version should be out in 2009.

Josh Brolin confirmed this week that the rumor that he was offered the part of the main Terminator in TERMINATOR: SALVATION was indeed true. “Yeah. I talked to Christian Bale for a couple hours. I really liked the script though I hear that’s not what they filmed. The one I read was very interesting and dark. Ultimately though I didn't think it felt right." Here’s the concerning part. When asked if he regretted it, he says, “I saw Bale recently and I asked him how it was and he said, ‘it's alright’.” Then Brolin laughed.

Work on Terry Gilliam’s DON QUIXOTE is back on. It turns out that he has funding again and is ready to “try again” with the project. The first attempt ended when all the sets were destroyed by a flash flood in 2000. Gilliam says, "I was in some way relieved that it did fall apart. Because I didn't have the money to finish it. It's a good thing it went down when it did because I would have got the blame for going over budget. I think this time we will make a better film."

Steve Guttenberg is back from the dead. What’s more, he’s working to get yet another POLICE ACADEMY sequel off the ground. What’s more, he has a script and Ted Danson and Tom Selleck on board for a sequel to THREE MEN AND A BABY. “Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and I are looking to make another Three Men And A Baby movie. It’s called Three Men and A Bride. The script is pretty much written and we are really keen to get that made. We’re very hopeful."

Stallone may be resurrecting Dolph Lundgren’s career from the dregs of DTV. Stallone revealed this week that he is close to signing Lundgren for his new film THE EXPENDABLES which also stars Jason Statham and Jet Li.

Guillermo del Toro talked a bit about THE HOBBIT filming schedule. Shooting will start in 2010 and will last for 370 days. He added that we will see the as much of the goblin kindgom, Smaug and the Spiders of Mirkwood that he can include - "we will be pushing them to the edge of technology where we will fuse animatronics and cgi into a seamless new art form in creating creatures.”

Tim Blake Nelson says he’s on board with producer Gale Anne Hurd’s plan to have him play the villainous Leader in the next INCREDIBLE HULK film.

John Carpenter is planning a possible gangster movie. “It's a bit of a departure. It's definitley more of a very character based crime movie. I don't know what's going on with it right now, but the premise is that this guy was the most [badass] gangster of all time in Las Vegas, and he's left the life and created this whole new world. His wife died but he's raising his kid. He's living in the middle of nowhere and he's this very religious, trying to live a straight life guy. His daughter is now going to school at UCLA and she disappears, and he goes looking for her. The trail leads to Vegas and he has to go get her, and the entire city kind of comes down on top of him."

Funny quote from Robert Downey, Jr. this week about the AVENGERS film. “If we don’t get it right it’s really, really going to suck. It has to be the crowning blow of Marvel’s best and brightest because it’s the hardest thing to get right. It’s tough to spin all the plates for one of these characters.”

News is out that Will Smith’s idea for a prequel to I AM LEGEND has been thrown out in favor of a sequel instead. Somehow, they are going to try and continue with Smith even after he blew himself up at the end of the first film. We are entering “Friday the 13th” territory at this point folks…