Welcome to The Extras! A daily dose of all the smaller movie related news, clips and just plain cool stuff that you might have missed!
- Why, yes! I will kick off today’s Extras with this utterly charming Guardians of the Galaxy/Peanuts mashup, thank you very much!
- If you’re wondering what’s happening with Joseph Gordon Levitt’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s critically acclaimed Sandman comics, ol’ JGL is here to report that no, Sandman hasn’t been put to bed.
“Right now we’re working on a script. It’s me and [David S. Goyer] and the screenwriter [Jack Thorne] and Neil Gaiman, as well as the good folks at DC and Warner Bros. It’s a really cool team of people. It’s a lot of the same people who worked on the Nolan “Batman” movies. It’s really exciting. There’s not a script yet, we’re still kind of working it out because it’s such a complicated adaptation because “Sandman” wasn’t written as novels. “Sin City” was written as a novel. “Sandman” is 75 episodic issues. There’s a reason people have been trying and failing to adapt “Sandman” for the past 20 years.”
- Poster of the day: Theory of Everything
- If you’ve got a thing for mutton chops and flat tops (hey, we don’t judge!), then you may be interested in this first look at Joaquin Phoenix and Josh Brolin in Paul Thomas Anderson’s highly anticipated next flick, Inherent Vice, an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 gonzo novel.
I guess Phoenix’s Wolverine costume for Halloween is just about done.
- Ever since the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier spun out and shook up Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. the show has become very… *cough*… absorbing. If you’re wondering about my sudden chest infection, it’s because actor Brian Patrick Wade (Teen Wolf) has just been cast to play supervillain Carl “Crusher” Creel, AKA – yes, you guessed it – the Absorbing Man. Creel has the power to take on the properties of anything he touches (so touch a steel girder, become as strong as steel), and will be acting as a major foil for Coulson and the gang in Season 2. Here’s the first look at Wade in the role. Apparently he wasn’t feeling very touchy-feely at the time.
- The upcoming Harry Potter spinoff movie may know all about finding fantastic beasts, but finding a director has seemed a tad more difficult. Until now, it seems. Variety are reporting that WB has found their pick, and he’s what you might call a company man. Apparently the studio wanted somebody who is familiar with the Potter-universe, which is why they are reportedly in talks with David Yates, who directed the last four Harry Potter movies, to helm Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, which is supposed to be the first of a brand new trilogy with a script penned by none other than creator J.K. Rowling herself.
“Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them” is actually one of Harry Potter’s school textbooks, and this new movie follows the adventures of its author Newt Scamander, as he travels the globe to put it all together. Although it takes place 20 years before Harry Potter ever steps onto the scene, it’s not being considered a prequel, but rather just an extension of the existing world.
- Funnyman Ken Jeong (The Hangover, Community) may soon find himself very unpopular in Germany as he has unveiled plans to kill David Hasselhoff (who is some sort of Bavarian singing god, for some strange reason). Luckily, he’s not really getting homicidal (Hoff-icidal?) as it’s all for his new comedy still just being referred to Untitled Celebrity Death Pool. Directed by Diary of a Mad Black Woman‘s Darren Grant, the comedy will see Jeong as “a nightclub owner who is in debt to a loan shark, so he sets out to win his long-running celebrity death pool by killing his chosen celebrity… David Hasselhoff”
The Hoff has always been game to poke fun at himself, so he is already on board to join the cast as, well, himself, in a film that is apparently going to be filled with celebrity cameos, including Hulk Hogan. Because somebody needed to be on set make the Hoff feel better about his sagging physique.
- Special effects are sometimes everything but special. Sometimes when you have a scene where a guy has to run across a river on the backs of snapping crocodiles, you don’t mess around with green screens and fancy CGI. No, you just have a guy run across a river on the backs of snapping crocodiles! Check out Cracked’s list of 17 Awesomely Simple Tricks Behind Movie Special Effects for more such craziness, but here are a few of my favoruites:
- Screenrant has a brilliant article up on What If The Expendables Were Monsters, and comes with a dream roster of movie monsters, some of which are just genius picks. I mean, E.T. as the communications officer in the team?!
- Next Friday sees the release of Luc Besson’s Lucy. While you’re going to have to wait to Monday to read my full review for it, I will give out a bit of a spoiler and say that I think this is the closest we’ve come in years to seeing the incredibly creative Luc Besson that made The Fifth Element. Which is a perfect segue into this next cool – and informative – video which takes a look at 9 Things You Didn’t Know About The Fifth Element.
- Seeing as how we started off this day with some Nicolas Cage, let’s end it with some as well. In particular, Everything Wrong With National Treasure, a movie that features my favourite example of “Nicolas Cage runs like somebody just hit him in the legs with a tire iron”.
If you have anything you would like to contribute to Extras, whether it be interesting stories, funny videos, or artistic photos of yourself in morally questionable poses, feel free to drop a mail to kervyn@themovies.co.za.
Last Updated: August 22, 2014
