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!
- Happy Guardians of the Galaxy Day everybody! And to kick off Extras on this fortuitous day, here’s something that should hit you right in the awwwwww-varies. Guardians star and all around nice guy Chris Pratt has revealed that he’s done a bit of thievery on the set of the latest Marvel blockbuster. But don’t worry, his criminal ways are for a very good cause.
“I stole the [Star Lord] jacket and some of the wardrobe so that, if this movie comes out and does what everyone hopes it can, I can follow the example of someone — say, like, a Russell Wilson — and go visit kids. If it was a big enough movie to where it would mean something to a kid who’s sick in the hospital for Peter Quill or Star-Lord to come visit them, I’ll do that. I think that’s awesome, man. That would give me real meaning for this movie, you know?
Right now, it means high profile, cool jobs coming up, big press tour, and all the excitement of it all. But none of that really means anything. The coolest things would be that my son can one day see this, and that maybe I can go affect some kids in a positive way; be a good role model for them.”
- And kind of related to that, Jurassic World director Colin Treverrow has tweeted out this new image from his highly anticipated upcoming sequel, and it feature his movie’s lead star who’s having a kind of big day today.
See you next summer, Star-Lord. #GOTG pic.twitter.com/PfMNYPRZbQ
— Colin Trevorrow (@colintrevorrow) August 1, 2014
- Guardians of the Galaxy isn’t the only big movie with fully CGI central characters to step up to the plate this week though. There’s another, just as ridiculous fun (though leaning more towards the ridiculous side) movie that came out last night that you may have heard of: Sharknado 2: The Second One! The SyFy shlockbuster debuted last night to record breaking numbers, becoming the channel’s most watched original movie ever, pulling in a total of 3.9 million viewers. It also had a gigantic social media presence, at one stage occupying all 10 slots in the list top 10 trending topics in the USA. It seems Tara Reid with a buzz-saw for a hand is just too good to pass up.
- The folks at Esquire have a very reasonable, logically thought out and well written request for you: Stop giving all of your money to Michael Bay!
- Poster of the day: Guardians of the Galaxy (as if there was ever any doubt) 1950’s style fan poster
- Model Emily Ratajkowski, probably better known to you as the hot topless brunette in Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” music video, is set to make her acting debut soon in David Fincher’s Gone Girl. And just to prove she’s not a one-hit wonder, she’s already lined up her next gig in which she will be getting some help from another brunette who recently went topless: Zac Efron. The pair have landed the lead roles opposite each other in We Are Friends, a coming-of-age drama written and directed by Max Joseph, co-star of MTV’s Catfish series.
The film is “set in the worlds of electronic music and the Hollywood nightlife, where an aspiring 23-year-old DJ named Cole spends his days scheming with his childhood friends and his nights working on the one track that will set the world on fire. All of this changes when he meets a charismatic but damaged older DJ named James who takes him under his wing. Things get complicated, however, when Cole starts falling for James’ much younger girlfriend, Sophie. With Cole’s forbidden relationship intensifying and his friendships unraveling, he must choose between love, loyalty, and the future he knows he’s destined for.”
- Marvel may have nothing to do with Christian holidays, but they love a good Easter Egg. Their movies are generally stuffed with them, all of which I noticed through powers of comic book geek observation. At least I thought I had spotted all of them, but there are quite a few a cool additions in this vid explaining EVERY Marvel Easter Egg ever (before Captain America: The Winter Soldier).
- Apparently break dancing is a very good base for learning how to break faces with Kung Fu. Glee and Step Up franchise star Harry Shum Jr (the guy who looks like his bones are made from melted Fizzer sweets when he dances), has landed one of the lead roles in Woo-ping Yuen‘s upcoming Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sequel, joining the already cast Michelle Yeoh (reprising her role as Yu Shu-Lien) and Donnie Yen (playing Silent Wolf).
The sequel, which starts production next week in China and New Zealand, is set “20 years after the events of Crouching Tiger and revolves around four heroes of the martial arts world — Silent Wolf, Yu Shu-lien, Tie-Fang and Snow Vase — who must use their courage and skills to keep the legendary sword Green Destiny from the hands of the villainous Hades Dai.” Shum Jr will be playing Tie-Fang.
- Speaking of Step Up, how about we take a look at everything wrong with it. And no, I’m not talking about giving criticisms because somebody couldn’t stick the landing on a windmill.
- Did you check out the new trailer for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Birdman released earlier today? That movie already looks pretty mental, but here’s something that makes it even more interesting. During a recent discussion with Oscar winning editor Walter Murch, writer-director Jon Favreau spoke about Birdman and explained that the film has “”ostensibly no cuts, but there are cuts”, meaning that everything has been stitched together digitally so that the entire movie looks like one single take shot!
- I know I’ve been laying on the Guardians of the Galaxy love a bit thick today, so to make up for it, here’s a cool movie poster that is totally not for Guardians of the Galaxy.
- The worst thing about this rather funny (pet parody video inspired by Sharknado, is that I’m afraid that some exec over at SyFy is going to see it and then go “Hmmmm…. Not a bad idea for a real movie!”.
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 1, 2014
