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!
- That top line should actually read “Welcome to The Extras – Star Wars: The Force Awakens Edition”. That’s because after years of waiting, the trailer for the next chapter in the Star Wars saga finally dropped on Friday evening, and it was glorious. And of course, the internet responded (pardon the pun) in force with images, clips and factoids, which leads us to today. So let’s kick off today, with this LEGO version of the trailer for The Force Awakens which somehow sprang up barely a few hours after the original, leading me to believe that the animators are in fact using the Force to move everything.
- Okay, so it’s not all Star Wars coverage today, there are a still other movies out there that we *cough* can’t let go. So Frozen fans rejoice, because in what is painfully obvious news but which you will get excited about anyway, Idina Menzel aka Adele Dazeem, has sort of confirmed that a sequel to the animated smash hit is in development.
- Posters of the day: Fan-created Star Wars: The Force Awakens art
- A new, very official looking (check out the copyright symbol) synopsis for Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot has just popped up over on RottenTomatoes (via Comic Book Movie), and while it doesn’t really give away any major plot details, it does reinforce the rumour that the movie will be using the Negative-Zone-centric origin story from the “Ultimate Fantastic Four” comic rather than the traditional story.
THE FANTASTIC FOUR, a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team, centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy. (C) Fox
- The moment John Boyega frantically popped into frame in The Force Awakens trailer, wearing that iconic white armour, it almost immediately set off the more close-minded portion of the internet who began spewing vitriol about how their could be a black Stormtrooper in the traditionally prejudiced Empire. So let me clarify: Firstly, IT’S ONLY A MOVIE! Secondly, while Emperor Palpatine was a racist, it was toward non-humans. Skin colour never factored into the equation (like the fact that a Maori guy was used as the template for the original Clone Army). And thirdly, “Get used to it!”. That last bit of advice is courtesy of Boyega himself who posted this message on Instagram after being bombarded by both congratulatory praise and racist jibes.
- Nick’s favourite movie in the whole wide world debuted in the US this weekend past, and it seems that ridiculous internet meme turned movie Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever may just be on the worst Christmas movies ever. That’s according to star Aubrey Plaza who actually voices the titular cat, and live-tweeted the whole premiere practically in character.
- Eddie Redmayne is currently getting serious Oscar buzz for his portrayal of acclaimed physicist Stephen Hawking in the biopic A Theory of Everything. But just because you acted the hell out of one movie, doesn’t mean you’re good for all movies. A fact that Redmayne found out when he tried to audition for Star Wars: The Force Awakens and failed miserably.
“Recently my ‘Star Wars’ audition was pretty catastrophically bad. There’s this wonderful casting director called Nina Gold, who I absolutely love,” Redmayne shared. “I went in and did this scene, and after seven times of trying to play… [Gold] was like, ‘Got anything else, Eddie?’ I was like, ‘No, I want out.’ ‘I think we’re going to have to agree to part on this one.’ I said, ‘Ok, that’s a childhood dream crushed.’ ”
- The moment it was announced that JJ Abrams would be directing the next Star Wars movies, the jokes about lens flares (used so abundantly by Abrams in his Star Trek reboot) started flooding in. But then the official trailer came out, and much to some people’s disappointment, the lens flares were virtually absent. But not to worry, that’s why we have the internet.
- Danish provocateur Lars Von Trier doesn’t make easy movies. And now that he’s sober, he may not make any movies at all. The award winning director of such divisive, hard hitting flicks as Antichrist and Nymphomaniac revealed that after years of alcohol and drug addiction he has finally kicked both habits, but now that he’s clean he lacks the creative spark he needed to make his movies and is thus considering giving up on it altogether. He apparently wrote the script for Dogville on a 12-day drug binge, while it took him a year and half to pen Nymphomaniac while sober.
“I don’t know if I can make any more films, and that worries me. There is no creative expression of artistic value that has ever been produced by ex-drunkards and ex-drug addicts. Who the hell would bother with a Rolling Stones without booze or with a Jimi Hendrix without heroin?”
- And the Fail of the Month goes to People Magazine, who accidentally published a pre-written obituary for veteran actor Kirk Douglas, who celebrates his 98th birthday next week, probably much to the dismay of his friends and family. Er… oops? The Oscar nominated actor suffered a stroke in 1998, which left him with a crippling speech impediment, but he is very much still alive and active, even being known as the world’s oldest internet celebrity blogger until a few years ago.
- One of the most intriguing things about Star Wars: The Force Awakens is that it marks the first time in history that a Star Wars movie is being released that has not been written/directed/produced by George Lucas. For the first time, somebody else gets to show us their vision of the universe Lucas created. And while I’m really looking forward to this fresh approach, it is interesting to wonder what Lucas’ Episode VII would have been like. Thanks to this fan-created version of the trailer, we don’t have to wonder any more.
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: December 1, 2014
