Extras 02 April 2014

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!

With Season 4 of Game of Thrones almost upon us, it’s good to take some time and reflect on the 3 season that’s come before. But today though, we’ll be reflecting with honesty!  And laughs. Lots and lots of laughs!

And to paraphrase Ned Stark, official Star Wars casting news is coming. We know this has to happen, because according to Devin Faraci over at BadassDigest, shooting on Episode VII is scheduled to start on May 14 in Morocco. That leaves just about 6 weeks for JJ Abrams and co to finalize everything – like just who is playing who – and finally get this show on the road.

One thing to note about this, is that Morocco was one of the locations used in the original trilogy to stand in for Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tattooine, so its a fair assumption that we’ll be going back to that famous dustball.

Poster(s) of the day: Star Wars propaganda posters

And still keeping things all Star Wars-y, did you know that Darth Vader is  kind of running for President in Ukraine?

And the last bit of Star Wars news for today, I promise. Back in 2004, when the original trilogy hit DVD for the first time, the boxset contained a number of documentaries, including this 15-minute featurette titled Birth of the Lightsaber, which has now finally been made available online. It’s a fascinating look at the conception of one of pop culture’s most famous items, and even includes discussions with sound designer Ben Burrt, who created the lightsaber’s infamous hum.

Thanks to the awesome folk over at TrekCore (via i09), we have a look at these superhumanly cool original storyboards for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, arguably the best Star Trek movie ever made. There’s quite a comprehensive gallery of these and even if you’re not a Trekkie, you should still check them out if you KHAAAAAAAAAAANNN!

Riddle me this, if you have the heart, who in Gotham will be wearing the green question mark? I could draw out the answer, maybe let it linger, but I’ll tell you it’s Cory Michael Smith who will play Edward Nygma. A forensics man and not a crook, he’ll be in Fox’s Batman prequel, but I’m sure at some stage he’ll find the need to turn green and go evil.

Looks like Paul Feig’s action comedy Spy, which already stars Melissa McCarthy and Jason Statham will be getting a bit of a cash infusion. Fifty Cent, to be exact. Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, along with Nia Long, will be joining the film which see’s McCarthy’s newbie CIA analyst going out in the field for the first time to find the man that killed her lover.

Long will be playing a CIA official, while Fiddy will actually be playing himself.

So I am really not a fan of the new looking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with their creepy noses and lips (Turtle lips, for crap’s sake!). Darryn disagrees, but Darryn also huffs Tipex thinners on a regular basis, so he’s not to be trusted. Luckily, some sane people over at Reddit agree with me, and have decided to give the Turtles a digital makeover, and in my opinion the new look is about seven millionty four percent better.

As an April Fool’s gag, the writers of Pajiba and FilmSchoolRejects swapped websites, and then proceeded to post silly articles all day about body swap movies. One such article, 25 Things You Need to Know About Body Swap Classic The Change-Up, is filled with several gag facts, but one thing in there which I’ve subsequently learned is true, is that despite what you and your penis may think, Olivia Wilde did in fact not go topless in the film. Since she didn’t want to show skin in the film, producers agreed that she could instead wear skin coloured pasties over her lady bits, and then they went in and digitally added nipples.

Yes, it was somebody’s job to copy-paste nipples into a movie. We do that for free all the time. What’s more, the other topless scene in the movie, where Leslie Mann shows off quite the impressive physique? Yeah, also CGI boobs. Your whole life is a lie, I tell ya.

There’s a new Pink Panther movie being developed and Steve Martin has absolutely nothing to do with it! Let’s take a moment to celebrate that fact with an obligatory “Yay!” before we move on… Yay! Right, where was I? Ah, yes. MGM is developing a new Pink Panther movie, but this one will actually be an animated feature that forgoes the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, and instead will focus on the titular pink cat. The film, which is to be helmed by The Simpson Movie director David Silverman, will “harken back to the tone shared by the original Friz Freleng and David De Patie cartoons as well as that of Blake Edwards’ films.”

While I was a pretty big fan of those old cartoons, I’m not sure how I feel about another Pink Panther movie. Maybe it’s just the bad taste still left over from the last couple of abortions?

With Anchorman 2 recently receiving an extended R-Rated cut, featuring a lot more jokes, writer/director Adam McKay revealed yesterday (that’s April 1, I remind you) that a new  “No-Joke Cut” of the film will be released, and he showed off this clip from it.

“People know that Will [Ferrell] and I do many joke options for our movies, but I think what gets lost is the fact that underneath the laughs there’s a very powerful drama at work. Movies like ‘Sophie’s Choice,’ ‘Ordinary People’ and ‘Breaking the Waves’ are the movies that inspire Will and me. I’m just glad, with the no joke cut, audiences can finally appreciate the rawness and drama of ‘Anchorman 2.’ ”

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: April 2, 2014