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!
- I have to kick off today with the funniest joke I’ve heard in ages: Nicolas Cage thinks that his Outcast co-star Hayden Christensen’s performance in the Star Wars prequels was “edgy, dark and soulful”.
“And so, I watched George [Lucas’] movies, and the work Hayden did with George, and I was very impressed with Hayden’s sort of edgy, dangerous, dark and still soulful performance. I thought it was superb. And so I really connected with him.”
Ooh, my sides! Ha ha ha ha ha! No stop, Cage. You’re just too funny!
- And now for another Star Wars related item that could put just as big a grin on your face: Somebody has gone and made a remote controlled Millennium Falcon drone. I must have it!
- Poster of the day: American Sniper
- Look, I love movie cosplay as much as the next guy, but I’m kind of thinking that chopping off part of your nose, tattooing your eyeballs black, installing implants in your head and permanently colouring your face to look like the Red Skull from Captain America may be a bit much.
- I’ll be honest, based on what little exposure I’ve had to the books and from the trailers I’ve seen, I’m really not expecting Fifty Shades of Grey to be good. The movie’s chances for goodness would be increased exponentially though if it was completely done in LEGO!
- In what doesn’t come as too big a surprise since the whole Sony Hack scandal happened, Senior Chairman Amy Pascal has stepped down. And according to Variety’s speculation on this development, this could actually lead to something huge for fans of Marvel Studios. I must point out again, that this is all speculation, but does sound intriguing.
“The biggest decision for Lynton and Pascal’s successor will be how to handle the Spider-Man franchise. “The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ did respectable business last summer but was hardly the $1 billion blockbuster that Pascal had told folks that she needed it to be.
“Spider-Man” remains a cash cow but the plans for expanding the Spidey universe through villain spin-offs and the next installment may be reexamined — since Pascal played the leading role pursuing that path. A new regime may take a stronger look at returning to the negotiation table with Marvel Studios over Spidey’s rights.
Sony’s last move on that front came in July during Comic-Con when the studio dated spin-off “Sinister Six” for Nov. 11, 2016 as the next tentpole in its key property — while moving back “The Amazing Spider-Man 3″ two years to 2018. The idea of bringing in villains is aimed at making Sony a stronger competitor against the likes of Disney/Marvel’s “Avengers” and Warner Bros.’ “Justice League” superheroes in the coming years.”
- After watching this latest edition of Screen Junkies’ Before They Were Famous, you will never look at Mark Ruffalo the same way again. HULK SMASH PIMPLES!!
- Hey look, it’s either Zod and Keyser Soze cosplaying as Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon, or this is the first pic of Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey in the upcoming comedy Elvis & Nixon.
- There’s not much known about Drive writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn’s upcoming Los Angeles-based horror thriller Neon Demon, but now we at least know that it’s going to have a pretty good cast. It’s being reported that Keanu Reeves, Christina Hendricks, Jena Malone and Bella Heathcote are joining the previously announced Elle Fanning and Abby Lee to round out the cast. Refn has now gone from drug movie to dreamy viking epic to throwback thriller to Asian gang movie, so I guess a horror movie starring Neo and Joan Harris from Mad Men seems like the next logical step.
- We regularly get mailed the release schedule for all movies, straight from the distributors, but unfortunately we’re not allowed to make this advanced knowledge public. No, I don’t know why either. Especially since you can now go to an awesome site like The Projection List which will not only tell you exactly when a movie is being released in cinemas, but even do the same for VOD and direct-to-TV releases as well as TV series episodes, and even when a movie’s trailer will be coming out.
- After this year’s Oscar nominations were revealed, most of the internet – including us – were asking how the Academy could not have given The LEGO Movie the nod. I mean, honestly, what the hell were they thinking? And now that I’ve clumsily thrown down that segue, here’s the Honest Trailer for LEGO Movie, where instead of “awesome” everything is something else!
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: February 6, 2015
