Extras! 12 May 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!

• As you may have heard, there’s a chance that the new Star Wars movie will be called Star Wars: Episode VII – The Ancient Fear. If that title is making you feel all sorts of disturbances through the Force, then perhaps you’ll like a couple of these alternate titles suggested by Conan O’Brien.

• Those giant cat/Smurf hybrid space-people sure do know how to keep people around. Sigourney Weaver, whose character contracted a mild case of death in James Cameron’s record breaking Avatar, has not only confirmed that she will be around Avatar 2, 3 & 4, but that her character will also be transforming somehow.

“It will be challenging for me. I can’t talk about it, but my part is a little different in each one. I’ll transform somewhat.”

My money is on her being actually being a yellow Camaro. She also seems pretty keen on Cameron’s idea of shooting all three sequels back to back.

“It’s going to be an adventure! It will be awesome. I can’t even imagine what I am taking on — and what James Cameron is taking on — with filming three Avatars at once, but Peter Jackson did it with the Hobbit films, so we have that to look to.”

• Posters of the Day: Wolfcop character poster and one-sheet

• Remember those early pics of Star Wars: Episode VII‘s Abu Dhabi set? Yeah, somebody probably gonna get a-hurt reaaaal bad for that. The leaked pics, which was apparently courtesy of a snap-happy, overeager crew member, has caused director JJ Abrams and co to seriously beef up security on the production so as to prevent any further details leaking out. Don’t worry though, there are apparently still plenty of crew members who don’t know how to shut up, as several (ONLY SLIGHTLY SPOILER-ISH) set descriptions have popped up online.

• If you had any hope that streaming service Netflix would swoop in to rescue recently cancelled fan favourite series Community, like they did with Arrested Development, well then I’m here to kick your hope in the nads. Despite an online fan campaign, Netflix has revealed that there’s no plan to pick up the meta-comedy, something has also been confirmed by showrunner/creator Dan Harmon.

• And if that piece of terrible news doesn’t turn your heart blacker than a diesel mechanic’s fingernails, then allow me to introduce you to “Unhappily Ever After”, a new series by animation storyboard artist Jeff Hong, it details the rather horrible lives several Disney characters would probably lead if they were living in the real world.

• The brilliance of long-running British sci-fi show Doctor Who is that due to it’s concept the characters can go anywhere and do anything. And now they’re going to go to a badly decorated set with a shady couch to do each other, as a new porn parody of the show, Doctor Whore, has just been announced. Expect mandatory “bigger on the inside” jokes.

• The Call of Duty video game franchise has pilfered a lot from blockbuster movies, and now its time for blockbuster movies to return the favour. Will Staples, who penned the script to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, has been tapped write the upcoming Mission: Impossible 5, which will see star Tom Cruise teaming up with his Jack Reacher director Chris McQuarrie again. In other words, the explosion quota on the next movie just went waaaaaaaaay up.

• I still have not seen Frozen yet. Yes, I know, I know. I will get around to it eventually, but I’m just putting it off for now because it just looks so scary!

• Star Trek Into Darkness was a definite step backwards from its unexpectedly fun predecessor, and while director JJ “Lens-Flairs-R-Us” Abrams, takes a lot of flak for some of the film’s worse moments, a lot of that blame should actually be lain at the feet of screenwriter Roberto Orci. So of course, because this is the way the world works, Roberto Orci is now apparently in early negotiation to make his directorial debut on the big budget Star Trek 3. Of course.

• Here’s a newly released photo from FOX’s upcoming Batman prequel series Gotham, which boasts the entire principal cast, as well as several easter eggs. See how many you can spot, and mention them in the comments. The person with the most wins a one hundred of kind, erotic photo of Darryn which he will send to you on MXit.

• Warts and all, there’s no denying the impact Lost had. And to this day there are still people praising/defending/eviscerating/missing the show on a daily basis. I was a gigantic Lost fanboy back in the day, but even I have to admit that the show had several missteps. Know who kind of agrees with me – well, besides millions of other people out there? Damon Lindelof, the guy who is actually responsible for a lot of those missteps. With this being the show’s 10-year anniversary, the screenwriter spoke to Esquire about it, and was very candid about things they did wrong – some of which added to the show’s mythology in some way, while others were just plain turds.
  

“We did 121 hours of Lost. Arguably only 15 to 20 of them were subpar, bordering on turds. It would be great to pretend those episodes never happened, but I love the fact that we’re still talking about Nikki and Paulo. Sometimes the mistake, the thing that wasn’t good, is the thing that’s really part of the legacy of a show like ours.”

“I mean, I think the episode where Jack gets his tattoos in Thailand. I think it’s cringe-worthy, where he’s flying the kite on the beach. It was not our finest hour. We used Matthew Fox’s real tattoos. That’s how desperate we were for flashback stories.

That story became really instrumental in convincing ABC that we needed to end the show. We were like, “Okay, if  this is what flashbacks look like now so it’s probably a good idea if we figure out how much longer this show is actually going to go.”

• If you’re up to date with your Game of Thrones watching, then you should know that everybody’s favourite little person with big heart, Tyrion Lannister, will soon be standing trial for a certain spoiler-ific murder. The trial was always going to be something of a farce, I just never expected it to be this hilarious!
  

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: May 12, 2014