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!
- Sultry screen siren of Hollywood’s golden age, Lauren Bacall, has died at the age of 89. The smoky voiced actresses, who shot to fame in roles opposite her soon-to-be husband Humphry Bogart in the 1940’s, passed away at her home in Manhattan of a suspected stroke. Born Betty Joan Perske, the blonde screen legend had a 70 year career consisting of movies such as The Big Sleep, To Have and Have Not and The Mirror Has Two Faces, the latter of which netted her an Oscar nomination in 1997. The Academy also recognized her with a Lifetime Achievement award in 2009, while she also won two Tony awards for her work on stage.
- Everybody needs to start somewhere before they become famous (which is why we keep Nick around as our pet offic-monkey), and these rare celebrity audition tapes show just where some of the most famous people in Hollywood began.
- HBO and Bad Robot’s Westworld TV series pilot has already gathered one hell of a cast, but there was one role – the main gunslinging robot portrayed with cold brutality by Yul Brenner in the 1973 original film – that has remained vacant. Until now. Ed Harris has been cast to play The Man in Black, described as “the distillation of pure villainy into one man”. He’s joining Anthony Hopkins, Evan Rachel Wood, Jeffrey Wright, Rodrigo Santoro, James Marsden, Shannon Woodward, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal and more.
- Poster of the day: A Royal Hangover
- Not only does Dexter know how to kill things, he can apparently help revitalize them as well. Michael C. Hall has been cast as the lead in the unproduced Stanley Kubrick feature script, God Fearing Man, which is now being developed as a mini-series by Entertainment One. The movie turned mini-series tells “the true story of Canadian minister Herbert Emerson Wilson, who went on to become one of the best safecrackers and most successful American bank robbers in the early 20th century”.
- Legendary director, producer and B-Movie King Roger Corman recently issued a challenge to the folks at CinemaSins to set their nitpicking sights on one of his productions, and this week they obliged him with a video showing off Everything Wrong With Death Race 2000.
- If there’s one aspect of Guardians of the Galaxy that I loved (besides the characters, dialogue, jokes, sci-fi ideas, visual effects… ok I pretty much liked it all) was that although the film used tons of CGI, it still boasted plenty of practical makeup effects. The man behind that makeup wizardry is David White, and now you can have a look at his handiwork.
- Do you have your own crazy theory on how Game of Thrones could end one day? Well, there’s a chance your theory may just be right, as creator George R.R. Martin recently revealed that he’s seen fans online correctly guess the eventual conclusion of his series. And he’s not going to change it.
“I’ve been planting all these clues that the butler did it, then you’re halfway through a series and suddenly thousands of people have figured out that the butler did it, and then you say the chambermaid did it? No, you can’t do that.”
- Good news, Marshmellows! (which is apparently what these people really want to be called) It’s been revealed that the entire cast of Veronica Mars will be returning for the show’s meta spinoff web series, with most of them playing both themselves and their characters. Confused? Play It Again, Dick will see Ryan Hansen portraying a real-world version himself, trying to use his role on Veronica Mars as a stepping stone to getting a new detective drama off the ground. And during the course of the show we’ll see his old VM buds as both themselves and their characters from the show. Cleared up now?
- Speaking of Veronica Mars… Did you know that she’s also Mary Poppins? And that she’s not too happy about the minimum wage she’s getting for this second gig?
- Can I call ’em or what? It’s quite clear that the mystery of Peter Quill’s father will play quite a bit into Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and my hypothesis was that it will not be Emperor J’Son Quill as in the comics. Well, writer-director James Gunn has just confirmed that my guess was 100% on the money, just don’t expect an answer as to who Quill’s father really is.
“There have been a lot of documents passed around about who Peter Quill’s father is between a select two or three of us. That’s been part of the plan since the beginning, that’s something I had to work out before we shot the screenplay. We wanted to make sure Yondu’s place in everything made sense and it does, so it’s all very specific stuff. It’s definitely not the character who it is in the comics, I’ll say that much.”
As for that other father that features in the movie, Thanos (though his paternalism is probably not why you remember him), Gunn explained that he might show up in the sequel. Or might not. You know, whatever.
“He will show up if he helps our story and he will not show up at all if not. Thanos is not the most important thing in Guardians 2, that’s for damn sure. There’s the Guardians themselves and other threats the Guardians are going to be facing that are not Thanos. I think Thanos has been lonely for a long time. He can handle it. He’s used to his loneliness. He’s got some other kids out there. He’s got to look after them. Nebula’s probably the sweetest of them, which tells you what his kids are like…”
- There are a lot of people complaining about the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Every day we hear new gripes about how the characters have no personality, about how they rebooted origin story sucks, and about how their faces are just plain creepy. But I am willing to overlook all of that. What I cannot forgive though, are their f$@#ing potty-mouths!
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 13, 2014
