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!
- In HBO’s True Blood, the little town of Bon Temps is a geographical electromagnet for every single piece of weird and crazy out there. It’s a place tourists should probably avoid unless they want to be fed to naked proto-vampire goddesses (which is a lot worse than it sounds), but to the inhabitants, it’s just a place where everybody knows your name.
- Sony’s Spider-Man franchise is looking everything but amazing at the moment. Amazing Spider-Man 2 was the worst reviewed, and the least commercially successful of all the Spider-Man movies (yes, even worse that Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3) and that may just have thrown a massive spider in the ointment for Sony’s future plans. Banking on a billion dollar performance from ASM2 , they were just setting up spinoffs and sequels, but now there are some rumblings that don’t sound good.
Some rumours popped up recently that Amazing Spider-Man 3 has been pushed back from 2016 to 2017, and that’s been given a lot of credence by screenwriter Roberto Orci admitting that not only is he no longer on penning duties for the third film, but that Sony’s once-set game plan seems to have been thrown completely out of whack for now.
“I don’t know what their plans are for that franchise. I don’t ever want to say never, but we have to figure out what their scheduling is in terms of when they want each movie. I’ve read probably as much as anyone else. There’s a love for the Sinister Six, the idea of Venom — there’s an idea of Spider-Man’s going to be one of these characters that’s part of our business. He’s such a popular character. Spider-Man’s not going to go away any time soon. When it all happens and how and all that has yet to be determined.”
- Poster of the day: Chinatown
- Kul jou hier, kul jou daar, en SIEDAAR! Looks like there’s smoke and mirrors trickery happening behind the scenes of Constantine, NBC’s upcoming adaptation of the long running magical comic book. The show’s female lead, Liv (Lucy Griffiths), which was a character created specifically for the TV series, will be written out after of the show just two episodes and will be replaced by Mary “Zed” Martin (Angelica Celaya), John Constantine’s frequent lover in the comic books and with whom he’s had some tumultuous history. Producer Daniel Cerrone explained that while “Liv is a great character, she’s wide-eyed, she’s reactive, we felt a bit hamstrung by her, frankly.”
Co-producer/writer David S. Goyer went on to reveal that contrary to previous doubts, one of Constantine’s trademark character traits, his smoking, will actually be in the show, but just not to the extent that some fans may want, saying that “He is a smoker in the show, we’re not shying away from it, but we’re not glorifying it.”
Cerrone added to that, explaining the reasons why:
“[NBC] are beholden to broadcast standards too. We know the universe that we’re existing within — we heard plenty of pitches like ‘let’s give him a patch or have him chew a lot of gum,’” but the producers decided that seeing him stubbing out a cigarette was more authentic to the character.
One aspect of the character that you shouldn’t expect to see at all though, is Constantine’s bisexuality, which has been mentioned a few times in the comic’s past, but which Goyer and Cerrone have no current plans to bring to his TV counterpart.
- You guys can stop competing now. The internet has already been won for the day, thanks to an awesome dad who built his son this geektastic Lego Boba Fett costume.
- According to True Detective creator/writer Nic Pizollato, unless you see him make an official statement about it, you should treat all True Detective season 2 news as complete balderdash. So despite the fact that Deadline, The Daily Beast and The Wrap are all reporting that Colin Farrel is currently in talks to star in the next season of the hit HBO anthology drama, you should probably not get excited yet, even though you really really want to. You especially shouldn’t get pumped for added report that Taylor Kitsch is being looked at to star as possibye Farrell’s younger partner.
- If you, like our James, were not a fan of Jose Padilha’s recent remake of Paul Verhoeven’s 80’s classic Robocop, then you should perhaps check out Our Robocop Remake, a communty-driven reimagining of the original whose tagline is the brilliant “Because if anybody is going to ruin Robocop, it should be us”.
- The only constant is change, especially when it comes to words. The meaning of certain words have changed over time to the point where certain phrases, which may have originally been very ubiquitous, now have a completely different meaning (Except the word “Darryn” though, that will always mean “He who is a twonk”). Two such changed modern words are “gay” and “queer”, which definitely have a different meaning today then when they were used in some classic movies, as this video from JoBlo demonstrates.
- Did the news from last year that Jon “Iron Man” Favreau would be directing a TV adaptation of Terry Brook’s best selling Sword of Shannarra fantasy series get you jumping on your cough with glee? Well, then you may need to stop boucing around, as I have some bad news… and some good news (so maybe just hop on one leg?). Starting with the good, MTV has officially ordered a 10 episode first season for the show. Bad news, Favreau will still be exec-producing but will no longer be directing any of the episodes due to scheduling conflicts. To replace him, ex-Saffer Jonathan Libesmann, who directs the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and also helmed Battle L.A., will be directing the show’s first two episodes and will be co-producing with Favreau.
As Brooks’ bookshelf bending saga – which is set in a thousands of year off, post-civilization version of our world in which magic is real again – is now cracking the 25 books mark, the show won’t be able to cover every single thing, which is why these 10 episodes are set be looking at the fan-favourite 2nd book, The Elfstone of Shannarra, as their source.
- If you’re a terrible South African like me and still haven’t seen the Oscar nominated Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom yet, then this week is the perfect opportunity. On Nelson Mandela Day, 18 July, The Nelson Mandela Foundation and Ster Kinekor will be presenting a free screening of the film across the country.
The screening will take place at 09:45 at the following select cinemas: Blueroute, Bridge, Brooklyn, Carlton, Carnival City, Cavendish, Cresta, Eastgate, Festival Mall, Gateway, Greenstone, Mall Of The North, Maponya, Mimosa, Mooi Rivier, Musgrave, N1 City, Northgate, Northmead, Parow, Promenade Mall, Riversquare, Rustenburg, Sandton, Secunda, Shelly Beach, Southgate, Sterland, Westgate, Wonderpark, Zone@Rosebank.
- While overall I really enjoyed Godzilla, it was definitely not without its faults. Faults that could have been so easily corrected if director Gareth Edwards and co had only retroactively followed the advice laid out in this clip. Also, maybe contact Superman.
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: July 14, 2014
