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!
- Let’s kick things off today with some bad news!…Man I suck at this. Anyway! A new Harry Potter spin-off flick is on the way, that will be based on the book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. A film deal was already a lock as soon as the book was announced, with none other than gravity helmer Alfonso Cuaron rumoured for a return to the Wizarding world. But it looks like Cuaron won’t be hopping onto platform 9 and 3/4, as he explained to the Global Post:
I have a lot of love for that universe, and I tremendously admire J.K. Rowling, but today, for the present, projects based around lots of visual effects don’t attract me. I’m coming out of a five-year process of doing visual effects and now I sort of want to clean my palate of that a little bit.
Accio bummer dude.
- After two hit films and a TV landscape that has changed considerably in recent years, it’s pretty damn odd that Star Trek has not returned to that smaller screen frontier. The last such series that we saw was Star Trek: Enterprise, before it hit warp factor hiatus and rocketed into the cancelled territories. This wasn’t the first time that Star Trek had been in trouble however, with the follow-up series to the classic original series, The Next Generation, almost never happening.
And before we were introduced to Jean Luc Picard, there was a very different show being developed, called Star Trek Phase II. Paramount began working on the new series in 1977, eventually dumping it to make Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Check out some of the concept art for the series that almost was, number one.
- Oh I just can’t wait to be king! And if Disney had agreed to my version of The Lion King, Scar would have throttled that little sh** in his sleep before deploying his crack commando squad of hyenas to attack the Mufasa family. Still, Disney villains will be seen on the big screen soon, and I’m not talking about Maleficent. The upcoming music The Descendants, happens to be all about villains, or at least their offspring, getting a chance to choose a different path in life. So far, the characters of this flick include the kids of Sleeping Beauty‘s Maleficent, Aladdin‘s Jafar, Snow White‘s Evil Queen and 101 Dalmatians’ Cruella de Vil.
So who’s playing who then? Kristin Chenoweth was recently cast as Maleficent, while comedian Maz Jobrani is Jafar, whose son Jay is played by X-Men: Days of Future Past co-star Booboo Stewart. Sister Act actress Kathy Najimy is the Evil Queen and her daughter Evie is a newcomer named Sofia Carson. Steve Harvey Show star Wendy Raquel Robinson is Cruella de Vil and her son is named Carlos and will be played by Disney Channel star Cameron Boyce.
- Poster of the day:
- When it comes to special effects that you can actually touch, Rick Baker has to be one of the best guys in the business. Way back in the previous century, Steven Spielberg churned out another hit with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Nataurally, parent company Columbia Pictures wanted a sequel, which Spielberg was hesitant to do. Eventually he relented, getting to work on a much darker sequel that would have some horror as well, which was called Watch the Skies, and then Night Skies.
Rick Baker was brought on board to create the aliens, with several concepts eventually working their way into ET The Extraterrestrial. From Baker’s Twitter feed, you can see for yourself:
The funny thing is, is that Kervyn has been telling me that these happen to be his baby pictures of when he was a lad.
- I’ve yet to see Snow White and the Huntsman, most likely because I couldn’t give a single flying toss about the film. I’m certain that there’s plenty wrong with the movie though, as Cinema Sins is all too eager to point this out as well.
- Well get my Gibson out of the cupboard and dust off the amp, because it’s time for a Jimi Hendrix movie! Or at least another one. While Andre Benjamin is still busy portraying the late guitar god in his upcoming biopic, it looks like another film is on the way. And this one has an actor who can truly soar. Anthony Mackie, a name that you might remember from the recent Captain America sequel, is now on board for a second Hendrix biopic which will be called Jimi.
Detailing the final nine days of Hendrix’s life, the project also has Noomi Rapace as confindant and lover, Kathy Etchingham, and Thandie Newton.
- So who would really win in a fight between Batman and Superman? If you’re a comic book reader, you’d instantly shout Batman and then proceed to bury anyone who says different with about twenty years worth of examples of Bruce Wayne absolutely owning the most powerful man on the planet with a combination of smarts, preparedness and gadgets. Or you could just watch this video from The Verge, and make up your own mind:
- What happens when you combine the themes of Game of Thrones and The Dark Knight? Pure win, that’s what.
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 27, 2014
Lardus-Resident Perve
May 29, 2014 at 21:30
Wow, that Batman/Superman clip was a total waste of time! We all know that Batman wins, I have the footage to prove it!