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!
You may have seen yesterday’s trailer for Brad Pitt zombiepalooza, World War Z, but you didn’t see it like this. American late night TV talk show host and funnyman Jimmy Fallon re-recorded the trailer using a voiceover from veteran comedy personality Pee Wee Herman to replace all the dialogue.
Geoffroy Sardin,videogame publisher Ubisoft’s chief sales and marketing officer, was speaking to GamesIndustry about their Assassin’s Creed franchise when he let drop a rather important bit of information about the film adaptation, which is being produced and starred in by Michael Fassbender.
“Another thing that is very important for the life cycle is the transmedia offer. All the figurines, the books, the publishing, and we have a movie in the next coming year. So it’s not only about games, we are talking about a global brand, and this is the life cycle management we want to set up now.”
Say what, now? The movie is coming out next year? Either Mr Sardin is a bit confused/ambitious about the time frames (likely, seeing as there’s been no other cast, script, director news for the project), or Fassbender’s 2013 is about to become as full as his underpants.
Marc Webb, the puntastic director of Amazing Spider-Man, has been hitting the twitters as part of the promotion for retail store Target for the film’s upcoming home release, and answered a couple questions about the sequel. He was asked confirm the casting of Shailene Woodley as MJ, whether the sequel would have more action, the changes to Spidey’s costume and exactly how much input he has on a scripting level. Here are his answers:
@MarcW: “@MEWFan1 @shailenewoodley YES! She’s the jam – love her, look forward to working with her in ASM2.”
@MarcW: “@RichardWozniak Yes. Bigger eyes. Gnarly web shooters.”
@MarcW: “@GeekDad248 a12 Work with writers daily until they start throwing food at me. Fave part of work espec. when its pasta.”
Here’s a new poster for Warm Bodies, the zombie romantic comedy (zomromcom) that went from “WTF” to “Whoo-Hoo” for me with the release of its first trailer yesterday.
Since sliding into the director’s chair with Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck has made some masterful movies. Well, the Argo director is now going to make that official, as he’ll be receiving the Santa Barbara Film Fest’s highest honour in January, when he’ll be crowned a Modern Master at the event’s 28th anniversary. Previous recipients of this award have been names like Christopher Nolan, Clint Eastwood, Sean Penn, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, George Clooney and Sir Anthony Hopkins among others. Hopefully this will finally erase the shame of Gigli and Daredevil. On second thought, the only thing that could that would be a Mayan apocalypse.
You may have noticed that was a decidely more sombre tone to the Man of Steel teaser trailer. Not much underwear on the outside goofball shenanigans, that’s for sure. This gritty realism of course goes against the Big Blue Boy Scout persona that Superman has endured for the 80 years, something which director Zack Snyder is aware of, as he explained to LA Times.
“It’s a more serious version of Superman. It’s not like a heart attack. We took the mythology seriously. We take him as a character seriously. I believe the movie would appeal to anyone. I think that you’re going to see a Superman you’ve never seen before. We approached it as though no other films had been made. He’s the king-daddy. Honestly that’s why I wanted to do it. I’m interested in Superman because he’s the father of all superheroes. He’s this amazing ambassador for all superheroes. What was it about him that cracked the code that made pop culture embrace this other mythology? What we‘ve made as a film not only examines that but is also an amazing adventure story. It’s been an honor to work on. As a comic book fan, Superman is like the Rosetta Stone of all superheroes. I wanted to be sure the movie treated it respectfully.”
I don’t know. This is a very slippery slope for me. While I do think that a little bit of modernization of Superman is not too bad a thing, too much though and you’ll be losing everything that made Superman special. I don’t want Batman in a cape with superpowers.
Some new on-set pics of Chris Hemsworth doing his “Stop! Hammer time!” act as heroic god Thor has popped up online. Not much is revealed story-wise by the images, but if cool action poses are your thing, then you may want to check them out.
Chloe Moretz chatted to CBR about her lead role in the new Carrie film. Among a plethora of topics, she also she spoke about her attraction to dark characters, first in Let Me In, then Kick-Ass and now this:
“Well you know, what really attracts me to darker material is that I don’t like playing really light characters, in the sense that I don’t like playing characters that are more like me. Because I have a good life, I have a really supportive mother, I have a great family – and that type of stuff is just kind of boring for me. I like playing characters that really stretch me and really make me feel something I’ve never felt before, and make me express feelings I’ve never expressed before. It’s not exactly just going for a genre, and it just happens to fall into the darker region.”
She also elaborated on whether her version of Carrie would be hewing towards the more “wide-eyed” victim version in Brian De Palma’s 1976 film or the more “aggressive” Carrie found in Stephen King’s original novel:
“It’s in the middle. What I really wanted to show with my character is that she wasn’t naive to the point of stupidity. She understood everything that was going on around her to the point that she over-comprehended what people were saying to her. What happens with Carrie is that every bad that is put out towards her, she takes it in more than people even realize. And she grows stronger and harder, and then at that prom it breaks down. And that’s when everything she’s kept together, everything that she’s kept contained from her mother, her peers, her teachers, everyone around her – it unfolds. The telekinesis takes whatever is your strongest feeling at the moment and it multiplies it by a thousand. And that’s why it comes out like that.”
Check out the full interview over here.
There’s a rumour brewing over in London Town that could be quite the gamechanger for Star Wars fans. Currently, there’s not a single other source corroborating this story, and UK tabloids are infamous for incorrectly reporting early movie rumours, which is why you should treat this with a Corsa bakkie full of salt, but according to the sources of the The Daily Express, Darth Vader will be returning for the new Star Wars trilogy.
“He’s an integral part of the franchise. Replacing him is virtually impossible. The plan is for him to return and play a significant role in the new films.”
“This is science fiction, remember. Darth Vader will rise from the ashes.”
Now the previous two trilogies were essentially Vader’s story of love and redemption, so I can see why some would want this rumour to be true, especially since Vader is it’s most recognizable and bankable character. And it’s not as if there isn’t precedent either – the Emperor was brought back to life via cloning in the Dark Empire Expanded Universe tale. But to me, this rumour sounds like nothing but fanboy baiting. Anakin got the send off that Lucas wanted him to have, “Nooooooooooo!” and all. There’s no reason to resurrect him when for all intents and purposes it looks like Disney and Lucasfilm will be using this new trilogy to kickstart a brand new chapter in the saga.
I hope.
Rolling Stone have unveiled the new end-credits song for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey performed by Crowded House frontman Neil Finn. While the song is no “May it be” or “Aniron” it is still pretty good, and especially captures that more rustic, almost drinking song feel, something which Finn deliberately aimed for as he revealed that director Peter Jackson asked him to get into “a dwarven state of mind”.
‘The Song of the Lonely Mountain’ was developed from a dark and mysterious theme which the dwarves sing early in the movie… After some days of mining underground (actually, in Peters office) I emerged with the song, then set about recording it with my sons Elroy and Liam. Dave Fridmann came in at the end with a bold mix. He seemed to respond well to my demands for ‘more anvil!’ Pop music needs more anvil!”
More anvil? I smell a meme brewing. Here’s the song for you to give listen to and make up your own mind.
Last Updated: November 13, 2012
