Home Entertainment Extras! The Rock confirms Lobo role, Daniel Radcliffe gets horny, Jessica Biel could be Viper, Godzilla's back, Emotional Firefly reunion, After Earth there's Facebook, Neil Blomkamp discusses District 9 sequel, and Thomas Jane made another Punisher movie?! Plus much more!

Extras! The Rock confirms Lobo role, Daniel Radcliffe gets horny, Jessica Biel could be Viper, Godzilla's back, Emotional Firefly reunion, After Earth there's Facebook, Neil Blomkamp discusses District 9 sequel, and Thomas Jane made another Punisher movie?! Plus much more!

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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!

If there was ever any doubt to his status as a living pop culture deity, Joss Whedon swept all of that aside this weekend. Long worshiped as a god by my fellow geeks, the mainstream has finally embraced him after the ridiculous success of The Avengers. But it was’t the big box office smash hit that brought Whedon back to Comic-Con this year, instead it was a tribute to those fans that never stopped believing in the man, as he assembled most of the cast of his cult-favourite TV series Firefly for a 10-Year Reunion panel. (Yes, it’s actually been 10 years since Firefly was unceremoniously pulled from the air by FOX!) The result was an emotionally charged event, for both those on the stage and for the people gathered in front of it, that was hailed by many as one of the biggest highlights of the 2012 convention. And now thanks to AICN, we can view all 53 minutes of it.

I’ll be honest. Seeing Nathan Fillion and Summer Glau bawling it up on stage in appreciation of both Whedon and the fans, tested every particle of my manly resolve.

If you’ve ever wanted to add the original Star Trek film series to your collection, then today is your lucky day. Amazon currently have the entire Star Trek Motion Picture Blu Ray Collection at 60% off. Beam up my wallet, Scotty!

I’m guessing that quite a few of you watched The Amazing Spider-Man this past weekend and could finally catch up to us lucky few who saw the preview screening. Because of that, I’d like to activate my Blatant Self-Promotion mode now and remind you of the article I wrote last week, asking “Exactly What Happened To Amazing Spider-Man’s Promised Untold Story?

It puts my initial review in a bit of a new light, as I was most critical of the fact that after so many promises to the contrary, the film essentially just rehashed the Sam Raimi origin story. But it could be that what we saw on screen was not quite what the director intended.

On Friday a story popped up on Deadline indicating that Jessica Biel had very likely landed the role of the very seductive and villainous Viper in The Volver– I mean, The Wolverine. However, as Biel revealed at Comic Con on Sunday, she was just talking to director James Mangold, and nothing was finalized yet.

Did you know that 1000 years in the future, we’ll still be using Facebook? At least that’s what M. Night Shymalan would have us believe based on this new viral teaser for his Will and Jaden Smith sci-fi adventure After Earth.

Daniel Radcliffe is taking over from Shia Lebeouf as the lead in Piranha 3D director Alexanda Aja’s Horns. An adaptation of Stephen King’s son Joe Hill’s novel of the same name, the story sounds positively mental:

“The story follows a 26-year-old man who wakes up after a nasty hangover to find that his girlfriend has been raped and murdered, and he’s the lead suspect. Not only that, he discovers horns growing out of his head that grant him the power to make people confess their sins, which comes in handy as he searches for his girlfriend’s killer and prepares for revenge.”

Yeah, I’m calling shrooms on this one.

As some of you may know, we actually have Neil Blomkamp and Peter Jackson’s failed attempt at a Halo movie to thank for District 9. Since then, the two acclaimed directors haven’t worked on anything again. However, speaking exclusively to The Playlist, Blomkamp revealed that there’s only really one project on which he would like to team up with Jackson again:

“The obvious place to work with him again is on ‘District 10,’ or ‘District 8,‘ whatever you wanna call it, however, I’m not sure I’m making that film. It would be cool, but these films take two or three years to make, and the investments are so extreme, you can’t accurately predict where you’ll be a few years from now, I believe. If you’re not creatively invested in it, you’re making a mistake, and that creative investment happens day to day. So I don’t know when that feeling for a ‘District Whatever’ film happens.”

You may recall that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson recently put out a very cryptic tweet about his involvement in an unnamed upcoming DC Comic movie. This led to huge speculation that he would be up for the title role in director Brad Peyton’s proposed live-action Lobo adaptation. This bit of deductive reason essentially boiled down to “Rock has muscles. Lobo has muscles. Therefore Rock = Lobo!” But when asked directly by a fan on Twitter this weekend past, The Rock was strangely revelatory:

Note the word “possibly” though, which probably means that he hasn’t quite signed on the dotted line yet.

Guillermo Del Toro says that after seeing how people responded to Ron Perlman’s incredible display of charity dressed up as Hellboy, that he has been inspired to make Hellboy 3.

Universal has acquired the rights to the late Robert Jordan’s long running Wheel of Time fantasy series. Their initial plan is to make this a 17 film series with about 11 spin-offs, with absolutely no end in sight. That last part may have been a lie. Maybe.

Monsters director Gareth Edwards debuted a new teaser poster and some test footage at Comic-Con for his planned Godzilla remake. The footage panned over a wrecked cityscape with a monstrous figure lying amidst the carnage. The screen then cuts to black before suddenly showing the gigantic lizard in all his rampaging glory, roaring at the camera, and then promptly cut off again to reveal the poster.

Edwards then took to the stage to discuss his intentions with this remake:

“There’s nothing sci-fi. It’s very grounded and realistic. What would it be like if this all really happened?”

Realistic and grounded. Yeah, that’s exactly what first comes to mind when I think of a story about a 20-story tall lizard with really bad breath from too much Asian food.

There’s been talks of a film adaptation of Brian K Vaughn and Pia Guerrerra’s award winning comic, Y: The Last Man, with Shia Lebeouf and director DJ Caruso attached for what seems like forever now already. Personally, I’m of the opinion that if it should ever see a live action adaptation, it should be as a TV series, but since when has Hollywood ever listened to me? While the big screen project may currently be stagnating, some fans have taken it upon themselves to create their very own film version though. Hitting just a couple of the plot points of the early part of Vaughn’s story, it’s a 23 minute long introduction into his compelling world.

Unfortunately, I don’t think they got the casting or tone right for the two man characters, Yorick and Agent 355, but is still worth a look not only for its technical achievements but also as it shows the film/TV potential for the mysterious premise of every single male creature on the planet, human or animal, all simultaneously dropping dead except for one young man and his monkey.

Now for the Django Unchained casting news we’ve all been waiting for: Total Film has confirmed that Jamie Foxx’s horse, Cheetah, is indeed in the film.

And we end off today on a huge bang. I have a confession to make: I rather enjoyed Thomas Jane’s Punisher film. Yes, it wasn’t very comic-booky and had you changed the name, it could essentially have been any other revenge flick, but I’ve just loved Jane as an actor ever since I first saw him in Thursday, so I am a tad bit bias.

Jane was on hand during Comic-Con, but sitting in on the Indie Films panel, presumably talking about a Western he’s trying to get off the ground, when completely unexpectedly the actor revealed that he, director Phil Joanou (Entropy) and actor Ron Perlman had actually done a 10-minute long Punisher fan film, titled Dirty Laundry, complete with a new skull shirt courtesy of Punisher comic book artist Tim Bradstreet. And it’s good, really bloody good! Heavy emphasis on the “bloody” part!

“I wanted to make a fan film for a character I’ve always loved and believed in – a love letter to Frank Castle & his fans. It was an incredible experience with everyone on the project throwing in their time just for the fun of it. It’s been a blast to be a part of from start to finish — we hope the friends of Frank enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.” — Thomas Jane

With the Punisher film rights having reverted back to Marvel in 2011, I’d love to seem them take another crack at the character, and Jane would still be top of my list of actors to wear the skull.

Last Updated: July 16, 2012

14 Comments

  1. That short film just made my day. Thomas Jane, the ONLY Punisher, in my book.

    Reply

    • Erwin Kempff

      July 17, 2012 at 08:09

      WOOOOOOOT!!!!
      Epic video, my bloody goosebumps have goosebumps!!!!

      Reply

      • Kervyn Cloete

        July 17, 2012 at 08:12

        That’s the Punisher we’ve been waiting to see.

        Reply

    • James Francis

      July 17, 2012 at 08:15

      Really? I like Jane, but he’s a distant third from either Dolph Lundgren or Ray Stevenson – who gave the hands-down best portrayal of the Punisher. 

      Reply

      • Darryn_Bonthuys

        July 17, 2012 at 08:22

        You must be joking. The Dolph basically slurred his way through that original film after taking one too many steroids, while Stevenson portrayed the role as if he had just sharted himself.

        Jane was perfect, all rage and vengeance wrapped up in one clever, resourceful individual.

        Reply

        • Erwin Kempff

          July 17, 2012 at 08:27

          I’m with you on this one, I must have watched that DVD countless times, and still plan to do so again

          Reply

        • James Francis

          July 17, 2012 at 09:17

          Rage and vengeance is not enough. Many characters falls into that category. To transcend to the Punisher, you need a sense of brutality as well. Jane seemed reluctant to be what he was – Stevenson acted as if it was his duty. That is quintessentially The Punisher. 

          Lundgren perhaps missed the boat a little, but he was hands-down the Punisher with the most style, plus he also amped up the brutality. Jane was close-but-no-cigar. Were it not for Travolta chewing the scenery, that movie would have fallen quite short.

          But this is not a diss on Jane – I feel all three did great jobs. And Jane had the most epic Punisher battle – that with the blonde giant. 

          Reply

    • James Francis

      July 20, 2012 at 13:34

      I’m still of the opinion that the Thomas Jane movie was the weakest of the lot. But that short film (now that I’ve seen it) is hands-down the best piece of Punisher footage ever made. 

      Reply

  2. Erwin Kempff

    July 17, 2012 at 08:10

    After Earth teaser is also very cool!

    Reply

  3. James Francis

    July 17, 2012 at 08:16

    More Hellboy! I was just thinking that the other day – Golden Army wasn’t terrible, so why don’t we have a third Hellboy, yet shit like First Class sullies my viewing pleasure…

    Dunno about The Rock as Lobo. If anyone looked the part, it would be Jason Momoa.

    Reply

    • Kervyn Cloete

      July 17, 2012 at 09:40

      I’ve never been too much of a fan of the Hellboy films. They always looked good, which is par for the course for a Del Toro film, but they just lack something. If it wasn’t for Luke Goss’ character, Golden Army would have bored me to tears.

      First Class had style in spades, with characters that actually felt like they were more than just a collection of witty lines. 

      Reply

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