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Stuff: Mia Wasikowska in Wonderland

There’s no need to try and keep up with all this crap. We take everybody else’s hoohah-filled 500 word nonsense and distill it down to just the important bits for you. Enjoy.

  • Meet the new Alice in Wonderland: Mia Wasikowska. Tim Burton is doing a live-action/performance capture/digital 3-D version of Alice for Disney. Starts shooting in November. Folks worldwide might not recognize the name: she’s an Australian actress. Anyway, can Colleen Atwood please design the costumes, so at least if it goes off the Burton Deep End (like some films), it’ll still be nice to look at? Source: Hollywood Reporter.
  • When you have a problem and no one else can help and if you can’t find Derren Brown, you call…

  • We’re getting a new animated Batman. Called Batman: The Brave and the Bold, it’s going to try a more light-hearted take on the character, pairing him with other heroes. Of course, this will lead children to want to check out the comics that these characters hail from. And as we all know, those things aren’t fit for children to read.

    Direct link for the feedreaders.

    Actually, DC Comics aren’t fit for hardly anyone to read. With the exception of one…

    Ambush Bug Year None #1 cover art

    As we told you a while ago, Keith Giffen and the entire crew are back. And man, they’ve still got it. Hoo-goddamn-ray. Batman Source: io9.

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  • Captain Blood is being remade. Yes, the Errol Flynn pic. Phillip Noyce (Rabbit-Proof Fence) might be in the chair for Warner Brothers. So who steps into Flynn’s boots? If you did the whole set-it-in-a-modern-day-high-school motif, you could cast Shia LeBeouf. You might look at me like I’m crazy, but trust me: somebody proposed that at one step of the process. Source: Variety.
  • Good news for a change: The Fall is catching on. US$2 million in limited release. Go see Tarsem’s latest if it’s playing near you. Even if the film itself doesn’t latch onto you then the visuals themselves are worth the price of admission. Source: Variety.
  • Estelle Getty, mother on The Golden Girls, died at 84. She apparently had advanced dementia, so she’s doing a lot better now. I’m not saying that to be callous, it’s just true. Source: Hollywood Reporter.
  • Hairspray 2 in 2010–that’s the plan. John Waters has been tapped by New Line to write a sequel treatment for the movie version of the musical version of his movie. Got that? They’re trying to bring everybody back to Do That Again. You might ask why. I didn’t realize the first film–sorry–the first musical film–had done $200 million worldwide. That’s a big reason right there. Movie musicals are doing great business: look at Mamma Mia!, which has done $135 million worldwide as I write this. But here’s the key line from director Adam Shankman: “I never thought of musicals as franchises, but it certainly worked with High School Musical, and the idea of working with that cast again, and creating new material and music, is a dream come true.” Okay, if you’ve been paying attention to what I’ve been on about, you stopped the moment he said High School Musical. Why? Because I don’t even know how to calculate how much damn money that thing has made–but let’s just say that the third film is going to cinemas and not the small screen. That’s how much money Disney thinks it can make–and remember, Hollywood works with what it thinks it can make rather than what it makes. Source for Hairspray news: Variety.
  • Peter Berg is going to helm a Hercules movie based on the new comic from Radical Publishing. Where does that leave his Dune remake? Good question. Neither one appears to have a script yet. Source: Variety.
  • They seem to have misplaced Tony Jaa. While working on the sequel to Ong-Bak he sort of…walked away to meditate in the jungle, apparently. His first time helming, he’s been a bit stressed. So the guy’s been missing since June. I hope he’s okay, but I mean, seriously, who’s going to hurt the guy? His elbows are deadlier than most people armed with machine guns. They’re going to try and get the film finished even in his absence. Source: Variety.
  • Top Cow’s Magdalena is being made into a movie. Luke Goss is going to star. No, not as the title character, that would be Jenna Dewan. I’d just like to point out that what you’re seeing is that every comic book character under the sun is going to get a film “announced.” Some of them might even get actors attached. Directors. They might get start dates, even. But until the cameras roll, take it with a grain of salt. There are wheels within wheels and checks within checks. Anyway, two amusing things about this article: one, the character is described as a “hot, holy warrior” (which I just find amusing) and two, Goss is also in Tekken, which will make Frankie Boyle happy.
  • So they’re trying to relaunch Nightmare on Elm Street. “The plan is to have a dark tone,” the article says. You think? Wesley Strick is on board to scribe, and he gave us the deplorable Cape Fear remake as well as Doom. And did the Halloween “relaunch” perform well enough that this is a good idea? And how long until somebody decides to remake Humongous? Anyone placing any bets? Source: Hollywood Reporter.
  • Say goodbye to Nottingham…say goodbye, my ba-by… The Ridley Scott-directed, Russell Crowe-starring film has been put on hold and might not get started until next year. “Script concerns, location logistics and the current labor unrest all played a role in the decision.” So SAG strikes one down. Also, I love this: “The statement said that Universal, Imagine, Scott, and Crowe all remain committed to the project.” Which if you take that and run it through Babelfish to translate it into English, mysteriously, the result is blank. Source: Hollywood Reporter.

  • Hey, did you know that San Diego Comic-Con is now a big deal when it comes to Hollywood promoting their shit? What’s that? You did? Of course you did. The entertainment news puts out the same goddamn story every year about how Comic-Con is HUUUUGE and wow, look at Hollywood go. Dear Entertainment News Channels. On behalf of the world: WE KNOW ALREADY. EVERYONE KNOWS ALREADY. EVEN MY GRANDMOTHER. THEREFORE IT IS NOT NEWS. QUIT WASTING OUR GODDAMN TIME.
  • This year’s Winsor McCay Awards for “career contributions to the art of animation” go out to Mike Judge (King of the Hill), John Lasseter (Pixar head burrito) and Nick Park (Wallace and Gromit’s dad). They get their trophies at the Annie Awards in January. This is a nice diversity, covering claymation, computer animation, and animated fart jokes.
  • 1 comment

    • Not much I can comment on, High School Musical isn’t exactly my bag. I prefer my musicals to involve deranged barbers or less-deranged super-villains. Maybe zombie bollywood romance. But what little I have, I offer nonetheless.

      The new Batman doesn’t look bad, but let’s face it, we’re from the Batman: Animated Series generation, and there’s no going back. When you mentioned Batman comics not being safe for children, my first thought was All-Star Batman and Robin. And I quote: “What are you, dense? You retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I AM? I’m the Goddamned BATMAN.” He is also a pedophile. Nice one, Frank Miller.

      Tony Jaa is, as we speak, taking down a large group of cougars with his bare hands. When they learn to fear him, he will move on.

      Well, Doom 3 had a surprisingly unique and thorough plot to it, and was subsequently butched in the game-to-movie translation. (Changing your enemy from the innumerable legions of Hell to a chromosome will do that.) So maybe, just maybe, the inverse also holds true, and Elm Street’s complete lack of storyline will be its’ ultimate victory. Or we’ll get shlock. Either way.