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Stuff You Need to Know, Tuesday, September 9, 2008

  • Blue Man Group is going for Imax 3-D screens with their first feature. The original Blue Men (Matt Goldman, Chris Wink and Phil Stanton) are on board with production to start next June and it being released a year later. Here’s an interesting bit that Goldman revealed: “Back in Katzenberg’s day at Disney, they actually assigned Frank Oz to work with us. We just couldn’t figure it out. It’s a hard medium when you don’t talk.” Would love to see what they were able to come up with, Blue Men and Oz… Source: Variety.

    We can probably expect some of this madness, but coming right at you!!:

    Direct link for the feedreaders.

  • New word on the Ghostbusters 3 front…check out my brief history of Ghostbusters 3 post, which I’ve updated to reflect Ramis’ statement confirming things.
  • Lawsuits happen all the time and unless there’s some hemming and hawing about it, I don’t mention them here because they don’t affect you and thus you don’t “need to know” about them. But since this was brought up at one of our panels: J. K. Rowling has won her Harry Potter Lexicon lawsuit and an injunction has been placed against the publication. Source: Hollywood Reporter.
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  • More cast attached to Howl, the Allen Ginsberg biopic we mentioned previously. For the 50th anniversary of the titular poem, the film is being made around the obscenity trial that was launched against it. Alan Alda will be playing Judge Clayton Horn, Jeff Daniels will play witness for the prosecution Prof. David Kirk, Mary-Louise Parker will play witness for the prosecution Gail Potter, Paul Rudd will play witness for the defense Luther Nichols, and David Strathairn will play prosecuting attorney Ralph McIntosh. Nice cast. The Hollywood Reporter article also states: “Graphic novelist and Ginsberg collaborator Eric Drooker will create an animated reimagining of ‘Howl’ (in segments Epstein describes as ‘a Beat Fantasia’) and Carter Burwell will write the original score.” I think we need a new 700 project. 700 Fantasias, all short films of various and sundry genres. Zombie Fantasia springs to mind, for example.
  • Killing Jar will star Michael Madsen, Danny Trejo, and the woefully underutilized Harold Perrineau, who will also executive produce the project. It’s “about a stranger armed with a shotgun who takes seven patrons hostage at a remote roadside diner. As the body count rises, the survivors discover that one of the hostages might be more dangerous than their captor.” Which means that probably Trejo will be the guy with the shotgun, because of the two remaining cast members (since Harold is playing a traveling salesman), Madsen is the least obvious-looking dangerous guy. Now what would be hilarious is if the other five patrons turn out to be played by Dennis Hopper, Robert DeNiro, Ray Park, Gary Oldman and Mickey Rourke. If that happens, then all bets are off. Source: Hollywood Reporter.
  • Want to know what the upcoming Knight Rider series has in store for you? No? Me neither, but here it is anyway from Gary Scott Thompson, the executive producer. “Why would you put artificial intelligence into a car? That’s the question we asked ourselves, and it has a bigger answer. The idea is KITT — without giving away too much, KITT is learning, and KITT is learning until we find out what KITT is ultimately learning for.” Great, so KITT has to have some kind of weird possibly darker motive rather than just being, you know, KITT. Yawn. Let the betting pool for how many episodes it lasts commence. I say six. Who else is in? Source: Variety.
  • Looking forward to Little Britain USA? Me too, actually. It debuts on HBO on Sunday, September 28th at 11:30PM EST.

    Direct link for the feedreaders.

  • Muppets are back with another television special that makes us afeared. Kermit and the crew inadvertently sabotage the delivery of three letters to Santa and so they have to work to get the kids covered Xmas wish-wise. The title of the special is Letters to Santa — A Muppets Christmas. Joining the Lords of Felt are Whoopi Goldberg, Richard Griffiths (Harry Potter) and others. Paul Williams will be creating songs for the special. Source: Hollywood Reporter.
  • Paper Man is the project that Kieran and Michele Mulroney have scribed and will helm, starring Jeff Daniels, Ryan Reynolds and Lisa Kudrow. Production starts November 12th. Why should you care? The Mulroneys also scribed that Justice League film which, in my opinion, will never, ever happen. Source: Variety.
  • Will Smith will play The Last Pharaoh, a film that is not, I repeat, not a prequel to The Last Samurai. Smith will be Taharqa, the Egyptian ruler who went up against Assyrian invaders. Randall Wallace (last seen desecrating Atlas Shrugged) will scribe. Source: Variety.
  • I really like Dwayne Johnson, aka “The Rock.” I think he has potential to do great things on screen. But I think he’s had some bad choices for projects. Get Smart was a rare good choice. However, The Tooth Fairy gives me pause. He plays a hockey player whose nickname is “Tooth Fairy” because he smacks teeth from the mouths of the opposing team. But, as The Hollywood Reporter explains the premise, in the film “When he discourages a youngster’s hope, Derek is ordered to one week’s hard labor as a real tooth fairy, complete with wings, magic wand and frilly tutu. Along the way, he rediscovers his forgotten dreams.” Even though Julie Andrews is probably going to rock the house as a supervising Tooth Fairy (can you see her doing anything but that–I mean seriously), I fear that he may sucked into the family film vortex. Consider The Game Plan made almost $150M worldwide. Which was…yes, his best recent film not counting Get Smart, and only slightly surpassed by Scorpion King which did $165M. Not that there’s anything wrong with making money in family films, it’s just we could use a new action guy, you know? Jason Statham can only do 45 films a year.