Source: latimesblog

‘DAYBREAKERS’ SHEDDING LIGHT ON THE SUBSIDERS

Patrick Kevin Day talked to Steven Boyle, the creature effects man behind “Daybreakers’” hordes of vampires, about the inspiration for the mutated Subsiders’ appearance. 

An Australian billboard showing the physical deterioration of a pretty young woman over two years of drug abuse inspired “Daybreakers” creature designer Steven Boyle to give the film’s badly mutated “Subsiders” vampires similar characteristics. “When people see the Subsiders, I wanted them to feel pity and disgust before they felt fear,” Boyle said. While some of the vampires got away with minimal makeup, performer Bryan Probets had to wear a full-body foam latex suit. Everything was covered except for the inside of his ears and the soles of his feet. 

Read more here…

Source: filmofilia

THREE NEW PERCY JACKSON POSTERS

We’ve got today for you three posters for the upcoming epic “Percy Jackson and The Olympains: The Lightening Thief “ featuring a look at Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman), Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and Grover Underwood (Brandon T. Jackson).

Percy Jackson synopsis: It’s the 21st century, but the gods of Mount Olympus and assorted monsters have walked out of the pages of high school student Percy Jackson’s Greek mythology texts and into his life. 

Read more here..

Source: slashfilm

IRON MAN 2 TO BE RELEASED IN IMAX

Entertainment and Paramount Pictures announced that the highly-anticipated action-adventure Iron Man 2, directed by Jon Favreau and starring Robert Downey, Jr., will be released to digital IMAX® theatres simultaneously with the film’s worldwide release on May 7, 2010. The film’s limited IMAX release will be digitally re-mastered into the image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience® with IMAX DMR® technology. Iron Man 2, the sequel to Marvel’s box office hit Iron Man, will be distributed by Paramount Pictures.

“The success of the first Iron Man movie catapulted the franchise from the comic books to theatre screens, and we’re excited that the IMAX format will offer fans an even more immersive way to experience the sequel,” said Tim Connors, Chief Operating Officer, Marvel Studios.

Read more here…

Source: beforeitsnews

LEGION: DIRECTOR ALREADY HAS TWO SEQUELS PLANNED

Although the action horror movie Legion doesn’t hit theaters until Jan. 22, director and co-writer Scott Stewart says he already has plans for two more films that could be done in very different genres — provided of course that the film does well.

Stewart co-wrote the script for Legion along with Peter Schink. But in a rare Hollywood case of keeping it in the family, the director also also co-wrote the four-issue comic book from which the film is based, Legion: Prophets with Tom Waltz for IDW Publishing. The comic which came out last November is considered a prequel to the film, and characters mentioned or referred to in the movie are fleshed out in the comic book. 

Read more here…

Source: gainsville

MOON AND OTHER SCI-FI FLICKS THAT DON’T TALK DOWN TO YOU

There are two different kinds of science-fiction movies. The more common variety are basically action movies set in space or the far-flung future. Because of the setting, these movies are considered sci-fi, although they have absolutely nothing to do with any discipline of science. This would include “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” “Terminator” and the like.

While some of these movies can be terrific, I rather prefer the other kind of sci-fi – what I like to call cerebral sci-fi.

In this type of movie, the ideas are what drives the story. While often set in the same fantastic locales of regular sci-fi, these films are rich with though-provoking concepts, using science and psychology to tell a story that inevitably deals with the nature of man. There can be special effects in cerebral sci-fi, but they don’t need elaborate effects because they have science (or something close to it, anyway).

Read more here…

The Subsiders in ‘Daybreakers’ were viciously ugly and evil looking. They were a stark contrast between their ‘healthier’ vampire brethren. They had to be in order to show the degenerative breakdown through the lack of sustenance.  One did feel pitiful and quite shocked at how they looked.  I gather the faint sulfur smell from the latex body suit helped with the actor’s portrayal of desperation. 

What do you think of the new Percy Jackson posters? I say…meh. They look a bit recycled.

What do you think of Iron Man 2 being released in Imax? I’m all for it.

If Legion is a great film, then bring on the sequels.  What do you think?

Moon was a fantastic movie. I need to review this film soon. It was intelligent and thought provoking. Sam Rockwell held his own, alone. Have you seen Moon? Do you agree with the article?

By Erin McCarthy at Popular Mechanics: How to Stop a Daybreakers-Style Vampire Epidemic

In Daybreakers, a bat bites a man and infects him with a disease that turns him into a bloodsucker. Within 10 years, only 5 percent of the human population is left. The remaining 95 percent of the people on earth now take their coffee with a healthy dose of human blood.

At least that’s what we think happened—Daybreakers, out Jan. 8, never explicitly states how the disease spread, saying only that “it started with a single bat.” Directors (and twins) Peter and Michael Spierig aren’t being specific, either. “I don’t want to get into it too much, because the whole story of what happened before might actually become a graphic novel,” Michael says. “It starts during a war, and it spreads through infection of war wounds and grew through soldiers returning home. That’s kind of how it evolved.”

Could real-life scientists stop a Daybreakers-style global outbreak without resorting to wooden stakes? “In this scenario, if you’re bitten, there’s close to 100 percent probability of becoming infected,” says Christopher Crnich, an infectious disease expert and faculty at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “There aren’t any infections out there with that level of transmission efficiency.”

Read More here

by Jeffrey Sullivan at the Celebrity Cafe:

Willem Dafoe Weighs In on “Twilight” vs. “Daybreakers”

Just in case you haven’t heard, vampires are the new fad to hit the teen scene. “Daybreakers” is the newest movie to capitalize on that trend, and film star Willem Dafoe said recently on MTV.com that “Daybreakers” actually predates the”Twilight” novels by about a year. Writer/directors for the movie, Michael and Peter Spierig, sold the script to Lionsgate in 2004, well before the first “Twilight” novel came out.

“Daybreakers” is a story in which vampires have completely taken over, spreading their bloodsucking nature to most of the world. But they have run into a major problem: they’re running out of humans and therefore their life source. If humans go extinct, then so do vampires.

“I thought the approach was really fresh,” he said in a recent MTV interview. “It’s such a well-established genre that usually people are doing takes on it. It’s very flexible, the vampire mythology, you can use it to serve lots of things. God knows it’s a great metaphor for talking abou everything from sex to romance to power to colonialism to, you name it.”

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“Priest,” with Paul Bettany, to Cast a New Light on Vampire Hunting

Set in the backdrop of a world ravaged by war between man and vampires, Paul Bettany plays a priest in an old western-type town. He turns against the church he is sworn to obey in order to save his niece from marauding vampires who captured her, and kills a lot of vampires in the process. There is going to be some great gory makeup in this movie.

He gets help from a young wasteland sheriff, who is also part vampire, adding to his conflicted emotions, in order to save his lost relative. Cam Gigandet, who played James in the “Twilight” series, has been confirmed as the young sheriff. Christopher Plummer, Karl Urban and Maggie Q are also joining the cast.

Read More here

By Maggie Galehouse at Chron: There’s an art to translating books into movies

The Lovely Bones arrives in movie theaters Friday. Fans of Alice Sebold’s book will see it in a new light: as part of an old Hollywood tradition that turns beloved books into major motion pictures.

It’s a tradition with mixed results.

“When we deal with adaptation movies, we always compare the movie to the book,” says Karen Fang, who teaches film studies and literature at the University of Houston. “But that’s not the way the film industry thinks about the issue. The industry is only interested in what’s going to make money.”

To studios, adaptations are presold commodities. “That’s the pitch,” Fang says. “A filmmaker says, ‘I want to make Lord of the Rings. It will be expensive, but there are millions of Tolkienites out there.’ ”

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One of the myths about moviemaking is that the movie gods prize originality and are wide open to writers with something new to pitch.

“It used to be an original idea town. It’s now all about underlying rights,” Craig Titley observed when he talked about his screenplay for 20th Century Fox’s “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief.” Percy, who learns he’s the son of Poseidon, discovers the gods of Mount Olympus and assorted monsters are alive and well and walking among us. Titley, who has a Ph.D. in mythology, was able to put his academic training to good use here.

But the slowdown in selling originals doesn’t have him complaining. “I’ve always pretty much been a gun for hire doing assignments and adaptations so business is booming from where I’m sitting.”

Titley sees an original side to adapting: “I like adaptations where there’s a lot of room to wiggle and be creative and bring in new elements as opposed to something where you’ve got to treat the source material as sacred.”

Read More here

I’m a strong believer that if a book is good enough to warrant a movie, then it should be as close to the book as possible, not a jumping off point for the “creativity” of the screenwriter. And while some movie based on books can introduce people to reading (which I’m all for), it’s proof that Hollywood is officially out of ideas. It’s good to see so many “anti-Twilight” vampire movies. Not that I don’t love Twilight, but my first experience with vampires was predatory vampires-and I like them that way. So I’m looking forward to Daybreakers and and this new one.

What do you think of the surge of new vampire moves? Happy, or just sick of them, period? What do you think of all the book adaptations recently? Should Hollywood stop? Which book do you think should be adapted next?

OBS loves everything supernatural and that includes all forms of media for it. Today I bring you a double feature review of Daybreakers by OBS staff members Rose and Krystal.

Brought to you by OBS staff members Rose & Krystal

Name: Daybreakers
Rated: R
Running time: 93 minutes

Directors: Peter and Michael Spierig

Synopsis
The year is 2019. A mysterious plague has swept over the earth, transforming the majority of the world’s population into vampires. Humans are now an endangered, second-class species – forced into hiding as they are hunted and farmed for vampire consumption to the brink of extinction.

It’s all up to Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), a vampire researcher who refuses to feed on human blood, to perfect a blood substitute that might sustain vampires and spare the few remaining humans. But time and hope are running out – until Ed meets Audrey (Claudia Karvan), a human survivor who leads him to a startling medical breakthrough. Armed with knowledge that both humans and vampires will kill for, Ed must battle his own kind in a deadly struggle that will decide the fate of the human race. © Lionsgate

Review

The Story by Krystal
Daybreakers was written and directed by the brothers Peter and Michael Spierig and bought by Lionsgate in2004. These two brothers probably don’t sound familiar to you and that’s because they are. Completely new to the Hollywood scene, these new faces have brought us a truly original story that can be called anything from a horror with lots of gore to a thought evoking tale of humanity with subtle undertones.

Another vampire movie, following the release of the Twilight Saga, one might think Daybreakers just another movie trying to ride the supernatural teen angst gravy train. Luckily for us all, it is far from this. The movie, categorized as a horror, definitely belongs there and I’d never want it to change. On the surface the vampire society is a clean and civil world, but underneath it is a world on the brink of burning to ash. And as the vampires slowly starve, they become more violent. Nowhere near teen or angst, these vampires are dark, dangerous and nowhere near seductive (well maybe after all it is Ethan Hawke).

That covers the violence, but what about the thought evoking tale? In a world where humanity is going extinct and the vampires are running out of blood, no one is safe. The vampires seek to hunt down and harvest every human until there are none left. This brings up the ultimately common morality issue of what’s right and what’s wrong and who really is the dominant race. Also below the fight for survival, there are subtle undertones of humanities overuse of natural resources, with blood being a metaphor. When is it too late to start looking for a substitute and will a substitute really be the answer or will a cure, a change in the way humanity thinks, be the only real way to solve the crisis.

Dark, original and thought provoking, this movie is a great watch for anyone who can appreciate the subtle undertones of a film and still love the gore and violence that it embraces.

The Visual Look by Rose
Visually stimulating, the cinematography has a slight film noir feel to it, all awash in dark muted blue tones during the night scenes, which are only highlighted with subtle tones of red, but of course, for this is fitting. Daytime scenes are quite bright, most likely to emphasize contrast between the two ‘worlds’.

The Acting by Krystal
Ethan Hawke as Edward Dalton: Oh Edward… oh wait wrong Edward. Over the years we have seen Ethan Hawke do all types of films from Gattaca to Training Day to Great Expectations. While I have seen much better performances, as listed above, he still make a great vampire. His cool almost uncaring demeanor is a rouse to cover the truth behind his motivation of finding a blood substitute.

Michael Dorman as Frankie Dalton: Probably the most surprising character and actor in this cast, Michael plays Edwards younger brother and ‘maker’. This New Zealand born Australian living actor doesn’t just play a pretty face though, he’s the servant to Bromley’s demands and the dark core of what humans are capable of when they don’t want to lose their lap of luxury. On the other hand, Frankie’s role is not just one of servitude and darkness; he has the pleasure of being the character with the biggest character arch (quite possibly the only other one with an arch besides Edward himself). From betraying his brother all the way to his great sacrifice at the end, Michael portrays Frankie with an emotional range and openness uncommon among the rest of the characters.

Overall
I enjoyed that the movie was overall serious in tone, and didn’t get carried away with itself, as some movies in this genre do. Albeit, there are a few funny one-liners here and there to break up the tension. My favorite one is said by Elvis after Dalton asks him “Is it safe?” to which Elvis replies “As safe as bare backing a five dollar hooker”. Classic! I also liked that the combat/car chase scenes weren’t gratuitous, they all lent themselves to story, instead of being used as mind numbing theatrics.

From start to finish, Daybreakers is one hell of a ride, you should surely get on.

Rating: 9/10 stars

For more on Daybreakers by both reviewers, check out their individual reviews here:

Daybreakers by Rose HERE
Daybreakers by Krystal HERE

Ghost Rider 2 Motors Ahead: Spirit of Vengeance may film this year

www.empireonline.com: Ghost Rider, motorcycle hero, may be riding through Europe with his head on fire sooner rather than later (ie. sometime this year), according to a Collider interview with producer Mike De Luca. 

The tentatively titled Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is, as previously reported, an update by David Goyer of his own decade-old treatment, from the days when Stephen Norrington was sniffing around the franchise, and Mark Steven Johnson was still only the director of Grumpy Old Men. 

De Luca says that, as GR is “a unique blend of theology and action”, the production team are liking Nic Cage’s idea to take the Flaming Skull to Europe: “we could avail ourselves of a lot of religious sites and history that aren’t available in the US. We want to be as fresh and new as we can get in terms of getting away from that pseudo-western thing.”

More here

Ethan Hawke: Daybreakers is a subversive vampire movie

scifiwire.com: Some actors might get a call from their agent about starring in a modest-budget vampire movie written and to be directed by neophyte Australian brothers—and hang up faster than hell. But not Ethan Hawke. He got exactly that call about Daybreakers, co-directed by Peter and Michael Spierig (Undead). Hawke agreed to meet them at a New York City cafe near his home, heard their pitch, signed on and ventured to Australia for the shoot, and the resulting film opens today.

“To be honest, when I got this script it was 2007,” Hawke said in an exclusive telephone interview. “I was doing a Tom Stoppard play in Lincoln Center, and the play was about mid-19th-century Russian radicals. Twilight (and True Blood) hadn’t come out yet. So this seemed like the most original damn idea I’d ever heard of. It seemed so retro to do a vampire movie. If I’d gotten the script today, I’d probably be thinking, ‘No way I’m doing a vampire movie.’ But the funny thing is, whatever the given genre—if it’s a cop movie or a western or a vampire movie—these things are never new. It’s just whether or not you have something new to say.”

And the Spierig brothers, Hawke felt, had something worthwhile to say. “They are these two twins from Australia, and they have the same kind of glint and passion in their eyes for movies that all the best directors I’ve ever worked with do,” said Hawke, a two-time Oscar nominee. “They had something original that they wanted to do with this thing, and I liked it.”

More here

It’s kind of difficult for the fans when some of the original cast members don’t come back, and it changes the mood of the movie sometimes. So lets hope that changes to the script and cast still draw the attention of its fans. What do you think od a sequel? Did you watch the first one? Are you a Ghost Rider fan?

I guess that people wasn’t expecting so many vampire movies at a time, some started there projects before all the vampire madness began. But still, Daybreakers is different and hopefully it will give good things to talk about. Will tou be seeing the movie?

Come back and give OBS your opinions and reviews!

Brought to you by OBS Staff member Krystal

Here at Open Book Society we like to see things from every angle. Movie posters are what sells people’s opinions of a film and like a book cover it has to be appealing. Also like books, movie posters can look differently depending on where they are made. Whole campaigns revolve around films, everything from viral web content to poster’s for every character in the movie.

In honor of this weeks movie highlight I have choosen Daybreakers. Probably one of the strangest and most drastic difference from teaser to final product, when it comes to the posters, Daybreakers looks to be an awesome film.

Check back later tonight for a double review by authors Rose and myself.

International Poster

In 2019, a major viral outburst transformed a majority of the world’s population into vampires 10 years before the start of the movie. With only a handful of humans left to provide blood for the starving population of vampires, extinction is a very real risk for the new dominant species of humanity.

These vampires are depicted as being immortal, and possessing similar physical appearances as regular humans. Vampires are depicted as having yellow tinted irises and pale skin. They also have most of the ‘classic’ vampiric traits; lack of a reflection, fangs, vulnerability to sunlight and stakes through the heart. They also have no pulse.

In response to the dwindling blood supply, the vampires seek to hunt and farm the remaining humans for their blood and to find a blood substitute to prolong their existence. If a vampire doesn’t drink blood, then they will transform from having a recognizable human form into a violent, uncontrollable, and bat-like creature of the night. A secret team of human and ‘cured’ researchers try to uncover a way that would rescue the human race.

At the same time, small factions of surviving humans wish to repopulate the species, often using violent means to retain their humanity. ~ wikipedia

International Poster

For these and much more check out our forum here.

When I first saw the teaser poster (the red one) I immediately thought 28 Days Later. It was only later that I found out wat this film truely was. Just looking at the first two posters, it’s as if they fired the whole team and made a new one. Perhaps they were tired of copying the 28 Days Later theory or maybe it’s because Daybreakers is not a zombie-like film.

Which is your favorite? Are you going to see the movie?

from Joseph McCabe at FearNet: ‘Daybreakers’ Directors on Making Vamps Nasty Again

Australian filmmakers Michael and Peter Spierig may soon win the thanks of old-school vampire fans everywhere — for taking the undead, at least on screen, back to their proper satanic roots with Daybreakers. (In the wake of Twilight, Vampire Diaries, and True Blood this is no mean feat.) I was one of the first online journos lucky enough to chat with the Spierig brothers upon completion of their new epic, way back in October of ’07. Hit the jump to read the conversation we had, and decide if you think Daybreakers is worth checking out when it, at long last, opens this Friday, January 8.

Vampires are hot again right now, but you’ve been working on Daybreakers for some time. What sparked the project?

Peter: It’s a genre that we certainly love. When we came up with the concept it wasn’t so much that we wanted to do a vampire movie. We just liked the story, and it just so happened that there were vampires. There are certain parallels that you can make between vampirism and certain things that are going on today. We kind of liked that concept, too. And while our film has some of that, it’s ultimately about making something that’s entertaining and fun. We just thought it was a really cool idea, and kept developing it. It’s very different to any vampire film that’s out there.

Read More here

By Meredith Woerner at io9: Daybreakers Directors Working On A Mysterious 1940s Alt-History

One thing the Daybreakers directors love, and excel at, is world-building. And we’ve got the exclusive update on the new worlds they’re building, including Warner Bros.’ space-pirate reboot of Captain Blood, and another mysterious 1940s alternate-history film.

While chatting about the vampire world the Spierig brothers created, they shared updates on their next two in-the-works science fiction films, including the scoop on a fascinating new project set in an alternate history during the 1940s.

Michael Spierig: We’re working on Captain Blood, at the moment. And that’s Captain Blood, the original Errol Flynn pirate movie. We’re taking that and turning it into a space pirate movie.

Are you guys going to do for Captain Blood what you did with Daybreakers and spend a ton of time world-building?

Peter Spierig : Yes, there’s a lot of that. In science fiction, you have to understand how it all works. We’ve been writing a script for a year now that’s another science-fiction film as well. It’s a period film it’s set largely in the 40s. We’ve spent a lot of time researching, just an enormous amount of time. We’ve almost over-researched, we probably need to put some of the research away and get out of the script for a moment.

Read More here

by Patrick Lee at Sci Fi Wire: Will District 9‘s sequel be a prequel instead?

Last July, we posted about District 9 director Neill Blomkamp’s plans for a sequel to his hit movie, for which he just got nominated for a Producers Guild Award.

This week, he elaborated a bit on his plans for a follow-up—which might be a prequel instead, but definitely not a TV show—to the Los Angeles Times’ Hero Complex blog:

“A television show I wouldn’t really want to do. That would be…well, I just don’t want to do that. But a sequel might be interesting. I know what I’m doing next so it wouldn’t be right away. But the concept of aliens in Johannesburg is such an appealing idea to me and the issues of race and how they meet. All of the things that I had going on with it. I wouldn’t mind messing around with it again.”

Read More here

from Stuart Levine at Variety: FX buys rights to ‘Avatar’

FX has landed bigscreen’s biggest fish, acquiring the basic cable rights to James Cameron’s “Avatar.”

Terms of the FX deal weren’t disclosed, but it looks to be more than the standard pact, with FX laying out an estimated $25 million-$30 million. That’s a bit higher than other recent bigscreen purchases, but due to the nature of the movie’s global gross and demand from other networks, Fox was able to get a substantial increase.

Cabler can begin airing “Avatar” toward the middle of 2012 and will likely have a window that extends toward the end of the decade. Most deals last four years, but negotiations allowed for an extended window.

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via Reelz Channel: The Book of Eli Gives a Nod to Its Predecessors

As a post-apocalyptic western, The Book of Eli clearly has a lot of cinematic influences. Although its filmmakers are taking pains to make sure it doesn’t get pigeonholed as a western genre piece, they have been quite upfront about how much they were inspired by the Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood series of spaghetti westerns.

In a recent interview with Sci Fi Wire, co-director Albert Hughes also acknowledged some of Eli‘s more apocalyptic influences. One that he points to in particular is the 1975 cult classic A Boy and His Dog. A couple of explicit nods to this dystopian forerunner were even included in the movie itself. In the background of one of the scenes is a wall poster for A Boy and His Dog, and in one shootout sequence a rooftop sniper is packing the exact gun that Don Johnson used in that movie.

Read More here

I can’t wait to see Daybreakers and Book of Eli. They look amazing. I think a District 9 prequel could be really cool, I’d love to see why the aliens stopped here. I’d rather see that then the aliens returning. And FX has been buying up a lot of big movies lately-first Twilight and now Avatar. It’s an improvement over corny 80′s action movies anyway.

What would you like to see in a District 9 prequel? What do you think about Space Captain Blood?