‘Saw VI’ Director Hired for ‘Paranormal Activity 2′

Paramount has hired screenwriter Michael R. Perry and Saw VI director Kevin Greutert to create a sequel to Paranormal Activity in time for an October 22 release.

Oren Peli, who dreamed up the first, is on as a producer. He told the Hollywood Reporter, “These guys get it, and the fans won’t be disappointed.” Of course he’s going to like the idea. Paramount is paying for this sequel and fronting the bill for his Area 51 (in post-production). What was he supposed to say? The studio already owned the rights to an inevitable follow-up, he may as well collect a paycheck for a producer credit. Maybe I’m just cynical.

MORE HERE

George Lucas Confirms Plans for 3-D ‘Star Wars’!! (Thank James Cameron)

Access Hollywood spoke with George Lucas at a Golden Globes party, and Lucas has confirmed his intent to re-release the Star Wars films in 3-D. What convinced him to do it? Take a wild guess. Avatar.

Lucas told Access Hollywood:

Haven’t been a big fan of 3-D, but [Avatar] definitely improves in (the field of) 3-D. … We’ve been looking for years and years and years of trying to take Star Wars and put it in 3-D. … But, [the] technology hasn’t been there. We’ve been struggling with it, but I think this will be a new impetus to make that happen.

It is doubtless that many will view this move purely as a money (not art) -driven endeavor. However, if Lucas does indeed implement 3-D similar to the way it was done in Avatar, the aesthetics of the films should indeed be enhanced rather than transformed into a gimmick. Avatar’s 3-D worked so well because it wasn’t used to try to trick your body into thinking it was going to be hit by things; it was used only to create a natural depth. If the Star Wars films can emulate that, there is essentially nothing to lose.

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Guess which director will reboot Spider-Man as a trilogy

When news broke that Sam Raimi was off Spider-Man 4, everyone buzzed about who might take over the superhero franchise, with Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood saying that the ironically named Marc Webb was the top choice to direct.

Looks like she may have been right: New York Magazine’s Vulture blog confirmed that “Sony will imminently announce a deal with (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb to direct not one, but three Spider-Man movies in a rebooted franchise that will focus far more on the private life of Peter Parker”:

Webb’s other big appeal? He’s much cheaper than the old Spider-Man crew. The deal just now being sewn up calls for Webb to be paid roughly $10 million for the first film, with substantial bonuses built in if the picture reaches certain box-office milestones.

The news was that Sony wants to reboot the Spider-Man franchise as a high-school franchise, though there’s been no official confirmation of that yet.

What do you think of this choice?

SOURCE

Mel Gibson Talks Mad Max 4 and His Viking Movie

Mel Gibson and his production company, Icon Entertainment, may be co-producing the upcoming Mad Max 4, but there’s no word if Gibson will appear in the movie. Gibson spoke to Collider about the project, but didn’t exactly clear up the confusion.

I’ve talked to [director] George [Miller] [about Mad Max 4] … yeah. We talk all the time anyway. I’m abreast of that. He’s been trying to do this for years — the 4th installment. At one point I was involved and it fell to bits and then this and that … so now it’s probably gone through a lot of changes and I can’t wait to see it cause everything he does is magic. There is a touch of genius about George.

While it doesn’t sound like Mel will play a role in the sequel, it doesn’t exactly close the door either. While Gibson didn’t speak about his next starring role in How I Spent My Summer Vacation, which is drawing protests in Mexico, he did open up about his next directorial project, which will be an untitled movie about Vikings written by The Departed screenwriter William Monahan (who also wrote Gibson’s upcoming Edge of Darkness) and starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

MORE HERE

I don’t know if I am really up for another Paranormal Activity, I think with all the hype of the first one there is a lot of pressure to make it better, which may equal corny instead.

Who’s excited for another Star Wars? I AM! Especially in 3-D!!

What did you think of today’s Movie News? Join us in the forum to discuss!!

via scifiwire

If you bought one of prop designer Andrew Ainsworth’s replica stormtrooper helmets and were worried that Lucasfilm would send Boba Fett or one of the other Star Wars bounty hunters after you, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Three judges of the High Court dismissed an appeal and ruled that a £10 million damages award granted in the U.S. courts against Ainsworth, who helped manufacture the helmets and suits for the first Star Wars film in 1977, could not be enforced in the U.K.

Read more here…

What do you think of this verdict?

John Scalzi – The Winners and Losers of ’00s SciFi Movies

blogs.amctv.com

As we continue our look through a decade of science fiction, it becomes evident that in the past ten years there have emerged winners and losers in the field. Who and what are they?

WINNER: Uwe Boll.

LOSER: Video Game Movies

WINNER: Will Smith. Four scifi movies in the ’00s (Men in Black II, I, Robot, I Am Legend, Hancock) and $820 million in domestic box office.

LOSER: Vin Diesel.

WINNER: J.J. Abrams. Look, I may kvetch about the science in this year’s Star Trek being somewhere between “bad” and “mentally deficient lemurs are smarter than this,” but you know what? The Star Trek franchise was so saddled with with overexhausted mediocrity that reviving it — and making it fun again — qualifies as a minor miracle. So props where they’re deserved. Also: Cloverfield? Most awesome monster movie of the decade (that wasn’t named The Host). Oh, and Alias and Lost were OK, too.

LOSER: George Lucas and the Wachowski Brothers. Both used the decade to grind their franchises into befuddled irrelevance.

WINNER: The End of the World as We Know It.

LOSER: Humorous Live Action Science Fiction. I mean intentionally funny. Stop talking to me about G.I. Joe. Seriously, what have we got for the decade? The Stepford Wives? Evolution? The Adventures of Pluto Nash? Even Men in Black II wasn’t all that. If it wasn’t for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind we’d have nothing — and that’s not even “ha ha” comedy; it’s “Huh, now I have to think” comedy. Fortunately, we did have:

WINNER: Animated Science Fiction

LOSER: Science Fiction Based on Books.

Complete article here

LOL@Vin Diesel being a loser. I agree. I love Will Smith though.

And JJ Abrams is the shit, period. I love just about anything that man can come up with.

Humorous live action science fiction – G.I. Joe <– who else laughed when we found out a movie was being made? I was doubled over in laughter.

What do you think of the winners and losers? Any you want to add to the list?

20 Best Science Fiction Books Of The Decade

io9.com: After much mulling and culling, we’ve come up with our list of the twenty best books of the decade. The list is weighted towards science fiction, but does have healthy doses of fantasy and horror. And a few surprises.

Air, Or Have Not Have, by Geoff Ryman (Gollancz)
Air won the Clarke Award and was nominated for a Nebula. Here is what Strange Horizons‘ Geneva Melzack had to say about it:

Chung Mae lives in Kizuldah, a tiny mountain village in the country of Karzistan. The people in Kizuldah live traditional sorts of lives, making a living through farming and migrant manual labour. TV has barely arrived in the village when a national test of Air, a new form of virtual media technology, takes place, badly shaking up Kizuldah’s traditional existence. The person most shaken up is Chung Mae herself, who is involved in an accident in the midst of the test that fuses her, in the virtual world of Air, with her elderly neighbour Old Mrs Tung, killing Mrs Tung in the process. Air tells the story of how Chung Mae learns to adapt to her new situation, and the work she has to do to help the rest of her village similarly adapt to the changes that the test has wrought and the further changes that she knows will come when Air is fully implemented in a year’s time . . . It might be tempting to read Air as a book that is advocating change and the embracing of the new, but there’s more to it than that. Change in Air is simply something that happens. It is inevitable. The future is not necessarily any better than the past, but it is coming nevertheless.

More here

Lecturer pens Star Wars academic book

www.hounslowchronicle.co.uk: If you thought academic studies were all about test tubes and pie charts, then think again – a lecturer at Kingston University has just written the first academic book about cult sci-fi film Star Wars.

Dr Will Brooker’s book is part of the British Film Institute’s Film Classics range, and examines Star Wars episode IV – A New Hope, which was released in 1977, from a fresh angle.

Dr Brooker said: “There is a library’s worth of books written about Star Wars, the extended universe, the fans and the effect on the film industry, but not one serious academic consideration of the film as a text. I felt I should fill that gap.”

He argues that, far from being a simple tale of good versus evil, director George Lucas’s sympathies are torn between the two.

He claims that Lucas identifies with both the dark side, Darth Vader and the Empire, and the heroes of the story, Luke Skywalker and the Rebels, referring back to the director’s experimental short films made while he was at college. He looks into the diverse cinema history that shaped Lucas’ approach and argues that, far from being a departure from his previous work, as Lucas has claimed, it is a continuation of his experiments with sound and image.

More here

The Time Traveler’s Wife and Harry Potter made the list, that is so great! It’s also interesting to know everthing that has been done surrounding the world of Star Wars. What do yout think?

by SCI FI Wire Staff on scifiwire.com

The crystal skulls aren’t even cold yet, but Indiana Jones himself, Harrison Ford, has told a French newspaper that a fifth installment in the George Lucas/Steven Spielberg adventure saga is already taking shape.

“The story for the new Indiana Jones is in the process of taking form,” Ford told France’s Le Figaro, according to a report in People magazine.
“Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and myself are agreed on what the fifth adventure will concern, and George is actively at work,” Ford added. “If the script is good, I’ll be very happy to put the costume on again.”

Did we mention that Ford is 67? So, love it or hate it, Indiana Jones V is on the way.

Of course, no one is saying what the movie is about. So here’s your chance to offer some input. What do you think it should have? What supernatural/paranormal phenomenon should the movie choose?

To read more HERE

I don’t know what you think – but in my opinion: oh NO! NOT another ‘Indiana Jones’! Don’t get me wrong – I love Indiana and of course I adore Harrison Ford playing him … but enough is enough and he is (sorry for discriminating) too old. The same way that Bruce Willis is too old for a 5th ‘Die Hard’. Nobody believes them playing this roles again. What do you think? Are you excited to hear there will be a 5th movie?