We have a ton of movie news for you today! Enjoy!
By Tatiana Siegel at Variety: Vin Diesel signs up for another ‘Riddick’
Vin Diesel is going back to the future to topline and produce a third chapter in the “Chronicles of Riddick” franchise.
Universal will handle domestic distribution on the sci-fi film, which is titled “Riddick.” Lionsgate is selling international rights at the Berlin Film Festival. David Twohy — who wrote and directed the first two films in the series, “Pitch Black” and “The Chronicles of Riddick” — will helm from a screenplay he penned.
Plot details are being kept under wraps. But insiders say the third outing will hew closer in tone to the cult hit “Pitch Black” and will focus on the character of Riddick as opposed to the universe he inhabits, which was the case with the critically panned “Chronicles of Riddick.” Still, “Chronicles of Riddick” earned $116 million worldwide and spawned a successful vidgame series.
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Michael Parrish DuDell at EcoRazzi: Alicia Silverstone Teams Up With Clueless Director For New Vampire Movie
Looks like the vegan vampire trend ain’t going NOWHERE!
Vegan actress extraordinaire (and Ecorazzi golden girl) Alicia Silverstone is reuniting with Clueless director Amy Heckerling for Vamps — “a modern-day tale of two young female vampires living the good life in New York until love enters the picture and each has to make a choice that will jeopardize their immortality.”
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By Breeanna Hare at CNN: Can ‘Wolfman’ destroy vampire fever?
Until Taylor Lautner beefed up and began walking around shirtless in “New Moon,” there wasn’t a chance in the underworld that werewolves could steal pop culture’s rabid affection for vampires.
But now that moviegoers’ appetites have been whetted for this particularly hairy breed of supernatural beast, perhaps the new horror movie “The Wolfman,” starring Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins, can help the myth finally step out from the, er, non-shadow of vampires after all.
In the past 30 years, there have been a number of films dedicated to the frightening — and sometimes hilarious — things that can happen when under the werewolf curse, yet the genre has never soared into popularity.
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By Colin Covert at Minneapolis Star Tribune: Review: ‘Percy Jackson’ is no Harry Potter
Somewhere at Hogwarts School a wizard is working on a powerful anti-mimicry spell. “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” echoes J.K. Rowling’s mythological world so closely, with its magical young half-bloods and crowded canvas of supporting deities, that a hex must be brewing.
Percy, a teenage New Yorker, discovers that his long-absent father, a “dazzling” guy who vanished after impregnating his mom, was none other than Poseidon, god of the sea. (There are a lot of guys on the Jersey shore imitating Greek gods; this one meant it.)
His heritage explains Percy’s ability to submerge in his high school pool for seven minutes, his dyslexia (which scrambles written English, but translates Greek in a flash) and his ADHD. He’s not hyper — he’s got finely honed battle reflexes.
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By Krystal Clark at Screen Crave: Roland Emmerich Adapting Foundation Trilogy in 3D Motion Capture
2012 director Roland Emmerich has revealed that his next project will be more epic than anything he’s done in the past, which is a tall order considering he’s directed films like Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. Over at MTV they’ve shed some light on Emmerich’s adaptation of the sci-fi book trilogy by Isaac Asimov entitled, the Foundation series.
Emmerich must have been bitten by the James Cameron Avatar bug because he’s revealed that he wants to produce the film using 3D and motion capture technology. The Foundation series covers over 500 years and includes a total of seven books, three of which are included in “the trilogy.” All the books deal with mathematics, psychohistory, and alternate universes, with the first installment being published in 1951.
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By Thomas Friesner South Bend Sci-Fi Examiner: New Dune screenwriter told to stick to the book
The more we hear about Taken director Pierre Morel’s approach to anew version of Dune, the better we feel. Today we get news that he’s hired a new writer, Chase Palmer, to draft the script, with the mandate: Stick closely to the source material.
Here’s what The Hollywood Reporter said:
“Morel came aboard the project at the beginning of the year, and Palmer will work Morel’s ideas into original scribe Josh Zetumer’s screenplay. The “From Paris With Love” and “Taken” helmer is intent on hewing close to the source material, Frank Herbert’s classic 1965 sci-fi tome.”
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By Scott Huver at Sci Fi Wire: Will Bill Murray be a spook in Ghostbusters III?
Ivan Reitman ain’t afraid of no sequels! But the legendary Ghostbusters director-producer admits it took the unexpected success of a video game tie-in and a bit of not-so-subtle maneuvering by the studio to resurrect the once-huge comedy franchise from the dead—and he addresses Bill Murray’s professed desire to play a more ethereal version of Dr. Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters III.
“Certainly Sony has been all over us for about two decades now, trying to get this going,” Reitman told us at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. “We have this sort of very interesting deal in which we really control the forward progress of the movie. [Sony] did a very interesting thing: They actually hired these two writers on their own, without consulting us, and basically said, ‘We’re going to start.'”
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I think the review of Percy Jackson is a little harsh; there are only so many ways to start a fantasy book with teenagers, so if you don’t look past the very surface, they all sound alike. I heard criticism that Twilight sounded like Harry Potter too, which is ridiculous. As for Roland Emmerich tackling Foundation, I hope there isn’t any weather phenomenon involved, because he can’t seem to grasp reality when it comes to that (watch Day After Tomorrow with a meteorologist, I dare you). Or you could just Google “Meteorology 101”. I don’t really trust him when it comes to scientific accuracy, so we’ll see what he does to Foundation.
Are you excited about the Dune remake? What about another Riddick? Are you excited about Vamps?
