Warner Bros Wants Zemeckis For ‘Wizard Of Oz’ Remake Based On Original MGM Script
By Mike Fleming at Deadline
Whenever you remake a revered Hollywood film, there’s bound to be controversy, but going right to the original material is certainly an interesting approach. Warner Bros is in early talks with Robert Zemeckis to direct a live-action remake of the The Wizard of Oz and plans to use the original script from the 1939 classic. Warner Bros owns the screenplay because Ted Turner bought it along with the MGM library before Warner Bros bought Turner’s empire.
This latest Oz twist comes as Disney is trying very hard to mount Oz: The Great And Powerful. Sam Raimi is developing that film while he simultaneously develops World of Warcraft for Warner Bros and Legendary. Disney and Raimi want Robert Downey Jr as their star.
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Marvel Move The Avengers To LA – That Should Save A Few Quid
by Brendon Connelly at Bleeding Cool
Yes folks, it’s the West Coast Avengers.
Some time ago, we heard that Joss Whedon’s The Avengers was to be shot largely in Manhattan. Makes sense, because it’s largely set there, after all. Now, though, we’ve learned that the New York portion of the production is going to be rather smaller than previously planned and, by moving The Avengers to LA, Marvel are set to enact one of their notorious budget cutting exercises. Frugality? Fiscal responsibility? Scrooge McDuckery?
Relocating from one set of sound stages to another can’t hurt the film creatively though, can it? I’d certainly rather Marvel save money by filming in a different state, closer to Hollywood’s home, than by handicapping the production design and art teams.
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New Cowboys and Aliens trailer shows Daniel Craig at his most brutal
By Alasdair Wilkins at io9
Last week, we were one of a handful of sites invited to the edit bay for Cowboys & Aliens, where we saw the teaser trailer as well as rough, unfinished cuts of the first two reels of the movie, totaling about forty minutes of the movie. We can’t say too much about that just yet, but we’ll have more to say about what we saw — as well as our conversation with director Jon Favreau — a little later.
But what really excited us — and took us by surprise — was all the pure action on display in the trailer. Daniel Craig’s work as James Bond has featured some of the most wonderfully brutal fight scenes in recent memory, and he might actually outdo his super spy alter ego in Cowboys & Aliens. He fights early and often, using any weapons available to him, and he aims to kill, whether he’s licensed to or not.
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Aronofsky on ‘Black Swan’: A Werewolf Movie, Except It’s a Were-Swan Movie
By Jordan Riefe at The Wrap
“After directing “The Wrestler” I was kind of sick of men smelling like Ben-Gay around me all the time,” recalled Darren Aronofsky, director of last year’s Oscar-nominated paean to broken-down fighters.
His latest film, “Black Swan” takes place in the world of ballet. “So I was kind of excited about working with some of these incredibly light, floating, artistic women.”
Though centered in entirely different worlds, Portman’s character was very similar Rourke’s, Aronofsky admitted,” he said. “They both put their bodies at risk to create their art. They’re both driven by the ambition to entertain and to create beauty in their own ways. One just happens to be about high art, one just happens to be about low art.”
In “Black Swan,” Portman plays Nina Sayer, a rising ballet star tapped to portray the dual Black Swan/White Swan role in a new production of “Swan Lake.” A borderline personality herself, she struggles to maintain her grip on sanity as the pressures of the role mount.
“I liked this idea that we were kind of making a werewolf movie except it was a were-swan movie,” joked Aronofsky. But trying to get the project mounted was no laughing matter.
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Cowboys and Aliens sounds good, but I think I’d go see it anyway, just because Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford are in it (a friend of mine was excited because it’s “Han Solo and James Bond fighting aliens. In the old west.”). And I’m glad I wasn’t planning on going to see Black Swan. That article was dripping with spoilers. After that I’m not sure what the point of seeing the movie is.
Are you concerned about The Avengers movie being shot in LA rather than New York? What do you think about a Wizard of Oz remake?
