The Morning Roundup: News for Sci-Fi Lovers, Sherlock Holmes pics, B.O. Report
Written by: Phoebe Raven, CC2K Staff Writer
This morning we have good and bad news for sci-fi lovers, a surprise in the gaming world, pics from the set of Sherlock Holmes, the usual B.O. report and a chock-full o’ hoot from trailer land.
Like every Tuesday morning, I am going to start this off with the Box Office Report to get us into the flow of things:
You can throw terrorists or football players at 'em, they will fight back. Disney's cutesy dogs of Beverly Hills Chihuahua defended their top spot against all aggressors pushing the horror (no pun intended) of Sony Screen Gems’ Quarantine to No. 2 in its opening week.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott’s combined star power for the big-budget Body of Lies only got them the number three spot. Seems like terrorists in the Middle East aren't all that interesting anymore… Though Warner is trying to blame the financial crisis for the disappointing run of the movies. Yeah, right!
Oh, the football players I mentioned came in the form of the movie Express, which tells the story of the first African-American college football player to win the Heisman Trophy. The movie came in at No. 6 and got better reviews than Ridley Scott's flick!
But Scott will fight back! He is confirmed to direct a movie called The Forever War, which is based on the 1974 novel by Joe Haldeman. Scott has been planning to make this movie for two decades now and finally FOX managed to pick up the rights. What's the thing about? In Scott's own words: "It’s a science-fiction epic, a bit of ‘The Odyssey’ by way of ‘Blade Runner,’ built upon a brilliant, disorienting premise."
Are you excited, sci-fi lovers???
Well, if you are, then I have just the thing to bring you down again: another sci-fi project that has spent years in pre-production hell is now officially dead in the water. I am talking about David Fincher’s Rendevous with Rama. The guys over at FirstShowing.net had the chance to catch up with Fincher to talk about the pic, which was planned to have Morgan Freeman as its star. Fincher is quoted on the site:
"It looks like it's not going to happen. There's no script and as you know, [Morgan Freeman's] not in the best of health right now. We've been trying to do it but it's probably not going to happen."
Looks like eight years in pre-production is all this adaptation is going to get. Sad news indeed.
More sad news come our way from France, where famous actor Gerard Depardieu’s son, Guillaume, died Monday of pneumonia. He was only 37. Some of his greatest achievements included French films like Versailles and De la Guerre. In 1995 Guillaume won a Cesar award for Les Apprentis as Most Promising Newcomer. You can catch his last performance in Stella, which opens in November.
Somewhat worrying developments are also happening with Darren Aronofsky’s biopic The Fighter about lightweight boxer “Irish” Micky Ward. Apparently it is not sure whether the project is really happening, and Brad Pitt has dropped out of playing the influential brother (he had stepped in as a replacement for Matt Damon a while ago). Mark Wahlberg, who is set to play the boxer himself, still thinks the project is moving ahead though, despite Aronofsky’s own cryptic statements to the contrary. Read all about the confusing story over at Slashfilm.
The world of video games was more than a bit surprised when this weekend Thomas Tull resigned from the board of Brash Entertainment, which he had only helped found last year. He wasn’t available for comment, but the consensus seems to be that Tull was disappointed with the quality of games Brash put out, including Alvin and the Chipmunks, Jumper and Space Chimps.
To round this off, here’s the first look at Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law on the set of Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. Courtesy of JustJared.
Go here for the full gallery.
And PerezHilton.com has a pic of Downey Jr. in full Holmes get-up:
And now it’s trailer time.
Defiance
JCVD