The Morning Roundup: Zack and Miri Make a Porno Trailer, Yet More Adaptations and Reboots
Written by: Mike Leader, Special to CC2K
This morning we get a look at the red-band trailer for Kevin Smith's latest, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. We also have news about yet more franchise reboots and book-to-film adaptations, and more!
It seems that every week brings news of more film adaptations, be it from video games, comic books, or good ol' literature. We have scoops regarding the latter.
— Slashfilm has a heads-up regarding a proposed project spearheaded by J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof (the team behind Lost) to adapt Stephen King's epic The Dark Tower series. The seven novels, an enthralling hybrid of dusty western and imaginative fantasy, took King 22 years to write, and, as a whole, is often held up as his masterpiece. To this punter's eyes, Abrams and Lindelof have their work cut out for them, not only in planning and execution, but in funding and distribution.
— How many times can one make a film of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan character? Well, the count is easily approaching, if not exceeding, 100. There must be room for one more, however, as Warner Bros is at work on yet another live-action adaptation . Stephen Sommers (The Mummy, G.I. Joe) is directing, taking over from the previously-attached Guillermo Del Toro. A real shame.
— Be prepared to OD on WW2. Hot on the heels of upcoming flicks such as Valkyrie and Inglorious Bastards, Empire brings the scoop that Jerry Bruckheimer is masterminding an adaptation of a recent novel, titled Killing Rommel, written by Steven Pressfield. Not much in the way of details yet, but Randall Wallace (Braveheart, Pearl Harbour) is working on a screenplay. The book details the British Army's campaigns in North Africa, against the titular German field marshall. I'm personally sick of WW2 films, especially of a military-variety. Yet talented creative teams still manage to unearth interesting and moving stories, and still garner critical acclaim (2007's The Counterfeiters / Die Fälscher won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, after all). How many films have tackled the North African side of WW2?
Cowabunga dudes! (etc) In a big turnaround from the all-CGI reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (or, to be more bad-ass, TMNT), Empire reports that the next heroes-in-a-half-shell feature will be live-action.
A trial date has been set for 20th Century Fox's lawsuit against Warner Bros, regarding the Zack Snyder-directed film adaptation of Watchmen. January 6th 2009 to be precise. Here's hoping for a quick, amicable resolution so that the film's release date of March 6th 2009 isn't affected.
What is a day without news about the film of the summer, The Dark Knight? AICN has taken Aaron Eckhart to one side, and asked him straight out – what happened to Harvey Dent at the film's climax? This has been a point for discussion with a lot of fans, even here at CC2K. Technically, this classes as a spoiler – so check it at your own leisure! –
In gaming news, a new computer game based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe has been announced. The game will be a Massively-Multiplayer Online experience, a la Second Life or World of Warcraft.
Metallica's new album, Death Magnetic (horrible title), is due out on September 12. However, a record store in Paris opted to sell the album ten days in advance , allowing some plucky buyers the chance to share the album on various filesharing networks. This is no big deal – leaking new albums happen all the time. What is gob-smacking, is the reaction of usual file-sharing-is-evil loudmouth Lars Ulrich. He's not pissed! When asked about the leak, on a San Franciscan radio show, he said 'Listen, we're ten days from release… I mean, from here, we're golden'. Not entirely sure what he's getting at, but this is a definite shift from his Napster-baiting days. Nevertheless, the pre-release buzz for Death Magnetic is mostly positive (see Rolling Stone's review here). All indications point to the album being a return to Metallica's progressive, thrash-metal roots, which have been mostly disregarded in the last 20 years.
To round up this post, we have some multimedia delights. Enjoy!
Here's the 'red band' trailer for Kevin Smith's upcoming flick Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I'll go out on a limb and say that this looks promising, although who knows with Smith. At very least, you can play spot-the-View-Askew-regular.
We've also got the new trailer for Gus Van Sant's Milk. Due out November 26, this biopic of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk sees Van Sant working with a much more star-studded cast than in recent years (Sean Penn takes the lead). Could this be the start of a new era for the director? Check CC2Ker Lance Carmichael's dissection of Van Sant's career here.
Poster-time! Here's a one-sheet for the up-coming geek / fan-service film My Name Is Bruce. Expect chins 'n grins – coming your way in October!
And, to finish up, here's a (sadly small) peek at Daniel Clowes' (of Ghost World fame) cover artwork for the second volume of the Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons and True Stories, which is to be published by Yale Press in October. These deluxe anthologies are great resources for the more serious /artistic end of the comic medium, and when university-based publishers get involved, you can tell that someone with a mortar board or tenured professorship is taking notice. Great stuff, I say.
