Jackson, Del Toro Host Hobbit Chat

Scifi Wire:

“Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro are inviting fans to a live Internet chat about the upcoming film The Hobbit,
which Jackson is producing and del Toro is directing. During the chat,
billed as “An Unexpected Party,” Jackson and del Toro will answer
questions from participants and listen to comments about the film.

Based on the book by J. R. R. Tolkein, The Hobbit is a prequel to the Lord of the Rings and centers on the adventures of hobbit Bilbo Baggins. Del Toro has signed on to direct two separate installments.

The chat is being hosted by Weta, the special effects house currently working on The Hobbit. Fans can register for the “Unexpected Party” at the company’s official Web site.”

Bioshock: the Movie

Rock, Paper, Shotgun:

“Oh yes - Rapture for real will be quite the sight to behold.

Oh no - It’s to be directed and produced by Gore ‘Pirates of the
Caribbean’ Verbinski. Well, the first film was loads of fun, but even
discounting those sequels, high seas hi-jinks seems an
unusual pedigree for undersea rumination upon the nature of man. But
hey, both have water and zombies.”

… [visit site to read more]

Return of the Moon-Nazis in Creative Commons-licensed film from Star Wreck creators

Boing Boing: “John Buckman from Magnatune sez,

I’m involved with a film project called “Iron Sky”, which released a 2 1/2 minute teaser today:

“In 1945 the Nazis fled to the moon. It’s 2018, and now they’re coming back”

What makes this interesting is that it’s the second film by the people who made Star Wreck,
which is the most successful feature-length Internet-distributed film
of all time. Star Wreck was made by 3000 people, has been download 8
million times, is under a CC by-nd-nc license, and made good money both
through DVD sales, and through an eventual deal with Universal.

My role in this is that I provided the seed funding for Iron Sky, and I’m head of the board of wreckamovie.com
– a collaborative film-making web site (also CC based), that was built
from the Star Wreck experience (and is being used to make Iron Sky)

Watchmen Video Journal #2

Watchmenmovie.com: “To put it simply, there is an enormous amount of characters that populate the many time periods and environments of the Watchmen world. Although we encountered many challenges while making Watchmen,
one of the most interesting and rewarding was creating the wardrobe for
all of those people. This is the second time I’ve had the pleasure of
working with Costume Designer Michael Wilkinson. Once again, I’m amazed
by his talent and dedication. Take a look at the link below.

http://joblo.com/excl-watchmen-journal/

It’s Official - Guillermo Del Toro is On Board To Direct HOBBIT

AICN: “Well - Our Good Friend… and by that I mean - GEEKS EVERYWHERE… Has officially put quill to vein and blood to paper - to solemnly swear to direct the best fscking movie called THE HOBBIT he could possibly make.

In fact - there’s going to be TWO of these movies. The story of THE HOBBIT will not be divided - and I’m pretty damn sure that the second film won’t be titled HOBBIT: SMOKING IN BAG’S END… Instead - I feel the 2nd film will be the true challenge. To create a bridging narrative that connects the events that end THE HOBBIT - with those that begin THE LORD OF THE RINGS is one of the riskiest and toughest tasks that any modern artist would undertake.

It’s a fine thing to originate and create a binding mythology between two incredibly well-established tomes of mythology. However, in Guillermo, Peter and everyone in the magical land of New Zealand we’ll have to place our trust.

That said - I’m taking bets on Doug Jones as a Wood Elf…. and Ron Perlman as the voice of Smaug. This is so gonna fscking rock!”

Click here for Variety’s Story

Tarantino Still Getting Animated With Kill Bill

Rotten Tomatoes: “Two year ago Quentin Tarantino piqued the interest of film fans
everywhere when he promised two new anime companion films to “Kill
Bill,” one supposedly about the origin of The Bride and the other about
Bill himself.

We don’t know what’s happened to the story of The Bride, but the
other animated film is going to blow you away, insisted star Uma
Thurman.

“His anime stuff is strong,” she smiled.

We say we don’t know what happened to the story of the Bride, by the
way, because Thurman claims to have never recorded a voice-over for the
anticipated project.

“It has nothing to do with me,” she said. “It has to do with another character. You’ll have to see.”

That screams Bill to us. But the best part? It looks as if we’ll get
to “see” real soon, perhaps as part of an expanded DVD release, Thurman
teased, indicating that the short will be part of a larger re-release
for “Kill Bill.”

“Right now he’s putting the two films together with an intermission
with an added anime sequence he had already written,” she said of the
ongoing saga of Beatrix Kiddo. “So additional stories are in there, in
animation.”

Sounds pretty groovy to us? What about you? Would you plunk down
some coin to buy an expanded “Kill Bill” set? Looking forward to more
animation from Tarantino? Sound off below.”

Netflix to Jack Up Prices For Blu-ray Renters

Digg: “What’s the best way to punish the same early adopters that made your
service a success? If you’re Netflix, it’s charging them extra for
renting Blu-ray. CEO Reed Hastings justifies this action by saying
“consumers are used to paying more for high-definition,” basically
punching this next generation of early adopters in the nads.”

Shakespeare’s Pulp Fiction

This is classic…

Boing Boing: “Livejournal’s Ceruleanst’s produced a couple of passages’ worth of Pulp Fiction, as written by William Shakespeare:

J: And know’st thou what the French name cottage pie?
V: Say they not cottage pie, in their own tongue?
J: But nay, their tongues, for speech and taste alike
Are strange to ours, with their own history:
Gaul knoweth not a cottage from a house.
V: What say they then, pray?
J: Hachis Parmentier.
V: Hachis Parmentier! What name they cream?
J: Cream is but cream, only they say le crème.
V: What do they name black pudding?
J: I know not;
I visited no inn it could be bought.

LINK

New Batman: Gotham Knight Trailer

This new trailer has me even more pumped….

i09:

“Some of the things Batman will have in this summer’s animated DVD anthology Gotham Knight:
1) Glowy red eyes that give him some kind of infrared vision. 2) Little
finger-sized Batarangs that he can throw a bunch of at once. 3) A
flying Bat-glider that lets him glide through the ominous skyline of
Gotham. 4) A torn uniform that exposes his Bat-abs. 5) A maniac
swinging a scythe at his head. 6) Fists of fury. 7) Our money.

We already featured a promo reel for this Animatrix-style tie-in with The Dark Knight,
but this trailer gives more of a feel for the range of styles in the
finished product. We’ll be seeing six different visions of the Bat
here, but it looks like they mesh pretty well, partly thanks to
consistent voice talent across all the films.”

[HD trailer at Yahoo Movies]

Spielberg loves GHOST IN THE SHELL… so much so he wants Dreamworks to do it up live-action style!

AICN: “So, a story popped up on Variety this morning announcing that Dreamworks has nabbed the rights to do-up famous anime GHOST IN THE SHELL as a live action (and 3D) feature film.

The interesting part is that it was Spielberg himself who spearheaded the acquisition.

Avi and Ari Arad are attached to produce and took the project around, where it found its way to Spielberg who urged it to be brought into the fold at Dreamworks.

The plan is indeed to make it a 3D film, live action and STREET KINGS’ Jamie Moss is attached to script the adaptation. No word yet on director.

I’m no anime fan, but you don’t have to be one to love GHOST IN THE SHELL. It’s one of the titles that reaches across genre lines. Curious to see how they handle the project… It’d be amazing if they kept the movie adult (read R-rating), but released it still as 3-D experience. We’re getting some horror films in 3-D, which is cool, but I’d love to see a violent, big time sci-fi flick in 3D as well. You?”