Filmonic

New Avatar trailer! This one’s for the kids!

Liam — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:37:08 PST

From all the promotional material 20th Century Fox have been throwing at us recently I wouldn’t really expect to see kids in the audience when Avatar is finally released next month. The film will be over 2 and a half hour long, will feature a few scary beasts and battles, and it will have an environmental message behind it all. While it hasn’t been rated yet it’ll probably get a PG-13 rating in USA, however that won’t stop Fox marketing to the youngsters. They have toys and merchandise to sell.

The trailer below appeared on Cartoon Network recently, and instead of big aerial battles and missiles the kids get cute creatures, uplifting music, and a voice-over that makes you feel warm inside.

Would James Cameron approve?

The Wolfman has got Emily Blunt up against a tree again

Liam — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:04:16 PST

Two new posters for The Wolfman have appeared online. One features Emily Blunt tree bound and popped up over at Cinematical. The other shows us the face of the furry one and comes courtesy of AICN.

Cool 2012 marketing in a Brazilian subway

Liam — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:39:41 PST

2012 must be a fun movie to market. Columbia don’t have to satisfy a fanbase or photoshop peoples body parts, as their only focus is scare the crap out of people in the hope they go and see a disaster movie about the end of the world. Most of the posters we have seen for the film have featured drowning cities and falling landmarks, which were eye catching enough in there average form, however from the image above you can see the marketing folks went a little bit further to promote the film in a Brazilian subway.

If only they covered the ceiling too. That would really get peoples attention!

[via adsoftheworld]

First set of official Kick-Ass posters released

Liam — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:57:12 PST

Back in August Matthew Vaughn brought his independently financed superhero movie Kick-Ass to Comic Con and the huge positive response to the footage provoked a bidding war between a few studios for distribution rights. Lionsgate eventually claimed victory after shelling out $50 million, and swiftly set a April 16th release date. Now we are starting to see the first bit of marketing for the film with IGN releasing 4 new posters.

To see the other posters showing Nicolas Cage as Big Daddy, Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Red Mist, and Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl click here!

In related Kick-Ass news AICN received a review for film after a test screening took place in London recently. Here’s a snippet (spoilers):

The comic sets out as a modern deconstruction of the superhero concept, with knowing nods to geekdom surrounding comics, and the film takes that idea and runs with. Littered with references to other superhero films from Batman, Superman and Spiderman (even the Spirit movie gets a hilarious nod), this feels like it is happening in our world, and will drive fellow geeks wild. The film veers ever more into outlandish areas as it goes on, but it always feel believable.
As far as the actors go, Brit Aaron Johnson as Kick-Ass more than fills the lead role ably handling the accent, but I did feel that he lacked the vulnerability of the comic’s Dave Lizewski, never nerdy enough and definitely too buff, but that’s just nit-picking at a role that should catapult him into the big time. Christopher “McLovin” Mintz-Plasse proves that he has what it takes to hold his own in a comedic role as Red Mist, and he seems perfectly cast. Nic Cage, who I wasn’t really to impressed with when I heard he was cast as Big Daddy, proved me wrong by putting in a hilarious, Adam West-esque performance (although his final scenes did raise a few eyebrows for his scene-chewing, but again I won’t spoil it for you).
But the film truly belongs to Chloe Moretz who, as Hit Girl, tears through the film as the baddest pre-pubescent 4 foot badass ever committed to film. She totally owns every scene and provided the audience with at least three bandstanding crowd cheering moments. She’s funny, witty, knowing, hugely crude, and just massively ass-kicking, her Matrix lobby-esque scene at the film’s climax is just incredible, and again should propel her into the big time by just being one of the most incredibly cool characters in any comic book film ever. Badder than Wolverine, funnier than Deadpool, more athletic than Spiderman and cuter than that kid in Runaways. Just f**king awesome.

Click here to read the rest!

From the positive reaction to footage at comic con, to this recent review, it seems Matthew Vaughn may have made a rather unique and cool superhero movie. All we need now is a trailer!

New Avatar videos reveal new footage!

Liam — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:27:30 PST

A few trailers, TV spots and tie-in commercials have appeared online recently for James Cameron’s Avatar and they are embedded for your viewing pleasure below. If you are satisfied with the trailers we have already seen and don’t want to be spoiled further with new footage then click elsewhere, as these videos have quite a lot of stuff we haven’t seen before.

First up is a Japanese trailer which is similar to the main trailer we got last week, although I’d say 30% is new footage:

Next is a short TV spot, which again shows a few new scenes we haven’t seen before.

Finally we have a commercial which advertises Avatar alongside Coke Zero. 20th Century Fox will probably have a new tie-ins with different products and companies considering the $250 million+ budget the movie had. Watch below:

John Hurt talks Deathly Hallows and the British film industry

Liam — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:35:00 PST

John Hurt appeared in the very first Harry Potter film back in 2001 and he will be returning nearly ten years on to reprise his role of Ollivander in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II. His character appeared briefly in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, however he was being abducted by Death Eaters and had a bag over his head, so it probably wasn’t John Hurt.

Hurt spoke to Rotten Tomatoes about playing the wand shop-keeper again, and he also had a mini-rant about the British film industry.

JH: I’ve filmed one, which actually is the last one, and now I’ve got the penultimate one to do which is in November, and that wraps it all up. It’s a big loss for Britain in terms of having a big studio movie here, but it’s not representative of our culture in terms of the films that we make. I am convinced that though Pinewood and Shepperton — the big studios — playing host to big movies is very important, our film business is in the independent world. Of that I’m convinced…
Do you think the big franchise movies shooting in the UK give a false impression of the health of our industry? All these productions move in and hire local talent, but they aren’t British films.
JH: No, they’re not British films. Even Harry Potter isn’t a British [franchise]. We gave it to Warners, we just sit and collect. That always infuriates me. I do think huge areas of the industry are being neglected and we’ve lost the ability for middle-budget films. When we did have a stronger industry — and not just a business — we did have room for middle-budget films. They’ve gone out of the window, as they’ve done in America as well, but a $20m picture would be wonderful to make every now and then. We could do a lot for that.
But it’s like any country, if you don’t have a lot of money to spend. And it’s interesting seeing how much money gets spent on Harry Potter. It’s quite absurd, really. I watch it and think it’s just the same as Hollywood. I look around and you’ve got three costumes there, none of which are likely to be worn, and they’re all replicas of each other. It’s a vacuous waste of money and it drives me insane.”

I’ll have to agree with Hurt on this one. If you watch any behind the scene feature on any big movie you see lots of waste. Before Half-Blood Prince came out I saw a behind the scenes TV special on the joke shop set which Fred and George Weasley own in the film. Warner Bros. had craftsmen and designers working for weeks on background props that weren’t even shown on-camera. The scene itself lasted less than a minute. However, I suppose they did provide work for local people who needed it.

The ‘British’ thing is also quite annoying. Harry Potter was created by a British author, the movies star British actors with mostly British directors, producers and crew, and it’s shot in Britain. Yet when each movie makes $900+ million 95% of is goes into the bank accounts of Warner Bros. in America. I appreciate that without Warner Bros. ploughing $150+ million into each film they wouldn’t have happened in the first place, however it’s a shame the movies will have no major long lasting impact on the British film industry. The industry doesn’t have a lot of money floating around and it could have benefited from some Harry Potter coin.

Ghost Rider 2 takes place 8 years on. Isn’t a reboot.

Liam — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:06:08 PST

In September David Goyer was brought on-board to tone down his 9 year old R-rated Ghost Rider script and set it up as a sequel to 2007’s Ghost Rider cheesefest. He recently spoke to MTV and revealed some more details on Ghost Rider 2, saying it will be “what Casino Royale was to the Bond movies”.

“It’s not exactly a reboot,” said Goyer, who’s currently hard at work on his “FlashForward” television series. “I hate to say it’s more realistic, because he’s got a flaming skull for a head, but it’s a bit more stripped down and darker. It’s definitely changing tone. What ‘Casino Royale’ was to the Bond movies, hopefully this will be to ‘Ghost Rider.’ This story picks up eight years after the first film,” said Goyer. “You don’t have to have seen the first film. It doesn’t contradict anything that happened in the first film, but we’re pretending that our audience hasn’t seen the first film. It’s as if you took that same character where things ended in the first film and then picked it up eight years later—he’s just in a much darker, existential place.”

Nicolas Cage will be back as the man with the flaming skull, and filming will take place next year.

Has The Tourist finally sorted itself out?

Liam — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:46:14 PST

Okay, so here’s the rundown. The Tourist was originally set up for Bharat Nalluri to direct and Tom Cruise to lead. Charlize Theron also joined as the female lead, however Tom Cruise then left to star in some action/comedy with Cameron Diaz. Sam Worthington was then brought on-board to replace him, however Charlize Theron then left and was replaced by Angelina Jolie. Director Bharat Nalluri also left the project, which prompted Spyglass Entertainment to hire Florian von Donnersmarck as director. Since leaving was the ‘in thing’ Sam Worthington bailed, and now according to THR Johnny Depp will be joining the project. Oh yeah, Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men) is now directing.

So that’s Cruise + Nalluri + Theron – Cruise + Worthington – Theron + Jolie – Nalluri + Donnersmarck – Worthington + Depp + Cuaron = The Tourist

And what’s this casting merry-go-round movie about? An female Interpol agent uses an American tourist in an attempt to flush out an elusive criminal with whom she once had an affair.

In conclusion, it doesn’t matter who directs The Tourist, as long as they’ve got 2 A-listers in the lead roles. Although, i’m a fan of Alfonso Cuaron and Jolie and Depp together on-screen could work out quite well.

Angelina Jolie’s Salt trailer now in English

Liam — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:14:02 PST

Now it all makes sense. Angelina Jolie is being set up by some Russian guy. I’m just glad she replaced Tom Cruise in the lead role as seeing him say “someone’s set me up” again would have been tedious, as he was already set up before in Mission Impossible and Minority Report.

The trailer is just like the Russian trailer we got yesterday…just not in Russian. Enjoy!

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time trailer in rewind!

Liam — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:57:15 PST

IGN teamed up with Prince of Persia game creator Jordan Mechner and together they dissect the new trailer for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, revealing some behind the scene info in the process. They rewind, pause, and slow-mo the trailer down to give us a better look at some of the stuff we have probably missed. They focus a lot of the dagger, and talk about what Jerry Bruckheimer and director Mike Newell have added to the movie which wasn’t in any of the games.