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-- Entertainment News For The Week Of Sept 3, 2003 (http://www.vcdhq.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=27332)

Entertainment News For The Week Of Sept 3, 2003

Unlocking Kruger's SKELETON KEY

Longtime fans of Coming Attractions will remember Darwin Mayflower and his reviews of screenplays in early stages of development. Now that the former Directors of Corona's Test Pattern have successfully launched their latest website, Screenwriter's Voice, Darwin's back dispensing his two-fisted judgment on the latest Hollywood writers have to offer. Up for critique this week: the first online review of Ehren Kruger's screenplay for THE SKELETON KEY.

With Kate Hudson set to star in this supernatural thriller, Darwin Mayflower took a close look at Kruger's script to see if it had all the ingredients to make it fly just as his earlier work on THE RING proved. Unfortunately it seems that Kruger's script has too much dead weight saddled on it and not enough of the vital ingredients of horror that THE RING possessed. "SKELETON KEY needs a swift kick in its ass, a flow of blood-red heat, if it wants to be anything more than its B-movie horror shallowness suggests," writes Mayflower in his review. "A horror movie with people who aren't scared isn't a horror movie; if the people don't come to truly fear what they're up against then there's no sense of imminent danger."

SCOOP: What`s attached with UNDERWORLD?

In the interests of brevity, let's keep this scoop short and to the point:

First, it comes from someone who's told you plenty of things in the past and they've turned out to be true. They just don't want their boss to know who they are and who they're talking with.


Second, they tell us that the first trailer for RESIDENT EVIL 2 will debut with UNDERWORLD. Makes sense, doesn't it? They're both Screen Gems pictures.


Third, the plan right now is to attach the trailer for SPIDER-MAN 2 to THE MISSING, Ron Howard's period thriller set for release in December. Both are Sony films. Posters should also start popping up in theater lobbies in this month.


Finally, there will be a trailer for HELLBOY seen sometime in October. But which film will it run with? No one's sure of that just yet.


Just to give you some peace of mind: this spy was also the first to tell us about the re-release of Ridley Scott's ALIEN well before anyone else knew of it.

The many looks of Anakin in EPISODE III

As filming continues on STAR WARS: EPISODE III, spy reports that have been appearing on The Force.net are concurring with what our sources have been telling us: that the progression of Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader will happen in stages over the course of EPISODE III.

First, let's tell you the latest of what Force.net is reporting -- stop reading at this point if you don't like SPOILERS with your Wookiee cookies.


Force.net's latest spy report indicates that Anakin's duel with Obi-Wan will result in the loss of one of his legs up to his knee. This, coupled with the apparent addition of a facial scar suffered sometime during Skywalker's time spent fighting in the Clone Wars as well as his mechanical hand (seen during the closing sequence of EPISODE II) means that the man is becoming more of the machine as time passes. Force.net's source also mentioned that the recently filmed lightsaber fight between Obi-Wan and Anakin was photographed using red light -- the glow from flowing lava, perhaps?


Now, onto our sources. One of our field reporters told us that the costume department was recently busy fitting a double to wear the full armor of Darth Vader. According to our source, the original actor who was the frontrunner to wear the Vader armor was dismissed by Lucasfilm for an unusual reason. "He kept freaking out in a

fanboy way about the fact that he was wearing the original costume," our spy said.


Unfortunately that's all our mole could get. We don't know how long we'll get to see Vader in full Dark Lord mode in EPISODE III. It could be a quick appearance, perhaps no longer than a scene or two near the end of the picture. But what another spy tells us is that there are plans to show Anakin Skywalker in transformation towards Darth Vader in EPISODE III, with more injuries, damage and reconstruction happening to Skywalker as the story progresses. Again, this information matches up with the reports that Force.net has been receiving, and it sounds like those scenes showing a scarred Anakin are yet to be filmed.


In other EPISODE III news, the official STAR WARS website mentions that we'll get a second chance to see some of Padme's family in EPISODE III. Claudia Karvan (who played Padme's sister Sola) and Hayley Mooy and Keira Wingate (who played Pooja and Ryoo, Sola's daughters) will reprise their roles in the new film. If you don't remember seeing these characters in ATTACK OF THE CLONES, don't worry, you're not losing your memory; their scenes were cut from the theatrical release of EPISODE II but were included with other deleted scenes on that film's DVD.

Invisible Woman revealed for FANTASTIC FOUR?

Over the past two weeks a pair of sharp-eyed scoopers sent word of a interesting fragment of news found on E! Online: the mention that pop superstar Jessica Simpson has been apparently cast in a new Marvel Comics film project due out in the summer of 2004. But with casting completed months ago on SPIDER-MAN 2, no new announcements for THE PUNISHER and the main female role in BLADE: TRINITY already going to Jessica Biel, what other Marvel movie could it be?

Well, according to The Star tabloid newspaper, Simpson has been cast as Sue Storm, a.k.a The Invisible Woman, in Fox's live-action FANTASTIC FOUR film. Don't believe me? Superhero Hype's heard the same thing!


No official word has been issued by Fox or Marvel about Simpson's supposed involvement with this Marvel movie or even if it's FF. In the interest of being informed we thought you'd like to know...and perhaps prepare yourself. It's Hollywood; anything can happen.

From fast cars to futuristic fighting

Paul Walker wants to become THE LAST APOSTLE. That's the title of a new science fiction/action project in development at Columbia Pictures, under the supervision of producer Mark Gordon. Being described as THE MATRIX meets THE CROW, the film's script will be written by Ric Roman and Tag Mendillo. Right now the storyline sounds pretty basic: an antihero with a terrible secret (Walker's character) living in a futuristic Gothic civilization fights the forces of evil. Wait a second, didn't I just describe QUEER EYE FOR THE STRAIGHT GUY in a nutshell?

Walker's next film, TIMELINE, comes out November 26.

CUBE director enters NECROPOLIS city limits

The director of CUBE has a new job. Vincenzo Natali has been hired to helm NECROPOLIS, the horror project set up with Dimension Films. Paul W. S. Anderson wrote the script for the picture which he'll also produce while he's busy shooting ALIEN VS. PREDATOR this winter.

Natali wrapped a thriller called CYPHER, starring Lucy Liu and Jeremy Northam, which will screen at this week's Toronto Film Festival. CYPHER hasn't been picked up for domestic distribution yet.

The Bat-signal is on over Hollywood

Wednesday's Hollywood Reporter rounds up their list of the top contenders for the next BATMAN film, to be directed by Christopher Nolan (MEMENTO). According to the trade magazine, the actors being called in to test for the part include Christian Bale, Cillian Murphy, Joshua Jackson, Jake Gyllenhaal, Henry Cavill and Eion Bailey, with another possibility being Hugh Dancy (that is, if he can pry himself away from the shooting of KING ARTHUR.)

According to multiple internet sites, Bale has long been rumored to be one of the top contenders for the role. Gyllenhaal, star of DONNIE DARKO, had been an alternative for the role of Peter Parker in SPIDER-MAN s before Tobey Maguire settled his issues with the filmmakers. Cavill was first reported by this website to be under consideration for the lead role in the new SUPERMAN film; this is the first we've heard of the actor up for possible Dark Knight duty. Murphy (28 DAYS LATER), Bailey (MINDHUNTERS) and Jackson are new to the mix. Dancy's name was first mentioned late last month on Dark Horizons and IGN FilmForce.


Reporter also provides a new morsel for us to chew on: according to their sources, the new BATMAN film is scheduled to roll cameras in February 2004.

__________________
"If somebody said to me, in twelve years you’ll be in a band with your brother and two carrot munching geezers who don’t like football, I would've said 'fuck off, I’m not joining the Bee Gees." -Noel Gallagher 2005