Posts Tagged ‘gangs of new york’

Chinese Earthquake Movie ‘Aftershocks’

I’m pretty damn sure no one has heard of this film before today, but you won’t forget about it after watching this trailer. Twitch first discovered this extraordinary teaser trailer for a disaster film called Aftershocks coming out of China about the devastating 1976 Tangshan Earthquake that killed over 240,000 people. This trailer reminds me of Schindler’s List with the little girl and the way it uses the red to accent the terror and chaos of the situation. I would say this is China’s big disaster film in response to 2012, but since this is about an event that already happened, it’s very different and much more emotional. Check out the teaser below. 

Watch the teaser trailer for Xiaogang Feng’s Aftershocks:

When a mother is informed by a rescue team that, since her 7-year old twins are buried under the debris close to each other, digging one out would result in the collapse of the wreckage on the other, she is forced to make the most difficult decision of her life. Based around the devastating Tangshan Earthquake of 1976.

Aftershocks, originally titled Tangshan Dadizheng in Chinese, is being directed by Beijing-born filmmaker Xiaogang Feng, of other Chinese films like The Dream Factory, Happy Funeral, A World Without Thieves and The Banquet previously. The film will be released in China in July of this year, but it does not have a US release date. In fact, it doesn’t even have a US distributor yet. We’ll let you know if we hear more about it!

WB’s Remake of Snabba Cash Zac Efron Plays Drug Smuggler.

You’re not the only one who doesn’t know what’s up with wacky that title. Heat Vision reports that remake rights to this Swedish thriller sparked a huge bidding war in Hollywood and it looks like the winner is Zac Efron (also attached to star) and Warner Bros (the home of Efron’s new production company) along with producers Charles Roven (The Dark Knight) and Richard Suckle (The International) of Atlas Ent. Snabba Cash is a new Swedish film based on a novel by Jens Lapidus that follows three interconnected storylines involving drugs and organized crime, and would have Efron as a financial wiz who becomes drug runner.

Apparently the property sparked interest at the Berlin Film Festival. Later, filmmaker Daniel Espinosa and his film were showcased to bring in offers and luckily they poured in like “snabba cash,” which apparently just means easy money. This project is so in-demand (Universal, Summit, Paramount, Fox, the Weinstein Company, and Mandate were all bidding on it) that the deal has a “progress to production,” or “short fuse” clause, which means that if Warner Bros sits on it for too long, the rights will revert back to the producers. But with WB’s big move to make Efron their next big action star, I don’t think getting this project off the ground with him attached will be too hard. Sound good? Anybody seen the original Snabba Cash?

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1914 Video Game Adaptation In The Works For Paul Verhoeven.

I’ve been waiting to see Paul Verhoeven return to his “roots” with more insanely violent action flicks like those he used to make back in the 80s and 90s, but that hasn’t happened yet. Last we heard, Verhoeven was supposed to working on a thriller called Surrogate, but not anymore. MTV talked with Verhoeven recently who told them: “I am working on a movie now that is… situated in 1914. We are scripting it. It’s an idea that exists already… from another medium, and so we are making it now into a film narrative.” He wouldn’t say the name, but did confirm that it’s a video game that they’re adapting the script from. So what could it be?

Verhoeven adds that the story is “basically, Indiana Jones-ish you could say, but also Hitchcockian.” Well that’s no help. How many games can you even think of that are set in 1914? Peter from SlashFilm seems to think it could be an old 1997 PC game called The Last Express, a real-time adventure game created by Jordan Mechner, the same guy who recently broke into Hollywood with Prince of Persia (he created that game and also wrote the script). The game takes place on the Orient Express days before the start of WWI and was even described at the time as “a mix of Indiana Jones and Alfred Hitchcock.” We’ve got a winner!

So Verhoeven is finally returning to the war genre again, or at least he’s adapting an adventure video game that’s set entirely on a train (I think?) in 1914 before WWI. Sounds like a very unique concept and as long as it’s as crazy violent and fun as Verhoeven’s work from the 80’s and 90’s, then I’m in. I don’t think Verhoeven has lost his touch recently, he just hasn’t been working on any movies that are as risky and, to be honest, as entertaining as his earlier work. And whenever I re-watch an old Verhoeven movie, I always hope that we’ll see more like it again soon. Has anyone played The Last Express? Will it make for a good movie?

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Logan Lerman Frontrunner for Spider-Man!

Back in February, we passed on reporting rumors about Logan Lerman meeting with Sony to potentially be cast as your friendly neighborhood wall-crawler in the Spider-Man reboot. Shortly after the news swept the web, it was squashed by THR just as quickly. At the time, the news had hit a bit too soon since the studio hadn’t even closed a deal with director Marc Webb yet, but now the exact same casting rumor is back with a vengeance as HitFix has learned exclusively from their source that is apparently close to the production that Lerman is “almost 100% locked” to play Peter Parker/Spider-Man in at least three forthcoming movies.

If this is true, Lerman will have beat out other mentioned big actors like Anton Yelchin, Jesse Eisenberg, Patrick Fugit and Johnny Simmons. And if the film (written by James Vanderbilt) will be taking cues from the Ultimate Spider-Man comics as it has been reported previously, then Lerman, who is the right age and has already led a big budget film (Percy Jackson & the Olympians) seems like the best choice (at least from the top list) to take on the arcs of Spider-Man that not only deal with his action-packed clashes with super-villains, but his teen angst as an average high school kid endowed with superpowers. This will differ from the struggles of Sam Raimi’s development of Peter Parker who only seemed to remain in high school for plot progression’s sake before he was off to college in Spider-Man 2, and swing dancing school in Spider-Man 3.

And honestly, as far as talent goes, Lerman seemed like he was holding back in Percy Jackson. For most of the problems in that film, I blame Chris Columbus for making what could have been darker, grittier material into such a blatant attempt at family fare that scaled down the impact of a lot of different character building plot points (mainly Percy’s angst with his mother’s decision to stay with hismdrunken step-father). But with Marc Webb at the helm to turn this twisted mess of an angst-ridden teen into a superhero, rather than try to make a superhero have the woes of an everyday teen, we’re in for a different Spidey as a more grounded superhero, which in the case of a huge reboot, seems like the right decision. So what do you guys think?

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Fincher Definitely Directing Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Next

David Fincher fans – we’ve got news for you. The Playlist has confirmed that Fincher’s next film following The Social Network will be the US remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (watch the trailer). The Swedish flick, which is only the first in a trilogy, has been getting quite a bit of buzz for just being another fantastic Swedish film and for the kind of names (like Fincher) that it has attracted here in Hollywood. On the other hand, apparently Fincher is not going to direct that Tobey Maguire chess movie Pawn Sacrifice, even though he did take a meeting but that’s about it. So it’ll definitely be Dragon Tattoo for Fincher next.

The remake is currently on the fast-track at Columbia / Sony with Scott Rudin producing and Steve Zaillian (Schindler’s List, Hannibal, Gangs of New York, American Gangster) writing the script. Shooting is set to begin in September or October of this year, as long as everything goes according to plan. Carey Mulligan has been rumored for the lead role of hacker chic Lisbeth Salander, however Anne Thompson at indieWIRE thinks that Kristen Stewart has a good chance, especially because she already worked with Fincher for Panic Room. I’d personally much rather prefer Mulligan, but I think Stewart would actually be a good fit.

Fincher’s decision to take on this remake for his next film is very interesting, for a few reasons. First, we learned a few weeks ago that Fincher is the first (and only) director to have final cut on his films at Sony (which is why he’s probably staying there). Second, this is the first remake he’s ever done, which is quite an interesting tidbit itself. I hate to say it, since I haven’t seen the original anyway, but this has the potential to turn out better than the original. Fincher has a nearly flawless track record in my book and I can’t wait to see how he tackles a dark, hacker, female-lead mystery like this. Stay tuned for casting and more updates!

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