Let's all go to the movies

[Guest El Blanco]

Eddie Kaye Thomas Doing Dirty Love

Source: Beverly Hills Film Studios Inc. September 15, 2004

Beverly Hills Film Studios Inc. has announced that "American Pie" star Eddie Kaye Thomas has come aboard the new romantic comedy Dirty Love as the male lead.

The film, now in production in Los Angeles, stars Jenny McCarthy and Carmen Electra in the female lead roles. The project is being helmed by John Asher (Diamonds) and produced by Kimberley Kates and BJ Davis of Beverly Hills Film Studios. The film also marks the screenwriting debut of McCarthy.

Also starring in the film are the members of Canadian band Sum 41 including Deryck Whibley, who will be playing a love interest of Electra's character. In the third female lead is the beautiful Kam Heskin (Catch Me If You Can, Planet of the Apes). Heskin plays the role of airy and flamboyant "Carrie," best friend of McCarthy's character, "Rebecca."

Starring as the villain ex-boyfriend of McCarthy's character will be Victor Webster, best known as a star on Days of Our Lives. Also starring is actor Lochlyn Munro (White Chicks), Survivor hunk Colby Donaldson, and comedian Kathy Griffin.

"We are thrilled to have assembled such a great cast for this film, and all of the media attention is great. We think that audiences will love the combo of Electra and McCarthy, and the script is hilarious," said Kates and Davis.

Accompanying star names on Dirty Love will be sponsorships with Pony Shoes, who will tie in the film to a major ad campaign, as well as women's fashion label XOXO, Patron brand Tequila, men's magazine FHM, Red Bull and Fuji Film. All products will be featured in the movie.

Dirty Love is expected to be released in summer 2005. Currently, talks are underway with several major distributors for worldwide rights.

Dirty Love is a modern-day Cinderella story which sees disaster-prone McCarthy embark on an outrageous and hilarious journey in search of true love. In the film, Rebecca (McCarthy) is betrayed by her boyfriend and following a palm reader's prophecy goes in search of her perfect partner. This riotous and entertaining dating spree gets her slapped by a fish at one point, and even lands her in jail!

[Guest El Blanco]

War of the Worlds vs. Fantastic Four

Source: The Hollywood Reporter September 16, 2004

While 20tCentury Fox first set a July 1, 2005 release date for its Marvel Comics adaptation Fantastic Four, Paramount Pictures has now moved the Steven Spielberg-directed and Tom Cruise adaptation of H.G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds two days earlier, to Wednesday, June 29.

The current situation would give Fantastic Four four days to tally up a big box office, since the Fourth lands on a Monday, but now "Worlds" has positioned itself for an even bigger six day box office opening.

The Hollywood Reporter says neither studio is backing down so far. "'Fantastic Four' is in the league of 'X-Men' and 'Spider-Man,' and over the last two summers those movies have opened to an average of over $100 million," Fox executive vp marketing Jeffrey Godsick said. "'Fantastic Four' has been shooting for a while and looks to be true to its name -- fantastic." The trade says Paramount declined comment for the article.

It's nothing new for Fox though, as Paramount previously scheduled Cruise sequel Mission: Impossible 3 on the same date, June 29, before pushing it back a year to make way for "Worlds". "Worlds" will face a much tighter post-production schedule than "Four".

The only other wide release on July 1st is Disney's animated Chicken Little, which Fox views as family-oriented counterprogramming that would not compete directly with "Four".

[ROC]

If WOTW is as big as most would expect, Fantastic Four might become the King Arthur of '05. A shame if so, but that's what I'm thinking.

[Guest El Blanco]

Uma Thurman Confirmed for Prime

Source: The Hollywood Reporter September 16, 2004

Uma Thurman has indeed taken over the lead role from Sandra Bullock for Universal Pictures' Prime, which writer/director Ben Younger started shooting on Wednesday.

Annie Parisse (National Treasure, Monster-in-Law) has also joined the cast to play Katherine, the best buddy of Thurman's character. Thurman entered the picture late last month after Bullock withdrew over issues regarding script approval.

The Hollywood Reporter says Thurman plays a woman who falls in love with the son (Bryan Greenberg) of her therapist (Meryl Streep).

[Guest El Blanco]

New Blade: Trinity Trailer Hits!

Source: New Line Cinema September 16, 2004

New Line Cinema has released the new action-packed trailer for writer/director David Goyer's Blade: Trinity. You can view the trailer, plus an Abigail clip, in either QuickTime or Windows Media format Here!

In the third film, after falling into the crosshairs of the FBI, Blade (Wesley Snipes) is forced out into the daylight, where he is driven to join forces with a clan of human vampire hunters he never knew existed – The Nightstalkers. Together with Abigail (Jessica Biel) and Hannibal (Ryan Reynolds), two deftly trained Nightstalkers, Blade follows a trail of blood to the an ancient creature that is also hunting him... the original vampire, Dracula.

Edited September 17, 2004 by El Blanco

[Guest El Blanco]

Man on Fire & Punisher Performing Strong

Source: The Hollywood Reporter September 16, 2004

Man on Fire sold about 1.5 million combined DVD and VHS units Tuesday, its first day on retail shelves, according to 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The first-day home video sales are performing on par with a $100 million-plus boxoffice film, a strong showing for a film with $78 million in domestic boxoffice.

Lions Gate's The Punisher sold about 1.8 million combined DVD and VHS units during its first five days in release. Its first-week sales figure makes it one of the top-selling live-action titles of the year respective to its $33 million domestic boxoffice take.

The Hollywood Reporter says Nielsen VideoScan ranked The Punisher as the nation No. 2-best-selling DVD its debut week, second to The Passion of the Christ, for the week ending Sept. 12.

[Mysterio2000X]

I rented Man On Fire the other day, and thought it was a pretty good movie so I'm going to pick that up soon.

[Guest El Blanco]

Milla Jovovich in .45, Oded Fehr in Dreamer

Source: The Hollywood Reporter September 17, 2004

Resident Evil: Apocalypse stars Milla Jovovich and Oded Fehr have both lined-up new projects. The Hollywood Reporter says Jovovich is in talks to star in .45, an independent movie about a married couple involved in small-time crime in New York's Hell's Kitchen during the mid-1970s. Fehr has signed on for John Gatins' Dreamer at DreamWorks.

The trade says Jovovich will play the wife in .45, which explores domestic violence and its consequences. It is being written and directed by Gary Lennon. Set to begin filming November 11 in New York, the film is being produced by Brad Wyman and Donald Kushner, two of the producers of Charlize Theron's Monster. Jovovich will next be seen in Ultraviolet from Screen Gems.

In Dreamer, Fehr joins a cast that includes Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning, Elisabeth Shue, Freddy Rodriguez and Kris Kristofferson. Shooting starts this month on the film that follows the story of a Kentucky horse trainer (Russell) and his daughter (Fanning) who rescue a horse with a broken leg, nurse it back to health and race it in the Breeders' Cup. Fehr is playing a horse owner. He recently finished reprising his role in Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.

[Guest El Blanco]

Star Wars DVD Unveiled part 2

The second Q&A in the Star Wars Trilogy DVD rollout was Kevin Burns, the director of the documentary "Empire of Dreams". At 2 ½ hours long, it covers the making of the trilogy from concept through "Episode I". Even then, there's still a lot that had to be left out.

The first question was in regards to the 40 cast and crew members that were interviewed for the documentary. Was there anybody they wanted to interview that they couldn't get? Kevin responded, "We got everybody. I mean, there was an understandable wariness because some of these people have been talking about Star Wars for years and years and they felt in some ways that they hadn't left anything new to say. But I think that our mandate, and I give Jim [Ward] a lot of credit for this, was we don't want to ask them the same old questions. In fact, Anthony Daniels was hysterical. Anthony Daniels was the most reluctant, OK? And I had to call him to talk him out of the emotional tree he was in. Because he was like, 'Please, I don't want to talk about Star Wars. I'm so sick of it. And if you ask me what was it like to be C-3PO, I will immediately terminate the interview.' And I said, 'Trust me, I will not ask you what it was like to be C-3PO.' And of course when I met him in London, my first question was, 'What was it like to be C-3PO?' He said, 'I warned you about this!' Anyway, he was brilliant. We actually sat down with these people, sometimes for 2 and 3 hours. We did in high definition what we intended to be archival interviews that would stand the test of time and not just service the immediate needs of the documentary. So much so that one of the things that were most emotional for us was Peter Diamond, who was the stunt coordinator for the Star Wars films, who was this wonderfully vigorous, brilliant [gentleman]. We had lunch with him. Three weeks later, he passed away, which alerted us to the importance of what we were doing to chronicle the stories these people had to tell. It was very much of a mission in that respect, not just a job."

Did he watch all the archival footage available from Lucasfilm? Burns answered, "You really start with the story. In other words, instead of building the documentary around the available footage, what we did is we started with the story and Jim and I in our first meeting were in dead sync about the story that we wanted to tell. I'm actually not only a filmmaker but I was a history major and I came from a perspective of a social historian. And I was also a student filmmaker in Boston at Boston University when the films came out. So I'd watched them as a film fan, and I was a projectionist working my way through grad school projecting these movies when they came out so I wanted to recreate for the audience watching the documentary the experience of watching the films for the first time. And so I said to Jim, 'I want to bring people back to 1977 because I think people have forgotten what the world was like, what movies were like before this movie. Because this movie changed the industry. It changed film schools. It changed everything.' And Jim said, 'You know, we want to tell the story about George Lucas – Independent Filmmaker.' And of course being an independent filmmaker, I came very much from that same point of view. And in a sense we put that front and center as the arc of the story and everything fell into place. In other words we really didn't have substantial disagreements about the script or the story or where we were gonna go. In fact, it was an embarrassment of riches. The biggest challenge of this production was time. I remember when Jim said to me, 'How long would a documentary like this, with all the material we are going to make available to you, how long would you need?' And I said, I think this was October, and I said we'd need about 6 to 8 months. He said, 'We have to have it finished in March.' And of course we didn't even have a deal to do it yet. And I looked at my watch and I think I said, 'Well, we better hurry up now because if I don't start it today, you're not gonna have it!' And we had a team of people just working day and night flying up to Marin, going to the Lucasfilm Archives."

Jim Ward then added, "And I think another thing is that every time I'd go to George with a cut or draft of the script, he would push us. He'd say, 'No, no, no. This is how it happened. Let's be truthful to that. This is the way it went down.'" Kevin said, "Even at 2 ½ hours we were cramming an enormous amount of story into a very short time."

So was this a "warts and all" telling of the making of Star Wars? Kevin replied, "Actually, that was our mandate. I do tell the dirty little story that the only thing we couldn't put into this documentary was the Star Wars Holiday Special. (laughter). You know, it truly didn't fit in the cut. We did have it in an earlier cut, I will tell you, and I was, 'Gosh, I really wanted put that Star Wars Holiday Special [in]!' But it just didn't work in the context of the cut. But we were really encouraged tell everything. You'll see little bit of that extra. But poor George gets beaten up pretty heavy in terms of his relationship with the cast and everything in the first movie. And the idea that, no one had any faith in this thing except him, and I would argue Mark Hamill. Mark, who comes from a place of loving animation, loving fantasy, loving comic books. Mark was on board with him. But other than that the other actors and the people in London…." At that point a very familiar voice in the back yelled out, "I think the Holiday Special is severely underrated!!!" It was Mark Hamill himself who had snuck into the back of the theater. His impromptu comment generated a lot of laughter in the audience to which Kevin added, "We're gonna screen that after this!"

One thing you may noticed about "Empire of Dreams" is that it uses footage from the original versions of the films, not the Special Editions. Kevin discussed that. "As a historian, it was important for us, in the telling of the story, to put audiences back in that theater seat in 1977 as I was. And so we did get papal dispensation to go back and use the footage from the pre-Special Edition release. And so when you see in sequences in our story, you see the opening title sequence cause I wanted to go back to Graumann's Chinese Theater for the premiere of the film and you see the original opening title sequence as it looked in 1977 before it says 'Episode IV: A New Hope'. And that was exciting for us cause it was like, yes, that brings you back. But I will say what was shocking was – and I think this speaks to the whole issue of restoration – those brief scenes that we used from the pre-Special Edition, in our mind's eye, they looked a lot better than they do when you go back and revisit them and you do see how the quality of the print and the quality of the negative really doesn't hold up the way you think it might. So you kind of understand why things have been revised and digitally restored."

[Guest El Blanco]

Credit New Jersey journal

Spielberg movie to be shot here

'War of Worlds' will use downtown homes Tom Cruise set to star

Friday, September 17, 2004

By Ronald Leir

Journal staff writer

Bayonne's Henry Sanchez had a surprise visitor at his downtown home recently.

"Steven Spielberg was here about two weeks ago," Sanchez said. "He knocked on my door and said, 'Hello, I'm Steven Spielberg.'"

Bayonne will soon be seeing a lot of the Hollywood film director when he begins filming a new movie, "War of the Worlds," inspired by the H.G. Wells book of the same name, starring Tom Cruise.

Pre-production work has begun and city lawyers are in the process of negotiating terms for use of various public properties.

Holly Whidden, a publicist for Paramount Pictures in New York, confirmed yesterday that the studio is planning a film of that name with Cruise and that it is "in the early stages of production."

Shooting may start next month and could wrap by December, one city official said. It is slated for a summer release.

When the director came calling, Sanchez said he had no doubt it was the real deal, because "I looked outside and he had about 20 people with him. They were visiting all the homes in this area - Kennedy Boulevard, Pointview Terrace, First Street."

Spielberg, dressed casually in jeans, told Sanchez he was looking for a location in Bayonne to shoot a movie and that he and his scouts were looking all over the city.

"Then he asked permission to come in and look at my house," Sanchez said.

Once inside the two-story house, near the southern end of Kennedy Boulevard, Spielberg scanned a collection of World War II photos: Sanchez is a World War II Navy veteran who participated in the D-Day Invasion of Europe.

The Oscar-winning director then toured the backyard patio deck and above-ground pool, Sanchez said.

"He spent a good half hour here," Sanchez said.

"We exchanged a few social words and I offered him a drink, but he politely declined. He's a nice gentleman.

"And then he left, but some of his crew stayed and looked around a little more and then they left and I forgot all about it - until about four hours later, when David McGuire, a scout, rang the bell.

"David says, 'Henry, Steven says there's no sense looking at any other house. He wants to film in your house,'" Sanchez recalled. "He loves this area, downtown."

Since then, Sanchez said, pre-production crews have been back several times to visit, snapping pictures and taking measurements of various settings in and out of the house. They've also removed his outdoor pool, he said.

As many as nine homes in the area may be involved in the upcoming shooting, Sanchez said.

Several downtown residents said Paramount representatives either visited or left fliers at homes, soliciting the use of homes and backyards that could be occupied by actors during filming.

"They were looking specifically at one-and two-family homes along Kennedy Boulevard near the Bayonne Bridge," one resident said.

Several city officials said they were told by studio representatives that Spielberg and company want to build a structure - probably a gas station or auto body shop - on the Little League field on the south side of First Street near Kennedy Boulevard and then blow it up.

Mayor Joseph V. Doria Jr. said that if the city comes to terms with the studio on that proposal, Paramount would have to return the field to at least the same, if not better, condition, and city Law Director John Coffey II said he would be negotiating a lease agreement with the studio for use of the property, a portion of which is reportedly owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

"Our city ordinance calls for a payment of $50 a day for a permit to film on city streets, but this (build and destroy plan) is a bit different," Coffey said.

Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Nancy Kist couldn't be reached yesterday, but it's expected that the BLRA would execute a lease agreement with Paramount for the use of studio space on property at the former MOT, now called the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor.

The city hopes, eventually, to have a permanent film/TV studio setup at the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor.

Journal staff writer Lauren DeFilippo contributed to this report.

[Guest El Blanco]

Fuller on the Chainsaw Massacre Prequel

Source: Zap2it

September 17, 2004

Producer Brad Fuller talked to Zap2it about the upcoming prequel to New Line's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre which will explore Leatherface's family and how they became serial killers. Talking from the set of The Amityville Horror remake, Fuller revealed some secrets about the film.

"It won't have any of the young actors from the first (like Jessica Biel), this is a prequel. But there will be a group of teen and young adults in their 20s who make an unfortunate decision to end up in this town."

He said the production hopes to explain the story of the murderous family. "The old man had no legs, we hope to answer questions about that. We hope that you'd eventually be able to watch the two movies together and it will explain a lot of questions that were unanswered."

Fuller added that he's not sure Andrew Bryniarski will play Leatherface again. "It's a very physical part," Fuller says. He does hope that R. Lee Ermey, who played Sheriff Hoyt, will return. "He elevated that movie in much the same way as Philip Baker Hall does with 'Amityville'".

[Guest El Blanco]

USA Weekend Box-Office Summary

17 September 2004 (Sunday Estimates)

Rank---- Title-------------------------------------------Weekend Gross

1. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) $16.2M $16.2M

2. Mr. 3000 (2004)--------------------------------------$9.2M $9.2M

3. Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) ------------------$9M $37.4M

4. Wimbledon (2004) ----------------------------------$7.8M $7.8M

5. Cellular (2004) -------------------------------------$6.88M $19.8M

6. Without a Paddle (2004) --------------------------$3.71M $50.4M

7. Ying xiong (2002) ---------------------------------$2.96M $46.2M

8. Napoleon Dynamite (2004) ----------------------$2.4M $33.5M

9. Collateral (2004) ----------------------------------$2.3M $96M

10. Princess Diaries 2-------------------------------- $2M $91.9M

[Guest El Blanco]

Roger Avary on Silent Hill

Source: Avary.com September 20, 2004

Roger Avary (The Rules of Attraction) has been talking about writing the big screen adaptation of Konami's psychological horror video game Silent Hill on his official website. The film will be directed by Christophe Gans.

Silent Hill, Silent Hill, Silent Hill...my life is consumed by it. The soundtrack to Silent Hill 2, the graphic novel, fan art, and of course, the games. I'm mostly spending the evenings re-playing Silent Hill 2 (my favorite of the series) on my French PS2, and then watching various DVDs that Christophe suggests are similar to the Silent Hill feel. Then, every morning at 10AM, a car picks me up from my apartment in St.-Germain-des-Pres to deliver me to the palatial offices of Samuel Hadida (which we call KGB Central) where Christophe and I feverishly work alongside each other. We have the entire 4th Floor production suite to ourselves. Christophe is obsessed with all sorts of obscure Italian soundtracks, which we listen to (along with the Silent Hill 2 soundtrack and heavy doses of Serge Gainsbourg) while we write. We've had a game system brought into the office so that we can take breaks to play. Usually, around 1PM we go out for a typical French lunch, usually accompanied by a gathering of French cinephiles that seem to creep out of the woodwork. After two or more hours of heated discussions of who is the Godfather about, exactly, Pacino or Brando (or some other tangential topic, like which recent American directors are the cinematic descendents of Claude Lelouche), we wander back to the office and finish off some more pages. I've eaten more bread, and drank more nuclear coffee in the last 10 days than I have in the last year. By night, I'm back to my little apartment -- typically French, with beams in the ceiling and creaky wood floors -- to continue trolling the Silent Hill universe for hidden clues. This may just be the best writing experience I've ever had.

The "Silent Hill" games thrust players into a nightmarish world where they must unravel twisted storylines and battle grotesque creatures and terrifying monsters.

[Guest El Blanco]

Interview with Uwe Boll Director of BloodRayne

By James Wray Sep 19, 2004, 01:55 GMT

Then we have him killing one guy while accessing the room killing another guy and he comes out and then knocks down BloodRayne

Director Uwe Boll

So begins our interview with director Uwe Boll who is currently in Romania shooting BloodRayne. We call in the early hours of the morning as they are workng night shoots. There is constant hustle and bustle during the call as horses and knights battle, Uwe has to keep shouting directions during the interview, since they are filming some scenes with Michael Madsen during the climatic battle.

UB: Now I', ready!

JW: OK, great.

UB: We are doing the biggest massacre in the movie right now, so we have five knights in this monastery in Romania right now and a huge battle with like one shot after another where people get killed or cut and half and stuff.

JW: Sounds hectic!

Alien Vs. Predator has done well at the box office has this raised your expectations for how BloodRayne will be do?

UB: Yes, absolutely. Basically BloodRayne is a completely different movie to my previous ones. It is a video game based movie sure, but far more story orientated. I thought it would be good to move the story back and to tell the prequel really. To show how BloodRayne became BloodRayne in the 1700's. A franchise really, so maybe we can move a hundred years into the future for the next one, then later  with the game story with the Nazi's and all that stuff, we can do it in part two or part three.

JW: Oh right so you plan to continue?

UB: Yes, but in general it was very exciting with House of the Dead making good money in the territories and elsewhere. Also in the UK I think we plan the release it at Halloween with the French also  putting out the movie.

JW: Is that Redbus?

UB: Yes that’s right Redbus are doing it.

JW: So you are looking to film the actual game story in the future? You're not dropping the whole Nazi thing because of German laws or such?

UB: I don’t mind we can do the Nazi story but I tried to start with a real explanation like who is Kagan, what are the roots of the whole vampire story. I want to do BloodRayne as really bloody period piece. It makes more sense to tell the whole story also where the Brimstone Society origins are and then we can make that jump to the story that plays in the time of the Nazi's.

JW: Well that makes sense I guess given some people are not familiar with the game.

JW: Why did you cast Ben Kingsley as Kagan? Did you have him in mind or...?

UB: I think Ben Kingsley is a great choice. He is finished up already so he is gone, we have done all his scenes. I must say it was a great honour to work with Ben Kingsley he is a great actor. He makes the part very believable. He plays a real evil king basically. Not like Gary Oldman, though he could have made a great Kagan as well. But he was more a dirty vampire; Ben Kingsley is more like an aristocrat, like the Sir Ben Kingsley (laughs). He plays it very cool. Which makes it even more evil and its good to have to have the very emotional Kristanna Loken playing against the real ice cold Ben Kingsley.

So in the scenes we have done everything worked very very well, some really strong scenes between these two.

JW: Did Ben Kingsley have a physical role; I mean did he have action scenes as well?

UB: Yes he did sword fighting and some action scenes. Obviously we have stunt doubles too, with all the actors. I always try to get the best our of the actors with stunt scenes with people like Matt Davis, Will Saunders, Michelle Rodriguez and Kristanna they are very capable with these things. They are getting better and better with things like horse riding, shooting bows and crossbows and fighting with swords. But some stuff is too dangerous.

JW: What about Kristanna Loken is she really getting into her character? How is she finding playing Rayne?

UB: I am really happy to have her in the movie. She is tall and strong, very sporty. She grew up in a zoo basically...her father had like a pet zoo in New York State. So she has a very good relationship with nature and with horses. So she could do all the riding stuff on her own. Plus with the other work she did on Terminator 3 and more recently in South Africa with Kingdom in Twilight, she was already trained in using sword in a way as well as being used to action scenes. So a really good start.

JW: Your quite an animal lover yourself, I was reading on your diary page about some dogs you rescued?

UB: Yes, many dogs, I have two running around me right now. Romania has loads of street dogs and basically I am a big dog friend I guess. I even brought my own dog with me from Germany. But it is touching to see all the dogs starving, I cannot stand it so I  bought food and I feed them when I can. So now I have two dogs and will be taking three dogs back to Germany. Plus one other guy on the crew is taking one as well.

JW: Well it’s good you're doing something about it most people just talk about it!

UB: Yes...it’s...different. This is not going to be a PG

JW: Now BloodRayne as a movie, do you see it as all out action or more rounded than that?

UB: Well...Oh wait Michael Masden just came and I have to shoot a shot with him, but we can finish this question and then continue 

afterwards.

The point is we would not have gotten all these great actors for the film with only an action movie. It's the best cast in a video game movie ever.  Not only Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodriguez and Kristanna Loken, also Udo Keir newly cast, he comes in as a Regal Monk. Michael Paré will also be in the movie, we have Geraldine Chaplin in the movie, daughter of Charlie Chaplin. 

Really tons of stars and I think this is because of Guinevere Turner she wrote great script and it’s more character driven than an action movie. I think this is what attracted the actors you will never see Ben Kingsley in a House of the Dead type movie, lets say. He would not play in that kind of movie, it must be a good part with a solid back-story.

JW: Ok thanks, I'll call you back in 30 mins.

Call again,

JW: Hi, you good to go?

UB: Yeah I am back, Michael just has to throw this guy down the steps and then we keep going with the next shot.

JW: So Michelle Rodriguez plays Katarin is that right?

UB: Yes, Katarin, she plays one of the Brimstone warriors. One of the chiefs of the vampire hunters and the Brimstone Society and works together with Michael Madsen and Matt Davis.

JW: You mentioned Geraldine Chaplin, what role is she playing?

UB: Yeah we have a fortune teller in the movie; she knows what the future brings and tells BloodRayne what she has to look for. She has to get the talisman, we have like three talisman. Ben Kingsley wants to get the talisman, so she sends Rayne off to get them before he does. Also Rayne wants revenge on Kagan and this is the basic story. She gets killed in the movie but she was really great to work with and part turned out well.

JW: I was looking at the crew list, now James Steuart he is your production director?

UB: Yes, he has been doing the production design and he has done a great job. Things are not easy I must say here in Romania. Everything takes a long time, very slow they are not really used to doing films. Especially when we are far away from Bucharest. For instance we are really in the heart of Transylvania, in the mountains, right now and you can get nothing. Like I am here and my hotel...there is no hotel, no room service, no breakfast, At 6am I walk back to the hotel and then walk to the set in the evening for filming. We eat on set and the food is not the best lets say.

JW: Yeah I heard some of the crew got food poisoning.

UB: Sure it’s an adventure to do the movie and under these condition James Steuart did a great job, a lot of work.

JW: Who do you think is your target audience for the film?

UB: I think it is a crossed audience now. Normally I would say the same people who go to see Resident Evil, Underworld and films like that. It is to an extent with all the BloodRayne fans and such. But because of the actors, the story and because its a period piece; it’s like a knight movie with vampires. It makes it more interesting for people who like films like King Arthur or The Lord of the Rings. This more period piece which is character driven.

That gives it a bigger potential audience than say a horror movie or typical video game based film.

JW: Is that one of the reason it will be different to a film like say Blade.

UB: Yes its one of the reasons I said lets do it in the 1700's because all those stylized fantasy movies where everything looks fake like with Van Helsing I think everything looks like they shot it in the Universal's studios instead of Prague. It does not look real.

So for me it was important for me that our movie looked more like Braveheart. Real castles and monasteries, the mountains, etc. The locations make it more realistic and in that atmosphere the brutal fights and a lot of gore, so will be definitely a R rated movie.

This is the type of movie I like personally; I am not a fan of cut down PG13 movies. So it’s a different approach. Also another point is  BloodRayne herself, she is an ultra cool, really sexy woman in the video game. Now she is that in the movie too, but she is also a real woman and its interesting to see what’s going on with her character. She is not like a flat comic strip girl.

For example in  Daredevil, the Elektra character, I am not a big fan of Daredevil at all. I think the movie was really bad and I do not want to see a film about her if its the same thing. Also Jennifer Garner is good but in the end it was flat. The characters were not like real people with any depth, same with Van Helsing and I think this is a little bit different.

So hopefully we will reach a broader audience and people who have no idea that BloodRayne is based on a video game.

JW: Is there any love interest in the film?

UB: Yeah we have a sex scene, a hot sex scene between Kristanna Loken and Matt Davis (laughs). So something will happen, I think. She is so sexy and in the game the character is too. So she needs some sex appeal.

JW: Yes, I remember you said early on the actor would have to be able to appear nude.

UB: ehhh....well we have not shot it yet, we will be doing it in two weeks and will see how far we can go (lot of laughs)

JW: OK a bit about Alone in the Dark, what's happening with that?

UB: We are now finished, I got the print yesterday. My first time to see the final movie basically. We showed it to some major companies this week (a load of horses start making a racket). But because I am here shooting BloodRayne I have not been able to go to Toronto or Venice for the festivals. The movie will definitely go out in the theatres in the USA February next year, we have also sold it to various other territories, so it will come out across Europe in the spring, summer and fall of next year. I am not sure who the US distributor will be yet. The thing is its all in the details. I cannot sign where I get the credit but no money. I want a contract where I can get some money back.

JW: I guess it’s about getting the best deal possible.

UB: Yes, that’s the point. It’s all about like if a movie is grossing $50 million and I only get $5 million and I paid for the whole movie then something is wrong. I want to secure my investment; it will take a couple of weeks. But then we will release who is distributing in the USA.

JW: Do you enjoy working the whole Hollywood business side of things or do you try and avoid it as much as possible?

UB: No I am not enjoying it, I don't live in Hollywood and I don’t want to live there. It’s the hardest thing. The most fun is having a creative team, make a great movie and this is what I really want to spend my time doing. But all this business bullshit is basically very bad. This why I don’t want to stay in LA, its all about business. The market value of people, actors are like pieces of meat and the agents and mangers are selling it. I don’t like it; there is a non-creative atmosphere in LA.

JW: What’s next for you, FarCry?

UB: We are developing FarCry right now; I hope to get the first draft next week. We are also working on Fear Effect from Eidos, Dungeon Siege from Microsoft and also Hunter: The Reckoning. I must say the draft we have got for Hunter: The Reckoning is the best action game script I have ever read. I am very optimistic for that movie.

Hunter: The Reckoning may be next as a movie

JW: Who is working on the script for Hunter: The Reckoning?

UB: Its like a team, with Drew Schneider, Enrich Brundown working with White Wolf (People who make the game). From the beginning they had a great pitch. Its a very good script with all the rot, ghouls, skin rider, and poltergeist all in the one movie. Its really working well and I really like it. I want do this as the next movie if it’s possible, we will see. But the next four weeks I have to finish shooting BloodRayne.

JW: Well you certainly seemed to have plenty lined up. So with BloodRayne so far, is it turning out as well as you hoped?

UB: Yeah, I am blown away with the location, design and the actors we have. The actors have giving us so much value. I mean for even the smallest parts we have great actors. It’s so good for the movie and it’s different. If you have Geraldine Chaplin as fortune  teller you really want to hear what she tells you. Or if you have likes Udo Kier from Breaking the Waves, Blade and Armageddon playing a Regal Monk. If you have actors like this then it makes things really interesting.

It is a totally different setup, like say in Underworld you had Kate Beckinsale the lead but most of the other actors are less well known. It is always a problem with movie like these, but we have eight faces you definitely know.

JW: OK that’s great thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. Good luck with the shoot and the dogs

UB: (laughs) no problem get back to me anytime.

Thanks to Uwe for giving up his time in the middle of shooting and Heikie for hooking us up.

[Guest John Cena]

Has anybody actually seen Sky Captain? Cuz to me, just watching the previews was painful but I'd like to kno if the movie is actually worth watching.

[Ananas]

Has anybody actually seen Sky Captain?  Cuz to me, just watching the previews was painful but I'd like to kno if the movie is actually worth watching.

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[Guest El Blanco]

The Star Wars Trilogy DVD Unveiled - Part 4!  Interivew with Mark Hamill!

Source: Scott Chitwood September 20, 2004

Concluding the Star Wars Trilogy DVD Q&A was Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill. I had spoken with Mark Hamill over the phone before for TheForce.Net, but this was my first time to meet him in person. Needless to say, he was the highlight of the presentation. With his amusing anecdotes, hilarious impressions, and insight into the films, he had the audience's complete attention. And as you'll see, his comments wandered all over the map but they were always interesting.

The first question he was asked was about the "Star Wars" parodies. Does he have a favorite one?

Hamill replied, "Kevin Smith in Clerks has these offhanded references that kill me. My sons had to show me this…I think they were just speculating on the administrative costs of the janitorial staff of the Death Star. I love that sort of minutia where they take this hard edge reality to something that's fantasy cause I was sort of that way myself. I remember saying things like, 'But wait a minute. I just got out of the trash compactor. How come my hair's all perfect?' You know, it was shot out of continuity. Harrison's, '(In a perfect Harrison Ford imitation) Look, hey kid, it ain't that kind of movie. If people are lookin' at your hair, we're all in a lot of trouble.' He was funny. The Master of Understatement. You know what? I can't really figure out what's my favorite parody, but [i'm amazed] with the breadth of it. From political cartoons to, I mean, the references astonish me. From sitcoms to….I remember I'm thinking within two months of the film opening I saw a toilet paper commercial with the receding scroll. 'Now two ply soft...bum, bum bum bum!!!!' And you know as soon as Madison Avenue gets a hold of a visual cliché, the crouching tiger…. Now everybody jumps up, freezes, and does the 360. It just becomes part of the fabric of shorthand communication. It's really astonishing because, I think it was alluded to earlier, when I read the script, I said, 'This thing is a winner! I mean, even if it doesn't burn of the box offices, it's got midnight cult college crowd written all over it like Buckaroo Banzai or Rocky Horror.' Just because it had such humor to it. I said that 's the thing that really got me is that most science fiction was really dry and kind of projecting the future from our perspective now. And since this was a fantasy and far, far away, you didn't really have to take responsibility for anything. Anything could happen cause it really was…it read like a fairy tale. A princess, a farmer, a wizard, a pirate. I mean, I was looking at Darth Vader and thinking it's so Doctor Doom. But I came from a comic book background, too, so when I talked to Gary Kurtz, the producer, and George Lucas, the director, we could find common ground in Carl Marx Uncle Scrooge stories and the stuff that he liked. He goes, '(In a George Lucas voice) Guess what else I'm gonna do.' I said, 'What?' He goes, 'You like Howard the Duck?' I said, 'I love Howard the Duck!' He said, 'I'm gonna shoot that in Cincinnati with a cast of unknowns and just stick a cartoon duck in there.' Cut to 15 years later, I said, 'I bet you wish you stuck to that plan!' (laughter) I mean, they built a duck like you wouldn't believe! Even now I'm working on a project myself that involves puppetry and animation as a producer and creator. It's amazing how much I learned working with not just George, but Irvin Kershner and Richard Marquand in terms of solving problems on the spot in an economic way that makes sense and the story doesn't suffer. I thought my puppeteers had an Avenue Q connection, that show that's on Broadway now, and yet almost everybody I have interviewed, all roads lead back to either Henson Productions or Lucasfilm. It's like almost impossible to find green screen people and the people that I'm working with now that don't have experience with one of those organizations. So it's a very incestuous crowd that does fantasy in puppets and so forth."

The second question asked was about "Star Wars" fan films. What does he think of all the fan films that people have made?

"Kevin Rubio showed me this one (TROOPS). He's a sound guy over at Warner Brothers and I was doing, I don't know, Joker or something. And he said, 'Can I come in your trailer and show you this tape?' So I said, 'Sure!' And he puts it on and it was a parody of Cops with all the stormtroopers. And not only did they get the Cops thing right, but the special effects that he was able to do on his home computer were just staggering. It looked great. I don't know what his budget was. That's one I did send up to George cause a lot of times you have to call in advance and say, 'I'm sending you something' because their policy is to send everything back with good reason. He's a big target for people that say, 'Hey! You took my idea!' And so I cleared it. I said, 'You've gotta see this Cops parody.' He has a really good sense of humor. He can get you into trouble, though, cause Kevin Smith said, 'Will you do Jay and Silent Bob?' I said, 'Will you send me this script?' And I read this thing and I said, 'Ho ho! It's filthy!! They say the f-word 50 times on one page! There's pot smoking lesbians, dog hard-ons! If you can get the clearance of Lucasfilm legal, sure I'll do it. Good luck!' And you know the only complaint they had from Lucasfilm was, 'Make sure that the green bong-saber….' They were concerned about the color of the blades of bong-sabers because 'red is evil and green or blue is good'. I forget what it was. I said, 'If that's not the best insight into their thought process…' I said, 'I couldn't explain Lucasfilm better than that.' But having said that, I was backed into a corner! I said, 'Oh my god! I've gotta do this thing!' We laughed all the time. It was really a lot of fun. Not to be confused with the Star Wars Holiday Special where everybody's walking around, 'Why are we doing this?!'"

Hamill was next asked about stark reality vs. fantasy in "Star Wars".

"My best memory at the time was what was really hot, or fashionable at the time were anti-heroes. The guy who would return from Vietnam and his business had been lost and his wife had been appropriated by somebody else and revenge fantasies and all that. And one thing I thought was really clever of George was that if you set it 'a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away', it had nothing to do with reality. Maybe you can get away with a lot of cornball stuff that wouldn't play if you were trying to relate it in any way to our real world. That was another thing I thought about the script. I said, 'Boy, this Han Solo character takes care of all the skeptics in the audience. The people that are all, 'Oh, please. Give me a break. It's so corny.' He was saying the very same thing about the Force and everything else. I thought that was a great release valve for the skeptics in the audience. I heard a reference to our premiere at Grauman's Chinese. We didn't have any premiere. They'd opened it up at, I don't know, 17 theaters. On the day it opened, the driver picking me up, cause I was gonna dub the 35 mm print (the 70 mm was being exhibited for the first time that day), and I said, 'Can you drive by Grauman's' because I wanted to see it….cause they couldn't figure out a poster. There were big arguments over how to promote it, whether it's really solemn, 'Journey beyond your imagination' or like Little Rascals in Outer Space. They just didn't know what to do. And the day it opened, they still hadn't resolved the poster argument so they just put up lobby cards, pictures, colored photographs. And what I couldn't believe was that there was a line around the block in the daytime. I think my call was like 1 in the afternoon and I couldn't believe it. I said, first of all, there'll be hard core people that come out to see any Ray Harryhausen film, anything that's in the fantasy realm. All the Cinefantastique readers and Famous Monsters people. But it'll build. I think it'll be better in its second and third weekend as the guys go home and tell the girls, 'Hey, it's funny too and it's romantic.' Cause a lot of women just go, 'It's too dry for me. I don't like science fiction', I mean, based on my own personal experience. I just don't figure out how they got it so fast and right away. That really was astonishing and continues to be."

The next question asked was about having been 'Luke Skywalker' for 28 years. Was there ever a moment where he said, 'I'm so sick of this?'

(jokingly) "How about right now? No! The thing is you can be frustrated, but what happens is I realized that I put it into a different perspective than a lot of other people. I realize now, accepted the fact now that that's just a mutual milestone between us. And what I do with it and how I process it is clearly different from a lot of other people. I can just tell from their questions and their reactions. So like anything else, there's positives and there's negatives and I'm always of a mind that it has been much more pleasurable that its been an annoyance because it's such a positive experience for people. I mean, they really like you. It's like being an alumnus of everybody's high school because they tell you stories. 'Oh, we met in line for this movie. We were married by this one. Then we had a kid by this one.' Or whatever. It's all so differently received than a lot of other things, not only that I've been involved in but that any of us have been involved in. And because I'm someone who comes from that world, I've worked in comic books and video games and cartoons, it's all kid, youthful oriented material and I've loved it. Even now, not just Comic Book: The Movie, but now this children's show that I'm doing, how great is it to get paid to be with puppeteers and drawing cartoons and say, 'Can you make that snout longer? Could you make it sneer the lip? Do we have to articulate it or can the puppeteers do it with their fingers?' I've not traveled that far and I'm getting a little mini version of what George must have experienced because here I'm creating my own universe from scratch. No matter how small it is, whether it's a comic book or video game, you're so focused on what you're doing now you just can't drag that around with you. You're kind of taken aback a lot. My kids will go, '( whispering) Hey Dad, look. That whole table's staring at you.' 'Oh! (waving) Hi folks!' But you put horse blinders on because you can't, I mean, I can't, anyway, deal with it on a daily basis. It's embarrassing. I flunked a Star Wars trivia contest. 'What did your father do in the Clone Wars.' And my son knows more about them. He's the official Star Wars archivist cause he reads the Insider every week or month or whatever it comes out. A lot of this stuff was created after fact. Some of these characters were just, we called them like the 'trash can robot' or the '(unintelligible) robot'. And it was, 'No, no, no! That's IG-88!' And we're like, 'Excuse me?' Well after the fact, 9 months after we filmed it, George looked at all the toys, all the props that were going to be turned into toys and gave them names. One thing that was really illuminating when Kevin Burns was doing his documentary is I saw footage of us on the set and I'd forgotten how much fun we were having. It was a solemn scene. We're running onto the Millennium Falcon and that's where Alec Guinness gets cut down. But our goal was to make George laugh or smile or chuckle, cause he seems so miserable when he's working. He'd finish a scene and he'd look out and he'd just go (shaking head)…sigh. And I can understand that. I've experienced that myself. You imagine it so much in your head. You've storyboarded, you've written the script, and then you get on the set and you have to finally realize it forever! And so between the actors and George was this contest just to 'lighten up! Have fun!' I mean, how can you be so serious on a film where you're dodging explosions and running with Sir Alec Guinness on this side and an 8 foot monkey on this side. He's wearing headphones. He's gonna fly your spaceship. I mean, c'mon. Is this serious material? That's what was so funny. The British crew when we were making the first one in England, they had no frame of reference. They didn't have Flash Gordon and Mel Brooks or any kind of ironic anything that I could see. Dan Dare was the closest sort of adventure strip that was set in space. And so they were all nice. I don't mean to say that they were counterproductive. They were second to none in terms of ability, but…..'(In British accent) It's for kiddies, isn't it? It's like Dr. Who, isn't it? It's sort of a low rent Dr. Who, isn't it?' I said, 'What do you mean?' '(British accent) Well, here you are running all across this vast space station which is supposed to be state-of-the-art, this 'Death Star'…..' 'Yeah, sooo whaaat…' 'They're allowed to be in here in this 'technological marvel' and yet there's not one indicator that there are intruders running around blasting open doors and such?' 'Oh, yeah. I never thought of that. (whining) Hey George! How come is it when we're runnin' around all over this big space station and nobody can find us…' It was basically the same answer Harrison gave. 'Hey, it ain't that kind of movie.' You had to really believe that, pieced together right, it would all work. And as I saw the elements coming together, not only the with the art direction, the beat up future, the oil drips and, you know, the frontier and old Western, plus the talent they were assembling. I said, again, I can't imagine how they're going to do the special effects, but I could see the art direction and everything going. It was like 65% there. I got picked up to go over to Universal one time by Gary Kurtz who had the tape of John Williams' score that they just recorded and he was going to drive me from Malibu to Universal. 'Hey, you wanna hear the score?' And I'm expecting synthesizers, this dry kind of whatever, and he puts on the score and I thought, 'Oh my god.' See, that's the one thing I didn't really anticipate that they would use that corn gold kind of 30's Captain Blood…..see everything old is new again. In the late 70's you've got this whole film generation that weren't really savvy as to or at least familiar with the kind of rush orchestrations that were done in those Golden Age of Hollywood films. I just got the chills listening to that thing. He had so much to do with the success of this. And yet every time I talk about this I talk about Harrison. I say, 'Oh, he had so much [to do with this]. I can't imagine it without him.' But I do that about so many of the aspects of this whether it's Stuart Freeborn or Kersh, too in the more cerebral second installment. Sometimes you just really get lucky. I mean, right now I'm interviewing people. Like you'll interview a puppeteer and he'll be the first guy you interview and when he leaves you go, 'Could we have gotten so lucky that this is the guy?' Cause I thought the guy I interviewed from Avenue Q, he totally got the material, he was improvising in the framework of my characters and when he left I said, 'That's the guy!' Of course you had 36 other people to look at that you think, 'What are the odds it'll be the very first guy?' It could happen. I heard that girl that got Hairspray, she was the first person. They couldn't believe they got a chubby actress who could sing her heart out and that she was perfect. Maybe that happens a lot on these movies."

The next question that was asked was whether or not Hamill would be interested in doing Episodes 7, 8, and 9. We've already provided the audio for this and the rest of the Q&A on the site, so you can listen to it here. Hamill also talks about Lucas' original intended plans for sequel films and Jim Ward confirms, on the side, that a "Star Wars" TV series is in the works after "Revenge of the Sith". For the finale of the Q&A, download the MP3!

This concludes our report on the rollout of the Star Wars Trilogy DVD. You can check it yourself Tuesday, September 21st. May the Force be with you!

[Guest El Blanco]

Top Selling DVDs

1. The Punisher

2. Passion of The Christ (ws)

3. The Ladykillers

4. Jersey Girl

5. Soul Plane

6. The Girl Next Door

7. Kill Bill Vol. 2

8. Alias: Third Season

9. Passion of The Christ (fs)

10. The Lion King II

[Ananas]

Top Selling DVDs

1. The Punisher

2. Passion of The Christ (ws)

3. The Ladykillers

4. Jersey Girl

5. Soul Plane

6. The Girl Next Door

7. Kill Bill Vol. 2

8. Alias: Third Season

9. Passion of The Christ (fs)

10. The Lion King II

Was The Passion good? I haven't seen it yet. The Punisher takes over the number one spot. If I recall The Punisher wasn't that big in theaters was it or am I thinking of another film.

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[ROC]

Roger Avary on Silent Hill

Source: Avary.com September 20, 2004

Roger Avary (The Rules of Attraction) has been talking about writing the big screen adaptation of Konami's psychological horror video game Silent Hill on his official website. The film will be directed by Christophe Gans.

Silent Hill, Silent Hill, Silent Hill...my life is consumed by it. The soundtrack to Silent Hill 2, the graphic novel, fan art, and of course, the games. I'm mostly spending the evenings re-playing Silent Hill 2 (my favorite of the series) on my French PS2, and then watching various DVDs that Christophe suggests are similar to the Silent Hill feel. Then, every morning at 10AM, a car picks me up from my apartment in St.-Germain-des-Pres to deliver me to the palatial offices of Samuel Hadida (which we call KGB Central) where Christophe and I feverishly work alongside each other. We have the entire 4th Floor production suite to ourselves. Christophe is obsessed with all sorts of obscure Italian soundtracks, which we listen to (along with the Silent Hill 2 soundtrack and heavy doses of Serge Gainsbourg) while we write. We've had a game system brought into the office so that we can take breaks to play. Usually, around 1PM we go out for a typical French lunch, usually accompanied by a gathering of French cinephiles that seem to creep out of the woodwork. After two or more hours of heated discussions of who is the Godfather about, exactly, Pacino or Brando (or some other tangential topic, like which recent American directors are the cinematic descendents of Claude Lelouche), we wander back to the office and finish off some more pages. I've eaten more bread, and drank more nuclear coffee in the last 10 days than I have in the last year. By night, I'm back to my little apartment -- typically French, with beams in the ceiling and creaky wood floors -- to continue trolling the Silent Hill universe for hidden clues. This may just be the best writing experience I've ever had.

The "Silent Hill" games thrust players into a nightmarish world where they must unravel twisted storylines and battle grotesque creatures and terrifying monsters.

Looks like someone has been reading Revolt's Hollywood Mogul Diary.

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Edited September 20, 2004 by TheROC-Revolt