In a recent interview with IGN, Joss Whedon confirmed two new additions to The Avengers 2 line-up: Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. For the uninitiated, they are a brother-sister mutant combo, the former possessing superhuman speed while the latter is a manipulator of reality, to put it broadly.
There’s been some legal mumbo jumbo behind the ownership of the super siblings (they’re Magneto’s offspring and X-Men belongs to Fox), but according to Kevin Feige, ownership of the twins falls under both franchises.
Whedon also confirm the return of Iron Man to The Avengers 2, but couldn’t shed any more light on Robert Downey Jr.’s potential involvement.
The Buzz from Cannes
Following our coverage on how much ass Inside Llewyn Davis is kicking in Cannes, a few more opinions from the festival have been hitting the web, some not so complimentary.
The A.V. Club reports on Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring as part of their great daily coverage, calling it “the first misfire of the festival,” adding to that by saying how “a series of mundane burglaries doesn’t exactly make for compelling drama,” nailing the coffin shut with this summary: “The Bling Ring amounts to little more than a group portrait of exceedingly shallow teens who rifled through the drawers of some equally shallow adults who’ve appeared on television. To be blunt, who cares?” Ouch. Well, we liked Spring Breakers, so perhaps this ain’t a problem.
Asghar Farhadi, Oscar-winning director of A Separation, impresses once again with his French-Iranian family drama The Past, dealing with a divorce (once again) between a French woman and an Iranian man who returns to his homeland. Variety says this about the film, “Farhadi’s finely etched characters are forever revealing new sides of themselves to the camera, pulling the viewer’s sympathies every which way as the human condition is not just examined but anatomized.”
Amongst the annals of great films that never quite made it to the screen, one of the most infamous is insane-o director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic Dune. In 1975 Jodorowsky did his best to make a bonkers version that he saw as “the most important picture in the history of humanity”, pulling in collaborators as diverse as Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger, Orson Welles, H.R. Giger, Pink Floyd and more. Clearly this didn’t actually happen, or we’d know all about it, but new documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune brings the story behind this failed project to the big screen, with The Hollywood Reporter saying “the tone veers into film-fan geekery in places, but Jodorowsky is such a natural showman and irrepressible egotist that his ancient anecdotes never become tedious”.
Make My Movie Returns!
Ant Timpson has teamed up with MPI/Dark Sky Films EVP Greg Newman and NZ Film Commission CEO Graeme Mason to give the Make My Movie project another run. According to Screen Daily, the second competition is entitled Make My Horror Movie, with Ant Timpson confirming on Facebook that the budget has doubled to NZD$200,000. No dates have been announced yet.
Everyone, except Liam, was thoroughly impressed with the winning MMM film How to Meet Girls from a Distance, so start brewing your horror movie ideas now. Your movie could win the budget, the praise and Liam’s irrational hatred.
Upcoming films announced
Here’s the first image for Knight of Cups exclusive to Hollywood Reporter featuring Christian Bale and Natalie Portman, further proving Terrence Malick’s obsessive love for long walks on the beach.
An English language remake of awesome Italian psychological thriller The Double Hour has scored its two leads, according to Deadline – Michelle Williams and Joel Edgerton. The film follows the relationship between a chambermaid and a security guard that gets rattled when they’re both caught at the bad end of a robbery. But that’s not half the story. Hell, that’s not even an eighth of the story.
Sony smashes a 2016 release date for the Angry Birds movie, an animated comedy releasing in 2D and 3D. The film is set for America July 1st, making its way to Australia July 20th. New Zealand can expect a similar release date. This trailer below is not the official trailer, but you should still watch it.
