It seems these days like all film discussion occurs before a film is released. Gone are the days when a film actually discovers its audience – every possible angle is generally examined and validated or dismissed in advance. Far be it from me to buck this trend, so in this week’s blog I’m gonna talk about some relatively far-off films that are piquing my interest at this early juncture.
In my very first blog entry for Flicks I talked about how Guillermo del Toro was abandoning (for now) his long planned epic adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness due to lack of studio interest, and had committed to another film, Pacific Rim.
It was hard to get too excited about Pacific Rim at first, as it was difficult to seperate it from the disappointment of del Toro stepping away from Madness. But now that some time has passed, and a few details are filtering through, I’m starting to find myself VERY interested in the project.
It seemed at first the film might’ve had a Godzilla vibe, but recent casting notices have included details sure to whet any fanboy’s appetite (mild spoiler alert): big creatures indeed emerge from the sea, but they’re actually aliens from another universe, and humans take them on with psychically-controlled giant robots. Whoa.
The notion of fanboy-turned-filmmaker del Toro taking on such a concept fills me with delight, and is helping temper the disappointment of Madness falling over. As you can glean from this awesome New Yorker profile of Del Toro, he clearly puts a lot of thought into creature and production design, and I can’t wait to see this applied to Pacific Rim, which is out towards the end of next year.
When it was announced that Pixar staple (and director of Finding Nemo and Wall*E ) Andrew Stanton would be helming a new adaptation of ‘Tarzan’ creator Edgar Rice Burroughs’ famous John Carter of Mars series, I (and many others I suspect) presumed it would be Pixar’s first “grown-up” movie. Then word emerged that the film was actually live action (albeit with mucho effects), and now it seems the movie isn’t a Pixar movie at all, but a PG-13 Disney movie.
Either way, I can’t wait to see an ambitious mounting of the tale, which is about an American Civil War vet (Wolverine’s Taylor Kitsch) who is inexplicably transported to Mars were he is swept up in a revolutionary conflict.
The concept art that’s been released (seen at the top of this blog) looks amazing, and I can’t wait to see just how much was shot on sets (I’m thinking very little) and how much will be created in the computer.
Filmmakers such as Robert Rodriguez; Jon Favreau and Kerry Conran (of the underrated Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow) have been attached to the project over the years, but Stanton makes for a particularly interesting choice.
Making the move from animation to live -action isn’t terribly common for a director (although The Incredibles‘ Brad Bird just did it with Mission: Impossible 4), but Stanton’s appointment makes sense in a lot of ways. The Pixar crew is known for their reverence towards animation history, and John Carter of Mars famously came close to being the world’s first full colour animated movie in 1935, when some eye-popping test footage was commissioned, then promptly rejected by the forward thinking film distributors of 1930s America, killing the project.
It’s hard to dismiss this as being a motivating factor in Stanton taking on the job, and I’m very interested to see the martian world he creates.
I maintain that Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 is the best film of the last ten years, and I’m relieved that the director hasn’t simply taken on one of the many big studio films no doubt offerred to him following his debut’s success.
Instead, for his follow-up, he is once again developing an original script of his own, about which only a few details have emerged. What we know about Elysium so far is as follows: It’s set 100 years in the future, and like District 9, will have an element of social allegory to it. Some reports speak to the presence of aliens.
Matt Damon, Jodie Foster and District 9 lead Sharlto Copley are the main actors, but the most interesting name attached is Syd Mead. Mead is the influential concept designer whose work shows up in films like Blade Runner, Tron and Aliens. According to Deadline.com, Mead is difficult to hire these days, but was so impressed by District 9, he more or less came out of retirement to work on Blomkamp’s new film. How awesome is that?
Some classic concept art from the masterful Syd Mead
If I could choose only one upcoming film to see at the expense of all others, it would be Elysium.
One thing Christopher Nolan’s 2006 film The Prestige achieved (beyond being an awesome movie) was demonstrating the untapped cinematical potential of the world of magicians. The upcoming project Now You See Me looks to be tapping into that potential with full force.
According to the official logline, the film “pits a crack FBI squad in a game of cat and mouse against a super-team of the world’s greatest illusionists, who pull off a series of daring bank heists during their performances, showering the profits on their audiences while staying one step ahead of the law.”
Tell me that doesn’t sound totally awesome?! Jake Gyllenhaal and Jesse Eisenberg are in talks to star, which is all good, but I’m slightly concerned about the director attached – Louis Leterrier. The Frenchman’s 2008 The Incredible Hulk was oooookay, but his 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans outright sucked. Still, he’ll have to work hard to overcome a set-up that enticing.
Lee Child’s series of novels starring the kick-ass wandering former army cop Jack Reacher have long be touted as ripe for cinematic exploitation. Recent reports attaching Tom Cruise to the role have met with mild outcry, but I’m kind of a Tom Cruise apologist, and must admit I’m a little intrigued.
Just to finish on a negative note, one far-off film I’m definitely NOT excited about is Robert Zemeckis’ upcoming movie Flight, starring Denzel Washington as an tormented commerical airline pilot who struggles with his hero status after he saves a plane full of passengers.
Zemeckis has been down the CGI motion-capture rabbit hole since 2000’s Cast Away, and the movies he’s directed in that time (The Polar Express; Beowulf; A Christmas Carol) have been interesting failures at best and outright awful at worst. But now he is returning to live action filmmaking with…a sombre drama. Blerg.
There’s a time travel script called Replay he was flirting with, but all signs point to Flight being his next movie. The man’s an amazing director (the Back to the Future trilogy and Who Framed Roger Rabbit earns him a lifetime of goodwill in my eyes), but the emotional content of Cast Away was not its strength, and I’m worried about him focusing his not inconsiderable skills on a straight drama. I guess the Roger Rabbit sequel will have to wait a few more years.
Are you excited for any of these upcoming movies? Which other far off films are you excited about? Sound off below!
