After The Lord of the Rings film trilogy made over a billion dollars worldwide, one had to expect Hollywood would look to other J.R.R. Tolkein works to cash in on. There isn’t anything better than his pre-Rings novel, The Hobbit. New Line Cinema, who did the Rings films and owns the rights to The Hobbit had been hoping to get Rings director Peter Jackson at the helm. However, they have been in a nasty fued over money distribution for some time now. Relations are so bad between the two that New Line said Jackson would never have anything to do with The Hobbit or New Line again.

Rumors have swirled for months that Sam Raimi of the Spider-Man trilogy was being asked to step in and direct. Nothing against Raimi, but I don’t think he’s the director for a film like this. So, who is? Well, Ain’t It Cool News reported that Peter Weir is the latest name attached to this director rumor mill. Personally, I think he would be perfect. Weir is an intelligent, very skilled director that always get the best performances out his actors as well as turning uninteresting storylines into very good films. Can you say Master and Commander? At the moment, there isn’t much credence to Weir being courted. Maybe this rumor will get the ball rolling, though.

Read the original story from AICN here.
Read about the history of The Hobbit here.
Read about Peter Weir here.

Variety is reporting that Tim Roth has joined the cast of The Incredible Hulk and will be playing the villain role of Abomination. In the comics, Abomination was a KGB agent named Emil Blonsky that purposely exposed himself to gamma radiation in order to achieve the strength and power of the Hulk. Whereas the Hulk can revert back to his human form of Bruce Banner, Blonsky over-exposed himself to the radiation and was stuck in his mutated monster form of Abomination. Bigger and stronger than the Hulk, the battles between these two were always nasty. Roth is a great choice for this role. Remember him as General Thade in Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes?

With great actors like Edward Norton and Tim Roth and a great villain like Abomination, I’m starting to really look forward to this movie. Liv Tyler was also cast as Betty Ross, but that doesn’t excite me as much. Louis Leterrier of the The Transporter is directing. He did a good job on The Transporter giving it good action and pacing, so I’m interested to see what he’ll do with a bigger budget and established characters. The Incredible Hulk could be great if the script is half-way decent and they get the look of the Hulk and Abomination right. We’ll find out next summer on June 13th.

Read the Variety article here.
Read about the history of the Hulk here.
Read about the history of Abomination here.

Spiderman News

With Spider-Man 3 earning a worldwide gross of $382 million in its first weekend, Sony Pictures quickly decided that the franchise is something worth continuing. The BBC is reporting that Sony executive Michael Lynton said the studio “has every intention of making a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, and on and on.” This sounds great if they can turn out great stories that aren’t as convoluted as this last one. If they do intend to make this many more, they will have to change the cast and director at some point. I doubt Sam Raimi, Tobey Maquire, and Kristen Dunst will want to do three more no matter how much money is thrown at them. Well… maybe. Personally I’d like to see a new cast and director step in. My suggestion for the next film would be from the Kraven’s Last Hunt storyline with the Lizard replacing the role of Vermin. It’s easily one of the best Spider-Man stories ever done, and would translate beautifully to the screen.

Read the BBC article here.
Read about Kraven’s Last Hunt here.

Pirates News

Not sure how reliable this source is, but Jim Hill Media is reporting that Walt Disney Pictures plans on making a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean to be released in Summer 2009. According to the article, Johnny Depp has already told the execs at Disney that he would be willing to reprise his role of Captain Jack Sparrow. However, they may have to find a new director for a fourth Pirates. Word on the street is that Gore Verbinski, director of the Pirates trilogy, is definitely not interested in making more films on the high seas. The source of this info is none other than the creator of the Bloom County comic strip, Berkeley Breathed. Verbinski and Breathed are currently working together to make Breathed’s children’s book, Flawed Dogs, into a CG film for Disney. Apparently, Verbinski has told all of this to Breathed who is now telling everyone else. Not sure I would want to see another Pirates of the Caribbean. Wasn’t crazy about the last Dead Man’s Chest, and have little interest in At World’s End.

Read the article at Jim Hill Media here.
Read more about author/illustrator Berkeley Breathed here.

Optimus Sub-Prime

Before it has even been released, Transformers is getting sequel talk with this guy stepping into the role of Optimus Prime. Just kidding, but he does look like he could give Megatron a run for his money. Seriously though, an article by the Los Angeles Times chronicling the sequence of events that led to Michael Bay directing Transformers mentions that the studio “likes what it has seen and is already developing a Transformers sequel script.” That doesn’t mean much at this point because Transformers has yet to earn any money. However, if the film does score big at the box office you can bet a sequel will quickly move into development. With a fanbase of two generations and a storyline that is very unique and interesting, I won’t be surprised to see at least one sequel happen.

Read the Los Angeles Times article here.
Read about the history of Transformers here.

Fantastic Four News

The Los Angeles Times also wrote an article about the upcoming Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and director Tim Story made a very interesting comment at the end of the article. When talk of a sequel started after he had directed the first Fantastic Four, Story saw it as a perfect opportunity to bring in other comic characters from the Fantastic Four universe. Of course, the Silver Surfer made it into the newest film, but what other characters were on his mind at the time? None other than Black Panther who was on his mind to play Black Panther? Djimon Hounsou of Amistad, Gladiator, and Blood Diamond for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. Black Panther never did it for me as a super hero, but I have liked Hounsou’s acting in every film I’ve seen him in. I would definitely be curious to see what he could bring to this role. Unfortunately, this may never happen because I have a feeling the newest Fantastic Four will not live up to the studio’s box office expectations, thus killing any more sequels. We’ll know June 15th when Rise of the Silver Surfer is released.

Read the Los Angeles Times article here.
Read about the history of Black Panther here.

The Hollywood Reporter announced that Universal Pictures has picked up an adaptation of Alexandra Robbins nonfiction book, The Overachievers, for director Shawn Levy and his 21 Laps production company. The Overachievers follows a group of Maryland high school students preparing for the SATs, applying to colleges, and all the sickness, deceit, breakdowns, and obsessive parents that come with that. Levy read the book near the end of his directorial stint on Night At the Museum. He connected with the book from his own memories of this time period saying, “…there is something really unique about the culture right now where you have kids sacrificing the enjoyment of their youth to get to the next level.” The book is being adapted into a character-driven teen comedy by screenwriters Brian Gatewood and Alex Tanaka. Gatewood and Tanaka previously wrote Hairstyles for the Damned for Focus Features and Speedo for Warner Bros. In addition to The Overachievers, Shawn Levy and 21 Laps have been setting up several projects lately including The Seems and The Devil You Know. There is a chance Levy will direct this project, and Universal is hoping so after seeing the box office numbers that Night at the Museum did.

Read more details about the deal here.
Read more about the book, The Overachievers, here.

Spider-Man 3 set several box office records this past weekend. It had the biggest opening day ever at $59.3 million as well as the biggest 3-day opening total with $151.1 million. Its Saturday and Sunday grosses also set individual day records. I, for one, am not surprised about this, nor will I be surprised if Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End breaks these records when it is released on May 25th. Remember, the film that previously held these records before Spider-Man 3 crawled onto screens was Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ($55.8 million 1-day total and $135.6 million 3-day total).

However, Walt Disney Pictures doesn’t seem as interested in breaking records as they are about cashing in. Today, they announced POC: At World’s End will open at 8:00 PM on Thursday the 24th in order to make as much money as possible in its opening weekend. By opening just four hours before Friday, the franchise will not have a very good chance to regain these box office records because those sales on Thursday will not count for the way the box office records are tallied. On the other hand, it will be even more impressive if it does still break records after the Thursday night opening. We’ll know in a few weeks. I’m just hoping At World’s End is better than Dead Man’s Chest. Personally, I thought it was just so-so. I was embarrassed for the movie-going public that it kept making so much money week after week. Maybe it wasn’t their fault. Maybe there just wasn’t anything else in the theaters worth watching.

Read about all the records broken by Spider-Man 3 here.
Read about the history of Spider-Man here.
Read about the history of Pirates of the Caribbean here.

Variety is reporting that David Benioff has become the latest screenwriter to tackle the long-in-development project, Gemini Man. Gemini Man follows an aging hitman that is forced to fight a clone of his younger self. Walt Disney Pictures is making the film with Jerry Bruckheimer as an executive producer. Gemini Man has been in development since way back in 1997 with several writers taking a stab at it over the years. With Bruckheimer now on board, the chances of it making it to the big screen have greatly increased. Benioff started his screenwriting career by adapting his novel, 25th Hour, which was directed by Spike Lee and starred Edward Norton. He wrote the screenplay for Troy starring Brad Pitt and Stay starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts. His current projects include an adaptation of the novel, The Kite Runner, and the X-Men spin-off film, Wolverine. Benioff will paid around $2 million for his work on Gemini Man.

Read Variety’s article here.
Read latinoreview.com’s review of the Wolverine script here.
Read about The Kite Runner here.

A few days ago the first images of Iron Man’s armor were released. I commented that while the armor looks cool the more important question is how Iron Man moves in it. Well, IESB.net has come up with a supposed “spy” video taken from the set that shows an actor wearing the armor and moving around in it. The video does show that the armor has a lot of flexibility, but it doesn’t show him doing very much in it. Therefore, while I am a bit more hopeful, I am still skeptical whether they will be able to properly pull off Iron Man. I am wondering if this video was actually just released by the producers as a marketing ploy to help build interest for the film. If they had not, then it would seem that the video would have immediately been taken off the Internet. Hollywood wouldn’t do that, would they?

Check out the video here.
Check out the history of Iron Man here.

Nearly two years after filming was completed, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford has yet to hit theaters. It’s the story of Jesse James’ last robbery and the betrayal by his partner/friend Robert Ford, who is played by Casey Affleck. With Brad Pitt starring as Jesse James one would think the studio behind it (Warner Bros.) would be rushing the film into theaters ASAP. Not so. The Los Angeles Times detailed the post-production issues that have kept the film from being released. The main problem seems to be the usual in this case. The filmmaker’s vision vs. the studio’s vision. And by vision I mean how the film is edited. The filmmaker (Director Andrew Dominik) wants a dark character piece while the Warner Bros. wants an action-oriented film. Different versions of Jesse James have screened with test audiences earning good notes for the acting and not much else. Ridley Scott and Saving Private Ryan editor Michael Kahn were even brought in to try and cut the film to meet everyone’s desires. We’ll find out if they had any luck on September 21st. That is the newest release date. That is, until they change it again.

Read the Los Angeles Times article here.
Read more about the real Jesse James here.