Stuff….

Updated on November 25, 2013 By Ken Begg 13 Comments

Marvel continues, so far, to roll along, with Thor: Whatever the Subtitle Is having now crosses the $500 million mark in worldwide box office. Sure it will limp towards $600 million, at least. The overseas box office for the film is now higher than that for the first Thor, Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Captain America. I’m sure this largely is due to the impact of The Avengers, but still. We’ll see how next year’s movies, including a Captain America film meant to evoke ’70s political thrillers (which were pretty awesome–a superpowered Three Days of the Condor, you could do a lot worse, does.

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Speaking of, saw Thor 2 over the weekend. Not terrific, but a fun little flick. Thanks, Marvel, for making it run less than two hours. There’s really no reason to make ’em longer than that. I have to say, not a ton of chemistry between Thor and Jane Foster, his purported great love. Am I the only one who thinks Natalie Portman is a bit of a stiff. I mean, she’s a decent enough actress, but I can’t say the screen is alight when she’s on camera. Tom Huddleston as Loki has a 1,000 times more juice.

Saw many trailers, most of them highly lame (I’m looking at you, Robocop redo). The Captain America one did look pretty good. Robert Redford is in it, and he’s sort of a nice call back to the ’70s political thrillers this is supposedly emulating, so that’s good casting. And he’ll be a nice ‘golden boy’ contrast to Cap. I assume Redford’s character will be the bad guy, or at least a corrupted figure.

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The remaining Monty Python players will reunite to do a stage show in London next year, with possibly a touring show to follow.

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Hammer Studios, resurgent after Let Me In and The Woman in Black, is due to make their first remake of one of the studio’s old titles, The Abominable Snowman. Peter Cushing and Nigel Kneale will be hard to replace, heaven knows.

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Ringleader Studios, whoever they are, have gained the TV rights to Colin Wilson’s novel The Space Vampires, which of course was the basis of the camp classic flick Lifeforce; the latter being the title said TV show would also use. Unless they get the show on HBO, one doubts they will satisfy fans looking for the Matilda May of the 21st Century.

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Haven’t seen that Doctor Who special, but it seems to have done pretty well. I guess Smith’s regeneration will actually take place on the upcoming Christmas special. I’ve spent the last few weeks watching the Matt Smith stuff, which I hadn’t seen. I like his Doctor fine, although he’s a little huggy and obsessed with being thought ‘hot’ for my tastes. I’m really looking forward to seeing Capaldi in action, though. I imagine the Christmas special will draw more heavily than usual too, given the regeneration thing.

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  • Eric Hinkle

    “Hammer Studios, resurgent after Let Me In and The Woman in Black, is due to make their first remake of one of the studio’s old titles, The Abominable Snowman. ”

    Woohoo! I hope this leads to a DVD release of the original film, as I truly love that movie. The only way it could be better would be if they did it as a double feature with Toho’s forbidden classic ‘Half Human’.

    I also hope Hammer doesn’t go the SyFy route and ‘modernize’ it with tons of CGI and badly-done gore.

  • Rock Baker

    Actually, I think this is a bad sign. Hammer has already run out of new ideas and they’re resorting to the remake game? That’s just sad. I saw THE WOMAN IN BLACK and it managed to capture the Hammer feel alright (although it did seem a touch too influenced by the modern American type of ghost movie -that screaming Boo! technique mixed with some genuine atmosphere and spookiness which marks the best of Hammer). It seemed to signal a new era of creepy classics. That they’d so soon give up and do the tired and imagination-less road of remaking a beloved classic doesn’t signal the promising rebirth fans are hoping for. I hope they reconsider.

    And I’d heard they were planning a new Dracula movie, complete with Christopher Lee. Was that true, and if so, what ever came of it?

  • Actually, the boat has already sailed on the remake matter. Hammer was one of the companies that remade Let the Right One In as Let Me In and that film was fairly well regarded. On this, Hammer’s never been opposed to a good old fashioned remake. Not counting classics like Horror of Dracula and Quatermass X-periment, there’s always The Mummy, which is probably one of the best Mummy movies out there. Considering the original, this is saying a lot.

    Ignoring Horror of Frankenstein, their track record really isn’t that bad in this regard. With any luck this will continue with the new film. Unless they hire Megan Fox as the American hunter. Then the world is doomed.

  • To continue my nattering: according to their site, their next films include something called The Quiet Ones and the obligatory sequel to The Woman in Black. Sounds good to me.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I thought Christopher Lee said he was never touching the Dracula role again?

  • Rock Baker

    Most of Hammer’s remakes from their Golden Age were based on the works of other studios (Universal, mostly) and they were being remade in an era where color and scope truly offered new life to an old favorite (not something I necessarily subscribe to in general, but it was the feeling of the era). Remaking one’s own stock seems incredibly lazy on the surface of things, given the hallmark of the studio’s resurgence would seem to be hopes of a system rather different from the Hollywood one which has almost completely fallen apart.

    Having said that, however, I will grant that Hammer was perhaps revolutionary in pioneering what we today would call the “reboot.”

  • Rock Baker

    For what, the 17th time?

  • Eric Hinkle

    I understand he feared being typecast as a villain. Then again, when you look at his best known recent roles…

  • Rock Baker

    I recall reading an interview with Lee in which he seemed to be in complete denial. His basic stance seemed to be that since he was playing heavies of various sorts and not just of the undead variety that he had escaped being typecast. True, Scarmanga and Fu Manchu and the like weren’t vampires or anything, but they did seem to act an awful lot like Dracula at times.

  • Gamera977

    Yeah, I’m not sure it was an issue with being typecast as a heavy as just being bored with playing Dracula over and over.

  • Sandy Petersen

    Abominable Snowman, while kind of neat, was a bit slow. I wouldn’t mind seeing a punched-up version. Though agreed Kneale and Cushing are yeti-sized shoes to try to fill.

  • Sandy Petersen

    when you consider that in some of the Hammer Draculas he had either 0 dialogue, or only a line or two, I can sympathize. All he was called upon was to snarl. Does seem like a big waste of Christopher Lee.

  • Rock Baker

    The story I heard was that Lee thought his dialog was so silly for DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS that he himself decided to play the part without words. I suppose if limited dialog became a factor in the following films, it was largely due to Lee’s original objections. He built his coffin and had to lie in it, so to speak.