Fox production start dates…
As I noted last week, Hollywood faces potential strikes from all three of the big unions (actors, directors, writers) next summer, and so the studios and the talent themselves are striving to get as much work in as possible to prepare for ny possible lean times. The dates listed after the titles are the scheduled production start dates, with the vast majority of the projects hoping to be in the can by May of 2008, before any strikes begin.
FOX
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2 Mar 8th 2008 Didn’t see the first one, since it had Robin Williams in it.
DRAGON BALL Z Fall 08 The start date is weird, although they may assume (or just pray) that any strikes will be resolved by then, and they could still have the film prepped and ready to shoot before the strikes. Meanwhile, a live-action DBZ movie? Not really my bag (unless Steven Chow was making it), but OK.
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL Dec 3 2007 Already infamous for the fact that they’ve hired Keanu Reeves to start in the movie, and not even to play Gort the Robot, probably the one part he could pull off.
WOLVERINE Nov 07 2007 With the X-Men film series apparently wrapped for good (at least presently), Fox is going with an aggresive spin-off strategy. Note the Magneto movie also listed below. Hugh Jackman is back as the hairy mutant, with film covering his origin as Weapon X.
FOX 2000
MAGNETO January 1st Tells the story of the early days, friendship, and eventual antagnonism of Maneto and Charles Xavier, the future leader of the X-Men. Presumably bumber bits will be filmed involving Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart, but otherwise I imagine the charcters will obviously be played in the main by younger actors.
This stuff’s a little more up my alley, but again, I don’t find much to excite me here. I wouldn’t mind a decent Wolverine movie, if they make one, and would probably go see Magneto or even Dragon Ball Z if the reviews were extremely good. However, what are the odds of that? Meanwhile, Night at the Museum 2 and (ugh) Day the Earth Stood Still are pretty much complete non-starters.
I thought Night at the Museum (the first one, obviously) was a fairly decent movie. It was no Oscar-winner, sure, but it really didn’t try to be. I enjoyed it for what it was, a fairly innocuous family-type movie with lots of little chuckles, if no real belly-laughs. And I thought Robin Williams put in one of the better performances as Teddy Roosevelt. The hardest part was simply trying to ignore Ben Stiller being Ben Stiller. As long as the sequel stays true to the tone of the original and doesn’t try to get pretentious, it might be worth watching.
I don’t know about the X-Men spin-off idea though. I just can’t picture any of the characters being strong enough alone to hold up a film. The most interesting part of the X-Men generally was the interplay between characters, and solo episodes have usually been less satisfying. But who knows? Magneto and Wolverine are the most complex characters in their arsenal, so they may just pull it off.
Finally, I have never understood the fanaticism some people have for Dragonball Z. It’s nothing but an endless series of escalating “top this” battles, for goodness sake. The original Dragonball precursor series was much more entertaining and fun to watch, because it actually had humor, charm, and most importantly, a story.
Altair IV said this on October 18th, 2007 at 11:59 am