Fox production start dates…

Updated on October 17, 2007 By Ken Begg 3 Comments

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.

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  • Altair IV

    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.

  • Danny

    DRAGON BALL Z Fall 08

    There is no god.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    Good call on the Dragonball vs. Dragonball Z, Altair. I grudgingly started watching it after giving up on DBZ, and was very glad I had, because it’s like a whole different show. The fights do still tend to be “top this!” but there’s a lot of story and fun in among the fights.
    Meanwhile, DBZ has episodes that are literally nothing but people thinking “I must increase my power levels to beat him!” and saying “You’ll never defeat me!” before jaw-laughing. Oh, and screaming. Lots of screaming. I don’t get the appeal. For every interesting episode there’s four or five like the one I described.
    I made the mistake of watching a couple of DBGT episodes. Like DBZ but with animation I liked less. BLEH.