Stuff…

Updated on May 16, 2008 By Ken Begg 13 Comments

From the look of it, director Joe Dante will be helming a film that perhaps could be called “Bats on a Plane.”  The movie, currently called Bat Out of Hell, and follows “a red-eye flight from L.A. to New York during which hijackers confront the monstrous cargo.”  Maybe the title isn’t literal–but let’s hope it is!  Dante will first be making a film called The Hole, which sounds a lot like The Gate.

The Weinstein Company is apparently finally tired of boning us all in the ass, and following the film’s gigantic release in which it played in a total of ten theaters nationwide, will release the looooooong-awaited killer croc movie Rogue to DVD on Aug 5th. 

Plans continue to firm up for the increasingly delightful Piranha remake, due to hit theaters next summer.  (That will help me assauge my impatience for further Marvel movies.)  As previously noted, this will be shot in 3-D, and feature prehistoric piranhas released from an underground cavern to chow down on Man.  The people who made the monster from Cloverfield are designing the beasties.  Boy, this film could be a blast if they pull it off.  And as someone who generally champions PG-13 or even PG horror films, let me say that there’s no way they can do this right if it’s not a hard R.

Will Smith’s dark superhero movie Hancock has had its premiere pushed back, apparently because its going back for reshoots.  Last Man on Earth went through the same process.  That movie made money, but wasn’t that great.  Hopefully this turns out better.

When it rains, it pours.  PETA is attacking the makers of the recent megaflop Speed Racer, alledging the monkey that played Chim-Chim was mistreated during the shoot.  PETA Germany is filing charges against the animal’s trainer in that country, because its easier to do shit like that over in Europe.  Presumably they held off on making this statement (the incident was supposedly witnessed by a PETA person during shooting, presumably quite a while ago) until after the film came out, hoping it would be a hit so that their complaints would make more of a publicity splash.  Oops, sorry, I’m so cynical.  Anyway, maybe PETA should instead attack the makers of Speed Racer for abusing audiences with their woefully overlong movie. 

Uwe Boll’s Postal was supposed to open on 1,500 screens nationwide opposite the Indiana Jones movie.  Instead, because of a distributor boycott, it will reach 4 (!!!) screens.  Chances are this is the last Boll movie seen in a theater in the States.

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  • Any word as to what caused the Boll boycott?

  • fish eye no miko

    “Anyway, maybe PETA should instead attack the makers of Speed Racer for abusing audiences with their woefully overlong movie.”

    Well, yeah, but we all know PETA doesn’t care about *people*.

  • Pilgrim

    “Any word as to what caused the Boll boycott?”

    The distributors saw some of his earlier films?

    In all seriousness, Boll’s films are made for the sake of raising funds. There’s a German tax law loophole similar to The Producers. If you invest in a film, you get to write off 100% of your investment and only pay taxes if the movie makes money. If the movie breaks even or looses money, as Boll’s inevitably do, you don’t have to pay anything on it.

    My guess is that the distributors are tired of sinking money into film projects that were never intended (or at least, never seriously expected) to be profitable. Of course, I know bupkis about how distributorship works, so maybe I’m wrong…

  • JoshG

    There was an antiBoll petition awhile back. He claimed that if it got a million signatures he’d retire from movie making.

  • BeckoningChasm

    Unless Joe Dante has recently improved immeasurably as a film-maker, I say: meh. Expect tons of in-jokes and cameos and very little of engaging movie.

  • Pilgrim

    And, shortly after I post that, I find this on Wikipedia:

    “Boll blames the poor commercial performance of his video game adaptations on his distribution company, Romar, and has filed a lawsuit against them.”

    The suit dates to at least June of ’06 and is in relation to Bloodrayne, so this is probably old news by now. Still, would you want to work with someone who sues you because people don’t like your stupid movie?

    (As an aside, why Bloodrayne? Why not, oh, I don’t know, Legacy of Kain? I mean, if you’re going to make a movie based on a video game about vampires with swords, at least pick the one that’s well-written and cinematic. Bloodrayne is just pixelated sex and violence. Wait, I think I answered my own question.)

  • Danny

    “Any word as to what caused the Boll boycott?”

    This is how the movie opens:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt_tv7t79WY

    Seriously.

  • FYI – HANCOCK may end up being the next SPEED RACER in terms of flopping at the box office. Well, it’ll probably open huge one way or another, but the reason for the reshoots is no doubt because the film has reportedly gotten very negative reactions from every test screening they’ve done over the past two months. Many are already expecting HANCOCK to be Smith’s next WILD WILD WEST.

    Also, M. Night’s THE HAPPENING is also getting impossibly bad word of mouth. I’m talking WICKER MAN remake bad.

  • Thanks to all who responded to my question. Basically I figured that it due to the distribution fiasco of Bloodrayne and to total box office failure of Dungeon siege.

    About that opening, I guess he is finally just going to give everyone the big middle finger.

  • Mr. Rational

    Wow. Just…wow.

    Thanks a bunch for the clip, Danny. Now I can see why this is only going to be released on four screens. It will limit the number of people who want to kill Boll.

    Well, for this movie, anyway.

  • Solid Jake

    “Chances are this is the last Boll movie seen in a theater in the States.”

    And nothing of value was lost!

    “Bloodrayne is just pixelated sex and violence.”

    That’s why some people hoped that he might be able to make something approaching not completely unwatchable with it.

    Unsurprisingly, this was too much to hope for.

  • Dan Coyle

    The first BloodRayne was almost halfway competent… until the main character sat down and For 15 minutes, ran every scene in the movie over again in her head, with the soundtrack pumped all the way up.

    BloodRayne: Deliverance had an enjoyable spunky Zack Ward as a vampire Billy the Kid, and the always likable Nasstassia Malthe, but was otherwise worthless.

  • aphexbr

    I had the “privilege” of seeing Boll’s two newest movies (Postal and Seed) at the London Frightfest last year. I’d have thought that Postal was the least objectionable of the two – and possibly his best film as it’s actually meant to be a comedy (for what that’s worth, it’s still not very good – Verne Troyer really, really embarrasses himself). Apparently the version I saw was going to be cut by over 10 minutes for an R rating though.

    I wonder what really happened – “distributor boycott”? Boll seems to be claiming that it’s controversy over the 9/11 jokes in the opening scene that’s caused the withdrawal but since these have nothing to do with the rest of the film, the scene could easily be cut. My guess is that a combination of the quality of the movie, Boll’s reputation (and recent box office record) and the fact that it would be opening opposite Indy 4 have scared off anyone with any sense.

    As for Hancock, the word I heard about previews was that the movie was pretty good until it was derailed by a stupid twist about halfway through. Maybe they’re reshooting that, but this is never a good sign. That didn’t seem to harm I Am Legend’s box office, but that movie didn’t have a lot of competition whereas Hancock is a superhero movie in what seems to be a good year for the genre.