Stuff (02/12/09)…

Updated on February 12, 2009 By Ken Begg 10 Comments

Two sentences I had never really hoped to see together…”Justin Marks has come on board to rewrite Disney’s redo of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea…Studio is fast-tracking the project that McG will direct.”

The best news on this front is that several of Marks’ numerous pop culture revamp scripts (He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Voltron: Defender of the Universe, Green Arrow) have actually gotten made yet. However, one has, for an upcoming Street Fighter movie. Maybe Leagues will stay mired in development hell, though.

The director of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and Blind Melon’s No Rain (the one with the bumblebee girl) videos will direct the relaunch of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Blech.

It might take Quentin Tarantino forever to write his scripts, but he can still shoot them pretty quickly. I was shocked to see there was already a lengthy trailer for his WWII epic Inglorious Bastards. Man, I still wish he’d make a ’70s Blacksploitation-esque Luke Cage movie.

In comic book adaptation news, Josh Brolin will play disfigured post-Civil War era bounty hunter Johan Hex (will they keep the fused lip strand?), while his antagonist will be played by John Malkovich. However, the script is by the guys who wrote Crank (!) and the director made Horton Hears a Who.
More interesting is The Matarese Circle, a Cold War era spy story about a Russian agent (Tom Cruise) and his American counterpart (Denzil Washington) forced to join forces; the film is to directed by David Cronenberg.

More superheroes on TV. Fox has a pilot for The Human Target (previously a show starring Rick Springfield back in the ’90s), while ABC adapts—what else—a British show about subpar superheroes who hang out in a bar. Sort of Mystery Men meets The Tick, sounds like.

Variety reports a big cast for an upcoming BBC mini-series redo of the venerable Day of the Triffids, to star Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson, Brian Cox, Eddie Izzard, Jason Priestley and Vanessa Redgrave. Here’s hoping it’s about more than spectacle; the 1983 BBC adaptation was low-budget but quite decent.

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  • BeckoningChasm

    I hate to be a nit-picker, but should the word “several” in paragraph two be “none”? Because I’m not sure I understand otherwise.

  • KeithB

    Another nitpick: It is *Jonah* Hex, not Johan.

  • Reed

    Different strokes and all that, but man do I think a Tarantino Luke Cage movie would blow. Tarantino is way too talky. I don’t want to watch a scene of Cage sitting in a bar bs’ing with his bros about the establishment and the man and why he happens to love Grape Nehi in preference to any other flavored soft drink and my woman is so freaky because she’s totally into feet. Cage should deliver a short and to the point monologue and then start beating the hell out of people. Tarantino just isn’t that director.

    Robert Rodriguez I would buy. In fact, he could probably do a very cool Power Man and Iron Fist buddy movie.

    Set in Ciudad Juarez.

  • joe11

    I think Tarantino has lost it. Death Proof gave me one of the most excruciating experiences I’ve ever had at the theater. The lady characters kept on talking forever in their conversation scenes that did very little to move the plot. I wished I was at home so I could fast-forward through them & get to car chases. Kill Bill 2 also features alot of conversations that go nowhere. Tarantino seems more concerned with working in 70s’ pop culture references & being “quirky” in his scripts, than actually telling a story.

  • fish eye no miko

    I agree about Tarantino’s stuff being too talky… I remember watching the C.S.I. episode he directed. One of the main characters is buried alive and running out of the time, the rest of the team is desperate to find him… And Taratino spends like five minutes on a scene with Frank Gorshin talking about old-time Las Vegas. Earlier in the episode, it might have worked as atmosphere. Put where it was, it ruins the flow of the plot, which only serves to show how pointless the scene really is.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    I just saw an ad for that Street Fighter movie and was like, “What the hell?” It’s apparently focusing on Chun Li. I would guess she’s looking for her father’s killer. I might have seen Balrog and Sagat. And that’s about all. No interest.

  • Joe11

    The Street Fighter trailer didn’t do too much for me either. With today’s special effects, why can’t they make a SF film at least as good as the 1st Mortal Kombat. The one thing it has going for it is it can’t be as horrible as the Van Damme abortion back in ’94.
    This is referred to as the “Highlander 2 rule”, where any Highlander film coming out had to be better than that one.

  • Blackadder

    I actually liked Death Proof. Maybe I wouldn’t have enjoyed it if I hadn’t seen it in the theater as part of the whole Grind House package, with the crazy trailers and other shenanigans. Generally speaking I think both Tarantino and Rodriguez are overrated, but I don’t hate either one of them.

    Has anyone seen the 1970’s grindhouse style promo for The Sarah Connor Chronicles/Dollhouse combo on Fox? Kind of neat. Too bad both those shows are doomed, having been sent to the programming oubliette on Friday nights. Oh well.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    Joe–you’re probably right about that.

    Of course, the last Highlander movie (“The Source”) pretty much broke that rule, so nothing’s set in stone.

  • Joe11

    The Rev. D.D.

    I didn’t see “The Source”, but I’ll take your word for it. How bout we change it to the “Batman & Robin rule”? That’s enough comments from me on this subject. Anymore, & I’ll turn into Sandy Petersen.