The Hollywood Universe – 5/5/08

1) The current governor of California in the States, former actor-producer-director Arnold Schwarzenegger, has indicated a willingness to do a cameo in the up-coming fourth Terminator film, directed by McG, if anybody wants him and if they are shooting in California. Schwarzenegger, who rose to mega-fame by playing a sentient assassin/bodyguard android in the first three time travel movies, moved on to politics and became governor of the Golden State in 2003. He has made a few cameos in films since that time, but is otherwise retired from acting. The new movie, which stars Christian Bale as humanity’s savior John Connor, is entitled Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins and is shooting this month. The film is trying for a "PG-13" rating in the U.S. this time, instead of the "R" adult rating of the previous three films.
 
2) The movie sets, costumes and props for the Harry Potter films are going to be part of Harry Potter: The Exhibition, a state of the art, 10,000 square foot display put together by film studio Warner Brothers that will debut in Spring 2009 and tour cities around the world. The exhibition will be updated with items from the last batch of Potter films. Tour information, updates and ticket availability will be posted at www.harrypotterexhibition.com as details become available.

3) Dissatisfied with how its superhero comics properties were being handled by film studios, Marvel Comics launched its own film studio, Marvel Movies. New comics film Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr. in the first of the summer season blockbusters, was one of the new company’s first babies, and the movie sailed to a record-breaking opening of $100 million plus on its first weekend. Marvel has now announced that there will be a sequel, Iron Man 2, scheduled for summer 2010. A cameo at the end of the first Iron Man film indicated that The Avengers, Iron Man’s compatriots in the comics, would be having their due in film as well, and Marvel has also announced plans to launch a new film version of Nordic god superhero Thor for 2010, and two films, The First Avenger: Captain America and The Avengers, in 2011.
 
4)  Director Breck Eisner will definitely be doing an update of the 1954 horror movie Creature from the Black Lagoon for Universal Pictures, and is planning to shoot in the Amazon from a script by Gary Ross. First, though, Eisner plans to finish a remake of George Romero’s horror film The Crazies, also for Universal.
 
5) Daniel Myrick, co-creator of the cult horror hit The Blair Witch Project, has done a new supernatural thriller, The Objective, about a CIA officer and special forces crew on a mission in the Afghanistan mountains who encounter unexpected threats. The film premiered at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival.

6) Walt Disney and Scott Rudin Productions are developing the family fantasy film Hours of Fun and have hired John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein to do a rewrite of Greg Pace's screenplay. The movie will be about two childhood friends who ordered tons of novelty toys, such as X-ray glasses, Sea Monkeys and transforming robots, from the back pages of their late-'70s comic books. Thirty years later, the toys begin living up to their wild advertising claims, forcing the pair to save their town from resulting chaos.

7) Warner Brothers has optioned The Ditch, written by documentary film and video producer Sascha Penn. Set in the future, the movie takes place in a super maximum-security prison on one of Jupiter's moons, where Earth's worst criminals are incarcerated. When a prison guard's family is taken hostage, he is coerced into helping the facility's most notorious terrorist, a man who was scheduled to be executed that day, escape from the facility.

8) The independent British production company Celador Films is reuniting with French-owned and U.K.-based Pathe on a sequel to Neil Marshall's horror hit The Descent, about a system of caves in which lurk blind, man-eating, mutant creatures. The first movie made US$57 million at the box office from a budget of less than $10 million. Descent 2 will be directed by the first movie’s film editor, Jon Harris, from a script by James Watkins, and shoot in Scotland and London. The stars of the first film, Shauna MacDonald and Natalie Mendoza, will return in their roles, along with Gavan O'Herlihy, Joshua Dallas, Anna Skellern, Douglas Hodge and Krysten Cummings.

9) Numerous fans of 1999 cult hit SF comedy Galaxy Quest have hoped that there might be a sequel film, but chances of reuniting the movie’s cast have been slim. As a substitute, IDW Publishing is offering a comic book miniseries based on the film, Galaxy Quest: Global Warning, starting in August and running for five issues. The original film was about the cast of a long defunct, Star Trek-like sci-fi television show, who lived off their previous glory by doing gigs at conventions, but then are contacted by real aliens who don’t understand that they are actors to help fight against a vicious enemy. The comics series, written by Scott Lobdell with art from Ilias Kyriazis, will focus on a world-threatening crisis that erupts when the group is re-launching their television series – Galaxy Quest: The Journey Continues.