Willem Dafoe to play a big green Martian in John Carter of Mars

Willem Dafoe

by Rob Keyes – Screenrant.com

Not long after the announcement that Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins were cast in the lead roles in the upcoming adaptation of John Carter of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ series of novels, we found out the talented Willem Dafoe would be playing an important character in the film(s) as well.

At the time, we knew that Dafoe would be playing the role of Tars Tarkas, a big green Martian who eventually befriends the Kitsch’s John Carter, after an unfriendly beginning to their relationship. Tarkas is a warrior and leader of his people and a very unique one at that because he, against the laws and norms of his society, shows compassion and sympathy, and even had a child secretly with the woman he loved (child bearing is a major criminal offense of his people) – he actually believes war isn’t the answer for his kind.

Taylor Kitsch

Dafoe also confirmed that the movie will be a combination of live-action and heavy CGI, something that was already hinted at during the casting announcements.

The films are said to mesh live-action and computer-based animation together in a way similar to what James Cameron has done with his eagerly anticipated Avatar. With Disney and Pixar behind the project and the promise of a series of movies on the same scale of Pirates of the Caribbean, I have high hopes for John Carter of Mars and what it will eventually look like on screen.

Lynn Collins

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Guillermo del Toro will take Disney on a scary ride

Guillermo del Toro with a Hell Boy hand

Dawn C. Chmielewski and Geoff Boucher – LATimes.com

Walt Disney Studios and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro are forming a production company, Disney Double Dare You, to create animated films with a spooky edge.

Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook announced the partnership today in a star-studded presentation to the D23 Expo fan convention that brought actors Johnny Depp, Nicolas Cage and John Travolta, and directors Tim Burton and Robert Zemeckis, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and singer-actress Miley Cyrus onstage in a packed auditorium at the Anaheim Convention Center. 

Del Toro, who is in New Zealand doing pre-production on the film “The Hobbit,”  delivered a recorded presentation in which he said he hopes to create animated films in the chilling but family-friendly spirit of one of his favorite Disney theme park attractions, the Haunted Mansion. The filmmaker waxed on about the “immersive” journey to another world that he experienced when four decades ago he stepped into the mansion, which to his young mind was “the most demanded real estate in the whole world.”

The first project is called “The Troll Hunters.” The filmmaker also said there will be a shared trait among all the Double Dare projects, which will include books, merchandise and films, but he kept that secret to himself on this day.

“I love to take audiences into fantastic new world and provide them with some anxious moments in the process,” Del Toro said. “It is part of the Disney canon to create thrilling, unforgettable moments in the process. It is part of the Disney canon to create thrilling, unforgettable moments and villains in all their classic films. It is my privilege for Double Dare You to continue in this tradition.”

It is unclear how many films the acclaimed director of “Pan’s Labyrinth” and the comic-book-inspired “Hellboy” is committing to make under the partnership with Disney — or when he’ll find the time. He is directing two “Hobbit” films for Warner Bros./New Line Cinema and MGM, which are scheduled for release in 2011 and 2012, and has been linked to half a dozen other projects, including “Drood” and a “Frankenstein” remake.

Disney Buys Marvel

By NAT WORDEN – Wall Street Journal

Walt Disney Co. agreed to acquire Marvel Entertainment Inc., the creator of Spider-Man and thousands of other characters, for about $4 billion.

The deal marks one of the largest acquisitions in Disney’s history and the first big media deal since companies began hoarding cash last fall during the global financial crisis.

The move fits with Disney’s stated strategy of driving revenue from popular content over time across multiple platforms. It also gives the company a boost with young male audiences, where Marvel’s characters like Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Thor are particularly popular. Disney has shown more strength with females from its properties like Hannah Montana.

Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce said Disney is paying a steep valuation for Marvel but he views the deal as a “good long-term strategic move” for the company. “This is another sign that confidence is returning to the marketplace,” he said.

Marvel has long-term production and distribution deals in place with Disney competitors, including Sony Corp.’s Sony Entertainment, News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox Films and Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures, which complicate the company’s strategic position. News Corp. is the parent of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

In many cases, it will take years before Disney can garner anything more than licensing fees from some key Marvel characters, but Disney Chief Financial Officer Tom Staggs said those revenue are attractive and the company will have the option to produce and distribute Marvel’s content on its own when those deals expire.

“Marvel is worth more inside Disney than outside Disney,” Mr. Staggs said.

Marvel Chief Executive Ike Perlmutter, who will continue to oversee the Marvel properties, called Disney “the perfect home for Marvel’s fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses.”

The comic book maker has been boosting awareness of its characters by continuing to branch out into animated television series and live-action films. However, the company in the spring pushed back its film schedule through 2012 as it looked to build anticipation for its coming slate of films.

Catherine Hardwicke To Direct Gothic Retelling of Little Red Riding Hood

From SlashFilm.com

Catherine Hardwicke has signed on to direct The Girl With the Red Riding Hood for Appian Way and Warner Bros. The gothic reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood was announced earlier this month, with Orphan screenwriter David Leslie Johnson attached to pen the script.

Not much is known about the new take, other than it will be loosely based on the famous fairy tale, is being described as a werewolf movie, and has a teenage love triangle at its center. Hardwicke is a perfect choice for this project as her filmmaking career thus far has been filled with teenage stories with female leads. She broke onto the directing scene with the Sundance indie Thirteen (starring Evan Rachel Wood), and has since directed The Nativity Story (starring Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary) and, of course, Twilight (starring Kristen Stewart). She also directed the 2005 film Lords of Dogtown.

The story has changed many times over the years, and is best known in the Brothers Grimm variant. But earlier versions were much darker, the earliest printed version from the 17th century ended with Riding Hood being slaughtered by the wolf. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

“The story had as its subject an “attractive, well-bred young lady”, a village girl of the country being deceived into giving a wolf she encountered the information he needed to find her grandmother’s house successfully and eat the old woman while at the same time avoiding being noticed by woodcutters working in the nearby forest. Then he proceeded to lay a trap for the Red Riding Hood. The latter ends up eaten by the wolf and there the story ends. The wolf emerges the victor of the encounter and there is no happy ending.”

It is unclear which version of the classic tale the Gothic reimagining will take influence from, but one could imagine it might be the older tellings. Hollywood could give a “Gothic reimagining” spin to any of the classic fairy tales and I would be interested. I’m actually kinda disappointed that Disney jumped on Alice in Wonderland, as I was hoping that one of the dark Alice projects would have gone into production.

But don’t expect to see this film on the big screen any time soon, or ever. Appian Way seems to announce a new project in development each month (I might be slightly exaggerating for dramatic effect). IMDb Pro lists 22 upcoming properties in pre-production, but the company turns out an average of one film per year. So, unless things dramatically pick up, chances are we’ll never see this project on the big screen. Appian has a list a mile long of promising projects in development, including: Akira, Atari, Aquaman, Conspiracy of Fools, Ninja Scroll, and a couple projects with both Dicaprio and Martin Scorsese attached. Hardwicke is also attached to an adaptation of Hamlet for Overture 21 Jump Street, and Maxium Ride at Sony.

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Robert Zemeckis circles “Yellow Submarine” remake

By Borys Kit – Hollywood Reporter

Robert Zemeckis is in negotiations to direct a remake of the 1968 animated Beatles feature “Yellow Submarine” for the Walt Disney Studios.

Disney had no comment on the deal. Still being sorted out is the acquisition of rights to the film’s music, which includes the title track as well as “Eleanor Rigby,” “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” “When I’m Sixty-Four” and “With a Little Help From My Friends.”

Like all Zemeckis’ animated productions — among them “The Polar Express” and “Beowulf” — “Submarine” would be done in performance capture and would be a digital 3D endeavor.

The original movie, produced by United Artists and King Features Syndicate, was a hit. Its story involves a soldier called Old Fred who meets up with the Beatles and travels in a yellow submersible to Pepperland. Among the creatures the group encounters are the music-hating Blue Meanies.

Willem Dafoe goes to ‘Mars’

Willem Dafoe

By Borys Kit – Hollywood Reporter

Willem Dafoe is on his way to Mars.
The actor has joined Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins in “John Carter of Mars,” Disney’s adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs book series that Andrew Stanton is directing.
In the story of a Civil War soldier transported to the red planet where warring races vie for control, Dafoe will play Tars Tarkas, a leader of the Thark race who knows that the only way his people can survive is if they turn away from war, a position that may cost him dearly.
Stanton wrote the screenplay with Mark Andrews. Jim Morris and Colin Wilson are producing “Carter,” which is eyeing a start in early 2010.
Brigham Taylor is overseeing for the studio.
Dafoe, repped by WME, recently wrapped “Cirque du Freak,” an adaptation of Darren Shan’s young adult book series, and vampire thriller “Daybreakers.”

In 2004 – when the project was still known as “A Princess of Mars” after the book on which it’s based – Robert Rodriguez had originally been signed and announced as director and had begun pre-production early that year (it would have been his largest project to date with starting budget reported at $100 million). Rodriguez’ most notable contribution was to hire fantasy painter Frank Frazetta (whose most acclaimed works have included striking illustrations of Edgar Rice Burroughs novels, most notably the “John Carter on Mars” books) as production designer on the film. However, when Rodriguez resigned from the Directors’ Guild of America (DGA) the same year (due to a dispute over his film Sin City), Paramount was forced to replace him. The studio has a long-standing arrangement with the DGA in which only the organization’s members may direct Paramount films. He was replaced with director Kerry Conran, who had just finished Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. In 2005, Conran left the project and was replaced by Jon Favreau just before the release of Favreau’s movie Zathura: A Space Adventure.

“A Princess of Mars” was originally published as “Under the Moons of Mars” by Norman Bean (Edgar Rice Burroughs’ pseudonym) in The All-Story (six pulp magazine issues February – July, 1912). Burroughs was originally afraid that he might be ridiculed for writing such a tale, so he decided to use a pen name. The pseudonym was supposed to be a pun “Normal Bean” (as in “I’m a normal bean”) to reassure people, but the man who typeset the text thought it was a mistake, so he changed it to “Norman”.

Jon Favreau was on-board to direct John Carter of Mars until around August 2006. At this time Paramount chose not to renew the film rights, preferring to focus on Star Trek, while Favreau left to work on Iron Man. In January 2007 Disney regained the rights (they had rights to film the story previously: in the 1980s with director ‘John McTiernan)’, and enlisted ‘Andrew Stanton’ from Pixar to direct.

Mattel’s Max Steel goes to the movies

Marc Graser – Variety

Just weeks before Paramount Pictures invades theaters with “G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra,” the studio is teaming with Joe Roth to pick up Mattel’s “Max Steel” as another action figure it wants to play with on the bigscreen.

The toy property revolves around a 19-year-old extreme sports junkie recruited by a secret agency after an accident infects his body with nanobots, making him superhuman.

Although Mattel introduced the character in the U.S. in 1999 as an action figure, and soon after in an animated series that ran from 2000-2002, he’s proved more popular in Latin America, where Max Steel is the region’s No. 1 action figure. Mattel has continued to produce animated direct-to-DVD features for the region, produced by Rainmaker Entertainment in Vancouver.

But Mattel wants to use movies as a way to relaunch the toy line in the U.S. and the rest of the world, the way the “Transformers” pics have helped generate new heat around Hasbro’s action figures.

“A theatrical film plays a significant role to relaunch the franchise,” said Barry Waldo, Mattel’s VP of worldwide entertainment marketing and strategy. “But we have a strong Latin consumer we’re going to keep happy while broadening the franchise for the rest of the world. We wouldn’t do ourselves a favor if we turned a blind eye to it. That’s the artistic challenge we’ve got.”

Roth, who is a producer on Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” at Disney, and produced last summer’s “Hellboy 2: The Golden Army,” will serve as executive producer on “Max Steel,” with Waldo and Tim Kilpin, general manager for Mattel’s girls, boys and games group, who is shepherding the company’s top brands for boys and girls.

Mattel was keen on pairing with Roth, considering the Max Steel character has similarities to the “XXX” franchise he launched while head of Revolution Studios. The Xander Cage character in the first film was an extreme sports athlete turned spy.

Roth has had a relationship with Mattel over the years when it comes to marketing and charities.

Mattel and Roth are seeking a screenwriter and director, who will work closely with the toymaker to develop the film’s characters and storyline to match the company’s plans for the franchise.

“Max Steel” will be the first pic Mattel has set up at Paramount since it began aggressively looking to turn its toys into features.

It’s the sixth property that Mattel has set up in the past year or so since signing with Creative Artists Agency to get those movies made. Mattel has “He-Man: Masters of the Universe” and “Hot Wheels” at Warner Bros. with Joel Silver producing; “Major Matt Mason” with Tom Hanks; and a musical based on a yet-to-be-revealed monster property at Universal that Craig Zadan and Neil Meron are shepherding. A “View-Master” movie is also in the works at DreamWorks, with Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman producing

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Weta Workshop begins production on Disney’s XD Skyrunners

Weta Workshop

 

April 12, 2009

Production has begun on SKYRUNNERS, the first original movie for the newly-branded television platform Disney XD. The science fiction adventure features Kelly Blatz, who can also be seen playing the title role of the new network’s flagship series AARON STONE.

Weta Workshop, the multiple Academy Award-winning world leader in special makeup, creature and visual effects (THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, KING KONG and THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA films), will design and provide the practical alien creature effects in the movie.

SKYRUNNERS begins as teenage brothers Tyler (Joey Pollari) and Nick Burns (Blatz) commandeer a small UFO that crashes near their town. They soon realize that the spacecraft is “alive” and Tyler

begins to develop superhuman abilities. When the brothers uncover an ominous alien plot to take over Earth, Tyler is captured by the extraterrestrials, so now it’s up to Nick to rescue his brother.

In addition to Pollari and Blatz, Disney XD’s SKYRUNNERS stars Linda Kash as Robin Burns, Conrad Coates as Agent Armstrong, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood as Julie Gunn and Nathan Stephenson as Darryl Butler.

SKYRUNNERS was directed by Ralph Hemecker and written by Richard C. Okie along with Adam Wilson & Melanie Wilson. Okie also exec produced the movie. SKYRUNNERS is a production of Ranger Productions and Shaftesbury Services II, Inc.

Disney XD is a newly re-branded basic cable channel and multi-platform brand showcasing a mix of live-action and animated programming for kids age 6-14, hyper-targeting boys and their quest for discovery, accomplishment, sports, adventure and humor.

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