America is to get its own version of cult BBC3 smash hit show Being Human. Syfy has ordered 13 episodes of the show about the house-sharing ghost, werewolf and vampire which will be made by RDF Media USA, currently best known for making US versions of reality shows like Secret Millionaire, How To Look Good Naked and Wife Swap. Now it seems Being Human is in for a culture swap.
The British series is produced by RDF subsidiary Touchpaper TV, and is currently filming its second series (though the cast has taken time out to record a Halloween message. A few years back, the BBC showed Syfy (or Sci Fi as it was back then) the script for the pilot of the British series, hoping to get the US network to come aboard as a co-funder, but the deal fell through.
“It turned out great as we can now do an American version,” reckons Syfy president Dave Howe. “We’ve always been keen on vampires and werewolves, and we loved the originality of Being Human, the fact that the fantastical creatures in it are very young, accessible and charming.”
Howe also stresses that Syfy will not “slavishly replicate the British version,” and sees it as a potential companion piece to Sanctuary, with which it shares similar subject matter.
Taylor Lautner, “New Moon’s” swoon-inducing werewolf, admits “fans would love anybody who played” his character, Jacob Black. “I’m just lucky to be the one who got the chance,” he tells Teen Vogue magazine in its Young Hollywood issue.
He might not have had that chance were it not for a karate coach. As Lautner tells it, his Hollywood-based karate coach — a “onetime blue Power Ranger,” according to Teen Vogue — told him to give showbiz a shot. Lautner says he grew up participating in Xtreme Martial Arts, a blend of martial arts disciplines and acrobatic routines.
Twilight (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Now he’s a Hollywood heartthrob. “There are 12 cars that camp outside my house,” he says, referring to the paparazzi. “You just have to try not to let it affect you.” Asked by the magazine about his rumored romance with Disney star Selena Gomez, he said, “She’s a great girl.”
Michael Sheen as Head Vampire in Twilight: New Moon
From IndieWire.com
Michael Sheen is as driven as the soccer coach he plays in Toronto-bound The Damned United.
In demand for a range of roles, the Welsh-born stage actor has conquered London and Broadway, smart movies and genre franchises. He starred as Lucian, king of the werewolves in all three Underworld movies. (Screen Gems released Patrick Tatopoulous’s Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans in January.)
This summer Sheen traded in one set of hair extensions and fake incisors for another: now he is playing head vampire of The Volturi in Twilight: New Moon, directed by Chris Weitz. The film is due in November.
On stage in London and New York and in the Ron Howard movie Frost/Nixon, Sheen held his own with Frank Langella as they reenacted the 1977 ramp-up and television face-off between cheery TV host David Frost and embittered ex-president Richard M. Nixon. Sheen shares a special relationship with Frost/Nixon writer Peter Morgan. Sheen starred as Tony Blair in both TV’s The Deal and Stephen Frear’s Oscar-winning The Queen. Now Sheen stars in yet another plum role from Morgan, the Brit soccer flick The Damned United, directed by Tom Hooper (John Adams). In it Sheen plays a brash, controversial, alcoholic, arrogant and charismatic soccer coach. “Peter has a knack for making subjects accessible,” Sheen told me at a meeting at the L’ermitage Hotel last year. “Initially, Frost/Nixon and The Queen were both a hard sell.” Morgan was going to direct The Special Relationship, in which Sheen continued as Blair opposite Dennis Quaid and Hope Davis as Bill and Hillary Clinton, but Richard Loncraine took over the helm.
“But Sheen’s willingness to embrace versatility may have a downside, he admits: you risk not creating a brand identity. “I enjoy the challenge of playing lots of different characters and having people accept me as that character.”
Sony Pictures Classics opens The Damned United in limited release on October 5. Next Sheen co-stars opposite Samuel L. Jackson in Gregor Jordan’s Unthinkable, and voices the White Rabbit in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.
Fans of the Twilight books kind of know what to expect from New Moon. Edward takes off, Jacob steps up and wolfs out. Still, Taylor Lautner thinks there are some surprises in store.
Taylor Lautner on The Twilight Saga: New Moon
“I honestly don’t think they’re expecting to be as heartbroken as I think they will be,” Lautner said. “I know when I read New Moon I really felt bad for Jacob’s character and Bella’s just because Jacob can’t have her and he’s trying to get her and everything that’s going on and her being torn and confused. So I felt really bad but actually when I lived the experience with Kristen, it was much worse and I just can’t imagine what the fans are going to think when they watch that.”
For people who haven’t read the books, and just wait for the movies, Lautner has a sales pitch too. “Somebody like me would enjoy the action because I love action movies and New Moon takes that to another level than Twilight was. That, and it’s a lot more complicated this time around. It takes what her and Edward developed in Twilight and it smashes that at the beginning and then it becomes complicated until the end of the movie.”
After Twilight, there were rumors that Lautner may be recast. He took on an exhausting workout regimen to ensure he would continue playing Jacob.
“Well, I knew what I had to do and that’s what I did. I stayed focused and it all worked out well. So as soon as I finished filming Twilight, I started hitting the gym. I got a personal trainer. I started eating a lot of food, good food, of course.”
Lautner is clearly high on the physicality of New Moon, but he showed his softer side when he discussed the film’s emotional moments. “I like a lot of the cool action scenes I get to do because I just had a lot of fun with those. My original favorite scene was a really small scene that I just thought was kind of cute. It was the scene where I walk her up to Bella’s door and say goodbye to her. I’m going off to fight in the woods and she’s worried. She’s scared for me. I thought that it was kind of cute, but I also like the break-up scene. It was also painful to shoot because it was 35 degrees and we had rain poured on us. It was rain tower rain, which is straight from the spring and it was freezing. It was bad.”
The Twilight Saga: New Moon opens to theaters on November 20th.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way production company is developing a Gothic reimagining of “Little Red Riding Hood” with screenwriter David Leslie Johnson (Orphan).
Leonardo Dicaprio
The “Red Riding Hood” project has been developed internally at Appian Way but isn’t being positioned as a possible acting vehicle for DiCaprio.
The best-known version of the story — in which a wolf disguises himself to fool a girl delivering food to her sick grandmother in the forest — was published in the 19th century by the Brothers Grimm. Earlier oral versions of the tale, which date back to the Middle Ages, are far darker and sometimes involve a werewolf rather than a wolf; the first published version, by Charles Perrault, concludes with Red Riding Hood eaten by the wolf, with no happy ending.
What is it with bloodsuckers lately? They’re everywhere – hot, sexy and in demand. The Twilight series is as popular as it’s ever been. The Twi-heads (fans) showed up in such high numbers at the recent Comic-Con that it threatened to bring down the whole thing. The passion for the lead vampire, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) continues to grow daily.
HBO has True Blood, which also features a brooding, reluctant vampire lead, Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and is slightly more explicit than Twilight. Somewhere in the middle of these two is BBC America’s new series Being Human. It isn’t as saucy as True Blood, but it isn’t as tame and maudlin as the Twilight films, which is probably a good thing all the way around.
Being Human centers on three “monsters” who are just trying to cope with daily life: a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost. It hardly sounds like this could be shaped into a really good show but it has been, thanks in large part to the writers who deliver laugh-out-loud jokes amid the horror. And it’s due to the seriousness of their individual predicaments – the ghost is in love with her ex-fiance after her sudden death. The vampire can’t really date women because eventually he’ll need to feed on them. The werewolf feels and acts the most human but every once in a while he must transform.
Finally, the success of Being Human lies with the talented actors who never stop believing who they are, thus, we don’t really stop believing either. At some point, their alternate forms become not unlike our own manifestations. We’re not in the supernatural realm but we know loneliness. Annie (Lenora Crichlow) plays the ghost who can’t stop making tea (even though she can’t drink it) because it makes her feel human. George, (Russell Tovey), the werewolf who can’t bear his new life, works at the hospital with Mitchell (Aidan Turner), the vampire du jour.
The pattern of the vampires stories lately seems to be that there are good ones and bad ones. In Being Human, the three characters who live together are still stuck on the good side of things. They are constantly being threatened by the bad ones to come to the dark side.
In the latest episode, Annie has figured out how that while some humans can see her, some can’t, most notably her ex-fiance. She can’t yet let go because she feels the way she did the day she died. He, of course, has now moved on with a new girlfriend. Annie keeps bringing him back. This is how a true haunting is born.
There is a rivalry between Mitchell and George where women are concerned. Mitchell is the cute one, but he’s also the more dangerous one. The trouble with vampires is that they’re very hard to resist. This is true of all of our popular vampires of late. Women can’t say no to a little friendly nibble. The more they love their women the less likely they are to bite.
Thanks to Bloody-Disgusting, we now have the trailer for “House of the Wolf Man,” which is a black and white film made in a 1940s style.
In 1944, “House of Frankenstein” was released, which was followed by “House of Dracula” in 1945. Apparently, “House of the Wolf Man” was supposed to happen soon after, but never did. So director Eben Mcgarr took it upon himself to make that third film, which stars Ron Chaney, the grandson of Lon Chaney Jr (the original Wolf Man).
“Dr. Bela Reinhardt (Chaney) has invited five people to his castle to see which of them will inherit his estate,” Mcgarr said of the plot. “He has arranged for a competition of sorts, the victor shall be determined through process of… elimination.”
He added that it is intended to “slip seamlessly in with the other two movies, and with no gore, language, or sex, it should be for all members of the family.”
Makeup Master Rick Baker getting "choked" by Benicio Del Toro
Carl DiOrio – HollywoodReporter.com
Universal’s embattled film execs Tuesday newly scheduled several films for release slots, but that potentially positive move came with a downbeat footnote: The studio also bounced “The Wolfman” out of the current fiscal year.
Universal said the “Wolfman” postponement — to Feb. 12 from a previous Nov. 6 release date — was due in part to visual effects work that’s likely to stretch deep into the fall. That would prevent several key scenes from being available for the pic’s marketing campaign, though a trailer from the Benicio Del Toro starrer is set to hit theaters Aug. 21.
“Wolfman” is now slotted for the four-day Presidents Day frame, which also features the Valentine’s Day holiday on Feb. 14. Four other wide releases are also scheduled for the lucrative session: Disney’s 3D rerelease of “Beauty and the Beast”; Summit Entertainment drama “Remember Me,” starring Robert Pattinson (“Twilight”); Warner Bros.’ romantic comedy “Valentine’s Day,” starring Jessica Biel and Bradley Cooper; and Fox’s adventure fantasy “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief.”
The move from fall to winter positions “Wolfman” to kick-start Universal’s boxoffice season by giving the studio an early tentpole release. But the high-profile pic’s delay also denies Uni’s corporate parents GE and NBC Universal revenue from a potential hit in a boxoffice year that’s seen the studio mired in market share mediocrity, with its most recent theatrical release “Bruno” underperforming and June tentpole “Land of the Lost” failing utterly.
Uni placed “The Fourth Kind” — a modestly budgeted thriller recently acquired from Gold Circle Films — into the Nov. 6 slot vacated by “Wolfman.”
Uni gained another big first-quarter release by newly slotting for March 12 a CIA thriller tentatively titled “Green Zone,” which reteams “Bourne Ultimatum” director Paul Greengrass and topliner Matt Damon. And the studio tagged its sci-fi thriller “Repo Men” — formerly titled “The Reposession Mambo” — as an unslotted first-quarter release.
In other moves, Rogue Pictures’ comedy “MacGruber” is now set for release on April 16, and the Judd Apatow-produced laugher “Get Him to the Greek” is set for June 11. Uni marketing and distribution president Adam Fogelson said he was particularly pleased with slotting “Greek” on a date corresponding to the June launch pad for this summer’s R-rated comedy blockbuster “The Hangover.”
“We think we have a real winner of a movie,” Fogelson said.
Another early summer tentpole — Universal’s Robin Hood adventure starring Russell Crowe — remains slotted for May 14.
The freshest Twilight face to grace the New Moon media blitz is model Noot Seear who will battle Robert Pattinson and the Volturi clan of reformed bloodsuckers as Heidi, one of the villainous Volturi vampires. New Moon, the second film in the Twilight Saga, has caused a Twilight stir in the acting community with its popularity and internet buzz, which is a major Twilight acting coup for the career of the young model turned actress.
New Moon which was filmed in Vancouver, BC, was the perfect location for Seear to land a role among other Twilight Saga hopefuls since Noot was born and raised the picturesque Canadian city until moving to New York at age 14 to pursue an modeling and acting career.
Noot Seear will now be gracing the silver screen instead of the runways of Armani and Yves St. Laurent as she amps up her acting game in the Twilight sequel. In a recent interview with Women’s Wear Daily, New Moon director Chris Weitz spoke on the decision to cast Seear because of her versatility. “It’s rare to find a stunningly attractive person who also happens to have the ability to act.”
Noot Seear had her own words of wisdom for Women’s Wear Daily when comparing the acting and modeling worlds where looks can be equally important. “Modeling was great to me,” Said the New Moon Volturi Heidi. “What makes acting different is that you get a voice. You’re not just a picture.” That may be true but we’re that Seear’s Twilight presence in New Moon will attract an even wider male Twilight Saga audience once pictures of Heidi hit the web.
In New Moon, Heidi is the Volturi hunter in charge of luring prey back to the clan’s castle. The New Moon role is small, especially since filming in Italy for New Moon only took two weeks, but it will be a good Twilight starting point for Noot Seear if she hopes to make inroads into the acting world.
Catch Noot Seear in New Moon when the Twilight Saga sequel hits theaters on November 20, 2009.
(Reuters) – It seems the sun has barely set on the movie phenomenon “Twilight,” and already its sequel “New Moon” is rising with its stars promising a more emotional journey and more action than the first film.
Fans of the original that has raked in more than $380 million at worldwide box offices got their first glimpse of “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” at the giant Comic-Con International pop culture convention in San Diego on Thursday (July 23).
Thanks to Bloody-Disgusting, we now have the trailer for “House of the Wolf Man,” which is a black and white film made in a 1940s style.
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