Tag: remake

Adam Berg Set To Helm A Remake Of Cronenberg’s ‘Videodrome’

by Shawn Madden

It appears that nothing is safe from the remake and reboot process these days. Deadline reports that Adam Berg, who had his name once attached to the Deadpool movie, is set to make his big debut as the director of an updated version of Videodrome for Universal Pictures. The remake is scripted by Ehren Kruger (Transformers: Dark Of The Moon) and will be produced by Daniel Bobker (Dream House).

The original film, which was released in 1983 and starring James Woods, was set in Toronto during the early 1980s, and follows the CEO of a small cable station who stumbles upon a broadcast signal featuring extreme violence and torture. The layers of deception and mind-control conspiracy unfold as he uncovers the signal’s source and loses touch with reality in a series of increasingly bizarre and violent organic hallucinations. The film has been described as “techno-surrealist”. This news probably won’t be very well received by many fans of the cult classic. This is especially due to Deadline reporting Universal’s plans to “modernize the concept, infusing it with the possibilities of nano-technology and blow it up into a large-scale sci-fi action thriller.” I’m curious what David Cronenberg thinks about it.

Sam Raimi Tells Us The ‘Evil Dead’ Remake Will Definitely Be R-Rated

by Shawn Madden

Both Sam Raimi (who will be producing) and Bruce Campbell (who will be making a cameo appearance), who are on board with the upcoming remake of The Evil Dead, are giving the film their thumbs up. The remake of the 1981 classic, will focus on “five twenty-something friends become holed up in a remote cabin where they discover a Book Of The Dead and unwittingly summon up dormant demons living in the nearby woods, which possess the youngsters in succession until only one is left intact to fight for survival.” A plot that doesn’t differ too much from the original but replaces some of the characters with new ones. Raimi recently discussed the upcoming remake with Collider. During this interview he revealed that the film is really bloody and really “goes for it” and that we should definitely expect an R rating on it.

When asked if this movie will be  just as bloody as the original or it they’ve toned it down for a PG-13 release:

It’s really bloody.  It’s so bloody, it will make your head spin.  I’ve seen almost all the dailies and they’re really going for it.  It’s gonna be grisly and intense and non-stop.

Regarding the rating of the movie:

Definitely R.  Maybe worse.

On his level of involvement and what fans can look forward to:

Well, I always thought that Evil Dead was a little campfire story that you tell at a camp to kids to scare them at night.  But, I don’t think anybody thought it was a beautifully produced, theatrical experience.  It was shot in 16mm, all the effects were done for a quarter, and I always thought it could be done in a big screen movie type way that was really high quality with photographic effects.  It could still be just as gritty, but it could be done in stereo and not just mono, and it could be done in 35mm versus 16mm.  There were a lot of ways to improve it.  There could be much better writing than I was capable of, at the time, as an 18-year-old kid writing that screenplay.  And honestly, the directing could be a lot better, and the characterizations could be better.  I was very happy with it, but it was something that was crudely done and I thought deserved re-exploration.  I thought it would be fun and, in fact, it has turned out to be a tremendous amount of fun because it’s like an old melody that you write and you’ve brought in this really great, cool, young, hip jazz musician, and he’s riffing on it and showing you places it could go that you never dreamed.  It’s very exciting for me.

So, with both Raimi and Campbell being excited for this movie…are you?

Evil Dead hits theaters April 12th, 2013.

Ken Watanabe To Star In Japanese Remake Of ‘Unforgiven’

by Shawn Madden

Warner Japan is plotting a remake of  the Clint Eastwood western Unforgiven, and they’ve got Ken Watanabe (Inception) set to star in it. Variety  is reporting that in this remake director Lee Sang-Il will keep the 1880’s setting and the same general plot of the original but with Watanabe playing a samurai with a violent past. The location has been changed to the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido at a time when Japanese settlers were displacing the native Ainu people.

This is one of the few times we see a Japanese remake of an American film. It’s usually the other way around as seen in the past with such as films as The Ring (Ringu), Dark Water (Ju-On) and many others. Yurusarezaru mono which if it isn’t apparent means “unforgiven” in Japanese is scheduled for release next fall in Japan. Koichi Sato has been cast in the Gene Hackman role and Akira Emoto is set to play the Morgan Freeman part. You most likely can expect to see this hit the States sooner or later given what a high-profile remake this one is.

Bruce Campbell Has Seen The ‘Evil Dead’ Remake And Says It’s “Fabulous”

by Shawn Madden

A remake of Evil Dead is coming whether some fans like it or not. Trust me, there are plenty of fans outraged by this film happening. However, I am not one of them due to the fact that both Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi are on board with this so at the moment I have faith in it. The legendary Bruce Campbell who we all know as ‘Ash’ from Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead recently discussed the upcoming remake with Digital Spy. He reveals some interesting new info, such as the fact that we will see none of the original characters from the original film and that this will be an entirely fresh new take on the franchise. So, fans that were worried that this would just be the same movie shot by shot can take one sigh of relief.

On just how different this one is to the previous movies:

There’s none of the original characters. We didn’t want to compare apples with apples. It’s a contemporary movie – just like Evil Dead was contemporary in 1979, this is contemporary for young adults now. It’s basically five new kids who are going to have a really bad night with a brand new director – Fede Alvarez, who was handpicked by Sam Raimi. I’ve seen it already; I think it’s definitely fabulous.

Does he think fans will embrace this remake:

We’re really excited and really behind it, [but] it’s going to take a bit to get the Evil Dead fans behind it. We know we’ve pissed a lot of them off. We appreciate that and we appreciate their anger and their zeal, but the only thing we want to impress upon them is that we didn’t screw it up. This is going to be just as memorable as [the original] Evil Dead without being the same movie.

You don’t want to remake something shot-for-shot. I can’t believe they remade Psycho – what the hell kind of a waste of celluloid is that? It’s a creative medium.

The nice thing is the film looks beautiful. The effects are 10 times better than we ever had access to and the actors are all better than we were in 1979. Though granted Sam Raimi is a mad genius, so we got a crazy result like Evil Dead out of this amateur enthusiasm sort of thing.

On the subject of whether or not he will make a cameo and if he would ever be willing to play Ash again in the future:

I’m not at liberty to discuss that. But the thing is we want it to be a standalone movie. You’re going to have some references [to the original] in there and there’s going to be things the fans will enjoy as far as familiar aspects, but it’s a whole new ball game.

I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know if I could – the last one was 1991. I was a virile young man; I’m 54 years old now so I’m not sure 54-year-old guys need to be doing that s**t anymore. But if Sam wants to lace the boots back on and do something that makes sense, that’s fine. We may need to do the movie one day, if our careers fly off the tracks and we crash and burn, we might look at each other and go ‘Let’s make an Evil Dead movie’!

His thoughts on the current trend of remakes and reboots:

Well I’ll be honest with you… I’m not a fan of them. So I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth. Here I am remaking a movie at one end… but here’s my spirited defense – it’s our movie. Myself and Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, we own that movie, it’s our movie. We’re not looking into some file drawer of some property that’s owned by a studio that’s 30 years old, that we can get for cheap and [saying] ‘Let’s remake that’.

Our only obligation to the viewer is that we don’t give them a piece of s**t. It’s going to wind up being a very handmade movie, Fede Alvarez is so far from being a hack – we didn’t get some 18-year-old director who just wants to make his movie look cool. We got a guy who is an adult.

I think people will be pleasantly surprised that it’s not something that was cranked out, where no-one gives a crap. We were involved in casting, we were involved in everything. We’re all over that movie like a cheap suit, so if it blows it’s our responsibility.

Evil Dead hits theaters April 12th, 2013.

Samuel L. Jackson Joins The Cast Of Spike Lee’s ‘Oldboy’!

by Shawn Madden

Samuel Jackson (The Avengers) has joined the cast of Spike Lee’s remake of the Chan-wook Park revenge film, Oldboy. The LA Times has learned that Jackson has come on board to play a small but pivotal role in the film. The actor will play the man who is being tortured by the hero, played by Josh Brolin (MIB3) in a key revenge scene.

If you remember the original movie you may remember this one as one of the most disturbing scenes in the film. In it we saw the protagonist take vengeance on the man that guarded him by removing his teeth with the claw on a hammer. Sounds like a pretty messed up scene right? Well, it looks like we won’t be seeing that happening in this one but instead another extreme form of torture that the Times wouldn’t reveal but did say was “pretty painful”. This movie definitely won’t be for the faint of heart folks.

Oh yeah, and also Bruce Hornsby (Red Hook Summer) has hopped on board the film too and will be composing the score.

The Wolverines Are Back! Watch The First Trailer For ‘Red Dawn’!

by Shawn Madden

Yesterday we brought you guys the first poster and now we have the fist official trailer for the remake of Red Dawn! Wolverines!

 In Red Dawn, a city in Washington state awakens to the surreal sight of foreign paratroopers dropping from the sky – shockingly, the U.S. has been invaded and their hometown is the initial target. Quickly and without warning, the citizens find themselves prisoners and their town under enemy occupation. Determined to fight back, a group of young patriots seek refuge in the surrounding woods, training and reorganizing themselves into a guerilla group of fighters. Taking inspiration from their high school mascot, they call themselves the Wolverines, banding together to protect one another, liberate their town from its captors, and take back their freedom.

Red Dawn invades theaters November 21st!

Check Out The First Poster For ‘Red Dawn’!

by Shawn Madden

So, while we have to wait until tomorrow for the trailer, which looks great by the way, we do have the first official poster for you guys to check out!

In Red Dawn, a city in Washington state awakens to the surreal sight of foreign paratroopers dropping from the sky – shockingly, the U.S. has been invaded and their hometown is the initial target. Quickly and without warning, the citizens find themselves prisoners and their town under enemy occupation. Determined to fight back, a group of young patriots seek refuge in the surrounding woods, training and reorganizing themselves into a guerilla group of fighters. Taking inspiration from their high school mascot, they call themselves the Wolverines, banding together to protect one another, liberate their town from its captors, and take back their freedom.

Red Dawn invades theaters November 2, 2012.

Michael Kenneth In Negotiations To Join The Cast Of ‘Robocop’

by Shawn Madden

Reports are coming in that Michael Kenneth Williams (Boardwalk Empire) is in negotiations to join the cast of Sony’s upcoming remake of Robocop. The movie is getting ready to go into production next month and has already compiled a pretty impressive cast and director. If he joins the cast Williams will play the partner to Kinnaman’s police officer Alex Murphy who is tight with Murphy’s family. This could mean that the character would be a replacement to the Officer Anne Lewis character from the original that was portrayed by Nancy Allen.

Source: THR

Guilty Pleasures: Vanilla Sky

by Saintmort

This weekend people will be excitedly seeing the remake/re-adaptation of Philip K Dick’s We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (aka Total Recall). Like most of Philip K Dick’s book the movie asks the ever popular question “What is Reality”

One of my favorite movies to pitch this question was Vanilla Sky, Cameron Crowe’s remake of the (admittedly superior) spanish film Open Your Eyes. The first time I heard of this movie was in Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman (my favorite book ever). In the chapter “The Awe-Inspiring Beauty of Tom Cruise’s Shattered Troll-like Face”, Klosterman recalls a particularly rough night of digestial issues forcing him to read a review of the movie in an old issue of Entertainment Weekly.

Klosterman basically says exactly what I’d end up thinking about the movie; that question of What is Reality? “might be the only valid reason for loving it”.

The movie follows Tom Cruise (his name in the movie is David Aarmes but let’s face it, he’s Tom Cruise… just a owner of a publishing firm instead of an actor). Tom Cruise fills his day with booze and casually banging Julie (Cameron Diaz). However when his best friend Brian (Jason Lee) brings Sofia (Penelope Cruz) to a party he falls head over heels in love.

The film is intercut with David in a prison cell wearing an emotionless mask being interviewed by Dr. Curtis McCabe (Kurt Russell). Apparently he’s being charged for murder. We are hearing David’s version of the events that took place.

It seems Julie can’t take David moving on to a new girl and drives them off a bridge. Julie dies in the crash while David survives but is left horribly disfigured. David begins hiding behind an emotionless mask (the one we’ve seen him wearing in the prison) and getting plastered to deal with the pain.

Sofia tries to bring David out of his slump and eventually motivates David to have his face repaired. Things are great for David until reality starts to slip away. David continues seeing his deformed face, Sofia continually turns into Julie. Eventually David attempts to suffocate Julie only to discovered his murdered Sofia instead.

David sees a commercial for Life Extension and requests Dr. Curtis take him to the offices as he finds them important to the case. There David is explained about the Lucid Dream program which allows someone to live in a continuous dream state until a cure for their sickness is found.

David realizes he’s in his own lucid dream and has been for 150 years.

Critics hated this movie. Rotten Tomatoes has a 40% rating which is second lowest in Crowe’s career (just above Elizabethtown… another future Guilty Pleasure). I feel like the attack on this movie has more to do with Tom Cruise than the movie itself.

This was released in 2001. By this point Tom Cruise had produced 6 movies (and starred in 3 of them). All the critics refer to the movie as Tom Cruise’s ego-trip and a vanity project. The fact is that very little of the plot line has changed from the spanish original (including Cruz playing Sophia in both films).

It seems like Hollywood likes to pretend that Tom Cruise has gone crazy. Rewatch some of his interviews in the 90’s, he’s always been crazy. However, around 2000 he started producing more and more of his own movies. When he started to not need the Hollywood system anymore; suddenly he’s crazy.

I think Vanilla Sky was the unfortunate victim of being releases at the beginning of a media attack on a public figure. The movie isn’t perfect (the original however is) but it’s still a solid movie. 2001 was a year filled with uninteresting blockbusters like Planet of The Apes and Zoolander (yeah I said it).

Crowe and Cruise followed the original plot line closely while interjecting elements of themselves. At the end of the day the film is successful in causing us to question our reality and making a film filled with emotional moments.

Plus the movie makes you believe that Penelope Cruz is far more fuckable than Cameron Diaz (kudos Mr. Crowe). Give this remake another shot before you go see this weekend’s (sure to be blockbuster) remake and this time Open Your Eyes.

UPDATE: OmniCorp Viral Video Gives You First Look At New ED-209 & Robocop

by Shawn Madden

Jose Padilha’s remake of ‘Robocop’ has been putting together an impressive cast so far that has been hyping people up on this film. Now with shooting set to start in two months it appears we are getting our first bit of viral campaigning for the movie. Click the image below to visit the OmniCorp site. Many of the features will deny you access but there is a video giving you a sneak peek at the new Robocop design.

UDPATE: Added some images from the site as well as an embedded version of the video.

“SAFETY. CONVICTION. LEADERSHIP.
For a half-century, these words have set the framework upon which OmniCorp has aimed to build a brighter world.

We don’t do passive technology. At OmniCorp, our solutions generate a beacon of safety that we shine upon on the dangers of the day. No matter the obstacle – political, cultural, philosophical – we pursue our convictions around the globe to secure peace of mind at home. And when this requires bold new direction, we never allow doubt to shrink our duty. When your quality of life is in the balance, our leadership team will tip the scales.

Our products have elevated your lives. Our people have inspired your future. Our passion will always be at your side.”

‘Robocop’ is set to hit theaters August 2013.

Source: OmniCorp

 

‘Robocop’ Adds Samuel L. Jackson To An Already Impressive Cast?

by Shawn Madden

So, last week I told you that Gary Oldman was joining the cast of Jose Padhilas remake of ‘Robocop’. And in the past we’ve reported that Joel Kinnaman was playing Alex Murphy and that there were rumors of Edward Norton and Sean Penn also being involved.

If those cast members weren’t enough to get you excited… let’s add another name to that cast list. According to The Hollywood Reporter Samuel L. Jackson will be joining the cast as Pat Novak, a charismatic media mogul and a powerful force in the Robocop world.

Dead or alive ‘RoboCop’ is set to hit theaters August 3rd, 2013.

Sam Raimi To Produce Remake Of “Poltergeist” For MGM

by Eric Diaz

MGM has hired Evil Dead and Spider-Man trilogy helmer Sam Raimi to produce the remake of the classic Steven Spielberg/Tobe Hooper 80’s horror film Poltergeist according to the Hollywood Reporter, along with producing partners Nathan Kahane, Roy Lee, and Robert Tapert. Raimi won’t direct for certain, as he is knee deep in post production for Oz, the Great and Powerful for Disney,but will be the deciding hand on who takes the reins. This news comes quickly on the heels of MGM announcing Chloe Moretz and Julianne Moore as the leads in the remake of Carrie.

Ya know, I used to get pissed off every time one of my favorite horror films from the 70’s and 80’s got remade. Over the past decade I’ve seen Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Amityville, you name it, all get remade in shitty overly glossy studio films that frighten no one except a whole generation of kids who don’t know the difference between being startled and being genuinely frightened.  And just a few years later, no one is talking about the remakes. They came and went, and the classic films remain. It is the classic films that get marathons on AMC and the like in October, while the new versions end up in the discount bin at Wal Mart. So go ahead MGM, remake Poltergeist, remake Carrie. They’ll either turn out interesting or future landfill fodder that no one talks about.

This scene scarred a generation of moviegoers...can Raimi's remake do the same?

Sony Pictures to Distribute MGM’s Robocop Remake!

by Steven Kunz

Sony Pictures has officially signed on to distribute MGM’s Robocop remake. This deal is only the latest in the relationship with Sony and MGM with previous partnerships involving ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo‘ and ‘Zookeeper.’

The film is being directed by Jose Padilha, whose previous credits are the brazillian film series, “The Elite Squad” and the documentary, “Secrets of the Tribe.” The lead role of Robocop, formerly played by Peter Weller, now stars Joel Kinnaman as the main lead, his most recently starring in ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ and the AMC TV Series, ‘The Killing‘.

One more interesting note, the script of Robocop was written by Joshua Zetumer, whose most recent work was the draft script for the now defunct remake of Dune. With these sort of people working on the film, Robocop is shaping up into a decent film at least, though time will tell if the film will be as memorable as the original.

Source: http://www.deadline.com/2012/03/sony-pictures-to-distribute-mgms-robocop-remake/