Well, well ... the trailer for Alexadre Aja’s Mirrors, a remake of a Korean film, has arrived online and it’s looking much better than I expected it would. Kiefer Sutherland looks great in the lead role and the mirror effects are simple but truly unsettling. This first teaser is a brief one but it’s certainly got me wanting to see more ...
We have been big fans and supporters of Filipino director Yam Laranas in these pages from the day we first caught wind of his atmospheric horror film Sigaw a few years back. Since then we’ve been following the development of The Echo, the English language version of Sigaw created with Laranas once again at the helm along with the producers of The Grudge, The Ring and The Departed. I had the chance to catch the completed film at its first ever screening in the Cannes Marche Du Film and now we are very pleased to present a first ever look at the international sales trailer for the film. This is the trailer cut to help sell the film to international markets in Cannes and our thanks go out to the producers for allowing us to share it with you - a rare case of a sales promo being allowed out into public.
You’ll find the trailer in the embedded Twitch Player just below the break.
Continue Reading "An Exclusive First Look At The Trailer For Yam Laranas’ THE ECHO, From The Producers of THE RING!"...
Well, this is a handy coincidence. Filipino director Yam Laranas finished work on his upcoming film The Echo - an English language remake of his own earlier film Sigaw - just a couple weeks back and the film itself was my first screening upon arriving in Cannes. And mere hours after leaving the theater some kind soul passed along the first official still to appear from the film.
The film itself? It maintains the tone of the first while also making enough significant changes to plot and character that it plays more like a somewhat darker riff on the same themes that drove the original than a straight up remake. You can find the still at the link below.
Here is a tidbit from the rumour-mill as strange and wacky as the Timecrimes do-over with David Cronenberg (here). The Hollywood Reporter indicated today that Werner Herzog is the director on board for the Bad Lieutenant remake, and the star will be Nicholas Cage. While I’m sure Cage can “OOOOO, OOOOO, OOOOOOOO” as well as Harvey Keitel, it seems highly likely that a second go around at the delicate balance-act of Abel Ferraras film seems destined to crash and burn. But Werner Herzog? There is a wild-card director if there ever was one and always a sign of mad genius. Cancel that with Avi Lerner on the production side, whose company Millennium Films, responsible for the critically trashed Al Pacino vehicle 88 Minutes and worse War Inc. is the new Cannon or Golan-Globus.
This is too strange not to post!
Screen offers a few quotes from those involved in the remake that underscore the misguided-ness:
“In the spirit of the original, we really wanted this to be a director’s piece,” Pressman said. “And we couldn’t be more thrilled with the explosive combination of Herzog and Cage as they explore the depths of human depravity and moral ambiguity that is unique to this character.”
“Bad Lieutenant is one of my all time favorite films,” Lerner said. “I am pleased to be working with Nic Cage, Werner Herzog and Ed Pressman. Their updated take on such a brilliant film is sure to be a hit with today’s audience. This all makes for a winning combination.”
How Bad Lieutenant makes for an audience-friendly hit is beyond me (And heck, MGM couldn’t sell the heroic story of Rescue Dawn into a hit, then how does a morally depraved lunatic-cop investigating the raping of nuns (oops, this time around it is Senegalese illegal immigrants and drugs) become palatable to the mainstream - Yes, they’re funny folk over at Millennium Films)
A second trailer for Shinji Higuchi’s The Last Princess has been added to the official site. As mention before, the film is a remake to Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress about two peasants caught in the middle of territory wars which George Lucas acknowledge as influential on the making of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Its been fifty years since the release of the black & white original and while it stills hold up very well, I’m sure the remake will utilized Shinji’s extensive background in special effects to add some exciting sequence and it certainly shows in the trailer.
The Los Angeles premiere screening of the remake will be held at the USC School of Cinematic Arts on April 27th. Director Shinji Higuchi, Jun Matsumoto and special guest Anthony Daniels (played C-3PO in all the Star Wars films) will participate in a Q&A session after the screening. Click on the link below for more details. You’ll find the second trailer as well as the others after the break.
Continue Reading "Second Trailer for HIDDEN FORTRESS: THE LAST PRINCESS…L.A. Premiere on April 27th"...
The question entitling this entry is purposely loaded. Sure it could be approached ontologically; but, for my immediate purposes, it’s simply pragmatic, if not litigious. Apparently, one of the first conditions of the deal director Oren Peli struck with Dreamworks—who purchased domestic and remake rights of Paranormal Activity at Slamdance—is that Peli’s original is to have no further exhibition, including the two Bay Area festivals where it was scheduled to play: San Francisco’s IndieFest and San Jose’s Cinequest.
Jens Michael Hussey, Director of Public Relations for Cinequest comments: “It’s always disappointing when a film gets pulled from the lineup for whatever reason, but that’s part of being a festival and part of the process for films to come out of the gate and get noticed and purchased. Our mission is to get these films to their audience and sometimes that entails a scenario that’s not a first choice for us but is good for the filmmaker. If the filmmakers felt this was the deal they wanted to sign then ultimately we understand that and we certainly abide by the legal restrictions that ensue. It’s our policy to ONLY show films we have a legal right to exhibit.”
Jeff Ross, Director of San Francisco’s IndieFest, declined to comment.
DreamWorks representative Chip Sullivan offered: “It’s not that we don’t want anybody to see Paranormal Activity; but, the reason filmmakers go to film festivals is to sell their films. Once we bought it and now that we own it, we have to think of a strategy of what exactly we’re doing about the remake and all that. We could keep showing it but we have no vested interest in having it be shown until we determine internally what we’re doing with the movie. That’s sort of typical of all films that go to film festivals; once it’s sold, it’s off. These films that don’t have a distributor; once the distributor picks it up, the game’s over.” Though Sullivan couldn’t confirm whether Peli would or would not be tapped to direct the remake or whether the original version would find its way to DVD, he stressed how excited Dreamworks is to have the property and that only time will tell the particulars of the distribution.
Continue Reading "Can PARANORMAL ACTIVITY Be Seen?"...
Like Freddy, it’s hard to keep him down. Wes Craven will be directing his first original script in 13 years come April.
25/8 is about a serial killer who resurfaces 15 years after he was supposedly killed, to hunt down the seven children born on the night of his death. If it sounds a little like Freddy Krueger, Craven tells Variety: “It’s more a thriller than slasher film, and revolves around a young kid with a very dark past involving his family and his father.”
Also in April, production begins in South Africa on the remake of Craven’s The Last House On The Left (the original 1972 pic was itself inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring), which is produced by Craven himself.
In the same Variety report, it’s announced that Rogue Pictures, which produces 25/8, has also agreed on a remake of George Romero’s 1972 The Crazies.
The ever-informative Kaiju Shakedown tells us that there’s now a trailer for the Pang brothers’ remake of their own Bangkok Dangerous, and ...
... it’s in Spanish!
Nicolas Cage still looks like a constipated deer in the headlights, except he sports long hair a la Tom “Da Vinci Code” Hanks. The trailer is vintage Pang slickness, but will this be the movie that makes us forgive the Pangs for The Eye 10 and Re-Cycle and Cage for The Wicker Man and Ghost Rider?
According to the official site, The Hidden Fortress remake is listed under the title as The Last Princess. In the original black & white 1958 film from director Akira Kurosawa, the story deals with a princess and a general who acquired the assistant of two peasant to escort them to safety while avoiding detection from their enemies. It was critically acclaimed and would later become a major influence on George Lucas for the original Star Wars. Helming the remake is director Shinji Higuchi of Sinking of Japan fame with Abe Hiroshi as General Makabe Rokurota and Nagasawa Masami as Princess Yuki. The two pleasant from the original will be combine as a single character for the remake, played by Matsumoto Jun as Miyamoto Takezou. Check out the new trailer along with the teaser below the break in the Twitch Player.
Toho is schedule to release the samurai film theatrically in Japan on May 10th.
Continue Reading "Fresh Trailer for Shinji Higuchi’s THE LAST PRINCESS aka THE HIDDEN FORTRESS remake"...
Ah, The Wolf Man. The Curse Of No-Director finally ends. First, Mark Romanek, director of One Hour Photo, left the project weeks before it was to start production. Then rumour had it that Brett Ratner was the next possible choice, which was an option as horrifying as the classic film itself. Then word was that John Landis of An American Werewolf In London fame (and yes, often the forgotten director of that seminal Michael Jackson horror music video, Thriller) was in talks with Universal about taking over. Finally, it’s confirmed that Joe Johnston would be the replacement for Romanek.
Joe who??
He’s the guy who did Hidalgo and Jurassic Park III. I don’t find much that’s memorable about both films, but are they better or worse than Ratner’s X-Men: The Last Stand? What do you think?
The Wolf Man remake has some interesting names attached to it - Andrew Kevin Walker for script, Benicio Del Toro for lead role, Anthony Hopkins as Larry Talbot’s father, Rick Baker for creature effects. But the fact that it’s a remake, and of a much-loved Universal classic, well, it just sends shivers up some people’s spines.
The Hollywood remake of the Pang brothers’ The Eye (Gin Gwai) is surprisingly not as bad as other remakes of Asian horror films. But that could easily be attributed to the fact that the Pangs already had a good script to begin with. And the two most important things for a film to work, as I’ve been told by a famous director, are a good script and good casting.
Anjelica Lee gave a stunning performance in the original that made us care enough to participate emotionally in her quest to discover the truth about her cornea transplants. Jessica Alba, while faring a few notches below Lee’s excellent turn, isn’t inept at all, but just lacks the inner turmoil that Lee was able to portray.
Continue Reading "Review of THE EYE Remake"...
Just a few days ago, we all heard the news of director Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) leaving the remake of The Wolf Man just weeks before shooting was to start. That one’s definitely one to watch for since it’s scripted by Andrew Kevin Walker of Seven fame.
Now, apart from Universal, RKO is also set to bring new life to its horror classics, according to a Variety report. Its recently-launched subsidiary, Roseblood Movie Co., has lined up eight remakes. They are Lady Scarface, While The City Sleeps, The Monkey’s Paw, The Seventh Victim, Bedlam, Body Snatcher, Five Came Back and I Walked With A Zombie. (The last four titles were already slated last year when RKO made a co-financing deal with Twisted Pictures of Saw fame.)
I saw the news about this last night when I got home, thought about writing something up and held back. I want to say that the news just gets worse and worse but that I will leave open to interpretation. Here’s the low down…
Yesterday there was word that the remake of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, to be penned and lensed by French duo/hotshots Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, who directed the stunning and brutal À L’Interieur [Inside], which we here at Twitch have been openly affectionate about, was going to be delayed until 2009. The film was to release in September of this year but it has since been moved to an undetermined date in ‘09. That was yesterday.
Today another report came out with an explanation for the date push back. And it all boils down the the Weinsteins. Of course it does. Apparently they weren’t 100% happy with Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s screenplay and have decided to take the film to other writers - so we’re now back at square one. So, what? Do they hate the French now? Our mate Richard over at Filmstalker noted, Now that is strange. I had thought that Clive Barker had been the scriptwriter, and I’m rather amazed that this treatment wasn’t good enough. Perhaps they really are trying to get a better version than the original, and perhaps Clive Barker couldn’t deliver. IMDB credits Clive for the screenplay and the French duo as the writers. Either way this news is open to interpretation and given how fanboys feel about the Weinsteins it is going to be hard for us to accept this as good news. Anyone who has seen À L’Interieur will have a hard time accepting this as positive news.
Sorry. Sorry. I apologize. I’m flying off the handle here. I see the name Weinstein and I start swearing under my breath. Perhaps this is good news. Perhaps I shouldn’t fear the worst or fly off the handle and think that the script may have been too smart or too good to be profitable. Perhaps I shouldn’t be under the impression that the Weinstein’s finally watched À L’Interieur and thought to themselves, ‘Uh oh. This is REALLY good. Too good for the general public if you ask us. We can’t have another film that is too good for the common man’.
I should be hopeful. Right?
The Thai horror flick Shutter is somewhat a hit here among the folks at Twitch. Personally I thought the film was OK, but then again I might be a tad jaded. One thing’s for sure, Shutter is an extremely well-made horror film with some very good creepy moments. And we also know that once Hollywood remakes an Asian horror film, it usually turns the material into tasteless crap.
While it’s hard to say, just from the trailer and stills we’ve got so far, whether the US remake of Shutter will be any good, the trailer, online now at MTV Movies, spells out things quite a bit. And there seems to be some ghostly “sexy time” too.
Just wanted to point to towards the trailer for Baltasar Kormakur’s new feature film White Night Wedding which will be released on the 17th of this month. The story, a comedy drama, revolves around a man having some second thought about marrying a girl half his age almost a year after his former wife committed suicide.
The film is the results of a workshop that Baltasar and his group of actors who used the Anton Chekhov’s stage play Ivanov as a base, although the films characters or situations are not connected to the play, which they are currently showing on stage here in Reykjavik. The film was incredibly fast in production, with them beginning on the screenplay late January 2007, shot last summer and now premiered not a year later after the writing began. That’s pretty damn fast.
The trailer is unfortunately not subtitled but click anyway.
Now for something completely different.
Jar City was well liked in these parts, so much so that Todd got his name plastered on the front of the Icelandic DVD release, and the film has become Iceland’s most popular movie ever made. Now it has the honor of being the first Icelandic film that has sold its remake rights to a company abroad.
Overture films, the people behind Anchor Bay and Starz Entertainment, have bought the remake rights from Baltasar and Co but when speaking to reporters Baltasar was quick to point out that even though he sold the rights that it is no guarantee that it will ever be made. Hollywood is a fickle beast.
Rumors have also been flying that Baltasar had met with Brit director Kenneth Branagh who had expressed interest in remaking Jar City but had just missed the opportunity. Shame. But there are other books of Jar City’s author Arnaldur Indriðason that that he could tackle I guess.
Regardless it will be interesting to see if anything comes from this.
