sincitymarv
Whew…we have a lot to catch up on….first off, a hot rumor this week was that The Weinstein Company had let their rights to SIN CITY 2 lapse, which IESB was very happy about. But then Weinstein lawyer Bert Fields raced over to say “TWC’s rights to produce sequels to SIN CITY remain intact as they always have been. Any suggestion to the contrary is complete hogwash.”

Hogwash! Which doesn’t change the fact that SIN CITY 2 (which, despite THE SPIRIT, some sites refer to as “eagerly awaited”) is still in complete limbo. Rosario Dawson and Clive Owen always say they’ve heard this or that about a script, and Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller always say they nearly have a script finished…but no one’s schedule has worked out. Rodriguez has been kind of lying low since his version of RED SONJA (starring his gal pal Rose McGowan) got shot down. Miller has been in seclusion since the…incident. So…we shall see.

• ANOTHER ersatz rumor at IESB was that Gary Oldman was spotted on the IRON MAN 2 set — and not just to kibitz with pals, but to play a role. However, an Oldman spokesperson quashed that one, too. Garry Shandling IS in the movie, however.

• Speaking of IRON MAN 2, director Jon Favreau is twittering all about it, even if he can’t spell Mickey Rourke’s name.

• Speaking of Twitter, Hugh Jackman is also twittering, except…it isn’t REALLY him, but, rather, a staff member, and he had to apologize to his fellow Aussies over a Twitter blunder — misnaming the Sydney Opera House. We did like the staff members’ diet advice, though: “Eat every three hours throughout the day. mate, no beers!”

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• Costume designs for an updated Phantom movie have been revealed. The movie will star Ryan Carnes (Desperate Housewives, Doctor Who) and air next year on the Syfy channel. The Phantom originally appeared in a comic strip by Lee Falk and an earlier movie starring the divine Billy Zane. While the old Phantom sported one of the most streamlined and simple of superhero outfits — a purple body suit and black mask, the new one is…well, not as simple.

Here’s how Muse Entertainment describes the Phantom’s suit: “The Phantom’s body suit is woven of a high-tech, nano-matrix, dark purple fabric, which is pliable, soft and also glitters with a dark metallic sheen. The fabric is a layered micro-weave of Kevlar, Twaron and Heracron fibers, skinned with a titanium-ceramic alloy neurosymbioticmesh, resistant to heat, bladed weapons, falls, impacts and small-arms fire.


Okay.

• Some shock that diector Gore Verbinski will not direct any more PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movies but is turning to the video game adaptation BIOSHOCK instead. Now really…is ANYONE surprised? TWO YEARS AGO, we wrote:

I have a suspicion that director Gore Verbinski will not make another movie for a long time, if only to save what’s left of his sanity. The movie’s special effects are numerous and occasionally impressive — they are also oppressive. A CGI effect in almost every shot means that Verbinski, who is no action director, is forced to plop down the camera and shoot whatever is in front of it in medium focus for hours at a time. The result is static, noisy and numbingly confusing.


Indeed. the last two Pirate movies were such joyless, frantic messes it was clear that Verbinski was having no fun whatsoever making them. Let someone who LIKES CGI try to salvage what’s left of the franchise.

§ Have you been wondering what comic books Seth Rogen reads?:

I just read this comic “Nightly News” that was really awesome. I highly recommend it. “The Sword” I liked. “Old Man Logan.” I think Damon Lindelof finally wrote a third f—ing issue of “Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine” that he started around 4 1/2 years ago. I’ll read anything Garth Ennis writes. He’s my favorite.

• This one was lingering in our queue for a while, but it’s still good. Sam Raimi has been making it very clear that if he’d been able to make SPIDEY 3 the way he wanted to make it, it would have been much better, and he is calling the shots on SPIDEY 4:

“They really gave me a tremendous amount of control on the first two films, actually,” Raimi told British magazine Empire. “But then there were different opinions on the third film and I didn’t really have creative control, so to speak.”…“The best way for me to move forward on films,” Raimi continued, “is that I’ve got to be the singular voice that makes the creative choices on the film.”


This is in reference to Avi Arad’s insistence on including Venom in 3…a character Raimi clearly had no interest in. In the end, moviegoers didn’t, either.

11 COMMENTS

  1. Re: The Phantom
    Growing up, I didn’t understand why The Phantom wore a skintight costume in the jungle in the first place. I understand less how he got ahold of this new one. Couldn’t suspend my belief, I guess.

    Re: Gary Oldman
    Commissioner Gordon spying on the Golden Avenger! Maybe he’s checking to see if Hawkeye makes an appearance with the Black Widow…

  2. “What was “the incident”? ”

    When the Others killed the people in the Dharma Iniative.

    whoops. wrong thread.

  3. Agree about the Phantom’s new costume. If the purple doesn’t work, change the color scheme. Obviously, someone got the license to the Phantom and said, “Hey! Let’s make it just like IRON MAN!”

    Sam Raimi is terrific … BUT … hasn’t he said elsewhere that he wanted to make SPIDER-MAN 3 a musical?? Maybe it’s time for him to work on THE SHADOW …

  4. “This is in reference to Avi Arad’s insistence on including Venom in 3…a character Raimi clearly had no interest in. In the end, moviegoers didn’t, either.”

    I think moviegoers didn’t have interest in any of the characters in Spider-Man 3, and not just Venom. The Sandman character was horrible too.

  5. “The Phantom’s body suit is woven of a high-tech, nano-matrix, dark purple fabric, which is pliable, soft and also glitters with a dark metallic sheen. The fabric is a layered micro-weave of Kevlar, Twaron and Heracron fibers, skinned with a titanium-ceramic alloy neurosymbioticmesh

    What, no Phlebotinum?

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