Behind The Films

Sorry it’s been a busy day for me and a slow day for movie news, however I can report that the Poltergeist remake may have found a director. Vadim Perelman (House of Sand and Fog, The Life Before Her Eyes) is in talks with MGM to direct the Poltergeist remake according to Bloody Disgusting. Why, oh why? Do we really need a remake of this? Already this film is receiving a lot of hate, I’m not one to criticize a film until I’ve seen it but I really can’t imagine this going any place good.

Here is the trailer for “Good” directed by Vicente Amorim, starring Viggo Mortensen, Jason Isaacs and Mark Strong. The film tells the story of the rise Nazism in Germany and it’s effects on people like Halder (Mortensen), a good professor and family man. The film premieres this September at the Toronto International Film Festival.


Sorry about the adds, the Movieweb trailer is the only I could find to embed, I’ll try to find one without adds soon.

Twentieth Century Fox has released a brand new trailer for Max Payne, which stars Mark Wahlberg, will be released on October 17 of this year. Max Payne is based on the highly successful video game by the same name and is directed by John Moore. Fox has said the film will be PG-13.

A few days ago I posted the first trailer for Frost/Nixon, I’m not sure how long it was online for but I do know that when I returned I found that it had been removed by Universal- fair enough it was leaked. Shortly after that Universal officially released the trailer so here it is and this time it won’t disappear.

EDIT: Video removed by copyright holders… sorry guys.


Above is the first trailer for Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon, which hits theaters in December. Judging from the look of the trailer I’m guessing this will be a serious Oscar contender it looks like an amazing movie. I’ve always had a lot of respect for Ron Howard, who is really a very multi talented director.


The film stars Michael Sheen as David Frost, Frank Langella as Richard Nixon.

Before I drop the bomb, the bomb I eluded to in the title of this post I have a bit of an apology about updates to this site; sorry for the lack of them (the updates)- I was away for a few days… Then I got sick.


No on to some really crushing and depressing news which makes me feel even worse then I do. MGM has hired Juliet Snowden and Stiles White (Boogieman) to rewrite Poltergeist! I’d like to say one and only one thing about this- DON’T. Seriously Poltergeist is a classic horror film that does not need to be remade, actually out of all the films that have been remade I would say that maybe only 10 deserved it (if that many). You can expect a lot of grumbling about this until it’s released. And maybe it will be good and maybe it won’t the problem is it’s not original. But whatever it will probably get an overall gross of 127 million domestically and maybe 92 million world wide.

Quick update on the box office numbers of this past weekend.


For a the 4th week in a row The Dark Knight remains on top taking $26,117,030 this past weekend so far the film has grossed $705,128,497 total, $441,628,497 domestic, $263,500,000 foreign.


Just behind it sits Pineapple Express with $23,245,025 in it’s first weekend ($42,431,017 total since Wednesday domestic and foreign).


The Mummy in it’s second weekend made $16,490,970 ($210,833,395 total domestic and foreign).

Also in it’s first weekend The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 made $10,678,430 ($19,620,128 since Wednesday).


More details at boxofficemojo.com

It’s been just over 4 months since principal photography and on Augest the first cut was screened for a small number of studio executives at Paramount. Edited by Mary Jo Markey and Maryann Brandon, the screening of the first cut went quite well. According to trekmovie.com the first screening was “very impressive.” and “far beyond expectations”. Keep in mind this is only the first screening so the film is still far from finished, most of the 1300+ effects shots are not finished yet, the film also has yet to be scored. However this early positive buzz is very exciting, while the effects and music are important (and can make or break a film) the number one thing is story then performances which everyone at Paramount seemed to really like.


From director J.J. Abrams and screenwriters Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci (”Transformers,” “MI: III”) comes a new vision of the greatest space adventure of all time, “Star Trek,” featuring a young, new crew venturing boldly where no man has gone before. Star Trek explores the early Starfleet careers of future Enterprise officers Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), Scotty (Simon Pegg), Amanda Grayson (Winona Ryder), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), McCoy (Karl Urban), Sulu (John Cho), and Chekhov (Anton Yelchin). A Romulan, Nero (Eric Bana), and a much older Spock (Leonard Nimoy) are influences, as well as Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood), the first captain of the USS Enterprise. Star Trek hits theaters May 8th 2009.

Finding the perfect location for a post apocalyptic story like Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel “The Road” can be tough. Director John Hillcoat wanted a real location, not a digital landscape added in post-production. So the production turned to Pittsburgh, which from Hillcoat’s description sounds ideal; “…in winter, it [Pittsburgh] can be very bleak. There are city blocks that are abandoned. The woods can be brutal. We didn’t want to go the CGI world.” (Hillcoat was also pointed out that the city is quite beautiful during the fall.) The film utilizes abandoned city blocks, an abandoned amusement park and a closed 8 mile span of highway. Additional scenes of destruction were shot in New Orleans and on Mount St. Helens.


“it’s really about protecting your child, no matter what the circumstances” says Viggo Mortensen. Mortensen plays a father who, with his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee), make there way across a desolate country side ravaged by a terrible disaster. The film also stars Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce.

Full story with more amazing photos at usatoday.com

Latino Review has got some great concept art for a possible Halo film.


A long, long, time ago there was big talk about a Halo movie produced by Peter Jackson for Universal/Fox, tragically that never came to pass and it won’t. However the idea of a Halo movie is still alive and well in fact Stuart Beattie (Collateral, 30 Days of Night, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra), apparently wrote a script for the novelized prequel “Halo: The Fall of Reach” by Eric Nylund. There is even some concept art for this script (as seen above).


Full story and images