While he’s deep in the editing process on Inception, Christopher Nolan was asked about his involvement with the third film in his Batman reboot and the apparent reboot of the Superman franchise by Hero Complex (via GordonandtheWhale, Cinematical). His quotes on Batman 3 and Superman are as follows:

On a third film in his franchise:

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After the massive success of Paranormal Activity, Paramount pictures is launching a new division of their company, called Insurge Pictures, that will produce and release “micro-budget” films, apparently around $100,000 per production. The idea is to give young and aspiring filmmakers a chance to get a project made and receive attention for their work. [FirstShowing]

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With the major success of the first two Men in Black films it’s about time for Sony to try and get some more life out of the franchise. Josh Brolin is apparently on board and set to join series star Will Smith; although the presence of Tommy Lee Jones is not yet decided upon. Perhaps this is the reason that we’re now hearing casting rumors for the potential third picture, and why they’re also from actors of a comedic persuasion.

The two names being thrown around are that of Sacha Baron Cohen, best known for the films Borat and Bruno, and Jemaine Clement, one half of New Zealand’s formerly fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo, Flight of the Conchords. The character is said to be named “Yaz” and is possibly a new agent, although not much else is known at this time. The script was penned by Tropic Thunder co-writer Etan Coen (add an “H” into the first name and I would be more excited for this movie).

What do you think of this potential casting? Are you excited for Men in Black III?

Source: Gordon and the Whale, Bloody Disgusting

As a filmmaker with an unfortunate history of encountering production problems that would make most aspiring filmmakers question their dreams, Terry Gilliam is a resilient man. In 1999 he was set to begin production on an adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes’s classic novel Don Quixote. Titled The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, it had Johnny Depp in the lead role as a businessman from modern times who is transported back to the time of the title character and is mistaken by him for Sancho Panza, a character from the original story.

The production of the film started rather uneventfully, but soon problems arose. Sets were flooded, thus changing the look of the locations, which meant massive migrations had to take place when moving crew and equipment, and eventually Jean Rochefort who played the title character had to drop out due to back pains that forbade him from riding a horse, which is a crucial aspect of the character. Eventually the financiers pulled out and the production ended.

But now it looks as though The Man Who Killed Don Quixote will have its day in the Spanish sun once again.

The Playlist tells us that work will finally presume on what has now become something of a dream project for the director. There’s a good chance that Depp won’t be returning this time around, as he has a busy schedule and can’t make the time for it. Who will replace him is up in the air at this point in time. However, Robert Duvall said in recent interviews that he will take on the role of the title character in the film. One expects that he’s a trustworthy source and that this will indeed be happening.

Production is expected to begin this fall.

Are you looking forward to seeing a resurrection of Don Quixote?

Note: Anyone interested in the film’s production problems can see them documented first-hand in the excellent documentary Lost in La Mancha.

THR (via ComingSoon) has learned that the director of the 2008 Best Foreign Language Film-Oscar winner The Counterfeiters, Stefan Ruzowitzky, has lined up his new project. Titled The Last Voyage of the Demeter, it will be a horror film that is a slight adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, based essentially on a chapter from the book.

The chapter (and tentative picture) takes place aboard a vessel called the Demeter which is transporting Dracula’s body and has its crew disappearing one by one. In the novel, the chapter (as with the rest of the book), is told in an epistolary structure from the perspective of the ship captain’s diary as he chronicles the disappearance of his crew, one-by-one. The script was written ten years ago by Bragi Schut, who scripted the upcoming Nicolas Cage film Season of the Witch. Production is set to begin later this year.

I haven’t seen The Counterfeiters yet even though I’ve heard great things about it (boosted by its Oscar win). Some have described this project as being similar to Alien in truly familiar ways, not that that’s a bad thing. I find the concept of adapting a chapter from a book intriguing and unique, and hopefully they’ll be able to stretch the single chapter premise to feature length.

What do you think of this project?

With the impending release (August 13th) of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz director/genius Edgar Wright’s next film, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, we’ll be seeing more marketing materials from the film over the next five months. The music of the film is a big factor in how it’s ultimately going to work, as Scott Pilgrim, the title character played by Michael Cera, is a member of a band called Sex Bob-Omb and will be playing with them throughout the film, along with rival band The Clash at Demonhead. Interestingly enough, the music will be performed by musicians such as Beck, Broken Social Scene, and Metric, and that will be the music the bands in the film “play”. This is an unusual choice, but should yield unique results.

The last band mentioned, Canadian indie-rock band Metric, has released the first song on the soundtrack for the film (which will also be featured in the movie), and can be listened to via their Facebook page. All you have to do is become a fan of the band and once that’s accomplished, the song is free to listen to.

As someone who’s never listened to Metric before (I’m so, so unhip to the current music world it’s pathetic), I actually liked the song, and not just as a piece of marketing for the movie. I’m looking forward to hearing it in the movie come August. I just started reading Scott Pilgrim and am on the second book, and ever since my excitement for the movie, which I originally had oddly no enthusiasm for, has increased tenfold. I’m beginning to tell people about the series and the movie, and hopefully more people will begin to take an interest, what with there already being 2,873 listens as I’m typing this sentence.. If they do more things like this, it could very well pay off.

Director Edgar Wright also told MTV recently that Scott Pilgrim will diverge from the graphic novels around the 3rd book. Check out his quote below:

“After three volumes, it starts to take its own path, but very much within the spirit of the book — and approved by Bryan as well. … There are some things that are in the film that are actually from Bryan’s original ideas before he wrote the books. [So] there are some things in there that refer to older ideas which he didn’t end up doing. It’s ironic, because there will be a couple of scenes when people will say, ‘That’s not in the book,’ but actually, if you look at these notes from 2005…”

Are you excited for Scott Pilgrim? If not, do marketing materials such as these help get you excited?

Source: CHUD

Speaking to fan site TheOneRing.net (via /Film), The Hobbit director Guillermo del Toro confirmed that there have been preliminary discussions of doing the two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein’s book in 3D. With the massive success of Avatar and with (seemingly) every tentpole film getting the third dimension, there were rumors of this film’s conversion. For a while it was discussed, then denied, and now del Toro says he’s just updating everyone that it’s being considered. The quote is as follows:

I wouldn’t read much on it just yet, but now, after all this time, after AVATAR doing the Box Office it did, we have had enquires from above about The Hobbit being in 3-D.

No impositions or heavy leaning. Just enquires. Just fulfilling my promise to let you all know if discussions ever started.

Cheers

GDT

At the very least, it’s nice to see he’s updating all of the curious fans as to the status of the film, as it’s almost a way of, if not letting fans make the big decision, receiving some of their input and taking it into consideration. I’m admittedly very excited for The Hobbit as I thought the Lord of the Rings trilogy taken as a whole was one of the best film’s of the previous decade.

With that in mind, I want to stay optimistic about the film, because, being very excited, I wouldn’t want to dampen that. I trust the people behind the film to deliver a good 3D experience and not do something like Alice in Wonderland which looks admittedly awful in terms of the way 3D is employed, as that was added in in post-production. Again, they’re smart guys working on this movie, so I have confidence in whatever path they may choose.

Would you want to see The Hobbit in 3D?

Last year’s Academy Award winner for Best Director, Danny Boyle, is planning to begin shooting on his next film, 127 Hours. It is expected to begin filming very soon with James Franco in the lead. It’s based on the true story of Aron Ralston, a mountain climber who amputated his own arm with a dull knife after being trapped for five days. Much decision was directed towards the movie when it was revealed that the film would have apparently over an hour of no dialogue in its running time which would presumably be around twice that length at two hours. How this would be accomplished in a successful manner is still being debated. Now, a second unconventional decision has been made for the production of the film.

The Playlist has learned that Boyle will be using two cinematographers for the film, the first of whom is Anthony Dod Mantle, who did his 28 Days Later, and the second is Enrique Chediak who worked on 28 Weeks Later, which Boyle himself did not direct. His reasoning for such a decision is a unique and follows as such:

We’ve got this idea that because there are so few characters in it, we’ll use two cinematographers: Anthony Dod Mantle, who did 28 Days Later, and Enrique Chediak, who did 28 Weeks Later. One is from Northern Europe and the other is South American. They’ll bring different things to it. Like in a conventional film you’d have a comic character and a villain.

This decision is one that I initially think “ehh” to, seeming like a gimmick at first glance. But when his reasoning is laid out, I actually like it. I’m not entirely clear if it will be a clear split or an interchanging, although I imagine the latter would present a bigger problem than the former, having a rotation of cinematographers on the set. Regardless, I’m confident in Boyle to make this work, because his work has shown that he’s a brilliant director, even when working with lesser material.

What do you think of Boyle’s decision to use two cinematographers for 127 Hours?

News is spreading like wildfire that The Office’s John Krasinski may be up for the title role in Marvel’s Captain America, so says THR. Set to be directed by The Wolfman’s Joe Johnston, the lead role apparently has to be cast very soon, like next week soon.

Other contenders are Chace Crawford, Michael Cassidy, Patrick Flueger, Scott Porter and Mike Vogel. These names have all been thrown around, but many people seem to agree that Krasinski is the most likely choice. This would, of course, also set him up to star in The Avengers, Marvel’s planned mega-crossover.

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Over the summer director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) was selected by Universal to direct the adaptation of the video game Bioshock after Gore Verbinski left due to scheduling and budgeting issues. It seemed like, for a while, that it would be his next film and would begin filming within the next year or so. Now, according to Fangoria (via FirstShowing), he may be jumping to another film. Read the full story