Archive for the ‘Columbia Pictures’ Category
Gary Ross is already rewriting Spider-Man 4, and now he’s got a deal in the works to rewrite to direct Venom. It’s unlikely that Topher Grace will star in the movie as he’s a tad busy with the rebooted Predators movie.
Even though Marvel Entertainment was just acquired by Disney in a $4 billion deal, Columbia Pictures is able to turn Venom loose in a film because the studio holds rights in perpetuity not only to Spider-Man but to the villains in his universe.
Avi Arad and Ross will produce the spider-man spin-off.
Here’s a jaw dropping moment for you – Columbia Pictures is actually revving up production on a second Ghost Rider film. David Goyer is in talks to write the script, with the expectation that Nicolas Cage will reprise his role as Johnny Blaze.
The “Ghost Rider” push comes amid a flurry of activity with Marvel characters at Sony, Fox, Universal and Paramount. The movement is necessary for those studios to retain rights to their respective Marvel superheroes.
With this revelation, it makes perfect sense for Columbia to jump on a sequel in order to keep Marvel (and thus Disney) from snagging back the film rights to the property.
Four new clips from Columbia Pictures’ upcoming Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movie have arrived, and you can see them all here.
Three more after the jump!
The Will Smith superhero movie, Hancock, is indeed headed back to the big screen, and Columbia Pictures has hired Adam Fierro and Glen Mazzara to write the sequel.
Plot details are being kept under wraps, though the scribes will work with Smith and director Peter Berg to build on the world hinted at in the first movie.
While the first Hancock movie took 12 year to get to theaters, the sequel is being put on the fast track, so expect it to fly into theaters sooner than you might think.
In case you were wondering, Stephen Chow is out, and Jay Chou is in as Kato in the Green Hornet movie.
“It’s an overwhelming experience to take on a role made famous by Bruce Lee. I won’t try to be Bruce Lee’s Kato – I will try to bring my own interpretation to the part. Of course, it’s a dream role, and I’m looking forward to the challenge,” said Chou in a prepared statement.
There’s also word that floated out of Wizard World Chicago this past weekend that Edward James Olmos is also on board the Green Hornet flick, although there’s no word who he will play in the Michel Gondry directed film.
The Green Hornet is still slated for a July 9, 2010 release.
If you were here, sitting next to me right this instant, you would hear an audible sigh as I read news about Total Recall getting a remake. Not because it is a stupid story, it’s one of my more liked Philip K. Dick stories, but because the movie has already been made into a fun action movie that has Arnold dressing in drag and having his eyes almost sucked out of his head on the the terraformed Mars.
Columbia Pictures is the latest studio to jump on board the whole, “Let’s remake every movie ever made, because we don’t have an original thought” bandwagon, but is keeping mum on how it will make this version of We Can Remember It for You Wholesale contemporary enough to draw audiences in.
What we do know is Kurt Wimmer is writing the new version, with Neal H. Moritz producing. No word on who will star, or when the remake will hit theaters.
This came as a surprise, when the Hollywood Reporter announced 2007 Pulitzer prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire is in final negotiations to pen the fourth Spider-Man movie. Or maybe it isn’t…
Columbia always has gone off the beaten path during the development process when hiring writers for the “Spider-Man” movies. Alvin Sargent, a veteran scribe best known for 1973’s “Paper Moon” and 1980’s “Ordinary People,” served as a writer on the second and third films. Michael Chabon, another Pulitzer winner, also worked on “Spider-Man 2.”
With the hiring of Lindsay-Abaire, hopefully Marvel and Columbia will focus more on character development than dance numbers. Also, it will be refreshing to not have Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane.
Even though we won’t be seeing Preacher on HBO, Preacher will see his day in the movie theaters thanks to Columbia Pictures striking a deal with Vertigo. As exciting as this news might be, this is only a purchase of the rights. While Sam Mendes has been hired to direct the adaptation, no writers have been hired to pen the adaptation.
On the plus side, Sam Mendes did direct Road to Perdition, so there is hope this could turn into a really great movie. Also on the plus side are producers Neal Moritz and Jason Netter who are also working to adapt Garth Ennis’ The Boys, also for Columbia.
According to a news report in Variety, Columbia Pictures has tapped Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky to write a script to re-unite the original cast (and possibly a new group of ghost busters) in an all new theatrical release.
The scribes just wrote “Year One,” a comedy that was directed by Ramis. Ramis with Aykroyd wrote the first two installments of the films. Ivan Reitman directed both the 1984 original and the sequel that was released in 1989. The close proximity between the writers and original Ghostbuster Ramis is evidence that the ghost chasers have sparked to the idea of returning.
Certainly egoes, money, and who gets what of the gross will hold the movie back, and who knows if everyone on the cast is even interested in joining the team.
Oh, and ladies, if you are looking for a costume for this Halloween…
Garth Ennis’ The Boys series, once at DC, but now residing at Dynamite Entertainment, is heading to the big screen in an adaptation by scribes Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay.
Columbia Pictures’ Original Films will produce the adaptation that follows the boys, who are tasked with keeping superheroes in line.
With all the press The Boys has received, the only way to make this a successful adaptation, to satisfy and anger crowds everywhere, is to approach this project with a hard R or NC-17 rating in mind. I wonder if they will try and get Simon Pegg to star in the film?
Variety has reported that Avi and Ari Arad are set to produce the young adult novel series Maximum Ride for Columbia Pictures.
The protags are six children who have been genetically altered to be 98% human and 2% bird. The kids, who are bred to fly, escape a lab-rat existence and are then pursued by their scientist creators, who send a pack of part-human part-wolves called Erasers to hunt them down.
If this series seems new to you, then you are behind the times, my dear Harry Potter fan, Maximum Ride has four books under its belt, with the fifth installment hitting book stores next year.
Don Payne (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and My Super Ex-Girlfriend) will be adapting the James Patterson novels for the screen.
At the Superbad Panel at “the con” Seth Rogen stated the Green Hornet movie he and fellow scribe Evan Goldberg were working on would be an action movie and not a comedy.
Be that as it may, with Rogen set to star in the movie, I really wonder how people will take the film seriously. It’s kind of like Jack Black playing Green Lantern.
Columbia Pictures is expecting a summer 2009 release for the film.
Unfortunately it isn’t another Indiana Jones movie, but Columbia Pictures has acquired the rights to The Ark graphic novel from Dark Horse Comics. The script will be written by Mark Verheiden with Neal Moritz and Mike Richardson will produce.
The Ark is a retelling of the biblical story but with UFOs thrown in to make it interesting.
If Verheiden and Moritz sound familiar they should, they have produced a slew of comic movies including Time Cop and The Mask. Moritz is currently developing The Green Hornet movie and I Am Legend, while Richardson is the producer for Hellboy 2: The Golden Army and executive producer for 30 Days of Night.
If you are going to do comic book adaptations, these two understand the frustrations of translating one form of art to another.
Wow! The Green Hornet movie is getting closer and closer to completion. Columbia Pictures has optioned the rights to the crime fighter. While an option is no guarantee a movie will be made, the company says Neal Moritz will produce.
Columbia optioned the rights to The Green Hornet from Moritz who acquired the rights from Green Hornet Inc. Commenting on the announcement, Moritz said, “I couldn’t be more thrilled to be developing this world renowned property with the people who brought Spider-Man to the screen. I can’t imagine a studio better equipped or more prepared to handle this kind of material than Sony. With the radio show, television program, comic books, and novels, there is ample source material to bring this classic crime-fighter to life.”
Columbia President of Production Matt Tolmach said the studio has a lot of passion and commitment to the character. I know several other studios that have made the same comment about other comic properties, that have lead to less than stellar results.
via Superhero Hype! (link)
As a kid I had a collection of old time radio programs that included an episode of The Shadow. I loved that episode and listened to the tape again and again until I knew what evil lurked in the hearts of men, and until the tape wore out from too much use. When I started reading comics heavily in the 80s, the 3rd and 4th series of The Shadow was at the top of my list of issues to buy.
Walter Gibson was hired by Street and Smith in the 1930s to write two novel length stories of the dark crime fighter each month. The stories of the noir crime fighter continued for nearly 20 years. Since the creation, the Shadow has appeared on radio, magazines, comics, and film.
When the 1994 Alec Baldwin adaptation of The Shadow came out, I was thrilled with the results, even though the movie didn’t break even, dashing my hopes of seeing a sequel, until today…
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