Alex and James break down the news of the past week in Hollywood.
Todd Phillips, director The Hangover series, has re-upped his deal with Warner Bros. with 4 different projects being kicked around as his next directorial gig. Judging by The Hangover and The Hangover Part II, this ‘four picture deal’ thing essentially means he has one script that he’ll just be making four times.
This week, details emerged about the collapse of a deal between Hasbro and Universal for the studio to turn many of Hasbro’s famous board games into feature films. Instead of producing movie versions of Ouija, Candy Land and other board games, Universal has instead opted to pay a multi-million dollar settlement to Hasbro simply to get out of the commitment to produce the films. Universal Studios: paying not to make movies you’d pay not to see. In related news, even Universal thinks Battleship looks like a terrible movie.
This week in frighteningly ambiguous Hollywood headlines: Stallone and Schwarzenegger Join Each Other in The Tomb, which is the name of a movie they will star in, not a place where they have both gone for eternal sleep.
Cormac McCarthy, the author of the source material for No Country for Old Men and The Road, wrote the script for his latest project, The Counselor, which Ridley Scott is set to direct. Apparently, even authors hate those people who insist every book was better than the movie, as McCarthy clearly wanted to avoid his ideas getting in the hands of Akiva Goldsman.
JADS International is releasing a line of colognes to correspond with the release of The Avengers this May. Because when I see a Viking, someone from the 1940s, an alcoholic and a mutant put on heavy armour and work up a sweat, all I can think is: “I want to smell like that.”
In an odd case about profits from The Last Samurai, a number of high-profile lawyers went digging through the garbage in order to obtain DNA evidence to win their case. Along the way, these lawyers happened to find approximately 20 copies of The Last Samurai on DVD.
Lionsgate Films is currently developing a Rambo 5, the development of which Sylvester Stallone is heavily involved. The film will either be ‘a passing of the torch’ or be Stallone’s version of Unforgiven, and judging by the fact that neither of those ideas appeals to even Alex, this movie is surely going to Ram-blow.
The Lego toys for The Avengers have been revealed, and it appears some of them might spoil key plot points. We here at the MacGuffin Men love comic book movies being taken seriously, but the idea of an adult superhero fan being up in arms about Lego sets spoiling a movie will never not be funny to us.
Also, this.