Terry Gilliam fans take heart: Although Don Quixote may be dead and buried, it looks like The Brothers Grimm has now secured funding from a parnership of MGM and Dimension. The film currently stars Heath Ledger and Matt Damon as the eponymous brothers, with Robin Williams and Jonathan “Sam Lowry” Pryce as the villains. Dimension, the senior partner, has a pretty lousy track record with regard to burying films they don’t have control over (Re: Existenz and Below), but hopefully Gilliam can buck the curse this time around.
Tag: Fanboy
Flights of Imagination.
The Science Fiction Book Club picks the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasy books of the last 50 years, although after the top ten they’re listed alphabetically (Via Lots of Co.) I’d say I’ve read about half of these, and the choices seem pretty legit. No surprise who‘s at the top of the list, but otherwise it seems like the fantasy side got short shrift. I guess the Narnia books (and for that matter Animal Farm and 1984) are over 50-years-old. Speaking of which, I can’t say I’m a very big C.S. Lewis fan (particularly as compared to Tolkien), but nonetheless – the Narnia film site is now live.
Smaug Awakens 12.19.06
The site’s getting killed at the moment, but at some point this fan-made teaser for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit is definitely worth checking out. Brought a smile to my face. In loosely related news, the second Animatrix trailer is also up – not half as intriguing as the first installment, but worth a look if you’re at all into anime (which, frankly, I’m not).
We’re So Frelling Screwed.
With only three episodes left before its untimely cancellation, Harvey returned to Farscape Friday night in “We’re So Screwed: Part I: Fetal Attraction.” Sigh…a la Twin Peaks, the “best science-fiction show on TV” (TV Guide) is now clearly building up to a huge cliffhanger which will never get resolved. So, just because I haven’t said it here recently, I still really hope Sci-Fi suffers heavy karmic retribution for their decision to renege on their 2-year deal with Farscape, beginning with lousy ratings for Children of Dune (which I probably would have watched had it not been for Farscape‘s cancellation – and yes, if you tuned in to Taken, you’re part of the problem) and ending with the demise of the network. A show that replaces ‘Scape with schlock like John Edward, the Dream Team, and Tremors: The Series has no business being patronized by the fanboy/fangirl nation.
Bad news and Good news.
Harry finds out directly from PJ what’s been holding up the rumored Return of the King trailer. Says M. Jackson, We’re not doing a ROTK trailer for the end of Two Towers like we did last year. The reason is that the TT extended DVD has been so complex this year, it would have taken too many resources away from trying to get that finished. The FOTR extended cut had 35 extra CG shots – the TT extended cut has over 150.” Ah well. The waiting is the hardest part, but at least it sounds like more Ents and more Gollum are in our future.
If I ruled the world.
Former Authority scribe Mark Millar offers his vision for revamping Detective Comics. (Via Neilalien.) What with Marvel finally feeling the movie mojo (Daredevil notwithstanding), it’s kinda sad to see DC languish these days. I remember the days when DC/Vertigo were pretty much firing on every cylinder while the X-Men were dinking around the Australian outback and Marvel was trying to garner new readers by having the Secret Wars Beyonder traipsing around dressed like Phillip Michael Thomas. How the mighty have fallen.
Scuttling the Past.
Speaking of never-ending remakes, the worst fears of Star Wars fans have come to pass. As if the prequels weren’t snub enough, Lucas says he’ll NEVER release the original versions of the original trilogy on DVD. Which means, from now to time immemorial, Greedo shot first. Ugh…doesn’t Lucas even read the news?
The Black Gate is Open.
Garth at Dark Horizons has an update on Return of the King with some good news for those miffed at the early end of TTT (Mild spoilers.): “ROTK is supposed to run in the 3.5-4 hour range, [and] P.J. can use as much time as he needs to finish the story.” Booyah…
Superman Lives!
Great Caesar’s Ghost! Has Kal-El defeated the hacks? Apparently, both Brett Ratner and Michael Bay have now passed on the next Supes flick. And Chris Nolan of Memento is now tackling Batman. Perhaps DC might still throw off the Curse of Schumacher. (Yeah, right.) Update: Agh, Kryptonite! Ratner’s still on.
Wormholes and Timelords.
As I mentioned earlier, the first of the last eleven episodes of Farscape begin tonight at 8pm on the Sci-Fi channel. This might be your last chance to pick up on one of the great sci-fi TV shows (Here’s a primer for new viewers.) And, from one great sci-fi TV show to another, Tomb of Horrors links to this BBC fellow prank-calling Tom Baker in the guise of the fourth Doctor…Baker comes off as remarkably good-humored about the whole thing.