Tuesday, March 20, 2007

FILM: New Line Wins the Rights to Gears of War

Epic Games' top-teir shooter hopes to hit the silver screen with New Line Cinema.

Apparently New Line Cinema, led by Robert K. Shayne and Michael Lynne, have bought the rights to the best selling Xbox 360 title Gears of War. The production company, which won the rights to the Escape from New York remake earlier this month (read my casting scoop HERE), has hired Stuart Beattie to pen the script. Beattie's resume features all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Derailed, and Collateral. He also wrote the screenplay for James Mangold's remake of 3:10 to Yuma, a film I'm really looking forward to seeing.

I like the idea of a Gears of War movie. I love the game, and the characters that are a large part of the property, and I think an all-out action epic film adaptation would completely rock. My one concern though is that New Line might try and turn the movie into an intellectual experience. Now, while I'm all for intelligent movies, Gears of War shouldn't be one. The video game is far from smart; dumbed down to the lowest notch and focused completely on action. The plot is flatter than the prairies, the characters don't develop, and everything is turned up to 11. The movie should be done similar to the recent 300, putting action ahead of everything save style. But hey, that's just my opinion.



New Line hasn't yet announced directing or casting choices, but I'll keep you posted as they occur. I just hope this video game adaptation doesn't attain the infinite hiatus status as the Halo movie did.

Cheers.

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FILM: Pirates: At World's End Trailer Hits the Net

The trailer for the third installment of Bruckheimer's cash cow looks to pack a punch.

The trailer for Gore Verbinski's, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer's, Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End has gone live on Dinsey's site. Click HERE to journey there and watch the trailer.

From this preview it looks like the conclusion to the trilogy will be more of what was found in the second film, which could be either a good or a bad thing. I personally didn't enjoy the second movie as much as I hoped I would but I'll give the third installment a fair shot before I pass judgement.



What do you guys think of this trailer? What about the Pirates franchise as a whole? Post a comment and share your opinion. Thanks.

Cheers.

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Monday, March 19, 2007

FILM: 300 Sequel in the Works

Frank Miller has already begun work on the screenplay to a sequel to the box-office success 300.

300 has made almost $100 million at the box-office in just under 10 days, setting a March record. Warner Bros. That kind of cash is hard to ignore, so hard in fact that Warner Bros. have already hired comic writer Frank Miller to write a sequel to the Spartan flick. Apparently, if the second film is made, it won't be a direct sequel rather another tale from mythical Greece.

I really don't like this idea. While I loved 300 (read my review HERE), and crave for more of the same, I don't think that the current Frank Miller would be able to pull it off. Miller's writing abilities have been dropping off since the mid-90s and I don't think he has the creativity to create a new plot from scratch. Sure, 300 didn't have the most complex dialogue or story structure, and duplicating its style for a sequel wouldn't be as tough as it would with a different genre of film, but I don't think Miller has it in him. Maybe I'm wrong though, I just really haven't liked Frank Miller's comic work as of late.



There has been no word whether or not Zack Snyder will return as director.

What do you guys think of this? Should a sequel to 300 be made? Post a comment and let me know.

Cheers.

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