Movie Make-out

Even Fox knows it botched the two Fantastic Four movies its made, but it’ll be damned if that’s not going to keep it from trying again (and again and again).

According to Variety, Akiva Goldsman is set to produce, and Michael Green (a co-executive producer on “Heroes,” and co-screenwriter of DC’s upcoming Green Lantern) has scripting duties. Of course, they’re calling it a “reboot.” There is no word on whether any of the cast will return.

Apparently there’s a little clause in Fox’s deal with Marvel for the Fantastic Four that relates to how today’s big news of Disney buying Marvel affects the FF’s film franchise: it doesn’t. You see, Fox has the rights to Fantastic Four forever — as long as it keeps making movies. And it has the same arrangement with X-Men, Daredevil and the Silver Surfer. (facepalm)

Exactly how “keeps making movies” translates wasn’t spelled out in the article (one every four years per property or one film every two years for the whole line-up) but the words “in perpetuity” just keep boggling my mind. Granted, Marvel probably didn’t have the slightest intention of making its own movies at that point, but “in perpetuity”? How do you not give yourself an out clause?

Yeah, you read that right: Disney is buying Marvel.

Walt Disney Company announced this morning that it has agreed to buy Marvel Entertainment, home of Spider-Man, X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers, for $30 cash plus 0.745 Disney shares per Marvel share, or approximately $50 per share — amount to roughly $4 billion dollars. Shareholders at Marvel will need to approve the deal first, however. Marvel would keep its maiden name in the marriage.

This is pure conjecture, but you can expect all of Marvel’s film properties currently held out of house (like Sony’s Spider-Man franchise and Fox’s X-Men franchise) to have their contracts run their course before coming home to the Marvel Studios fold: Marvel doesn’t need to take out bank loans to finance its films anymore, and it for damn sure doesn’t need to let anybody else screw up its characters.

UPDATE: Coming Soon has a couple updates for us:

1) As expected, all existing deals with other studios remain in place — for now. Similarly, Marvel’s five-picture distribution deal with Paramount remains in place (for Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers and one picture TBD), although CS includes an uncredited quote saying, “When the time comes we’ll take a closer look at it.” (Yeah, no shit.)

2) More interesting, though: “John Lasseter met with Marvel last week about a possible team-up between Marvel and Pixar and got ‘pretty excited, pretty fast.’ They say there’s definitely an opportunity there.” I honestly didn’t expect this, because to date, Pixar has been pretty content doing its own thing (the sole exception being the upcoming John Carter of Mars live-action film), but I guess it makes sense since The Incredibles was in many ways a Fantastic Four film: obviously, the House of Ideas already has some big fans at the House of Luxo, Jr.

UPDATE 2: /Film clarifies one of CS’s notes and offers a few more tidbits culled from a conference call with shareholders this morning:

1) Commenting on a possible Pixar/Marvel partnership, Disney CEO Bob Iger said, “We’ve talked about this internally. Pixar boss John Lasseter talked to the Marvel guys about this and they all got excited about it. We think there’s ultimately some exciting product that come of that. Sparks will fly!”

2) Many fanboys won’t be discouraged from whining anyway, but /Film also noted that “the company didn’t plan on interfering much with any of the in-development Marvel movies, [with Iger] using the term ‘If it ain’t broke…’ All of the creative control will remain in the hands of the people who know the Marvel Universe best: the people at Marvel.”

This attitude will likely carry over to the comics, as well, since Disney seems to be approaching this more from an intellectual property standpoint than a “let’s get into comics” standpoint.

According to Variety, Nu Image/Millennium Films and Sylvester Stallone have come to an agreement regarding the fifth installment of the Rambo franchise that re-kicked off last year: it’s totally on.

Stallone will be back to direct and star in the film, which will have John Rambo fighting human traffickers and drug lords in an attempt to save a girl who has been kidnapped at the U.S.-Mexico border.

I have to wonder, though, exactly how this newest one will be different from all the other Rambo movies or even Stallone’s upcoming work in The Expendables. There is a time and place for big, dumb, action movies and while I normally love them, I also love it when the plot makes a little bit of sense and I like the characters enough to want them to survive the next explosion.

Blake Lively (“Gossip Girl”) and Chris Cooper (Syriana) are the latest to sign on to Ben Affleck’s crime thriller The Town, said The Hollywood Reporter last week. She will play the ex-girlfriend to Affleck’s bank robber and the troubled sister of one of Affleck’s team members while Cooper is in negotiations to play Affleck’s father.

Related Posts: Jon Hamm and Rebecca Hall join The Town (updated: Jeremy Renner, too?), Ben Affleck back behind the camera with The Town

If you live in L.A. and aren’t doing anything on Saturday, September 5, I’ve found a way for you to indulge your inner Meryl Streep fanatic while going to the theater at the same time.

All you have to do is head over to bang.studio and check out “Streep Tease” an evening of monologues by Meryl Streep as delivered by men.

As noted in Variety, the eight performers—Roy Cruz (also the show’s producer) Taylor Negron, Sam Pancake, Steve Hasley, David Dean Bottrell, Eddie Sanchez, Mike Rose and Trent Walker—are putting on the show because not only do they love the Academy Award-winning actress’s work, they’re also honoring the directors and writers who worked with her.

The best part of all is that even if you don’t live in California, you can still check out the performance that starts at 8:00 pm Pacific via the show’s webcam and chat room.