Movie Make-out

Proving that once again, you can never keep a good Welsh actor down or out of roles that require him to wear lots of make-up and become a figure of fantasy, Variety reported that Anthony Hopkins will be playing the part of Odin in Kenneth Branagh’s Thor for Marvel Studios and Paramount Pictures.

I’m not surprised that he was cast in the role, but it does make me a little sad because I have a feeling that Hopkins is going to play Odin the same way he did Hrothgar in Beowulf, Old Ptolemy in Alexander, and Titus in Titus Andronicus. And that’s not very fun at all.

Also in the article is a note that British actor Tom Hiddleston will be playing Loki. Hiddleston is a relative unknown like Thor star Chris Hemsworth, though he does have some British TV credits to his name.

Interestingly, Hiddleston’s IMDB page also notes that he’ll be in The Avengers, too; wonder what that says about that movie’s plot.

Related Posts: Natalie Portman is Jane Foster in Branagh’s Thor, Kenneth Branagh may have found his Thor

The good thing about being Australian director George Miller right now is that when one project stalls, he’s got another to fall back on.

The project of his that has supposedly been stalled is Justice League due to Warner Bros. moving up production on the Ryan Reynolds-starring Green Lantern which—according to a bit in the New Orleans’ Times-Picayune that got run all over the blogosphere—is setting up production offices and stages there and not in Australia due to the exchange rate.

This economic factor and reporter Mike Scott’s assertion that Lantern and the Flash and Wonder Woman films will be a lead-up to League means that Miller’s going to have some time on his hands—which he is choosing to fill by going back to work on the third Mad Max sequel, now called Mad Max: Fury Road.

The article that’s running in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph is just as sparse with concrete details as the Times-Picayune’s is, but there are a lot of juicy quotes to pour over and names to Google:

The Daily Telegraph has learned that work on the film will start immediately, injecting tens of millions of dollars into the economy and creating more than 500 jobs.

Much of the work will be done at Redfern’s CarriageWorks and there will also be 30 weeks of filming in Broken Hill. It is estimated the whole project will take two-and-a-half years to complete, create 540 jobs and generate countless millions.

Miller, himself, chimed in as well:

“Hollywood has cut its production in half. Big movies like Fury Road and Happy Feet are rare and competitively sought after in all the filmmaking regions of the world,” he said. “The production agreements have been a long time in the making and Premier Nathan Rees and his team have worked like Trojans to ensure this substantial investment comes into this country. Not only does it help fuel the local economy but it means many talented people get a chance to practise their craft and lift their skills.”

However, there was no mention in the article of whether or not Miller was going to continue with the idea of making this an anime movie; with all the talk of creating jobs and whatnot, I am starting to doubt that development in the project.

Updated on 10/29: Variety’s Dave McNary and every other scribe in the movie biz must have been working overtime because there are some more concrete details to add to this production news.

Even though no one knows exactly what the plot will be, Miller was able to reveal that Charlize Theron and British actor Tom Hardy (Black Hawk Down) will star in Mad Max: Fury Road, but he wouldn’t confirm that Hardy would be leading male or whether or not Mel Gibson would return to the series.

Related Posts: Mad Max to get new life as a 3D anime film

The full trailer for Jim Cameron’s Avatar is up, and it continues to look spectacular: great effects, an entertaining premise, and a whole lot of fun action. Watch it below courtesy Trailer Addict, or over at Yahoo! Movies.

The film stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver, and it hits theaters on December 18, 2009.

Matt Damon and Josh Brolin are in discussions to join the cast of True Grit, the Coen brothers’ remake of a John Wayne film readaptation of the Charles Portis novel. Damon would  play a fellow U.S. Marshall to star Jeff Bridges and Brolin would play the villain who killed the little girl’s father. Production will start in March for a release late next year. (Source: Variety)

Thanks to a recurring role in the HBO TV series “Hung,” Anne Heche has gotten her name out in the Hollywood world again; it has rewarded her by landing her two movie roles. She’s teaming up with Ed Helms to star in a comedy called Cedar Rapids as a woman he befriends at an insurance convention and then will go on to play a businesswoman that hires Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlburg to look into the financial losses at her company in The Other Guys. (Source: Variety)

Tony Scott is going to be directing a film about the rise and fall of the Chippendales dance clubs and its founder Steve Banerjee, from a script by Lisa Schrager (Pay the Girl) which itself will be adapted from a manuscript written by Rodney Sheldon. The only two reasons I mention this project is that a) I remember wanting to go to a Chippendales club when I was a pubescent girl in the 1980s and b) I just realized that both Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley from the “Saturday Night Live” sketch about the audition process are dead. (Source: Variety)

Related Posts: Jeff Bridges to join Coens for some True Grit?

Xavier Gens, director of the disappointing video game adaptation Hitman, has been signed to direct a “futuristic thriller” The Fallout for Content Film. The film takes place in “a post-apocalyptic world set around a New York apartment building-turned-shelter.”

This does not appear to be an adaptation of the video game of almost the same name — despite the fact that Bethesda Softworks secured the name Fallout earlier this year for “entertainment services in the nature of an on-going television program” and for “motion picture films about a post-nuclear apocalyptic world.”  Title change imminent, or did Variety bury the lead? Most likely the former.

The Fallout was written by Karl Mueller and Eron Sheean.