Movie Make-out

Looks like Chace Crawford won’t be playing chicken with tractors for quite some time.

The “Gossip Girl” star was announced to be the star of the new Footloose remake last May and filming was going to start during the hiatus; however, according to Variety, director Kenny Ortega (the High School Musical franchise) has left the production due to “differences with Paramount Pictures on tone and budget.”

More specifically:

Insiders said Ortega wanted to make a picture with elaborately staged musical numbers at a budget of $30 million or so. [Paramount] production chief Adam Goodman wanted an edgier drama with less emphasis on the musical numbers and a budget around $25 million or less.

To this, I say, why can’t you have both?

Remember a little movie musical called West Side Story? You know, that one that’s based off of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and won 10 Academy Awards, including the one for Best Picture?

Well, that movie had racial discrimination, gang violence, death by knife, and a near-rape scene and yet also features some of the most elaborate and most demanding choreography ever seen on film, thanks to director Jerome Robbins and his cast of mostly Broadway veterans.

And considering that the L.A. Times just profiled high schools in California that are forcing the students to sign binding contracts stating what dance moves they can and can’t use on the floor (“no touching breasts, buttocks or genitals”), I’d say that a movie about freedom through dance would definitely be welcome, both with and without drama.

Too bad Ortega wasn’t a strong enough negotiator to stick to his guns.

Related Posts: Zac Efron beats feet from Footloose and into a new Life , Efron to get Footloose and fancy free

Looks like things weren’t working out for Jamie Moss (Street Kings) in his quest to eke out a great live-action adaption of Ghost in the Shell for Dreamworks because Variety reports that Laeta Kalogridis (Night Watch, Pathfinder) has now accepted the job as screenwriter for the film.

On the Triple Feature podcast, Gordon and I (and by extension Tom Brazelton and Joe Dunn) talked about why although we loved the original GitS anime (.mp3 download), we couldn’t make it a MMO Top 10 sci-fi movie pick. If you don’t feel like wading through the podcast, I’ll summarize my points: first part was awesome, second part drags. With the second movie—which was distributed by DreamWorks—things got worse.

In my mind, if Kalogridis and producers Avi Arad, Ari Arad, and Steven Paul want to get a successful live-action movie script out of one of the most amazing anime movies ever released, they need to look at how well the TV series adapted the original work, remember that Section 9 is a team of misfits, and that lead character Motoko Kusanagi has a real sense of humor and personality.

And for God’s sakes, keep the action in Japan!

Related Posts: Ghost in the Shell gets the live-action treatment — in 3-D

Like many of you, I was glued to my couch watching the 81st Academy Awards ceremony in February–mostly because I was liveblogging it for y’all.

And despite my kvetching here and there, I was pretty entertained by the whole show whose highlights included Hugh Jackman as the host, some pretty cool musical numbers, the departure of the “This is the Nth time that So-and-So has won this award” announcer that made it sound like a cut-away during a football game, and having five previous award winners present the top five awards.

It’s all because of first-time Oscars producers Bill Condon (Dreamgirls) and Laurence Mark (Julie & Julia) that we had such a good show, but alas! neither can produce the show this year due to their upcoming film commitments. So who will be producing the show in their place? Why, it’s none other than Bill (Coraline) Mechanic and Adam (Hairspray) Shankman!

Quoth the Variety article:

“I couldn’t be happier to have this talented team onboard,” said AMPAS prexy Tom Sherak. “I’ve known Bill for many years, so it’s like putting Oscar in the care of a dear friend. Bill has a tremendous love and respect of film and will draw from his vast experience as a producer, a studio executive and a film historian to help make this year’s Oscar telecast a memorable one. And Adam’s experience in producing, directing and especially choreography will be a huge asset to the production.”

Now, I know I don’t have any say how the show should go, but since I am going to be recapping the entire damn thing again, I think I should get to air my wishlist, right? So without much ado, here’s my list of Top 5 things I want to see during the 82nd Academy Awards show: Read more

There was bad news and good news for the New York Times yesterday. The bad news is that the organization will cut 100 newsroom jobs thanks to the decline in advertising revenue.

The good news from Variety, however, is that the organization also cut a deal with Columbia Pictures to give the studio first crack at turning specific stories from its “Modern Love” column into feature films.

This is not the first deal for the newspaper for this column, as HBO will be developing a TV series around it, using the hook of a fictional male editor who rediscovers the beauty of love after a divorce through his work. Nor is it the first deal from the newspaper for any of its other work:

Among the recent [New York Times] content deals was the recent story of immigrant students planning a prom (“This Strange Thing Called Prom”), which Jenny Lumet is scripting for Miramax; an article about a 12-year-old wannabe food critic that Lorne Michaels is developing at Paramount (“12-Year-Old’s a Food Critic, and the Chef Loves It”); and one about a small college football team paid to be crushed by bigger schools, which Universal is developing with Jack Black (“In College Football, Big Paydays for Humiliation”). None of the development projects has yet turned into a movie.

And here’s the part where I get a little bit stabby.

I have always been a reader because I love good stories. I also read a lot of blogs and personally speaking, some of the most interesting, well-written and well-covered stories are the ones that come from the Times.

Sure, bloggers put their own spin on things—like I’m doing right now—but that’s not going to replace good old fashioned journalism where you dig, and you dig, and you dig for a story, spend hours with your subject, put in a lot of hours in libraries in search of the truth.

For decades, the New York Times has been one of the places for hungry journalists to earn their stripes and win Pulitzer Prizes. Some have even wanted to write for the paper so much they’d fake and plagiarize stories just to retain a “New York Times staff writer” byline.

There’s also a certain reputation the Times has that appeals to my inner conservative. Known as “the Gray Lady,” everyone is referred to as being “Mr. Smith” instead of just “Smith” upon second reference and headlines have initial caps on all the non-particled words.

If by selling the rights to their stories to movie studios they can forestall the firing of any other newsroom reporters or support staff, I’m all for it… and I’m also deeply depressed that print staffers will soon be flooding the ‘tubes with content that belongs in print.

Gyah. Excuse me while I watch His Girl Friday for the umpteenth time and yearn to be a real newswoman.

Casino Royale director Martin Campbell is back with Edge of Darkness — and he’s got Mel Gibson acting like a complete bad-ass along with him.

Based on a 1985 British TV show (a six-hour series), the story revolves around a Boston PD homicide detective (Gibson) “whose only grown-up child (Novakovic) is murdered on the steps of his home. The cop unearths his daughter’s secret life and discovers a world of corporate cover-ups and government collusion. Huston takes on the role of a shady businessman while Roberts will play the role of the daughter’s distraught boyfriend.”

Edge of Darkness co-stars Winstone’s Proposition co-star Danny Huston as a slimeball businessman and Bojana Novakovic (Sam Raimi’s recent Drag Me to Hell) as Emma, Gibson’s daughter. The film will be released next year.

Related Posts: DeNiro out; Winstone in Edge of Darkness (updated); Quick Cuts: Kick-Ass, Edge of Darkness and Jack Goes Boating (updated); Mel Gibson returns with Edge of Darkness