Movie Make-out

One of the things I’ve noticed while covering movie news for this site is that there are an awful lot of remakes and adaptations of existing movies, plays, and TV series that are being put into production, and it seems like it’s happening more and more often. In fact, it’s happening so often that I almost feel as if this kind of news deserves its own category tag.

Which is why I really appreciated this story from the Hollywood Reporter’s Risky Business blog from last week, wherein Jay A. Fernandez profiled the subject of one of screenwriter Adam Mazer’s recent true-life adaptation projects, Hal Berger.

With a working title of Snatched, Berger’s story is that he was married to a woman who was from South Africa who refused to return to the U.S. from that country with their son and after Berger got him back, she used a boyfriend and some fake passports to re-take her son from his school. And then, things got intense, as reported by the Huffington Post:

While living in South Africa for eight months to recover his son, Mr. Berger was faced with two false arrests attempts, several death threats, was ultimately imprisoned while entering the country from Namibia, and stripped of his human rights to see his child for months at a time.

While I disagree with Fernandez’s description of Berger as a “decidedly regular guy,” you have to admit that the story’s quite fascinating—which begs the question: What other real-life stories are out there that would make awesome movies?

I’m so glad you asked. Read more

Gordon: With Moon about to rise in theaters, some of us at Movie Make-out and The Triple Feature got to talking about our favorite science fiction movies, and it turned into this purely subjective monstrosity. This top ten list is a combination of individual top 10s from myself, Trisha Lynn, and my two Triple Feature co-hosts Tom Brazelton (Theater Hopper) and Joe Dunn (Joe Loves Crappy Movies).

The popularity-contest aspect of lists from multiple critics inevitably results in low ranks for movies only one person listed and higher ranks for movies more than one person chose — so, before anybody gets all riled up at the high rank of a movie they don’t like, or the omission of a movie they love: We know. We get it. But we did our own list anyway, because they’re fun.

Rather than just give you the winners — which is, to be frank, just a run-down of rather familiar, popular movies — we thought we’d sweeten the pot by letting each of us pick a movie we wanted to make the list but didn’t. Our “honorable mentions,” as it were.…

Trisha Lynn: Before we start this hootenanny, guys, lemme just say that I think I came at this list from a very different perspective than the rest of you are because when I was in college, I took a course in sci-fi novels, and the way my professor Atara Stein taught the course was to take one specific theme that runs through many science fiction novels; the theme was of what it means to be human and how it manifests in the terms of artificial intelligence. It’s such a broad enough theme that it covered novels from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to He, She, and It and to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. We even watched the director’s cuts of Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Blade Runner in class (after having read the book for the latter, of course) and it is from this basis that I approached creating my top ten list and am arguing against the placement of the others.

Read more

There really isn’t much meat to this old story Variety posted about the U.S. production team of Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, but there’s an interesting tidbit in there that I’ll get to in a bit.

Joining previously announced producers Frank Marshall (the fourth Indy movie, the upcoming The Last Airbender) and Kathleen Kennedy (Persepolis, Tintin) is Pixar president John Lasseter, and was it honestly a surprise that he’d be involved?

In November 2008, the English voice cast was announced with such names as Cate Blanchett, Liam Neeson, and Noah Lindsey Cyrus—the eight-year old sister to Miley Cyrus and my pick for the lead character of Ponyo (since IMDB doesn’t have that info yet).

What is interesting is the second paragraph of the Variety article, which contains this line from writer Mark Schilling:

The goal is to boost both the number of screens and the box office take beyond [Studio] Ghibli’s record for a U.S. release set by Spirited Away, the [Hayao] Miyazaki toon that earned a little more than $10 million on 714 screens in 2002 and 2003.

However, as much of a Miyazaki fan as I am, I think that goal is doomed to failure. Read more

January 20 is going to be a very exciting day, and not just because the United States will be swearing in it’s first non-white President — it’s also the day that both 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. will learn exactly what the ruling and the potential damages are that stem from the tangled mess which became the transfer of the rights to the Watchmen movie from the former to the latter.

This one’s for all the marbles and the still unchanged March 6 opening date, folks, according to the Variety article that was posted on Wednesday:

Both sides stipulated that [U.S. District Court Judge Gary Allen Feess] would determine at [the] hearing whether Fox is entitled to a permanent injunction. The studios also agreed that neither would oppose any request to expedite an appeal.

The entire blogosphere has been a-blaze with the news, but for the first time—and courtesy of former AICN staff writer Drew McWeeny—members of the production team are speaking up.

In an exclusive that was posted today, McWeeny let producer Lloyd Levin have his new website/blog/AICN-competition called HitFix to stand upon for his soapbox, and boy did Levin let it fly:

From my point of view, the flashpoint of this dispute, came in late spring of 2005. Both Fox and Warner Brothers were offered the chance to make Watchmen. They were submitted the same package, at the same time. It included a cover letter describing the project and its history, budget information, a screenplay, the graphic novel, and it made mention that a top director was involved.

And it’s at this point, where the response from both parties could not have been more radically different.

The response we got from Fox was a flat “pass.” That’s it. An internal Fox email documents that executives there felt the script was one of the most unintelligible pieces of shit they had read in years. Conversely, Warner Brothers called us after having read the script and said they were interested in the movie—yes, they were unsure of the screenplay, and had many questions, but wanted to set a meeting to discuss the project, which they promptly did. Did anyone at Fox ask to meet on the movie? No. Did anyone at Fox express any interest in the movie? No. Express even the slightest interest in the movie? Or the graphic novel? No.

[Note that Alex Tse finished the script Zack Snyder shot in late 2006 or thereabouts, so the draft Fox and WB saw were not what you'll see on screen this year. — gm]

I know that if Levin’s recounting of the events of 2005 are correct—and where’s the Smoking Gun with that internal email already, hmm?—then ethically, Warner Bros. completely deserves to retain and keep every last fucking red cent of profit the movie makes both here and abroad.

However, contracts are a very tricky thing and the American justice system should not reward such lazy work by the Warner Bros. lawyers when they first started negotiating for those rights back in 2005 either.

UPDATE: Hollywood Reporter has comments from Larry Gordon, who is the maligned “other” producer on whom a lot of scorn is being placed. Apparently, on Wednesday, Gordon sent a letter to Judge Feess, who refused to enter it into evidence or testimony, “issuing a terse one-paragraph response later Wednesday that called it an ‘improper communication’ in violation of court rules.”

From HR:

Gordon claims in his letter that during those negotiations, Fox sent his lawyer, Tom Hunter at the firm Bloom Dekom, a chain of title that did not include the 1991 quitclaim.

“It is Mr. Gordon’s position that the execution of the 1994 turnaround agreement was the result of either a mutual mistake by both parties or a unilateral mistake made by his counsel, on which Mr. Gordon relied,” the letter says.

In related news, Coming Soon alerts us to the fact that the in-Watchmen-universe newspaper The New Frontiersman has a website up (which is pretty cutting edge for 1985, let me tell you), and they also inform us that the Tales from the Black Freighter animated short will be rated R for “violent and grisly images.” Tales from the Black Freighter is due out on DVD five days after the film’s release, as well as set to be cut into an “ultimate” edition of the film when that makes its way to DVD however many months later.

UPDATE (1/9/09): Variety has learned that Fox and Warner Brothers are actually trying to play nice; attorneys for the two studios have agreed to delay a federal court hearing until Monday in order to continue settlement talks that they’ve apparently been holding. Any settlement would almost undoubtedly leave the March 6 release date intact and give Fox a piece of the pie (in addition to or in lieu of reimbursement for its own development costs from when they held the rights to it — prior to the aforementioned 1994 turnaround agreement).

Nothing gets things moving like having a fire under your asses (a.k.a. the imminent release date), huh, boys?

UPDATE (1/12/09): THR is reporting that they’re close to a settlement now! Yawn. Tell us when something actually happens, please.

Related Posts: 20th Century Fox owns Watchmen distribution rights, says judge; Trailer Watch: New full Watchmen trailer; Trailer Watch: Scream Awards Watchmen footage; Update on Tales of the Black Freighter

In May 2008, the poker blogs were all abuzz about the simple fact that there has not been one really good poker movie since Rounders. A few writers poked their head into this story, but I think the most definitive comes from Change100 at Pot Committed, because she used to be a script reader in Hollywood:

One of the most successful films of the first half of 2008 was a movie about Las Vegas. And gambling. 21 was modestly budgeted, had one star (Kate Bosworth) but only in a supporting role, and got mixed reviews. Still, it earned over $24 million its opening weekend and has grossed over $80 million to date. If Rounders came out today with the same cast, it would probably earn a similar amount.

Why? There is one common thread these movies have and it’s not a deck of cards.

It’s wish fulfillment.

I personally think that Rounders is one of my favorite movies of all time, which I finally saw on DVD during my 30th birthday bash in my parents’ Las Vegas time share, a few days after I quickly lost $50 in the Planet Hollywood poker room.

I agree with Change100 (and possibly Otis) that the best sports or whatever movies are about wish fulfillment and making you think that you can achieve the same kind of success as the protagonist has. Who doesn’t want to say that they bluffed someone like Doyle Brunson and got away with it?

And the game of poker and everything surrounding it has a bunch of great stories to tell. You could take the same old sports inspirational formula and apply it to the story of Annette Obrestad, aka the youngest woman to win the first-ever World Series of Poker European Championship in London, who started playing online poker when she was 15 years old.

Want a little sex and death with your poker? What about the framing/companion story to Jim McManus’ first trip to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas that landed him at the final table, which was really supposed to be the story of how the son of the WSOP founder was allegedly murdered by his then-stripper-wife and her lover? I know it got turned into a made-for-TV movie, but that’s not the same.

You know what would be a great story? Exposing the possibly-illicit backer system, where a player gets bought into events because the person with the money thinks they can win. However, what happens to someone when they have an inconsistent record—good enough to back, but can’t cash enough to make the rent? How would they ever be able to get out of that hole?

That would make a great story for the basis of Rounders 2, wouldn’t it?