Bits n’ bobs from this week’s genre news…
* Matthew Vaughan has been talking up the inevitable sequel to X-MEN: FIRST CLASS and what he’d personally like to see: “I thought it would be fun to open with the Kennedy assassination, and we reveal that the magic bullet was controlled by Magneto. That would explain the physics of it, and we see that he’s pissed off because Kennedy took all the credit for saving the world and mutants weren’t even mentioned.” Very cool! But will U.S. audiences embrace the somewhat controversial idea?
* Rob Zombie directed a commercial for what?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8yC1MOZq-g
* THE EXPENDABLES 2 has finally found a director in the shape of CON AIR’s Simon West. Can’t argue with that.
* Troubled star Gary Busey has been fired from the set of Indie horror flick MANSION OF BLOOD for making “inappropriate remarks to women on set”. As anyone who saw this last season of CELEBRITY APPRENTICE will attest, this comes at no surprise at all.
* SPOILER ALERT! Skip this one if you’re trying to avoid all DARK KNIGHT RISES plot-points. Consider yourself warned… Actor Liam Neeson has been spotted on set this week, confusing all who remember his character Ra’s Al Ghul biting the big one at the end of BEGINS. Does this mean the Batman series is starting to introduce the more mystical/supernatural elements of the DCU at last? Or was he just stopping by for a cuppa with Bale? Time will tell.
* Fans (or should that be ‘fan’?) of last year’s PERCY JACKSON & THE LIGHTNING THIEF rejoice! Despite the box-office misfire that the first flick proved to be, Fox 2000 are pressing on regardless with the announcement that sequel PERCY JACKSON & THE SEA MONSTERS is on its way. Yay.
* Ben Stiller has been offered the lead in 20th Century Fox’s NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH, a sci-fi comedy in which a group of fathers find themselves defending their BLOCK from alien ATTACK. That sounds like a film we saw recently, if only I could recall what…
* Strange movie adaptation of the week… Legendary Pictures have acquired the rights to Mattel toy line HOT WHEELS, with a view to turn it into a series of films ala car-porn franchise FAST AND FURIOUS.
* The original house in THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE is now a family restaurant?!
* The Weinstein Company have set release dates for possibly two of the most unwanted sequels in years, with the announcement we can look forward to SCARY MOVIE 5 (ugh) in April 2012, and HALLOWEEN 3D (double ugh) in October 2012. Please… somebody, anybody – make them stop.
* Director David Lynch has revealed plans to open a MULHOLLAND DRIVE-inspired nightclub in Paris. ‘Silencio’ (niiiice!) will open its door in September. I’m booking my flight now!
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