The Screengrab : hellboy ii: the golden army

Morning Deal Report: “School of Rock” Rolls Again

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Hellboy II: The Golden Army raised hell at the box office over the weekend, taking in an estimated $35.9 million. The public’s appetite for digitally rendered Brendan Fraser proved larger than I would have guessed as Journey to the Center of the Earth garnered $20.6 million, good for third place behind Hancock in its second weekend. Eddie Murphy made Mike Myers feel better about things as Meet Dave crashed and burned with only $5.3 million, one of the worst opening weekends in the history of the Murphyverse.

Richard Linklater should really have better things to do than a sequel to School of Rock, shouldn’t he? (I won’t even suggest that screenwriter Mike White does.) Nevertheless, the director is attached to School of Rock 2: America Rocks, as is original star Jack Black as rockin’ substitute teacher Dewey Finn. Variety reports that White’s screenplay “picks up with Finn leading a group of summer school students on a cross-country field trip that delves into the history of rock 'n' roll and explores the roots of blues, rap, country and other genres.” Could be worse, I guess. Linklater could be remaking The Bad News Bears Go to Japan.

In even less surprising news, Jon Heder will play “a Napoleon Dynamite-like oddball who becomes contaminated with a substance that gives him what might arguably be considered superpowers” in Loudermilk, per the Hollywood Reporter. The comedy was pitched to Universal by Heder and his brother Doug, and will be rewritten and directed by Craig Zobel (Great World of Sound). In the funniest sentence I’ve read this morning, Doug Heder proclaims, “Loudermilk is definitely intended to set the tone for Greasy Entertainment.”

Related:
Hellboy: The Letting Go
Eddie Murphy Exhumes "Beverly Hills Cop"

Hellboy: The Letting Go

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:00:00 GMT

As more and more movies are made from comic books, the issues of creator's rights will increasingly pick at the film industry. With Marvel and DC products, it's generally not an issue -- not only are most of the creators long dead, but the characters themselves are corporate properties, held by two huge companies and not beholden to any single artist or writer. With independent comics, however, the issue grows much more complex. Some creators will be happy simply to sell the rights to their characters and stories for the kind of huge paycheck that only Hollywood can write; others will insist on being involved, to one degree or another, in the production of any film based on the characters they created. Frank Miller represents one extreme; displeased at the prospect of what liberties the movies would take with his characters, he decided to learn the film business himself so as to be able to exert maximum control over his properties in 300 and Sin City. (Although he didn't create the Spirit, he's taking a similarly proprietary approach in the creation of that movie.) Mike Mignola represents perhaps the oppisite end of the spectrum: always fiercely protective of the Hellboy character from the time it first appeared in Dark Horse Comics, he has learned when it's proper to let go of his creation in order to see it succeed on the big screen.

In an interview with Comics2Film regarding the new Hellboy 2: The Golden Army movie, which opens in wide release this weekend, Mignola discusses the differences between the comics and the film, the trust he came to develop with director Guillermo Del Toro when it came to creating the look of the movie, and how he had to learn when to let go of his own beliefs about what the movie should be and how it shouldn't be necessary for there to be major divergence between the two. "The first film was a loose adaptation, but it was coming off my work, and it was basically taking the Hellboy universe that I had created and translating it into del Toro's world. The second film, we chucked that idea after about eight hours because even in the first film, that character is already veering away from the world I created in the comic," says Mignola. "I know in the first film, he was making conscious decisions to try to suggest certain things that I do in the artwork...I'd love to think that he got some of that from studying my comic, but I think he's just a very careful craftsman."

(Of course, on the other other extreme, there's Alan Moore, who still refuses to take a dime from any movies based on his stories, on the theory that, since he had nothing to do with them, they're not his...)

Summer of ’78: “Damien: Omen II”

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Each Thursday this summer we’ll hop in the Screengrab time machine and jump back thirty years to see what was new and exciting at the neighborhood moviehouse this week in…The Summer of ’78!

Damien: Omen II

Release Date: June 9, 1978

Cast: William Holden, Lee Grant, Jonathan Scott-Taylor, Robert Foxworth, Sylvia Sidney, Lance Henriksen

The Buzz: The son of Satan is back to raise more hell!

Keywords: Devil Child, Satanism, Ice Hockey, Attacked By Bird, Torso Cut In Half

The Plot: I'd never seen any of the Omen movies, but I do vaguely recall reading the novelizations. You know how it is; too young to see R-rated movies in the theater, but not too young to buy the book versions of same down at Mr. Paperback. (They were probably just happy I was interested in reading at all.) So I can’t tell you much about the first Omen movie, but let’s all agree to assume that Damien Thorn was born with the mark of the beast, and that those who figured out he was the Antichrist met with an untimely demise.

One of those people was Damien’s father Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck), who apparently did not have the chance to change his will before attempting to kill his own offspring with sacred daggers, because as the sequel begins, the now teenage Damien is in the custody of Robert’s brother Richard (William Holden) and his wife Ann (Lee Grant). Now a military school cadet, Damien is still unaware of his destiny as the prince of darkness, until his sergeant (played by a young-yet-craggy Lance Henriksen) tells him to check out the Book of Revelation. “For you it is just that – a book of revelation, for you, about you.” Hey, who couldn’t use one of those?

Damien learns that being the Antichrist comes with certain advantages. For example, it turns out that he’s very good at remembering historically significant dates. And, you know, he can give heart attacks to old ladies and make people plummet down elevator shafts. It takes him long enough, but eventually Richard Thorn figures out that his brother has willed him a dud, and tries to get his hands on those fancy daggers. Sadly, even William Holden is no match for Satan’s boy.

The Test of Time: I have no idea if Omen fans were satisfied with this follow-up, but if so, they must have been easily impressed. The stakes never seem particularly high in this sequel; those who grow suspicious of Damien are pretty quickly hit by trucks or fall through thin ice on the lake. And there doesn’t seem to be any urgency to get rid of him, since his destiny involves taking over a big corporation with questionable ethical policies. Heck, if he doesn’t do it, someone else will! Damien was released a few months before John Carpenter’s Halloween would usher in the era of the slasher film, so its big scares must have looked dated almost immediately. (Perhaps not quite as dated as Robert Foxworth’s frightening Luke Spencer perm, but still.) Still, it was successful enough to spawn Omen III: The Final Conflict, and now that the first Omen has been remade, who knows? Maybe Damien will be back for another round as well.

Quotable Quote: “You’re not my brother! The Beast has no brother! You were born of a jackal!”

2008 Equivalent: It’s a sequel about the son of a demon, so I’m going with Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

Previously on Summer of '78: Capricorn One