The Screengrab : louis leterrier

Morning Deal Report: Wolverines! “Red Dawn” Remake Rising

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

As always, a reminder that we don’t make this stuff up, except once a year on April Fool’s Day. And surely there must be some fools behind the idea of remaking the Commie-baiting camp classic Red Dawn, perhaps the most genetically pure ’80s movie in existence. Yet here it is in the Hollywood Reporter: “Red Dawn will be redone. Screenwriter Carl Ellsworth has been hired to recraft the ultimate homeland invasion story about a new generation of besieged high schoolers…‘The tone is going to be very intense, very much keeping in mind the post-9/11 world that we're in,’ says Ellsworth, who was 11 when the original was released.” But amusing/befuddling/horrifying as this may be to contemplate, the Reporter has buried the lead. Tucked into the third paragraph is an offhand mention that MGM is also developing “a big-budget rebuild of RoboCop, which director Darren Aronofsky among others has recently been in to discuss.” If Aronofsky is remaking an '80s movie, shouldn’t it be this one?

MGM has been busy, as Variety reports the studio has greenlit the Joss Whedon thriller The Cabin in the Woods. Whedon has co-written the script with Drew Goddard, “with Goddard signed to make his directorial debut and Whedon producing.” Not much more is known about the project, but our sources tell us it involves a cabin in the woods.

And in keeping with the “everything old is new again” theme, Hulk history is repeating itself. “After four weekends, the Louis Leterrier-directed The Incredible Hulk has earned $125 million, the same as what [Ang Lee’s] Hulk had pulled in at the same time in its run,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. “Hulk finished with $132 million, and its successor is unlikely to do much better." Fans looking forward to seeing Tim Blake Nelson as The Leader may be out of luck, as Marvel has yet to greenlight a sequel.

Related:
Aronofsky Takes Up Residence in Riverview Towers
Hulk Smash?

Thursday Morning Poll for June 26, 2008

Paul Clark — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Well, it’s about time we had a close poll. After weeks of runaway favorite, last week’s question on your preferences re: the Hulk franchise failed to yield a definitive winner. Of the choices, 35% of respondents preferred Ang Lee’s take on the comic book, as compared to 25% for Louis Leterrier’s. 5% like them both about the same, while another 25% professed their shared displeasure for both films. Finally 10% of those answering showed their true colors (green, of course) by voicing their love for Lou Ferrigno’s incarnation of the character. What does this prove? You tell me. Maybe nothing.

Earlier this week, I took Entertainment Weekly to task for some of the, well, poor choices they made for their list of the 100 best films of the last 25 years. Yet some of the films they picked were deserving, right? So of EW’s top five films on the list, which do you prefer?

As always, the comments section is open, especially if, like me, you want to bitch some more about the list. Believe me, I understand.

Don't Mess With The Norton

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:45:00 GMT

You'd think that Hollywood would have learned its lesson by now, but no: another major release starring Edward Norton, another script controversy.

As Anne Thompson reports in Variety, during the pre-production stages of the new Incredible Hulk movie, the fledgling Marvel Studios made the mistake of letting time slip away from them until they were put in the position of offering Norton a screenwriting credit (as well as an unbilled producer's role) in order to get him on board. Unfortunately for everyone within a gamma bomb blast radius of the film, the movie already had a screenwriter (Zak Penn) and a producer/director (Louis Leterrier) with ideas of their own, and by the time the movie finally opened, we were treated to the hauntingly familiar sight of Norton appearing on talk shows to complain about how his vision for the movie was bastardized by studio hacks.

Thompson follows the whole complex affair, with its typical behind-the-scenes wheedling, Norton's pretensions of classing up the superhero movie, Penn's determination to see a script he wrote almost 20 years ago finally see the light of day, and the post-production battles over who owned the right to the final cut of the film. No one emerges smelling like a daisy, with Marvel Studios coming across as naive at best and duplicitous at worst, and Norton once again looking like both a man who's passionate about his work and a total prick.

Why does it all seem like something we've seen before? Perhaps you remember a little movie called American History X...

Related Posts:

Edward Norton Hulks Out

Screengrab Review: The Incredible Hulk

Cinema's Greatest Offscreen Feuds, Part 1

Screengrab Review: "The Incredible Hulk"

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:00:00 GMT

As one of the few defenders of Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk – and as someone who picked The Incredible Hulk to be the biggest bomb of this summer – I readily admit to having some preconceived notions about Transporter director Louis Leterrier's take on the latest Marvel comics adaptation. This would be the part where I tell you how pleasantly surprised I was to be proven wrong…but unfortunately, that didn't happen.

The big question all along about The Incredible Hulk has been: What is it? Is it a sequel to the Ang Lee movie? A remake? It's sort of neither, which turns out to be the cleverest aspect of Leterrier's movie. As the opening credits roll, we see a montage of scenes from a previous Hulk movie that never existed. A Hulk origin sequence closer to the 1970s TV show than either the comics or the previous movie plays out as Dr. Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) uses himself as a guinea pig in an experiment with high-level gamma radiation. We know what happens, so why dwell on it? Within two minutes, Banner has Hulked out, smashed up the lab, destroyed his relationship with fellow scientist Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) and pissed off her father General “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt), who vows to pursue him to the ends of the earth. It’s as if Letterier is saying, “Let’s just pretend we all saw this movie and be done with it.” And really, that’s perfectly in keeping with the Hulk’s Marvel comics universe, where new writers and artists are constantly taking over his story and retroactively tweaking his origins.

As the story proper begins, Banner has been on the run for five years. Now working in a Brazilian bottling plant, Banner has learned to keep the Hulk under wraps with a few simple deep breathing exercises. His serenity doesn’t last, as General Ross and his troops – including British commando Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) – track him down and unleash the beast within Banner. The Hulk escapes but the hunt continues, pretty much for the rest of the movie. In order to boost his chances against the green goliath, Blonsky undergoes a series of injections that promise to transform him into a super-soldier. Banner reunites with Betty, who helps him find Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson), a genetic scientist who may be able to cure him. Instead, Sterns ends up transforming Blonksy into the Abomination, an even bigger, uglier mass of roid-rage than the Hulk.

As expected, The Incredible Hulk is louder, faster and more action-packed than the 2003 version. Every twenty minutes or so, Ross and his goons show up and there’s another big battle. (The most entertaining one, in which Ross keeps escalating the level of artillery to no avail, almost plays like a Monty Python sketch.) By the end, when the Hulk and Abomination are going mano-a-mano in the streets of New York, the movie resembles less a Marvel comic than an updated King Kong vs. Godzilla – you’re basically aware you’re just watching one big slab of pixels punching the crap out of another big slab of pixels. The Hulk actually looks pretty good most of the time, especially if it’s dark or raining. The humans don’t come off quite as well. I’m willing to bet this isn’t the cut Edward Norton had in mind, but that’s okay – I didn’t need a lot more Banner torment in my life. Roth doesn’t do much but glower, Tyler’s role is even more thankless than the Jennifer Connelly version of same, and when it comes to mustachioed generals, William Hurt is no Sam Elliott.

Leterrier does try to provide a little something for everyone. There are inside references for the comic book fans, geeky cameos by Stan Lee, Lou Ferrigno, and someone else who is supposed to be a surprise, except that his appearance is all over the TV ads in what smells like a desperate marketing stunt, and jokes about stretchy purple pants. (The best gag involves Norton’s mangling of the signature “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” line.) And we finally get to hear that immortal call to action, “HULK SMASH!” There’s even a brief stab at Ang Lee’s more lyrical, haunting tone as the Hulk broods on a cliff in a rainstorm. But the whole thing plays like it’s been focus-grouped to death, stripped of any real personality of its own. It may not end up being the biggest bomb of the summer – stuff does blow up real good, after all – but despite hints of another sequel, it provides no compelling reason for the Hulk’s big screen career to continue.

Related:
Hulk Smash?
The Summer of Super-Duds

The Summer of Super-Duds

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:45:00 GMT

With so many superhero movies set to come out this summer, one of them is bound to suck. Well, that's not true -- chances are pretty good that all of them are going to suck. But the folks over at New York magazine are ever the optimists, and they're handicapping the cape-and-cowl movies of the hot months to determine which one to avoid.

They peg Iron Man as most likely to succeed (despite the fact that ol' Shell-Head "has nowhere near the Q-meter rating of Spidey or Supes", but The Incredible Hulk is their even-money choice to bomb out: "The initial trailer made the movie seem exciting but shallow and somewhat humorless. And if a legitimately great director like Ang Lee can't make the Hulk story into a good movie, what chance does Louis Leterrier (previous credits: The Transporter, The Transporter 2) have?"

Us, we're just flattered that New York's "Vulture" bloggers are fans of our Thursday polls here at the Screengrab...

Edward Norton Hulks Out

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:00:00 GMT

When last we checked in with The Incredible Hulk, Marvel Studios and star Edward Norton were squabbling, with Norton threatening to abstain from publicizing the movie if it didn’t turn out as he hoped. We were told that Norton is “passionate,” and then we were told that, in Hollywood-ese, “passionate” translates as “a big pain in the purple pants.” Now Norton is speaking out for the first time...sort of.

Entertainment Weekly tried to interview Norton for their new story on the Hulk, but after weeks of negotiation, “the actor's publicist e-mailed EW an exclusive 257-word statement, approved in advance by Marvel and Universal.” Surely such a statement could contain nothing but Norton’s unvarnished feelings on the situation.

Apparently the actual shooting of The Incredible Hulk went swimmingly; the dispute stems from the movie’s post-production process. As you’ll recall, Marvel was intent on distancing itself from Ang Lee’s dreamy, contemplative take on the character. “The company wanted to release the most commercial film possible: lots of action and a running time under two hours. Norton and Leterrier, however, lobbied for a more meditative cut of the film that ran about two hours and 15 minutes.” Meditative is definitely not what Marvel is looking for this time around, and apparently tempers flared.

Director Louis Leterrier, who says he had no trouble at all with Norton, feels the feud has been overblown. “Everyone was exhausted; it was like a little burst,” Leterrier says. “I'm angry with you!' 'No, I'm angry with you!' And me in the center saying 'Boys, calm down.' It didn't come to blows. It was just a remark here and there.”

Predictably, Norton’s statement downplays the dispute as well. “Every good movie gets forged through collaboration, and different ideas among people who are all committed and respect the validity of each other's opinions is the heart of filmmaking. Regrettably, our healthy process, which is and should be a private matter, was misrepresented publicly as a 'dispute,' seized on by people looking for a good story, and has been distorted to such a degree that it risks distracting from the film itself, which Marvel, Universal and I refuse to let happen.” You can read the full statement at the EW site; the full truth will probably have to wait.