It looks like director Andy Muschietti is ready to start getting into the meat of the work on IT: Chapter 2! He recently posted an image on social media which calls for the Losers Club to “wake up” because “Darry is calling”. As a huge fan of the first movie, I can’t wait to see how the second part of the story is handled!
Following the release of The Cloverfield Paradox, J.J. Abrams hopped on Facebook Live for a Q&A regarding the franchise and fielded questions from fans about what’s coming up for the future. When asked about the possibility of the film’s characters crossing over with each other in a future film, Abrams guaranteed nothing, but said it’s something they’ve discussed (via Dread Central):
“We’ve talked about versions of things like when we did 10 Cloverfield Lane, we were thinking Michelle – the character Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays – it’s such a sort of weird origin story of this kind of incredibly, I think, awesome heroine, that idea of following her story is really cool. And then at one point, we were like, ‘You know what would be really cool? What if they crossed paths with Gugu [Mbatha-Raw]’s character Ava?’ You start to think of ‘what ifs.’ And I think the bigger ideas that we’ve had about where this thing goes haven’t necessarily been those ideas, but they’ve kind of been fun theoretical offshoots.”
I’d say that’s too unrealistic to have characters like Michelle and Ava team up, but I gotta remember what franchise we’re talking about here. Ultimately, I’d say it comes down to what the fans want…so I want to hear your opinion. Should the Cloverfield films have crossover elements?
In 1983 NBC produced a sci-fi alien invasion miniseries called V. When I was a kid, this was one of the coolest things that I had seen on TV! I thought the reptilian aliens described as humans was so rad. I’m not sure how many of you remember this miniseries, but the original creator, Kenneth Johnson, is developing a feature film trilogy adaptation with Desilu Studios called V: The Movie.
After the human learn that there is a reptilian alien race living amongst them, some of them embrace their new overlords and fell into line with them. But there was a resistance that formed that didn’t trust the aliens, and it’s a good thing because there’s a point that we discover the aliens were using the humans for food! Yeah, it’s pretty much an updated version of the Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man”, but it was still enjoyable.
Stephen King properties were a hot commodity in 2017, between the remake of It and the Netflix adaptation of Gerald’s Game. Now Mike Flanagan (Gerald’s Game, Oculus) is talking about another King-related project he would like to take on, Doctor Sleep. Doctor Sleep is a sort of sequel to The Shining, which introduces audiences to a grown-up version of Danny Torrance, the boy who survived the Overlook Hotel.
Stephen King released Doctor Sleep in 2013, but it wasn’t very good. Still, The Shining films have taken on such a massive cult following and it seems to be only a matter of time before Hollywood decides to bring Doctor Sleep into theaters. In a recent interview with Lilja’s Library, Flanagan revealed that the two King adaptations he’d most be interested in making are Lisey’s Story, about an author’s widow, and the Shining sequel Doctor Sleep:
“[T]he ones I’d want to do the most are Doctor Sleep and Lisey’s Story. In both cases, it’s because I identify with the protagonists so much. Lisey’s Story is a stunning piece of work, a beautiful exploration of marriage. And who wouldn’t want to venture back into the world of Danny Torrance?”
After watching his franchise go on a steady decline over the years, Ridley Scott sounds beside himself. The good news is it doesn’t appear as though he’s ready to give up on the Alien franchise so we might see him working on another film in the near future. The bad news? He may have some delusions of grandeur in regards to the property:
“There’s no reason why Alien should now not be on the same level for fans as Star Trek and Star Wars. I think the next as to where we go is, do we sustain the Alien [franchise] with the evolution of the beast or do we reinvent something else? I think you need to have an evolution on this famous beast, because he’s the best monster ever, really.”
That quote (via Gamespot) is a bold proclamation by any stretch, and I’m not sure how you put Alien in the same discussion as Star Trek or Star Wars unless you’re talking about number of films that have been released. I would LOVE for Alien to reach that type of success, but I’m gonna sit here and flat out say there are plenty of reasons why Alien has not reached that level of success.
Regardless, I like that Scott still has that fire in him to continue and try to make the franchise better because he does have a really good monster…he just needs better stories surrounding it. I honestly thought Prometheus was a step in the right direction, but it appears they’ve all but abandoned that strategy, so where do you go now? What do you think would drastically improve this franchise?
Gizmo was such a great lovable character in director Joe Dante‘s Gremlins. Everyone loves that character, but the original plan was to turn him into a villain in the film! Luckily producer Steven Spielberg stepped in to save Gizmo from his villainous fate.
During a recent Q&A with EW, Joe Dante talked about how the adorable Mogwai was originally supposed to turn into the leader of the gremlins. Here he explains how the change from villain to hero went down:
I’m so bloody happy to announce that the latest big screen adaptation of Stephen King‘s IT will become the highest grossing horror film of all time, from a pure horror genre standpoint. The movie that it had to beat was the 1973 film The Exorcist which made over $232.9 million since it was first released.
IT is expected to beat the record tomorrow and by Sunday they say it will have made around $270 million. If any film deserves to hold the title of the highest grossing horror film, it’s IT. It was just such a fantastically well-made film that the majority of people have just loved. I’ve already seen it four times in theaters! I have to keep dragging people to see it!
Deadline explains that the studio “is calling the record from a pure genre standpoint, with all other pics such as The Sixth Sense ($293M), Jaws ($260M), and Will Smith’s sci-fi zombie pic I Am Legend ($256.4M) considered horror hybrids.”
High fives to the cast and crew of IT, who brought us such an amazingly fun and terrifying film! I can’t wait for Chapter 2!
During a recent interview with Fandango, Alien: Covenant director Ridley Scott started letting all kinds of details fly about his plans for the Alien franchise. He started spilling so many details that the star of Covenant, Katherine Waterston, kept trying to cut him off to prevent him from saying anything more!
He reveals the title of the next Alien film he has planned; how there will be another film that will lead directly into his original Alien film; and says that if the movies do well, there will be five new Alien films total. Here’s how that conversation goes down:
“There will be another one before we kind of literally and logically, clockwise, back into the rear back head of [the original] Alien,” he said.
We asked Scott what the timeline looked like — would it be Prometheus, Covenant and then this next movie before we arrive at the events of the original Alien. That’s when the answer became a bit foggy as it appears he slips in the title for another movie we haven’t seen yet and positions it between Prometheus and Covenant.
“It will go Prometheus, Awakening, Covenant.. fairly integral where this colonization ship is on the way….”
Waterston cut in again to stop Scott from spoiling any more information. “You’re giving away too much!” she screamed. “But yes, there will be more after this. I think that was the question.” To which Scott replied, “If this is successful, and then the next one, and then there will definitely be three more.”
Damn! Scott was ready to reveal his whole plan for the franchise! Unfortunately, Waterston wouldn’t let him. At least we got the information that we did. Alien: Awakening seems like a solid title, and I’m really curious to see how his next film leads up to the events in Alien.
It’s awesome to see Scott excited about the Alien franchise again. Unfortunately, that means we’ll probably never get to see Neill Blomkamp‘s Aliens sequel. I just wish the studio would have let both projects roll forward. We are getting at least two Star Wars and Marvel films a year, why can’t Fox release two Alien films in a year?
Anyway, I’m excited for Alien: Covenant! I hope that it’s great and that Scott gets to make all the Alien films that he wants!
“The Walking Dead” executive producer Gale Anne Hurd raised eyebrows on Wednesday, Jan. 18 at the National Association of Television Executives conference in Miami when she seemed to confirm suspicions that producers may have toned down some violence on the show after the reaction to the gruesome season 7 premiere in which two characters were bludgeoned with a barbed wire-covered baseball bat. “We were able to look at the feedback on the level of violence,” said Hurd on a NATPE panel, first reported by Variety. “We did tone it down for episodes we were still filming for later on in the season.”
However, two exec producers tell EW that they did not change their approach at all after many viewers were critical of the graphic nature of the premiere. Showrunner Scott M. Gimple points out that the explicitness of that premiere baseball bat beating was intended to be above and beyond what the zombie drama usually does, and that nothing that came after was ever intended to come anywhere close to it. Continue reading
Richard Kelly is a filmmaker, whose best work is still Donnie Darko, which was released back in 2001. It looks like Kelly is planning to return to that world for a new sequel that he’s developing. And apparently, S. Darko doesn’t count. Continue reading
