FX Movie News: 10-18-06

Sorry I wasn’t able to post yesterday, but I had a little last minute visit from the director of the film I’m working on. However, the best news of the day is that we were just awarded work on Spiderman 3!

So, this posting is from yesterday, with today’s to follow shortly.

FX News 10-18-06: Iron Man Wants Your Help; Nightmare Before Xmas 3-D Premiere; “Inkheart” Gets Producer; Fantastic 4: Silver Surver Begins Shooting; “The Mist” Coming To Big Screen?”; Pixar In Talks With Burton;

Jon Favreau’s Iron Man Wants Your Help

Marvel’s new director Jon Favreau is using his MySpace blog to ask for your help yet again. Favreau has done a reasonably good job thus far of at least pretending to be interested in the fans’ thoughts, and I applaud his efforts to stay connected to the fan base he (and Marvel) desperately need to turn out for Marvel’s first self financed flick, Iron Man. Today’s question of the hour: who should be Pepper Potts?

For you non-True Believers, Pepper was Tony Stark’s (he’s the guy inside the Iron Man costume) secretary, first showing up back in the 60s, who spent the early years with a mad crush on Mr. Stark. She’s a redhead, for what it’s worth, but I rather imagine that’ll have very little to do with casting decisions, what with wigs, dyes and such being readily available. Swing on over to Fav’s blog and have a look at the names suggested so far (they cover most of the current starletts), and then come back here and impress us with your far wiser suggestions.

Visit Jon’s Page: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=42500584

Burton’s ‘Nightmare’ Recurs

(usatoday.com) Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas has a new dimension to its spookiness, after all these years. And the years add up, appropriately enough, to 13. With Halloween looming around the corner, Friday the 13th just passed, and in celebration of its significant anniversary, The Nightmare Before Christmas is hitting movie screens again Friday — this time in 3-D.

And even creator Burton finds himself caught up in a new way by the Gothic and ghoulish world of Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King.

“It makes the movie weirdly better; you just see it the way it was meant to be — completely dimensional,” says Burton, 48, on a visit to his native Southern California from his adopted home in London. “It takes the story and actually deepens it. I see details in the sets that I don’t remember seeing.”

Burton has resisted tampering with the 1993 film that has become a cult classic. With so many current movies generating sequels or even forcing out a trilogy, Burton’s NightmareNightmare. stands alone. There will not be another installment, he says. But that’s not for lack of trying on the part of Disney, the studio that released

Burton — whose most recent films are The Corpse Bride and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and who is in pre-production on the screen adaptation of another macabre story, Sweeney Todd — fends off sequel offers from “each new regime that comes in” at Disney. “I just say no. So, there won’t be a Jack Visits Thanksgiving World.”

Part of his desire to keep the movie a solo offering has to do with the connection the stop-motion animated film has forged with die-hard fans.

“You can’t screw around with that,” says Burton. “It’s not a mass-market kind of thing. It’s kind of specialized.”

See the El Capitan Premier photos: http://iesb.net/index.php?option=com_d4j_ezine&task=read&page=1&category=featured&article=548&Itemid=27

Producer Takes On Fantasy Inkheart

(Variety) New Line has signed Barry Mendel (The Sixth Sense) to produce Inkheart, an adaptation of the first in Cornelia Funke’s fantasy trilogy that will go into production in London this fall.

Filming will start first in November in Italy and then head to Shepperton, where The Golden Compass, which like Inkheart, is another children’s book series that New Line hopes will develop into a continuing franchise for the studio, is already in production.

Funke is also producing Inkheart, with Diana Pokorny executive producing.

Inkheart stars Brendan Fraser as a father who can bring characters from books to life by reading stories aloud to his daughter. When the father is kidnapped by some of the fantasy villains in the bedtime tales, his daughter and her friends try to free him.

Others cast include Paul Bettany and Jim Broadbent.

Iain Softley is directing from a screenplay by David Lindsay-Abaire, who already has been commissioned to adapt the second tome in Funke’s series, “Inkspell.” The final tome in the trilogy, “Inkdawn,” will be published next year by U.K. imprint Chicken House, which has a deal with Scholastic in the U.S.

The Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer Begins Shooting

(moviehole.net) MySpace page reports the sequelÂ’s progress.

“So it has begun! The Fantastic Four have been photographed for Rise of The Silver Surfer. Felt like old times. Everyone’s back in the mix and really picking their characters up where we last left off.

We also shot Andre Braugher for the first time. He plays General Hager, an old acquaintance of Reed Richards and one of the major additions to the movie. Jessicas is looking amazing. Chris has his energetic performance firing on all cylinders. Ioan looks great and Chiklis is funny as ever as the blue-eyed Thing.

One of the days was pretty long. Just happened to be one of those locations that we can’t come back to and we had a lot of effects shots. Those things always take forever. The background plates, then the actor buy himself, then the crowd. Blah blah blah. Wish we could shoot everything practically, but then again, I guess stretching Ioan may not go over too well.

More to come guys. Fairly straightforward start. 3 days off then we’re back to it.”

That MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/timstory

Lovecraftian “The Mist” Moves To Dimension

(MTV News) Can it be true? Can one of Stephen King’s best works FINALLY be getting its time to shine on the screen?

The 1980 novella “The Mist”, part of King’s “Skeleton Crew” anthology, remains to this day one of my favourite works by the horror master. The story follows residents of a lakeside community trapped in a grocery store when a thick and unnatural mist engulfs the town.

It soon becomes apparent that there are things living in the mist, horrific Lovecraftian style things who’ll devour whoever wanders outside. Inside though as fear grips those still alive, it may not prove to be any safer.

Acclaimed “Shawshank Redemption” filmmaker Frank Darabont has had the rights and has often said he plans to make a film of it, yet for years now nothing much has moved on the project.

Then in a surprise revelation, actor Thomas Jane revealed to MTV News over the weekend that he’s involved in the project. He says “The script is done. It has been for a bit now, and it looks like it might be over at Dimension”.

Jane also discounted rumors that Darabont plans to film in black and white to recall the creature features of the 1950’s.

Pixar In Talks With Tim Burton?

(upcomingpixar.blogspot.com) Upcoming Pixar reader, Daniel Chapman, very kindly sends the link to lots of photos from a tour of Pixar. There are some great shots of the grounds and the inside of Pixar. This is how the post starts…

Once a year, Pixar studios opens its doors for tours though itÂ’s guarded walls thanks to the Emeryville Education Fund and its VP, Randy Nelson (one of the higher ups at Pixar University). I found out this event last year but I was unable to attend, but this year I was fortunate enough to make it to this sold out event that earned over $30,000 for the Emeryville School District.
The author talks about the Cars exhibit which they were not allowed to take photos of, but mentions this…
While admiring one of the models, I was approached by 2 Pixar employees who had noticed my Nightmare Before Christmas jacket that I was wearing. As it turns out, one of them worked on Nightmare creating several of the models for it. The other one, it turns out, has a relative thatÂ’s one of the event coordinators at the El Capitan Theater (IÂ’m sorry that I canÂ’t use names, but they both asked not to be identified. Especially when they mentioned that something might be in the works soon with Pixar and Tim Burton).
And at the end of the post, the author notes some information on Ratatouille and Toy Story 3.
During this time I was able to find some Pixar employees and ask them if they could say anything about Ratatouille and any rumors about Toy Story 3. Luckily the person I asked was an animator on Ratatouille, they said that everyone there who has seen it is saying that Ratatouille is the best thing that Pixar has done. Looks like we’re in for a treat next year. When I asked about Toy Story 3, they just grinned and said ‘At the end of Toy Story 2, Buzz and Woodie are talking about Andy growing up and what’s going to happen when he outgrows playing with them. Doesn’t that just scream for another movie to be made?’.
Isn’t this all very exciting? The post also gives good word on Lifted and Mater and the Ghost Light which were screened during the tour.

Source: http://upcomingpixar.blogspot.com/2006/10/pixar-ratatouille-ts3-and-tim-burton.html