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Over the past five years, Sylvester Stallone has taken charge of his movies by writing, directing and starring, but for his next movie, the action flick Bullet to the Head (formerly referred to as Headshot), Stallone will take a break from multi-tasking and play a New Orleans hitman who partners with a New York cop to get revenge on the men that killed their respective partners.
Walter Hill (48 Hours, Warriors) is directing the movie, which was adapted from the French graphic novel Du plomb dans la tête (or, Bullet to the Head) by screenwriter Alessandro Camon (The Messenger). Production on Bullet to the Head began in late June, and will require a quick post-production schedule to make the April 13, 2012, release date Warner Bros. has just set for the movie.
Partnering with Stallone for Bullet to the Head is Fast Five actor Sung Kang, who was cast as the New York cop in July, replacing Thomas Jane. In late June, Jane explained his departure from the movie to Collider.
why does Jane think he was fired? >> Posted 08.25.11 by Ryan -
Actor Jared Harris (AMC's Mad Men, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) wasn't the first actor rumored for the role of Professor Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Brad Pitt was originally rumored for the role, back before the first Sherlock Holmes opened in 2009.
Months later, Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, and Gary Oldman were said to be possible contenders with Daniel Day-Lewis as the frontrunner. Instead, Harris landed the role. In an interview with Collider, Harris described how he was able to get the part.
not your usual moriarty >> Posted 06.21.11 by Ryan -
Joel Silver was so impressed by director Vincenzo Natali's Splice that he did something he has not done before in his long career as a producer — he bought the finished movie through his Dark Castle production house affiliated with Warner Bros. At the recent press day for Splice, Silver discussed what intrigued him about Splice and updated the status of some of his other projects in development, including a planned 3-D reboot of Swamp Thing, a remake of the 1976 classic sci-fi movie Logan's Run, his new horror movie The Apparition, and more.
read what Silver had to say about the projects >> Posted 05.24.10 by BrentJS -
Comic book fans were pretty excited by the news that super-producer Joel Silver was looking to develop a 3-D reboot of the Swamp Thing movie franchise. They became even more excited when the award-winning director of Cube, Vincenzo Natali, told MTV that he was interested in directing a Swamp Thing movie based on the works of comic book auteur Alan Moore, the creator of Watchmen and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Unfortunately, Natali recently told MTV that he will not be directing an updated Swamp Thing movie because "there is no Swamp Thing movie in the works right now" and probably won't be "any time soon."
see what's preventing Swamp Thing from entering theaters >> Posted 05.12.10 by BrentJS -
Guy Ritchie was poised to direct the comic book adaptation of Lobo after Sherlock Holmes, with a portion of pre-production already complete. Producer Joel Silver told The LA Times that Ritchie can no longer commit to Lobo after the success of Holmes.
I don't think he's going to do [Lobo] now. The studio wants us and Guy to focus on making another Sherlock Holmes. So I think we're going to be doing that. But we're seeing what happens with this. Everybody is analyzing everything. It's all kind of happening right now as we talk. Everybody is talking about everything.... It's an ongoing conversation. [Robert] Downey [Jr.] loves the experience of playing Sherlock and would love to play him again, and I'd love to see him play it again. Jude [Law] and all of them will be back and it will be great. So we're trying to see if we can do something quickly with another Sherlock Holmes movie. We have some ideas and some good story points.
Silver says that while Ritchie is busy working on Sherlock Holmes 2, that Lobo will likely be made with "a different director" as it is still a viable idea considering the recent success of comic book movies.
It was created as a rebuttal to the Marvel characters and his vest said "Bite me fanboy." It was very much a response to Wolverine and Punisher and the other characters and I think now that makes it fresh [for moviegoers]. We're working on it now and it will be nice to put it together and make it happen.
Downey Jr. already quit another project — the Jon Favreau adaptation of Cowboys and Aliens — in order to clear his schedule for the Holmes sequel.
Posted 01.28.10 by Ryan -
Producer Joel Silver has an incredible resume, including many of Hollywood's top properties — the Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Predator, and Matrix franchises. His latest film, Ninja Assassin, opens this week and Silver is in various stages of production on eight other movies, with another dozen or more in development.
With so many different projects, it's hard to keep track of the status of all of them. Thankfully, Latino Review caught up with Silver and probed him about several of the fan-favorite films he is working on. While Silver didn't mention anything about the 3-D adaptation of DC Comics' Swamp Thing that he teased back in August, he did say that he is working on Lobo, another DC adaptation.
We're working really close on that. It's close, yeah. There is a good shot we can make that happen.
While many fans have been clamoring to see Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen) in the lead role of "The Last Czarnian," Silver stated back in August that his intention for Lobo was to go full CGI with the super-ripped alien bounty hunger, a la Avatar. When asked about the possibility of Morgan playing Lobo, Silver said that he is "very talented" and mentioned that Morgan was already tapped for yet another DC Comics adaptation, The Losers, and that they're still trying to figure out what will work best for Lobo.
There's been some interesting tests. It's pretty spectacular. So that's gonna come about soon I think.
After Ninja Assassin, Silver has the Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes hitting theaters, which Silver would "love" to see turn into a franchise.
There are plenty of Sherlock Holmes stories. But let's get the movie open, let's see how it goes and we'lll see what happens.
Silver will no longer be teaming with Ritchie on an adaptation of Sgt. Rock after Sherlock Holmes, but he said that Ritchie is "involved" with Gamekeeper, which is "in development." He is also re-teaming with his Ninja Assassin writer, J. Michael Straczynski, an another project.
[Straczynski's] writing Forbidden Planet now. We'll see a script before the end of the year and that's exciting too.
Silver also mentioned that the reason he let Sony have He-Man was because it was a "weird one" that they couldn't figure out how to adapt. And, no, there will be no sequel to Speed Racer, not that too many people will shed a tear over that news.
Posted 11.22.09 by BrentJS -
Six new video clips have emerged for Ninja Assassin, the latest action spectacle from producer Joel Silver and his V for Vendetta and Speed Racer partners, Andy and Larry Wachowski (the creators of The Matrix trilogy). The trio of producers brought V for Vendetta's director, James McTeigue, in to helm the feature, which was shot in Berlin, Germany.
Starring Korean pop star Rain in his first featured role, Ninja Assassin tells the story of Raizo, a boy trained to kill in an orphanage that serves as an assassin factory for the Ozunu Clan, a secret society thought only to exist in myth and legend. When Raizo attempts to escape from the clan and start a new life, they track him down to exact their revenge.
Posted 11.12.09 by BrentJS -
Producer Akiva Goldsman is already involved in the production of four comic book movie adaptations, including Jonah Hex, The Losers, Lobo, and Swamp Thing, and now he's attached to a fifth. Goldsman is joining Joel Silver in his decades-long quest to bring DC Comics' WWII hero, Sgt. Rock, to the big screen.
Only, Rock and his "Easy Company" are not going to be slogging through the trenches fighting Nazis in war-torn Europe. According to THR, the Sgt. Rock movie will be set in the future. Previously envisioned as a Dirty Dozen-esque "authentic" war film, the change of time period and locale is said to be reflective of the lack of interest by moviegoers in period war films.
Silver had previously enlisted Guy Ritchie to script and direct Sgt. Rock, but Ritchie has moved on to direct Lobo with Silver so Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend) has been brought in to front the film. Chad St. John (The Days Before) will write the script.
Posted 11.11.09 by BrentJS -
Hollywood actor and stuntman Dick Durock, most famous for portraying the DC Comics anti-hero Swamp Thing in the original 1982 Wes Craven film, passed away recently after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Durock was 72.
Durock was a television staple for years before donning the green latex suit that made him famous, appearing on The Little House on the Prairie, Quincy M.E., The Incredible Hulk, The Rockford Files, and many other shows. While critically panned, Swamp Thing had a strong cult following and Durock went on to reprise the role of Dr. Alec Holland's mutated alter-ego in The Return of Swamp Thing (1989) and in 71 episodes of the Swamp Thing TV series that ran on the USA Network.
In one of Durock's final interviews, he confessed that he was not familiar with the character before getting the part.
You know, honestly, I wasn't. I grew up in the era with Superman, Batman, all the classic older comic books, and by the time this came about, I guess I was past the comic book stage. In my era, comic books were strictly for kids, though, later on, they obviously had a great adult appeal.
Durock said that he enjoyed playing Swamp Thing, but there were definitely aspects of the role that he did not relish.
I hated the thought of having to go through the whole thing of wearing 50, 60, 70 pounds of weight in the summertime in Savannah, Georgia, but the money was there, and it's a job.
Joel Silver, the producer the Predator, Die Hard, and Matrix series, recently announced his interest in reviving the Swamp Thing franchise using digital 3-D technology.
Posted 09.25.09 by BrentJS -
Ever since Jeffrey Dean Morgan appeared in Watchmen, he hasn't stopped working. Dean Morgan has already finished the period drama Shanghai, is currently shooting The Losers (another comic book adaptation), and, he tells ComingSoon, will start work on yet another movie once The Losers wraps:
I'm jumping back in. I go to work on something about ten days after I've finished shooting [The Losers] ... It's a remake of a movie that I love ... Red Dawn I just love that f**king movie, ever since I was a kid.
Dean Morgan will trade the warm climates of The Losers' Puerto Rican location for Red Dawn's Detroit, where he will join Chris Hemsworth (the newly minted Thor), Josh Peck, Adrienne Palicki, and Josh Hutcherson to play a member of a militant group that fights off a communist invasion.
I guess I'm more or less the old Powers Booth character. There's all the kids and Powers Booth is the pilot that lands in the film and kind of helps them take down the bad guys. Blow communism away. It's a really good, young cast. I'll be the old guy in it, which is cool.
Red Dawn is scheduled for release September 2010, at which point Dean Morgan hopes to be working on a third comic book movie, Lobo, an adaptation focused on DC Comics' violent anti-hero being directed by Guy Ritchie. Dean Morgan has an in for the role, considering Joel Silver is producing both The Losers and Lobo, but he told SuperheroHype that he may have to do some special training in order to be cast:
Lobo would be very cool. I don't think that I'm as big as Lobo is, but if you could, like, transplant Mickey Rourke's body on my head, that would be just great.
Dean Morgan says his involvement in comic book movies is no accident:
You're always looking for material that's kind of smart and fun and this seems to be where it is right now. The studios are really gravitating towards it, more than I've ever seen them gravitate towards anything in a long time. Comic books are really the thing right now and I don't see that going away for at least the next couple of years.
Posted 09.15.09 by Ryan