Homage to Marvel – By BlackMeal
Check out this BlackMeal homage to Marvel, which created most of the superheroes who entertained generations of children and adults for more than 80 years.
BLACKMEAL – MARVEL from BlackMeal on Vimeo.
Gangs of New York – The Television Series
This is how it should have been done originally, Deadwood style… Gangs of New York is being developed for the small screen.
Scorsese is now working with his Gangs of New York distributor Miramax (or the current version of Miramax, at least) to develop a TV series based on the 2002 film.
The idea is not just to explore the area of early New York covered in the film, but to look at gangs in cities such as Chicago. And while the show would no doubt lack the commanding presence of the film’s top-level cast, this seems like a much better idea than a Goodfellas show, which was originally planned a few years back. By expanding the scope, the creators would have ample opportunity to break away from what we saw in the film. And while Goodfellas is a look at a single iconic character in the sweep of American crime history, Gangs offers the potential to craft an on-going story that would not affect or diminish the better aspects of the film. After his success with the superlative Boardwalk Empire, this looks promising.
In short, Gangs of New York is great material, but while the film has incredible aspects, it was not exactly an exceptional exploration of the story. There’s a lot more to play with.
Via Variety, Scorsese said in a release,
This time and era of America’s history and heritage is rich with characters and stories that we could not fully explore in a two hour film. A television series allows us the time and creative freedom to bring this colorful world, and all the implications it had and still does on our society, to life.
Current Miramax head Richard Nanula said,
No one better exemplifies what the new Miramax is and will be better than Martin Scorsese. His dedication to quality and the art of storytelling continues to excite everyone that works with him and watches his films and television programs. We could not think of a better partner for this project than the creator of the wonderful film on which it is based.
Zombieland – Amazon TV Pilot
Check out this press release from Sony Pictures TV, marking the first Amazon original project from a major studio:
SEATTLE—March 25, 2013—Amazon Studios, the original movie and series production arm of Amazon.com, today announced it will add cult classic Zombieland to the line-up of pilots already in production for Prime Instant Video. Zombieland, which is the seventh comedy pilot added to Amazon’s pilot line-up, will be made available (along with the other six comedy pilots and six children’s pilots) for free on Amazon Instant Video and LOVEFiLM UK. Customers are invited to view the pilots and then review them on the site; customer feedback will help determine which of the 13 pilots Amazon Studios will make into full-season productions, to air on Prime Instant Video.
“Zombieland is a fan favorite and we can’t wait to see where this story line goes in a serialized format,” said Roy Price, Director of Amazon Studios. “We’ve been announcing a lot of exciting exclusive content for Prime Instant Video, like Downton Abbey, Under the Dome, and Justified, and we think adding original shows to that lineup is going to make Prime even more enticing for customers.”
Zombieland is based on the hit Columbia Pictures movie of the same name, and finds four survivors outwitting zombies and searching for a place to call home. The Zombieland pilot comes from the feature film’s original creative team, writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (G.I. Joe: Retaliation, The Joe Schmo Show), and producer Gavin Polone (Gilmore Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm). Eli Craig (Tucker and Dale vs. Evil) is directing the pilot.
The part of Tallahassee will be played by Kirk Ward (The Island), Maiara Walsh (Desperate Housewives, Switched at Birth,) is cast as Wichita, Tyler Ross (Milkshake) will play Columbus, and Izabela Vidovic has the role of Little Rock.
“Zombieland will strive to break the rules—action, adventure, thrills, chills and laughs and all packed into a half hour format, said creator Paul Wernick. “This is not your average show but Amazon is not your average network.”
Comprehensive cast and crew information, including bios and filmographies, is available on Amazon’s IMDb, the world’s most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content.
Psycho – Shower Scene Storyboards
Storyboards by Saul Bass for the infamous shower scene from the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho.
Within the Woods – Sam Raimi’s Horror Debut
Prior to making The Evil Dead, Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and their friend and producing partner Robert Tapert, who also serves as a producer on the new Dead, were enterprising college students who had been making slapstick comedy shorts on Super 8 with a group of their close friends – including fellow filmmakers Scott Spiegel and Josh Becker – and looking forward to the day when they could become big shot Hollywood filmmakers. But they quickly discovered that in order to make their names known in the industry they would have to abandon their comfort zone of goofball hilarity and make an independently-financed feature in a more marketable genre. Based on the healthy box office profits made by movies like Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween Raimi and company chose to make their motion picture debut a dark and violent horror film.
The only thing was, Raimi didn’t really care for horror movies, and neither did most of his friends and collaborators. But one of their big Super 8 comedy shorts, a mystery spoof titled It’s Murder, though it failed to find an audience on the college circuit, did have one sequence that made those who bothered to actually see it leap out of their seats: a scare scene where a person is attacked by a killer hiding in the back seat of their car. Inspired by this, Raimi hashed out a script by his university class fascinations with author H.P. Lovecraft and the Egyptian Book of the Dead, gathered up his usual gang of movie-making miscreants (many of whom would go on to work on the original Evil Dead), and on a particularly warm Spring in 1979 they all travelled out to a farm owned by Tapert’s family in Marshall, Michigan armed with a budget of $1,600 and the best filmmaking equipment their meager budget would allow to make the short feature that would ultimately lead to the launching of serious prosperous careers in cinema and television: Within the Woods.
Campbell was the natural choice to play the lead, a curious guy named Bruce whose wanton desecration of an Indian burial ground unleashes the dark forces of evil that turn him into a murderous ghoul. Ellen Sandweiss, a friend of the boys who had also appeared in many of their Super 8 shorts, played his girlfriend and the besieged heroine of Within the Woods, with Spiegel and Mary Valenti, a Tapert family friend, cast in supporting roles.
The plot of Within was roughly what the story for The Evil Dead would be, with a few differences. Within the Woods would also give Raimi the chance to evolve his filmmaking style into what it would become by the time he made his feature directorial debut, utilizing handheld camera techniques to evoke the feeling of the unseen evil lurking in the woods advancing on its victims at top speed.
Michael McWilliams, a film critic for the Detroit News, wrote a positive review of the short in which he stated that “it will probably never be advertised alongside the glossy, big-budget horror movies of our time, but you won’t easily forget a locally produced little film called Within the Woods”. McWilliams also wrote that Raimi’s microbudgeted little film easily contained more chills and thrills than more extravagant Hollywood fare like The Amityville Horror. Boosted by the enthusiastic response Raimi, Campbell, and Tapert set out to find investors willing to fund their first full-length movie, originally titled Book of the Dead, using Within the Woods as a visual aid in their presentations. In a matter of months they had amassed enough money to commence production, and they were off to a lonely cabin in the Tennessee woods with a cast and crew in tow. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Within the Woods has never been made commercially available on any of the myriad of Evil Dead DVD and Blu-ray releases most likely because of unspoken legal complications due to it’s use of pre-existing soundtracks from Hollywood movies and the degradation in print quality, though a re-scored and remastered copy was almost included as a bonus feature on a 2002 “Book of the Dead” edition of Dead distributed by Anchor Bay Entertainment. However, it is widely available for viewing online in a variety of picture and sound qualities so you can watch the birth of a legacy of cinematic horror and witness several future filmmaking careers begin to take shape. Check it out…
Escape From New York – Poster Art
Movie poster art for the John Carpenter sci-fi classic, Escape From New York. The top row features original posters from Italy, France and Japan, as well as an alternate US version; the bottom row features fan art from the net…
Escape From New York – Remake News
More bad remake news… Joel Silver’s Silver Pictures has joined forces with Studio Canal to build a new franchise with a retelling of Escape From New York. The 1981 John Carpenter original starred Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, a tough convict dropped into a futuristic New York that has been turned into a post-apocalyptic maximum security prison. He’s charged with rescuing the president (Donald Pleasence), who is held hostage by the prison kingpin (Isaac Hayes) after his plane crashes within the city walls. Snake’s offered a pardon if he’s successful, but fitted with a lethal device that will kill him if he tries to run or misses the deadline.
A remake had been attempted not that long ago at New Line with producer Neil Moritz and The Crazies helmer Breck Eisner, with Gerard Butler, Jeremy Renner and Tom Hardy all mentioned as potentials to play Plissken. That effort ended when New Line let the option lapse almost two years ago.
Studio Canal has entrusted Silver with the rights, who is planning an entirely new take on the material. The goal is to turn it into a trilogy, starting with an origin story in a fashion similar to the way Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes restarted that franchise. Studio Canal will finance development of the project before placing it with a studio. A writer search is underway.
American Horror Story – Season 3
At PaleyFest, Executive Producer Ryan Murphy officially announced where the hit series American Horror Story would go after the first 2 successful seasons. After a haunted mansion and then an insane asylum with aliensand Nazi war criminals it only made sense to go to witches next. “It’s a really cool story we’ve been talking about for a couple of years, and this seemed the year to do it.”
The show will start filming in New Orleans and then move on to multiple locations. Much of the old cast returns such as Francis Conroy, Jessica Lange, Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson, Lily Rabe, and Taissa Farmiga. At Paleyfest veteran actor Kathy Bates joined the crew to a standing ovation and garnered massive applause as the newest cast member. She will be playing Jessica Lange’s former best friend and current nemesis. Murphy promised that both Bates and Lang will go toe to toe throughout the 13 episode season. Bates mentioned that she has liked the show from the very beginning and was willing to do “anything” to be a part of the show. Murphy was thrilled and now we all get to enjoy her immense talent.
Murphy also teased that he may be conjuring up a companion piece for American Horror story with the theme being vampire based. Apparently, fans roared with excitement which was probably just what Murhpy needed to make up his mind on the subject. Bring it on!
Zombie Research Explains Why We Love ‘Walking Dead’
Good news, zombie fans! It turns out our macabre fascination with the undead has some actual science behind it! And I guess by “good news,” I really mean “bad news,” because according to a professor who’s been studying the popularity of shows like The Walking Dead, we turn to zombies when we’re feeling high levels of cultural dissatisfaction and economic upheaval.
So the next time someone criticizes you for being obsessed with a gory TV show, you can loftily point out that you’re not just watching people get eaten alive in high-def — you’re exercising your right as a citizen to process your feelings of political disempowerment. In other words, you love zombies because you hate THE MAN.
Or something like that, anyway. Sarah Lauro, an English professor at Clemson University who studied zombies while working on her doctoral degree, theorizes that zombies have become popular because we are dissatisfied with the government or society. Lauro is a self-described horror “chicken” who researched movies, television shows, video games, and zombie walks in order to explore the nature of zombies in society. She says,
(People dress like zombies) to make visible their dissatisfaction with a government they feel isn’t listening to them or an economic system that makes them brain-dead consumers; some do it as a kind of exercise of community, just to show how the collective can be organized and made to participate in an event without any ties to commercialism; many have no idea why they do it, but some play dead, one supposes, just to feel alive.
She points out that the notion of a dehumanized individual not in control of their actions can be used to explore the dangers of science, of emerging technology, the fear of rapid change, and other societal harms. Of zombie mobs, which originated in 2003 and escalated in popularity along with the public’s dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, Lauro says,
It was a way that the population was getting to exercise the fact that they felt like they hadn’t been listened to by the Bush administration. Nobody really wanted that war, and yet we were going to war anyway.
She adds,
We are more interested in the zombie at times when as a culture we feel disempowered. And the facts are there that, when we are experiencing economic crises, the vast population is feeling disempowered. … Either playing dead themselves … or watching a show like ‘Walking Dead’ provides a great variety of outlets for people.
Who knew there were so many serious, complicated feelings behind our fervent desire to see Andrea gnawed by a hungry zombie? Courtesy of CafeMom.
WTF Happened to Horror..?
Things sure looked different in my day… Courtesy of sitanshu_arjan at 9GAG
Terminator 2 Judgment Day – An Interview with Stan Winston
For Terminator 2: Judgment Day, in addition to the T-1000 puppets and effects, Stan Winston Studio created a series of appliance makeups for Arnold Schwarzenegger that would reveal the 800-series Terminator’s deterioration through the course of the story, as well as animatronic Schwarzenegger puppets for gags that couldn’t be performed by the actor or his stunt man, and full-sized, articulated endoskeletons for an opening future war sequence.
Iron Man 3 – Posters
Meet the brand new Tony Stark, Mandarin and War Machine in this new series of posters…
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