Aeon Flux writers molest 'Boys'

I didn't know what to think about the Aeon Flux movie adaptation. It was so weird and non-sensical that I wasn't sure if it sucked or it was just doing what the TV show did. Which was...be weird and make no sense. So, instead of judging the writing duo composed of Matt Manfredi and Phil Hays on Aeon Flux, I'll take a look at what else they've done. Let's see...Crazy/Beautiful and the Tuxedo(starring Jackie Chan). Nevermind.

Best known for their work on “Aeon Flux,” “The Tuxedo” and “Crazy/Beautiful,” Manfredi and Hay will adapt the project which follows a top-secret branch of the CIA that monitors superheroes. In this world, however, superheroes behave like over-privileged celebrities, often engaging in adult — and illegal — activities. The series made headlines around comic websites a year ago when it was unceremoniously dropped from DC Comics’ Wildstorm imprint, with rumors pointing to its highly-adult subject matter, and eventually found it way to Dynamite Entertainment.

I've never read the graphic novel, but I've heard it's pretty good. I can only imagine how good it could be in capable hands, such as these guys'. Maybe it'll top the Tuxedo and Crazy/Beautiful...COMBINED! Possibly to star an ensemble cast comprised of Jackie Chan, Kirsten Dunst and Charlize Theron. Couldn't possibly suck then.

MTV

Michael Bay saves us from asteroids. Really.

In 21 years, an asteroid named Apophis is scheduled to pass within the moon's orbit. Fearing that we'll be smashed into a billion-trillion little bits, someone decided it'd be good to start a competition to see who could come up with the best plan to move the asteroid. Cleverly, this competition was named the Move an Asteroid Competition.

Now, apparently, Michael Bay is some sort of rocket scientist, because he came up with the winning idea in Armageddon. Unfortunately, Billy Bob Thornton laughed at him, and the whole idea was tossed out.

The Register reports that Mary D’Souza recently won the competition for the paper entitled “A Body Solar Sail Concept for the Deflection of 99942 Apophis.” D’Souza’s plan calls for wrapping the asteroid with mylar film, which will cause solar radiation pressure to move the asteroid off of its path.

As I read this news, I realized that I had heard an extremely similar plan long ago: It was one of the solutions presented for the asteroid that threatened to destroy us in Michael Bay’s Armageddon.

For those of you who don’t have 100% recall of that film, remember that before they hire Bruce Willis’ character to sweep in and save Earth, Billy Bob Thornton at NASA entertained a wide variety of solutions to dealing with the asteroid. Here is the exact line from the movie, delivered by one of NASA’s scientists:

"Some of us have got this idea: We want to land a craft, deploy solar sails. You’ll have a great big canopy. Solar winds will be caught by these mylar sails!"

This outlandish and ridiculous plan draws an extremely pissed off response by Billy Bob Thornton:

"C’mon guys! We’ve gotta come up with something realistic here!"

The take-away message here is that Billy Bob Thornton is bad for humanity and Michael Bay is good. If you asked me, which you didn't but I'm telling you anyway, I would prefer Bruce Willis be the savior of humanity.

/film

Marvel goes from comic to film to anime

That's a logical step, right? Marvel is teaming up with Madhouse, one of Japan's top animation studios, to adapt classic Marvel characters(and, eventually, the entire universe) into anime TV shows.

Madhouse is currently in production on the first of four new series (12 x 30 minutes), which are scheduled to launch in spring 2010. The initial series will feature characters including Iron Man and Wolverine, among others, and Madhouse will ultimately look to adapt the entire Marvel Universe, creating in essence a whole new character base for Marvel.

“We are incredibly excited to have this full collaboration with Marvel to create a completely new world that has never been done before in the Marvel Universe. This will be the first time there will be a full Japanese anime style for Marvel, and the Madhouse creative team is fully engaged to bring this to a worldwide audience,” said Jungo Maruta, president and CEO of Madhouse Inc.

The Marvel anime series will debut on ANIMAX, the first and largest 24-hour network dedicated to anime.

I'd say this is a radically different approach to Marvel properties, but their Saturday morning cartoons have emulated the anime style for years now(along with most other Saturday morning cartoons).

Marvel Press Release

Eddie Murphy stars in another comedy, painful sighs are heard 'round the world

Eddie Murphy and movies have had somewhat of a pathetic/terrible relationship recently. He has clearly fallen off of his throne as a comedy great with craptastic feces fests such as the Adventures of Pluto Nash, Meet Dave and so on and so forth. It's no wonder that news of him being in a new movie brings as much torment to movie-goers as the inclusion of Nicolas Cage in a movie. So, with yet another 'comedy' on the way, it's a given that optimism for Eddie Murphy's career is at an all time low. However, some of the news seems promising...

Last month, Murphy told MTV News that for his next movie, “1000 Words,” he spends half the movie totally silent due to the fact that his character learns he only has 1000 words left before he dies.)

Maybe if Eddie Murphy can't talk, the movie will be funny. Or not. Hell, even I'm not that hopeful.

MTV

Babylon A.D. will probably suck

I know I shouldn't be surprised, but I was kinda hoping it'd be okay. Alas, when a director trashes his own movie, you know it's going to suck. Such is the case with Babylon A.D.. Apparently, director Matthieu Kassovitz thinks that Fox is terrible and only cares about money and stupid action. Is anybody surprised by that? I hope not.

In a new interview at AMCTV Kassovitz says of Babylon A.D., "I'm very unhappy with the film. I never had a chance to do one scene the way it was written or the way I wanted it to be. The script wasn't respected. Bad producers, bad partners, it was a terrible experience." "

If you read that quote and are thinking he may not exactly be talking about Fox, think again. The final quote in the article brings it home. "I should have chosen a studio that has guts. Fox was just trying to get a PG-13 movie. I'm ready to go to war against them, but I can't because they don't give a shit."

The film has been in post-production for some time and has apparently been cut down to a meager 93 minutes with a reported 70 minutes falling to the cutting room floor. AMC mentions a quote star Vin Diesel gave a while back saying, "Am I even in the movie any more, or am I on the cutting room floor?"

It's interesting to see a director talk about a film of his in such a way, especially when he says it is "pure violence and stupidity" saying parts of it "are like a bad episode of '24'."

I might wind up seeing it out of morbid curiousity, anyway. Even so, disappointing to hear.

Rope of Silicon

Woody Harrelson 'lands' zombie movie role

Harhar. Bad pun aside, Woody Harrelson is the first actor to sign on to the upcoming action-comedy, Zombieland. I like the idea. Zombie comedies tend to be pretty good, too.

Harrelson is the first actual living breathing human being to sign onto the cast of Ruben Fleischer’s zombie action comedy, in which a pair of mismatched guys, survivors of a zombie apocalypse, find redemption and friendship in amongst the blood and the guts and the grue.

Let's all just hope this doesn't suck.

Empire Online

National Lampoon sinks lower than Scary Movie makers

You'd like to think that the makers of the Scary Movies/Date Movie/Epic Movie/Meet the Spartans/Disaster Movie/etc. were the kings of terrible comedy, wouldn't you? Well, you might actually be wrong. Another rapidly decling comedy franchise is pulling off the gloves and getting down and dirty. National Lampoon is making a 300/Gladiator/whateverancientepicyoucanname spoof.

"Really?!?" you might ask. Since when did National Lampoon movie from crappy college-related comedies to directly spoofing movies? Who the hell knows? What's even sadder about this is that the Scary Movie guys already tackled this with Meet the Spartans.

Set to star in this crapfest known as National Lampoon's The Legend of Awesomest Maximus are Kristanna Loken, Rip Torn and Tony Cox. Hold on to your butts.

Empire Online

Method Man hopes to bring class to a film with Nicolas Cage

What could possible make a comic book movie starring Nicolas Cage any better? Add Method Man! Please! Anyone will make the movie more enjoyable than Nicolas Cage will.



MTV

Box Office Breakdown

Tropic Thunder takes the lead again last weekend at the movies.

1. Tropic Thunder - $16.5 M

Tropic Thunder continues to prove its worth as a pretty good comedy that can beat a movie that's been out for over a month and a couple movies that might not even be worth rentals.

2. The House Bunny - $15.1 M

It amazes me that this even made what it did. Maybe movie-goers thought they'd be seeing actual playmates prancing around in the buff or something. At least, I hope that's why they went to see this.

3. Death Race - $12.2 M

I'm also suprised that this didn't do better. Considering what sort of movie this is, you'd think it would've done better in its inaugural weekend and beat a second rate comedy. Apparently not. Next week doesn't look any brighter, because movies like this tend to have an even shorter shelf-life than aforementioned second rate comedies.

4. The Dark Knight - $10.3 M

Batman is still hanging in there with his grappling hook firmly planted in the theaters. It's not surprise that this is still up here. What's even less of a surprise is that it should have surpassed $500 M in the next two weeks.

5. Star Wars: The Clone Wars - $5.66 M

This may be somewhat surprising. A Star Wars film performed as horribly as this did in its opening weekend, and then it dropped off this sharply? Surely a sign of the end-times. I may not have seen The House Bunny, but I'd wager this was better. You'd certainly think it would've made more than it in its first weekend, at least.

6. Pineapple Express - $4.8 M

I usually don't go down to #6, but the funniest movie of the year(thus far) warrants it.

Box office stats courtesy of Rope of Silicon.

Riddick's adventures chronicled again...twice.

After two movies, a straight-to-DVD anime, a video game and a four year hiatus, Vin Diesel finally talks about the return of his semi-famous character. The original film, Pitch Black, was something of a fan-favorite. While the second movie didn't do too well, the video game was another fan-fave. So, it might somewhat make sense that they're planning two more sequels. Somewhat.

“David Twowy right now is writing the scripts. The only question is whether we take a page from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ guys and try to shoot the two chapters at the same time. There are two more in mind,” he said of Riddick, the Furyan warrior first introduced in the 2000 film “Pitch Black.” “‘The Chronicles of Riddick’ was presented as a three part trilogy that would answer ‘Pitch Black’ in the same way that ‘Lord of the Rings’ answered ‘The Hobbit.’”

I don't know about comparing the series to Lord of the Rings in any way, but I can see good coming to this. Unlike many, I still enjoyed the Chronicles of Riddick, even if it was a tad mediocre. With a remake of the video game scheduled, it makes sense to also try to bring it back to the big screen...even if the game winds up doing better than the movies.


MTV