Two highlights at the Fox presentation…
1) The naked BORAT clip. Borat & his producer wrestled naked through a busy hotel.
2) Jim G, co-head of the studio, getting bounced out of his front row seat by security… and taking it with a smile and silence. (Even as the security guard figured out what he had done and pleaded for forgiveness and Jim was all “don’t worry about it”.)
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Borat’s gonna be great.
Jeffmcm – read this. Let that last paragraph soak in.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002877713
You know, I almost expected this to be linked on the front of MCN, under a header like… “Singer admits superhero approach is to ripoff Trek, months after a loyal MCN reader had already dissected it”…but that’s fine.
So if he’s gonna “get all ‘Wrath of Khan’ on it” for Superman Returns Again, that would seem to indicate that he did not intentionally get all ‘Wrath of Khan’ on Superman Returns. 🙂
hahaha – nice try. I knew you’d write that.
To me, it reads as a quasi-Freudian slip. He’s aware of what he’s doing but doesn’t think the audience is, so he can reference it and act like it’s something to get excited about. It seems Zod would be his Khan, so he feels he can use the transparency to his advantage. It also shows he sees the criticisms of SR being akin to ST:TMP and I’d bet that’s part of his sell line to WB on how to fix the sequel.
The original voice of Optimus Prime, Peter Cullen, was just named at Comicon as Bay’s choice for the role for the new film. I can’t tell you guys how excited this makes me. Optimus was like a frikkin’ father figure to me when I was a kid — like John Wayne as a kickass dad except in robot form. Honest to God there’s nothing quite like the total Optimus package. This may just be a bone that the filmmakers are tossing to the original fans, but hell if I care, cause this is awesome! Cullen’s voice was the soul of the show, and his casting brings that sort of gravitas to the new film for me.
Yes, I almost cried when I heard this news. And yes, I am a very sad geeky twenty-something guy.
Sorry Martin, the parallels are still just too vague. I agree with the notion that Singer is referencing Khan more to persuade Warner something along the lines of “Don’t fire me, I know how to fix this problem that I caused”.
What are you talking about re: Zod? He was already defeated in the movie just before Singer’s version, to follow the “Superman 3.2” continuity.
Martin… what do they do with the kid? And the ex-wife? And the angry ex-fiance’?
They have one big problem… I doubt Brad Bird will work for them.
Me? Oliver Stone’s Superman might be fun. Has anyone asked Donner? Zemeckis, post Beowulf? Guillermo del Toro? Do The Wachowskis have any ideas? Curtis Hanson? What about an Eastwood directed Superman?
There a lot of actually interesting options. Bryan Singer trying to redeem himself is a shitty one.
Martin –
Weren’t you the one that heard Singer did Superman in a play for Star Trek? (you always seem to be on point when it comes to the real inside baseball shiyat like that)
If so, my question is: Why didn’t he just approach Grey and Paramount straight up and make a bid for the franchise? I would think Singer definitley has/had enough clout that he coulda got it.
Even with the failure of Superman Returns, I would rather see a Bryan Singer version of Star Trek over J.J. (and I’m a big J.J fan)
Only because Bryan is as true a fan of Star Trek as any of the hardest Trekkers and to see a true fan film with his skills would be cool.
Fan Wank –
If I was in charge of the series, I’d figure out a way to bring Shatner back one more time, kill him off, and give Kirk a sendoff befitting of the character.
The way they did it in that horrible film is as bad as anything in the Prequals.
Jeff – If you’re asking me to find logic in it, forget it, but Dougherty/Harris have mentioned Zod a few times. I remember it was a bone of contention between Singer and Millar/Gough when they found out they could use him for Smallville this season.
Dave – I never thought of the Incredibles angle. God is that scary.
I know the Wach’s were approached, but turned it down. Proyas was under consideration before Singer stepped in. Donner tried several times, went nowhere. As for Zemeckis, I don’t know which he was offered more, the FF or Supes.
I always wanted to see Kubrick do Superman. It pisses me off that the guy spent a decade trying to figure out how to grab a Spielberg-size audience for a Kubrick film. Spielby should have just told him to grab the biggest icon he finds interesting and do his version of it. Superman, Frankenstein, Bond, Godzilla…it sounds crazy but think of the ads – “Stanley Kubrick’s…”. It would have been a “holy shit I’m excited and scared” reaction.
As for a living director…Mann or Ridley are the obvious. You need that big of a landscape and color palette so the suit doesn’t seem so garish.
I got in a nice argument with a guy involved with Watchmen about why are the producers continually going after unprovens and not the big fish. He said they do, but it doesn’t work out, etc… I finally got the answer to boil down to control and partly profits. Sad to think WB could have SuperMann, instead of SupEmoMan.
But, much to Jeff’s chagrin, the Smallville team is back in play. The series ends in two years.
THX – It was all bad timing. Singer did make a Trek offer in an indirect way , but it was to the old guard, not Grey. Sometime around X2, he got Shatner and Stewart together, hatched an idea that I think McKellan was also apart of, and had someone run it by Paramount. IIRC, that’s when Berman stepped in with two or three Relaunch ideas, but Singer wanted no part of that crew, so he bailed and roled into SR.
After Grey took over, he claimed Trek wouldn’t resurface until ’09-10, so I think Singer felt he had time to negotiate after SR, but before it’s release. How Abrams got it was a talent heist by Grey during MI:3. In other words, Grey was already in the building.
I’m with you re-Singer Trek. I just hope Abrams doesn’t do the Kirk/Spock Early Years idea with Damon. That’s ugly. Personally, I’d love it if they tried to do a Brando/Jor-El with the original crew and went totally retro.
Dave – you check out the Spidey presentation? Seems to have gone over huge. Someone should have asked Topher if he’s signed for a spin-off Venom film.
If anyone wants to know what Spidey 3 is about, watch the first one again. Raimi’s taken a page from the Jim Cameron book to sequels and is mirroring the beats and sequences. It should be very, very good.
Correction – that should be “Abrams was already in the building”.
The Smallville team may be in play, but I would bet my life’s savings that there will never, ever be a Smallville movie. You can quote me on that.
Going by the look of the teaser poster for Trek, it is going that way.
I want to see a film that has just Shatner and Nimoy as Kirk and Spock in a central story with the Next Gen crew, one more time, and see Picard right in there with Kirk and Spock. They could do it. Of course, Shatner is too old to do any fight scenes, but you could have him on the bridge having a battle of wits using starships, etc.
Bummed, it’s not going to happen.
There was also a play going around to do a straight to DVD Star Trek animated one off.
They could get the original cast (what’s left and have them voice a classic adventure) and do something animated like they did in the ’70’s.
I wonder how much of this new idea is Abrams own vision, or his twist on some corporate want?
Considering that Matt Damon is already older now than Shatner was when Trek started, and that he has his own franchise anyway, I doubt that he’ll sign up for the Young James Kirk Chronicles.