Check the new trailer (more like another teaser, which does in fact copy many elements from the first) for Fox's THE PEANUTS MOVIE! Snoopy is up to some more high flying adventure and we get to see poor ol' Charlie Brown bullied again (which I've never been fond of in this comic strip).
The Peanuts theme gets some great airtime here and that aspect alone will be enough nostalgia for me to want to be there opening weekend for this 3D animation.
Interestingly, Charles Shultz's son and grandson (Craig and Brian Schultz) co-wrote the script for the movie along with Cornelius Uliano.
Here's the movie's storyline: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus and the rest of the beloved “Peanuts” gang make their big-screen debut, like they’ve never been seen before, in state of the art 3D animation. Snoopy, the world’s most lovable beagle – and flying ace – embarks upon his greatest mission as he takes to the skies to pursue his arch-nemesis The Red Baron, while his best pal, Charlie Brown, begins his own epic quest. From the imagination of Charles M. Schulz and the creators of the ICE AGE films, THE PEANUTS MOVIE will prove that every underdog has his day. Visit the official site at: http://www.peanutsmovie.com/
Check out the first trailer for Fox's 3D animation EPIC! To me the first 30 secs or so really reminds me of THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES - and I guess some FERN GULLY thrown in. Not a bad combination but not entirely original to me. Still the imagery looks impressive and Fox has come a long way with their animations
Here's the storyline for the movie: EPIC is a 3D CG action-adventure comedy that reveals a hidden world unlike any other. From the creators of ICE AGE and RIO, EPIC tells the story of an ongoing battle deep in the forest between the forces of good who keep the natural world alive and the forces of evil who wish to destroy it. When a teen age girl finds herself magically transported into this secret universe, she must band together with a rag-tag team of fun and whimsical characters in order to save their world... and ours.
Wow. 2015 looks like it could be a massive year for Sci-Fi enthusiasts! We already have news that AVATAR 2 is heading toward a 2015 release but could we see a second Fox Sc-Fi tentpole sequel the same year in Ridley Scott's PROMETHEUS 2?
It seems so. THR has word that Fox and Ridley Scott is actively engaged in developing the project. Michael Fassbender and Noomi Rapace are already signed on with a multi-picture option deal but it seems that Damon Lindelof may not return due to scheduling conflicts (or fan outcry as the case may be). Many did not like the storyline for PROMETHEUS and thus could have prompted the search for another writer.
2014 or 2015 seem to be the likely candidate years for a sequel release and with the "Can't rush" attitude that the Fox executives have (a GOOD thing) and the writer vacancy, 2015 looks a bit more likely.
What do you think? Could you handle a double shot of Sci-Fi legends one upping each other in 2015? I think I know the answer to that... :-)
Oh man, I hope these rumors are true - at least for DEADPOOL. I am a HUGE fan of Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool. As far as I'm concerned, that's his role. He did far better with it than he did with GREEN LANTERN and let's face it he IS the merc with the mouth.
So far we know that visual effects guru Tim Miller will be directing an adaption written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (ZOMBIELAND - which I LOVED!).
Bleeding Cool has Rob Liefeld (comic artist) talking about DEADPOOL at the Amazing Arizona Comic Con - check out the video clip!
Liefeld: "They’ve got a great director on the movie, they’ve got a great script. I may or may have not seen some sort of test of footage that would blow your mind if you saw it and go holy crap and that’s Deadpool in costume. Katana swords, guns, shooting people’s faces off and making me laugh. And I may or may not have seen something that looks just like that. And you’ve got what would amount to the first R Rated X-Men movie. Because that script is R Rated. They may or may not have wanted to shoot eight minutes to see how it would play. And all I can tell you, it’s close. It’s closer that it’s ever been to going, or going Naaah, that’s too scary a proposition to make a R Rated Deadpool movie.”
Allow me to repeat for emphasis guys: R-RATED.
If you're wondering why we are talking about Fox for these features and not Marvel themselves is because Fox licensed these characters from Marvel and I'm fairly sure if they don't do something soon with these intellectual properties, they will lose them.
FANTASTIC FOUR could have been much more but it did initiate Chris Evans to superhero fans and thus his eventual acceptance of the Cap role. I want a much better reboot for FANTASTIC FOUR though.
Variety reports that director Josh Trank (CHRONICLE) has had several high level meetings with Fox executives about helming the FANTASTIC FOUR project. Rumor has it the job is his especially if CHRONICLE is well received (and it WILL be).
So, Fox - all the power to ya! Get on DEADPOOL at least! We need a feature film on this character PRONTO and I would love to see more from Josh Trank too...
Here's the storyline: Ridley Scott, director of Alien and Blade Runner, returns to the genre he helped define. With Prometheus, he creates a groundbreaking mythology, in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.
Director: Ridley Scott Writer: Damon Lindelof Studio: 20th Century Fox Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron Release: June 8, 2012
We are hitting another milestone today as MarketSaw hits 2000 posts! And suitably we have an exciting announcement for the occasion: James Cameron, Fox and Paramount have set the date for the re-release of TITANIC in converted stereoscopic 3D, April 6, 2012.
For you history buffs, yes - that is the same date that the actual Titanic set sail for the first and only time.
Here are some quotes from the official press release:
"There's a whole generation that's never seen 'Titanic' as it was meant to be seen, on the bigscreen," said Cameron in a release announcing the 3D release date."And this will be 'Titanic' as you've never seen it before, digitally remastered at 4K and painstakingly converted to 3D."
"Our 30-plus year relationship with Jim Cameron and Lightstorm has been enormously rewarding, from 'Aliens' to 'Avatar', and the global phenomenon of 'Titanic' remains one of the greatest sources of pride in our history," said Fox Filmed Entertainment chairmen and CEOs, Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman.
"This new presentation of Paramount's top-grossing film is particularly special because 2012 is the 100th anniversary of our studio," said Brad Grey, chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures. "Paramount has had the pleasure of introducing audiences to some of the all-time classics of cinema during that century of moviemaking and we cannot think of a better way to mark the occasion than with this re-release of 'Titanic'?"
So we finally get a release date for the much anticipated conversion and we should look forward to one heckuva good job on it. I can assure you that this conversion is being done RIGHT. And it is suiting to have such an announcement for our 2000th post as well!
Michael here. Fox has announced that its next 3D CG animated film from Blue Sky Studios will be called Rio, and will be released on April 8, 2011.
According to Variety, Rio "centers on a nerdy macaw who leaves the comforts of his cage in small-town Minnesota and heads to Rio de Janeiro."
Carlos Saldanha, director of Ice Age: The Meltdown and co-director of the first Ice Age and the upcoming Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, will direct.
I'm very curious to see what else Fox has planned 3D-wise. At ShoWest, Jim Gianopulos said that there would be three 3D releases from Fox in 2010.
It's kind of weird that we now know a Fox 3D film releasing in 2011, but we are still unaware of their plans for 3D movies in 2010. My hope is that Fox continues leading the industry in terms of pioneering epic live action 3D films in 2010 and beyond. As much as I love 3D animated films, we really need to see more big-budget 3D live action movies greenlit.
What do you think the 3D movies from Fox in 2010 will be? Voyage of the Dawn Treader? Fantastic Voyage? The A-Team?
UPDATE: 10/15/08 10:15 am (Pacific): Fox has re-added the December 18, 2009 release date to their site. In addition, we have received word from Fox that the date isstill 100% December 18, 2009.
This confirmation of the release date is awesome news. This should hopefully put the rumors Variety started to rest.
I'm quite excited by Fox's confidence in the date-- it means that we will be seeing the beginnings of Fox's Avatar marketing campaign sooner rather than later-- maybe even this December!
The site, which for months had the release date posted as December 18, 2009, now has it listed as "undefined." Does this change actually signify a delay? I can see no other reason the webmaster would have deleted the release date.
So is this a technical glitch of the update process, or is Avatar's release date up in the air? A delay wouldn't be unexpected: Variety reported thatseveral senior studio executives expected that Cameron would persuade Fox to push the release to 2010.
Jim here - Last December I said that with the additional post production time that was tacked on to AVATAR (moving it from May to December 2009), the movie's budget HAD to have increased. At that time I predicted $225 million at LEAST.
Well Variety is with me on this one and has gone so far as to say $250-300 million for Avatar. They have also echoed what we already knew - AVATAR is a two and a half hour movie.
It was nice to see Rob Legato mentioned again in the Variety piece - he deserves a lot of credit for the real-time system that Cameron uses. Rob is quoted in the piece: "The photo-real digital film is 20% live-action with humans shot on location and 80% live-action mixed with CG elements. It's a CG film with live-action in it". This seems to up the CG ante. Originally, Cameron had been saying that the CG percentage will run about 60%. Or maybe something got lost in the translation. Either way, December 2009 cannot come soon enough.
Will AVATAR be pushed back yet again into 2010? From the Variety post: "...but several senior execs at rival studios predict that Cameron will persuade Fox to push the movie back, because the prospect of releasing a $300 million movie on 1,500 screens worldwide is too nerve-wracking." That statement is assuming that there will only be 1500 3D screens in North America by December 2009 - no way. There will be much more than that, more likely in the ballpark of 3000 to 4000.
In the end, Fox is gambling on Cameron and to me that seems like a pretty safe bet. And no, I don't think AVATAR will be delayed again. If I get word from my sources I will update ASAP as always...
Hey Avatar fans! Got another exclusive bit of news here for ya! Don't know for sure if the T-Shirt is authentic or not, but we are definitely leaning toward the positive as it was not seen on Hollywood boulevard, but rather on the new Star Trek set! (Ok, yeah, I am working on some Trek inside news too - we shall see!)
So while my insider was on set, he saw a dude working there with the following Avatar crew T-shirt: 1. FRONT: All black T-Shirt with AVATAR written in red. 2. BACK: A white Na'vi silhouette holding a spear-like weapon with a large solid gray silhouette image of a multi-legged, scorpion-like creature lying below it. 3. The Na'vi image"has similar proportions, tale size/width, etc of the hi-res concept art we've seen, so if anything changed it's in the details, facial features/body stripe patterns, etc."
That is some pretty interesting stuff. Unverified, but definitely in the right place if it is authentic. I'm am trying hard to get pics of the shirt, or better yet, get my OWN shirt.
It is interesting that the image on the back of the Na'vi concept art is practically the same I exposed here on MarketSaw that 20th Century Fox ordered me me immediately retract. What the hell? Why would Jim Cameron say it is not authentic if his own crew is parading around in them? Note that the representations on the T-Shirt were silhouettes only - no details, just outlines, but heck - what the hell is up with that?
Hope to hear more from my "Star Trek" friend real soon!
20th Century Fox announced that "Ice Age 3" will indeed be made in Digital 3D. After pushing Avatar (James Cameron's 3D epic) back to Christmas 2009, Fox is releasing "Ice Age 3" in 3D on July 1st, 2009 to help fill Avatar's void at the 3D theaters. This is the same date as was originally planned for the 2D release.
Seems kinda back door-ish to me. Have Dreamworks Animation move their 3D sure-to-be-hit "Monsters vs. Aliens" to Easter to avoid "Avatar" and then release their animation tentpole close to Avatar's summer window. Voila. A nice 3D theater reservation system you got there. A side benefit of the assumed production delays over on Avatar.
I would like to hear what Jeff Katzenberg has to say about these recent developments!
Regardless of the controversy surrounding the launch date - I am really looking forward to this 3dpic.Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah and Dennis Leary are all back to lend their voices! Another romp in the really retro.
"Avatar" has been pushed back until December 18th, 2009 from the Memorial Day weekend so that James Cameron has more time for "post-production".
Well we reported back on October 24th that Avatar was seemingly delayed back then! Slow moving productions at the initial several weeks of shooting definitely hinted at trouble brewing and this more than likely contributed to the rescheduling. Of course more development time helps, but it is EXPENSIVE. Look for the cost of "Avatar" to rise by $20-30 million to $225 million total, if not more.
Fox stressed that Cameron is on schedule during this press announcement. Hmmm. Right. They force their friends at Dreamworks Animation to change their plans for the major launch of their mega 3D project "Monsters vs. Aliens" to Easter rather than Memorial Day and now change their minds? To provide special effects while they STILL have 18 months to complete it? Nope. They are delayed all right. I will dig further into this with my sources.
I will say that Weta is different from other special effects companies. They DO NOT throw people at a problem to get it done on time. They have an elite team of developers and animators that work very closely and focus on a high quality of work that is simply not possible when throwing "contractors" at it. Weta no doubt has contributed a bit to this back-log. But I have little reservation in saying the shooting has been slow and the major cause of this reschedule. Cameron himself said on December 3rd:
"We've reworked the camera software on the fly, using a set of look-up curves we wrote ourselves, so now the cameras basically go to a default interocular setting automatically based on focal length and subject distance --- a kind of "auto-stereo" --- which is working really well."
So while they maybe "firing on all eight" now, they certainly were NOT when we first reported the slowdown back in October. Any slowdown (writing software customizations and hacks on the fly) has a domino effect that cannot be easily rectified. Toss in a jumbled and revamped shooting sequence due to Michelle Rodriguez and her date with the penal system and you have all the ingredients for a Yuletide Avatar rather than a summer Avatar.
Also, Fox announced yet another 3D movie tentpole: "Ice Age 3" pegged for July 1st, 2009! More details on that very soon.
I'll discuss more about "Avatar" soon! I knew I'd get to use that graphic again...
