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February 25 Speed Racer gets The Matrix treatment
Japanese anime Speed Racer never made any waves here in the UK but was popular enough across the Atlantic to justify the big budget live action treatment. Even that would be no great shakes if the new movie wasn't written and directed by the Wachowski Bros, creators of that mine of Manga references The Matrix trilogy. If the trailer is anything to go by, the Wachowski's have made an acid trip of a movie that combines the visual styles of a Saturday morning cartoon and Nintendo's F-Zero video game. Trippy would be an understatement.
February 23 Olympic race on for John Woo's Red Cliff
Director John Woo returns to his roots with his next movie Red Cliff, the most expensive Asian financed film to date, which depicts China’s epic Battle Of Red Cliffs of 208AD fought with over 1 million men.
It has been described as Woo’s 'last chance to return to relevance’ as the once highly acclaimed Hard Boiled and Face/Off director famous for discovering Chow-Yun Fat had, if you’ll excuse the pun, gone off the boil.
Formerly known as The Battle For Red Cliff, the film is the first of a two-part adaptation the historical novel Romance Of The Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong which the Beijing government is eager to have released before the Summer Olympics. It is described as a showcase of Chinese history.
Part two of the movie is due for release before the end of 2008.
Check out my Photo Albums for 12 screen shots from Red Cliff.
February 22 DiCaprio to star in Akira live action movie?Two decades after the release of the anime movie that put Manga on the map for Western audiences, Warner Bros have announced a live action version of Akira.
The 6 book Manga will be translated into a two part movie, the first of which is being fast-tracked for release in Summer 2009.
What will shock purists is that the film will be set in New Manhattan, "a city rebuilt by Japanese money after being destroyed 31 years ago", instead of Neo-Tokyo despite the involvement of original author (and director of the anime version) Katsuhiro Otomo as executive producer. However I suspect that leaking this info on to the net now is a way of dissipating the heat long before the film hits the screen.
There are rumours - on Wikipedia no less! - that Leonardo DiCaprio could be playing the lead character Kaneda, and Joseph Gordon Levitt (3rd Rock From The Sun) could play Tetsuo. However this is pure speculation, probably due to the fact that DiCaprio's production company Appian Way is to co-produce. Warners have made no announcement regarding casting.
Andrew Lazar and Jennifer Davisson are also named as producers.
The first installment will be directed by Ruairi Robinson (The Silent City) from a script by English screenwriter, games designer and video games journalist Gary Whitta (Star Trek: Voyager, Futurama) best known for his writing contributions to video games Gears Of War, Prey and Duke Nukem.
Prepare for the return of 'cyber punk'!!!
Find out more -
Host sequel is a prequelBefore Cloverfield there was The Host, the South Korean monster movie that broke box office records back home and won 18 International awards, despite not knowing whether it was horror, black comedy or an environmental disaster film.
Put simply it’s just plain WEIRD but highly entertaining and well worth a DVD purchase.
Despite director and co-writer Bong Joon-ho distancing himself, a sequel was inevitable and is due for release in 2009.
The sequel has been scripted by Korean comic artist Kang Full and is a prequel, set 3 years before the original movie takes place. And with a budget of $10.7 million it is promising to deliver even more monsters.
Here is a sketch gleaned from Beyond Hollywood of what one of the new monsters will look like. More:
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