Some interesting news from our friends at The Playlist: Peter Jackson has confirmed that following his work on The Hobbit movies, he plans to direct a sequel to The Adventures of Tintin, which begins opening internationally tomorrow. While the fact that he, and not Steven Spielberg, would be the one helming the second film is nothing new, talk of the project had all but petered out recently; now, in the wake of positive critical response, it seems that Jackson is feeling pretty confident that a sequel will really happen.
Good buzz aside, as Spielberg explained to The Hollywood Reporter, nothing is definite yet: “[Sony and Paramount] were willing to do one movie with us and then give us the financial werewithal to develop a script, do all the visual storyboards and get it really in launch position. So we can launch pretty quickly on a second movie. The script is already written.” While we can’t imagine the first film being a total flop given its pedigree, American audiences are notoriously fickle, and Hergé’s Tintin is a more beloved character overseas. Also important to note: regardless of how The Adventures of Tintin performs at the box office, The Hobbit films will keep Jackson busy for the next few years, making any follow-up a distant, if exciting, reality.
Andrew Ainsworth, the British prop designer who made the stormtroopers’ helmets for George Lucas’s Star Wars back in 1977, won a Supreme Court case in Britain today that gives him the right to sell replicas of the costumes (which go for around $2,500 a pop) without permission from the filmmaker or his studio — as long as he doesn’t ship them to the US.
According to ArtsBeat, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, and Steven Spielberg, all wrote letters hoping to help tip the odds in Lucas’s favor, but ultimately had no impact on the court’s final decision: the helmets were props, not works of art, and as such, are not subject to British copyright law. “I am proud to report that in the English legal system David can prevail against Goliath if his cause is right,” Ainsworth said in a statement. “If there is a force, then it has been with me these past five years.”
Welcome to “Trailer Park,” our regular Friday feature where we collect the week’s new trailers all in one place and do a little “judging a book by its cover,” ranking them from worst to best and taking our best guess at what they may be hiding. This week, we’ve got new films from Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Steven Soderbergh, and Guy Ritchie — but don’t get too excited, there’s a new Adam Sandler movie too. Check ‘em all out after the jump.
Okay, we’re about to completely reveal our secret (not so secret?) geekiness here, but we’re pretty darn excited by this just-released second production video from the set of The Hobbit (watch the first one here). In it, we fly with Peter Jackson over hill and dale, searching for the perfect spots in the Southern alps for the 80% of filming they have left to do. Not all of the video is amazing — at the risk of being indelicate, we can’t say we’re overly interested in what each cast member is doing with their break — but it’s a rare chance to get an insider view of what location scouting is like. Plus, you get to watch Peter Jackson flop around on the rocks and talk about keeping Gandalf away from the port-a-loos. Priceless.
1. The Hangover Part II, which grossed $86 million over the holiday weekend, set a box-office record for both the biggest opening ever for a live-action comedy and an R-rated comedy. [via MTV News]
2. Jersey Shore star Snooki crashed her Fiat into a police car in Florence over the weekend. Nobody was seriously injured in the collision, but the two officers in the vehicle — who were ironically part of the security detail assigned to protect the safety of the reality show’s cast — were taken to a hospital with whiplash. [via Gawker]
3. Attention fantasy nerds: Peter Jackson’s two-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit now have official titles and release dates: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (the subtitle for the original 1937 novel) is expected to hit theaters December 14, 2012 and The Hobbit: There and Back Again (an homage to one of the book’s chapters, “An Unexpected Party”) will follow on December 13, 2013. [via EW]
4. The good news: Thanks in large part to Amazon’s decision to sell Lady Gaga’s new album Born This Way for 99 cents for two days last week, it’s on track to sell more than one million copies in its first week. The kind of sad news: That’s still nowhere near the first-week sales record of 2.42 million which was set by ‘N Sync’s No Strings Attached back in 2000. [via LAT]
5. If you’re feeling like your morning could use a few more fairies, watch the first three minutes of Season 4 of True Bloodhere. The new season airs on HBO on June 26th.
1. We’re not sure what to think about the fact that Lenny Kravitz has been cast as Cinna, Katniss Everdeen’s subversive stylist, in the forthcoming film adaption of The Hunger Games. Says director Gary Ross: “When I saw Lenny’s work in Precious I was just knocked out. It was quiet and strong and understated and open hearted; all qualities which define this character. I’m really looking forward to this ride.” [via THR]
2. Bono and the Edge are set to perform songs from Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark on tonight’s American Idol season finale alongside cast members of the Broadway musical. What we’re wondering: Do you think there’s any overlap between the kind of people who like U2 and the ones who care whether Scotty McCreery or Lauren Alaina wins? [via Billboard]
3. In case you missed the awkward flirting last night, find the best parts from Lady Gaga’s first ever interview with David Lettermanhere.
4. The History Channel has given the go ahead to The Bible, a “10-hour, CGI-heavy miniseries” from Survivor producer Mark Burnett, making it his first scripted TV project. Considering what the network did to The Kennedys, we’re betting that poor Charlton Heston is turning over in his grave. [via USA Today]
5. The dangers of Middle Earth: Two people have been hospitalized after an accident on the set of Peter Jackson’s much beleaguered two-film adaptation of The Hobbit. According to a publicist for the movie, it occurred in a production workshop when “a couple of the guys” were drilling on a statue, and they sustained “mild burns but nothing serious.” [via ArtsBeat]
We scored a ticket to a preview screening of Rubber this week. For those who’ve not heard of it, it’s the debut feature film for Quentin Dupieux, better known as Mr. Oizo (and responsible for “Flat Beat,” which anyone of a certain age will remember as “that song with the puppet in the video”). Rubber is very silly and very postmodern –- it’s a horror film about a killer tire (yes, you read that right) and a bunch of people watching said killer tire do its killing. The film doesn’t so much break the fourth wall as comprehensively demolish it and encourage its characters to wander back and forth through the wreckage. As one of the characters says in the intro, the film is an “homage to the great cinematic ideal of ‘no reason,’” and as such it’s the latest in a long line of truly, entertainingly ridiculous horror films. Here’s a selection of some of the funniest (whether intentionally so or otherwise).
Editor’s note: Each Friday, our internet-savvy friends over at BuzzFeed curate a post for us that’s filled with links to some of their favorite items on the web that week. Enjoy!
On Saturday, reports abounded of a Supermoon: a moment when the moon comes 14% closer to the Earth than average, which we’re told occurs once every 18 years. People were quick to post photos of the rare occasion, though it should be noted that a telephoto lens can make the moon look huge at any time of year.
Beyond the big bad wolves of medieval folk tales, animals are mostly appropriated these days for innocent children’s entertainment. From Looney Tunes‘s Bugs Bunny to Ratatouille‘s Remy, fuzzy woodland creatures are now regularly stripped of their primal natures in the name of cuddly, moral-leveraging amusement. But David Sedaris’s Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary — essentially an R-rated answer to Aesop’s Fables — reaffirms that pop culture has had an equally engaged, if somewhat less overt, relationship with animal characters intended for mature audiences. From books to comics, movies to street art, and puppets to paintings, the following artists have created a spectrum of grown-up animal iconography that’s best kept away from young eyes.
