Director Guillermo del Toro told reporters during a Hellboy press junket that his first “The Hobbit” movie will stick strictly to J.R.R. Tolkien’s original “The Hobbit” material, however, the second film will take in a wide range of materials from the Tolkien universe inlcluding many of Tolkien’s own notes.
Critics are labeling Heath Ledger’s final performance in the upcoming Batman film “The Dark Knight,” as “spellbinding,” “the perfect portrayal of a frightening villain on a scale never before seen on film,” “truly captivating,” “too realisic” and “a far cry from the campy Joker that Jack Nicholson portrayed back in 1989′s movie, ‘Batman’.” “The Dark Knight premeries on July 18.
Speaking of Batman, director Christopher Nolan told reporters yesterday that he hasn’t begun to think about doing a third installment of the highly popular franchise. When asked what it would take for him to consider sitting center seat for a third movie Nolan joked, “Enormous amounts of cash…I don’t know,” Nolan added. “The only way I can answer that question [is one of] two ways. The first thing to say is, I literally finished this film last week. That was when we finished our IMAX prints. So I have no idea what I’m going to do next, what I’ll do in the future.”
The makers of video game “Rock Band 2″ said earlier this week the sequel to last year’s best-selling predecessor “Rock Band” will be released for the Xbox in September 2008, months ahead of key rival “Guitar Hero.”
Jonathan Levine (“The Wackness”) is writing a screenplay titled “Echelon Vendetta,” an espionage thriller based on David Stone’s novel; the project has been set up at Sony. It centers on a “cleaner,” a CIA operative in charge of keeping dirty laundry from being aired in public, who after the death of a friend begins to investigate the mysterious deaths of several agents.
New hope for cancer sufferers might be found in a drug developed using nanotechnology and a fungus that contaminated a lab experiment. This accidental miracle could be broadly effective against a whole range of cancers, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday. The drug, called lodamin, was improved in one of the last experiments overseen by Dr. Judah Folkman, a cancer researcher who died in January. Folkman pioneered the idea of angiogenesis therapy — starving tumors by preventing them from growing blood supplies.
“Wall-E” may be number one in the United States, but the James McAvoy thrill-ride called “Wanted” is all the rage on the international movie scene. It posted at number one in 18 overseas markets and set a new record for attendence in Russia with a box office of $11 million (USD) in that country alone. The film’s director, Timur Bekmambetov, hails from Russia.
The Australian hometown of the late actor Heath Ledger named a theater in his honor Tuesday for his commitment to acting. The $87 million (USD), 575-seat Heath Ledger Theater in Perth is a “fitting tribute because Ledger was always supportive of other young actors,” Western Australia state Premier Alan Carpenter said at a naming ceremony. Ledger died at the young age of 28 from an accidental prescription drug overdose in New York in January 2008.
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