Warner Brothers has set a May 22, 2009, release date for McG’s “Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins,” starring Christian Bale as the rugged adult leader of the human resistance fighters.
This year’s Academy Award’s ceremony, the 80th for the grand old Oscar, registered its lowest Nielsen ratings since the show began airing on television nearly 6 decades ago.
After walking away with three golden Oscar statues, Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass have reportedly committed to a fourth film in the critically acclaimed Bourne spy-action franchise.
Whatever happen to the proposed “Shazam” movie?” Well, according to director Peter Segal the recently settled writers’ strike delayed his Shazam! film, but he says that it’s still in active development.
“You don’t really want to rush something like Shazam,” Segal said. “I mean, it’s going to be a huge movie. I mean, huge in scope and in price. And so you want to make sure you have a solid script and really pay attention to the casting and all the preproduction that goes into that. So, you know, I think when it’s right, it’ll be made.”
With the date for the Shuttle’s 2010 retirement coming closer every day, the step-up has also increased to ensure that NASA can meet all its projected due dates for delivery of important systems to the International Space Station (ISS) before closing the doors on an unbelievable era in space travel. To drive that point home seven astronauts scheduled to deliver the first part of Japan’s laboratory to the ISS climbed aboard their spaceship on Monday to rehearse for the launch in two weeks. The last mission to the ISS by a Shuttle crew landed back on Earth only two weeks ago making this lay-over one of the shortest in Shuttle history. NASA’s 122nd shuttle flight is scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center on March 11 at 2:28 a.m. EST.
Emily Mortimer and Jackie Earle Haley will play mental patients in the mystery drama “Shutter Island,” Martin Scorsese’s latest collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio. Max von Sydow and Mark Ruffalo have also joined the cast of the Paramount Vantage project, which begins production next week. Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams and Patricia Clarkson also star in the film, which was adapted by Laeta Kalogridis from “Mystic River” author Dennis Lehane’s 2004 novel.
DiCaprio and Ruffalo play two U.S. Marshals who travel to a Massachusetts island to investigate the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane. Chaos ensues as they encounter a web of deceit, a hurricane and a deadly inmate riot that leaves them trapped on the island. Von Sydow will play one of the hospital’s physicians.
Independent movie producer MKR Group, which has the rights to the horror movie “George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead” has sued video game maker Capcom Co Ltd on Monday. MKR Group, alleged that Capcom’s popular “Dead Rising” game was essentially a computer game rip-off of its “Dawn of the Dead” movies.
“Jumper,” the SF feature film starring Hayden Christensen and Samuel L. Jackson may have had only a mediocre showing in the U.S. but is doing a stellar performance on the international market. The sci-fi thriller ruled the international box office for a second weekend, earning an additional $22 million from 40 markets. It finished No. 1 in at least nine markets, including the U.K. Its foreign total now stands at $61.2 million, more than $5 million better than its U.S. accumulated totals since opening day.
CBS Corp Chief Executive Les Moonves said Tuesday during a conference call that the media company has been largely unscathed by either the economic slowdown or a writers’ strike against major television and film studios that disrupted Hollywood.
CBS is the home of such SF venues as “Jericho,” “Ghost Whisperer,” “Moonlight” and the new comedy just picked up for a second season, “The Big Bang Theory.” The network has also snagged international film star Rufus Sewell to star in its adaptation of the British sci-fi series “The Eleventh Hour,” which originally featured Star Trek alum Patrick Stewart in the lead role.
Moonves added that the company is not seeing a recession in its day-to-day operations and that the spot advertising market for TV “remains very strong.”
The Oscars were left with one agonizing question. “Why was young actor Brad Renfroe excluded from its list of those memoralized as passing away over the last year?”
The troubled 25-year-old actor died January 15, 2008 of a heroin and morphine overdose. Heath Ledger, killed by an accidental overdose of prescription drugs one week later, did appear at the conclusion of the three-minute video tribute at Sunday night’s Oscar ceremony.
“Unfortunately we cannot include everyone,” said Leslie Unger, spokeswoman for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. “Our goal is to honor individuals who worked in the many professions and trades of the motion picture industry, not just actors.”
In total, 43 people including makeup artists, a stuntman and several Hollywood agents were included in the tribute. Unger said it was not required that those honored be members of the Academy or past Oscar nominees.
One other actor of note that was snubbed at the Oscars was Whoopi Goldberg. During the night’s festivities one of the highlights was a montage of past Oscar Hosts. Even the notorious David Letterman, who has never been asked back to host the event, was featured, but Goldberg, who did a fine job of hosting, was left out.
Goldberg, herself an two-time Oscar nominee, shared the empty bench with actor/comedian Steve Martin who was also noticeably missing from the montage. Goldberg is now a regular on the ABC hit daytime talk show “The View.”