Anchorman Sequel Details Emerge

An Anchorman sequel was officially confirmed a few weeks ago and that announcement was greeted by the sound of triumphant jazz flutes. Writer/star Will Ferrell and writer/director Adam McKay are both on board for a second Ron Burgundy adventure, hoping it goes down just as smooth at the box office as the first film did.

Asked for “a hint about what you’re thinking of having Ron Burgundy do in Anchorman 2,” in a recent interview, McKay responded:

“I don’t want to give away too much, but I’ll just give a couple pieces of ideas that we’ve kicked around. Keep in mind we’re still writing the story, but I’ll say one phrase for you: custody battle. I’ll give you that. I’ll give you one other one: bowling for dollars.”

We’ll have to wait what all that actually means and how the finished script actually turns out. As for  how long we’ll have to wait, apparently may be as long as two years.

Director McKay says the film will likely go into production next February, and Paramount is looking at releasing dates ranging from Christmas to May, 2014.

He also added that, while there will likely be a new leading lady, there will be “something” for Christina Applegate that “we think is pretty cool.” Whether McKay thinks acrimonious custody battles are ‘pretty cool’ remain to be seen.

For now we’re left with lots of unanswered questions. If Ron Burgundy had a baby would it have a moustache? Is Paul Rudd more likable than chocolate pudding?  And the crucial question…  how much longer will we all find Will Ferrell repeatedly raising his voice funny?

Short Circuit Reboot Details

A few weeks ago it was confirmed that Short Circuit was joining the ever increasing list of childhood memories getting a potentially ill-advised reboot. The 80′s cult classic tells the story of friendly robot Johnny Five, who escapes from a government facility after a lightning strike brings it to life.

Alvin and The Chipmunk’s director Tim Hill, has been given the thankless task trying to convince us that an inevitably CGI Robot will look anywhere near as convincing as the real life robot featured in the previous films.

The Garfield 2 and Hop director has recently explained that while he is “tempted to go back and grab the original” design for robot Johnny Five, after careful robotic calculations he’s decided they need to update the character to reflect “what modern design actually is.”

Hill says:

“You’ve got to find the balance between something fierce and something endearing. The original was cute. But no one was threatened by it!”. Perfect just what the youth of today needs to be terrorized by adorable faced Terminators.

Apparently reimagining the Wall-E shaped kid’s favourite as a ruthless killing machine makes sense though because as director Tim Hill is quick to point out, Number Five’s origins have always been as a military robot.

Director Hill enthusiastically point out that we really do now “have drones that do our fighting for us” and “what makes this film so interesting is the moment in the story when Johnny realises he’s going to be disassembled and contemplates death and whether it’s right to terminate someone else.”

Hill does freely admit he’s aware “These are heavy themes for a family movie” but he seems convinced that the best way to ensure the film still has an overall family friendly feeling is to make sure the main human characters are teenagers or even pre-teen.

News Round Up – woody allen & 1984 remake

• Woody Allen doesn’t trust you to recognise Rome so he’s changed the name of his new movie again form Nero fiddled… it’s now called “To Rome with Love”.  Making it obligatory for every single review to refer to it as a love letter to Rome.

 

• Home Alone 5 is now a horrible reality… thanks to Garfield Director Peter Hewitt ABC Family and FOX TV Studios. In sad news Malcolm McDowell is going to sacrifice his last shred of dignity to star as one of the bumbling crooks!

 

• Paramount are reimagining Mark Twain’s Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer as grown up heroes facing supernatural elements. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes producers Peter Chernin and Dylan Clark are on board to develop the script, with Bedtimes Stories writer Matt Lopez also helping to shepherd it to the screen.

 

• Brian Grazers Imagine Entertainment are looking to convince us it’s 1984 again with another big screen adaptation of George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel.

• New trailers for Dark shadows, Prometheus, Madagascar 3.

John Carter already declared dead

Disney was confronted this week the less than magical news that it now expects to loose in the region of $200milion (£126 million) on supposed sci-fi blockbuster John Carter. If these numbers prove to be accurate it would literally make this film the most expensive flop in the history of cinema.

The film is based on the novels of visionary author Edgar Rice Burrows with an estimated budget of $250m with over $100million having been spent on marketing. The first book in the series was published in 1912 with the final volume coming out in 1964.

The film’s director, Pixar’s Andrew Stanton, had previously had great success with films such as Finding Nemo and Wall-E. He recently spoke about being unconcerned about the budget when making films.

The film has taken no more than $184m at box offices worldwide, with cinema owners receiving about half of that total.

The film’s unprecedented financial failure now provokes many obvious questions about why the film unperformed at the box office and how much responsibility falls at the feet of a bloated production and marketing budget.

It also leaves Disney desperately hoping for more success for their other forthcoming tentpol movies The Avengers Assemble and Pixar’s Brave.

Dean Parisot directing RED 2

Red was something of a sneaky success story, earning nearly $200 million at the worldwide box office. Summit entertainment has been playing with a sequel ever since, with word that writers Jon and Erich Hoeber had been hired to write the script. Now director Dean Parisot is taking the job.

He replaces Robert Schwentke, who opted not to return for a second round of Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren as surprisingly effective CIA agent pensioners.

Willis, Malkovich and Mirren may all return, though no deals are locked in yet. It’s likely they will be enthusiastic to come back though because they seemed to genuinely enjoy the fist fighting, gun toting, action packed first installment.

Whether the whole gang is back or not, it’ll have to wait until Willis is done with Die Hard 5, and Summit wants Red 2 shooting before the end of year. It’ll mark Parisot’s fist directing gig  in more than six years

His last effort was 2005’s mis-firing Jim Carrey comedy Fun With Dick And Jane. He’ll definitely be hoping for some more live ammo and  less dull blanks this time round.