The long walk to the big screen

A blue character from Avatar

As it was reported by Peter Jackson last week, the next Hobbit movie has been renamed to ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ we decided to look back at some other films whose development has been ‘difficult’ to say the least.

1. Alien vs Predator

The movie poster for Alien vs Predator featuring two monsters on a white background.

Image via ExplosionsAreRad.wordpress.com

Released in 2004 after more than a decade of different scripts, changes to the cast, false starts, orphaned tie-ins, several series of video games and even promotions of the movie.

2. Dallas Buyers Club

Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey sitting on a bench in a still from the film Dallas Buyers Club.

Image via slate.com

The screenplay for the oscar winning film was written 1992 by Craig Borten. It took 10 different versions of the script to finally persuade a production company to pick it up. It was then unable to secure financial backing, going through three different directors before Jean-Marc Vallée signed up and eventually released it in 2013.

3. Frozen

Elsa a princess from the movie 'frozen' creates ice and poses in front of a blue background.

Image via Disney.com

Originally planned to be a biography film of the author Hans Christian Anderson (Yawn!!) before it was green lit by Disney to become an adaptation of the ‘Snow Queen’. The film then went into development hell twice, the second time in 2010 due to the difficulty of making the story of the Snow Queen work. It wasn’t until Disney bought in Jennifer Lee, writer of Wreck-It Ralph, as co-director, who decided to make the Snow Queen character of Elsa into one of the film’s protagonists. 

4. Gangs Of New York

A gang, lead by actor Daniel Day Lewis in the movie 'Gangs of New York'

Image via IMDB

Martin Scorsese first started trying to get Gangs of New York made in 1978. He finally did so in 2002.

5. The Hobbit Trilogy

Bilbo the Hobbit walking out of his front door as sun streams in to his house.

Image via Business Insider

The Hobbit went through development hell, before finally being green lit.The film then suffered additional problems involving creative control and the studio’s refusal to allow filming to take place in New Zealand, where the preceding film series The Lord of the Rings had been shot. This was a deal-breaker for director Guillermo del Toro, who left the project. Peter Jackson retook control of the project and split it into three films, the first of which was released in December 2012.

6. Inglorious Basterds

Christoph Waltz playing Colonel Landa in the film Inglorious Basterds

Image via Wikipedia

Quentin Tarantino announced his plans to shoot a World War II movie titled Inglourious Basterds shortly after the 1997 release of Jackie Brown. As of 2007, he was still working on the script. The film began shooting in late 2008 and was released in August 2009. Inglourious Basterds was Tarantino’s most commercially successful film until his spaghetti western homage Django Unchained was released three years later.

7. Iron Man

Iron Man holding out his arm towards the camera.

Image via Marvel

The film had been in development since 1990 at Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox and New Line Cinema, until the rights were reacquired by Marvel Studios in 2006. The project was Marvel’s first self-financed film, being distributed by Paramount Pictures. The script was originally written by multiple writers and the film and attached to direct were several directors, including Joss Whedon, Quentin Tarantino and Nick Cassavetes. Originally, actor Tom Cruise was in talks to play the role of Tony Stark, before the role went to Robert Downey Jr. after Jon Favreau was finally hired as director.

8. Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

The words 'Star Wars' with a gold outline on a black background

Image via screenrant.com

The Star Wars sequel trilogy remained in development hell beginning in 1983 since the concept was born in 1975. Even though the prequel trilogy was created with the films released in 1999, 2002 and 2005, the sequel trilogy was changed and denied for several years. The trilogy was brought back in 2012 after Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm, starting with Star Wars Episode VII, which is scheduled for a 2015 release.

9. Avatar

A blue character from Avatar

Image via hollywood reporter.com

James Cameron has previously stated that his idea for the story of Avatar was ready before he even began filming Titanic in 1996 but that the technology needed to make the film simply didn’t exist. Production company Fox eventually backed out of the film in 2006 due to budgetary reasons, it wasn’t until Ingenious Media offered to back more than half of the $237 million needed for the film that Fox returned to the project which went on to become the highest grossing film of all time.

10. The Lord Of The Rings

Peter Jackson holding an Oscar statuette at the Academy Awards

Image via nj.com

There is something about either Peter Jackson or J.R.R Tolkien and movies that simply does not work. Throughout all six of the films that Jackson has been responsible for bringing to the big screen there have been major problems throughout the entire production. The rights to a live action adaptation of The Lord of the Rings were sold to United Artists shortly before J.R.R Tolkien’s death in 1973; it wasn’t until 1994 that Peter Jackson was given approval to begin shooting. The first film was not released until 2001.

Events, offers and releases 10/2/14

An image of the lego movie characters.
An image of the lego movie characters.

The Lego Movie Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Releases – In Cinemas Friday 14th February

Her– Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and Scarlett Johansson. Her sees a lonely writer (Phoenix) develop an unlikely relationship with a newly purchased operating system that’s designed to meet his every need. Check out the trailer by clicking here.

Monuments Men – George Clooney stars in, directs, produces and writes this World War II drama that sees an unlikely team given the task to rescue art masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their owners. Based on a true story the movie co-stars Matt Damon, John Goodman and Cate Blanchett. See the platoon get to work in the trailer here.

The Lego Movie –  for the child that lives in all of us, The Lego Movie will add some laughs to your valentines day. An ordinary LEGO minifigure, mistakenly thought to be the extraordinary MasterBuilder, is recruited to join a quest to stop an evil LEGO tyrant from gluing the universe together. Featuring the voices of Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman and Liam Neeson, this film will entertain everyone, from the youngest to the oldest. See the trailer here.

To book tickets visit the Odeon website.

Offers

See The Book Thief for Free!

Before the general release of the film on Friday 26th February you have the chance to see World War II drama, The Book Thief, before anyone else on Tuesday 11th February.

Narrated by ‘Death’ the story is set in World War II Germany and describes a young girl’s relationship with her foster parents, other residents of her neighbourhood, and a young man who hides in her home during the escalation of World War II. The film is directed by Brian Percival and is an adaptation of the New York Times bestseller written by Markus Zusak and published in 2005.

All you need to do is head over the ShowFilmFirst website and enter this code: 482715. But be quick as these kind of offers don’t last long and once the tickets are gone, they’re gone.

Events

A golden bear statue which is the top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.

The Golden Bear, the top prize and the Berlin International Film Festival.

 

Berlin International Film Festival – 6th-16th February 2014.

With around 300,000 tickets sold, the Berlin International Film Festival is often seen as the largest publicly attended film festival in the world based on actual attendance rates. Up to 400 films will be shown throughout the event across various venues in the capital.

Films to look out for are Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac and Calvary, a black comedy starring Chris O’Dowd and Brendan Gleeson.

For a full list of screenings and up-to-date news click here to visit the Berlin International Film Festival website.

The Ultimate Avengers: Will it happen?

Phase one, phase two, phase three. All these “phases” Marvel keep telling us they are going through is getting pretty confusing. It all began with Iron Man, back in 2008. Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk and a second Iron Man all followed before culminating in Joss Whedons’ £220 million dollar blockbuster The Avengers hitting the screens in 2012.

Whedons outstandingly successful film marked the end of phase one, and the beginning of phase

image via www.thegeektwins.com

image via www.thegeektwins.com

two for Marvel, which has now already seen a third Iron man and sequels for both Thor and Captain America. With Avengers two expected to round off Marvels latest efforts under one big umbrella, how long will it be until we expect more of a favourite superhero’s joining the Avengers roster?

Well, they may not have the answers, but online bloggers Maurice and Nigel, better known as “The Geek Twins”, have provided a visual representation of the current Marvel landscape. Their charming guide illustrates Marvels movie rights for each individual and/or group of superheroes.

During the 1990’s, Marvel began selling their character rights to different movie studios, including Universal and Sony.  This allowed 20th Century Fox to begin producing their X-men films; whilst Sony began work on a new Spiderman franchise.  The success of these franchises, alongside other superhero films such the Fantastic Four and Daredevil, led Marvel to begin making their own films independently and thus, Marvel Studios was born.

Marvel managed to re-obtain rights for Iron Man, Thor and Captain America from Artisan, who had not used the rights in anyway. They also re-claimed the rights for the Incredible Hulk and Namor the Submariner, who has yet to be used, from Universal.

However, Sony refused to give up their rights for Spiderman, as they were planning yet another reboot, albeit this time for the Amazing Spiderman. Fox also decided against selling their rights for X-men, with their films, and stand-alone Wolverine films, continuing to provide moderate success.

It became the comic book world’s worst kept secret in late 2013 that Sony and Marvel failed to reach a deal on some form of crossover movie, but Andrew Garfield has said that he would like to appear in the Avengers universe, stating “I would love that, the fans would love that. Obviously, big business and lawyers and rights issues are an obstacle. In my naiveté I’m all ‘let’s put all that aside and just do it!’.”

As it stands, we are still far away from a truly complete Avengers movie. Although not an original member, Spiderman would be expected to join up with the Avengers somewhere during the second or third instalment, yet with Marc Webb already confirming the completion of the Amazing Spiderman trilogy in 2016, Marvel may yet struggle to fulfil their fans desires despite recent rumours. Marvel themselves appear more focused on adding more strings to their bow, with Guardians of the Galaxy on the way and plans to also reintroduce Ant Man to a younger audience.

However, X-men producer Lauren Shuler Donner has given cause for hope, telling Crave Online that “I would love it. I would love it…to take our characters and mingle them in the way that they were written, yeah, absolutely.” Joss Whedon was also the author of twenty five issues of the critically acclaimed Astonishing X-men and also lent a hand in the writing of The Ultimate’s, the ultimate avenger’s team. So for comic book fans, there may still yet be reason for hope, but for us and the Geek twins, we’ll just have to wait and see.

“The Pixar Theory”

The Pixar logo is visible with various Pixar characters surrounding it.

image via mashable.com

“Every Pixar movie is connected.” Those are the words of blogger and self-proclaimed “movie fanatic” Jon Negroni, who became obsessed over hidden links between some of our favourite animated masterpieces, leading to him to compile the “The Pixar Theory”.

Negroni begins with Brave, released in 2012, as the catalyst for events to come. As the earliest time period covered in a Pixar film, set in the Dark Ages, Negroni pays particular notice to how Brave is the only movie that explains why animals have human abilities and characteristics. Merida, a young princess, discovers a form of magic, which she inadvertently uses to turn her mother into a bear.

Merida later finds that this magic comes from an odd witch, who disappears every time she passes through a door, leading Merida to question her very existence. According to Negroni’s theory, this is not the only time we have encountered this witch.

Negroni is very quick to explain that the “The Pixar Theory” is an idea, not fact. He states that “The point of this theory is to have fun and exercise your imagination while simultaneously finding interesting connections between these fantastic movies. If you hate fun and/or imagination, you probably won’t like this theory.” Regardless, the further you delve into the Pixar Universe, the more you will become engrossed in its seamless narrative.

Centuries after Brave, the progression of intelligence leads to a power struggle between humans and animals. Negroni explains that “The stage for all-out war in regards to animals is set by Ratatouille, Finding Nemo, and Up, in that order. Notice I left out A Bug’s Life, but I’ll explain why later”.

Alongside the growing power battle between humans and animals, Negroni also highlights the progression of artificial intelligence, including machines in the struggle. This begins in The Incredibles, as Buddy, aka Syndrome, creates the A.I “Omnidroid” in his attempt to defeat the superheroes. “The omnidroid eventually turns on Syndrome, and starts attacking humans in the city. Why would an A.I.
want to just attack randomly? Do machines have an inherent hatred of humans?” asks Negroni.

Things get even weirder as Negroni adds more and more films to the timeline. In fact, he manages to include every single Pixar film into the story, including “Newt”, which has never been released by the company. Negroni invites you to, analyse, deconstruct and offer new angles as his theory continues to grow and gain pace online.

“The Pixar Theory” does not fail to shock and surprise you, as Negroni consistently uncovers hidden links, backing them up with evidence and interesting logic, and we haven’t even scratched the events on the timeline, as the real treat is at the end.

To check out “The Pixar Theory” yourself, visit the Pixar Theory website. You can also follow the man himself at @JonNegroni

Events, offers & releases 02/12/13

Elsa, a yong blonde princess sparks ice from her hand

First up, this week there are some notable film releases this Friday.

Frozen, Disney’s newest venture, is an animated musical comedy loosely based on The Snow Queen. Voiced by Kirsten Bell, Idina Menzel and Jonathan Groff, Frozen promises a charming tale, full of laughter and perfect for a family night out.

If you’re a little older, take a look at Homefront. Starring Jason Statham and James Franco, this Crime Thriller will keep you at the edge of your seat.

For something lighter, consider seeing A Long Way From Home. A romance about two couples from different generations colliding in the south of France.

If there is a Cineworld near you, why not treat yourself to two Oxford notebooks, (A4/A3 refil pads or Wiro notebooks) and get a cinema ticket for free. A4 refil pads are just £2.40 so you could go to the cinema for under £5.