Matt Damon (The Bourne Identity, The Brothers Grimm) was asked about his rumoured involvement in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek film-in-the-works while on promotion for his new film The Good Shepherd. SCI-FI Wire has quotes of the actor denying ever being approached about it by anyone, but concedes he’d be open to doing it:

“If the script was good, I’d do it. But, yeah, I heard that [rumor]. I think J.J. Abrams or somebody said that at press junket or something, and it got picked up [by the media and Star Trek fans].” Whoever ends up playing Kirk will be the first actor to be Kirk since William Shatner in the original 1960’s Star Trek and subsequent spin-off films.

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Posted in Movies, Star Trek •

According to Variety, Josh Whedon’s cult but cancelled TV show Firefly (which was the basis for 2005’s Serenity) is set to have its ‘verse resurrected in form of a massive multiplayer online role-playing game. Fox has licensed the SF western series to video-game tech developer Multiverse (who had been introduced to Fox execs by James Cameron and Jon Landau), who are no looking for a developer to make the game.

The company hopes to get input from Whedon, plus likeness rights of some of the show’s original actors and voice work. The game is expected to launch in 2008, and will be interconnected with different online worlds through a portal.

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Posted in Movies •

Three new posters for Edgwar Wright’s and Simon Pegg’s action film parody Hot Fuzz have surfaced on various sites (such as Empire Online) over the weekend. They’re held in a similar (read: wicked) style to the initial one (which mirrored a certain Michael Bay film), and can now be marveled at in our movie gallery: poster two, poster three, and poster four.

In Hot Fuzz, PC Nick Angel (Simon Pegg) is so good at his job, his superiors decide to move him away to stop him making them look bad. Partnered with PC Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), he happens upon a series of grisly accidents, and convinced of foul play, is driven to take action. The film is released in the UK on the 16th of February 2007.

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Posted in Movies •

Royd Tolkien, the great grandson of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit author J.R.R. Tolkien, has asked Aint-it-cool-news to publish his opinion on the ongoing controversy surrounding who will get to sit in the director’s chair for the movie adaptation of The Hobbit.

Reading his statement will make it immediately apparent that Royd is backing Rings director Peter Jackson one hundred percent. It seems that in spite of his initial misgivings about a Hollywood film adaptation of his great grandfather’s work, he now has the utmost respect for Jackson and his team:

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Posted in Movies, The Hobbit / LOTR •

Walt Disney International president Andy Bird announced to an assembly of television executives last week that Prince Caspian, the next The Chronicles of Narnia film, will start shooting in February in Britain’s Pinewood Studios, and that post-production would also take place in the UK, reports The Times. This means that the bulk of production will not return to New Zealand (as was previously reported), where The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was filmed.

While Mr. Bird claims reasons of localising the company’s image by basing productions away from America, The Times argues that the move has just as much - if not more - to do with the new tax incentives introduced by Gordon Brown.

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Posted in Chronicles of Narnia, Movies •

IESB reports that Alec Baldwin is in talks with Paramount to reprise the role of Jack Ryan in another movie adapted from Tom Clany’s best selling novels. Baldwin last played the character in The Hunt for Red October in 1990, a role later taken on by Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck.

Chronologically, the next book in the series is Debt of Honor, but as the climax involves a hijacked jet being flown by terrorists into the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C the studio may well look elsewhere in the series of twelve novels.

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Posted in Movies •