Cinemablend reports from the SXSW Festival that Robert Rodriguez has announced that he’s planning a Grindhouse direct to DVD sequel.

The movie will be based around the character of Machete, played by Danny Trejo who is featured in one of the faux trailers that conjoins Deathproof and Planet Terror. Trejo is a long time Rodruigez collaborator, having appeared in Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn and the Spy Kids series.

Discuss Machete on the X-Boards

Posted in Movies •

Reports from British tabloid The Daily Mirror stating that production on Tim Burton’s film version of the stage musical Sweeney Todd has been halted are untrue the X-Realms can reveal.

According to the story, Depp’s four-year-old daughter Lily-Rose contracted an undisclosed illness in late February and the actor has taken time out to be by her bedside as she recovers. However, a reliable source of ours has advised us that the news story can be filed in the cylindrical container labelled ‘rubbish’.

Discuss Sweeney Todd on the X-Boards

Posted in Movies •

Various members of the online press were invited onto New Line Cinema’s set for The Golden Compass in January, and the His Dark Materials fansite BridgeToTheStars.net now has exclusive footage from the visit online.

The site has made available four clips in total. In the first, the film’s producer speaks about her passion for the book and why it will make a great film. The second features various cool concept artworks and costumes from the production. Talk of storyboards visualization and a glimpse of some CG work can be seen in the third video, while the fourth shows Eva Green’s stunt double having some flight scenes filmed. View all the videos here. (And kudos to Will for notifying us about this!)

Discuss The Golden Compass on the X-Boards

Posted in Movies •

Dimension Films are revving up production on what Quentin Tarantino hopes to be the greatest motorcycle movie ever, says Variety. Hell Ride is written and directed by Larry Bishop, an icon of the classic biker films (The Savage Seven, Chrome and Hot Leather, Angel Unchained).

Bishop, who spent five years writing the script, will also star in the movie the leader of a biker gang (called ‘the Victors’) he rallies to avenge the death of a gang member. Bishop’s character Pistolero is named after the original title of Robert Rodriguez’s movie Desperado. Hell Ride also stars Michael Madsen and Laura Cayouette and is currently scheduled for release sometime in 2007.

Discuss Hell Ride on the X-Boards

Posted in Movies •

According to SCI FI Wire, Transformers star Shia LaBeouf was surprised to hear reports that Warner Bros have approached Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz to appear in a sequel to the dark fantasy Constantine.

Addressing the news from The Hollywood Reporter that the studio had talked to Reeves, LaBeouf said, ‘Wow, I didn’t think he would jump back on. Keanu went through a lot of s–t with that movie.‘

The original 2005 film was loosely based upon the Hellblazer comic book and centred around a damned cancer-stricken exorcist who spends his days trying to win back God’s favour by battling the forces of the underworld. LaBeouf played Chas Kramer, John Constantine’s apprentice who is killed by the Angel Gabriel but resurrected at the end of the film’s credits.

Discuss Constantine 2 on the X-Boards

Posted in Movies •

Gerard Butler, the chiseled star from 300, is attached to star as Snake Plissken in a remake of John Carpenter’s 1981 actioneer Escape from New York (which starred Kurt Russell), reports Variety.

Apparently, a group of major studios are battling for the rights to the picture after recognizing an emerging action star in Butler. A deal is expected for later this week. What is known so far is that Black Hawk Down scribe Ken Nolan will pen the screenplay.

Discuss Escape from New York on the X-Boards

Posted in Movies •

According to Variety, DreamWorks Animation has made plans to release all of its new pictures in 3D starting in 2009. Production on the studio’s first 3-D film, Monsters vs. Aliens, starts this spring. Even though the film will be made with 3-D in mind from the outset, the studio will still also produce a standard version for non-digital cinemas.

DreamWorks’ move to 3-D is sure to spurn on the new digital 3-D exhibition process, which has been steadily gaining more and more interest in Hollywood. Disney is expected to follow suit with its animated films sometime in the future. 2009 will also see Fox release James Cameron’s Avatar in 3-D. By waiting until 2009 the studios hope to profit from a higher availability of 3-D enabled digital screens.

Discuss Monsters vs. Aliens on the X-Boards

Posted in Movies •

Korean director Bong Joon-ho has spoken to Sci Fi Wire about a proposed American remake of The Host. Universal has purchased the rights to the hit movie which centers on a dysfunctional family that must overcome its differences to save its daughter, who’s been grabbed by a creature that an unresponsive government declares is the host of an unidentified virus. It was a big hit in Korea and Asia and opened on March 9 on limited release in North America. It raked in $314, 788 on 71 screens, which equates to a strong per-screen average of $4,429. Read the X-Realms review of the original movie.

‘Maybe three of four years down the line, if The Host [remake] comes out and there’s a cool director who takes it on and makes it a real great film, then I’d be very happy,’ said Bond. ‘On the other hand, if it’s just crap, I think I’d be happy too, because then people would be like ‘Oh yeah, Bong’s original was really good.’ So for me, it’s a win-win situation. But Universal has a tradition of doing horror and creature films, so I anticipate that they will do a great film.’

Next up for Bond is a big-screen adaptation of the French sci-fi comic book La Transperceneige by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette - a post-apocalyptic vision where the survivors of an ice age exist aboard a train.

Discuss The Host on the X-Boards.

Posted in Movies •