A near hour-long interview with Star Wars creator George Lucas on stage at D: All Things Digital,  the annual tech and media conference sponsored by The Wall Street Journal,  has been posted on their site.

During the chat, Lucas discusses digital visual FX,  video game technology,  the Youtube  phenomenon and his thoughts on hedge-fund investors trying to act as film producers.

The footage also includes an ILM Pirates reel with Oscar-winning VFX Supervisor John Knoll and a live gaming technology demo from LucasArts President Jim Ward.  Click here to watch.

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Posted in Movies, Sci-Tech & Video Games, Star Wars •

Following our earlier news report concerning the Warner Bros Justice League movie,  a couple of sources over at Moviehole are claiming that neither Brandon Routh or Christian Bale will be involved in the project.

According to an ‘insider’,  a casting director will be onboard the movie next week and director George Miller has an idea as to who he’d like to cast in the blue tights and black cape.

Whether the decision not to cast Bale and Routh is a financial one or due their lack of interest in the project remains to be seen.  At least if this team-up movie fails, the stand-alone franchises won’t be tarnished with different actors in the leads.

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Posted in Batman, Movies •

On Monday we reported Paramount Pictures’ announcement to exclusively back HD DVD. While this may have garnered the studio financial incentives valued at a reported $150 million, the move seems to have left one particular filmmaker miffed.

Transformers director Michael Bay wrote on his blog: ‘I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks! They were progressive by having two formats. No Transformers 2 for me!’

By the end of the day, Bay had softened his stance after meeting with Paramount execs. ‘I overreacted. I heard where Paramount is coming from and the future of HD and players that will be close to the $200 mark which is the magic number. I like what I heard [...] So today I saw 300 on HD, it rocks! So I think I might be back on to do Transformers 2!’

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Posted in Blu-ray & HD DVD, Movies, Sci-Tech & Video Games, Transformers •

Jim Hill, a man with insight into what’s going on at Disney, has posted on his blog details about the Mouse House’s endeavours to get into business with Lucasfilm and put in place a huge marketing strategy for the upcoming live-action Star Wars television series. 

Apparently, there are plans to expand George Lucas’ presence in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, where some sort of ‘Lucas Land’ could be built that would extend from the Indiana Jones Adventure Outpost to the Tatooine Traders. Currently, Star Tours 2.0 is spearheading these plans in the theme park.

What’s more interesting is that this may just be Disney’s first step in securing a huge business deal with Lucas. The studio is apparently negotiating exclusive airing rights for the new live-action television series that goes into production in 2008, and they’ve offered to put their entire marketing behind the start of the show. This would include introducing the cast at next year’s Star Wars Weekends and ensuring prime time air dates on ABC and ABC Family.

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Posted in Star Wars, Television •

Christian Bale (Batman Begins, The Prestige) was asked if he would play Batman in the upcoming film adaptation of the Justice League DC comic, which unites several superheroes like Superman, Batman and Thor.

According to CHUD, the actor shook his head in response: I can’t tell you if he was saying he wasn’t going to be in the film or if he was sick of  hearing about it – a little of both, I’d say.

Apparently, Bale would prefer that studios held back making a Justice League movie, at least until director Christopher Nolan and him had completed their trilogy of Batman films.

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Posted in Batman, Movies •

According to Variety, Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures are teaming up on a revisionist take of the L. Frank Baum books that hatched The Wizard of Oz.

Oz is based on an idea by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane that was fleshed out and pitched by A History of Violence scribe Josh Olson. McFarlane’s vision of Oz is a dark, edgy and muscular PG-13, without a singing Munchkin in sight. ‘The appealing thing about the Baum books to me is how wildly imaginative they are. There are crazy characters from amazing places. I want this to be Harry Potter dark, not Se7en dark.’

‘My pitch was ‘How do we get people who went to ‘Lord of the Rings’ to embrace this?” McFarlane said. ‘I want to create (an interpretation) that has a 2007 wow factor. You’ve still got Dorothy trapped in an odd place, but she’s much closer to the Ripley from Alien than a helpless singing girl.’

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Posted in Movies •

According to JoBlo.com, Rose McGowan is currently being used for FX test footage on the new Barbarella movie.

It’s unsure whether this means the Planet Terror star will get to play the intergalactic babe in her boyfriend Robert Rodriguez’s remake of the 1968 film. Up until now, it was believed that Underworld actress Kate Beckinsale was in pole position to land the role which was made famous by Jane Fonda.

The project, which will reportedly be more faithful to the original comic than the psychedelic sixties version, goes into production before year’s end for a release sometime in 2008.

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Posted in Movies •

A source over at Dread Central claims to have inside details on the monster that attacks New York City in J.J. Abrams’ much talked about 1-18-08/Cloverfield project:

‘It’s not Godzilla or Voltron (duh) or even Cthulu; anyone expecting there to be some sort of elaborately detailed backstory may be in for a disappointment.’ Apparently we should expect an old-fashioned monster movie told in a Blair Witch sort of way.

The twist is that after the monster emerges from the ocean to lay waste to NYC, we discover that it didn’t come alone. ‘Much of the movie will revolve around the characters fleeing for their lives, not from the big one stomping the city, but from the “raptor-like” smaller versions hunting them down.’ Budget constraints necessitated this move - it’s easier to film street level action of people fleeing from small monsters than showing a huge one trashing the city.

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Posted in Movies •

Earlier this week we reported that Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling had started working on a Edinburgh-set detective novel - a rumour started by her neighbour Ian Rankin via the Sunday tabloids.

Turns out Rankin was misquoted. The fellow novelist made the following statement in a new interview with The Guardian: ‘This is a joke that got out of hand.’ The initial remark was made on stage during the Edinburgh book festival. ‘There were 600 people in the audience, and only one person didn’t laugh.’

Rowling’s literary agent was quick to confirm that the crime novel rumours were unfounded: ‘JK Rowling is taking a well-earned break following the English language publication of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows and there are no firm plans as yet as to what her next book may be.‘ 

Posted in Books & Comics •

Eva Mendes (Ghost Rider) has joined the cast of Frank Miller’s The Spirit, according to Variety.

The adaptation of Will Eisner’s celebrated comic strip series centers on a rookie cop who fakes his own death so he can fight crime from the shadows. Production is scheduled to start in October, with the film to be released in 2009.

Gabriel Macht plays the title character, with Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson also starring.

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Posted in Movies •