:: Guy in a Suit Productions ::

Thursday 5.30.02 - 6:07pm PST

Nightcrawler is cast for X-Men 2

I read today that Alan Cumming has been cast as Nightcrawler for X-Men 2. Alan Cumming is a good actor, although probably a little feminine for some. He is great in Titus (I am referring to the Anthony Hopkins movie directed by Julie Taymor, not that stupid show). As I stated before, Nightcrawler was my favorite character as a kid. I read a spoiler-free brief review of the script for X-Men 2, and his role sounds very cool. Also, Aaron Stanford (never heard of him) has been cast as Pryo. I'm not sure if Pyro is good or bad in the movie. I remember him as being a part of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. I want to see a live action Juggernaught. The Marvel site says he is 6' 10" and 900 lbs. That would be sweet.

Also the original "guy in a suit" David Prowse (played Darth Vader in the classic trilogy), thinks that fans will boycott Episode III if he doesn't get cast as Vader again. I'm not sure about that. Actually, I'm quite certain that no one cares who is in the suit, as long as James Earl Jones is voicing.

Tuesday 5.28.02 - 7:45pm PST

I archived again, so you'll find the older stuff on the Archives page.

I read today that George Lucas is going to add some footage of Natalie Portman into Return of the Jedi, and might be adding Jar Jar into A New Hope. I kind of wish he would stop messing around with the old trilogy.

More A N I M A T R I X

Another picture of the Square Matrix prequel.

Monday 5.20.02 - 9:06pm PST

A N I M A T R I X

You may not know this, but Square (the makers of the Final Fantasy games and the ill-fated but technically impressive Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within) are working on an animated prequel for The Matrix. I'm not sure when in the timeline it will fall, but this picture is pretty impressive. It will be all CGI from what I hear, like Spirits but better. Click the image for a bigger version. That is all CG.

Thursday 5.16.02 - 10:42pm PST

My thoughts after a second, sleep-deprived viewing of Episode II. DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN THE MOVIE!!

Tuesday 5.14.02 - 5:47pm PST

I archived some of this page, so if you are looking for stuff from April, just hit the Archive link on the left.

Not much movie news today. Everyone is talking up Attack of the Clones and wondering whether or not it will beat Spider-Man. Here is why I don't think it will:

I believe that AOTC is opening on around 1000 fewer screens than Spider-Man. Lucas is very very picky and concerned with presentation, so every theater that gets a print of the film has to pass all the THX certifications. Big movies can make as much as $4000 per screen opening weekends. So that is $4,000,000 that it absolutely cannot earn compared to Spider-Man.
AOTC opens on Wednesday at midnight, so it will play through Thursday before hitting the Friday, Saturday, Sunday weekend days. That means Thursday will probably be the biggest day, and I don't think they count it towards the weekend gross. I may be wrong about this, though. I hope so, because that doesn't make much sense, but I believe I read that somewhere.
Everyone thinks that every show will absolutely be sold out for the first weekend, so the not-so-die-hard will wait to see it until the rush dies down.
There is a lot of anti-Star Wars backlash due to the perceived lackluster performance of The Phantom Menace. Anti-Star Wars backlash is ridiculous. A friend told me that after some thought, he has decided that Star Wars films transcend quality. That they just exist and are not to be judged. I agree...

I am still seeing it at midnight on Wednesday...and again at 2:00pm the next day thanks to the benevolence of my boss, who is the proprietor of this webite. Rather than turn down vacation and sick day requests and fight the fandom, he bought the entire information technology and engineering departments tickets for two showings on Thursday. Not only that, but he had the foresight to buy them at the theater presenting AOTC digitally. He is quite clever.

<-- I really want one of those cameras.

Spider-Man made an obscene amount of money again this weekend, but even more obscene is the amount of money that The New Guy made. I will make it my mission to rid Hollywood of this filth, by writing, directing, and producing a better product. I grow more and more impressed by the performance of The Scorpion King. Here are the numbers from the weekend.

Spider-Man - $71.4 million this weekend, $223.0 since opening.
Unfaithful - $14.1 million this weekend, $14.1 since opening.
The New Guy - $9.0 million this weekend, $9.0 since opening.
The Scorpion King - $4.9 million this weekend, $80.9 since opening.
Changing Lanes - $3.8 million this weekend, $57.3 since opening.
The Rookie - $2.6 million this weekend, $68.2 million since opening.
Murder By Numbers - $2.4 million this weekend, $27.4 since opening.
Ice Age - $1.6 million this weekend, $171.0 since opening.
Panic Room - $1.5 million this weekend, $93.1 since opening.
Life, or Something Like It - $1.4 million this weekend, $13.2 since opening.

Thursday 5.09.02 - 10:34pm PST

Comic Movie Blowout!

I'm going to go a little comic book nerdy here. With the success of Spider-Man and X-Men, and the impending success of Spider-Man 2 and X-Men 2 (or X2 as it is being called), Hollywood needs to figure out what Marvel figured out years ago: the art of crossover. You've got two hot franchises, each movie better than the next. What do you do for a third movie? You take the combined budgets of two movies, cut them by 2/3 and put them together making the Spider-Man and X-Men movie. Marvel abused the crossover to no end, even going so far as to crossover into DC comics. A Spider-Man and X-Men movie would be a huge success, I think, if handled correctly. Why won't this happen? X-Men is Fox, Spider-Man is Sony. Neither company is interested in making something cool, they just want to run their respective franchises into the ground. I'd love to see a Spider-Man and X-Men movie. They both are in New York...they are bound to run into each other.

Actually, they should go all out after the Daredevil and Hulk and maybe a Captain America films go big. I'm talking of course about The Secret Wars: The Movie. When The Secret Wars first came out, I thought it was the greatest thing ever. All the good guys and all the bad guys forced to fight on a different planet while a god-figure (the Beyonder) watched. It made for some good comics, and might could make for some good movies...4 maybe. 4 movies should do it. This would require a pretty ridiculous budget, and a lot of special effects. Also, the story is a little strange. People have a hard enough time accepting one comic book character at a time, let alone teams of 20 or 30. Well, The Secret Wars: The Movie might be too much "comic book" for Joe Movie Goer. Damn Joe Movie Goer to Hell...he screws everything up.

A character screaming for the Blade treatment is Ghost Rider. Thankfully, he will probably get it. David Goyer and Stephen Norrington have been working on getting a Ghost Rider movie off the ground for some time. The problem is, the character is a little hard to sell. I can see the pitch meeting now:

WRITER1 - So, we have this comic property we'd love to do.

PRODUCER - Go on...

WRITER2 - Well, the guy is a stunt motorcycle rider who is possessed by a demon, right? So now he rides around on a demonic motorcycle punishing people for their sins.

PRODUCER - What kind of a demon? Like a good demon?

WRITER1 - Not so much.

PRODUCER - What does the guy look like and what kind of food tie-ins are you looking at?

WRITER2 - <hesitating> Well, he looks like...his head might be...a flaming skull.

PRODUCER - Would you drink Pepsi because a guy with a flaming skull for a head told you to?

And that would be the end of that meeting. Nicholas Cage was attached to Ghost Rider, and Johnny Depp was being bounced around as well. Nicholas Cage is desperate to get a comic property going. He has been attached to Superman Lives, Ghost Rider, and is currently trying to get Constantine (based on Hellblazer) into production.

Back to X2, I hear they are introducing some more mutants. There is one mutant I really want to see on film: Colossus. Colossus is a big Russian guy who can wrap his skin in impenetrable metal and is really really strong. Colossus and Wolverine used to do this thing called The Fastball Special where Colossus would pick up Wolverine and throw him at people...claws out. Now that would be something to see on film. I also hear they are doing Nightcrawler, who was my favorite member of X-Men as a kid. I liked him mostly because he was covered in blue fur, he had a cool V-shape suit, he had a devil's tale, fangs, and three digits on his hands and feet. That is the kind of character a little boy likes I guess. Nightcrawler can teleport, that is his power. It is possible that they introduced him in the first X-Men movie, as the kid playing basketball. I seem to remember something about Nightcrawler not taking on his superweird appearance until he grew up some.

Spider-Man 2? Well, someone mentioned in the message boards that Venom would be a good villain. This is true, but Venom's backstory is problematic. Actually, if they did my Secret Wars: The Movie, they could easily do Venom and explain away the whole suit thing. They would have to do another Spider-Man movie after the Secret Wars: The Movie, to show Peter Parker fighting with the suit, but the next Spider-Man movie could be all Venom. That is quite a ways to go just for the appearance of one villain, though. As a side note, the character of Venom (Eddie Brock) is referenced in the Spider-Man movie. So they could be trying to keep that possibility open. I understand they are going with Doctor Octopus and The Lizard as villains. Those are good choices. Venom would be an amazing special effect, but he just has too much baggage. Doc Ock will be good. Too bad Roy Orbison isn't around anymore. The resemblance is uncanny...except for all the arms.

Thanks to Comics Database for all the pics.

Tuesday 5.07.02 - 9:17pm PST

Fincher Never Hurt Nobody

Kim once found a picture of Brad Pitt wearing a shirt with that written on it. He is a big Fincher supporter.

I read some good news today. David Fincher signed to direct Mission: Impossible 3. I'm a big Fincher fan. I love Fight Club and Se7en, and I think The Game has a lot of style. Alien 3 has a nice gothic theme, but has some other flaws that put it low on the list of good Alien movies. Panic Room is a good formulaic thriller, and it is really well directed, just not very interesting. So, David Fincher being given the reins to a big budget action movie could be a really interesting idea. I like the Mission: Impossible movies for the most part. I thought the first one was very complicated and I liked all the sneaking around as opposed to the second one that had a lot of slow motion, two-gun shooting, diving through windows, doves fluttering by scenes. Not that those are bad, the second one just felt a lot like a show reel. Either way, I'm looking forward to the third one.

Here are the official numbers from the weekend box office. Spider-Man kicked everything's ass, but The Scorpion King held on surprisingly well. Maybe there is something to that movie.

Spider-Man, $114.8 million this weekend, $114.8 since opening.
The Scorpion King, $9.0 million this weekend, $74.2 since opening.
Changing Lanes, $5.3 million this weekend, $52.0 since opening.
Murder By Numbers, $3.6 million this weekend, $23.9 since opening.
Life, Or Something Like It, $3.1 million this weekend, $11.0 since opening.
The Rookie, $3.1 million this weekend, $64.9 million since opening.
Deuces Wild, $2.7 million this weekend, $2.7 since opening.
Ice Age, $2.4 million this weekend, $169.1 since opening.
Jason X, $2.3 million this weekend, $10.2 since opening.
Panic Room, $2.1 million this weekend, $91.0 since opening.

Sony's CEO announced that Spider-Man 2 will open on May 7, 2004. Also, there is a somewhat substantiated rumor that Hugh Jackman (Wolverine from X-Men) is in Episode III, although I don't know as who.

I've been unable to edit out my clip of me running in Spider-Man. My version of Premiere doesn't seem to be able to recognize that type of .avi. I tried to convert it a few times, but no luck. Might have to wait until the DVD release or something...or you could just see it over and over again the theater. I want to see the movie again, because I was unhappy with my seats the first time I saw it. However, with Episode II a short 8 days away, it will be taking up all of my attention until release. I do not understand all this competition between Spider-Man and Episode II. Yet another franchise that will build a fierce fan base that will hate all other movies. "Can't we all just get along?" There is no reason to hate any movie...except The New Guy...I fucking hate that thing. I'm considering sitting outside the theater and attacking the people who come out of it. I can't wait until it comes out, so they will quit advertising for it on TV. I don't even watch that much television, and I feel like I see it several times a day.

Thursday 5.02.02 - 10:40pm PST

If you have not been over the the official site recently, starwars.com has updated its look. The images are taken from a series of posters that have been sited overseas. I like the new look. If you want to see all of them, just refresh a few times.

Also, the official Episode II site has posted the quicktime versions of the commercials that have been running. If you have not seen the commercials, you should watch them. They are very well done. I'm not as impressed with the ones that are basically edited from the trailers, but I do like the ones where they talk about the profession of each character. They also feature some of the new music. You can see them here. You can also find a quicktime version of the music video to "Across the Stars". It is not really a track on the soundtrack, but rather an edit of sections of the tracks together. It is much like the video that was released for "Duel of the Fates".

Kim and I bought our tickets for Spider-Man last night. We'll be seeing it at the Arclight Cinemas in the dome where the screen is 86' x 32'. Sure, the tickets were $11 a piece for the matinee (they are usually $14), but this theater is amazing. This is a test bed for where we will be seeing Episode II.

I'm betting that Spider-Man will be really really good, and that I'll be very very pleased after I leave. This might be something I go back to see a few times. We saw X-Men the night it came out...and the next night just to make sure. Some things are just too good to not see twice. I'm hoping that Spider-Man will be one of these things.