Mickey Rourke Playing Genghis Khan

The Orlando Sentinel talked to Iron Man 2 star Mickey Rourke, who revealed he will play Genghis Khan in a film written and to be directed by John Milius.

First up, Rourke mentioned that St. Vincent, with director Walter Hill, is "not gonna happen." What is, however, is the Tony Scott remake of the German crime film Potsdamer Platz.

"Yeah, we're doing that. Talking to Tony about a 'Hell's Angels' movie, too," Rourke said. "I've been working on a motorcycle gangs script for 20 years, so I hope that happens."

About Genghis Khan, Rourke said that he "read [Milius'] script and you know, the man is known for his tough writing. He wrote 'Conan' and 'Dirty Harry' and 'Apocalypse Now,' and it'll be interesting to see how he works behind the camera. I'm playing Genghis."

He added that it's a project "John wrote as a piece told from the son and grandson's point of view, how they saw this mythic figure from their family. You see him in flashbacks, back when he was in his mid-40s. And back then, being in your mid-40s was being REALLY old."

Rourke was told that filming will take place in parts of India and China and that he'll have to do horseback riding for the character. "I rode quite a bit, back in the day. The horseback riding won't be too much of a problem. I probably ride a horse better than I drive a car. There's going to be some archery from horseback called for that I have to do, so that'll be interesting, physically."

The actor explained his interest in the film. "Historically, if you read about the guy, he was a mystery. There's a lot of myths surrounding him, but also some true stories. Milius went through that in prepping this, so he'll be a fascinating character to play."

Ridley Scott Talks 'Alien Prequel'

Ridley Scott is currently doing press for his upcoming 'Robin Hood', in the process a lot of questions concerning the 'Alien Prequel' are being thrown at him, Scott says it's happening - a visual palette is being designed, concept art is being hashed out and a script is being finalized. But what's it about? Here are excerpts from MTV's interview.

"It's set in 2085, about 30 years before Sigourney [Weaver's character Ellen Ripley]. It's fundamentally about going out to find out 'Who the hell was that Space Jockey?' The guy who was sitting in the chair in the alien vehicle — there was a giant fellow sitting in a seat on what looked to be either a piece of technology or an astronomer's chair ... Our man [Tom Skerritt as Captain Dallas] climbs up and says "There's been an explosion in his chest from the inside out — what was that?" I'm basically explaining who that Space Jockey — we call him the Space Jockey — I'm explaining who the space jockeys were ... [The film] is about the discussion of terraforming — taking planets and planetoids and balls of earth and trying to terraform, seed them with the possibilities of future life."

Scott says he'll be approaching H.R. Giger to talk creature designs in an effort to create something new because he feels, "The alien in a sense, as a shape, is worn out." Very interesting.

Also, sources tell ShockTillYouDrop that by the time the Fox Alien Anthology Blu-Ray set comes along at the end of this year, we could very well see a "sneak peek" of Scott's Alien prequel!

The Last Airbender Also Going 3D

According to Variety, Paramount has been working for over a year testing the 3D conversion process with Stereo D, who also worked on Avatar, and three months again, they showed Shyamalan some converted footage and he agreed to convert the full movie to 3D.

Also comingsoon recently talked to the movie's Visual FX Supervisor Pablo Hellman he had the following to say about Airbender being converted to 3D:

"You can probably spend as much time as you have," he told us. "How good it looks is proportionate to how much time that you spend either if you decide to shoot it in 3D or you decide to do it in post. I think the one thing that you have to remember is to design things (for 3D). If you have not designed it in 3D, you have to have a specific esthetic to it, and having seen 'Clash of the Titans,' this movie is different in the sense that Night's takes are really, really long. The average shot is about 500 frames, which is really long, and the camera movement, even in action scenes, there's a lot of stuff we shot at 96 frames a second just so we can speed it up or slow it down. The camera moves really slowly around the characters. That kind of design lends itself well to 3D dimensionalizing more than an action sequence that's all cuts; you just can't focus on things. A lot of it has to do with design and what you do with it, too. It's what we do with the tool that makes it either interesting or jarring and not telling the story."

It's to the point that reporting a movie will be in 3D isn't even news worth covering anymore, it's like telling you it will be in color and also have sound. The "fad" seems to be here to stay, love it or hate it. 3D isn't going anywhere any time soon.

Green Hornet Delayed for 3D

Variety reports Sony Pictures has decided to move the Michel Gondry directed 'Green Hornet', starring Seth Rogen, back nearly a month to January 14, 2011, Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, in order to give the filmmakers more time to convert the movie into 3D.

Wow, great idea? I think not.

The only good thing that could come out of this, would be moving it out of December where it would be competing with Tron Legacy, Little Fockers and the third Narnia installment. 

IESB was the first to report last Tuesday, that Sony executives are displeased with the results. The tone is too campy, they're not happy with the work from director Michel Gondry and Seth Rogen does not look the part. At all. In fact, the feeling at Sony is the movie is a disaster.

The studio is denying that the move was due to any other reasons than the decision to convert to 3D.

Update: Escape From New York Remake

Heat Vision  reports Breck Eisner the director behind the recent not so great 'Crazies' remake, is in negotiations to bring Snake Plissken back to the silver screen. Yeah, it looks like that Escape From New York remake is really happening.

Vulture reported back in February that the studio reportedly flipped over Allan Loeb's rewrite. And then there was that contractual obligation that Snake has to keep his name, eye-patch and overall bad-assery.

The biggest question for everyone right now has to be, Who will replace Kurt Russell as the new Snake Plissken?

I'm with Jamie over at IESB on this one, "Hopefully, no executive gets the bright idea to bring back Gerald Butler".

Kristen Stewart Offered 'Wanted 2'?

Star of the twilight franchise kristen Stewart is being offered a prior role of Angelina Jolie's for the second time now.

E! Online reports she's been approached to star in a property associated with Jolie – 'Wanted 2'. As per their source(s), she would play another bullet-curving assassin in the Fraternity. She even reportedly met with director Timur Bekmambetov on at least one occasion regarding the role.

Back in February, IESB reported the Twilight actress was offered the chance to headline Tomb raider in Warner Brothers' planned reboot. She passed.

It's not likely she'll accept this offer either, and the last anyone heard about the Wanted seqeul it wasn't happening due to Angelina Jolie dropping out of the project.

Who knows, maybe she'll sign on and it will eventually get made, but I wouldn't hold your breath for that to happen.

Jack Nicholson Starring in 'Last Vegas'?

Vulture reports CBS Films want Jack to headline 'Last Vegas', a comedy described as "Grumpy Old Men meets The Hangover."

VEGAS (coming from the pen of Dan Fogelman) concerns four childhood pals reuniting to celebrate the forthcoming wedding of lifelong skirt-chaser Billy – the part speculated to be offered to Nicholson.

People generally love Nicholson, myself included, so I don't think it matters what he does, we're all going to see it. As Jamie over at IESB points out he's notoriously picky about choosing his projects. But all it takes is the trailer where he shows the Jack charm and, of course, that smile and people just fucking melt like butter.

Do audiences want to see old people getting wasted and talking dirty, sure who cares, if it's funny and it works, I say bring it on. Especially whenever Jack Nicholson is said to be involved, it's sure to be classic.

Box Office Predictions April 23-25

The following are my predictions for this coming weekends box office. As part of a weekly segment every Thursday TMT is now predicting the box office on Thursdays, then posting the estimates and actual numbers the following Sunday/Monday.

1. The Back-up Plan (CBS Films) - $15.2 million

2. How to Train Your Dragon (DreamWorks Animation/Paramount) - $14 million

3. The Losers (Warner Bros.) - $11.2 million

4. Date Night (20th Century Fox) - $10.6 million

5. Kick-Ass (Lionsgate) - $10 million

6. Death at a Funeral (Sony/Screen Gems) - $9.2 million

7. Clash of the Titans (Warner Bros.) - $8.7 million

8. Oceans (Disney) - $5.6 million

9. The Last Song (Disney) - $3.8 million

10. Alice in Wonderland (Disney) - $2.4 million

Check back to TMT on Sunday for the weekend estimates.

You can check out our reviews for most of the top 10 by going HERE.

Marvel Developing "Smaller Movies"

Marvel Studios, the ones kicking the shit out of DC right now, well with the exception of 'The Dark Knight', has plans to start releasing smaller super hero films. This doesn't mean that we won't still get Iron Man 3 or Captain America sequels etc. The plans will likely take place after the release of 'The Avengers' due out in 2012. CHUD has the exclusive story, and here's and excerpt from what they had to say:

Marvel Studios is currently taking meetings with writers and directors to work on small scale movies based on some of their third tier characters. The movies would cost in the range of 20 to 40 million dollars (very small when we're talking studio films) and would allow them to take risks with less obvious characters and with interesting talent.

Filmmakers are being offered their pick of characters whose names are only familiar to comic fans. Properties like Dr. Strange, Ka-Zar, Luke Cage, Dazzler and Power Pack are among the many that are being tossed around right now. And the attitude seems to be that Marvel is open to bringing any of their characters to the screen at the right price point.

For the full story go HERE.

Dwayne Johnson to Star in 'Protection'

Dwayne Johnson is replacing Clive Owen in action-thriller 'Protection', according to The Wrap. Director Patrick Alessandrin has reportedly also left the project.

The film is about a twenty-one-year-old daughter of a Mexican judge who's targeted by mob types (after she sees them kill her father and other family members), and must stay on the run through dodgy places on both sides of the border, while an agent (Johnson) tries to protect her and the bad guy is hot on her trail.

Brandon Noonan wrote the script. No word yet on who is taking over the director's chair.

This is more great news for fans of Dwayne Johnson, no more pink tights! At least not for a while that is he's co-starring in the action comedy "The Other Guys" this summer and in the Action thriller "Faster" due out in November of this year.