Channing Tatum up for Contortionist's Handbook

John Cena...er, I mean Channing Tatum is set for the lead role in an adaptation of Craig Clevenger's novel The Contortionists Handbook.

The main character John Vincent is born deformed with a sixth finger which leads to an interest in prestidigitation. As he grows older he becomes very cunning with crimes and new identities having to move from place to place based on a strict code of conduct preventing him from getting caught. He meets a woman with her own problems who of course screws everything up.

The image from the book looks interesting and the descriptions of the story have me intriguied with this project. I'm not familiar with many of Tatum's roles, but wasn't impressed with him in Step Up and he didn't have enough screen time in Public Enemies for me to formulate a good opinion. I've read favorable comments on his role in Dear John though and will not pass judgement until he has more films on his resume.

I am looking forward to this one and if he performs well then thats all the better for him.

Due Date Poster

The poster for what looks to be an insanely hilarious film, Due Date, as been put up by Yahoo! Movies.

The movie follows Downey Jr's character, Peter Highman as he tries to make it home to witness the birth of his first child. Along the way he runs into and unwillingly befriends Zach Galifianakis' character, Ethan Tremblay who causes nothing but trouble for Highman's venture to his wife.

I've been a fan of Galifianakis for about 6 years now, before the Hangover craze, and its good to see him getting some more roles to showcase his talents and Downey Jr has completely rejuvenated his career after Iron Man and continues to find roles that suit him well. At this point I would watch just about anything with each actor separately, but teaming them together looks to be comedy gold.

Due date comes out November 5th.

Y: The Almost Movie

When news was initially released of a potential Y:The Last Man film, the thought of having this story play out in live-action had me thinking skeptically. This is one complete story spanning an entire 60 issue run; not something like other DC and Marvel properties with years of history and an almost unlimited amount of tales to tap into. Surely this would have to be broken into 3 or possibly even 4 movies, and should the first film fail then there is little hope to continue the story on screen.

Nothing has been set in stone just yet but D.J. Caruso has been mentioning his prior involvement with the project and sheds a little light on the direction he is hoping it takes:

"It's still in active development at New Line," the filmmaker said. "I'm still kind of loosely attached."

"We've taken about four cracks at the screenplay," he explained. "It's been a really tough one, only because there's so much that you cover and trying to narrow it down [is a problem]."

"My problem that I have with New Line [is], they're good people, but I felt you had to make this film as a trilogy," he said. "[I felt] that you really had to deal with books one through four on their own. And I think there was a different philosophy there. They really wanted to cover a lot more ground [in one film], which I didn't think would make a great movie. I thought you'd be cramming too much into one movie."

I really hope he stays involved with the project in some way, to oversee the direction of the film and give input to stay true to the characters and story while grabbing general audiences and not compromising what is already a great product. It seems like he has a good grasp of the way it should play out and realizes it would only hurt the story by trying to fit the entire thing into one film.

Shia LaBeouf was attached to play the main character Yorick Brown, who is the last living mammal, other than his pet monkey Ampersand, that possesses a Y chromosome. I was never excited when LaBeouf's name was mentioned for the lead, but who's to know if he wouldn't own the character. 

I'll raise my glass and hope they get this one into production without a digitally rendered Ampersand in toe.

Infinity Gauntlet From Thor

The beautiful golden, gem filled glove you see is known as the Infinity Gauntlet. Spinoff Online has provided the image from Comic-Con earlier today with news that it will play a role in the upcoming Thor film next year. The glove itself was made by Thanos in the comics in order to control the Infinity Gems that are nestled inside of it. Heres a brief description of Thanos and what the Infinity Gems allow its possessor:

Thanos is a Death-obsessed Eternal bent on genocide and galactic conquest. The Infinity Gems — initially called the Soul Gems — are six immensely powerful stones, each granting its bearer with mastery over one aspect of the universe: Mind, Reality, Time, Space, Soul and Power. Combined on the Infinity Gauntlet, they make the user omnipotent.

There has been no other confirmation of the purpose of the glove in the film, but Loki has handled the gems in the comics so my bet is it will deal with his mischief. Marvel could be working this towards introducing Thanos in the Avengers movie as the main villain for the team to fight.

Batman 3: IMAX Compatible

Back in April, cinematographer Wally Pfister (The Dark Knight, Inception) shared his ideas for an entire Batman flick shot in the IMAX format. He and Nolan talked of shooting Inception in the format as well but agreed that the "hand-held camera" style they were aiming towards wouldn't quite work.

MTV now has an exclusive interview with the cinematographer about his plans for the upcoming Batman 3 and how he feels not only about IMAX shooting, but also the new go-to format, 3-D:

"I can't say until I read the script, but it would certainly be my preferred, amazing goal to shoot the whole movie in IMAX," Pfister said.

"I must say I'm a huge IMAX fan. I like IMAX more than I like 3-D," he explained. "Chris' films are so densely layered and have so much going on visually in every way that IMAX helps enhance that because of the scope and the scale of it — it becomes a much larger canvas to paint on. That's what we found on 'Dark Knight.'

"I'm not a big fan of 3-D," he continued. "I liken it to my View-Master I had 40 years ago. Are you really getting more out of the story with 3-D? When you separate those different planes and you're creating artificial depth, it looks phony to me."

Last year I would've leaned against his comments with the 3-D format. I was beginning to enjoy some of the films that were made specifically for the technology. When I actually go back and compare them to what the IMAX scenes brought and what the capabilities of an entire film shot with those cameras could bring, it heightens my anticipation further.

3-D is beginning to wear itself thin, and the idea of an entire live-action film in a huge, crisp format, I believe, benefits more for the general audience and the movie itself. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that they find away to make this happen.

You can read the entire article here.

Potential Clues to Nolan's Third Batman Film?

 

Comic-Con is right on our heels and many fans are hoping to hear some announcements for Christopher Nolan's untitled third Batman flick. 14 Batman related domain names have recently been purchased by Warner Bros, and here is that list:

ArkhamCity.com
BatmanArkhamCity.com
BatmanAshesofGotham.com
BatmanBrokenGround.com
BatmanNewArkham.com
BatmanGrandDelusion.com
BatmanRiseofArkham.com
BatmanSiegeofGotham.com
BatmanStateofVillainy.com
CityofArkham.com
CloseArkhamCity.com
PeopleforGotham.com
StopMayorSharp.com
WarinGothamCity.com
WheresBruceWayne.com

A lot of speculation is pointing towards the sequel to the hit game Arkham Asylum, and many of these domain names very much reference it.

I am interested in the last one on the list though. At the end of The Dark Knight, Batman says himself that he must be on the run to protect Gotham properly. Could this possibly be pointing to a Bruce Wayne disappearance in the next installment?

Disney Perching With Gargoyles

Gargoyles may finally be making a comeback or were they ever popular enough to warrant the term "comeback"?

Disney is currently in the process of developing an untitled gargoyles feature film with Lauren Shuler Donner producing. There is only a description at this point with no real clarity if its a take on the early 90's cartoon titled Gargoyles from the same company.

The project seeks to build a mythology around the carvings, originally designed in medieval times to act as spouts but later took on roles as powerful symbols to ward off or attract evil. The story is being developed, but it is known to be set in modern times.

Zoe Green is currently the option for developing the story. I'm not familiar with any of Green's work but she has worked with a few fantasy themed projects which is certainly a step in the right direction.

I watched Gargoyles every time it was showing on my television set so I am very much for a feature film of said cartoon. If it is a completely new story or a descendant of the cartoon, I wonder if they are looking to take the animated route or something in live-action? I've only seen one live-action gargoyles movie, Rise of the Gargoyles and it was a cheaply funded film that ended up looking terrible. My vote goes to animated because I can't see how a live-action movie about gargoyles would work at all, even with Disney's wallet funding it.

Legends Of The Guardians Character Posters

A collection of character posters from Zack Snyders upcoming Legend of the Guardians have been released. Each has the name of what looks to be the main characters and their title and a little glimpse of the personalities.

I am not familiar with the books but when I first saw this trailer online I was really blown away with how wonderful the visuals came across and the story seems to take the viewer on an epic journey. In viewing Toy Story 3, a trailer for the film was attached and seeing it on the large screen format impressed me even more. I feel like this is going to be the one film released in 3D that can take serious steps in rivaling what was given in Avatar.  

In a related note, Comingsoon.net had a visit with Zack Snyder and were treated to some exclusive clips from the film. The description gives nothing but praise and has me all the more excited.

In conclusion, the footage looked incredible, the owls looking photo realistic down to the tiniest detail due to Snyder's notorious perfectionism as a filmmaker, and the environments just looked astounding, as they clearly spent a good amount of time developing the world from Lasky's books. We were also impressed by how fantastic the weather looked in the scenes where the owls had to fly through rain or snow. In fact, every time a clip stopped for Snyder to talk, we felt somewhat letdown that we couldn't stay in this world a bit longer.

You can read the entire article here.

NASCAR Teaming with Transformers 3?

Transformers 3. If the sound of that title alone doesn't get you all sorts of excited for the next installment of the robotic franchise, the news of NASCAR Transformers racing their way onto the screen could make you care less.

With some of the earlier reports of Bay saying he wanted to take it back to a serious tone and leave out a lot of the mistimed humor, I began to have a little more hope for the third film. If these cars are more than just props and make their way into the movie then it's going in a completely opposite direction.

The main thing worrying me is that these car characters may take on the personality of a stereotypical NASCAR fan, leaving us with similar characters to Skids and Mudflap from the second flick. Even worse could be the potential of the actual drivers voicing the cars they are associated with.

I smell a foul stench from this already.

What About Dreyfuss?

Richard Dryefuss is back! Or did he every go anywhere in the first place? The actor known for roles in Jaws and What About Bob? to name a few, makes his television return in Showtime's original hit comedy Weeds. The Oscar winner has signed on to four appearances beginning with August 16th's episode.

I'm not familiar with the show other than short discussions with friends but I'd be willing to stop what I was doing to check out his performances. I'd put money down that he should be nominated for an Emmy after these episodes air.