Friday, May 08, 2009

A Week at Sea: I don't think we're going for Play-Doh

Treasure Island



By Edmund Dulac.

Pirates!



Aardman Animations, creators of Wallace & Gromit, are working on an animated pirate movie.

Captain Swing and the Electrical Pirates of Cindery Island



Warren Ellis is working on something for Avatar Press with the word "pirates" in the title. Now you know exactly as much as I do about it. For all I know, these are space pirates, but that would be pretty cool too.

El Llamado del Mar (The Call of the Sea)



Blade II's Leonor Varela is producing and starring in a film about a wish-granting ghost ship. The catch is: you get a wish; the ship gets your soul. Sounds a bit like the Flying Dutchman from the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, but it's actually based on a Chilean legend.

Sinbad movie update



How I wish that was actual art from the Sinbad production instead of just artwork for a graphic novel I won't be able to read, but according to this short interview with director Adam Shankman, the movie they're making sounds promising on its own. There's not a lot of meat to the interview, but Shankman stresses big action and modern effects. That's in spite of the interviewer's suggestion that an homage to Harryhausen-style effects would be appropriate.

Listen, I like Harryhausen a lot too, but I agree with Shankman when he says, "If you go back and watch the Harryhausen movies, they are fun, but they're not good. You know what I mean? They're fun, and they're famous because of that initial work, but the Cyclops looks like Play-Doh. This is a $175 million movie, I think, so I don't think we're going for Play-Doh."

The most interesting part of the interview to me actually has less to do with the Sinbad movie than it does with the way movies are being made now in general. Asked about casting, Shankman says, "Movie stars in and of themselves aren't opening movies anymore. The people need to want to actually see the movies, not just because of who's in them. Amy Pascal's philosophy, and it was with Spider-Man, is [that] Sinbad is the title. That's what is bringing people in, so we don't need to have Will Smith play Sinbad. We don't require that to make this movie." I can't tell you how happy that turn of events makes me.

Your 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Picture of the Day



By Gil Kane.

Shark vs. Octopus



Okay, that looks really frickin cool, but I still contend that the Asylum's Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus can only disappoint. If you really want to see cool footage of a shark fighting an octopus, check out what Calvin discovered.



No wonder he and my son hate those things so much.

Creature from the Black Lagoon Remake Update



No, that's not actual art from this movie either. But they could sure do worse than that as the look of the Creature, huh?

There probably aren't any designs for the remake yet, but director Breck Eisner is trying to get it (and a Flash Gordon movie) pushed through. He says he's going for a "dark adventure tone," but that he wants it to be scary.

"Is this a piƱa colada which I see before me?"



Terrence Howard is producing and starring in his own version of Macbeth, set on a Caribbean island. Awesome. I'm thinking maybe voodoo priestesses instead of witches?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

For other "non-traditional" adaptations of "Macbeth," including the 1936 Orson Welles all-black "Voo-doo" version produced in Harlem, see the forthcoming study "Weyward Macbeth":

http://us.macmillan.com/weywardmacbeth

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