July 31, 2009 - 2:47 pm
By Steven Zeitchik
 The opening of "Funny People" this weekend will prove a critical test of the Judd Apatow magic, not only of his writing and directing but his name, which, if you've not walked outside with a blindfold at any point in the past two weeks, you've seen on every shred of marketing material in the Western hemisphere.
But the Universal pic's performance will also show something else: the ability of Hollywood to jerry-rig a larger audience by choosing stars and subject matter that put together distinct fan bases.
It's kind of but not exactly the same thing as the something-for-everyone logic of the four-quadrant pic. Those films try to cover all of their bases (spending on production and marketing accordingly) to ensure there isn't anyone left on the planet who won't be beaten into submission. This is a more surgical play: it involves taking specific fan groups and fusing them.
July 30, 2009 - 7:45 pm
By Steven Zeitchik
 Universal sang from the mountaintops after the $600 million global success of the Abba musical "Mamma Mia!" last year. Now the studio could be belting them out about a very different figure: Jesus.
The studio and producer Marc Platt are in active development on a remake of "Jesus Christ Superstar." And there's a director — at first surprising, but not without its logic — who Platt and the studio have been talking to: Marc Webb.
The "(500) Days of Summer" helmer, whose stock has been soaring after the success of his breakout breakup pic, has been engaged in a series of talks over the past few months to helm the Uni revival. Platt wants Webb for his, well, passion project, and the Gersh- and Anonymous-repped Webb is keen to do it, though those familiar with the project said the studio and Webb are not in active negotiations at the moment.
Webb's not necessarily the first director who comes to mind when one thinks of “Jesus." Norman Jewison’s original film was released in 1973, a year after Tim Rice's and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway show became a media sensation (for reasons having to do with both the show's acclaim and ripples of controversy). There is an element of subversiveness to the story, which looks at the last weeks of Jesus’ life — particularly the disappointments and internal conflicts of Judas Iscariot.
July 30, 2009 - 12:45 am
By Steven Zeitchik
 You've gotta love a catfight. Especially when it involves vampires.
Summit has a full-fledged publicity crisis on its hands over casting in the third "Twilight" movie, "Eclipse." And it could get worse.
Here's the skinny: Something seemed odd yesterday when Rachelle Lefevre, a largely unknown actress about to act in the role of her life, walked away from the part of Victoria, a small character in the first two "Twilight" pics but a far more significant player in the third one, "Eclipse," where she becomes a full-on villain who tries to kill Kristen Stewart's Bella.
But on Tuesday evening, Summit released a short statement saying Lefevre had "scheduling conflicts" and would not be to perform in the picture; instead, Bryce Dallas Howard would take her place.
July 28, 2009 - 7:11 am
By Steven Zeitchik
Now that the trailer for Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are" has sufficiently bowled over/mystified audiences with its children-in-bunny-costume weirdness, Warners is on another mission: convincing people that all that weirdness doesn't push the pic beyond the integrity of Maurice Sendak's beloved world.
In fact, the studio argues in this new featurette, first shown at Comic-Con and now available online, that the weirdness has been blessed by Sendak.
There's a very meta aspect to the video — someone filming Jonze filming Sendak talking about how he liked his book being filmed by Jonze — in which he offers an endorsement of Jonze's attempt. Over the years, the author says, he met "various people who were interested in (making a movie), but those people did not interest me. And then Spike came into my life." Sendak goes on to endorse the effort with "He's turned it into his (vision) without giving up mine."
It's hard to imagine Warners doing the same for J.K. Rowling, whose fans are just as devoted to her Harry Potter series (or, for that matter, Alan Moore, who of course has never blessed any big-screen version of his work).
And it's rare in the hoopla-happy world of movie marketing for a studio to be so aggressively defensive. The featurette ushers in a kind of preemptive marketing, in which viewer objections are anticipated and addressed (or defanged, we suppose, in the coinage of the book). This has Dave Eggers and Jonze and the Arcade Fire, but really, it's not the most expensive hipster movie ever made. It's just like you remember it from childhood!
July 26, 2009 - 9:12 pm
By Steven Zeitchik
 Among the final panels we caught at Comic-Con this weekend was the one-man show of Kevin Smith, contractually obligated to attend every comics convention in Christendom even if he has no movie to promote (which he didn't).
We're usually pleasantly surprised when we see Smith perform, often freeform, because he manages to work a room much larger than any standup normally works without a single word written or seemingly even prepared. His schtick is crude but not cruel, and it's actually pretty dexterous and funny, which makes us wonder why his last four movies are neither.
Smith always strikes an honest note, but on this day he was taking candor to the point of self-lacerating. After coming to Comic-Con last year with "Zack & Miri Make a Porno" and coming up with a dud several months later, Smith is feeling humbled. He made numerous jokes (part savvy deflection, part genuine confession, it seemed) wondering why it's been so long since he had a hit and questioning whether fans should still put their faith in him.
Smith is at work on a studio picture now — his first — the Warners buddy-detective comedy "A Couple of Dicks" and while the Jersey boy didn't tip much about the February pic, he did say fans shouldn't get too attached to the title.
July 25, 2009 - 8:09 pm
By Steven Zeitchik
 If you loved something a lot, you'd … destroy it in a hail of CG pyrotechnics? If you wouldn't, then you're not Roland Emmerich.
And judging by the Comic-Con footage from his upcoming global-destruction movie "2012" you probably don't want to be.
Sony's November movie about an ancient Mayan curse that dooms the world three years hence (so much for all that time spent on the NFL season-ticket waiting list) picks up where his previous quiet melodramas like "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow" left off. Or rather, it continues the trail of devastation that never really ended for Emmerich.
July 25, 2009 - 8:04 pm
By Steven Zeitchik
This isn't movie news per se, but there was talk of an "Empire Strikes Back" sendup at this panel, and it was at Comic-Con, so we figured why the hell not. (You can read this and other TV news over at James Hibberd's Live Feed blog, as well as at THRs Comic-Con blog.)
News Corp. paid Seth MacFarlane the ultimate compliment when it made him Twentieth Century Fox TV's $100 million crown jewel. But the "Family Guy" creator isn't necessarily returning the favor.
At the series' Comic-Con panel Saturday, MacFarlane continued his show's tradition of jibing its host studio and network.
He and other writer-producers revealed they had created a controversial episode about abortion for the upcoming season, but that Fox was unlikely to let them air it.
July 25, 2009 - 5:38 pm
By Steven Zeitchik
 The religious revival disguised as an "Iron Man 2" Comic-Con panel has just ended, but not before a frenzied lovefest and another peek at the footage went down.
A couple other things jumped out at us on second viewing, which was pretty effective even as a rerun.
–There's a scene of Rourke chiseling away in his lab, speaking in a Russian-accented voiceover, which sounds almost as foreign as his New Jersey accent in "The Wrestler."
July 25, 2009 - 4:38 pm
By Steven Zeitchik
Footage from the new "Iron Man 2" is scalding hot at Comic-Con. We'll go a little fanboy here and describe the scene (and scenes) in Hall H, which is still unfolding (Read the update here).
With the crowd doing the standing applause thing, loud and enthusiastic even by Comic-Con standards, the material kicked off with that much-touted donut scene (Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark sitting in the giant donut above L.A.'s Randy's Donuts). Then it went into an extensive Congressional hearing scene, in which Garry Shandling (!) playing a self-righteous senator, demands Stark turn over the Iron Man suit. He says things like "F#ak you" to Stark, and Downey gets to have fun with hot-shot lines like "I've successfully privatized world peace."
The shooting and explosions then kicked in, anchored by Mickey Rourke's Whiplash lassoing fire-tipped whips through the air while Stark lies wounded on a racetrack. Obligatory pulsating music and high-octane chases/shooting follow, to the ecstatic delight of the crowd. Quick shots of Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson et al too, capped by Sam Rockwell's Justin Hammer firing three or four machine guns simultaneously in his suit.
So a nice, quiet character piece.
More on the panel here.
THR's complete Comic-Con coverage
July 24, 2009 - 6:07 pm
By Steven Zeitchik
Comic-Con seems to have its first unexpected breakout, as "District 9," the film formerly known as the weird bus-stop ad movie, is riding a wave of strong buzz.
The pic's Friday afternoon panel got crowds going more than a low-budget alien-vs-human action movie ever has a right to do, or at least any low-budget alien-vs-human movie without Peter Jackson's name attached as a producer has a right to do.
Jackson worked the room with a low-key, effortless ease – no McG-style bombast or Downey Jr.-type charisma, just a very basic approach to explaining the movie's history.
The project grew out of the ashes surrounding the "Halo" movie (which has pretty much zero lives left, incidentally; Jackson said the film rights have even reverted to Microsoft). When director Neill Blomkamp couldn't direct the vidgame adaptation after that project collapsed, Jackson & Co. came up with a high-conept pic Blomkamp could shoot instead.
"We woke up in the morning thinking we were making 'Halo' and we went to bed at night making 'District 9,'" Jackson said.
(The director also masterfully played the outsider card. "Geek power," Jackson pumped the crowd in a rare moment of cheerleading "I wish you could take all this energy and bottle it and give it to Hollywood execs to drink" — even though all the people in the room were being marketed to heavily by just those Hollywood execs.)
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The opening of "Funny People" this weekend will prove a critical test of the Judd Apatow magic, not only of his writing and directing but his name, which, if you've not walked outside with a blindfold at any point in the past two weeks, you've seen on every shred of marketing material in the Western hemisphere.
