comment #1

nycfilmguy28 says ...

This story about Hirschbeigel still irks me... Why, if you're a major Hollywood studio, would you hire a foreign director who's been successful with a very serious arthouse film (Downfall), only to expect him to deliver the usual mainstream stuff and then fire him when he tries to do sommething individualistic? The whole thing seems pretty senseless, and there's no way I'll see the movie (despite being a fan of both Kidman and Craig).

comment #2

Howlingman says ...

Forget it nycfilmguy28, it's Hollywood ...

comment #3

Walter Sobchak says ...

I was found out at a theater the other day. I dutifully attended the latest blockbuster sequel figuring it would be a good place to hide. No point taking the chance of going to an indie/art/foriegn film and being discovered, I thought.
The theater was about 75% filled...all of them pod people, except for myself, of course.
I was tired that day and when I failed to laugh at a fart joke, yell "booyah!" when the main character pumped his fist and said "Yes!", or dance in my seat when "I Got You (I Feel Good)" by James Brown started playing I could tell that others in the theater were growing suspicious.
In one of the final scenes of the film one of the bad guys gets his head torn off by a flying piece of glass. Almost as if to test me one of the audience members/pod people yelled out "That's gonna leave a mark!". Everyone burst into laughter but me. Without thinking, I told the person to be quiet and not talk during the film. That was the dumbest thing I could've done.
One of them turned and pointed at me. I heard a deafening shriek. Soon, all of them were pointing at me and shrieking. I heard a "Get him!" from down near the front and instantly started for the door. I made it outside and ran into a nearby Orange Julius where I am currently still hiding.
Run for your lives, people. They're here already! You're next!

(btw... I heard they're remaking "The Bad and the Beautiful", only this time the writer and the director are the bad guys and it ends with Jonathan Shields, played by Shia LaBeouf, kissing Keira Knightley in front of a room full of people who then burst into joyous applause.....with "I Got You" playing)

comment #4

MilkMan says ...

Now that's great piece of fucking information, Jeff! I did not know that. Thats why the writers on the internet are killing the papers. Who cares if you have no informatio to back it up? I trust you. You seem to have access to people and places that I don't. That's why I believe you. I stopped eating my frozen enchiliada because of you.

comment #5

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Sobchak: Well written, amusingly said.

comment #6

gruver1 says ...

Wells to MilkMan: I have understood all along that the scenario passed along in the Collider story is pretty close to what happened. I've never been told that it's wrong by WB publicists. It has been noted that Hirschbiegel's presence in the p.r. push for this film has been pretty minimal. I mean, he talked to Lim on the phone from his home in Vienna.
http://www.collider.com/entertainment/news/article.asp/aid/4017/tcid/1

comment #7

source188 says ...

nycfilmguy28: studios always go after the arthouse (foreign or not) filmmakers who's latest or debut film is praised by critics and other industry folk in hopes that they'll make their usually passable, by-the-numbers scripts into acceptable films critically and commercially but rarely does it work Chris Nolan with Insomnia would be an example of this, Warner Bros. went after him because of Memento for their Insomnia remake which is only an decent,above-average, well-made thriller due to Nolan's tight pacing and "un-showy" direction....and Pacino ain't bad in it either. Off course, Nolan new this and played along delivering an acceptable film for the studio and that cooperation led him to the Batman gig and now he can do films like The Prestige or whatever.

comment #8

MilkMan says ...

I wasn't being sarcastic Jeff.

comment #9

nycfilmguy28 says ...

source 188: Point taken. I actually really respect filmmakers like Nolan, who are able to merge their sensibility with a studio sensibility so successfully. I think his version of Insomnia is pretty darn good, and I actually thought Batman Begins was one of the best movies of its year, arthouse or not. It just seems like the in the Hirschbiegel story, the studio didn't even give him a chance to really deliver something interesting and marketable. But admittedly, I'm going off of hearsay, from this site and elsewhere...

Does anyone know how much Daniel Craig is in this film, by the way? If he's in it a lot, I might have to go back on my earlier declaration that I wouldn't go see this... Craig is so magnetic and sexy, I'd watch him in almost anything. But the trailers have been downplaying his presence for some reason... Maybe even after Bond people aren't as taken with this guy as I am?

comment #10

Filipe says ...

One should remember that Hirschbiegel had done a very successful thriller (The Experiment) before Downfall.

comment #11

lazarus says ...

What's truly ironic is that Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters was written BEFORE Body Snatchers, and is a superior piece of fiction, yet it was only filmed once, in the 90's with Donald Sutherland (who also appeared in Phillip Kaufman's 1970's Body Snatchers adaptation).

Of course, maybe we should be thankful that Heinlein hasn't been butchered frequently on screen like Philip K. DIck.

comment #12

lipranzer says ...

What I find funny is no one is mentioning the other remake of BODY SNATCHERS - THE FACULTY, in 1998, by Robert Rodriguez, written by Kevin Williamson. Admittedly, I'm not a fan of the film, but it's still an (unofficial, maybe) version of that story.

comment #13

dawgzilla67 says ...

Lazarus, Heinlein is also a writer with a decided right-wing slant to his work, which has probably not helped as far as his work going down easy with producers.

Lipranzer, I always thought The Faculty was closer to Invaders from Mars than Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Considering how much weaker each subsequent entry has been to the one that preceded it, it just stands to reason that this 4th version of the story will be the least satisfying version of all. I think Warners knows it too, if they haven't screened it for the press yet. We'll just have to see, but I got a bad feeling about this one, Sarge, a real bad feeling.

comment #14

Undercover Brother says ...

This whole thing reminds me of "The Exorcist" prequel debacle from just a few years ago. And it's from the same studio mind you. Everyone went on and on about how the visionary Paul Schrader had had his 'misunderstood' film taken away and turned into garbage at the hands of the studio flunkies who couldn't possibly comprehend his artistic vision. Uberhack Renny Harlin was brought in to reshoot the whole bloody movie and his result was eventually crapped upon and ignored. When Schrader's version was finally released to DVD it was greeted with some hesitently postiive reviews, but mostly a swell of comments that amounted to "his version sucked too." I see the same thing here.

Warner's will release this thing next week and probably take one one the chin. In a year or two they'll release the trumped up 'original cut!' in a vain attempt to recoup a few more bucks from what was essentially a project doomed to failure the moment it was envisioned. And why? Becuase it's an old, outdated, tired metaphore that gets remade at least once or twice a decade! Stop remaking it! Especially since it's a transparent story that boils down to telling the audience that they're all mindless pod people. It's worse than insulting, it's dull.

comment #15

quitstaringatme says ...

Speaking of invaders from space, why the fuck hasn't Nicole Kidman aged a single day since 1994?

And The Faculty was a really fun movie.

comment #16

BurmaShave says ...

Was I the only one not over the moon about DOWNFALL? I think it was worthwhile to see a German filmmaker explore that period with contrition and regret, and Bruno Ganz was absolutely brilliant. He would have been at the top of my 2005 ballot if I'd been in the Academy. Nevertheless, I feel it really dragged on forever and needed serious cutting. I wouldn't have brought in the Wachowskis mind you, but based on DOWNFALL and DAS EXPERIMENT, I wouldn't necessarily call Hirschbigel a world-class filmmaker yet. He does seem very suited to the material of THE INVASION though.

comment #17

lazarus says ...

Dawgzilla, it's not quite accurate to label Heinlein as having a "right-wing" slant, as many of his earlier works were socialist in nature (Heinlein himself involved with them politically back in the day). Post McCarthy he did support Goldwater, and Starship Troopers made him appear a bit of a hawk, but he's always been more libertarian in nature. Besides, Stranger in a Strange Land was practically a hippie manifesto in the late 60's, and it's his most famous work. Most all of his novels after that were very frank about sexuality, essentially promoting free love, group and/or open marriages, etc.

In addition, he was viciously anti-religion, and is probably spinning in his grave at the way the conservatives have been co-opted by the fundamentalists. There's no way in hell he'd be getting behind any of that.

As for the subsequent adaptations of Body Snatchers, I always found Siegel's film horribly overrated. Kauffman's, while dated, has a unique, hypnotizing tone, and is really creepy. Abel Ferrara's scared the bejesus out of me when I saw it in the theatre. I haven't seen it since then so I couldn't accurately judge it, but I remember liking it at the time.

comment #18

insidah says ...

I'm assuming Kidman plays an alien in this, right? Since she stopped resembling a human being about five years ago when her insecurity about looking old next to Jude in Cold Mountain led her to inject botox into her face and brain.

comment #19

Spacelamb says ...

In Australia Nicole Kidman's frozen features are a national joke. Bets are taken on how old she will be before she allows a wrinkle to cross her face.

comment #20

Luke Y. Thompson says ...

One thing I found pretty funny about THE FACULTY's reference to Body Snatchers is that the characters within the movie talk about the original novel, and get it wrong. They state that the body snatchers win, which is wrong.

They win in every movie version so far...but in the book, they give up and leave earth.

comment #21

bagelfilm says ...

What are "pod people"?

comment #22

hatchetface says ...

Interesting about the Heinlein story, I'll have to check that out.

Has anyone every read a story by Frederick Pohl called A PLAGUE OF PYTHONS? It was similar to the Body Snatchers story, but with the twist of using technology to take over the bodies of others for wild, even suicidal, weekends of debauchery. They'd eject your mind and - instead of acting like a nice, calm ant/hive colony - they'd go crazy with your body, screwing and killing everything that moved.

comment #23

mizerock says ...

re: "A Plague of Pythons": that sounds a lot like "Passengers", which was supposed to be filmed by David Fincher at one point.

http://movies.ign.com/articles/036/036039p1.html

comment #24

Aunt Sassy says ...

Ironically, the message on the wall behind Nicole is exactly the same as the one she left her kids the day she told Tom she wanted a divorce (thanks for the joke, Kevin).