comment #1

DavidF says ...

I think they should do the opposite and leak the entire thing without complete FX. Without any FX, actually. Just weird green screen shit.

Then everyone will be dying to see what the heck they actually did.

As for Wolverine, it's been getting mixed/negative reviews for months. If it's good, stupid fun I can imagine going to see it if I have the time. If it's crap, I wasn't going to see it anyway.

These movies are out there and it's a bit sad to see the hysteria each time it seems to get more pervasive. You can get almost anything - that's the reality.

comment #2

raygo says ...

X-Men was on its last legs as a franchise, and I don't know anybody who is interested in Wolverine at this point. They waited too long. Jackman will be back on Broadway soon enough.

comment #3

actionman says ...

The Wolverine leak will do nothing to dent its force at the box office. Nothing. It was going to gross between $130-160 million in the US when all is said and done, regardless of any leak.

I still think that Avatar is going to completely underwhelm. Too much hype. Critics have been sharpening their knives for the last DECADE over Cameron's next offering. And I still really can't stand mo-cap bullshit (for the most part).

comment #4

MikeSchaeferSF says ...

I must have seen the Wolverine commercial a dozen times on Comedy Central last nite.

comment #5

Rich S. says ...

actionman, you may not recall, but the critics were laying in wait for Titanic, too. Too long, way over budget, "release date pushed back and you know what THAT means," etc. In the end it exceeded everyone's wildest box office expectations.

That said, I'm a little worried about all this "James Cameron's Avatar" business. Didn't John Carpenter's movies start to seriously suck about the time he did the same?

comment #6

actionman says ...

didn't Titanic get only decent to mixed reviews overall? i know it got a lot of love from some people, but I remember some people tearing it apart. no?

comment #7

actionman says ...

And Mike -- did you see that LANDMARK episode of South Park last night?

comment #8

actionlover says ...

"Wolverine" and "Avatar" are gonna be AWESOME!

comment #9

Rothchild says ...

That was probably the worst episode of South Park. Ever.

comment #10

D.Z. says ...

"No movie coming out within the next year is shrouded in more secrecy than Avatar , and it's hard to imagine any other trailer audiences would pay $12 to see."

Avatar?
It's from that guy who directed Titanic, Terminator 2 and Aliens 2.
What took him so long to do anything new? Titanic's old, man. I've moved on to LOTR, Watchmen and TDK since then. And the last few Terminator and Aliens flicks blew, so I'm bored with those, too.
Well, he technically did do something recent in-between. Dark Angel.
What Angel?
That sci-fi show on Fox
...
With Jessica Alba!
....
That blonde Latina chick in that Fantastic Four movie and Good Luck Chuck.
Why would I want to see another movie from a guy who was willing to work with that ditz?
Because it's supposed to have "revolutionary" use of new technology.
So were Tron and Spirits Within! But those are still boring movies.
Well, anyway, Avatar's gonna be attached to the IMAX version of Wolverine.
So what? We'll just wait 'til it shows up on-line. This isn't like the days when people paid for movies, just to see Star Wars prequel ads on them.

raygo: They're supposedly working on a Magneto movie after Wolverine.

actionman: Well, Wolverine's total could still be hurt by WOM. I mean, people might have different expectations from it that it may not deliver on, such as the CG show-downs of the previous flicks. If it's stuck relying too much on wire-fu, it could piss off audiences.

Rich: Titanic had Leo back when he was a hit with teen girls. Jackman has had very few hits to prove he's a draw.

comment #11

D.Z. says ...

Sorry, I didn't know words with tend to be cut off. What I meant to say for the first word was "Joe and Jane Movie Go-er" and the second sentence "Movie Geek"; and it'd just basically rotate like a conversation.

comment #12

D.Z. says ...

*words with those triangular brackets whose name escapes me*

comment #13

theultimatebiu says ...

I am looking forward to AVATAR but it is either going to be pure cinematic genius or a epic failure. I don't see any in between.

Wolverine is getting slammed all over the internet and the early buzz was extremely negative anyway. FOX have nothing this year excpet TAKEN and Avatar.

comment #14

MilkMan says ...

Someone should make a movie about a character who lives in Green Screen World. Everything around him keeps changing, but he never actually does anything or goes anywhere.

comment #15

bluefugue says ...

"What have you done for me lately?" doesn't apply to Cameron. He's in the upper upper upper echelon of sci-fi/action writer-directors, and most of today's generation can't carry his jock strap. That buys him some benefit of the doubt vis-a-vis Avatar.

comment #16

D.Z. says ...

bluefugue: ""What have you done for me lately?" doesn't apply to Cameron. He's in the upper upper upper echelon of sci-fi/action writer-directors,"

If you don't count him plagiarizing Harlan Ellison, sure.

"and most of today's generation can't carry his jock strap"

I think they can at least do a better job than Dark Angel, anyway.

comment #17

frankbooth says ...

Nobody cares about Dark Angel. Shut. The. Fuck .UP.

I like your idea, MM. It could be a guy eating cereal. Giant robots are fighting behind him. Then he's on a rollercoaster and he catches fire. Eels crawl in and out of his eyesockets, stuff blows up all around him, and he just keeps on eating.

comment #18

MilkMan says ...

Yeah, Frank. Or he does engage with his environment. One moment...wait, this kind of sounds like that movie with John Ritter, where he gets sucked into the television and they keeping changing the channels on him. Same principle, I guess. But I'm just saying, there is a movie to be made not just using green screen, but making a characters existence within green screen the actual subject of the movie.

comment #19

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Actionman, i'm rather shocked and appalled you're not waiting on pins & needles for Avatar. You're highly anticipating Transformers 2 and the remake of Pelham, but some reason the filmmaker behind Terminator, Aliens, hell even True Lies isn't good enough for ya?!?

No offense, but your go-to "action" boys Bay and Scott (I should specify...Tony) aren't fit to look through good ol' Jim's lens. I don't even care what you think of Titanic -- I thought it successful for no other reason than it found a way to make a suspenseful drama out of a story to which everyone already knew the ending -- like bluefugue says, the rest of his resume (esp. the 80s sci-fi/action stuff, which is right in his wheelhouse) speaks for itself.

It's also hilarious that D.Z. continues to bring up Dark Angel when dissing Cameron because it's about the only blemish on his excellent (especially for a director of populist entertainment) filmography. Never mind the fact that he was the creator of that show and very hands-off (wrote one, directed one, produced a handful).

Using that as a blight on his record makes about as much sense as saying Piranha 2 (or any of his Roger Corman-affililated work) sucked.

comment #20

stq says ...

I don't know if this has been discussed here before, but there was a "scriptment" floating around the net many many years ago for Cameron's Avatar. Many of the character names now listed on IMDB are the same, so it appears to have been legit.

If the movie he ended up making is anything like that scriptment, it's probably not going to be that good. Anyone else read that?

comment #21

D.Z. says ...

Kane: "It's also hilarious that D.Z. continues to bring up Dark Angel when dissing Cameron because it's about the only blemish on his excellent (especially for a director of populist entertainment) filmography."

There's also Piranha II and that Titanic "sequel", I mean documentary. Plus that Aliens remake called "The Abyss".

"Never mind the fact that he was the creator of that show and very hands-off (wrote one, directed one, produced a handful)."

He cast Alba for the lead. 'Nuff said.

comment #22

Chase Kahn says ...

I'll watch 'Alien' over 'Aliens' any day of the week...

comment #23

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

"Plus that Aliens remake called 'The Abyss'."

Yes, that's right, it was a shot-for-shot remake. Man those creatures in The Abyss were absolutely terrifying. Oh wait...

"He cast Alba for the lead. 'Nuff said."

Uh, no. That would be the casting director's job.

Dumbfuck.

comment #24

frankbooth says ...

Forget it, Kaned. It's actionman.

comment #25

D.Z. says ...

Kane: "Uh, no. That would be the casting director's job."

He still stood by her, so he clearly supported her, even though he knew better. Or maybe he didn't know better, and he's suffering from the same mid-life crisis which paved the way for Shia to play Indiana Jones' son.

comment #26

Gordon27 says ...

DZ: Shut the fuck up and die, you stupid piece of shit.

comment #27

Gordon27 says ...

And anybody who can read Cameron's discussions of what the future of film needs to be and what he's trying to do with Avatar and not get a little excited -- if only at the prospect, even if you think he can't acheive it -- then you've forgotten how to enjoy Movies.

comment #28

markj says ...

D.Z. and actionman just made the classic mistake - they underestimated James Cameron. Go and have a listen to the T2 commentary guys and see how Cameron's mind works. He is simply on a different level to every other action director working today. All of whom worship Cameron, especially Bay who cast Michael Biehn and Ed Harris in The Rock because of his love for The Abyss. On The Rock commentary Ed Harris says that all Bay wanted to do on set was ask questions about Cameron.

comment #29

Cde. says ...

Uh, no. That would be the casting director's job.

I hate to stick up for the always wrong D.Z., but the casting director doesn't make final casting decisions. That's the director's job. Casting director communicates with the director and co-ordinates the casting process, showing director results, which director then uses to make a casting choice.

comment #30

ThriceDamned says ...

And I hate D.Z.

I usually don't comment here, just lurk. But I found within myself the irresistable urge to drop in just to say how much I physically HATE D.Z.

He's by far the most stupid, worthless piece of shit "human" being I've ever encountered online in more than 10 years of surfing. Just to think that he's sitting somewhere in his mom's basement, consuming valuable oxygen and resources that would be much better served growing a banana somewhere, makes me sick to my stomach.

I hope you read this D.Z...I hope you read this and then die.

comment #31

Zach says ...

Wolverine will make bank no matter what. It's opening against... well, nothing.

And even if they put an Avatar teaser in front, you can't keep it off the Internet - bootleggers will find a way.

Besides... does the general population outside of the film community really know/care that much about Avatar at this point?

comment #32

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

"I hate to stick up for the always wrong D.Z., but the casting director doesn't make final casting decisions. That's the director's job. Casting director communicates with the director and co-ordinates the casting process, showing director results, which director then uses to make a casting choice."

Granted, this would be more or less true in film. But television is a different animal, and in particular Dark Angel is even more muddled.

In television, the producer is generally the one that gives the final "okay" on casting. But I still stand by my original comment that the casting director/dept. is in charge of actually casting (choosing someone out of thousands for a role and saying "she'll do" are two entirely different things, yes?).

James Cameron was only the executive producer of DA, which implies that he mainly handled the business/copyrights of the property, and didn't have much of a say in the creative aspect of the series. This synches up with what I remember reading about the show when it premiered, and how relatively hands-off JC was during the production of it.

But "relatively hands-off" for Cameron might not have meant that much, as he is known as a pretty extreme control freak (even in a profession almost entirely dominated by them). And yes, he was also one of the creators of the show (there were actually two...see what I mean about muddled?), so it's very possible that he had some sort of opinion about Alba -- who I thought was fine in the role, btw (so what the hell am I even arguing about?), although the show did have some serious problems.

ANYWAY, my original point was to glibly retort to D.Z.'s glib retort. That's just kinda what I do when I can't take his shit anymore. Admittedly, my post was lazily written and I made some dumb errors of omission.

To be fair, you weren't exactly right, either -- you rarely are when you side with the Zeltergeist. Would you have said "Michael Crichton cast George Clooney in E.R.?" Before you cry foul, it's actually a fairly comparable situation.

Anyway, fuck me and the 10 minutes I just spent trying to explain something I (or anyone else, surely) actually had zero interest discussing in the first place.

And above all, fuck D.Z.

comment #33

D.Z. says ...

Zach: It'll no doubt have a big opening. But will it be able to have as strong domestic total as the other X-Men films?

Kane: ER was an ensemble show. Dark Angel was the Buffinator, or whatever the hell Cameron was going for at the time. So of course JC has to own up to casting her, since she was so important to the part. And Alba was awful to the point that even Woody Allen won't be giving her a movie anytime soon.

comment #34

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

I don't get the Woody Allen reference...since when is he the gold standard of who's hot/not in Hollywood? He's always done his own thing, which is usually casting the same leading ladies until he gets sick of them, or until they break up with him -- Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow, and now Scar-Jo.

Alba is fine in roles that require physicality first and foremost...you gonna tell me she didn't belong in Sin City?

Anyway, Michael Winterbottom just cast her -- in an adaption of friggin' Jim Thompson novel, no less -- so she is going to get her shot to deliver the real dramatic goods, whether she deserves it or not.

comment #35

D.Z. says ...

Kane: "I don't get the Woody Allen reference..."

I'm alluding to his casting of Johanssen in some of his stuff.

"Alba is fine in roles that require physicality first and foremost...you gonna tell me she didn't belong in Sin City?"

Replace her with a random porn starlet, and it wouldn't have made a difference.

comment #36

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

"I'm alluding to his casting of Johanssen in some of his stuff."

Then you should have said, "Woody Allen is looking forward to working with her in the future." Unless you consider Scarlet one of the brighter actresses of her generation.

"Replace her with a random porn starlet, and it wouldn't have made a difference."

Yes, because Traci Lords was so great in Blade...She couldn't even hold her own working with such master thespians as Udo Kier and Stephen Dorff. At least Alba was able to hang with Bruce Willis in her thread of SC.

comment #37

D.Z. says ...

"Yes, because Traci Lords was so great in Blade...She couldn't even hold her own working with such master thespians as Udo Kier and Stephen Dorff."

I said starlet, not used-up baggage.

comment #38

D.Z. says ...

Lemme rephrase "used-up baggage" to a washed-up former jail-bait actress .