The Week In Geek: Terminator 5? Chewie Returns! And Wonder Woman Finally Cast!
Yeah, I Know He Said “I’ll Be Back” But Really??
You’d think after the critical and commercial disappointment of Terminator: Salvation, that would be the end of that franchise. Yeah…not so fast. It looks like Universal is looking to get their fingers in the Terminator pie, on the heels of the announcement that Arnold Schwarzenegger is returning to acting following his stint as Governor of California. I’m not sure just what role Universal wants Arnie to play this time. At nearly 63, Arnie is way past his Cyberdine Systerms sell-by date. I know they digitally de-aged him for that brief cameo in the last movie, so maybe they plan on doing it for a whole flick this time? Hell, they did it for Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy, so I guess anything is possible (maybe they can change Arnold’s skin color from mutant orange back to standard Caucasian again while they’re at it). In any case, it would seem that Salvation director McG is out of the picture, so any ideas for his proposed new trilogy following his last movie are probably gone with him. Nothing of great significance happened in that movie anyway, and the storyline could easily move forward without much reference to those events without doing a reboot. I imagine Christian Bale will move on too, and we’ll get yet another actor in the role of John Connor. It seems that Universal really wants director Justin Lin for this, mostly because at some point they realize he’ll run out of Fast and the Furious movies to do.
Frankly, I wouldn’t mind a proper end to the whole Terminator saga. Set the movie in 2029, with an older John Conner on the brink of defeating Skynet, sending Kyle Reese and a re-programmed T-800 back into the past and close the loop. End the thing with some dignity.
David E. Kelley casts his Wonder Woman
……..Adrianne Palicki.
After what seems like a decade’s worth of speculation, ranging from the sublime (Angelina Jolie) to the ridiculous (Beyonce), we finally have our first live action Wonder Woman since Lynda Carter. Former star of the critically acclaimed series Friday Night Lights, Adrianne Palicki beat nearly every female of appropriate age in Hollywood for the coveted role. I’ll admit, I have never seen Miss Palicki act in anything, but on the visual side of things she certainly looks the part. She’s 5’11, fit, and at least currently has the right color hair. I’m still not happy about many things about this project, but at least with the casting they seem to know what they’re doing. True, I was originally rooting for South African model turned actress Tanit Phoenix. (That is, until I saw her audition tape that leaked this week. Ouch). I’m betting that Adrianne was the far better choice here. And at least she is a true comic book geek; her brother is comic book creator Eric Palicki, and both siblings have been collecting comics from an early age, and she even has a Supergirl tattoo. Maybe she can even explain the character of Wonder Woman to David E. Kelley.
Of course, the next big reveal on this project will no doubt be the costume. Many are suspecting it will be the new Jim Lee designed outfit from the comics, and I would say that is a safe bet, although I personally loathe that costume. They’ll probably drop the jacket though, because why cast a hot actress only to cover her arms, shoulder and side boob? The script I read certainly emphasized Wonder Woman more as the world’s best athlete (there is a lot of running and jumping around in this script) over her skills as a warrior. So for those hoping for a Xena-esque outfit, I wouldn’t count on it, although I hope I’m wrong. I kind of hope the tv outfit looks something like this fan re-design of the new costume. It looks like a more blinged-out version of something that Olympic level female track stars wear (including the shorts) while still being Wonder Woman upon first glance.
2011 is going to be a crucial year for DC Entertainment. With Green Lantern in theaters this summer, and Wonder Woman premiering in the fall presumably (unless the pilot doesn’t get picked up, which would be way embarrassing to Warners/DC) this will be their first big push in live action for their non Batman/Superman properties in forever. If one or both of these fail, expect all other non Super-Bat DC projects to quietly go away.
Zack Snyder In The Warner Brothers Dog House?
Speaking of DC properties, The Vulture at New York magazine is reporting that things are quite stressful right now over at Warner Brothers due to problems with the new Superman reboot, The Man of Steel. First off, it Seems Zack Snyder’s new movie Sucker Punch is not testing well (which, frankly, bodes well for me actually liking it.) making the suits at WB antsy about Snyder in general. On top of that, there seem to be “third act” problems with David Goyer’s script for Man of Steel , which we all know translates simply into “the ending sucks”. Because of all these issues, it seems Warners wants Snyder to focus on getting Superman on track and have all but fired him off his 300 prequel, Xerxes. Considering that 300, whether you liked it or hated it, was all style over substance, why get rid of the guy who brought all the style? And does anyone really want to see a 300 prequel about the villain anyway? Much less without Snyder and his slow mo hot guy fetish cam? In any event, Warners is already pushing their new Superman Henry Cavill on the cover of this week’s Entertainment Weekly almost a full two years before the movie is actually scheduled to even come out, so they are making it pretty clear which project is the priority for them.
Instead of Underwear On The Outside, They Wear Diapers?
Director Matthew Vaughn sure likes his comic books. Despite saying earlier this year that the comic book movie fad would soon be ending, the director of Kick Ass and the upcoming X-Men First Class is prepping yet another comic book movie of his own, although one with a slightly different twist. The Golden Age, based on the yet-to-be-published comic written by British talk show host Jonathan Ross (not the DC Comics mini-series from a few years back), is about a retirement home where superheroes end up when their crime fighting days are over. Vaughn is apparently looking to get actors attached to the movie before the script is even written, and His wish list includes Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, and Warren Beatty to play the retired superheroes who help out their grandchildren when their now middle-aged parents screw up the world. Jane Goldman, Vaughn’s screenwriter for Kick Ass and X-Men, is married to Jonathan Ross, so she seems the obvious choice for scripting duties on this one too.
What A Wookie
In last week’s column, I mentioned how Grand Moff Tarkin from the original Star Wars film would be making his animated Clone Wars appearance this week. Well, the producers are about to top that when it comes to catering to fanboy nostalgia for the original trilogy. In the two part season finale of Clone Wars set to air next month, we are getting our first animated appearance of everyone’s favorite wookie, Chewbacca. Considering his brief appearance in Revenge of the Sith showing his chummy relationship with Yoda, this was only a matter of time I suppose. It seems the animators at Lucasfilm couldn’t get all of Chewie’s movements just right, so they flew in actor Peter Mayhew to Lucasfilm Animation studios to be their animation model. Every head tilt and arm wave will be based on those of the freakishly tall (7 foot 3) actor. He even contributed a bit of his own voice to the infamous Chewie growl.
Between Tarkin, Greedo, and now Chewie this season, there aren’t many classic trilogy characters that would make sense in the prequel time frame. God help me, I never wanna see a pre-teen Han and Lando as some kind of space version of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Who is even left at this point? Admiral Ackbar? Actually….that is kind of a good idea.
Get Ready For A Bright Green Mila Kunis To Spank To
No, not in a big screen version Wicked. No, for that other Wizard of Oz prequel project, Oz, The Great and Powerful. In this version, the Wicked Witch of the West is not the misunderstood Elphaba of the stage and bestseller list, but Theodora, the sister of Evanora (ya know, the one Dorothy dropped her house on) James Franco is now the frontrunner to play the Wizard, after both Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp passed. Sam Raimi is still scheduled to direct this one, so there is some hope this might turn into something interesting after all. If you thought there were a lot of “Slutty Witches” at Halloween time before, get ready for a true onslaught. Although I’m sure most of you won’t mind.
