A very brief quote from James Bond producer Michael Wilson, in an interview with The Sun, tells us that work on the 23rd Bond film is now underway.
“We have started work on the new film, which I can’t say anything about. Daniel Craig is very keen to get going.”
Wilson also suggested that contenders for the next Bond theme tune could be Duffy or Amy Winehouse. I don’t think we can really take anything from that though:
‘I would love to get Duffy to sing the next tune,’ he said. ‘I think she is wonderful. Amy Winehouse would be good too.’
A short while back we thought we had the green light on BioShock’s production — Gore Verbinski was discarding the Pirates 4 project and everything looked set to go. Shortly after Universal put the project on hold because of spiraling budgets of +£160m.
Now Verbinski tells the LA Times:
The bottom line is [BioShock] has to shoot out of the States for budget reasons and my schedule may be prohibitive. There’s a great script and a really interesting cast. It really comes down to the financial model now. Big movies are just not being shot in the States. I’m weighing whether I can physically go the U.K. or Australia or one of those other places with a tax rebate for a year-and-a-half.
It’s now highly questionable that Gore Verbinski will eventually helm the BioShock adaptation.
As announced via Twitter, Jon Favreau appeared on the Jimmy Fallon show last night. Favreau was at “Hammer Industries”, a rival firm to Tony Stark’s — Sam Rockwell plays Justin Hammer. Not a lot of news, he ‘can’t say much’, but it’s quite a fun video:
Bleeding Cool report that British actor Brian Blessed has been cast as the chief Nordic God, Odin, in Kenneth Branagh’s Thor adaptation. Odin is also Thor and Loki’s father.
A good comparison between Blessed and his new role can be made via the Flash movie, wherein he played the King of the Hawk Men:
We’ve just seen the Transformers 2 movie rendering, and we’ve also seen the toys and CG models, now for something slightly different, one of the original concept designs for The Fallen:
Lots of small news items coming out at the moment, didn’t seem worth giving each of them their own post. Here goes:
Movie completed this week
Michael Bay has commented that he hopes to have production of Transformers Revenge of the Fallen completed by the end of Wednesday:
“I’m a little stressed because I’m finishing the movie tomorrow. Maybe Wednesday.”
That’s only 5 days before the world première in Tokyo!
ET exclusive TF2 footage today
ET will be airing some exclusive new footage from the movie some time today, as well as an interview with Megan Fox and Shia.
Box Office Tracking — $175m 5-day opener?
From Nikki Finke:
[…] Rival studios are telling me they expect Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen to open with a high of $175M for its 5-day opening from Wednesday, June 24 to Sunday, June 28. Because the sequel came onto tracking HUGE today. Paramount will try to lower expectations. But here’s what can’t be argued: Spider-Man 2 opened on Wednesday, June 30, 2004, and did $152 million for its first 5 days. So Transformers 2 feels like at least it should be in the $160+M range.
IMAX tickets on sale in Australia
The IMAX in Sydney has put up its pre-orders for TF2, which can now be purchased. The first showing is at 12:01am. Buy tickets.
“Mike has been better this time, he’s more comfortable and he’s doing different stuff,” says LaBeouf, looking buff but for the cast on his broken hand, during an interview in Los Angeles last autumn. “It’s wild to watch Mike grow up and to acknowledge it. Every filmmaker, every movie out, something changes. You either gain something or you lose something, and I think this time Mike has gained a lot. I also think working with Steven is really transforming Mike. His preparation is very different on this one than it was on the first one.”
[Regarding request for Megan to gain some weight] “Megan Fox is gorgeous, still,” LaBeouf gallantly affirms. “And no, I didn’t think she was too skinny when she came back to do this. Megan has never looked bad. There’s always something that Michael says, but he’s been good.”
“It’s bigger, faster and stronger than what we did the first time,” he says. “We’re blowing everything up. I was just at Holloman Air Force Base, where we blew up an entire town! There are new characters that are interesting. Our banter is fast and it’s fun, it’s table tennis.”
“There’s cool stuff that happens to Sam. Sam starts to lose his mind. He starts having visions of his grandfather, Archibald Witwicky, and that’s fun to play around with. And recess time with John Turturro [who plays the addled fed constantly at odds with Sam] is always fun…. It’s like Groundlings Theater,” LaBeouf says, referencing the L.A. comedy troupe whose alumni include Will Ferrell and Lisa Kudrow. “You’re ad libbing all day long. One of the beautiful things about Mike is that he’ll allow it. You can do free-form thought the whole day.”
Empire recently spoke with Jon Favreau and Mickey Rourke about Iron Man 2. Favreau gave some background to the Tony Stark character in the sequel before giving cryptic clues when quizzed on ‘Rhodesy’ and War Machine.
“Tony’s expected to be a role model and I don’t think he’s ready to be one. He’s under a great deal of pressure and when you’re under pressure, I think you find outlets for that. That’s one of the tensions of the film: it’s one thing to say you’re Iron Man, and another thing to actually become Iron Man.”
“Rhodesy is definitely stepping up in this film. Let me put it this way: Tony’s not the only person with technology in the film.”
Meanwhile, Mickey Rourke comments on his Whiplash suit (we’ve already seen a possible concept piece for this)
“I’m having the time of my life! […] It’s been really brutal, because my Iron Man suit weighs 23lb. It’s sort of a half-suit, with half my skin showing, with lots of Russian tattoos, because [Whiplash is just] out of a Russian-zone prison.”
