Scott Pilgrim Q&A at the New Beverly

A few weeks ago, I got the chance to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World again, this time at a midnight screening at the New Beverly complete with a Q&A with Edgar Wright and several of the cast members. Scott Pilgrim was one of my favorite movies from this year, and it stands as the only film I’ve seen twice in theaters in 2010. It really needed it the most after all, with a paltry box office of $31.5 million.

Enough has been said on the film already, so I’ll just dive right in to the question & answer portion.

How do you [Brian Lee O’Malley, creator of the graphic novels] feel about the differences between the books and the movies?
I did the books all solo while Edgar worked on his own thing. There wasn’t much collaboration between us two to get the movies to be exact adapations, we wanted there to be differences to make sure it fit for their own mediums. Plus, it's a long production process and I understand that the movie can't include everything.

What’s everyone’s favorite video game?
Edgar Wright: Rampage
Michael Cera: Contra
Mae:  Mist
Anna Kendrick: Shenobi
Satya Bhabha & Mark Webber: Mega man

This role was very physical, how did you feel preparing for it?
Cera: I trained for 2 months, in fighting and bass. It was great because I got to know everyone before we even started shooting. Because of the exercise, I’ve never felt more confident. I was pretty much a stud by the end of it.

What was your most entertaining movie going experience?
Edgar Wright: My most entertaining movie experience was when I saw Hostel 2. It was a midday, midweek showing so there were maybe only 5 people in the theater. Then, during the cannibal scene, some guy came in just then and sat next to him. During one of the goriest moments, he just leaned over to me and said “beautiful.”

The soundtrack was fantastic and one of the many highlights of the film, how did you go about putting that together?
Edgar Wright: The soundtrack came together really came together because of my friend Nigel. He put together the score, and he’s been produced by Paul McCartney and some other big names. The idea was to have a different artist do their song as if they were a different artist, like Heck channeled their garage band roots, and Metric did a parody of themselves. We currently have three soundtracks out – one for the game, the score, and then the traditional soundtrack. We have enough songs to fill a fourth, and we want to distribute it, but it’ll depend on money down the road.

How familiar were you with the material before landing your roles in the film?
Mae: I was the only one who had read the books. I loved it before auditioning for the role.

When you were casting for this role, how did it all shake out? Did you have people in mind from the beginning, or did you leave it open depending on auditions?
Edgar Wright: I had a lot of people in mind from the start. Michael Cera was at the top of my list from near the beginning. I was lucky and got most of my first choices. Casting spanned at least a year; it was a long process. One of the many special features on the Blu-Ray is the casting tapes. That’s a fun little feature.


This movie obviously draws a lot from video games, were there any specifically that you pulled from when writing the story/filming the movie?
Brian: I never had N64, so I don’t know the games well enough to have based anything off them specifically.
Edgar Wright: The fights were inspired and referenced a lot of great video games. I looked to Fuly coolly, Beck, Akira, Naruto video games, and especially Marvel vs. Capcom. For the twins battle specifically, the creatures were double dragons because there are two of them. That bit was an homage to Scott Wolf and his fabulous work in Double Dragons. [The Double Dragons trailer played before the movie, along with a few video game commercials.]


Are there any character notes that didn’t get explored in the movie, but that still influence who they are?
Edgar Wright: Julie's secret fact is that she had a crush on Scott during college, that’s why she treats him the way she does. Roxy is half ninja, but insecure and angry about not being a whole ninja


What did Scott order off amazon?
Edgar: I don’t actually know. Maybe it was a Wang Chung CD? Hott Fuzz DVD?


What is everyone currently working on now?
Brian: I’m glad to be going back to Toronto and being a hermit again. I’m not sure what I’ll do next.
Stephan stills is directing.
Envy is in The United States of Tara and a film called Rampart.
Mae is focusing on her music and is also starring in the NBC show Parenthood.


Other odds and ends mentioned throughout the night:

• Roxy’s whip wasn’t in the graphic novel. It was designed specifically for the movie.
• Edgar Write would want to make The Action Doctor. The first thing Chris Evans did for the project was all the posters.
• Check out the plot keywords on IMDB.com. It makes it sound like an NC-17 flick with one of them being "Death by Orgasm." 
• Brian enjoyed the movie and was himself surprised by the ending. The last book was done after the movie was already nearly complete so there wasn’t much discussion between the two about where things would end up.
• Another special feature that will be on the Blu-Ray is a compilation of all the TV-safe voice over edits they recorded. They had to change any instance of them saying “god” or “ass” or anything like that. The montage was hilarious, with constant references to people being such “bad owls.”

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Blu-Ray is out now and would make a PERFECT holiday gift for your friends or family. More people need to see this film.

Too Much of a Good Thing: Men in Black

Seems like Men in Black 3 is going to happen.

I loved the first movie, but the 2nd movie was pretty lackluster. And now it's been 7 years since the last one. Do we really need another MiB movie?

The only thing making me think this could actually turn out to be a good movie: Etan Cohen. He's not a name most recognize, but we all have seen his work. He wrote Tropic Thunder, which is a great blending of action and comedy, much like MiB will be. He created great characters and put them in an extraordinary situation. He also wrote Madagascar 2, which I actually really liked. He's proven he's got the comedy chops and can bring original ideas to the screen. Hopefully, he can work his mojo on the MiB franchise! So far they haven't gotten Will Smith and Tommy Lee to fully commit, but if they can get Grade A talent behind the camera, I'm sure they'll get it in front.

Spider-Man 4 Villian Announced!

It sounds like Spider-Man 4 is learning from the mistakes of Spider-Man 3. SM3 suffered from too many villains and it didn't go into enough depth into any one of them, so we just didn't care about their stories or the drama between them and Spidey. Spider-Man 4 will have just one villain: The Lizard.I'm not too informed on Spidey lore, but the prospect of Sam Raimi returning to the formula that worked so well in the first two makes me hopeful.

[Found via Cinematical]

Footloose Can't Catch a Break

The Footloose remake is not having very good luck. The director, Kenny Ortega, has just backed out of the production. The film's first troubles came when Zac Efron dropped out because he didn't want to get type cast into teen musicals like High School Musical, Hairspray, and Footloose. Which I think is smart for his long term career, but as I fan I was sad to hear it. I think he has a great voice and did a great job in Hairspray. I would have been happy to watch him in a few more musicals before he switched directions, but what can you do? He's made his choice. Zac Efron's departure isn't the news though.

Footloose just lost its director. A pretty big blow, which may delay production. A replacement has yet to be found, which could delay production. Are you guys looking forward to this film? I'm a fan of movie musicals, but this one hasn't sparked my interest as much as Hairspray did, for example.




[found via Getting The Big Picture]

Adam Shankman! and other Season 6 news

So You Think You Can Dance has a new permanent judge! I'm so glad Adam Shankman has been upgraded to a permanent judge! He was always my favorite of the guest judges. He's enthusiastic without being grating (like Mary Murphy), he's eloquent without being verbose (Lil C), and he's critical without being mean (Tyce D'Orio).

They'll still have guest judges, and maybe Paula Abdul will be one of them, which could make for a very crowded panel. I hope the guest judge isn't every week, otherwise the show will become more about the judges/judging than about the dances. They should learn from American Idol - they had 4 judges and it made the show run over, grating on viewers when it would interfere with their other television shows that night.

[via TVGuide]

Changes I found out from twitter:

HitFixDaniel Nigel says this "SYTYCD" finale will feature *six* dancers -- three men and three women.

I don't know how this is going to work. They already had timing issues with top 4 dancers in previous seasons. But, if they can work out the timing, I think this could make for a much more entertaining finale. My guess would be that they cut down on the dances of the top routines, which I would miss, but they would also start the eliminations earlier in the episode which would make the entire episode a MUST WATCH, rather than just the last 30 minutes.

HitFixDaniel ...because of baseball, the Top 20 doesn't start until Oct. 27. They had to expedite the run.

This is much later than I thought the Top 20 would start! But looking at it now, it makes sense because they're only airing 1 hour/week of the auditions. This could mean low ratings until the show starts, because everyone tunes in for the Top 20, not for the cast-offs that the audition weeks tend to focus more on. Hopefully the buzz will still be just as big at the end of October, so people remember to watch the best part of the show.

HitFixDaniel Nigel Lythgoe says a seventh season for "So You Think You Can Dance" next summer isn't guaranteed.

I hope this means they don't know when they'll start Season 7 and not the much more upsetting news that it may not come back at all. I can't see that being the case, since this show is the closest it gets to American Idol's success when its in its off season. Plus, it's a cheap show to produce, much cheaper than their other recent success Glee, simply because it's reality. Well, I guess we'll see what happens as this season develops and how the ratings go.

Well, that's all the news I've got today. Tune in tonight on Fox 8pm EST/PST for the Phoenix auditions!

The Replacements

It always bothers me when TV shows or movie series recast important characters midway through their run. The latest example of this is the announcement that Rachelle Lefevre won't be playing Victoria in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. She will instead be replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard. The reasoning for this is, supposedly, scheduling conflicts, but it seems to me that Summit Entertainment just wanted to save themselves some money by casting a different redhead.I can understand why they'd want to do that, from a financial standpoint it makes all the sense in the world. But this kind of recasting can hurt fan loyalty. I'm not a big Twilight person, so I don't take this change to heart. But I'm sure, with this fandom in particular, I'm sure some fans will be upset by this change. What bothers me is that it insults the audience's intelligence that we wouldn't notice the physical changes. Also, the audience always has the other performance in mind so it distracts from the actual show; we're too busy comparing how the different actors treated the same role. At least, these are my problems with recasting mid-role.

Are you guys bothered by this?

Here are a few more examples of recasting:

Terrance Howard vs. Don Cheadle in the Iron Man franchise:


Alica Goranson vs. Sarah Chalke in Roseanne:


Can you guys think of more that bothered you?

UPDATE via Perez Hilton:

Rachelle's words about the replacement

“I was fully committed to the ‘Twilight’ saga, and to the portrayal of Victoria. I turned down several other film opportunities and, in accordance with my contractual rights, accepted only roles that would involve very short shooting schedules. My commitment to ‘Barney’s Version’ is only ten days. Summit picked up my option for ‘Eclipse.’ Although the production schedule for ‘Eclipse’ is over three months long, Summit said they had a conflict during those ten days and would not accommodate me. Given the length of filming for ‘Eclipse,’ never did I fathom I would lose the role over a 10 day overlap. I was happy with my contract with Summit and was fully prepared to continue to honor it. Summit chose simply to recast the part. I am greatly saddened that I will not get to complete my portrayal of Victoria for the ‘Twilight’ audience. This is a story, a theatrical journey and a character that I truly love and about which I am very passionate. I will be forever grateful to the fan support and loyalty I’ve received since being cast for this role, and I am hurt deeply by Summit’s surprising decision to move on without me. I wish the cast and crew of ‘Eclipse’ only the very best."

For more, check out these articles on E! Online.

Breaking: The Green Lantern

Well, that was fast! Looks like Ryan Reynolds will be The Green Lantern. I know he'll be good, but I still think Bradley Cooper could have brought something new to the role. And Justin Timberlake could have brought his fan following. Oh well, I know Ryan Reynolds will be an awesome Hal Jordan. I'm a major fan of his (and his body haha).

[via io9]

I'm a Comic Book Movie Geek

Hello, I'm Kristal and I'm a comic book movie geek. I make the distinction between comic book and comic book movie, because I've only read a handful of comics. I much prefer the comic book movie with its thrilling action scenes and special effects, that are still rooted in a compelling plot and characters, over other action movies. (*cough*Tranformers 2*cough*).

The latest comic book movie to hit development is The Green Lantern - one of my favorites from the Justice League cartoon (again, I reiterate, I'm a geek).

So, who's going to play the famous Green Latern? Right now, the frontrunners are Justin Timberlake, Ryan Reynolds, and Bradley Cooper.

My personal choice of the 3 would be Bradley Cooper - he's an attractive rising movie star, with the talent to pull of comedy (Wedding Crashers, The Hangover) and drama (Alias, that wonderful show). This could be his break into the A-list.

Ryan Reynolds would be great, but he's got his own comic book franchise in the works with Deadpool. Does he need this one too? I'd rather he do Deadpool and alternate that with stuff like The Proposal. You know, to keep the ladies happy. If he were to take on both franchises, I doubt he'd have much time for different projects.

I'm still surprised that JT is on this list - I thought those rumors months ago were just that, rumors. I know he's done some acting before (he was surprisingly good in Alpha Dog) and he has the comedic chops to pull of Hal Jordan's lighter side. But this article brings up a good point - JT has massive appeal, and can bring in the ticket sales. As a comic book movie, it would already bring in a large male audience. JT would help cover the female side of things. I'm a girl who loves these types of movies, so I'm sold. But for the girls who aren't that big in to action flicks, this might be the clincher that brings them in.

According to MTV, their holding contracts ended Monday, so hopefully soon the studio will have to make a decision if they want to have enough time to make the December 2010 release date.

Also, here's an awesome fan made trailer for Nathan Fillion as The Green Latern. I love the guy (Firefly is one of my faves), but he does skew a bit too old for the part. Great trailer though!