Zack Snyder's Man of Steel gets another mythic trailer...

I'm genuinely surprised that they didn't just release the Comic Con footage as a second trailer, but kudos to Warner Bros. for cutting something new anyway.  There's not much to say other than how primal and effective this is.  Obviously the use of soaring music (from Gladiator, I've just been informed) is almost cheating, but it's clear that Snyder and Nolan are going for a genuinely grandly epic tale of a God come to Earth to serve rather than lead.  I still think there is much that seems like it comes from Superman: Birthright, and that's a good thing.  I still like that the trailer spends little time on the usual 'action montage', giving away only bits and pieces while introducing both Amy Adams as Lois Lane and Michael Shannon as General Zod in brief glimpses (along with Chris Meloni, Richard Schiff).  Anyway, this is still at the top of my 'must see' list for summer 2013.  Yes, the general outline arguably follows the Batman Begins template (overly reverent and real-world origin story), but more importantly we are hopefully looking at a superhero adventure by way of Terrence Malick, something that actually feels like a grand myth, a true story of legend, with pathos honestly not seen since, yes, Richard Donner's Superman.  And it's doing it without the iconic John Williams themes.  Man of Steel opens on June 13, 2013.  As always, we'll see, but I frankly can't wait.

Scott Mendelson

John Gosling previews the week's new releases (09-07-12).

A relatively quiet weekend with just two major releases, only one of which is out to a substantial number of screens.The Words was written and directed by Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal and follows a young author (Rory) desperately trying to come up with a story. When his latest effort is rejected he happens across an old manuscript in a house in which he is staying with his partner. Finding himself blown away by how good the story is, he sets to work re-typing it, with a view to passing it off as his own. Thanks to 'his' new book, Rory finds himself the sensation of the publishing world and reaps all the rewards that come with it. But when a man connected with the original manuscript comes into his life, the author soon discovers the high price he will have to pay for stealing another's story. The Words marks the directorial debut of Klugman and Sternthal, who received advice on the script from the Sundance Writer's Lab. With funding in place they set to work on casting, with Bradley Cooper taking the lead role of Rory, Zoe Saldana as his wife Dora and Jeremy Irons as the stranger with the potential to expose Rory's deceit. Other members of the cast included J.K Simmons, Dennis Quaid and Oliva Wilde, the last two acting as a framing device for the picture - Wilde interviewing Quaid's character who has himself written a book relating to the events that unfold as the main body of the film. 

Trailer Analysis: Man of Steel gets a cryptic and real-world teaser from of the Batman Begins school of marketing.

Old news, for sure, but I was on vacation last weekend and then returned home to find my son had a stomach bug (he's fine now, natch), so I'm only now getting around to this teaser (and a couple other trailers of note.  As you all surely know by now, Warner Bros. released two teasers attached to The Dark Knight Rises this weekend, one with voice-over provided by Pa Kent (Kevin Costner) and the other by Jor-El (Russell Crowe).  While the intitial response was that Zack Snyder is basically making Terrence Malick's Superman: The Movie, the truth is that this initial teaser is merely emulating the play book of Batman Begins. Please watch the first teaser for Batman Begins after the jump and then we'll continue.

Scott Mendelson

Zack Snyder's Man of Steel gets a teaser poster.

Zack Snyder's Superman reboot, Man of Steel, just premiered its teaser trailer at Comic Con and the reviews are mostly positive, with the somber, large-scale drama being compared to Terrence Malick.  Since the teaser premiering with The Dark Knight Rises is said to be pretty similar to what the SDCC attendees saw about an hour ago, I'll refrain from commentary until I can post the actual teaser (I'm hoping-against-hope that Warner screens said teaser before my Tuesday night Dark Knight Rises IMAX press screening). So yeah, here's the dark and moody poster.  Looks fine to me, but it's just a poster and we'll know more once we all get to see whatever it was that set Comic Con aflame.

Scott Mendelson

Review: Immortals (2011) shares the politics of 300, the plot of Clash of the Titans, and negates its worth as 3D spectacle by looking glorious in 2D.

Immortals

2011
110 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

While Immortals has been advertised as a knock-off of 300, it's actually pretty much a variation on Clash of the Titans through-and-through.  In fact, the only real similarity it shares with Zack Snyder's 2007 blockbuster is its (unintentional?) racism and its rather explicit right-wing politics.  Like 300, the film involves a very white guy (Henry Cavill, who will indeed make a fine Clark Kent in two years) who does battle with another white guy (Mickey Rourke, in arguably better form than he's been in anything since The Wrestler) who is pissed off at the Greek gods because his wife and child slowly died of some unnamed illness.  Fair enough, but at the end of the movie (yes, there will be spoilers, even generic ones...) we get a big (and very impressive) battle between the Greek gods and the evil Titans.  The Greek gods are dressed in gold armor and are as Anglo-Saxon as can be (played by Luke Evans and Isabel Lucas, among others) while the Titans are well, savage humanoid monsters with really dark skin.  So we get a climactic battle between angelic white people and demonic black men.  Subtle...

An official photo of Henry Cavill as Superman in Zack Snyder's Man of Steel.

It's so nice to see these things first as they were intended to be seen, as opposed to some grainy photos shot by paparazzi or what-not... Anyway, it's obvious that Warner Bros. is keen to reassure fans that this Superman is more of a bad-ass than the previous big-screen incarnations.  We're looking at something less like Christopher Reeve/Brandon Routh and more like Tim Daly/George Newell from Superman: the Animated Series and Justice League.  I haven't written much about the film, as I did not have time to write a blurb every time a piece of high-profile casting was announced.  Unlike most people, I really liked Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch, so I'm actually expecting this to be a good movie.  Even if you don't like his last film, the action scenes were unarguably incredible and just the sort of large-scale heroics we want to see in a big-budget Superman picture.  Furthermore, from what little we know about the story, they seem to be taking chunks from Superman: Birthright, which is EXACTLY what I suggested they do early last year when this project was announced.

Warner Bros. moves Man of Steel to June 14th, 2013. NOT July 19th, 2013!

In what I guess you could call breaking news, Warner Bros. has announced that they are moving Man of Steel (ie - Zach Snyder's Superman film that seems to be based on Superman: Birthright) from December 2012 to June 14th, 2013.  What's shocking is not that the film is being moved (it is apparently being tinkered with at the screenwriting stage), but that Warner is not moving it into its favorite mega-release date, which in this case would be July 19th, 2013.  For those who came in late, a brief history of Warner's favorite weekend:  It started in July 2007. For, among other reasons, a sense that the fifth Harry Potter film would benefit from a release date close to the release of the seventh and final book, Warner Bros. slotted Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to open on Wednesday, July 18th. It grossed $44 million on that first Wednesday and ended up with $139 million over the first five days ($77 million of that from Fri-Sun). Despite being released in the summer (where Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban ended with a series-low gross of $248 million) and being based on arguably the worst book in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix ended up with $293 million, becoming the highest-grossing Harry Potter sequel yet released at the time.

Best news: He'll be almost 30! Henry Cavill is Clark Kent in Zack Snyder's Superman: Man of Steel!

By Hollywood standards, the newest last son of Krypton is actually kinda old. By the time Zack Snyder's Superman: Man of Steel (or whatever its called) comes out in December 2012, Mr. Henry Cavill will be 29 years old. If, as I predict, the film gets pushed back to July 19th, 2013, then the newest Clark Kent will be a whopping 30 years old when the film is released. I jest a little of course (obviously 39-year old Jon Hamm never had a chance), but Christopher Reeve and Brandon Routh were both 26 years old when Superman: the Movie and Superman Returns went wide in America in December 1978 and June 2006 respectively. Dean Cain was 27 years old when Lois and Clark: the New Adventures of Superman debuted on ABC back in September 1993. Other than that, I have little to add on this one. Cavill is a fine actor who has impressed on The Tudors, Stardust, and elsewhere. He auditioned to play Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins back in the day, was among the front-runners for what eventually became Superman Returns when McG was set to helm the picture, and was actually author Stephanie Meyers's first choice to play Edward Cullen in Twilight, but he was 25 years old by the time casting began. Hopefully this will be a case of the right person being cast in the role the second time around, ala Pierce Brosnan's belated run as James Bond (no offense to Timothy Dalton and Brandon Routh, as they both did their respective franchises proud). And that's all I really have to offer on this one at the moment. I'm certainly glad they didn't go with a teenager, or someone who looked barely out of high school.

Scott Mendelson