It's Frankenweenie versus Taken 2 as John Gosling previews the week's new releases (10-05-12)

Along with Tim Burton's Frankweenie and the return of Liam Neeson in Taken 2, last weekend's surprise chart entry, Pitch Perfect expands into wide release. Frankenweenie's origins stretch right back to 1984, when Tim Burton worked at Disney. The young director got his first break thanks to a short film he made while at college, entitled Stalk of the Celery Monster. The short drew Disney's attention, who offered him an animation apprenticeship, where he would work on The Black Cauldron and The Fox and The Hound, amongst others. In 1982, he made his first stop-motion short for Disney, an ode to his childhood hero, Vincent Price. 'Vincent' played the Chicago film festival and was followed up by the director's first foray into live action in the guise of Hansel and Gretel. Burton gave the Grimm fairy-tale a Japanese spin, culminating with the titular heroes in a kung fu battle against the evil witch. The film aired just once and prints have since become so scarce that for a number of years many thought the project was a myth. By 1984, the young director/animator was ready for his next live action short, a tale of a boy whose dog is killed by a car and his attempts to bring it back to life. A homage to Frankenstein, Frankenweenie ended up getting Burton fired from his job at Disney, who felt he had squandered time and money on a film that was too scary for children (It had been set to debut with the re-release of Pinocchio).  

John Gosling previews the week's new movies (09/14/12)

After the poor showing last weekend, studios are hoping for better results with this week's releases, which include the fifth Resident Evil movie, a 3D re-release of Finding Nemo and the limited roll out of The Master. 

The Resident Evil series (Biohazard in Japan) kicked off in 1996 when Capcom unleashed their survival horror epic onto an unsuspecting gaming public, to great success. Since then the franchise has gone from strength to strength, with various sequels and spin-offs across a multitude of formats, along with novelizations, comic books, action figures and much more. The games alone have sold in excess of 50 million copies, with a sixth one in the original series due at the end of the month. A move into film seemed inevitable and by 1999, Sony and Capcom announced horror supremo George A. Romero had signed on  to script and direct Resident Evil - something that came about when he directed a commercial for the Playstation release of Resident Evil 2. However, dissatisfied with what Romero turned in (despite it following the plot of the first game quite closely), Capcom fired him from the project and looked to move in a different direction. In 2000 they hired Paul W.S Anderson, a British director who had seen success with his Mortal Kombat adaptation in 1995.