Welcome to 2014, and may it be a good year. It’s Friday morning, so here’s the first News Bites edition of the new year. Now, as with last week, Hollywood’s been relatively quiet, apparently honoring the holidays as a time for family. Or maybe Hollywood press agents just all go out and get roaring drunk on New Year’s, I don’t know. But whatever the reason, there are only a few items to discuss this week. So to find out what’s happening, click “Continue Reading”.
News:
James Avery, best known as Uncle Phil on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the voice of Shredder on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, among numerous other roles, has passed away at the age of 68.
Also no longer with us is the creative genius of director Kevin Smith. No, the director of Clerks hasn’t passed on, but his mind is clearly gone. Kevin Smith has announced that his next project after horror film Tusk (which debuts this year) will be Helena Handbag, about mankind teaming up with Hell to take on a giant rampaging Jesus, dubbed “Christzilla” by Smith.
Chris Williams, who co-directed Bolt, has joined Don Hall as co-director of Big Hero 6, the Disney animated adaptation of Marvel’s Japanese super-team. The film is due out this November; is this a little on the late side to be adding another director?
It’s awards season, and that not only means nominations, it means movies adding those nominations to their advertising. But the Golden Globes are getting annoyed with some of them, and have asked film companies to cease describing their nominated films as “winning” a nomination. As THR’s article notes, the depiction in the advertisements emphasizes “WINNER” over “nomination”, implying the film has won awards that haven’t even been doled out yet. As the article also notes, the Academy Awards barred this practice years ago with their own awards.
Rumors and Speculation:
It’s already been debunked by the folks originally reporting it, but just in case anybody caught only the first wave and not the correction, the story that Fox was going to make Fantastic Four vs. X-Men is inaccurate.
On slightly more solid ground, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, has tweeted that he is teaming up with DC Entertainment for an unrevealed project. Rumors are now flying on what role he might play and in what film. Johnson was previously rumored to be Black Adam in the now-defunct Shazam! adaptation, and current rumors include both Green Lantern (as John Stewart), and of course Lex Luthor, because of course he’s bald. Johnson himself has given little in the way of hints, stating only “we will partner up and create the cool bad assert.” Translation wanted.
That’s all for this week’s News Bites. Thanks for reading, and leave a comment below with your thoughts!
Morgan on Media 
Thanks as always for these. It’s where I get most of my movie news.
And Kevin Smith had clearly gone bat crazy.
Yeah… I have a feeling that after Cop Out, Red State, and now this — since I’m assuming neither this nor Tusk will do great numbers — that people are going to start classifying him with M. Night Shyamalan as directors who just flamed out.
That is quite possible. Although, I don’t think his star was ever quite as high as M. Night’s.
“No, the director of Clerks hasn’t passed on, but his mind is clearly gone.”
Ouch. Can’t argue that point though. Is he even working on anything now?
Yeah, besides the movie mentioned above, he’s got a horror film coming out this year called Tusk, which I don’t know much about.
RIP James Avery. Sad sad news to hear that he passed away. Not all that old really.
Not really. 68 is elderly, but it’s hardly unusual for an actor to still be going strong at that age or older.
Hi Morgan! There’s a reason I never care for Kevin Smith but he’s clearly has gone too far w/ his upcoming film, sheesh!
Yeah, at this point it sounds like he’s gone from making movies about stoners to making movies based on the jokes people make when they’re stoned.
The thing is he seems hellbent on offending people, that’s NOT creativity.
You’re right, it isn’t. It’s also not that original, or half as smart as he thinks. You can already see Sacha Baron Cohen’s career fizzling out, and it’s the same thing. You can tweak people’s noses, but you can’t punch them in the nose and expect them to laugh. And even if you do get a few laughs out of shock value… it only works once. People get used to it from you, and they lose interest. (Does anybody actually care what South Park does anymore?)
The Rock is a natural for any superhero type especially as his stature seems to override his grammar (“…assert” – huh?). I believe he could have made a strong role as Black Adam in the now defunct Shazam if it had the comic book tone and not the whimsical 70s era TV show vibe.
Smith can now live alone on a Mel Gibson style Elba Island as he’s now full crazy.
Thanks for the newsbites.
-Cheers 😉
I think the Rock could do well in a superhero movie, so long as his role isn’t the lead… I’m still pretty unconvinced of his acting ability. But he would have looked the part for Black Adam, no question.