Cinematical

It is no secret that horror maestro Clive Barker has not had good luck lately with feature films. But to his credit, it hasn't made him bitter about seeing his work translated for the big screen. In an interview with MTV, Barker got the chance to weigh in on the upcoming remake of Hellraiser for Dimension Films -- and judging from his comments, he seems to be in a good place with the project. Barker told MTV, "I never get tired of revisiting [characters] if there is a good story to be told." He seemed genuinely excited about what he has planned for the story of a puzzle box from another dimension and the 'human pin-cushion'.

Back in February, Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton were hired to work on the re-write of the Barker-approved script. But the project had another setback when the French directing duo of Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (À l'intérieur) left the project due to "creative differences." So for now it looks like Pin-Head and the Gang are without a director. Hopefully, Dimension can get the ball rolling on the remake, because I don't think Barker could take another disappointment at the box office.

After the jump...find out what Barker really thinks about PG-13 horror.

We all know that David Fincher is an uncompromising director (and why shouldn't he be? The guy is one of the best working today). But, even if you don't like the man, you have to admire someone who is truly willing to put his money where his mouth is. In an interview unearthed by The Playlist, Heavy Metal publisher (and Fincher's collaborator on the Metal reboot), Kevin Eastman, confirmed that the reason for the project's move from Paramount to Sony was not because of problems with the sex and violence (as earlier reported), but because of another film altogether. When Metal first jumped studios, there was speculation that Fincher was having trouble getting the green light because of Metal's risqué subject matter. But, it wasn't Metal they were fighting about, it was Fincher's upcoming fantasy tale, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

According to Eastman, "We developed it [Heavy Metal] for Paramount in January... And it was time for them to make a decision [about going forward with the project] and they were at odds with Fincher over another project, 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,' [because] they wanted him to reduce the running time... and so they said, 'Until you step up to do what we want you to do with Benjamin, we're not going to green light any other of [your] movies.' And David said, 'Fine, f**k you, I'm going to set up [Heavy Metal] somewhere else,' so we jumped over to Sony and set it up there." You can't help but wonder what Paramount was thinking? Maybe the likely answer is that they were not prepared for Fincher to call their bluff.

After the jump ... guess who's directing Heavy Metal???

I might have been raised on the old maxim: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all -- but even I can't keep my mouth shut on this one. A new poster and some stills from the live-action Dragonball have hit the net (along with some official pics from Fox), and it is not looking any better for the anime update. If you are one of the few Dragonball fans left out there with hope for this movie, I'm afraid once you get a look at James Marsters as Lord Piccolo, the dream of a decent flick goes right out the window. Although to be fair, I have to give them credit for trying out a slightly more 'modern' look on the new poster art.

Dragonball stars Justin Chatwin as the mighty Goku (a casting decision that has yet to ever really make sense), a legendary warrior who is responsible for protecting the awesome powers of the mystical 'Dragonballs'. Jamie Chung also stars as Chi Chi (Goku's love interest), along with Marsters as the evil Lord Piccolo (oh Spike, where did it all go wrong?), Chow Yun Fat as Master Roshi, and Emmy Rossum as Bulma.

Just last week, the rumors were silenced that Fox would be scrapping the one hundred million dollar film. The current spin from Fox is that they are 100% behind the project -- but honestly, what else could they say? So whatever you may think about Dragonball, plenty of fans will probably be there on opening day. Who knows? Maybe I'll be one of them. I have been known to enjoy watching a train wreck on screen -- how about you?

[Thanks Coming Soon]

So if you aren't lucky enough to live in the wondrous nation known as Canada (can you guess where I live?), then look to your right, because this is going to be your one and only chance to see the first poster for Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Just when you thought Smith's troubles with the censors were over, the one-sheet for the 'adult' comedy has been given a thumbs down by the MPAA, and will not be displayed in the US. That's right, days before the film is set to premier at the Toronto Film Festival, it turns out the only people who will get to see this poster will be those north of the border.

Zack and Miri follows two childhood friends who are strapped for cash, and come up with the wild idea of making a porn to ease their financial woes. The film stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, but there are also plenty of familiar faces from Smith's usual stable (along with some of Judd Apatow's regulars).

It didn't come as a surprise when the film ran into trouble with the MPAA, and luckily Smith managed to avoid the dreaded NC-17 rating. But in the age of successful 'R' rated comedy, you would have thought the ratings board would move a little more with the times -- for goodness sake, Good Luck Chuck one-sheets made it stateside. Smith told EW, "When you've got the word 'porno' in the title, naturally, the marketing materials are gonna be scrutinized more closely by the MPAA, I understand they've got a job to do, but c'mon...this image isn't that dirty; they're both fully clad." So even though I am on Smith's side in the argument, you have to love his qualifier of 'that dirty'.

Zack and Miri will premier at TIFF on September 7th, and will arrive in theaters on October 31st.

By far, one of the most anticipated movies on the festival circuit this year is Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler. But many have been wondering why the film had secured such an 'undesirable' closing spot at the Venice Film Festival -- could there be trouble ahead with the finished product? But it looks like all that fretting was for nothing, because Aronofsky updated his personal blog with the news that the only reason for the delay in the selection process was that he was awaiting a completed song from Bruce Springsteen for the end of the film.

The Wrestler is the story of Randy "The Ram" Robinson (played by an almost unrecognizable Mickey Rourke); a former star of pro-wrestling in the '80s who has been reduced to appearing at high schools and community centers. With a heart condition and early retirement looming, Robinson takes one last shot at the 'big-time' in a match against a former rival. I can't say pro-wrestling is my usual area of interest, but I am pretty excited to see what a visual maestro like Aronofsky can do with that world -- and for a great primer on the difficult life of a pro-wrestler, I highly recommend the documentary Beyond the Mat

According to Aronofsky, "Springsteen wrote a beautiful original song for the closing the film. called THE WRESTLER it is a wonderful acoustic piece. makes me choke up every time i hear it. he really captured the spirit of the film and mickey's character in the piece." The pairing of Springsteen with the film seems to be a perfect fit. Because, if anyone has the knack for singing about the travails of a downtrodden man, it's Springsteen (and that Oscar pedigree probably doesn't hurt either).

The Wrestler will premiere in Venice on September 5th (we'll have a review from Toronto), and is expected to arrive in theaters later this year.

[Thanks: /film]

If you are a fan of Chuck Palahniuk then today might be your lucky day, because it looks like audiences could be getting more Palahniuk (and his merry band of screw-ups) on the big screen than they can shake a stick at. Before you get too excited, keep in mind that Mr. Palahniuk loves to mess with people, so we should probably take this news with an enormous grain of salt. The latest chatter to hit the net is that the feature film version of Palahniuk's 2002 novel, Lullaby, has begun the casting process. But that's not all! According to The Cult (the official fan site for the author), Rant (a great 50's sci-fi inspired tale) has also been optioned by an unnamed producer.

The news about Lullaby comes from Film School Rejects, who claim that they got their scoop from the man himself. According to Rejects, "Lullaby, an adaptation that hasn't been tracked nearly as closely as his other works, is already at the casting stage. The financing is in place, and even though the production won't tell Palahniuk who they are looking to cast, he believes they are waiting for a concrete production start day to make the announcement." I don't mean to be cynical, but don't you think if this was the real deal, Palahniuk would have been told that information?

Just one week after news surfaced that the big-screen Voltron was going into turnaround with Fox's Relativity Media, Latino Review is now reporting that Max Makowski has been signed to direct the live-action update. Now I know what you are thinking: 'Who the heck is Max Makowski?' Well, he might not be a household name, but according to Latino's sources "he's actually a great choice." Well, I guess we will have to take their word for it, because Makowski has a pretty scant list of credits to his name. The Brazilian born writer-director has been hired to direct an update of the 70's TV series Kung-Fu, along with penning the update to Hawaii Five-O.

Voltron has been languishing over at Fox since 2005, and other than a few rumblings about Justin Marks' script, the project seemed to have stalled. Marks' take is described as "a post-apocalyptic tale set in New York City and Mexico. Five ragtag survivors of an alien attack band together and end up piloting the five lion-shaped robots that combine and form the massive sword-wielding Voltron that helps battle Earth's invaders." But now that Relativity has finally secured the rights to the big-guy, I guess all the loose ends have been tied up. Besides, what's one more giant robot movie to add to the pile?

So if you are a hard-core Voltron fan with nothing but contempt for a live action version, at least you can take solace in the fact that nothing has been confirmed -- but you might want to get used to the idea of an 'MTV generation' Pidge now.

There is no denying that 'origin tales' are all the rage, and it's not just for superheroes anymore. In an interview with MTV Movie Blog, director Alex Proyas gave a few updates about what he has planned for Dracula Year Zero, and the word of the day is 'realism'. Proyas told MTV, the film will be, "sort of the origin tale that mixes [the historical] Prince Vlad of Transylvania with sort of [fictionalized] Bram Stoker [take]" -- I guess if it helps, just think of it as 'Portrait of a Bloodsucker as a Young Man'

Proyas (like so many before him) is planning to mess with the mythology of the big, bad, Transylvanian. But, don't worry, there are still plenty of fangs to go around, Proyas tells MTV, "Oh, you've got to have teeth, I mean, the teeth are really important. I think Frank Langella in the 'Dracula' movie that was made in the 70s, I think he didn't want to have teeth in the movie. But, no, I like the teeth. I want to see girls with a lot of teeth." -- and maybe most importantly to fans, "...lots and lots of blood!"

Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless were hired to write the script for Universal, who are probably expecting this project to dovetail nicely with their other classic 'monster' flicks (The Wolfman and The Mummy). But is a realistic Dracula really the way to go? If you do a little digging on the life of Vlad the Impaler, it's not exactly the romantic tale that Coppola provided us with back in 1992. So keep your fingers crossed that Sazama and Sharpless have a copy of The Legend of Dracula lying around, and hopefully they have something like this in mind for Year Zero.

Dracula Year Zero is expected to arrive in theaters in 2009.

I can't help but feel bad for Garth Ennis because it seems like lately, the guy can't catch a break. It was bad enough that the long-awaited adaption of his controversial series Preacher was shelved at HBO; but this is just adding insult to injury. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Columbia Pictures has hired Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay to adapt Ennis' anti-superhero comic, The Boys. Back in February, Elisabeth gave us the heads up that Columbia had picked up the property in the 'spirit' of looking for some titles that could give Watchmen a run for their money on the topic of superhero subversion.

Originally published in 2006, The Boys was created by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. The story was "set in a contemporary world very much similar to real one, with one notable exception: a number of people have some form of superpower. The series follows a superpowered CIA squad, known informally as "the Boys", whose job it is to keep watch on superheroes and, if necessary, intimidate or kill them."

So you might be wondering why the addition of Manfredi and Hay isn't good news. I mean everyone likes a comic book movie, right? Well, a quick glance at their collective resumes solves that mystery. Between the two of them, they have created some truly awful scripts (notably, The Tuxedo and crazy/beautiful). Hopefully the two have been brushing up on their 'superhero skills' by finishing their adaptation of R.I.P.D. for Universal. If not, I can't imagine that fans of the dark and violent world of The Boys will be pleased.

[Thanks: Comics2Film]

Usually when an original creator walks away from a sequel, it is a good sign that maybe a sequel isn't the best idea to begin with. Well, that's exactly what happened with the follow-up to Neil Marshall's 2005 horror-hit, The Descent. But it is not all bad news because Shock Till You Drop got the chance for a set-visit, and by the sounds of things it's looking pretty good for our group of traumatized spelunkers. (You can read the about the full visit over at Shock.)

The sequel picks up where the first film left off (that is if you are following the events of the North American release of the original film). The story follows the return of a mute and unbalanced Sarah as she heads back down to the caves with a rescue party to locate the rest of her group. Of course, this being the ricketiest cave on earth, the group is soon trapped and left to deal with the nasties down below.

During the visit, Shock spoke with writer James Watkins (My Little Eye) as well as the production designer Simon Bowles. Watkins told Shock that they went to Marshall to "get his feedback and discuss which direction he wanted the story to go, what he thought was good, how we should develop the characters" -- not to mention there was the promise of plenty of more gore this time around, and in the end isn't that what we're paying for? Scott told us back in 2007 that Marshall hadn't completely washed his hands of the whole thing, and would still produce the flick. Well, I guess he's a little more hands-on than expected -- which is probably a very good thing, don't you think?

The Descent 2 will arrive in theaters in 2009.