| Superhero choices >>> Batman: Richard Armitage, Tom Cruise, Joshua Jackson, Bruce Willis. Captains America: Val Kilmer, Brad Pitt, Schwarzie (with that accent!), Will Smith, Channing Tatum. Iron Man: Nicolas Cage, Tom Cruise, Hugh Jackman, Timothy Olyphant, Clive Owen, Sam Rockwell (he became Any Old Iron’s rival Justin Hammer). Wonder Women: Angelina Jolie, Lindsay Lohan (TVersion), Michelle Pfeiffer, Sharon Stone <<< |
THE GAME OF THE NAME |
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| Move aside, Jack Ryan, Mike’s here… |
| OK… Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson, who was The Falcon, is the new Captain America. Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier will next be known as The White Wolf. Michael B Jordan has cleverly jumped in where Tom Hardy and Keanu Reeves feared to tred as author Tom Clancy’s John Clark - but under the ex-SEAL’S real name of John Kelly - in Without Remorse, which has been on and off and off since the thriller was published in 1993. The tough guy was Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber in the Jack Ryan movies. Jordan will reprise the role via the 1998 book, Rainbow Six. Jordan is also due back, directing himself this time, as boxer Adonis Creed, who is not Muhammad Ali although Jordan will be down the line. However, he will not be the upcoming black Superman… who is Calvin Elllis and not Clark Kent and based on… Barack Obama. Are we clear? |
KALEIDOSCOPIC TERROR |
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| It has many rivals, but this is the most famous sequence in cinema history. The Slashing, as it was christened in the script - “an impression of a knife slashing, as if tearing at the very screen, ripping the film.” Janet Leigh’s murder in Psycho’s shower. It had been copied by global directors (Scorsese included), re-shot move for move by Gus Van Sant (such a useless exercise!) and superbly examined in documentary detail in 78/52 - for its 78 camera angles and 52 edits. Or what Hitch called “52 pieces of film stuck together.” He also called the movie a joke. “I was horrified to find some people took it seriously.” Part of the joke was killing off his leading lady in the first 20 minutes. Ah, but which one…? When I met Hitch at his favourite chair, in his favourite suite at his favourite London hotel, Claridges, on April 21, 1966 (memorable meets are always in a diary), he told me about casting. ”You have a certain character in mind, certain settings. As you begin the execution of it - well, the thing you start with is the first compromise... the compromise of casting.” And so Angie Dickinson, Martha Hyer, Shirley Jones, Hope Lange, Piper Laurie (Carrie’s Mom), Lee Remick (Damien’s Ma in The Omen), Eva Marie Saint (from his previous North By North West) Jean Simmons, Lana Turner all lost the film that made Leigh stick to baths only for the rest of her life. Dickinson got her own shower moment 19 years later in Dressed To Kill. Of course she did - her director was the eternal Hitch copyist, Brian De Palma. Which is why he also also used a body double… and then made a film, called just that. As for the legend that the great Saul Bass actually directed his own storyboard… Janet said he didn’t. Saul told me he did. Some of it, I would say - probably with the body double, Playboy cover girl Marli Renfro. I tend to believe Saul because, there in his favourite chair, Hitch told me that after working for months on a script, then shooting and editing it in his head, he was, well, rather bored with actually having to shoot the damn thing! |
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TOO MUCH |
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| Rosario Dawson is the perfect Ashoka Tano | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Whole lotta casting goin’ on in Film City. Disney has announced like 50,000 films for the coming years, although they’re all Lucasfilm or Marvel, with very few actual Disney items. Rosario Dawson and Donald Glover are bringing their Ahsoka Tano and Lando Calrissian to TV. Florence Pugh and Mahershala Ali as the new Black Widow and Blade. Plus Simu Liu heading Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (the ones Peter Jackson forgot?). Plus some fascinating crossovers… Marvel chief Kevin Feige is planning a Star Wars movie while JJ Abrams moves to DC for the black Superman. But as the finest Hollywood commentator, Richard Rushfield, says - Hollywood has forgotten the cardinal rule of entertainment: Leave them wanting more. "We now," says Rushfield, "give them too much of everything." Yeah, well, there’s a noun for that. Greed. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
A BRACE OF PECKS |
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| There was this unknown TV writer called Gene Roddenbery .. His favourite books were those by CS Forrester about a British Royal Navy hero, Captain Horatio Hornblower. Gene loved the film, too - with Gregory Peck. In fact, it gave him the idea for Hornblower in Space… better known over 55 years as Star Trek. Like most movie stars back then, Peck wasn’t into TV. His grandson is quite different. Ethan Peck has scored 45 acting gigs in the last 26 years. We’ve seen him in Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, as the young George Clooney in The Midnight Sky - why, he’s even made a flick with Mariah Carey. (Why, indeed!). Today he goes where Grandpa never went. The young Mr Peck is the new Mr Spock in everything Star Trekian. From Discovery and Short Treks to Strange New Worlds. What you might call… Hornblower Jnr in Space. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
TWOMB RAIDER |
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| Lara Croft returns… And she’s in good company. While waiting for 007 to get cracking, MGM chose Misha Green - the Lovecraft Country creator - to writer-direct Alicia Vikander’s second outing as the female Indy Jones (with touches of Tarzan). The Swedish Alicia (Mrs Michael Fassbender) took over from Angelina Jolie in 2017, beating 20 other candidates, including two Underworlders Kate Beckinsale, Rhona Mitra… three Twilighters Ashley Greene, Nikki Reed, Kristen Stewart… 007’s Gemma Arterton, Harry Potter’s Emma Watson, Marvel’s Wanda, Elizabeth Olsen, Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley, Transformers’ Megan Fox, TRON’s Olivia Wilde, even Jennifer Lawrence (who?). Oh, it’s a crowded world out there. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Couples That Weren’t >>> Dan Aykroyd-John Belushi: Gangs of New York. Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor: Camelot. Robert Duvall-Michelle Pfeiffer, The Silence of the Lambs. Matt Damon-Joaquin Phoenix: Brokeback Mountain. Felicity Jones, Scott Eastwood: Fifty Shades of Grey. Sophia Loren-Gregory Peck: Travels Wjth Anita. Peter O’Toole-Jeff Bridges: The Stuntman Denzel Washington-Diana Ross: The Bodyguard. Emma Watson-Miles Teller: La La Land <<< | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo ©redits:All The President's Men montage: Reg Oliver,1976; Geneviève Bujold: Paramount TV, 1995. Rosario Dawson: Marvel, 2020. Dr Doom: Marvel, 2019. Imogen Hassall: Hammer Films, 1968. John Hurt: Alacran Pictures-Tornasol Films-Entre Chien et Loup, etc, 2016. Michael B Jordan: Nadja Klier/Paramount Pictures, 2021. Kim Novak: Columbia Pictures, 1958; Marilyn Monroe: 20th Century Fox, 1962; Ethan Peck: Paramount TV, 2021. Gregory Peck: Warner Bos, 1950. Janet Leigh: Paramount, 1960. Tom Selleck: Belisarius Productions/Glenn A Larson Productions/Universal TV,1988 . TC sketch: Graham Marsh, 1976; Alicia Vikander: MGM, 2017; Vincent Cassel: HBO Inc, 2020. Plus enormous thanks to The Man: Daniel Bouteiller. |
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