Thompson On Hollywood

Watchmen Watch: Crudup's Dr. Manhattan

[Posted by David S. Cohen]
Now that the Watchmen trailer has hit the web, giving us a tantalizing look at the film's visual effects and overall style, here's a tidbit about how those wicked-cool Dr. Manhattan effects were created. Billy Crudup appears in the trailer as Jon Osterman, who becomes a superbeing after a laboratory accident. (Shades of Bruce Banner!) For his post-accident scenes as Dr. Manhattan, Crudup is replaced in the film with a motion-capture CG version of himself. During filming on set, Crudup acted opposite his co-stars, wearing a suit covered in blue LEDs, so he would give off an otherworldly glow in real life, just as Dr. Manhattan does in the movie.

Watchmen's Snyder Reveals Secrets; Legendary's Tull Talks Superman

I'm not going out on a limb to say that the most anticipated presentation at Comic-Con will be Zack Snyder's panel on Warner Bros.' The Watchmen. Remember, 300 exploded out of Comic-Con two years ago.

The trailer hit the Web this week, and the HD version is stunning. I love trailers where you don't know what the hell is going on. Of course afficionados of the Alan Moore comics can identify the origin story of Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) and the shadowy bipolar Rorshact Rorschach, among others.

Snyder himself explains some of his secrets here. UPDATE: And here's EW's Snyder and Alan Moore interviews. And Comic-Con preview.

Today I talked to someone who has seen the movie, Legendary Pictures producer Thomas Tull, who goes 50/50 with Warner Bros. on such films as Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Superman Returns, 300 and The Lady in the Water (the only film he didn't actually produce). An old Watchmen comics fan, Tull wanted in on the film as soon as Snyder pitched it, even though many people have regarded the complex, layered sci-fi narrative about superheroes who are real as unfilmable. After Tull saw a cut of the movie he told Snyder, "You got it. You nailed it the spirit of it and made it come alive."

"It's a smart visually stunning movie," he told me. Of course he's vested.

He's also vested in making the next Superman installment, which is still years away, come to life. While Bryan Singer has been working on Valkyrie, Tull and the folks at Warners have been listening to various screenwriters pitch their solutions to how to make the next Superman work. "It's an iconic character," says Tull. "After everything that went into the first film, it's important to make sure that nothing is rushed and we come out with a fantastic second film." One thing they all agree on: Superman needs a powerful antagonist, a "worthy opponent," he says.

Coming sooner is Louis Leterrier's follow-up to Incredible Hulk, Clash of the Titans. And no, Leterrier is not being talked about to direct Superman. "He's laser-focused on Titans," says Tull.

Obama New Yorker Inspires Stewart

After our Monday editorial meeting I bet some of my colleagues that the Obama New Yorker cover controversy would not just blow over in a few days. And it hasn't. Here's Jon Stewart on the issue. "It's just a fucking cartoon!" he says, memorably.

The point is not whether people who read the New Yorker get the joke. It's about the potency of the image, transmitted via the internet, everywhere else.

As a distraction from The New Yorker issue, Barack Obama gave campaign trail reporters his four-star film review of Wall-E after seeing it with his daughters in Chicago, writes the A.P.:

"'WALL-E' was great. Thumbs up. It's terrific. I really enjoyed it. And the girls had a great time."

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, New Yorker editor David Remnick wasted no time in pleading his case to Charlie Rose Wednesday. Remnick fiercely defended the cover as satire that was not over the heads of non-New Yorker readers. The cover felt right to him, he said, when there are many covers that don't make the cut. He also thanked Jon Stewart from the bottom of his heart.

Bloggasm posts some other great Barry Blitt New Yorker covers.

Hiding Eddie Murphy

Hold your horses everybody. Patrick Goldstein and Stu Van Airsdale pile on Murphy after the disastrous $5 million opening of Meet Dave, which was stupidly marketed; Fox should have kept the title Starship Dave. But the studio's problem with this $75-million comedy was insurmountable: They were selling a movie starring Eddie Murphy playing Eddie Murphy.

All the guy has to do to have a hit comedy is play someone else. Eddie Murphy works best in movies like Shrek and Norbit when you can't see his face.

It's that simple, and that's the reason why the star has enjoyed a much longer career (26 years) than most comedians in Hollywood. He's a chameleon shape-shifter. You love him as the fat guy in Nutty Professor, not the thin one. Even in Dreamgirls, Murphy was playing someone utterly different from himself. And grabbed an Oscar nom for it. And he will surely do well playing all the characters (under makeup) in the upcoming Fantasy Island. But any studio that has an Eddie Murphy project that involves no disguising makeup (like Beverly Hills Cop IV) or isn't animated had better think twice.

Or you could meet another Dave or Pluto Nash.

Comic-Con Preview: Twilight's Hardwicke and Spirit's Miller

Comic-Con is coming at the end of the month, and two movies sure to make a splash at the San Diego convention center are Frank Miller's neo-noir The Spirit and Catherine Hardwicke's vampire romance Twilight. I interviewed both directors for my column: Miller says The Spirit is in color, not black and white, and that he colors with emotion. Hardwicke talks about auditioning Robert Pattinson to play the vampire Edward Cullen opposite Kristen Stewart's Bella--- on the bed of her Venice beach pad. Only with those two was there serious heat.

And here's the Comic-Con sked. UPDATE: And here's EW's cover story and backlash to their ultra-glam cover shoot, which alters the appearance of the actors from the movie.

Comics in Hollywood: DC vs. Marvel

A key story of summer 2008 is the rise of Marvel Entertainment. Now in charge of its own destiny with Iron Man and Incredible Hulk, the company is actively developing its own characters for movies down the line. And execs are willing to defend Marvel's long-term interests, whether that means negotiating tough with Jon Favreau on directing the Iron Man sequel or telling Edward Norton that some of his favorite scenes in Incredible Hulk will have to wait for the DVD.

At the Hellboy II premiere, Favreau told me he that while he was planning to do Iron Man 2 and wanted to do The Avengers as well, Marvel was unlikely to wait for him to do both. The "official" announcement will likely wait for Comic-Con.

Now execs at DC Comics are taking note. Long more passive in their relationship to their films, there are signs of change, reports David Cohen. Still up in the air are such DC projects as the next Batman and Superman movies (how about those Louis Leterrier rumors?) and Justice League, not to mention the long-in-the-works Wonder Woman.

Marx Brothers Thank You

My father raised me on the Marx brothers; thanks to Jeff Wells for tantalizing me with with this too-short clip of the infamous State Room sequence from A Night at the Opera, probably their best film.

Here's another sample of their greatness: Thank Yaw! Thank Yaw!

Wildboyz Go to Bollywood

MTV stars the Wildboyz dunked themselves in the Ganges and dumped water on an elephant during their escapades in India. Naturally, they couldn't pass up an excuse to do their own Bollywood dance number.

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

Dark Knight Review: Nolan Talks Sequel Inflation

Finally, I would have preferred to see The Dark Knight in 35 mm, not IMAX. (I will go see it again when it opens July 18.) While the sequences that were shot with giant cameras were stunning at the IMAX venue--especially the deep detailed helicopter shots over Gotham and the amazing car/truck chase filmed in Chicago's freeway tunnels--I found the movie overwhelming. My brain starts to shut down when it gets over-pixillated, and this film goes on for two and a half hours. (Here's Justin Chang's review.)

My instincts told me when I first saw The Dark Knight trailer: Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins follow-up would fall into the trap of the summer tentpole sequel. It's not entirely his fault. The studio gives him his marching orders: top the last one. Make it bigger, better, bolder, more FX, more action, more scale and scope and characters (read toys). What else should a poor boy to do with $180 million?

Nolan delivered on the first Batman reboot and he does it again here. The Dark Knight will work at the boxoffice and keep the franchise alive.

In many ways, this movie functions as a western, with an honorable sheriff (Gary Oldman's lovable police detective Gordon), a nasty outlaw (Heath Ledger's extraordinary, anarchistic Joker), a lone gunman hero operating outside the law (Christian Bale's Batman) with loyal veteran sidekick (Michael Caine as Alfred), and the lovely lass that the outsider cannot have (Rachel Dawes, the delightful and wily Maggie Gyllenhaal).

And then--here's where the movie starts to go off the tracks--we have Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent, the too-virtuous-to-be-true D.A. who is in love with Gyllenhaal, thus forming a love triangle, as well as another Batman accomplice, inventor Lucius Fox (read James Bond's Q), played by the over-exposed Morgan Freeman. Then add a bunch of mafia guys led by deliciously wicked Eric Roberts.

Somehow, David S. Goyer (who wrote the story), and screenwriter Nolan brothers Chris and Jonathan manage to play out all these plot strands. But they wind up with a half-hour finale on top of the two hour main movie, which is really about Batman vs. Joker, who wind up in an iconic face-off on a main street in Gotham. (Ledger dominates Dark Knight news coverage, natch. The LAT addresses the movie from that angle, while EW goes way overboard. Clearly, Warners is making an Oscar push for the film. Ledger's acting nomination is inevitable; while James Dean and others have been nominated after their deaths, only Network's Peter Finch has won a posthumous Oscar.)

Oddly, because The Dark Knight is busy servicing all these other characters, the movie doesn't spend enough time with its leading man, Bruce Wayne/Batman (BTW, Batman's basso-growly voice is silly).

After twists and turns aplenty, some more satisfying than others, the movie comes to a gratifying conclusion (setting up the next sequel). But while Eckhart is winning as Dent, his character detour as Two-Face does not pay off.

I suspect that the filmmakers should have figured out the shorter version of this movie before they shot it, not after, because by then they couldn't cut it, according to Nolan (the full Q & A from one of my Guild spies is on the jump). Nolan shot The Prestige before he came back to work on the final drafts of the script. And by then he was locked into studio-mandated start and delivery and release dates.

My fantasy of the ideal version of this movie doesn't matter a whit, because it will play. The complexities of the plot are more fun to talk about than anything since Wall-E or Iron Man, and that makes Dark Knight one of the best movies of the summer. Maybe some dark over-nourishment is better than a simpler, structurally perfect masterpiece, after all.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army Closes LAFF

Universal threw yet another Westwood block party premiere Saturday night, this time for $100-million summer sequel Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, the closer of the Los Angeles Film Fest, which lured some 100,000 attendees, up from last year. Hellboy 2 director Guillermo del Toro handed out two jury prizes worth $50,000 each to documentary filmmaker Darius Marder (Loot) and feature director Sean Baker (Prince of Broadway).

His "insanely ambitious movie" Hellboy 2, Del Toro said, "comes from an exotic country inside my brain and my gonads. People think I do two types of movies: strange little Spanish films and big studio movies. This movie comes from a different place. It's the first of those big movies that belongs to the same world as Pan's Labyrinth. The imagination in it is unbridled."

True enough. Hellboy 2 is a hybrid of those two things. And thus some moviegoers, especially the core fanboys who loved the Dark Horse comics and the first installment, will embrace Hellboy 2's fantastic eccentricities, while others will be left behind, scratching their heads. I doubt the visually sumptuous pic will break out into wide acceptance, especially given the stiff summer competition. The first Hellboy was not a global hit in 2004 (it topped out at $98 million worldwide) but sold well over the years on DVD.

At the party, Del Toro admitted that the film's war between the ancient magical underground universe and modern humans is far from black-and-white. Like Del Toro himself, red-skinned warrior Hellboy (Ron Perlman) is ambivalent, caught between the rich primal forces that spawned him and his powerful human masters. Here's the trailer:

No matter how well this movie does, Del Toro is about to enter a new fantasy portal that will take four years of his life: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. Working closely with producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, phase one will involve writing for three weeks in L.A., one week in Wellywood, phase two will reverse that (one week in L.A., three weeks in Wellywood) and then the directing and post-production phases will take Del Toro to New Zealand full time.

Here's the filmmaker's two-part Q & A at LAFF.

For his part, critic John Anderson likes Hellboy 2 a lot:

But the reason the movie plays so well has nothing to do with the leading man's paternal instincts; rather, it's rooted in del Toro's rococo instincts for the stylishly creepy and crawlingly macabre, his clockmaker's preoccupation with detail, and a flair for combining state-of-the-art technology with his taste for the antique, the gothic, the Catholic. Not to disparage the f/x guys, but what's onscreen in "Hellboy II" is all about the seismic eruptions in del Toro's head. Comparing his work to most fantasy cinema is like comparing cave drawings to the Cathedral of Cologne.

Wanted Leads Off LAFF

The LA Film Fest opened with the premiere Thursday night of Universal's Wanted, followed by a Westwood block party. Spirits were high, because the smart director's showcase played.

Wanted is a stylish R-rated, violent adaptation of the comic books by Mark Millar and J. G. Jones. Producer Marc Platt matched up the comics with a series of screenwriters (Michael Brandt & Derek Haas and Chris Morgan) and director Timur Bekmambetov, the established Russian auteur of the stylized, over-the-top horror thriller Nightwatch and its Daywatch sequel, huge hits. Bekmambetov doesn't just do action, he said last night, smiling slyly. He also released a recent hit romantic comedy.

Bekmambetov's WMA agent Mike Simpson was over the moon because this is the kind of director Hollywood studios fantastize about--a Tim Burton with visual flair who can do action. Bekmambetov could do a Mission: Impossible or Bourne movie (that's Universal) if he wanted to. It was Universal that had the guts to put him on a $100-million actioner (Universal's official budget is $80 million)--and lured reliable stars Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman to support James McAvoy. The ads sell Jolie, who's terrific, but McAvoy carries his third American-accented picture--sans dialogue coach. He gives the movie a believable center. And yes, these people are playing actual characters. The movie breathes.

And it delivers action on a Bourne or Matrix level.

Suspension of disbelief is required. But the direction is so controlled, precise, detailed and inventive that you go for the ride. Bekmambetov has another plus: his own visual effects house in Russia, like Peter Jackson does in Wellywood. The f/x by Bazelevs are superb. Jolie and McAvoy skip along elevated subways, do metal-bending aerial car stunts, and boast special skills that enable them to alter the laws of gravity. SPOILER ALERT: Just when I was wondering when they'd stop working so hard and get sexy, the movie delivers a major kiss. And there's a stunning train derailment off a mountain abyss.

Assuming Wanted plays widely when it opens June 27 (a lot of arguments Thursday night were about whether it was a two-or-four-quadrant movie), McAvoy is signed up for two sequels. But, he predicts, "There won't be more than one. I don't want to do action movies." Bekmambetov was mum about whether he would return. (They will likely have to pay him.) He's setting up something called Saga, I hear. (Is it a movie version of the videogame?)

Here's Variety's review.

Universal could have a big summer. Marvel's remake of The Incredible Hulk dropped dramatically on its second weekend, but should be steady as they go. Next up is Guillermo del Toro's $100-million sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which closes the LA Film Fest. The movie musical Mamma Mia! has global pull with women thanks to its long-touring theater show. And Rob Cohen's $170-million (official studio budget is $150 million) reinvention of the Mummy franchise, The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, shot in China with Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh and an army of Terra Cotta warriors, opens in August. A test screening this week yielded a positive AICN posting.

What these movies have in common--and this will be an interesting test of what the box office will bear--is that "they all know exactly what they are," says Universal co-chairman Marc Shmuger, "and who they're for."

Incredible Hulk Will Play

Universal threw an Incredible Hulk premiere Sunday on the lot (which a week later, still had a tinge of smoke in the air). After all the grief and belly-aching about problems behind-the-scenes, Transporter director Louis Leterrier's movie played great at the Amphitheatre, and got thumbs up not only from me, but from 18-year-old Nora and Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart. (Here's Variety's Incredible Hulk Movie Page.)

Edward Norton (who does not take a screenwriting credit) manages to make his tortured scientist-on-the-run sympathetic, not just as a man in love with fellow-scientist Liv Tyler, but as the raging-green Hulk, who seems to have learned a few things this time around from Peter Jackson's King Kong. Hulk (animated by Rhythm & Hues) does the chest-pounding dance on a rainy mountain crag routine--as his soaked lady-love looks on appreciatively, the only person who can reduce his heart-rate--and releases his rage in a satisfying lion-like roar. SPOILER ALERT: He also does gratifying big-scale battle with another gamma-tainted uber-being, The Abomination, played in human form by Tim Roth. Bill Hurt chews up the scenery as the villain of the piece. This time, they got it right.

The Incredible Hulk reveals the hazards of taking your movie to Comic-Con--God Forbid your presentation doesn't go over with fans. Bad Internet buzz killed dogged the first Hulk and threatened this one, too. One producer of Michael Bay's Transformers 2, which is currently filming in Pennsylvania, admitted that he'd just as soon not take anything to the July comic-book convention in San Diego until they have something really fab to show.

Here's the trailer:

Here's Todd McCarthy's review of Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk. He sees the 2008 incarnation on Tuesday; we'll post his Thursday print review on Wednesday night.

Finally, though, ultimate fanboy Harry Knowles' enthusiastic response and advance tracking indicates that Marvel (which made Iron Man, too, which has already grossed $289 million) will score another big opener this weekend: The Incredible Hulk is expected to gross in the same range as the last Hulk and last weekend's Kung Fu Panda: $60 million or so. The tracking is strong with men, as you'd think, and weak with women, who might build on word-of-mouth, because of the Norton/Tyler love story.

As the movie was unspooling, though, I was thinking, "wonder how they'll set up the sequel?" and, "when is Robert Downey, Jr. going to show?" Both of those things do make possible Marvel's planned Avengers movie, which could combine the likes of Giant Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Wolverine and Iron Man, to name a few likely suspects we discussed with Kevin Smith on the way out. He responded to my query about Marvel setting up Avengers with, "you have to be retarded not to think that!"

UPDATE: Here's Cinematical on the reveal of Tony Stark's cameo, which is at the very end of the movie. And Film School Rejects has a Hulk Guide.

Miller Blogs Spirit

Frank Miller of Dark Knight, Sin City and 300 fame is blogging about his directorial debut The Spirit. And there's a possibility he will direct a Buck Rogers movie, reports IGN.

Batman vs. Iron Man: Summer Playboy Action Heroes

Two playboy superheroes with sidekicks and gadgets and comics fans are duking it out at the summer b.o.: DC's Batman and Marvel's Iron Man. Watch the two action heroes take each other on:

Jackson is in Iron Man After All

Yes, Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury is in Iron Man--his scene runs after all the credits. Marvel withheld it from press screening prints. I was visiting the Balboa Theater in San Francisco this weekend, where theater manager Gary Meyer (also co-director of the Telluride Film Fest) was having some ILM folks talk about the effects afterwards, and I saw the clip setting up the next movie, which will also, I am told, give Stark sidekick Terrence Howard's Rhodey the chance to morph into War Machine. Marvel is going full steam ahead on their next batch of pics, including Iron Man II, but may have to pay Downey a little extra to get him back--I had understood that he signed for three pics.

Iron Man: Downey and Favreau Rock

I managed to convince Paramount to show me Iron Man earlier this week, and grabbed director Jon Favreau for a phone interview from the European leg of his round-the-world press tour, from Paris to Rome to the London Premiere. Here's my Iron Man column, which even explains why Samuel Jackson and Hilary Swank aren't in the movie.

The movie rocks, in case you were wondering. It's light-on-its-feet, nimbly blending comedy, action, and VFX. Robert Downey, Jr. as a 60s-style playboy weapons mogul and anti-superhero and Gwenyth Paltrow as his updated Miss Moneypenny have real chemistry. And yes, Marvel and the Iron Man team have got themselves a franchise. Fantasy Moguls Steve Mason has upped his prediction of how the movie will open on May 2 from $60 million to $100 million, the kind of b.o. forecasting that is giving Paramount execs heartburn.

Here's the first of Variety.com's ongoing look at summer blockbusters. And here are Todd McCarthy's Iron Man reviews for Variety and Reelz:

Paramount Will Launch Iron Man Midnight Screenings

Demand is so over-heated for Iron Man--which word is, may actually be good--that Paramount is planning to play the game of debuting the film the night before, on May 1. The Arclight in L.A. is selling tickets to a Thursday night midnight show. At the same time the studio is worried that the film may be overhyped, so it's trying to keep most media breaks closer to release and not overheat expectations that this will be one BEHEMOTH of an opening. If Paramount says $45 million, expect as much as $70 million. Fantasy Moguls' Steve Mason reports that tracking is pointing toward a huge Iron Man opening of $60 million plus.

Here's one example of who's coming out of Iron Man way ahead: Robert Downey Jr., who talks to EW here.

Iron Man Mexico Press Conference

Iron Man was first unveiled to the Latin American media. UPDATE: And premiered in Sydney, Australia.

The movie was also screened for exhibitors last week. Paramount is expecting to get very good terms, using Indiana Jones as further leverage. If the studio is downplaying expectations for Iron Man's opening weekend ($45 to $50 million) based on the movie not being a sequel, the studio still has high long-term expectations for both films well exceeding $200 million.

Here's the press conference in Mexico.

Here's a report from an exhib who saw Iron Man, along with some footage from other summer pics:

I saw IRON MAN yesterday. I have never read the comic and know almost nothing about the character. But I had seen some clips of Downey developing the suit and was amused. Well I can report the movie is terrific. It is a thinking person's superhero film with more character development than special effects and action scenes (though there are plenty of those which are nicely balanced so we get involved in the story rather than bored by non-stop effects.). Downey is terrific...funny, smart and charming...and very buff. Paltrow seems right out of 60's superhero comics or Money Penny from early Bond: proper and subservient assistant who is smart below the surface and more than a little enamored of her boss.

It should be a hit but 200 million is a long way to go when it is undercut in subsequent weeks by more blockbusters.

The opening robbery scene from DARK KNIGHT promised a terrific, critical hit, a ten minute scene from HANCOCK promises a very different superhero movie with Will Smith but footage from THE INCREDIBLE HULK played very flat.

By the way, also saw about 15 minutes of TROPIC THUNDER. Hilarious plus a mock trailer called SATAN'S ALLEY with a Searchlight logo a featuring Downey and Tobey Maguire is very funny and evidently one of 3 fakes trailers, each with non Paramount logos.

UPDATE: Here are some other updates.

Iron Man: Why it Will be Huge

Those of us who saw Paramount's first Iron Man materials at Comic-Con--and witnessed the hordes lining up just to see the damned costume unveiled--don't need to be convinced that this picture will be a summer boxoffice juggernaut. It should easily pass $200 million. Will it get to $300 million is another question.

Why?

1. NEW ACTION HERO. This may be the robust male action fantasy hero that we've been waiting for. A new contemporary complex male who isn't Batman or Superman. (Face it, they've been around for a while.) Check out the latest clip and our photo gallery. Who wouldn't want to fly around like that? While Iron Man comicbook fans are legion, this is a new modern movie hero who kicks ass. And he's not a nice guy.

2. NEW STAR. Robert Downey Jr. has reached that magic moment when an edgy up-and-coming character actor ages into a certain masculine gravitas. No one ever doubted Downey's gift of gab, comedy and sexy appeal. But now Downey seems to have put his demons behind him. The one-two punch of actioner Iron Man and the late summer comedy Tropic Thunder may push him into real movie stardom.

3. SMART DIRECTOR. Jon Favreau is a gifted filmmaker with real chops. He can do character comedy: Elf, Swingers. He's smart. I don't care if Zathura tanked. It was a delightful smart fast-moving family adventure comedy. Selling it as a sequel to Jimanji was a mistake. But studios are loathe to sell originals and the movie never would have been made otherwise.

4. FUN MARVEL TOYS. My Iron Man action figure (above) is the envy of the office. (Launching repulsor projectile!) There's a lot more where that came from.

5. FEMME APPEAL. Add Gwenyth Paltrow to the mix, and I see a three quadrant movie. Who's left out? Older women. But I really want to see the movie. So who knows?

6. ORIGINAL. While Paramount can sell the movie to Iron Man comics fans, it is not a sequel, remake or retread of any kind. It is the presumable launch of a franchise. Every franchise had to start somewhere, as an original. They're harder to market, but if they work, you're off.

7. EARLY SUMMER LAUNCH. Iron Man opens wide on May 2 (basically the Spider Man date) at the start of the summer, when audiences are starving for a big popcorn picture. Things haven't gotten crowded yet. It should have a wide open playing field. Made of Honor will get the girls. Summer blockbuster sequel Narnia: Prince Caspian opens May 16, and Indy 4 May 22. (UPDATE: The Latin American press have seen the pic. Nothing yet for us stateside.)

Here's the trailer.

Watchmen Creator Moore Talks Comics

Long revered as a writer of graphic novels (V for Vendetta, From Hell, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), British writer Alan Moore is going to continue to get more attention as the Warner Bros. movie Watchmen heads for the big screen.

Singer Developing Superman Sequel

Director Bryan Singer is back working on the screenplay for a Superman Returns sequel with Transformers writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, he tells Empire. Returns writers Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris opted out of penning Superman: Man of Steel, and the strike arrived just as other scribes were to pitch ideas. Internally, Warners has moved the release date from 2009 to 2010.

Here's my prior Superman reporting. And here.

Watchmen: A Year and Counting

I opened a promo clock in the mail at work on Friday, for 300 director Zack Snyder's film adaptation of the Alan Moore classic graphic novel, Watchmen.

The official countdown has begun toward the opening a year from now on March 6, 2009. Snyder has wrapped principal photography on the mystery superhero adventure set in 1985 and now begins the long post-production process. Here is the official website.

Here are photos of the cast of characters--excluding Billy Crudup (The Good Shepherd) as Jon Osterman, aka Dr. Manhattan:

Malin Akerman (The Heartbreak Kid) as Laurie Juspeczyk aka Silk Spectre.

Matthew Goode (Match Point) as Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias.

Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children) as Walter Kovacs, aka Rorschach.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan (TV’s Grey’s Anatomy) as Edward Blake, aka the Comedian.

Patrick Wilson (Little Children) as Dan Dreiberg, aka Nite Owl.

[Graphic courtesy New York Magazine]

Spielberg To Direct First Tintin?

According to Gollum actor Andy Serkis, Steven Spielberg is planning to direct the first Tintin adaptation, while Peter Jackson would do the second.

They had planned on three back-to-back features based on Georges Remi's beloved Belgian comic-strip hero Tintin for DreamWorks. Pics will be produced in full digital 3-D using performance capture technology.

Trailer Watch: Love Guru

Paramount was always very high on the Mike Myers comedy Love Guru for the summer. I don't know. This trailer did not make me laugh.

Chabon Loves Superman

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay author Michael Chabon writes about Superman in The New Yorker.

Kimmel Talks About the Affleck Video

Newsweek talked to Jimmy Kimmel about Sarah Silverman's F*cking Matt Damon video (she surprised him with it) and his F*cking Ben Affleck response (everyone had the same idea at the same time). Which one is better? Sagely, Kimmel credits his girlfriend with coming up with hers first. How will they capitalize on all this interest? That is the question.

Incredible Hulk Photos

Empire Magazine posts some exclusive photos of Edward Norton and Bill Hurt in Marvel's new and presumably improved The Incredible Hulk, which Norton rewrote. The movie opens June 13.

[Hat Tip: Premiere.com]

Oscar Watch: Reviews of Nominated Shorts

[Posted by Peter Debruge]
2008 Oscar Animated Shorts
The trouble with watching the Academy's animated short nominees (which you can do in theaters or online now, thanks to the efforts of Magnolia Pictures, Shorts International and iTunes) is that it practically forces you to think about these five exquisite entries in competitive terms-- which is best? which will win? -- when in fact, this is the strongest and most diverse crop I've ever seen in the category. From stop motion to CG to paint on glass, the techniques reflect the full range of possibility open to animators today, and I strongly encourage anyone to seize the opportunity to see them not as Oscar-season rivals but as a diverse medium's collective best efforts.

I Met the Walrus
The wars change, but John Lennon's message remains the same: "Piss for peace, smile for peace --but whatever you do, do it for peace." It's been nearly four decades since 14-year-old Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room with a reel-to-reel tape recorder and grilled the Beatles legend on topics ( as Juno puts it) way beyond his maturity level, but today, the pop prophet's words seem more relevant than ever.

Rather than make a traditional documentary about the event, Canadian helmer Josh Raskin edits the 40-minute interview down to a punchy, five-minute collection of soundbites, animating the session in what looks like a cross between Terry Gilliam's gonzo Monty Python style and Lennon's own doodles. Raskin's interpretation is amusing, maybe even ingenious in spots. The only problem: He seems to be doing it for laughs, not for peace, and the images frequently overwhelm the message.

Levitan, no doubt bewildered by the opportunity, is reduced to a slack-mouthed hand puppet, while Lennon's ideas explode like firecrackers around him. It's a technique better suited for parody than reverence (as evidenced by J.J. Sedelmeier's recurring "TV Funhouse" sketch on Saturday Night Live), but the essence of Lennon's message survives intact.

Madame Tutli-Putli
Of all the filmmaking arts, animation comes closest to dreaming -- a sensation I've seldom experienced with the head-over-heals delirium Madame Tutli-Putli accomplishes as it shadows a rather overburdened Virginia Woolf type on a supernaturally tinged night-train ride. That dreamlike quality comes down to creating not just hallucinatory images (in that department, Japan's anime titans reign supreme) but a certain porousness between the real and the impossible (such as the sight of Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray playing chess on the luggage rack). And while the result is probably too dark for the Academy's taste, this was far and away my favorite of the entries.

The magic of Madame Tutli-Putli is in the eyes, a finishing touch Jason Walker added to Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski's already impressive stop-motion work (the moving train effects are particularly astonishing). Using Adobe After Affects, Walker composited real eyes onto the mannequins' crude, hand-sculpted faces, bringing an uncanny level of performance to the title character and her fellow travelers. But Mme. Tutli-Putli's performance comes through every bit as strongly through her body language as it does in butterfly blinks and nervous glances. Not since Aardman's first Wallace and Gromit short has the medium impressed me so much.

Meme les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)
Funniest of the entries is this droll French bit about a greedy priest who rescues his careless parishioners from death, then turns around and tries to sell them an elaborate contraption that will ensure the pour souls' passage to heaven. Interesting, too, that the year's only computer-animated entry was actually designed to look like stop-motion; in fact, it may even take your eyes a few seconds to realize that French animator Samuel Tourneux rendered everything virtually. But I suspect it was the story, not the technique, that attracted the Academy to this comic parable.

Though the concept supports some amusing character animation between the crafty priest and skeptical peasant, a last-second twist makes clear that Tourneux's entire scenario exists primarily to set up its final punchline. In that way, the short reminds me of last year's Maestro (in which a bird prepares backstage for a concert performance, only to be launched from a cuckoo clock at the last minute), although Pigeons is more consistently entertaining -- not to mention more impressively animated. Even Hollywood's top toon studios haven't mastered CG humans, yet character design comes naturally to Tourneux, who claims to have taped and studied real actors to get the performances right.

My Love (Moya Lyubov)
Oscar vet Alexander Petrov returns with another stunning literary adaptation rendered in his luminous paint-on-glass style (nominated three times before, Petrov won in 2000 for his take on Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea). But gorgeous as My Love appears, Americans don't know Ivan Shmelyov's A Love Story and may even be taken aback by this vintage Russian tale of a 16-year-old boy, Tonichka, torn between the shy, lower-class maid who works for his family and the mysterious, more mature beauty who lives next door.

It's easy to identify with the premise, about a youth who overlooks the suitor right in front of him for some fanciful ideal of perfection, but the key moment when he realizes his error doesn't quite translate (as it turns out, the neighbor woman's alluring blue spectacles hide a freakish deformity, the discovery of which sends Tonichka into a near-fatal fever and triggers the story's final tragedy). And yet, Petrov's artistry is simply breathtaking, like witnessing an impressionist painting come to life-- the gestures so natural, the faces so tender, I could've sworn I was watching some trick done with live-action footage rather than the crowning achievement of a master animator.

Peter and the Wolf
If I had to predict a winner, this would be it. Over the years, many storytellers and animators have tried their hand at adapting Sergei Prokofiev's classic, and Suzie Templeton's rich, textured stop-motion take is the first I've seen to do away with the narration and let the image and music tell the story. Unlike the Disney version you undoubtedly remember well (in which Peter looks more than a little like Elmer Fudd hunting wabbits with his non-threatening popgun), Templeton's interpretation seems to favor the animals and even features a mushy new twist: after capturing the wolf, Peter lets the misunderstood beast go free, revealing the hunters as the true villains of the story.

Kids'll love it, and Templeton's animal-friendly instincts certainly make the central showdown engaging, as bird, duck, cat and wolf interact in perfect harmony with Prokofiev's score. She fleshes out the world with splendid detail, from her creatures' fur and feathers to the raw wood and rusty metal environments, and yet the human characters seem curiously inanimate (although big, bejeweled eyes that half-excuse the fact that their faces don't move). Still, it's a strange choice, considering what an important element body language is to stop-motion animators like Henry Selick and the Tutli-Putli crew.
Though not as consistently top-notch as their animated counterparts, Oscar's live-action short nominees still offer a more consistently entertaining experience than any feature release you're likely to find in theaters this season. The big surprise here is that none of the nominees are American, and four feature subtitles (keep that in mind when picking your seats, as big heads butted into our viewing experience), but the sheer variety is astounding. Though a better crop overall than previous years, this year's batch features no obvious frontrunner. The cynic in me can see the Academy going for At Night, although it would make my day to see France's The Mozart of the Pickpockets win.

More of Debruge's reviews of the live action shorts and documentary shorts are on the jump.

There Will Be Oscars

Funny or Die posts this Daniel Day Lewis spoof by David Spade. Did all th