Having grown up as a Hungry, Hungry Hippos kind of kid, I didn’t much care when Universal Pictures announced last summer that it was producing a $200 million big screen adaptation of the Hasbro game Battleship. My interest sank even further when thick-bottomed pop star Rhianna was cast as the flick’s eye-candy.
Well, imagine my surprise this morning when my search for Max Hardcore’s Anal Destroyer led me to discover that Battleship revolves around navy fleets fighting off an alien invasion. Not only that, but swimsuit-model-turned-actress Brooklyn Decker plays the film’s romantic lead.
Directed by Peter Berg, Battleship also stars Liam Neeson (After.Life), Alexander Skarsgard (“True Blood”), Taylor Kitsch (“Friday Night Lights”), and badass Tadanobu Asano (Ichi the Killer). The film won’t be sailing into theaters until May 18, 2012, but consider it now on Clatto’s radar.
Universal Pictures is set to roll out Death Race: Frankenstein Lives, the prequel to the 2008 remake starring Jason Stathem, on DVD and Blu-ray next week. The film stars Danny Trejo, Luke Goss, Sean Bean, Ving Rhames, and gorgeous South African model-turned-actress Tanit Phoenix.
Also along for the ride is leggy up-and-comer Lauren Cohan as Death Match host—and all-around bad bitch—September Jones. The 28-year-old stunner cut her bad girl teeth playing relic thief Bela Talbot on The CW’s “Supernatural” and 500-year-old vamp Rose on the network’s hit bloodsucker soap “The Vampire Diaries.”
Cohan also stars opposite Arielle Kebbel in director Bill Eagles’ island-frightener Disturbed.
Slovakian stunner Barbara Nedeljakova appears to be stepping up her B-game. Best known in the States for her role as Euro cock-bait Natalya in writer/director Eli Roth’s Hostel, Nedeljakova has recently completed work on low-budget frighteners The Hike and Children of the Corn: The Dweller (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
Her latest project is producer Jonathan Sothcott’s (Devil’s Playground) so-ridiculous-it-can-only-be-awesome thriller Strippers vs. Werewolves, directed by Jonathan Glendening (13 HRS). No word on what role Nedeljakova will play in the film, but my highly trained industry insider senses tells me it could very well be a stripper.
Interesting aside: Sothcott recently bragged to Dread Central that he is “pals” with insanely gorgeous British actress/model Gemma Atkinson and got the idea to hire Glendening as director after watching her in 13HRS. Let’s hope he still wants to bang her bad enough to offer her a part in the flick as well.
Here you see the first image of actress Rooney Mara (Nightmare on Elm Street) as pissed-off hacker-punk Lisbeth Salander in Columbia Pictures’ upcoming adaptation of late Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s bestselling novel “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”
W Magazine scored the shot along with a lengthy interview with director David Fincher, who reveals that he put Mara through an audition test that required her to “kick a dildo” up some guy’s ass. Fincher also discusses his previous films, including Zodiac, Seven, and Alien 3.
The interview offers no explanation, however, for Fincher’s decision to make Mara as fugly as the chick in the original Swedish film (see gallery below). Isn’t the point of a remake to make things look better? Fucking Hollywood. Never gets it right.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo costars Robin Wright (Unbreakable), Joely Richardson (“Nip/Tuck”), Stellan Skarsgard (Melancholia), Christopher Plummer (Priest), and Daniel Craig in the role of journalist Mikael Blomkvist.
Columbia Pictures will also adapt the other two entries in Larsson’s widely popular Millennium Trilogy: “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.” Collectively the novels have sold over 40 million copies worldwide.
Sony Pictures has released the first full-length trailer for director Jonathan Liebesman’s (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Begining) alien-invasion feature Battle: Los Angeles … and it is good. The film stars Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight), Michelle Rodriguez (Machete), Michael Pena (Love Object), Jim Parrack (“True Blood”), Noel Fisher (Breaking Dawn), sexy newcomer Taryn Southern, and R&B pop artist Ne-Yo.
Described as Independence Day meets Black Hawk Down, the film takes its name from a supposed massive UFO sighting in Santa Monica, California said to have taken place on Feb. 25, 1942, just weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. According to UFO enthusiasts, the alien ship was attacked by the U.S. military under the belief that it was Japanese aircraft (read more about it here).
Hammer Films has set a Feb. 17 limited theatrical release date for its Hilary Swank thriller The Resident. To ensure folks show up, the studio has released a steamy trailer featuring a half-naked Swank in a bathtub.
While my brain sees through this obvious and cheap marketing ploy, my penis is holding its breath until I agree to take it to a showing. Well played Hammer. Well played.
Lena Headey is set to face off against Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby in director Pete Travis’ Dredd 3-D, a big screen adaptation of the U.K. comic-strip Judge Dredd. Headey is reportedly playing sinister gang-leader Madeline Madrigal (AKA: Ma-Ma).
The film, penned by Alex Garland (28 Days Later), is currently shooting in South Africa on a reported budget of $45 million and stars Urban and Thirlby as Mega City One judges Joe Dredd and Cassandra Anderson.
Headey is best known for her performances as the topless Queen of Sparta in Zach Snyder’s 300 and as Sarah Conner on the short-lived Fox series “Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles.” She has also starred in such notable frighteners as Laid to Rest, After Dark’s The Broken, Screen Gems’ The Cave, and Terry Gilliam’sThe Brothers Grimm.
Chloe Sevigny (“Big Love”) has made a career out of starring in art-house flicks made for college kids in skinny jeans and Wavves t-shirts and chain-smoking women with excessive body hair. Her indie chi is so strong that even a graphic blow-job scene in director/actor Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny did nothing to harm her rep as a legitimate actress.
All Flowers in Time appears to be yet another “avant-garde” film for Sevigny, but calls to mind the “Twilight Zone” episode “It’s a Good Life,” in which a six-year-old boy named Anthony has the power to control the world and everyone in it by simply willing it.
Peep the trailer:
The film’s Sundance synopsis reads:
“I am not from this place” declares a French cowboy. An old toothless man asks, “Do you know why you’re here?”
These shape shifting personalities infect young children with an evil signal in the form of a Dutch TV show. The red eyed girls and boys believe they can now become other people and monsters much to their delight.
A French cowboy? OK, on second thought, this reminds me of the “South Park” episode “Gay Cowboys Eating Pudding.” In any case, this post was really just an excuse to post surprisingly hot bikini pics of Sevigny in Miami:
My, what a big boner thrill I got while checking out the latest photos of Amanda Seyfried all dolled up as little Red Riding Hood indirector Catherine Hardwicke’s (Twilight) romantic re-imaging of the Brothers Grimm’s classic fairy tale.
Red Riding Hood (formerly entitled The Girl with the Red Riding Hood) is written by Orphan scribe David Leslie Johnson. Costars include Lukas Haas, Billy Burke, Shiloh Fernandez, Julie Christie, Virginia Madsen and Gary Oldman.
The film is produced by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way for Warner Bros and is slated for release on March 11, 2011.
Seyfried is currently filming director Andrew Niccol’s (Gattaca) upcoming sci-fi actioner Now (previously entitled I’m.mortal) opposite Justin Timberlake and Olivia Wilde. She plays an abducted prostitute.
Starz has released a three-minute featurette for their upcoming original re-imagining of the Arthurian legend “Camelot.” Like its ratings champ “Spartacus: Blood and Sand,” the series promises sex, violence, and beautiful people.
Peep it:
The show’s official synopsis reads:
In the wake of King Uther’s sudden death, chaos threatens to engulf Britain. When the sorcerer Merlin has visions of a dark future, he installs the young and impetuous Arthur, Uther’s unknown son and heir, who has been raised from birth as a commoner. But Arthur’s cold and ambitious half sister Morgana will fight him to the bitter end, summoning unnatural forces to claim the crown in this epic battle for control.
These are dark times indeed for the new King, with Guinevere being the only shining light in Arthur’s harsh world. Faced with profound moral decisions, and the challenge of uniting a kingdom broken by war and steeped in deception, Arthur will be tested beyond imagination. Forget everything you think you know…this is the story of Camelot that has never been told before.
“Camelot” stars Jaime Campbell Bower as King Arthur, Tamsin Egerton as Guinevere, Claire Forlani as Queen Igraine, Eva Green as Morgana, and Joseph Fiennes as the wizard Merlin. The series begins its ten-episode run on April 1.
