JANUARY, 28

MOVIES RELEASED

1-DARK OMENS (FEAR THE DARKNESS 3)

Horror / Slasher
Directed by Robert Rodriguez
Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Benicio Del Toro, Geoffrey Rush, Luke Wilson
Box Office: 16 mill.
Net Loss: 14 mill.

CMP Reaction: It is being a tough season. Good old days of v28 are gone and v38 is quite a challenge. Darkman had become part of the family, so the Studio is so sorry for him.

2-THE BRIDGE

Historical / Drama
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen
Starring Liam Neeson, Ethan Hawke, Sean Connery, Ben Kingsley, Cate Blanchett
Box Office: 11 mill.
Net Loss: 36 mill.

CMP Reaction: There’s no reaction. Everybody at the Studio is too shocked even to react.

THE MOVING THUMBS

1-DARK OMENS (FEAR THE DARKNESS 3)

“A scary movie has to be scary. This is an obviousness. But it is also a big true. And this movie is not scary. Although a noisy soundtrack tries to remark the supposed thrilling moments and Sarah Michelle Gellar insists in showing a scared expression, the truth is that you just don’t feel the fear when an overacted Del Toro and his zombie followers appear in the scene. Maybe we’ve just seen Darkman enough times to feel scared again”.
-Amy Ratched, ‘Today’

“Rodriguez has made what could be called as a ‘pop art scary movie’. I mean, there are so many bright colours and psychedelic images in Gellar’s hallucinations that it seems more like a vision of an Andy Warhol picture under the effects of LSD than anything else. That maybe cool, but definitely it’s not scary”
-Roy Winslow, ‘The Los Angeles Times’

“This third Darkman’s adventure has got the worst of the previous movies. As it happened with ‘The Long Dark Night’, the movie is more worried about special effects than about fear itself. And, as it happened in ‘Fear the Darkness’, you just don’t get to believe the reasons why the characters get voluntarily in so much troubles instead of just running away of that haunted house”.
-Bill Holloway, ‘Entertainment Weekly’

2-THE BRIDGE

“The movie is technically superb. Beautiful cinematography. Magnificent locations. Splendidly orchestrated soundtrack. Epic performances from all the talents. It’s only got a problem: it is boring.”
-Richard Parks, ‘At The Movies’

“CMP has made a big mistake with the marketing of this movie. It is not an action or an adventure movie. It is not the story of Vikings wars or any kind of ‘Braveheart’ epic legend. It is more a kind of a Shakespeare drama about faith, life after life, war and human spirit. If you try to sell something for what it is not, people just don’t buy it.”
-Billy Conn, ‘The New York Post’

“Intelligent but pretentious. Deep but too full of monologues. Great acting but absolute lack of pace. Epic but not spectacular. Philosophic but sleepy maker. It could have been great. But it is not.”
-John C. Williams, ‘Hollywood Reporter’

AWAITING RELEASE

1-HITMAN. THE MYTH OF JOHN JACKSON

The Cast: Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley, Paul Bettany, Patrick Stewart

The Director: Tony Scott

The Plot: John Jackson (C.Farrell) is a deeply religious irish man. After the death of his family, he joined a brotherhood who fights evil. And evil and hatred has a new face: Paul Bettany, the leader of a cartel trying to take over drug traffic all over Europe. Rookie detective Lisa Offen (K.Knightley) can’t foil his plans by herself. But when she contacts Father Michaels (P.Stewart) he will offer her the help of the mysterious John Jackson. And Jackson will fight against Bettany hiding everywhere and using all kind of weapons and all kind of methods in and out of the law.

The Comment: Here we go again. Will this action movie with a british touch cover the Studio’s expectations or is there another big disappointment coming? Violence, sexy stars and loads of action. Wasn’t this a sure formula?

2-CHEVROLET

The Cast: Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Scarlett Johansson

The Director: Lawrence Kasdan

The Plot: Cruise is coming on age. He has made a living in New York’s high society as a boytoy for rich ladies for years. But he’s not that young anymore. Depressed and realizing the senseless of his life, he picks up his old Chevrolet and travels to his homeland in Dakota, with the secret idea of committing suicide on arrival. During the trip, some other travellers will join him. Smith plays a hypochondriac convinced that he suffers a deadly brain tumor. He wants to visit a famous quack as his last hope of being cured. Dawson is the only survival of a recent airplanes crash in JFK Airport and wants to run away from the sudden fame it has brought her and the journalists and find an answer to why she was chosen to survive. And Johansson plays a Ukrainian illegal immigrant that can hardly speak English. She has been exploded as a prostitute in a road club until she decides to run away. During the trip, the group will face their own destinies while discovering the meaning of life, friendship and maybe love.

The Comment: A beautiful story and a great cast. The Studio trusts so much in James Bradley’s stories and this one looks as a winner again.

THE STAR PROFILE – LONELY HEROES

The lonely, tough and tormented hero is a kind of classic character in movies. From the times of Charles Bronson’s 70's movies, passing through Clint Eastwood and Dirty Harry or Die Hard’s John McLaine to our days, there is a wide bunch of guys that have tried to save the world or at least make justice by themselves. Usually, they are serious and violent men, with failed love relationships, addicted to problems, never following the rules and obsessed with the idea that they are the only ones that can save us from disaster. CMP has added quite a few lonely heroes to the gallery with different results.

CMP’S FILMOGRAPHY

ACE BANNER (Doug Liman, B.O.: 106 mill): Matt Kubrick created this ‘bondesque’ lonely hero that was eaten alive by critics. But, looking at it on perspective, the movie was a major hit. Sequel is coming soon. The guy deserves another adventure.

INDIGO PROPHECY (Brian Kelley, B.O.: 45 mill.): Coming out directly from a PC game, Matt Damon had the hardest work for a lonely hero: he had to discover why he had murdered a guy himself. Tough work, but some close encounters with Kate Beckinsale made the job easier for him.

THE AVENGER (John Woo, B.O.: 56 mill.): Originally titled ‘Priest’, Matt Kubrick created another lonely but believer hero. Eric Bana was a peculiar priest: he didn’t use the word to preach, but the most sophisticated weapons.

HOT IRON (Christopher Nolan, B.O.: 9 mill.): Brad Pitt – Jack Hammer’s creation - did not begun as a lonely hero but he ended like it, after his buddy, Robert Downey Jr., was cruelly murdered. Audiences also murdered the chance of what could be an interesting sequel.

HITMAN (Tony Scott, awaiting release): Coming directly from Great Britain, Colin Farrell joins the lonely heroes’ club. All of us would accept to be lonely with Keira Knightley by our side… John Daws is the creator of the violent John Jackson before creating something even bigger: his own movie studios.

MOVIES IN DEVELOPMENT

STYX AND STONES: The surprising thing is not that John Malkovich and Queen Latifah (‘Court Appeal’, ‘Alice In Wonderland’) have been hired for this comedy. The amazing thing is the roles they are going to play. John Malkovich will be the Devil. And Latifah will be God him… sorry, herself!

CORSAIRS. THE SEARCH FOR NANTAYALAH: Bad luck is chasing the end of this shootage. A tropical storm has destroyed some of the settings of the movie. Luckily, there were only a few more scenes to shoot.

THE PASSION BENEATH: Some more names joining the new Brian Kelley’s picture. Kevin Spacey (‘Sam & Twitch’) and Willem Dafoe team up with Julia Roberts and Jamie Foxx in what is expected to be one of those allstars casts that the Studio (and Kelley) likes so much.

CAPTAIN AMERICA VS SUPERMAN: Shadows in the horizon. Test screens results have not been as good as expected. Tim Burton, director and producer, has rejected to re-edit the movie. And CMP’s executives are already trembling for what could be another unexpected flop.

DR. JONES AND THE SWORD OF FAITH: And now, we’ve got the villain’s name. Daniel Craig will try to eliminate Dr. Henry Jones before he even has the chance to conceive his baby boy, Indy.

LOL: The internet freaks parade is ready to show up. Nora Ephron is already editing her romantic comedy. And, this time, test screens have been excellent. Ben Stiller and Marisa Tomei are expecting to fill up all the movie theatres next Valentine’s Day.

HAPPY HAMSTERS: Robert Zemeckis has accepted to take care of the gang of Hamsters. He is going to direct and produce this Marcus Trax’s animation story and some stars’ voices will be probably heard in it.

WESTWORLD: The 1973’s sci-fi classic starring Yul Brynner will have a remake by CMP. Steve Connors has written a screenplay based on this story about an amusement park where visitors can mix with human looking robots that reproduce famous movies characters. Interesting.

SAVING SAMANTHA MOSS: First screenplay by newcomer writer Ted Froats. A dark story dealing with kidnappers and crime that will probably be starred by Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman.

ACE BANNER 2: Yes, it finally got the green light. Hugh Jackman is back. No director has been confirmed yet for this sequel. The only sure thing is that it won’t be Doug Liman, director of the first Banner movie.

RUMOURS AND GOSSIPS

Why are DVD sales failing lately? Some of CMP’s movies were financially saved by DVD sales and rentals. But that’s not happening anymore. ‘The Bridge’, a complete disaster at box office, has also been a deception when released in DVD, even though it offers a very interesting director’s cut by Wolfgang Petersen.

The end of a classic franchise? Darkman could not make it for the third time. Rodriguez did not catch the magic of Craven’s movies. And now, another question is floating through CMP’s offices: what will happen with the fourth Darkman’s movie?

After reading Marcus Trax’s screenplay, George Lucas has allowed CMP to use Star Wars logo in the new movie of the saga. Now, Harry Stark and Marcus Trax are trying to convince him to even produce the movie.

INSIDE CMP

As CMP’s Season 2 (24 movies) will finish after the release of ‘Hitman’ and ‘Chevrolet’, CMP will make public soon a complete report about how this season has gone. Julian Jones, Production Department CEO, has said that economic results have not been as bad as it may seem. “The company knew that moving from Hollywood Mogul’s v28 to v38 would make it much harder. But we love the challenge and we are sure that Season 3 will be even better than Season 2”. We’ll see what the Season 2 Report shows…

Also, as Season 2 is nearly finishing, Golden Moon Awards are on its way. Next issue will open the time period for nominations voting. This second edition will feature the same categories than the first one. Bets are starting to run about who will be the nominees.

COMING SOON – THE ADD