Happy New Year! JV Returns this year with an audio podcast!

Now that Noam Murro has moved on to the 300 Sequel “Xerxes”, Fox has hired John Moore (Max Payne, Behind Enemy Lines) to bring the Skip Woods’(Wolverine, The A-Team) script to life. Word is that the story takes him to Russia where he and his son, John McClane Jr, will take on baddies together.

Skip Woods hasn’t written a good film yet. Don’t believe me? Check out his track record HERE. If they’re really going to make another Die Hard it needs a few things so it won’t suck. My list of demands is:

1. It needs to be rated R. PG-13 just isn’t going to cut it. Was Live Free or Die Hard good? It was better than I expected and certainly better than Die Hard 2, but it’s by no means anywhere near the original or Die Hard 3. We need an R rating to ensure a solid body count and at least one “Yipee Ki-yay, Motherfucker!”

2. Don’t bring his son into the equation. I’m sure the idea is to get some “hot young IT” actor to take the role and possibly carry the torch after Willis is too old. It’s a bad idea. We don’t want that.

3. Throw out Woods’script and start over with a different writer. No, I haven’t read the script, but I have seen Woods’other 7 films and I know that he hasn’t shown me anything I’d like to see in a Die Hard film. He lacks originality, sticks firmly to genre cliches, and his characters are 1 dimensional. I know Shane Black is busy with Iron Man 3, but he’d be perfect to tackle a Die Hard sequel if he could find the time.

4. This is possibly the most important demand…make the bad guy charismatic and awesome. I like both Timothy Olyphant and William Sadler as actors, but they didn’t live up to the awesomeness of Alan Rickman or Jeremy Irons. A Die Hard bad guy needs to suave, funny, and a tiny bit crazy. If we’re going to Russia why not use Gary Oldman? He played Russian pretty well in Air Force One?

5. This is more of an idea and less of a demand. Why not bring back Mary Elizabeth Winstead? She and Willis had good chemistry in DH4.

What say you peoples? Any more demands? Thoughts on Gary Oldman for villain in DH5?

Hooray! It’s official! Christopher Nolan will direct the next Batman film! Here’s what the man himself had to say:

“It’s becoming inevitable, I’ll put it that way,” Nolan told Empire Online of “Batman 3.” “I feel myself falling into it, I guess. And getting it all figured out and I’m pretty excited about what we’re doing so… If I haven’t announced it, I think that people probably all know at this point that I’m doing it.”

No word yet on where this story will take the character or who the villain will be. I’m glad Nolan decided to return to the franchise as more than just a producer. Do you think he can top “The Dark Knight”?

I can’t think of one movie that I’ve been more excited for in 2010. The Coen Bros. “True Grit” has classic written all over it. Check out the trailer below and you’ll likely agree. The film will be released Dec. 25th. Enjoy!


EMBED-True Grit: Trailer – Watch more free videos

I’ll probably lose any geek cred that I have by admitting this, but I really don’t like Johnny Depp. I know somewhere deep down there is a good actor hiding, but he’s been so busy hamming it up with Tim Burton and Gore Verbinski for the last 15 years it rarely has the chance to get out. So the news that Depp will be reuniting with his “Pirates” shipmate Verbinski for “The Lone Ranger” is really no surprise. The only thing it really means is that “The Lone Ranger” is doomed. Any desire I had to see this went out the window when these two signed on. I’d rather watch Uwe Boll’s Holocaust flick than ever give this a chance. What say you?

A remake of Clive Barker’s 1987 “Hellraiser” has been in and out of the works for the last 4 years. A number of different directors and screenwriters have been attached including Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan (Feast Trilogy)Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury (Inside) and most recently Pascal Laugier (Martyrs) who officially dropped the project in June of 2009.

In September of 2010 it turns out that “Hellraiser” is still alive. While the remake/reboot may still be on the backburner it seems that yet another direct to video sequel is in the works. What’s worse? Doug Bradley won’t return as Pinhead. Pinhead was reduced to mere cameos in the last few lackluster sequels but will be playing a more central role in “Hellraiser: Revelations”. Who is the new Pinhead you ask? Well it’s Stephan Smith Collins! Who the fuck is that?! Don’t worry I had to search him on IMDB too. Mr. Collins has a short list of genre films creditied to his name and not much more.

While the news of the remake/reboot not yet and possibly not ever getting off the ground is what I would consider good the replacement of Doug Bradley as Pinhead strikes me as a bit odd. It’s not as if Bradley is too old or out of shape to play the part, and to be honest it’s a direct to video sequel so would care if he was?

*Thanks to Nate for the heads up on this

Do you want to see a Hellraiser reboot?

Yes, Daft Punk is doing the soundtrack to the Tron sequel now titled Tron Legacy. Yes, it is as awesome as you think it is. Check out a track from the soundtrack below. Thanks to Ellice for the heads up. She rocks my socks.

A while back we learned that Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Patriot) had acquired the right to Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. I foolishly hoped time would pass and the film(s) would never get made. Or at least not get made by Emmerich himself. David Chen of /film sat down with Mr. Emmerich today at Comic-Con where he was promoting the release of 2012 and revealed that Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan) would soon be finished with the first script.

The premise of The Foundation series is that mathematician Hari Seldon spent his life developing a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory. Using the law of mass action, it can predict the future, but only on a large scale. Using these techniques, Seldon foresees the fall of the Galactic Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a dark age lasting thirty thousand years before a second great empire arises. To shorten the period of barbarism, he creates two Foundations – small, secluded havens of all human knowledge, on opposite ends of the galaxy.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t think of two people less qualified to tackle this project. Sure Emmerich can produce special effects driven crap that can pass as mildly entertaining for a brief time, but Foundation is real science fiction. Foundation is not Will Smith dragging an alien through the desert complaining about how he’s missing a barbecue. If not these two, who would you like to see adapt Asimov’s classic series?

Check out Chen’s Original Article on /Film here.

Back in October we found out that a live action World of Warcraft movie was in the works. Most of us feared the worst, Uwe Boll. Thankfully, that is not the case. Instead Variety is reporting that Sam Raimi will begin work on the film immediately following Spiderman 4. This is good news and bad news. For most of you nerds out there it means you’ll get to see your favorite MMORPG brought to the big screen by one of the most talented directors around. Sadly, it means Evil Dead 4 is that much further away. WoW is reportedly budgeted at 100 million and should begin by mid 2010.

E online spoke to David Arquette today and he had this to say about the on again, off again Scream sequel:
We are going to be doing Scream 4. Kevin Williamson is writing the script at this moment, and hopefully Wes Craven is going to direct.
Neve Campbell publicly stated she doesn’t want anything to do with another Scream. Is it even possible for Williamson to draft a fourth installment without Campbell reprising her role as Sydney Prescott, and even if Craven came back to direct, would it be any good? The real question is does anyone care? I say the answer is no. This is a colossal waste of time. I would honestly rather see a sequel to Arquette’s Eight Legged Freaks. Now that idea has promise. What say you?