Diary Entry #4

Diary Entry #4

Evening everyone, I hope you all had a good week. Recapping last week’s Diary Entry #3, I shared about a couple Disney movies, Ghostbusters, and sadly a memorial to the great Sam Simon. This week we will cover some casting news, (ugh!) reboot news, and STAR WARS! Let’s get this started…

Star Wars News: A couple things happened this week with the relatively new Disney franchise. First we will start with the smaller news. Star Wars: Episode VIII received a release date of May 26, 2017. This is exactly 40 years and one day to the day that A New Hope was released in 1977. Really?! Does Disney know who they are? Why not release the movie on the actual 40 year anniversary? YOU ARE DISNEY! At this point Disney can release a movie on a Sunday and no one would think twice about it. Another note on this, the 2017 release date is going to put a little pressure on Rian Johnson (Looper). Usually Star Wars films are released every three years; however Episode VIII will only have half that time. I hope for the fans sake that this will be enough time to make an outstanding movie. Bigger Star Wars news, the first stand-alone Star Wars film has a name and a release date. Star Wars: Rogue One will be released on December 16, 2016. The Gareth Edwards (Godzilla) film stars Academy Award nominated Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything). What is known about this film is only that the story is based on an idea from John Knoll, who is a visual effects supervisor and chief creative officer at Industrial Light & Magic. This is so exciting. I have always been leery of a stand-alone Star Wars film, but just the idea of digging deeper into this ‘galaxy’ is way to enticing to ignore.

Sequel News: Twenty years ago, an up and coming director by the name of Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy) made a movie about two guys at the mall. Mallrats, like his first film Clerks, became an instant underground classic.  This week, Smith revealed plans to create a sequel to Mallrats. The reason Smith has said that he has made plans to make the sequel is to honor James Jacks (Jacks passed away in January of 2014) who was the producer of the original Mallrats. Jacks, Smith has said, really enjoyed the first film and always pushed for a sequel. Now I usually try and persuade filmmakers to never do sequels (sequels are the death of originality in Hollywood), but this I can’t dissuade him from. To honor a friend is a much better reason to create a sequel than to earn more money. Mallrats was an awesome film and VERY underrated by a lot of critics in the mid-90s. Kudos to you Mr. Smith! I’m sure you will make your friend proud.

Casting News:  After a decade in development hell, a live-action movie of Fraggle Rock received great news this week with a casting update. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Don Jon) is attached to star and produce the adaptation. Shown on HBO, the Jim Henson (The Muppets, Sesame Street) created show revolved around a musical group of underground dwellers known as Fraggles. Hey, why not?! Hollywood is making movies about any TV show they can get their hands on, why not one that was awesome? I just hope they don’t butcher this like they did The Smurfs.  Also, can we keep the film as close to the 80s TV show as possible? Use the puppets…don’t motion capture them or CGI. PUPPETS! It worked for Disney’s The Muppets.

TV News: Amazon has decided to renew one of their original programs. Bosch, which broke records for the new streaming company, will be renewed for a second season. The second season is rumored to cover two of creator Michael Connelly’s books, Trunk Music and The Drop. I know this is small news, but as I said here, I love this show and I absolutely agree that this show needs to continue. Connelly’s books are amazing and Titus Welliver is the perfect Bosch. I just wish they would cover only one book instead of trying to intertwine two or three novels. Of course, Michael Connelly is writing more and more novels, so I guess the show is going to have plenty of material to adapt.

Remake News: Now time for the stuff that really gets me irritated…Universal Studios has announced that they are proceeding with a Scarface remake/reboot. The studio has hired Straight Outta Compton scribe Jonathan Herman to put the finishing touches on the script. The story will change the nationality of the main character from Cuban to Mexican, however the character will hold onto the first name Tony.  For those of you that have not seen the Brian De Palma gangster classic, the film tells the tale of Tony Montana who emigrates from Cuba in the early 80s and decides to live the American Dream by selling drugs. The film covers Montana’s rise and fall in the drug world. Reports also say that original Tony, Al Pacino, gives his blessing to remake the 80s hit. Well…I don’t. This is a bad idea! I hate remakes anyway, but to remake a film with such high cultural impact is ridiculous. Where do we draw the line? We start with Scarface, what will be next? Goodfellas? The Godfather?! Plus, maybe it’s just me, but does anyone else think that changing his nationality to Mexican is going to upset a few people? This is a story of a man who builds a drug empire through organized crime. I think the public view of Mexican immigrants is already a little frayed; making a movie about a Mexican drug lord may not be the best thing for Hollywood right now.

As always, thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think! I love to receive questions or comments. Stay tuned for next week’s Diary Entry.