Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Hollywood News Beat

Here are some of the latest tidbits coming out of Tinseltown the past few days.

Recently, I talked about the go ahead given to "Lethal Weapon 5", well, sadly it seems that is not going to happen. The actor most needed for this project, Mel Gibson, has said he is not interested in doing another chapter of the long running franchise. This is really a shame, as all of the "Lethal Weapon" movies have been good fun, and another one would have no doubt been the same. Why Gibson turned it down is strange to me as his star has faded in the past few years, and a return to familiar territory may have been just what he needed to get back into the limelight (in a positive way). Oh well, here is to hoping that Mel made the right choice.

One of the great movies of the 80's was Oliver Stone's Wall Street, with Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen. It earned Douglas an Best Actor Oscar, and deservingly so. I, for one, never envisioned a sequel to "Wall Street", but apparently the suits at 20th Century Fox have, as it seems that a sequel is in the works, tentatively titled "Money Never Sleeps". Michael Douglas is not officially on board yet, but has expressed interest in returning to the character of Gordon Gekko. Charlie Sheen's character, Bud Fox, will not be in this story, with the focus being on Gekko. This could be good, but it depends on the direction the story takes. Douglas is a great actor and it would be great to see him as Gekko again. I just don't understand this trend of making sequels to movies that were released a long time ago. I am not necessarily,against it, I just don't understand it. You take a big chance when you make a sequel to a movie that was released 20 plus years ago, because you not only have to attract the core fans of the movie, but new ones as well.

One of the actors from this years "Iron Man" will not be returning for the sequel. Actor Terrance Howard who played Tony Stark' best friend Rhodey, will not be reprising his role. Apparently, Howard was asking for too much money to return, and the studio decided to dump him, replacing him with the excellent Don Cheadle. Seeing as this was not a major role in the first movie, it really should have no effect on the sequel. Cheadle is a great actor, and will do just fine in the role. See what happens when you get greedy?

I am at a loss to understand all the hype surrounding "Twilight". I have seen the trailer, and was not terribly impressed. The whole good vampire thing has been done before. Personally I want vampires to BE vampires, I don't want to see a bloodsucker with a conscience, that is just not very interesting to me. But regardless, I will still see if just to see if all the hype surrounding it is justified. Apparently, the rabid following that "Twilight" has is apparently so huge, that a sequel has already been greenlit. That indicates that the studio is expecting huge returns on the first "Twilight" movie, being released at the end of next month. Seems that this decision was based on the huge amount of views the trailer has gotten and the fact that the soundtrack is already poised to sell huge numbers, based on pre-sale numbers from Amazon.com. All I can say is that this movie better be as huge, sometimes a movie can get weighed down by its hype, and considering the rabid following and the hype this movie is generating, it had better be everything its fans expect it to be.

Well, that's a wrap for now. As always, feel free to leave any opinions!

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