Film at Eleven

Coming Soon (via) has a selection of hi-res images from the upcoming TMNT.

It’s difficult to say how this will work on the basis of still images, but I have a suspicion that this film may well be a surprise hit for 2007.

Just in case you know someone who lives for hype but failed to see Snakes on a Plane when it came out, I Spit On Your Movie has noticed that the film will be released on Region 2 DVD on December 26th.

The Region 1 DVD is out on January 7th.

Entertainment Weekly (via) have an early look at Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’ Grindhouse and they look very good indeed.

Enjoy.

Update

A lot more images have turned up all over the place over the last few days. Over at AICN (via) are 6 lobby cards each from Planet Terror and Death Proof as well as a truly spectacular cinema display.

And via Solace in Cinema comes a bucketload of wonderfully grainy looking stills for both Planet Terror and Death Proof.

Apocalypse Oz is “not a spoof, a parody or a remake.” The film is a “radical reinterpretation” of Apocalypse Now and The Wizard of Oz, from which a third, very different, film has been extracted.

Fleeing her black-and-white home and her abusive Aunt and Uncle, Dorothy Willard, an Amerasian punk teenager, is dispatched deep into the technicolour desert with orders to track down and assassinate her absent and insane Vietnam-vet father - codenamed ‘The Wizard’ - now the enigmatic leader of an ardent gang of followers…

Stealing a red car named “RUBY” and setting off, Dorothy quickly finds that the nefarious cop Sergeant Kilgore has other plans for her.

Enduring an odyssey of stoned surfers, gunfights in poppy fields and car chases, Dorothy reaches the remote desert outpost of the Wizard’s strange trailer-park-junkyard base. There, inside his mysterious techno-junk-festooned trailer, “The Emerald”, she
finds herself confronting the Wizard in a wholly unexpected form…

There is a trailer embedded in the film’s website which is well worth a watch.

(via Twitch)

This is too bizarre to ignore. From Twitch, via Solace in Cinema, comes a poster and a slightly old rumour about Fish War.

D-War is a South Korean monster movie which was finally seen in the US earlier this year (we’re still waiting for a European distribution) for which Twitch’s Todd recently found an early promo book.

In the back of the book is a flyer and synopsis for the film that Hyung was preparing as his next project, the aptly titled Fish War. Yes, boys and girls, once he was done with the dragons Hyung’s plan was to unleash schools of angry, hyper intelligent fish upon humanity.

You think that sounds bad… wait ’til you read the synopsis…

In the deep, bottomless sea … There are undersea cities where mutated fishes with highly developed intellectual power live together peacefully. But, they got into rage and swore revenge against human beings who continue to catch fishes indiscriminately. One of those days, mysterious events started happening, such as pleasure boats at sea sunk and submarines exploded in the sea. Finally, fishes declared a war against human beings on land and came out on the ground to conquer the human beings with highly advanced weapons and military strength, several times more developed than those of human beings. Human beings was defeated instantly by fishes equipped with bombers shaped like a stingray, battle tanks like an octopus, and special forces like a seahorse, and finally put the world under the control of fishes, not of human beings anymore. At court, Dr. Octopus sentenced human beings who habitually tormented fishes. At a sushi restaurant, a catfish, puffing cigars, waited for dishes made of human beings. And fishes caught and refridgerated human beings as exactly human beings did to fishes and completely controlled the whole world. In Japan, meanwhile, Yamamoto family, the well known sushi master in business for 3 generations, became an most infamous enemy of fishes.

This film will probably never be made… much to my immense disappointment.

According to CHUD, Robert Rodriguez is to produce and co-write the script for a big screen adaptation of Michael Allred’s Madman. George Huang will be sharing the scripting duties and is to direct the live-action film for Dimension Films.

Madman is about a guy who is killed in a car accident. A mad scientist resurrects him, calls him Frank Einstein, and gives him super powers. He then has weird and post-modern adventures. Allred, whose wacky pop art illustrations define Madman, will be heavily involved in the making of the movie, which is going to be shot at Troublemaker in Austin. Will it be done in that Sin City style? I would bet on it – Madman really lends itself to that cartoony semi-animation method.

I have to admit that I’m not familiar with this character, but it certainly sounds like fun.

Cicakman, Malaysia’s first big-screen superhero, broke the opening-day record in the country by grossing RM350,000 on its first day of release on December 7th. Three days later, the film had grossed RM1.15 million.

Fittingly, to suit Malaysians’ sense of humour, our first “spider-man” is a bit of a clown. Plus, he’s neither drop dead gorgeous nor outstanding. What is impressive is that Cicak-Man is the first Malaysian film that involves heavy computer graphics (CG) – almost 500 CG shots were incorporated into the film – and the story’s not focused on romance. It is more about learning and respecting oneself. Oh, did we mention that it is a comedy?

Cicakman is set in the fictional city of Metrofulus where typical young man, Hairi (Saiful Apek) – whom most people ignore – suddenly gains the ability to scale walls and ceilings, and becoming extremely agile after being bitten by a radioactive cicak (gecko) while at work.

(via Twitch)

Guillermo Del Toro seems to be unable to stop working. Now that the superb Pan’s Labrynth is out, he has announced plans to add Tarzan to an already packed production schedule.

Warner Bros is developing a new take on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ most famous character, with John Collee (Happy Feet) set to write and Del Toro in negotiations to direct.

‘I’d love to create a new version that is still a family movie, but as edgy as I can make it,’ Del Toro told Variety. ‘There are strong themes of the survival of a defenceless child left behind in the most hostile environment.’

‘John will be writing it alone, as I’ll be in production on Hellboy 2 and pursuing writing projects of my own’ he continued. ‘He’s got a great sense of adventure and the wilderness’.

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’ exploitation double feature, Grindhouse hasn’t been released yet, but already Rodriguez is talking about potential sequels.

‘The best thing about Grindhouse is how easily it can be a franchise,’ says Rodriguez. ‘We can do kung fu, blaxploitation, you name it.’

Grindhouse is being made as two films - Death Proof from Tarantino and a zombie science-fiction number, Planet Terror from Rodriguez - surrounded by fake trailers.

According to Rodriguez, if the trailers go down well enough, they may well become part of the next Grindhouse.

I’m a tad behind at the moment, so you may have already heard that independent writer and director, Todd Kniss has recently wrapped production on his second feature film, 33 Griffin Lane.

Produced by episode 91, a production company in his own named, 33 Griffin Lane tells the story of a teenage girl who gets more than she bargained for when she and her classmates go looking for trouble only discover that trouble…is looking for them.

“’33’ we did a bit different than Blood Deep. We put just as much time and care into developing the characters, but added GALLONS more blood, action and suspense to give the audience what they really wanted,” said Todd Kniss who’s feature film debut Blood Deep screened at several international film festivals last year including the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film, Another Hole in the Head Film Festival, PiFAN, and Indiefest Chicago.

In 33 Griffin Lane, two creatures—half human and half gryphon—and ALL female—terrorize a group of teenage kids who sneak into an abandoned house.