the m0vie blog

Today is a very special day. We’re officially a third of the way through 2012. It’s been a pretty solid year for movies, and it’s been an interesting year for movie news. However, some news stories haven’t had quite the traction that I would have expected, and might have passed readers by. So, to celebrate getting through the first third of 2012, here’s the 30 most underreported movie-related news stories of 2012.

#2: The tagline for Wrath of the Titans, “feel the wrath!”, was suggested as a joke by a low-level Warners Studio executive after reactions to early test screenings. By the time executives had discovered the gag, the marketing materials had already been released.

#3: After a limp critical response to This Means War, Fox have announced they’ll be rebooting the franchise, recasting William Shatner and Patrick Stewart in the lead roles. “This time we’re going to do Kirk versus Picard properly,” an insider explained.

#5: Michael Bay’s next project will be a black-and-white film entirely in German about a sad clown and a lonely priest on a roadtrip during the Spanish Civil War. It is adapted from a screenplay by Terrence Malick.

#6: Quentin Tarantino is on the shortlist to direct Sex and the City 3. Asked to pitch his vision, he replied, “Sexier and citier.” Nobody in the room told him “citier” wasn’t a word.

# 7: Adapting the Act of Valour model, following the success of the film starring a bunch of Navy SEALs as a bunch of Navy SEALs, several major studios are looking at similar projects. Sony is reportedly developing Act of Acting, an adventure movie featuring a bunch of A-list actors playing a bunch of A-list actors. George Clooney is rumoured be considered for the part of George Clooney.

#9: Roland Emmerich is working on a prequel to 100,000 B.C., under the working title 100,001 B.C. He has vowed it will be even more historically accurate. “I’m not sure how you improve on perfection,” the American Paleontology magazine commented in an editorial.

#10: Anthony Hopkins recently confirmed in an interview that he is on “Team Jacob.”

#11: Kevin Williamson has handed in the first draft of Scream 5, but had to rework it after studio executives insisted on 5cr34m, “because it speaks to key demographics.” The same executives reportedly loved the script’s use of time travel.

#13: Warner Brothers is planning a darker and edgier adaptation of Aquaman. The character will no longer be an aquatic price who can talk to fishes, but instead a Los Vegas “wetwork” specialist.

#14: Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson insists that his trailer be fitted with a fully functioning kitchen unit on any film he may work on. His costars literally can smell what the Rock is cooking.

#15: Due to the production delay on the sequel to JJ Abrams’ Star Trek sequel, Paramount has pushed ahead with a reboot of Star Trek: The Next Generation, with Tom Hardy in the lead role as a more “action orientated” Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Early drafts of the script suggest his Academy nickname will be “Pic-‘ard” and “the Picard Manuever” will be the character’s tried and tested flirting technique. Brett Ratner is in preliminary negotiations.

#17: Journey 2: The Island was based on a true story.

#18: Pre-production work has commenced on a sequel to Brideshead Revisited, under the title Brideshead Revisisted Revisited

#19: Brave began life as an East End gangster film. “We went through a few drafts on that,” Pixar executive John Lassiter joked. “It needed a bit of tweaking.” Asked what he missed most in the more recent changes, he replied, “definitely the aliens.”

#21: George Lucas has decided to insert Jar Jar Binks into the 3D releases of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

#22: Trying to earn that elusive Best Picture nomination that evaded The Dark Knight, David Goyer suggested in an interview with SFX that The Dark Knight Rises will feature Commissioner Gordon discovering Bruce Wayne’s darkest secret: he actually suffers from a rare form autism. It will also feature flashbacks to the Holocaust.

#24: Despite earning over $230,000 at the global box office, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo did not turn a profit for Sony Pictures and MGM.

#25: Ryan Gosling has confirmed that he will be appearing in 25 films in 2014. “I don’t sleep,” the actor commented, looking pretty intense.

#27: Hoping to cement ties between Marvel and its new parent company, Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury had a cameo at the end of Disney’s John Carter, but it was cut due to time.

#28: Daniel Day-Lewis was actually Spielberg’s third choice for the lead in Lincoln. “Liam Neeson couldn’t do it after we delayed filming,” the director confessed, “and Vin Diesel had to drop to do The Fast & the Furious 6.”

#29: James Cameron has begun planning a manned trip to the surface of the moon. Funded out of the director’s own pocket, he has vowed to bring the journey to theatres as “a fully immersive four-dimensional experience.”

#30: Michael Bay has tweaked Jonathan Liebesman’s adaptation of Ninja Turtles even further than originally announced. However, following backlash to the changes made public, it has been suggested that the current rewrite might remove the “kung-fu tortoises” subplot.

Okay, this was a bad idea to “celebrate” April Fools, but one of these stories is actually true. Any guesses which one?

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: April Fools Day, black and white, george clooney, jean-luc picard, liam neeson, michael bay, Michael Fassbender, Navy, patrick stewart, Practical joke, quentin tarantino, robert downey, roland emmerich, Sex & The City, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, Terrence Malick, William Shatner, Wrath of the Titans |