More Vampires Anyone? (Film News 12/06/10)

I don't know what happened this week. I mean we've had slow news days before but this is ridiculous: I'm having to open with a Bram Stoker rip-off and fill with wrestler pictures and rehashes of news that's over a year old. It's enough to make you want to write up about half whispered casting rumours and Brett Ratner's upcoming slate... Not that I will. Memo to the Hollywood PR people - start writing interesting stories we're desperate out here.

Fangland

Anyone remember when John Carpenter was a prolific and relevant horror/action maestro? I know it's a stretch but back in the late 70's/early 80's he was cranking out genre masterpiece after genre masterpiece. What home midnight movie marathon (for people of my generation) would be complete without Halloween, The Thing, The Fog or They Live, the 90's though were unkind to Carpenter with sucessive films both flopping commercially and being less satisfying artistically culminating in 2001's Ghosts of Mars. After the last nine years off John is back, first with The Ward which is due for release this year, but now with Fangland - a modern remake of Bram Stoker's classic Dracula.

The adapatation of John Mark's novel following news reporter Evangeline Harker (set to be played by Hilary Swank!) as she sets for Rumania looking for a local crime kingpin. Guess what she finds.

I'm hoping for a return to the classic early movies with this, and with Vampires currently in vogue it should reap some nice box office for him.

(Audio versions of the book are also available)

Note I managed to write that whole segment without referring to th confirmation that Breaking Dawn will be split into two films in order to fleece the teenage fans out of twice as much of their pocket money. (Oops).

Read on for paranoid South African actresses and big chested "athletes".



The Chaperone


I will confess I know absolutely nothing about professional wrestling, other than from watching The Wrestler, and I can't say I've ever been that interested in watching a movie featuring a wrestler before, but as I said earlier we are really struggling for news this week so here goes. Paul "Triple H" Levesque is making his lead film debut with The Chaperone: "a getaway driver for a crew of bank robbers who is determined to go straight and be the best parent he can be to his daughter." Doesn't that sound like a barrel of laughs.

I'm not really sure what Triple H stands for, but I'm guessing it's his bra size.

Fury Road

I thought Charlize Theron was out of the Mad Max remake, given she'd dropped off the IMDb page, but apparently not as she's been talking about the role just this week. Although she hasn't been saying anything specific because she's worried the production company are spying on her to make sure she doesn't spill the beans. It sounds like she has nothing to say because she's not actually in it - that's right you heard it here first - Charlize Theron is making stuff up at interviews. Oh, and all this is just an excuse to bring in Tina Turner singing We Don't Need another Hero from the last Mad Max movie.