Bzzzzzzzzz (Film News - 08/10/11)

I thought we might be back to decent levels of news with last week's onslaught of great projects, however I was clearly mistaken as this week we drift back to virtually nothing taking my fancy. Admittedly the sad passing of Apple founder Steve Jobs has dominated the headlines, and apart from a brief flurry of biopic rumours most of Hollywood has been respectful in it's simple response. A couple of potential stories had surfaced over last weekend though, and these form the backbone of this weeks breakdown.

The Fly 2

Back in October 2009 I first reported that David Cronenberg was interested in revisiting his classic 80's creature-feature The Fly updating it with the best of modern special effects techniques. Two years on and David's now on post for his Robert Pattinson in a limo movie and is talking up the possibility again. Only now with a completed script it's looking much more like a sequel, a continuation of the original's story.

The script is apparently sitting with Fox right now, awaiting for either the green light or whatever else studios do with screenplays these days. Great news for anyone who's missed the King of Venereal Horror's most excessive flights of fantasy, although I have to admit I have my doubts whether Fox are prepared to go with it and wouldn't be surprised if we get a complete re-boot first.


The final stage of Goldblum's evolution gets it's own back on Cronenberg.

Casting News

And that's pretty much it, with the main news, although there are a couple of casting coups that may be curious. First up is the news that Halle Berry doesn't care what films she makes as long as she's working, as proved by her signing up for Joel Schumacher's The Hive as a emergency phone operator who answers a call that connects her to a murderer in her past. I also read that Schumacher might squeeze in an indie before filming starts in February, although the fact that I'm not headlining with that is somewhat telling. The surfing biopic Of Men and Mavericks has expanded it's cast by adding Abigail Spencer and Elisabeth Shue as subject Jay Moriaty's mother. Finally the cast of Ron Howard's Formula 1 movie Rush is picking up players, tracing the legendary on-track rivalry between Niki Lauder and James Hunt as well as the personal tribulations of the drivers whose personas were on the opposite end of the scale. Hunt, pictured below, was the rock star of the sport, making the celebrity headlines as much as the sports pages, Chris Hemsworth has been set for a while to play Hunt and now Olivia Wilde looks close to signing on as his supermodel wife Suzy Miller and Russell Crowe may cameo as Hollywood icon Richard Burton, who stole Suzy away from Hunt.