Movies
Update: The Great Jill Valentine Controversy
Update: I made a few calls and got a juicy piece of insider info that I unfortunately have to leave extremely vague. She may, or may not be back. That is all. The end.
When we broke the news the other day that Milla Jovovich would be returning to star in Sony Screen Gems’ Resident Evil: Retribution, we also noted that contrary to Sienna Guillory’s previous Twitter posts, “Jill Valentine’s” role is being recast.
Now, this could be a casting error or it’s even possible they are looking for an older or younger version for some sort of flashback/flash-forward sequence. All I know is that I saw it, with my own two eyes.
Since our report, Guillory took back to Twitter stating “I’m loyal to R.E. always. Don’t know about where the rumors come from. But if they want someone else it’s not up to me!”
We’re doing some extra fact checking to see if we can’t solve this mystery, but I’m siding with the fans on this one: what’s the point of recasting her? I want to see Guillory back at Jill Valentine!
Plot details are under lock and key, but Sony Screen Gems is aiming to have it in theaters come September 14, 2012. An October start date is locked in Toronto and Japan with Paul W.S. Anderson returning to direct.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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