Movies
Does Facebook Owe Vin Diesel “Billions” Of Dollars?
You know how basically all Vin Diesel news comes from his Facebook page? While we wait for the re-coupling of Diesel and director David Twohy on Riddick, it’s hard to think of an image or still that didn’t originate from the actor’s social networking wellspring. With an astonishing 43 million “likes”, why not? It’s the ultimate portal to reaching his fanbase.
Now Diesel tells EW (via EntertainmentWise) that his candor and accessibility has generated bucket loads of revenue that might have otherwise gone untapped. “Facebook used to ask me to come up to their office to explain what the f–k I was doing, and why I had so many fans… What Facebook didn’t realise is something very big was about to happen, and that was—for the first time in history, and it’s kind of a fluke they didn’t see this coming—when I jumped on that page in April 2009, I started talking to people. In the realest ways… Imagine if you could’ve been a Facebook friend to Marlon Brando, or whoever your role models are… So, when I started talking to the fans, I became the No. 1 page in the world,” Diesel boasted. “Over Coca-Cola, over huge companies. And it was only because I said: ‘Hi, guys, I love you.’”
His secret? “I never let anyone do a post, I never let anyone post for me in the last four years. My audience knows me so well on the page that if my producing partner’s in the room when I post, they’ll know somebody was around me. That’s kind of cool, that’s how sophisticated they are. Facebook really owes me billions of dollars. But whatever.”
While I seriously doubt Diesel is considering collecting from Zuckerberg and co., it’s an interesting phenomenon. While I think that Brando and Elvis are in an altogether different league, it’s hard to argue that his approach doesn’t garner results.
Movies
’28 Years Later’ – Ralph Fiennes, Jodie Comer, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson Join Long Awaited Sequel
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland (Annihilation, Men), the director and writer behind 2002’s hit horror film 28 Days Later, are reteaming for the long-awaited sequel, 28 Years Later. THR reports that the sequel has cast Jodie Comer (Alone in the Dark, “Killing Eve”), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kraven the Hunter), and Ralph Fiennes (The Menu).
The plan is for Garland to write 28 Years Later and Boyle to direct, with Garland also planning on writing at least one more sequel to the franchise – director Nia DaCosta is currently in talks to helm the second installment.
No word on plot details as of this time, or who Comer, Taylor-Johnson, and Fiennes may play.
28 Days Later received a follow up in 2007 with 28 Weeks Later, which was executive produced by Boyle and Garland but directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. Now, the pair hope to launch a new trilogy with 28 Years Later. The plan is for Garland to write all three entries, with Boyle helming the first installment.
Boyle and Garland will also produce alongside original producer Andrew Macdonald and Peter Rice, the former head of Fox Searchlight Pictures, the division of one-time studio Twentieth Century Fox that originally backed the British-made movie and its sequel.
The original film starred Cillian Murphy “as a man who wakes up from a coma after a bicycle accident to find England now a desolate, post-apocalyptic collapse, thanks to a virus that turned its victims into raging killers. The man then navigates the landscape, meeting a survivor played by Naomie Harris and a maniacal army major, played by Christopher Eccleston.”
Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer) is on board as executive producer, though the actor isn’t set to appear in the film…yet.
Talks of a third installment in the franchise have been coming and going for the last several years now – at one point, it was going to be titled 28 Months Later – but it looks like this one is finally getting off the ground here in 2024 thanks to this casting news. Stay tuned for more updates soon!
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