Movies
Diesel Hints At Third ‘Riddick’ Film
It’s kind of unfair to compare Pitch Black to Chronicles of Riddick. They were entirely different things; Pitch Black being more of a horror movie while Riddick was a full-blown sci-fi adventure with shades of Dune and Star Wars. But the fact remains that Riddick‘s box office performance was pretty lousy, so the prospects of a third film looked grim. However, while promoting the revamped version of the (excellent) Riddick game for the Xbox360, Diesel revealed that a third film IS indeed still in the works. Read on for some brief info!
Via GAMESPOT:
“GS: The current state of a third movie in the Riddick series seems a little uncertain to the casual fan right now. How does that affect the writing and story explored in the new Dark Athena content? Does it sort of give you guys more room to explore this fiction, or does that change anything about how you’ve approached this game?
VD: Good question. Maybe we’re too tight-lipped about the next Chronicles of Riddick film, and I think circa the release of [Dark Athena] that’s probably when you’ll start hearing more about the next Riddick film. It is underway and I almost think it’s a coincidence that we haven’t heard anything, that there hasn’t been a lot of public stuff on the Riddick movie.”
He continues a bit later, “But it’s interesting that you’ve made that comment. Maybe we’ve been too tight-lipped about the movie, and you’ll probably hear a lot more about it as this game is released. I think we were so adamant about knocking this game out of the park that we’ve been doing a lot of late hours–the overtime’s on the game at the moment while [Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick screenwriter] David Twohy is finishing up the next script.”
In Pitch Black a transport ship containing 40 passengers heading to other worlds for, among other reasons, settling, New Mecca, and for one passenger, Riddick, another cell. The ship encounters a tiny meteor storm and crash lands on a barren planet with only 1/4 of its complement surviving. Survival is tough with Riddick on the loose and no water in sight. However, come nightfall, they have even more to fear…
Movies
Warner Bros. Reportedly Developing International ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ Movie With Lee Cronin?!
Last November, Robert Englund had shared his thoughts on why there hasn’t been any movement on the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise in the past sixteen years. Englund told Indiewire at the time, “There are so many people involved who have a piece of the action.”
“When Wes passed away, he left an awful lot of rights to his estate,” Englund explained. “He has many many rights that he worked out between character titles and names and plot and things like that. New Line Cinema obviously has a big hand in it. And much of that was surrendered to Ted Turner, then went to Warner Bros. So Warner Bros. has a huge piece of it.”
We bring this up because Englund was spot on. And things have only gotten more interesting since he made those comments last year. We had recently learned that Paramount has joined forces with the Craven Estate to make a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie based on Wes Craven’s original screenplay for the original movie, but here’s where things get real interesting.
While the Craven Estate has the domestic rights to Craven’s original Elm Street screenplay, Warner Bros./New Line actually retains the international rights to A Nightmare on Elm Street. And Puck News reports this week that Warner Bros. is actively developing their own Nightmare on Elm Street movie to compete with the announced Paramount project!
Of course, what’s particularly interesting about this whole mess is that Paramount is actively attempting to buy Warner Bros., a sale which has been delayed until at least next year.
Puck reports, “Sources with knowledge of the matter think Paramount figured that by the time their movie got underway, the WarnerMount deal would have closed and Warners would be compelled to release the Paramount version overseas. But Warners’ Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy didn’t care for that plan. Now they’re looking to make their own movie, which they can only distribute overseas, and are in talks with Lee Cronin to produce, write, and direct.”
So what we have is a situation where Paramount is attempting to make one Nightmare on Elm Street movie for the domestic market while Warner Bros. is attempting to make an entirely different Elm Street film project for the international market. The obvious solution here is for both entities to work with one another and bring all the rights together to make one proper Elm Street movie that can play in both markets, which could very well end up being the case if the Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery merger does end up taking place late next year.
In the meantime, it seems that WB and Paramount are in a race to beat one another to the punch. While the Paramount project has been officially announced, we must note that the Warner Bros./Lee Cronin project has not. We only have the Puck News report to go on, but for what it’s worth, that report lines up with what Bloody Disgusting has been hearing lately.
Unfortunately, Nightmare on Elm Street isn’t the only franchise that is mired in complicated rights issues. All of this sounds eerily similar to the situation with Friday the 13th, which has its rights split up between several different entities. The only thing coming soon on that front is “Crystal Lake,” a prequel television series from A24 and Peacock that managed to bring all the rights holders together. Even still, don’t expect a series about Jason Voorhees rampaging through the woods. The series centers instead on Jason’s mother, Pamela Voorhees.
Making a proper new Friday the 13th movie, well, that’s proving to be as difficult as it is to make a proper new Nightmare on Elm Street movie. At a time it was said that nothing could kill either Jason or Freddy, but complicated legal issues are damn sure trying their best.
Stay tuned for more on all things Nightmare on Elm Street as this all develops.
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