Movies
Update #2: Major ‘Predators’ Casting Announcement Made!
Update: Two more names revealed inside. Are you ready for a whopper, the controversy of the week? In a surprise development, Oscar winner Adrien Brody (King Kong, The Pianist, The Village, Splice) has been cast by 20th Century Fox to play the heroic mercenary who battles alien hunters in Predators, their a reboot/sequel of the Predator franchise that is being creatively spearheaded by Robert Rodriguez and his Troublemaker Studios. He is signed on for multiple films. Who else is cast? Read on to find out then talk about all of the names below. How do you feel about Brody taking on the lead role?
Update #1: Bloody Disgusting also exclusively confirmed that Derek Mears – who played Jason Voorhees in the ‘Friday the 13th’ reboot – will also be taking on a role.
Update #2: In addition, Topher Grace – who played Venom in ‘Spider-Man 3’ – is also in talks, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
In addition, Brody will star alongside Alice Braga (Repo Men, I Am Legend), Danny Trejo (Grindhouse, From Dusk ‘Til Dawn), Walt Goggins (“Shield”), Oleg Taktarov, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali (“4400”, The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonThe Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and Louiz Ozawa (Indelible Fair Game).
Written by Rodriguez, Alex Litvak and Michael Finch, the script follows a group of elite warrior-types who are being hunted by members of a race of merciless alien trackers called Predators.
Brody is a man who ends up inheriting the mantle of leader and is known as a hunter of men. Grace would play an accountant-type whose unassuming facade masks a dangerous serial killer.
Braga is the tough female killer. Ali is a man not afraid to die, Goggins is the loose canon of the group and Taktarov is a former Russian special ops agent.
Trejo, already cast, is Cuchillo, a hardened warrior with twin uzis strapped to his back.
Shooting begins next month in Hawaii then moves to moves to Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios in Austin.
Nimrod Antal is directing a film that is about to get underway on location in Hawaii and at Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas.
Fox has set the film for release July 9, 2010.
Best known for his Oscar-winning turn in the Roman Polanski-directed “The Pianist,” Brody has an opportunity to reinvent himself as a flat out action hero, playing a character close to the one that Arnold Schwarzenegger portrayed in the 1987 original.
Brody and his Paradigm reps lobbied hard for the role. Fox has high hopes to spring a new franchise, and Brody has signed options to return for future installments, sources said.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallis.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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