Filmism.net Dispatch February 8, 2009
From the 'you're a film star, not a doctor curing cancer' front lines comes Christian Bale's now notorious three-minute profane bawling out of Terminator Salvation CP Shane Hurlbut, which you can download here http://www.aolcdn.com/tmz_audio/020209_christianbale.mp3 if you're one of them few who haven't heard it.
Director McG added to the party line that Bale's blow-up was a result of the intense emotions surrounding the scene (come on guys – it's a Terminator movie, not Terms of Endearment), but general consensus around film traps seems to remain that Bale needs a good slapping as no professional lapse warrants such a tirade of abuse.
Personally, if I'd been Hurlbut I would have called Bale on it and gone toe to toe with him. Think what it could have done for the DP's celebrity currency – he'd be directing within three months.
Sony recently announced Roland Emmerich's latest end-of-the-world epic 2012 has been moved from the lucrative midyear schedule to November 2009. Is it a sign of Sony's in house credit approval rating downgrading Emmerich's big, effects-driven style as a drawcard after the dire 10,000BC, or just a crowded releasing slot?
I've got nothing against Jamie Bell – sure, he jarred in the atrocious Jumper, but I do have a theory about live action versions of iconic cartoons, comics, etc. You couldn't do a live action Simpsons, because the hyper-stylised characteristics (spiky hair, yellow skin) that make the characters so recognisable would just look ridiculous on humans (take a bow, The Flintstones). Early photos of Justin (Tom Cruise's son in War of the Worlds) Chatwin as the dude out of Dragonball look similarly 'off', and no matter how much they manage Tintin's little 'forequiff' of hair on Bell – as casting was announced recently – he's just not going to look like the little dot-eyed, blonde Belgian boy explorer.
After Disney dropped The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Fox have come along and picked it up. I realise this displays an unhealthy interest in kids' movies, but I'll be interested to see how much they're prepared to throw into the kitty with Walden Media to keep the franchise going. My prediction; any more than $80m and they'll make big noises about it being 'darker, more adult'. If they keep it on the same kid-friendly tack the budget ceiling will be $40-50m.
Joe Carnahan is directing The A-Team outing, a good sign for the gritty realness we can expect even though he seems just another previously exciting director ready to drop to his knees and wrap his lips around the big fat Hollywood erection like a good little whore (viz. Hank Moody).
Clooney seems content to stay on a left-leaning tack, currently filming Men Who Stare at Goats – a disdainful reference to the US military program wasting money on programs like the notorious tests when soldiers attempted to kill goats telepathically. He's also producing and hopefully starring in a courtroom thriller with the War on Terror as a backdrop.
And lastly, with Stallone having rediscovered his mojo after the market's virtually dictated the characters it wants him to play, there's another Rambo film in the works. Cue endless gags about the Taliban invading an old peoples' home.