Marshall's Predators Doomsday imminent (?), but Antal has the Vacancy under Kontroll

Twelve days ago it looked like Neil Marshall, director of junk-food John Carpenter homage Doomsday and indie horrors The Descent and Dog Soldiers was in the lead to direct series reboot/sequel Predators for writer/producer Robert Rodriguez and 20th Century Fox, but now Latino Review is exclusively reporting that now Hungarian director Nimród Antal apparently has the job in his pocket.

Antal directed the American thriller Vacancy, which I wasn't a huge fan of but fellow, lazy TFP writer Matt Lingo liked, and he's responsible for the upcoming film Armored, which I thought looked like a glossy, direct-to-video potboiler awkwardly assigned a huge cast until I learned that Antal was behind it. That said, Antal also directed a really awesome film set in a Hungarian subway station called Kontroll.

Hmm...

Rebreakable

CHUD openly mocks mega-hack M. Night Shysmalan's recent statement that he's considering digging up Unbreakable and making the long-belated sequel oh-so-tantalizingly promised by the movie's premise.

Admittedly, I'd have to agree that it's unlikely to happen, because unless Avatar: The Last Airbender is a hit, it seems like Shyamalan's box office pull has been shrinking at the same rate his ego's been inflating (well, maybe a little slower), so making a decade-late sequel to an underperforming original seems like a project that doesn't exactly scream to be greenlighted. Still, I really like Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson, and it's been too long since they've teamed up (they've been in four movies together, the last one being Unbreakable). And, of course, Unbreakable is, in my opinion, Shyamalan's one great movie, that succeeds at everything it wants to do despite Shyamalan's portentous style and insistence on a twist ending. Then again, Shyamalan hasn't made a good movie in years, so maybe it's good he's not out there ruining the film's legacy.

In Defense of M:i:III

On June 23rd, 2005, Tom Cruise appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and proceeded to go completely nutso over his new girlfriend Katie Holmes, and the world changed forever. I'm serious: Scientology is a household name, and Tom Cruise lost almost all of his pull at the box office. There were other effects, but aside from those two main results, there was only one other that mattered to me: Mission: Impossible III opened on May 5th, 2006 to underwhelming box office.

Which sucks, because I felt then, and still do, that it's one of the best summer action movies of the decade. Aside from some minor quibbles (not enough of Hoffman as the villain and a few lame political touches during the movie's twist), it's a popcorn masterpiece that throws in plenty of grit under its PG-13 rating and packs a stellar cast (including Hoffman, Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup, returning star Ving Rhames, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Maggie Q, Michelle Monaghan, Keri Russell and Simon Pegg) while blasting away the terrible taste left behind by the excruciatingly poor Mission: Impossible 2. It had good trailers and the critics liked it (scoring a 70% on Rotten Tomatoes), and yet it didn't do as well as the others, just because Tom Cruise lost it. Now, I hate celebrity gossip magazines and tabloids, and I can't blame them for this -- Cruise did flip out -- but does it really make a difference? He's an actor. Who he is on screen is not who he is in real life. Frankly, if this influenced your opinion of him as an actor and not as a person, then I just think you're foolish.

There was a period following M:i:III where Cruise had a falling-out with Paramount and it looked like another Mission: Impossible would never happen, but here we are three years later and Tom's made good with the studio. Yesterday, it was announced that a fourth film is in the works with Paramount's newest box office king J.J. Abrams returning to produce.

All of you who skipped Mission: Impossible III in theaters, do yourself a favor and go see it now. Squirm at the thought of nasal-injected brain explosives. Hold your breath during the excellently tense bridge scene, which gives you that rare feeling that the characters might really be screwed. Watch Tom Cruise give what may be the last self-aware performace he'll ever give. Then be ashamed that you valued your opinions about what a celebrity does with their life over seeing a good movie. Jerks.

Michelin Man: The Movie

Recently, Michael Eisner's company announced that they would be bringing Bazooka Joe to the big screen, and I wondered if Hollywood has any perception of the future they're creating.

Check IMDb: there are movie versions of Stretch Armstrong, Battleship, Monopoly and Ouija Board in development, along with an updated take on Clue. Over time, they've also tried to make Slinky, Super Soaker and Hot Wheels into movies, and of course we've succeeded in gracing theaters with Bratz, Transformers, and the 1980's gem Mac and Me, which regardless of the blatant E.T. rip-off, was clearly a movie about McDonald's. Really?

The point of adapting an existing, established brand name is that you have a built-in audience, but what exactly is the audience for Bazooka Joe comics? How many people out there love Joe so much they'll leap at the chance to see a movie with his character? But more importantly, do we really want to look forward to a future where all we've got coming out is licensed properties? I mean, we're pretty much already there: seeing Star Trek a second time this weekend, they played the trailers for Land of the Lost, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra and Transformers: Rise of the Fallen. And these are at least properties with established fans, who are going to go see the movie adaptations in question. I can't imagine people lining up for Stretch Armstrong, and even if people would, I don't think I want to see it.

It's easy to complain about established franchises and the growing commercialization of Hollywood, but I wonder if people even think about what they're missing. Instead of a Beverly Hills Cop for the 21st century, we're probably going to end up with a literal new Beverly Hills Cop movie. Instead of any Die Hard-level action movies, we're going to have to a third Transformers or future X-Men prequels. Our generation won't get a Ghostbusters or a Back to the Future, we're just going to get more of what we've already had, whether that means sequels, reboots, or adaptations we don't want, like the unfortunate Bazooka Joe.

But I'd like to be wrong. Let's hope summer 2010 brings us a blockbuster of surprising scope and exhilarating invention, and that no part of the idea came off of the back of a bubble gum wrapper.