I got a link sent to me to this article by Aint It Cool News.

Bill Murray was a surprise guest at the Fantastic Fest and participated in a short Q & A after the screening. Someone asked Murray how he felt about bustin’ some ghosts one more time.

But tonight he said that he knew “some writers from THE OFFICE” were taking a stab at the script right now (which we already knew) and that he thinks that’s a good start. He paused for a few seconds then said that he thinks enough time has passed and that “the wounds from GHOSTBUSTERS 2 are healed” and that he would definitely be into doing another GHOSTBUSTERS movie, stating that the first 40 minutes of the original film is some of the best stuff he’s been associated with and the whole shoot was an amazing amount of fun.

He also went on to say that his enthusiasm for Ghostbusters was heightened after recording the voice of Peter Venkman for the video game over the summer. In fact, he said he found himself walking down the street singing the Ghostbusters theme song and then thought people walking around him were going to start yelling at him to “get over yourself, Bill,” so he stopped… But the enthusiasm was there.

For those nay-saying the possibility of a Ghostbusters 3 being any fun, shut the fuck up. If you think it’s going to suck, don’t go see it.

Greetings all, I apologize for my absence but I just got released from rehab for a sex addiction (compulsively masturbating in my own feces) not unlike our favorite David Duchovny.

Studios are hoping to redeem shitty franchises that raped the souls of comic book fans everywhere by rebooting failed flicks. But you know what? It needs to stop. Warner Bros. has announced that because Bryan Singer’s whatever sequel Superman Returns made no sense (was that dumb ass kid Superman’s son with Lois; did Lois know that Clark and Superman were the same person; why was Cyclops in the movie, who gives a shit?) and was two and half hours too long they’re redoing the franchise from scratch. Great, cool, another Superman movie. I wonder what will happen? Will he save people from disasters? Get sick from Kryptonite? Fly around? Hm, I wonder. They’ve also announced that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are getting a third revamp as the computer animated flick that was released last year made audiences shit blood. Yeah, we all grew up with those loveable green amphibians and they helped shape us to the nerds we are today, but it’s a dead franchise. Let it rest in piece. You don’t see Christians revamping the Bible left and right, well, okay, that’s a bad analogy, Christians are the worst. We’ve got Punisher: Warzone; a remake of the shitty Thomas Jane version that was a remake of the shitty Dolph Lundgren version. I’m at a point where I’ll just fucking watch Death Wish, it’s The Punisher without all the shitty aspects of a movie trying to redeem another movie. My tip for all of you: Don’t see Punisher: Warzone – Rent Death Wish.

And we’ve all been covering the news on the developing Ghostbusters III: The Search for Curly’s Gold here at BSR! and I have to say that I’m looking forward to it ever so much, because not only will we have all the original cast members returning to rape a perfectly good franchise from our childhood (a la Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) but they will return swollen from years of age and flops (we’re looking at you Ernie Hudson). And, I’m sure we can look forward to it being a 90-minute preview for Ghostbusters IV, starring Seth Rogan, Dave Chappell, Will Farrell and Owen Wilson. What a cast!

Well, until the next unwanted opinion of everyone’s favorite robot (it might be about Wolverine: Origins). Cheers!

MTv has a little blurb from Ed Norton regarding the future of The Incredible Hulk franchise:

“Incredible Hulk” star Edward Norton says Marvel Studios isn’t giving him any indication they want him to reprise his role as the publisher’s green goliath, whether in a solo sequel or team-up project.

“The minds of Marvel are sometimes opaque,” Norton told MTV News. “I won’t say [they’re] obtuse, but I don’t have any idea what they want to do.”

Norton said he’s also been kept in the dark regarding any plans for him, in his role as Hulk’s alter-ego Bruce Banner, to appear in Marvel’s big team-up project, “The Avengers.” The film, which is expected to feature The Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America and several other Marvel characters, is currently scheduled for a 2011 release.

“They’ve got this notion of collecting the Marvel characters,” said Norton, who appeared a bit skeptical of Marvel’s ambitious plans for the project. “Who knows where they’ll go?”

I’m not sure if all that Ed Norton vs. Marvel stuff happened like it was rumored to, or if there is no rift at all between Norton and the powers that be, but let’s face it, they don’t need Norton to come back if they put the Hulk in an Avenger’s movie. They could just use the Hulk, no Bruce and (in my opinion) not lose out on a whole lot. In a perfect world, Norton will come back, the Hulk will be back, and all will be good, but it’s nice to know that if Norton for whatever reason didn’t/couldn’t/won’t come back it doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of the Hulk.

Burn After Reading is fucking funny! –Slugtron

The Coen Brothers have chosen to follow up their Best Picture winning No Country For Old Men with the hilarious screw-ball farce Burn After Reading.

These two films couldn’t be more different, and it’s a good thing, too.  I don’t think the Coen’s could have followed up an artistic masterpiece with another artistic masterpiece, and it was good to see they didn’t even try.  Burn After Reading is much more reminiscent of The Big Lebowski than No Country For Old Men.  In fact, it has a shared structure with Lebowski, though not as good.  The structure is that of creating a zany sort of mad-cap adventure in which to hang the most preposterous and humerous characters possible onto.

And the characters in this adventure are some of the most preposterous and humerous characters in the Coen Brothers lexicon.  In fact, they’re all so solidly put together in this film, it’s hard to pick a favorite.  John Malkovich might be the funniest though, as an angry ex-CIA agent (though agent is probably too strong a word) who repeats just about every sentence he says once more, adding in a well-placed “Fuck”.  But George Clooney is fantastic to watch, as well, as a sex-addled fornicator who sleeps with just about every female character in the movie and devises a sexual contraption so funny that…  well…  Anyway…

As if everything the Coen Brothers did, didn’t show how good they were with characters, this certainly would. –Slugtron

But the rest of the characters are pitch perfect for this film as well, from an airheaded Brad Pitt to a confused JK Simmons and a cold and evil Tilda Swinton to the rest of the cast who is just as confused by what’s going on as everyone else is.

The story revolves around a disc of memoirs written by Malkovich’s character that falls into the hands of Brad Pitt and Francess McDormand.  Unfortunately they’re idiots and don’t realize the disc is practically worthless but want to blackmail everyone anyway, and when that doesn’t work, they try to sell it to the Russians.

The story doesn’t really matter so much as the hilarity that ensues because of it.

I was belly-laughing through most of the film.  The writing was snappy, the jokes were sharp, the characters were witty and everything was to be liked about this movie.

No, it wasn’t as good as some of their other movies, but it was just drop-dead funny and for that, it’s worth seeing.  Not too many good comedies come out these days, so we need to take them when we can get them.

(As a sidenote, that great Saul Bass looking poster above says so much about the movie…  Really.)

Hey all! Got some good superhero movie news for you!

First off, Marc Guggenheim gave comicon.com an update on his work on the live-action Green Lantern movie:

Along with working on this new direction for Spider-Man, Guggenheim’s also involved in one of the upcoming superhero films that has comic fans turning green with anticipation. “I’ve been working my ass off on Green Lantern,” he said, then laughed. “I’m ready for a weekend off. I really can’t say too much about it. I’ve sworn a blood oath of secrecy. I will tell you it features Hal Jordan and is an incredibly faithful rendition of the character. It honors everything everyone loves about the hero. We approach it from a fan’s perspective. Every step of the way, we ask ourselves what we want to see and what the fans will want to see. I think we have a script that will actually satisfy on those levels. Right now I’m just doing a rewrite for the studio with Greg [Berlanti] and Michael [Green]. We’ll turn that in next week. We just keep moving forward. It’s really good stuff!”

Now, I like the prospect of a Green Lantern movie, I mean, I’m not that super devoted to him so maybe those of you readers out there that are could weigh in on this. However, I would be a LOT more excited had that quote not been preceeded by this one, also by Guggenheim:

Now, first here’s the setup:
“‘Speaking of ‘judging’ Guggenheim said a lot of people who aren’t reading Spider-Man or refuse to read Spider-Man are judging it based on misunderstandings. ‘Part of the problem with the controversy behind One More Day is the understanding of what was retconned overstates the extent of what was done,’ he said. ‘Everything that happened in the last twenty plus years of comic book history happened! The only difference is that Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson weren’t married. They still dated. They still lived together. They still love each other. They just weren’t married. Judging from the letters and death threats we received, I think some people were confused. It all still happened.'”

Okay, fair enough, I didn’t really catch on to that little bit of information (of course, someone has yet to make that part CLEAR), but here comes the fun part…

“‘Here’s my attitude, if anyone is upset about the marriage going away, then they must all be pro gay marriage,’ he continued. ‘Because if you’re pro gay marriage, you understand the distinction between a marriage and a civil union — that a civil union is not equal to a marriage. We downgraded Mary Jane and Peter to a civil union. If that bothers you, then you’re pro gay marriage.'”

Yeah. I know… It scarcely makes sense and just gives that overall sense of “WTF?” Anyway, he’s writing the Green Lantern movie and there have obviously been no casting yet. Swank-mo-tron has a great suggestion though as to who could play Hal Jordan, and frankly I’m on board with him, but actually READ the article before turning your nose up to it! But I digress…

Secondly, Super Hero Hype/Coming Soon has a great interview with Jon Favreau up, in which he talks a little about Iron Man 2 & 3 and how all three movies will tie together, as well as a few revelations about what we can expect in the next installment(s), you can check out the full thing here, but here’s an exerpt:

–He recently met with Downey at the actor’s home and discussed at length the kind of character beats and moments he hopes to have when he returns to the character. Downey also introduced Favreau to actor/screenwriter Justin Theroux, who impressed Downey with his work on the actor’s second summer hit Tropic Thunder, and Theroux is now working with Favreau to develop the story.

–Iron Man’s classic comic book nemesis the Mandarin, the Asian crimelord who sports ten powerful ring weapons (alluded to in the first film through references to the terrorist cell the Ten Rings) will most likely emerge as a primary antagonist, although Favreau is still wrestling with how to address the villain’s mystical origins and fit them into the high-tech world established in the debut film. It’s also possible the Mandarin may not be fully revealed as the “Big Bad” until a possible third film to avoiding overexposing a potentially intriguing enemy .

–Favreau plans to follow the first film’s themes of integrating social and political themes into the adventure and fantasy, and he hinted at a current global situation providing some inspiration – possibly an allusion to plans to utilize Iron Man’s Russian counterpart, the Crimson Dynamo.

I really liked Iron Man, and I am glad everyone sounds enthusiastic about coming back for at least the next two installments. Unlike Spider-Man, this one is in Marvel’s hands, so I have a little more faith in it.

Anyway, just a few updates for all you bots and meatbags out there!

JoBlo.com is reporting that Warner Bros. is re-releasing The Dark Knight (at the very least on IMAX) in January, the height of the Academy Awards voting season.

I was going to make a number of witty jokes and the like, but I can’t make them as well as were already made on JoBlo:

It looks as though Warner Bros. is planning on rereleasing THE DARK KNIGHT in theatres come January, the heart of Academy award voting season. Apparently the studio wants to remind voters that their little-movie-that-could deserves an Oscar or ten. This is a brilliant move by the studio on so many levels. Voters definitely need to be reminded of THE DARK KNIGHT, seeing as how this was totally the summer of THE LOVE GURU, and TDK went virtually unnoticed, saddled by the brilliance that is Mike Myers. Also, by rereleasing the film, they might be able to actually make some profit, seeing as how TDK only surpassed the 500 million dollar mark in like it’s fifth week. Pathetic by comic book movie standards. Finally by rereleasing the film, I get a chance to see it for a fourteenth time, enabling me to finally learn the colour of the African American reporter’s tie in the press conference scene. At last, victory will be mine.

So, there you have it.

TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman stirred up a lot earlier by mentioning that they are working on a live action movie for the next installment. That rumor was quickly shot down and deemed non-sense.

Luckily, Peter Laird, the other co-creator stepped forward and offered up the dish on what’s going on to MTv. Mtv was able to sit down and ask Laird what is going on with the franchise, and you can check that out here. Here’s an excerpt:

MTV: Why another live-action TMNT film, and why now?

PL: As it stands now, there is no intention of doing another live-action film like the first three, with actors and stuntmen in actual Turtle suits, contrary to what was said by Kevin. We have pretty much decided that the next “TMNT” movie should be what we’ve been calling a “hybrid” — that is to say, live-action humans and sets combined with very realistic CGI Turtles (and possibly some other CGI characters).

MTV: If the hybrid “TMNT” film moves forward, what type of story is it going to tell? Will it be an origin story or something in continuity with one of the other TMNT properties?

PL: The storyline for this new “hybrid” movie has not been settled on yet. We’re still batting some different ideas around. The sky’s the limit. My preference would be a story which fits into TMNT movie continuity in some way. But nothing has been decided.

This robot is all about more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies! Unless it involves more time-travel enabling scepters…

According to Variety, Fox may be thinking of rebooting Daredevil.

More than one option

• (Co) Daily Variety
  Filmography, Year, Role
• (Co) Daily Variety

To be fair, Fox’s repeated mantra is that market share is less important than profitability, and the studio’s investment on many of these pics was relatively low. “Meet Dave” was co-financed with Dune and New Regency, while “Mirrors” and “Space Chimps” were fully financed by third parties.

Though Fox has no plans for a major overhaul, the studio has scheduled a strategy meeting to assess the status of its superheroes, a group sorely missed this summer. On the agenda, Fox will mull the possibility of more “X-Men” spinoffs, including a young-X-Men project as well as “Deadpool,” based on a character played by Ryan Reynolds in “Wolverine.” The studio is even considering reviving the “Daredevil” property.

Three things strike me about this.

1) In the first sentence, Fox apparently wants to work on profitability, but I find this laughable after seeing their Fantastic Four movies and how they treated X3.

2) Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool in his own movie?  I guess I’ll have to see Wolverine, but from what I hear, they’ve been fucking with it to no end and almost fired the director.

3) It makes a lot of sense that Fox would reboot Daredevil.  From what I understand, their option of Marvel properties says basically that they can retain the rights to a property as long as they’re consistently using it.  (Same with Sony, which is why they will always have a Spider-man movie in the works.) And it could be their dark and brooding Marvel film that could actually play to what The Dark Knight was for DC.

I guess my hope is that for Daredevil, they get somebody like Ed Brubaker or Bendis to write it…  Then we’d all be happy.

The Disinformation company (publisher of such fine documentaries as This Divided State and all of Robert Greenwalds documentaries) was kind enough to offer Big Shiny Robot! a few copies of the upcoming documentary film The Mindscape of Alan Moore. They offered us 5 to be exact. And these are very nice 2 disc sets and retail for $29.99.  There’s never been a better time to be a fan of the Big Shiny Robot!

We actually gave two away at a live broadcast of the Geekshow Podcast where they were gracious enough to have Swank-mo-tron on the air.  (The episode should go live on iTunes on Monday, I’m told, look for more information about that.)  And they’ll be giving a third copy away soon on their forum.  But that leaves Big Shiny Robot! two copies to give away to you, our faithful readers.

And in order to make this fair, we came up with a bit of a contest.

You’ve all read Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, right?

Well what we’d like to see are your ideas for what literary character you would want in a new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book.

Mail your answer (and the reason for it as well as your name and mailing address) to our Big Shiny Email! (bigshinyrobot@gmail.com) and we’ll post the best answers, but the top two picks will have a copy of this documentary shipped to them.  The deadline is Friday, September 19.  That will give us until Monday to pick a winner and you’ll have your DVD before this film even hits shelves on September 30th.

So, put your thinking caps on and get writing.

Also, be sure to check back next week, when we’ll have a roundtable review of The Mindscape of Alan Moore up.  And soon after that, we’ll post our interview with the film’s director, Dez Vylenz.

The gents at Joblo.com get all the good stuff. Here’s a link in case the video is wonky…

This looks great. I’ve been watching a lot of James Bond movies lately and, though I don’t think these are as great as a couple of the Sean Connery Bond’s, these Daniel Craig adventures are stealing a place in my geekdom.

Having said that, I still think he’s tied with George Lazenby in 2nd or 3rd place for best James Bond. (The other 2nd or third place tie being Pierce Brosnan… Timothy Dalton is easily in fourth and Roger Moore helms the rear.)

Seriously though, this trailer looks great.