A film of Dune, one of the classic books of science-fiction literature, took a long time to arrive after it was published in 1965. A lot of directors were lined up to make the movie version, including David Lean and Ridley Scott, before David Lynch finally created his not entirely faithful version in 1984.
One of the directors originally lined up to make the movie back in the 70s was Alejandro Jodorowsky. He planned to shoot a 10-hour (possibly 14) feature that would have starred Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, David Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Alain Delon, Hervé Villechaize and Mick Jagger, that would have been scored by Pink Floyd, that would have had Dan O’Bannon has the head of the SFX department, and would have had creatures and characters designed by HR Giger. His aim: “to create a movie similar to taking LSD”.
In the end though, nothing ever came of it because the funding fell through after approximately $2.5m of the $9m budget had been spent. Now some enterprising people are about to make a documentary about the movie that never was. Here’s a trailer and you can read more about the history of the Dunemovies here.
The Avengers (Assemble) has been out on Blu-Ray for over a week now. Now, I could at this point write something long and exciting (not) about the differences between the US version and the UK version: the fact the UK version has edits, doesn’t have one of the documentaries and doesn’t have director Joss Whedon’s commentary.
But let’s ignore that and concentrate on something important: the fact there’s – depending on your point of view – a lot of studly comic book superheroes and superheroines to admire or ogle. And given we’re occasionally given to lists round here, today’s question is suitably list based:
Who did you enjoy the most of all The Avengers? And which character’s movie would you like to see next?
Your list can, of course, be entirely sexual, there being a lot of man candy (Thor, Captain America, Tony Stark, Nick Fury, Bruce Banner and – no judgement – the Hulk) and of course Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Cobie Smulders (Agent Maria Hill), Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts) and – no judgement – that waitress Captain America saved. There’s also Tom Hiddleston.
It can also be a list based on which characters you liked the best, which actors you liked the best, who you thought got the best dialogue, who had the best scenes and so on. So let us all know below or on your own blog the answer to that question – you can opt to tell us what the list is or just list them and let us guess.
As for which character you’d like to see next, that’s a slightly more difficult question. Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 are filming right now; Captain America 2: Winter Soldier is currently in discussions; and the Hulk won’t be back until The Avengers 2. There’s also been talk of a Black Widow spin-off movie, although nothing definite yet, and Joss Whedon is working on a SHIELD TV series, albeit with brand new characters.
But, whether it’s happening or not, which of the characters are you looking forward to seeing in their own franchise again next, and which would you like to see get a franchise if they don’t already have one.
Here’s my shortlist (it probably works for all possible permutations):
Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow)
= Chris Hemsworth (Thor)
= Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man)
I did like Mark Ruffalo’s the Hulk. But he’s not on any list.
Incidentally, I should point out that comics-wise, Black Widow is currently the co-star of both Captain America and Black Widow, as well as Winter Soldier, so it’s not entirely out of the question that she’ll be back in Captain America 2: Winter Soldier.
For those that don’t know Black Widow’s comics back story, she’s as old as Captain America – he even saves her as a child from the Nazis in one comic – having been given the Russians’ version of the Super Soldier Serum, but was conditioned to be a spy and assassin by the Soviets’ ‘Red Room’, Hawkeye eventually breaking her conditioning (as hinted at in The Avengers). Here’s a little explanation of the character and her development in comics.
They were shooting it in New York over a year ago – something of a surprise since the book was set in LA – but finally, the film of Syrup is ready to premiere… in Russia at least, 2013 everywhere else, according to the author, Max Barry. And here’s an unofficial trailer, posted by Barry himself.
A satire set in the world of corporate marketing, Syrup sees ‘Scat’ (Shiloh Fernandez from Red Riding Hood) trying to get his idea for a black-labelled carbonated beverage picked up by a certain major drinks company, helped (and occasionally stabbed in the back) by ‘6’ (Amber Heard), a brilliant young, gay marketing executive with few morals, and former best friend ‘Sneaky Peak’ (Kellan Lutz, whom you might recognise from the Twilight series, even though he never gets much to do). As 6 guides Scat through the chess game of corporate politics, Scat begins to fall in love with her. But can he trust her, can she love him and how much of anything she’s told him about herself can he believe – is he in love with a piece of marketing?
The movie, co-written by Barry and the film’s director Aram Rappaport (Whore), is going to be a bit of a change from the book, by the looks of it, not least because Tom Cruise and Gwyneth Paltrow aren’t going to be making a major sci-fi blockbuster during the movie; Brittany Snow (Harry’s Law) plays 6’s evil opposite, a character called ‘3’ rather than ‘@’; and because Sneaky Pete was originally Asian.
The trailer does also spoil rather a lot the book’s major question of whether 6 is quite the lesbian she claims to be, which makes me think it might not be as big a question in the movie.
Now it might just be our Amber getting all meta, given she’s one of the film’s producers, but a ‘might be lesbian, might be bi’ character who sleeps with a magnum under her pillow? That’s some major ‘from real life’ typecasting right there.
