Sony Making "Console Wars" Movie

Sony Pictures, you may have heard, has bought up a bunch of domain names relating to a movie project called "Console Wars." Yesterday, HitFix's Kris Tapley ambiguously tweeted that he'd heard of the project before and described it as "The Social Network" but for video-games.

So... a non-fiction drama about corporate-rivalry in the video game world? Interesting. But what would it be about - which "war" are we talking about?

It would be almost comically cynical and gauche for Sony to make a movie about a business they are one of the three major players IN - even in a "names changed" fictionalized version everyone would be able to tell which one is supposed to be Playstation, making it impossible not to be looking for moments of self-aggrandizement. Also, the movie would probably be current-gen because that's when the mainstream audience/press started caring about the games industry... and most of the "drama" in Generation 7 has involved Sony tripping over it's own shoes in some way.

I'll get called "biased" for this, but the only remotely movie-worthy console-biz story of Gen7 is the Wii: a company that used to be on top, now struggling on the verge of collapse, making a hail-mary pass that everyone says is insane and will fail based largely on the ideas of it's chief creative guy (Miyamoto as Billy Beane from "Moneyball," basically) ...only to see it become a giant restorative success. Like The Wii or not, that's the story.

The "Great" Console War, of course, was Nintendo vs Sega in the 80s and 90s (back when consoles actually had totally different sets of games and such) but I agree with Devin at BAD that it'd be hugely unlikely for Sony Pictures to be so gun-ho to make an 80s period piece featuring almost-exclusively Japanese actors.

That said, if Sony really does want to make a movie about the game business where their brand gets to be the underdog turned conquering hero, the "birth of the Playstation" would be the way to go: Screwed-over in a VERY public and humiliating way by the industry's top dogs, turning the remains of that screw-over into thier own brand, ultimately getting-over on aforementioned top-dog by innovating where they refused to? That's a movie. On the down side, there's no way Nintendo is going to agree to let their logos, names, products etc. be seen in that movie; which you'd kind of need...

TINSELTOWN TESTAMENTS

GALATIANS 5:21

Douay-Rheims Version: “Envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God.”

Revised Standard Version: “Envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

New American Bible: “Occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Animal House: “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”

Phobia Films Announces Horror - Thriller: DREADLOCK

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Phobia Films Announces Title Of Their First Motion Picture, DREADLOCK.

DARTMOUTH, Nova Scotia (August 29, 2012) - Phobia Films is proud to reveal the title of their first motion picture production, DREADLOCK.

Says Mr. Dorey: "We're now in a position to enthusiastically announce the working title for Phobia Film's first project previously known as 'Project Annapolis'."

DREADLOCK is being directed, produced, written and scored by Jim Dorey. Andrew Steeves is executive producing and managing physical production.

Says Mr. Steeves, "Locations are being scouted now in Nova Scotia and crew are being assembled for a summer 2013 lensing. We're excited to be moving into initial public awareness for the production."

"DREADLOCK is a character driven, horror / thriller solidly based in fact and science," smiles Mr. Dorey. "Suspension of disbelief will be among our top priorities. When we decide to scare you, be prepared to apologize to the person beside you. We specialize in eliciting primal screams."

Phobia Films was founded by Jim Dorey in 2012 as a Thriller / Horror / Action genre entertainment production company with a special love of stereoscopic 3D. Phobia Films is headquartered in the fast growing film production city of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

UPDATES:
- Like our Facebook Page for ongoing updates at www.facebook.com/PhobiaFilmsCo
- Like our Facebook Movie Page for news and contests at www.facebook.com/DREADLOCKMOVIE
- Follow us on Twitter: @PhobiaFilms https://twitter.com/#!/PhobiaFilms
- Coming Soon: www.PhobiaFilms.com which will also house a dedicated movie site within for DREADLOCK.

CONTACT INFORMATION
For media & crew inquiries please contact:
Jim Dorey, President & Owner, Phobia Films
jim@phobiafilms.com

For production slate logistics inquires please contact:
Andrew Steeves, Director of Engineering, Phobia Films
andrew@phobiafilms.com

###

Yes, I'm in deep with this thing! Thank you for all the support I've gotten already, from so many. Can't wait to start shooting, but in the meantime plenty of work to be done... Stay tuned with all Phobia Films updates right here!

New Spy Shots From THOR: THE DARK WORLD!

Click to enlarge

We have some pretty cool new spy shots from the outdoor set of THOR: THE DARK WORLD which is shooting in Bourne Wood, England. This fictional village has four pillars surrounding a group of yurts (huge portable tents).

THOR: THE DARK WORLD will be shooting on location here until sometime in September.

Here's how Marvel's Kevin Feige described the movie's storyline:
"We’re going to take Thor literally to other worlds -It will primarily be the journey of that character, of he and Jane Foster and how the new dynamic with his father is working out, as well as what are the broader stakes for The Nine Worlds."

THOR: THE DARK WORLD stars Chris Hemsworth, Christopher Eccleston, Idris Elba, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jaimie Alexander, Kat Dennings, Mads Mikkelsen, Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgard, Tom Hiddleston and Zachary Levi.

The movie is slated for release on November 8, 2013.

Source: SuperHeroHype

The Big Picture: "Depth of a Salesman"

In which we say goodbye to "Nintendo Power."

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Depth of a Salesman

Minus One Day to 69th Venice International Film Festival

Tomorrow the oldest and one of the triad of most prestigious film festivals in the world will start once again. Maybe last year was not that "news worthy" but I believe that this year with the outstanding lineup could be more interesting to follow on daily basis, soon we will find if I'm right or not.

Nevertheless, this year there are 3,231 films in the fest, 1,459 feature-length and 1,772 short films, with 50 being world premieres; so I'm sure that fest has "something" for everyone. Even those that scream for female directors representation in film world events are satisfied as festival includes 4 films directed by women in competition, as well as the opening film plus more if you consider the other sections of the Official Selection, Venice Days and the Critics Week.

But more important for me, fest will screen latest works of great directors like Kim Ki-Duk, Marco Bellocchio, Takeshi Kitano, Olivier Assayas, Brian de Palma, Paul Thomas Anderson, Susanne Bier, Mira Nair and great actress Hiam Abbass directorial debut. Add that from what I have been able to see or read, there are a few directors that could enlarge my list of must-follow their work. Indeed La Mostra seems to have changed under newly appointed Alberto Barbera, as seems to have a good distribution between established directors and those that are in the process to become great filmmakers.

On the trivia side of the fest is interesting to note that this is the first time ever that the fest will screen a Terrence Malick film in competition, but he's not the only director that will participate for the first time in competition as also Olivier Assayas, Ramin Baharani, Rama Burshtein, Daniele Ciprì, Xavier Giannoli, Harmony Korine, Valeria Sarmiento, Kirill Serebrennikov, Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth are first timers.

If you follow Movie On facebook page, you already know that the fest for the first time ever will stream films, 10 feature-length films and 13 short films from the Orizzonti section. The virtual theatre online will have (only) 500 "seats" that had to be reserved, films will be streamed for 24 hours on the day of the film's official presentation, will be in the original language with English subtitles and each feature-length film will cost 4.20 Euros. I commend the fest initiative but find the price high when you consider that world streaming prices are significantly lower, even for online VOD blockbuster "premieres". Let's hope that in the future fest organizers reconsider the price and make it more competitive to assure success beyond the limited 500 virtual seats.

Alright, so let's get into what is happening today as Pre-Festival opening activities. Tonight at 20:30pm (local time) the screening of the film Roma ore 11 (Rome 11:00) by Giuseppe De Santis that is considered as one of the fathers and one of the main protagonists of the Italian Neorealism. This 1952 film has a young Raff Valone as well as a young Lucia Bosé and tells the gripping tale of five girls who are among the 200 women who answer an ad for a modest secretarial position in one rainy morning in 1951 Rome. Story is based on an actual incident where a scuffle breaks out and the stairway collapses sending many of the 200 women hurtling down in a mass of bodies amid brick and mortar. This is the synopsis in Italian.

Rispondendo all’annuncio su un giornale, duecento ragazze si presentano in via Savoia a Roma per ottenere un posto di dattilografa presso lo studio di un ragioniere. In un’Italia esasperata dalla disoccupazione, ma ancor più dall’impossibilità per le donne di trovare lavoro, arrivano per il colloquio giovani di ogni tipo ed estrazione sociale: nobili decadute, prostitute che cercano di cambiar vita, mogli con il marito disoccupato, figlie di ex benestanti cui la pensione non basta per sopravvivere. Accalcatesi sulle rampe delle scale del piccolo palazzo, si scambiano impressioni e accennano alle loro esistenze fatte di miseria ed espedienti per vivere. Un litigio per la priorità in fila trasforma l'attesa in tragedia: la ringhiera della scala cede, distruggendo a uno a uno i gradini, facendo precipitare le donne, molte delle quali rimangono ferite, mentre una di esse, Anna Maria Baraldi, muore. Portate in ospedale, l'amara scoperta: per essere curate, gli uffici pretendono il pagamento della retta giornaliera di 2.300 lire. Molte di loro sono costrette ad andare a casa perché impossibilitate a pagare.

Deep in my memory archive there are images of this film that I saw a long time ago; if you haven't seen it and you appreciate Italian Neorealism then this is a movie that you have to see.

A pre-opening with a great movie that many will be able to attend for free tonight at Arena di Campo San Polo. Tomorrow the opening ceremony and the premiere of Mira Nair's The Reluctant Fundamentalist at 7:00pm in the Sala Grande plus other films screenings since 9:00am.

Cheers!

Release Date Change: Star Wars Eps II & III Now Slated for Fall 2013

Tim here. In a surprise announcement out of Orlando, where the Star Wars Celebration VI event is taking place, Lucasfilm announced that Star Wars Episodes II Attack of the Clones in 3D and Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith in 3D will be released in theaters back to back in fall of 2013. The second and third prequel will be arriving September 20th and October 11th, respectively. No reason was given for the back to back release.

The dates were revealed in a very amusing manner: Via a video of The Emperor himself, Ian McDiarmid, saying the date, only for George Lucas – who it turned out was sitting beside him – to tell him to repeat what he said, “Faster and more intense.”

Earlier this year Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace in 3D was released in theaters. The original plan was to release the next 5 each year after that. Menace was released in February, and the push back to September for Clones may be to help the conversion, but as IGN reported earlier this weekend the footage shown at Celebration VI was impressive. You can read that full article here.

Some highlight impressions from IGN reporter Eric Goldman's experience (emphasis mine): "In the opening sequence of the Naboo cruiser arriving on Coruscant, the ship truly seemed to be coming out of the side of the screen. And there was a lot of cool 3D visuals in the footage we saw of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s speeder chase through Coruscant – especially when Anakin leapt from the speeder down towards Zam Wesell, and Anakin himself appeared to be a physically present figure, falling away from the viewer into the distance."

At the preview ILM’s Dennis Muren (Visual Effects on all six Star Wars films) and John Knoll (Visual Effects Supervisor on the Special Editions and the prequels) discussed the conversion process with the collected audience. They spoke about how meticulous and time-consuming it is— about a year-long in total for each film. As you all know it involves going through the entire film frame by frame to separate the elements and making sure the 3D looks correct while giving objects the proper amount of depth. In some cases, the shift in perspective in a scene has led to new digital work needing to be done. An example was shown from the end of Attack of the Clones... the scene where Palpatine and the politicians look down on the Clone Troopers and their ships. As the 3D caused a slightly different angle with blank spaces on the background which needed to be filled in. ILM had to use use the original matte paintings and backgrounds in order to fill that blank space in.

Since this whole process involves going back into a lot of the digital elements, Knoll admitted, “We might have archived things a bit differently if we knew we were coming back to it,” noting with Phantom Menace, they were dealing with elements from “13, 14 years ago. The backups only last so long. Sometimes the priorities on what you back up change over the time.” Knoll said the process had been easier on Attack of the Clones than Phantom Menace because, "The newer the film is, the easier it is to go into the archives and recover things." This makes a lot of sense.

During the closing ceremonies, the sizzle reel for Attack of the Clones 3D was shown again, along with a new addition – the first moments of the space battle over Coruscant that begin Revenge of the Sith, converted into 3D. IGN's Goldman says, "this tease of that scene from Sith – which was always visually stunning – was pretty spectacular, hinting that Sith, like Clones, has undergone a very impressive 3D conversion that is far superior to the one The Phantom Menace had."

I'm excited for the conversions of these movies. Although I wasn't a fan of the prequels, and have doubts the issues I have with them will be resolved from a 3D upgrade, I'm still interested. I'm most excited for the Original Trilogy to get the 3D treatment. However, I might add that the conversion on those could be more difficult because there are less digital elements.

The original IGN Article can be read here.