The Buzz: News in Media

Edgar Ramirez To Play Pablo Escobar in Killing Pablo

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:20:03 GMT

It was recently announced that Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men) has dropped out of "Killing Pablo," in which he was set to play the infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. According to director Joe Carnahan, that's old news and he already has someone to replace him.

The actor he has in mind is Edgar Ramirez, who played Paz in "The Bourne Ultimatum" and has roles in the upcoming Che Guevara films.

"I spent the last week in Colombia with Edgar Ramirez talking 'Pablo' and he has every intention of portraying Escobar and I couldn't be more fired up by the prospect," Carnahan told CHUD. "He's coming at it with boundless enthusiasm, conviction to the role and the understanding that he's going to have to pack on anywhere from 35 to 40lbs."

At this point, Christian Bale is still attached to the project, but nothing is final until the cameras begin rolling.

Tags: Killing Pablo, Edgar Ramirez, Christian Bale

First Images of Batman: Arkham Asylum Appear on The Net

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:13:10 GMT

In Batman: Arkham Asylum, developed by Rocksteady Studios, the player assumes the role of Batman as he delivers The Joker to the depths of Arkham Asylum. There, the imprisoned super-villains have set a trap and an immersive combat gaming experience unfolds.

Move in the shadows, instigate fear amongst your enemies and confront The Joker and Gotham City's most notorious villains who have taken over the asylum. Use a wide range of Batman gadgets and abilities as you become the invisible predator and attempt to foil the Joker's demented scheme. With an original script penned by Emmy Award-winning Batman writer Paul Dini, the game brings the universe of DC Comics detective to life with stunning graphics.

Tags: Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman, The Joker, Riddler, Paul Dini

Johnny Depp To Play The Mad Hatter?

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:11:42 GMT

Johnny Depp is rumored to be playing The Mad Hatter in a Tim Burton directed version of Alice in Wonderland.

Empire Magazine have reported that rumors have been spreading online about Depp's involvement in an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic, which will be shot in 3D.

Should Depp appear in front of Burton's camera, it will mark the seventh time that the director and actor have collaborated together.

Depp and Burton recently worked together on the Oscar-nominated Sweeney Todd, while they have also collaborated on Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood, Corpse Bride and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Disney, who will make Alice in Wonderland, could not confirm Depp's involvement in the project.

Australian actress Mia Wasikowska will play the lead role, while the movie is scheduled for release in 2010.

Tags: Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, Alice in Wonderland, Mia Wasikowska

Nick Fury Will Appear in Every Marvel Film

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:04:14 GMT

Everyone now knows that Samuel L Jackson has a brief came as Nick Fury at the end of "Iron Man," but when Marvel announced their upcoming slate, there was no sign of a Nick Fury movie. So will we ever see the character again? According to Jackson... Yes!

"Yeah, I'm looking forward to making that character a bit more integral, in terms of the other stories that are happening," he told MTV News, revealing that he may have multiple cameos in practically every Marvel movie for the next few years. "'Iron Man 2,' 'Captain America,' 'Thor,' and hopefully the big one that's coming in 2011, when they put everybody together."

Of course, Jackson is referring to "The Avengers," which his recent cameo set up as he recruited Tony Stark to join the superhero team. But he has no intention of keeping Nick Fury out of sight that long.

"'Iron Man 2' is coming sooner!" he laughed. "I'd rather go to work than wait three years and be in 'The Avengers.' I'm looking forward to going to work soon."

Tags: Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Nick Fury, The Avengers

The Dark Knight Review

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:45:38 GMT

I got the chance to see The Dark Knight today and let me tell you, this film is bloody brilliant!

Okay, I cant give much of a review cause I have to go too bed but I figured, what the hell? Anything is worth it for Batman!

The Dark Knight really is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G and does not at all feel like a comic book movie. In fact, I applaud Chris Nolan for making a film with guys that dress up like Bats and Clowns seem serious enough to be on the same level as Michael Mann's Heat and Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas.

I also beleive Heath Ledger is the DEFINITIVE Joker, thats right, im looking at you Jack Nicholson! I really do hope that Heath Ledger receives a posthumous oscar for The Joker, or at least is nominated.

But the only thing I did not like about the film was that they killed Two-Face off within the last thirty minutes! Now of course, I understand that these Batman movies are meant to be more realistic and a guy that is half-dead would NEVER fit into society like he does in the comics but come on, did they have to finish him off?

I am puzzled by that because Christopher Nolan said himself that characters that are not dead in the comic books will not die in these films. So basically he turned on his word, BUT for the thirty minutes of seeing Two-Face, I really felt they redeemed him after Tommy Lee Jones horrible interpretation of the character in 1995's Batman Forever so I am not turning on Nolan.

All in all, this film is one of the best movie going experience's I have ever had in my life and I am proud to say that. Also, this is the only film that has ever lived up too the hype so you wont be dissapointed leaving the theater. I give the film 5/5 stars.

Tags: The Dark Knight Review

William Petersen Leaving CSI

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:11:01 GMT

Entertainment Weekly is reporting that this upcoming season's 10th episode of "CSI" will be the last for William Petersen as a full-time series regular.

"Billy is leaving," confirmed executive producer, Carol Mendelsohn. "But he will remain throughout the run of the series an executive producer. And he will, whenever CBS asks, come back. I don't think you've seen the last of Gil Grissom."

"I'm in a great place in terms of knowing that I'll be more free to make choices. And I'm responsible enough to not do it in a way that would hurt [the show]," added Petersen. "I want it to work for the writers, I want it to work for the cast, and, most importantly, I want it to work for the audience. I don't want them to abandon the show."

Tags: William Petersen, CSI

Louis Letterier on Clash of the Titans Remake

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:06:59 GMT

EcranLarge sat down with director Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk) to talk about the upcoming "Clash of the Titans" remake. Leterrier is taking over for Stephen Norrington (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and is more than happy to discuss some of his early ideas and how he got the gig.

For those that don't know, "Clash of the Titans" is about the myth of Perseus and his quest to battle both Medusa and the Kraken monster in order to save the Princess Andromeda.

Here is what Leterrier had to say about his new version. "There will be the Kraken! But a different Kraken. There will be much more. In the original film, there were no clash and no titans. Now, you will see the "Clash" of the "Titans." The only thing I can tell right now: people say that it will be filmed like "300," it's not true. It will be photo realistic with a big budget. I want to do an homage to Ray Harryhausen (director of the original). He's still alive and will be part of the film."

He went on to talk about how he was able to take the helm from Norrington. "In the beginning, Stephen Norrington was the director of this project. I called him. He had a problem finding an new trick for this remake. He didn't grow up watching "Clash of the Titans." So I called him, we share the same agent, and I asked him: 'do you really want to do it?' He didn't want to make a new "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." So I told him: 'can I do it?' And he said yes. So I told Warner: If I do it, it will be different. It's still Perseus myth, but maybe to begin a franchise of greek mythology."

Regarding the current status of the project: "I'm just beginning to work on the script. You know, it's Lawrence Kasdan (Raiders of the Lost Ark) who wrote it. It's quite great!"

Tags: Louis Letterier, Clash of the Titans

Entertainment Weekly's The Dark Knight Cover

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:15:39 GMT

Besides "The Dark Knight," "Transformers" and "Spider-Man 3," I cannot remember too many movies where fans were so interested in every bit of marketing for a film, which is only weeks away from release. Posts about "Hellboy 2" and "The Mummy 3" are barely getting noticed, while the smallest pieces of news about "The Dark Knight" are being read by an astounding amount of people. So to keep up with demand, we bring you the latest on the "Batman Begins" sequel.

The upcoming issue of Entertainment Weekly has a cover which features the faces of Batman (Christian Bale) and The Joker (Heath Ledger). When looking inside, readers will find an article about Ledger's great performance and the tragedy that followed. Here are a few clips from the article:

"Robin Williams, Sean Penn, and even Mark Hamill were rumored to be on Nolan's short list (at least Hamill had practice, having voiced the Joker in various superhero cartoons). What nobody knew at the time, though, was just how short the director's list was. 'Heath was the only one on it,' Nolan insists. 'I knew he was it from the start.'"

"'I know there are these rumors out there that playing the Joker drove him to his grave,' [Gary Oldman] says. 'But I never saw anything of that. He was always on time. He knew his part backwards and forwards. I just thought he was a really sweet kid.'"

Tags: The Dark Knight, Entertainment Weekly

A Crash Survivor Hopes to Inspire By Sharing Her Ordeal

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:03:24 GMT

Haley Scott DeMaria knows that hope can be sorely tested.

Sixteen years ago, the bus carrying the University of Notre Dame women's swim team skidded on a highway in Indiana, slid down an embankment and flipped. DeMaria was on her back in the snow for an hour after pulling herself from the wreckage. Two teammates were killed. Most of the other 34 people on the bus suffered minor injuries.

DeMaria, who is now 34 and lives in Annapolis, has written a book, "What Though the Odds," describing what happened on Jan. 24, 1992, and how her teammates, classmates and community helped her maintain hope. The title is a line from the Notre Dame fight song.

"What I looked at within myself was I have this gift, there was a reason I healed," she said in an interview. "I truly feel like this is my calling, to reach out to people. That's very satisfying to me. It used to be difficult to do because again it was sort of reliving what I had been through."

For years she couldn't talk without crying about what happened on that snowy night: One moment, the women on the bus were watching the closing credits of a movie, and the next, their lives changed.

In 2000, she married Jamie DeMaria, a former Notre Dame swim team manager. She was happy to move to Annapolis, where people wouldn't know her as a bus-crash survivor. She liked keeping the story to herself.

But the few times she shared it with people facing challenges, she found that they were inspired. That motivated the stay-at-home mother of two young boys, and she began finding it easier to talk about the ordeal.

What really inspired her, though, were the memories of two teammates, Colleen Hipp and Margaret "Meghan" Beeler, both of whom were fellow freshmen.

"They were never, never off my mind. They were the reason I wanted to walk. They were the reason I wanted to swim. It was the one thing I could do for them," she said.

She first wiggled her right big toe five days after the accident and needed a month to learn to walk again. Like a baby, she first rolled on a mat, then crawled. She took her first steps using a walker, then a cane and finally walked on her own.

After five months of training, on Oct. 29, 1993, she swam in a race for the first time since the accident, winning herheat in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 25.04 seconds, finishing eighth among 30 entrants.

DeMaria graduated with a history degree from Notre Dame, a semester behind her classmates.

She said time has given her perspective on her survival, but questions remain.

"Really the 'why' question I've asked myself over the past several years, 16 years really, is: 'Why have I come through this the way that I did? Why did I heal? Why was I able to walk?' And then one step further, 'What should I be doing with this?' " The answer she came to is sharing her story.

The book released last month is just the start, she said. She wants to talk to people facing challenges and help them get through their troubles. She already is receiving e-mail from people who have heard about her book.

She said the accident has affected major decisions in her life, including whom she married. She knew her husband, now a pharmaceutical executive, in college, but they never dated. After graduation, she returned to her home town of Phoenix and accepted a job at her high school, Xavier College Preparatory, where she coached the swim team and eventually became assistant dean of students.

She was a chaperone at the junior-senior prom in 1999, and DeMaria, then a graduate student at Florida State, came to be her date. A student leaving the prom was killed when her car was struck by a drunk driver. Haley DeMaria's pain resurfaced, and she did what she could to help the girl's classmates grieve. She was moved by the support Jamie DeMaria provided.

"I knew that night and the following weeks and months afterward that Jamie was someone who understood that this was something that would always be a part of my life and something that I needed to do," she said.

As happy as DeMaria is these days, she still bears emotional scars. She broke down in tears when her 6-year-old son, James, came home from kindergarten with a permission slip to go on a bus for a trip to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. She couldn't sign it.

"I couldn't do it. I had to figure out a way to explain to him why he couldn't go on a bus with his friends on this field trip, which is so fun," she said.

Instead, she drove her son to the aquarium.

She has physical scars, as well. She recently went through two more operations, to stabilize and strengthen her spine. But she has nerve damage that causes numbness in herlegs and feet, along with other physical challenges that years ago she couldn't have imagined.

"But now with the perspective of what are real problems in life, it's not that bad," she said.

She hopes her book will be the beginning of reaching out to even more people going through difficult times.

"I'm not quite sure how to go about it. But I've also learned to have faith that everything will work itself out," she said.

Tags: Haley Scott DeMaria

Hancock Grosses $17.4 Mil in First Day

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:56:59 GMT

In its first full day of screenings Wednesday, Sony's "Hancock," starring Will Smith as a reprobate superhero, grossed $17.4 million in its 3,965 locations.

Having collected an additional $6.8 million from Tuesday night previews in 3,680 theaters, the movie's total from its first 1 1/2 days adds up to $24.2 million.

Those numbers suggest the movie could settle into the $90 million-$100 million range by the end of the holiday weekend -- easily dominating the frame though not necessarily setting any records.

By contrast, "Transformers," last year's big Fourth of July hit, opened on a Monday night with preview screenings that attracted $8.8 million and picked up $27.9 million on Tuesday, July 3. Its 1 1/2-day take amounted to $36.7 million. "Transformers," which unlike "Hancock" enjoyed the benefit of an established brand name, went on to gross $155.4 million in its first 6 1/2 days.

Tags: Hancock, Will Smith