Moviefone Editorial

Category: Sci-Fi

  • ‘Ready Player One’ Comic-Con Trailer Expands the Limits of Reality

    “Are you ready?”

    That’s the questioned posed in the first trailer for “Ready Player One,” released Saturday during San Diego Comic-Con. The preview brings us to Cleveland, Ohio, in the year 2045, a time when the younger generation is known as the “missing millions” because they have nowhere left to go. However, they have one escape: the OASIS.

    As described in the trailer, the OASIS is “a world where the limits of reality are your own imagination.” For our hero, Wade (Tye Sheridan), that means a lot of crazy adventures, from battles with giant creatures to zooming around in one vehicle after another. That becomes especially true when he winds up competing in a treasure hunt for the game’s late founder’s fortune.

    The film is directed by Steven Spielberg and is based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Cline. The cast also includes Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg, T.J. Miller, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, and more.

    “Ready Player One” is due out March 30, 2018.

  • New ‘Blade Runner 2049’ Trailer Pits Ryan Gosling Against Jared Leto

    There is a lot to fear in 2049.

    The new trailer for “Blade Runner 2049” debuted Monday on “Good Morning America,” and it hit the internet shortly thereafter. As the preview shows, replicants are still at the center of the film series’ problems. Although the preview leaves a lot of mystery, it gives us a better look at a conflict involving replicant manufacturer Neander Wallace (Jared Leto), LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), and retired officer Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford).

    The film picks up 30 years after the events of “Blade Runner,” and it follows Officer K as he unearths a dangerous secret. He seeks out Deckard for help, and they have to deal with Wallace. That’s a scary prospect, as we can see in the trailer below.

    The film is directed by Denis Villeneuve and its cast also includes Ana De Armas, Mackenzie Davis, Sylvia Hoeks, Lennie James, Carla Juri, Robin Wright, and Dave Bautista.

    “Blade Runner 2049” hits theaters on Oct. 6.

  • Six Reasons Why ‘Planet of the Apes’ Suffered Franchise Fatigue at the Box Office

    You’d think the folks at Fox would be going bananas over the box office victory this weekend for “War for the Planet of the Apes.”

    After all, this was supposed to be the first truly close competition of the summer, with “War” battling the still-strong second weekend of “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” In the end, however, “War” was far and away the winner, earning an estimated $56.5 million — slightly-less than what was projected — while Spidey also fell behind expectations with an estimated $45.2 million

    And yet, by the franchise’s own standards, it’s hard not to see “War” as a disappointment. It opened in more theaters than the first two films in the prequel trilogy, 2011’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and 2014’s “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.” Still, it opened well below “Dawn” (which debuted with $72.6 million) and barely a hair above “Rise” (which premiered with $54.8 million). It was also riding good reviews (95 percent at Rotten Tomatoes) and excellent word-of-mouth (it earned an A- at CinemaScore, just like the two previous “Apes” films).

    Domestically, “War” could well end up the lowest grossing of the current “Apes” trilogy,” failing to beat the $208.5 million “Dawn” earned in North America or even the $176.8 million that “Rise” earned here. Plus, the movie cost $150 million to make. For Fox to earn a profit, after production costs, marketing costs, and the theater owners’ share of ticket sales, “War” will have to earn about $600 million worldwide, so its global gross of $102.5 million so far suggests that breaking even will be a long shot. How did this happen? Here are a few reasons to factor in:

    1. Superheroes > Apes
    Even with the disappointments this summer of such sequels as “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” “Transformers: The Last Knight,” and “Despicable Me 3,” Hollywood’s shrugging assessment that moviegoers were suffering from franchise fatigue rang hollow. After all, these films earned terrible reviews and weak word-of-mouth. Some franchise movies with good reviews and positive word-of-mouth were succeeding, like “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” “Wonder Woman,” and “Spider-Man: Homecoming.”

    But what if it was just that these movies all featured DC and Marvel comic book heroes? Individual moviegoers may claim to be getting tired of superheroes, but as a group, we still flock to see them, even when the movies earn terrible buzz, like “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Suicide Squad.” Maybe what “War” needed was an ape with a cape.

    2. Rotten Tomatoes Scores Matter to a Point
    The studios have been complaining all summer that poor scores at RT have been discouraging customers, especially since those scores appear right in front of the virtual box office window at Fandango. As this column noted last week, there is some research that suggests that weak RT scores do affect online buzz. However, that research also showed that high RT scores do little to improve buzz. Which means, as good as the reviews were for “War,” they didn’t really help sell tickets.

    3. “War” Looked Too Much Like “Dawn”
    Conventional Hollywood wisdom has it that mass audiences want to see something familiar and comforting. That’s the logic behind having so many reboots, remakes, sequels, and universe-building films, and it’s the reason why so many sequels seem to deliver the same experience as previous installments. If there really is franchise fatigue, this is what causes it, and it’s one reason why audiences responded so well to “Wonder Woman” and “Spider-Man: Homecoming”: even though they told familiar stories, they felt fresh and different in their approaches.

    Looking at the trailers for “War,” however, its scenes of gorilla guerrilla warfare looked a lot like those of “Dawn.” Also, if you think about it, “War” is not just the third movie in a trilogy that started six years ago; it’s the ninth movie in a franchise that’s been around for 49 years and which also included multiple spinoffs in other media.

    Ticket buyers who saw “War” seem to have enjoyed it as much as they did the last two movies, but to get them into the theater, the film’s marketing needed to do a better job of convincing those moviegoers that “War” was not something they’d seen before.

    4. Star Power Still Means Something
    Used to be that Hollywood valued movie stars for their ability to sell tickets. Now, however, what matters is their ability to get likes on Instagram and Facebook.

    Social media buzz is increasingly crucial to a film’s success, and that means casting stars with big online followings. Woody Harrelson, “War”‘s most recognizable face, may have been a familiar face to moviegoers and TV viewers for more than 30 years, and he may have boosted his profile recently by co-starring in the huge “Hunger Games” franchise, but he doesn’t have much of a social media game. Neither does Steve Zahn, who plays a prominent new ape character. Andy Serkis, who has played the lead role of chimpanzee Caesar in all three of the recent “Apes” films, does have a solid Twitter following, but it seems not to have been enough.

    5. Timing Is a Big Deal
    “Homecoming” may have settled for second place this weekend, and it may have taken a bigger second-week hit than expected, tumbling 61 percent from last weekend’s premiere. Still, Spidey proved a formidable adversary to Caesar.

    Pre-sales for the two movies on Fandango were neck-and-neck, with “Homecoming” just a nose ahead of “War.” Indeed, “War” had to fight off a lot of still-strong movies that targeted similar viewers. Action fans also had “Homecoming,” “Baby Driver,” and “Wonder Woman” as options. Older viewers who might have appreciated “War”‘s philosophizing and nostalgia value, may have been drawn to critical darlings “Baby Driver” and “The Big Sick.” And women may have turned toward the romantic comedy of “The Big Sick” or the horror of new release “Wish Upon.”

    By contrast, “Dawn” had little serious competition when it opened on this same weekend three years ago — just the third week of “Transformers: Age of Extinction” and the second week of “Tammy.” Neither film earned more than $17 million that weekend, giving “Dawn” an easy ride to its $72.6 million premiere.

    But it’s not just movies that have already opened that are rivals to “War.” After all, next weekend sees the releases of “Dunkirk,” “Girls Trip,” and “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.” One is a Christopher Nolan action epic, the sort of movie that demands to be seen on the big screen and that attracts adults of all ages. One is a comedy that targets women and African-American viewers. And one is a sci-fi wild card from “Fifth Element” and “Lucy” director Luc Besson. As audiences flock to “Dunkirk” and “Girls Trip,” “War” could have a tough time staving off erosion during its second weekend.

    6. Can’t Always Count on International Markets
    It’s still possible that overseas moviegoers could rescue “War,” the way they have so many other domestic underperformers this year, and the way they did the last two “Apes” movies, which earned between 63 and 70 percent of their total grosses abroad.

    So far, however, “War” has earned just 45 percent of its total overseas. That share may well improve over the coming weeks. Still, the film’s foreign grosses will have to be about ten times what they are now in order to make a profit, and that’s unlikely.

    As “Transformers: The Last Knight,” “The Mummy,” and “Baywatch” have all demonstrated this summer, you can make the lion’s share of your money overseas and still not turn a profit. Writing off the domestic audience is leaving money on the table. As “War” has shown by premiering $17.1 million below “Dawn,” every American ticket dollar is worth fighting for.

  • 18 Things You Never Knew About ‘RoboCop’

    Has it really been 30 years since the release of “RoboCop“? I’ll buy that for a dollar.

    Released July 17, 1987, “RoboCop” had a huge impact, even bigger than that of an ED-209 police droid falling down a flight of stairs. It marked director Paul Verhoeven‘s Hollywood debut, gave Peter Weller his signature role, and launched a franchise that included two sequels, a 2014 remake, two live-action series, two animated TV series, and numerous spinoffs in other media.

    Still, as often as you’ve watched Weller’s cyborg struggle to regain his humanity while stoically blowing away evildoers, there’s much you may not know about how “RoboCop” was made.
    1. The influences on “RoboCop,” as cited by screenwriter Ed Neumeier or referenced directly in the movie, include “Blade Runner,” Japanese TV hero Space Sheriff Gavan, the Terminator, and comic book heroes Judge Dredd, Iron Man, and ROM.
    ROBOCOP, Director Paul Verhoeven, Peter Weller, 1987� Orion Pictures/2. Such directors as V”) turned down the screenplay before it made its way to Verhoeven. The Dutch director (above, left) threw the script in the trash, but his wife fished it out and convinced him there was a movie of substance to be made from it.
    3. Verhoeven’s first choice to star was his usual leading man, Rutger Hauer, followed by his eventual “Total Recall” star, Arnold Schwarzenegger. But both men were too stocky to maneuver easily inside the RoboCop costume. Verhoeven eventually chose “Buckaroo Banzai” star Peter Weller because the actor was thin, and because the director was convinced Weller could convey emotion effectively with just his exposed jaw.
    4. For Murphy’s partner, Officer Anne Lewis, Verhoeven initially wanted TV sleuth Stephanie Zimbalist, but she couldn’t get time off from her popular NBC series “Remington Steele,” so the role went to Nancy Allen (above).
    5. Verhoeven cast Ronny Cox as Dick Jones because the “Beverly Hills Cop” actor had been typecast in paternal good-guy roles, which made Jones’ reveal as the film’s true villain all the more surprising.
    6. The director outfitted Kurtwood Smith‘s brutal criminal Clarence Boddicker with scholarly, rimless glasses in order to make him look more like Nazi SS and Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler.
    7. Despite the Detroit setting, most of the film was shot in downtown Dallas, where the buildings appeared just futuristic enough to fit the story. The combination of the Texas heat and the stifling costume caused Weller to lose three pounds a day from sweating.
    8. The RoboCop suit was the film’s most expensive effect, eating $1 million of its budget. It was designed by make-up titan Rob Bottin (“The Thing“). There were actually six suits, some in various states of damage resulting from RoboCop’s battles with criminals.

    9. The suit was so bulky that it took 11 hours for Weller to put it on the first time, and the production had to stop for three days while he learned to walk in it. It was too big to fit in the Ford Taurus police cars, so whenever you see RoboCop in a car, you see only Weller’s metal-clad head and torso; below the waist, the actor was just wearing boxer shorts.
    10. Even the suit’s hands, lined with rubber for flexibility, were clumsy; it took 50 takes to film the shot where RoboCop catches a set of car keys.
    11. Many of the action scenes were filmed by cult-fave “Two-Lane Blacktop” director Monte Hellman, serving as the movie’s second unit director.
    12. Footage showing RoboCop’s infrared vision was accomplished via decidedly low-tech means: the sequence was shot in the dark, with the actors wearing fluorescent body paint.
    13. There was one full-scale ED-209 robot built, standing seven feet tall and weighing 300 pounds. But most of the footage of the cumbersome droid was made using miniatures and stop-motion animation. Its speaking voice was that of “RoboCop” executive producer Jon Davison.
    14. The effects during the sequence when Emil (Paul McCrane) emerges from a vat of toxic waste and quickly disintegrates were inspired by monster-makeup legend Rick Baker‘s work on 1977’s “The Incredible Melting Man,” on which Bottin had done an uncredited assist. McCrane’s face and hands were covered with saggy latex prosthetics. Later, Boddicker’s car hits Emil and he turns into mush; that effect was accomplished via use of a hollow dummy filled with leftovers from the catering truck.
    15. Verhoeven’s initial cut of the movie received an “X rating” from the ratings board, not for pornography, just for extreme violence. (The NC-17 rating hadn’t been created yet.) Verhoeven trimmed some of the more graphic shots and added the satirical TV commercials to lighten the movie’s grim tone, but he still had to resubmit and recut the movie 11 more times before the board relented and granted the film an R.
    16. “RoboCop” cost just $13 million to make. It earned back $53 million at the domestic box office.
    17. At the 1988 Academy Awards, “RoboCop” won the Oscar for Best Sound Editing. It was also nominated for Best Editing and Best Sound Mixing.
    18. During the end credits, the obligatory anti-piracy warning reads that “unauthorized duplication, distribution or exhibition may result in civil liability and criminal prosecution by enforcement droids.”

  • Disney Unveils First Look at Star Wars Land: Shut Up and Take Our Money!

    Star Wars LandCan it be 2019 already? We’re getting our first detailed look at Disney’s Star Wars Land and it looks pretty damn awesome.

    Disney unveiled a physical 3D model of the eagerly awaited Star Wars Land at D23 Expo — their three-day fan convention in Anaheim, CA — on Thursday. The never-before seen planet where it’s set will feature both a Resistance base and a detachment of the First Order. According to Nerdist, this planet, which is a bit of a backwater trading hub, “has become occupied for a specific reason.”

    The model showed some familiar characters, including BB8 and Dameron Poe, but the new attraction will also introduce new characters not featured in the films.

    Among the things we can’t wait to explore in person: The Millennium Falcon ride that will let you drive Han Solo’s famed ship yourself and another E-ticket ride that will put you in the middle of a fight between the Resistance and the First Order. According to Nerdist, it appears you’ll be riding in a First Order Fleet Transport.

    You’ll also be able to walk into the Mos Eisley Cantina — although we assume it’ll be a more of a kid-friendly restaurant than a “wretched hive of scum and villainy.” There will also be droids and aliens on hand to greet customers. (Please tell us we’ll also get to shoot Greedo at some point!)

    Stars Wars Land — which is under construction at both Disneyland in California and Disney World in Florida — promises to transport guests “to a never-before-seen planet, a remote trading port and one of the last stops before Wild Space, where Star Wars characters and their stories come to life,” according to the DisneyParks blog. The specific opening date has not yet been announced.

    [Via Cnet, Nerdist, Disney Parks Blog]

  • 19 Things You Never Knew About Disney’s ‘Tron’

    TRON 1982Thirty-five years ago this week (on July 9, 1982), Disney’s release of “Tron” was a bold gamble, an experiment in new storytelling technology and a bid to reinvent the then-adrift studio. And in every respect, that gamble was a colossal failure.

    Or so it seemed in the short term. In the long term, of course, “Tron” not only led Disney to become a studio known for more than just reassuring family entertainment, but it also led to a revolution in computer-generated imagery that would redefine how movies are made. Oh, and besides being the launch point of digital filmmaking, it also told a geeky-cool story about a programmer sucked into his own video game, a tale that became a franchise that included a sequel, an animated TV series, and several video games.

    Dreamed up before everyone had PCs, smartphones, or connections to the internet, “Tron’s” vision of humans literally swallowed by their own technology seems eerily prescient. Still, as familiar as “Tron” and its world seem to us today, there’s a lot you may not know about the movie, from how its still-astonishing effects were created to the shocking reason it was snubbed at the Oscars. Hook up your handset modem and floppy disk drive, grab your video arcade quarters, and travel back in time to learn the “Tron” truth.

    1. “Tron” was the brainchild of animator Steven Lisberger, conceived in the mid-1970s when he first saw the early video game “Pong.” He grasped that the computer technology that moved the primitive rackets and ball of that game could be used for animation, which led him to conceive of the story’s video arcade game-inspired plot.

    2. Lisberger and his partners spent $300,000 putting together a package meant to attract the interest of investors and Hollywood studios, a package that included a script, storyboarded scenes for the entire film, and an effects demo reel. No studio, however, would bite, until Team Lisberger offered the project to Disney.

    3. In 1980, Disney was struggling, with a series of flops and an animation studio that seemed to have lost direction since Walt’s death more than a decade earlier. It had tried to jump on the post-“Star Wars” sci-fi bandwagon with “The Black Hole,” a visionary live-action movie (and the studio’s first-ever PG-rated release) that nonetheless was a costly failure at the box office. It also was not a studio accustomed to working with outside filmmakers. Still, it was desperate enough to take a chance on Lisberger’s vision. (True to form, Disney also saw “Tron’s” toy and game merchandising potential.) Even so, all but one member (Jerry Rees) of the studio’s legendary animation department refused to work on the film, as if they sensed that Lisberger’s primitive CGI was the seed of a technology that would ultimately put them out of business.TRON 19824. The filmmakers hired legendary French comic book artist Jean Giraud, a.k.a. Moebius, to do additional art direction for the film, including set design, costume design, and storyboards. He had recently done similar work on “Alien” and “Blade Runner.”

    5. “Tron” wasn’t the first film to use CGI — even “The Black Hole” had a brief, extended CGI sequence during its opening credits — but it was the first movie to make such extensive use of CGI, with some 800 shots making use of digital sets and props. Still, that amounts to only about 15 to 20 minutes of the 96-minute film.

    6. The computers available at the time couldn’t actually animate footage; they could only generate one still frame at a time, making the animation process as painstaking and time-consuming as traditional hand-drawn animation. The machines used had operating memory of just 2 MB, with no more than 330 MB of storage. Still, there were few computers at the time that had enough computing power to do the work, so few that Lisberger had to hire four different computer-graphics companies to have enough machines to complete the work.

    7. Much of the effects work was done through old-school analog photography, but with a twist. For the scenes involving actors inside the game, Lisberger made extensive use of a technique called backlit animation, filming the actors in black-and-white on a black set, then projecting colored light through the frame from behind. (It’s akin to the technique used to create the lightsaber effects in “Star Wars.”) Even so, the technique required the use of large photographic plates, which then had to be colored by hand. (Lisberger likened the process to making stained-glass windows.) Making such extensive use of backlit animation was a feat so labor-intensive and costly that no filmmaker before had ever done it. No filmmaker since, either.TRON 19828. To get the actors into the right frame of mind, there were coin-operated video arcade games, like “Battlezone,” on the set. Shooting might be delayed for minutes or hours if the crew or cast were on a gaming streak. Fittingly, Rees recalled 30 years later, it was Jeff Bridges, who played Kevin Flynn, the film’s hacker/gamer hero, who was the “Battlezone” high scorer.

    9. Many of the scenes at the fictional ENCOM corporation, including those in the laser bay, were actually shot at the famed Lawrence Livermore lab, which had never allowed itself to be used as a movie location. Cindy Morgan, who played the dual role of laser scientist Lora and heroic program Yori, said in a 2005 interview that she accidentally stepped into a spill of radioactive liquid there, and her contaminated shoes were confiscated.

    10. Morgan, whose nerdy “Tron” characters marked an about-face from her then-recent role as temptress Lacey Underall in “Caddyshack,” said she won her part in the film over occasional actress and Blondie frontwoman Deborah Harry.

    11. “Tron” has a couple of Easter eggs for sharp-eyed viewers. One is an image of Pac-Man, in a scene where Sark (David Warner) is tracking the escaped lightcycles on a wall-sized screen. And during the journey of the solar sailor, a giant Mickey Mouse silhouette is visible below the craft.TRON 1982 PAC-MAN12. The movie gave early career boosts to several young animators who would become successful feature directors of animated and live-action feature films, including Roger Allers (“The Lion King“), Chris Wedge (“Ice Age“), Brad Bird (“The Incredibles“), and Tim Burton.

    13. Disney spent between $17 and $20 million on “Tron,” still a lot for a movie budget in 1982. It grossed $33 million in ticket sales, but since about half a movie’s gross goes to the theater owners, that meant Disney lost money on the film.

    14. Why were audiences reluctant to embrace “Tron”? Lisberger said in 2015 that, while kids of the video game generation appreciated it, adults found it disorienting. “It was like we put LSD in the punch at the school prom and it was just way more than they can handle,” he said in 2015. He also recognized that the movie wasn’t the kind of familiar, comforting family entertainment moviegoers had come to expect from the Disney brand. “People do not want to get their minds blown by Walt Disney Studios, they want to be reassured by them,” he said.

    15. At the 1983 Academy Awards, Oscar voters declined to nominate the film’s pioneering special effects. Lisberger said it was because they felt using computers as an animation tool was cheating. Nonetheless, they did nominate “Tron” for its costumes and sound.TRON 198216. Fourteen years later, however, coder Ken Perlin won a Sci-Tech Oscar for “Perlin noise,” a distortion effect that makes computer-animated surfaces look less plastic and more textured and organic. By the time he received the award in 1997, Perlin’s algorithm, which he’d invented for “Tron,” had become a common tool for computer animators.

    17. Of course, there was a “Tron” video game, licensed by Disney and manufactured by Bally, which placed the game in hundreds of arcades nationwide. Reportedly, the game earned more than the movie, as much as $45 million.

    18. Today, of course, digital filmmaking and CGI effects are the norm. Disney has found success making movies for grown-ups, though it’s still best known for family entertainment. Disney is also the home of Pixar, which made the first feature-length computer-animated film (“Toy Story“) 13 years after “Tron” and went on to become the world’s most beloved computer-animation studio. Pixar founder John Lasseter has acknowledged how much “Tron” influenced his work, saying, “Without ‘Tron,’ there would be no ‘Toy Story.’”

    19. After 28 years, during which “Tron” became a cult favorite and saw its influence acknowledged by contemporary filmmakers and animators, Disney finally made a theatrical sequel, “Tron: Legacy.” The 2010 film, which brought back Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner from the original, cost a reported $172 million to make and earned back $400 million worldwide — not enough to make a profit, but enough to make Disney consider a third installment. The studio pulled the plug on the three-quel in 2015, but this past March, the Hollywood Reporter said the project was being rebooted, with Jared Leto being approached to star.

  • 22 Things You Never Knew About ‘Blade Runner’

    Given how vastly influential “Blade Runner” has been over the 35 years since its release (on June 25, 1982), it’s hard to remember that the movie wasn’t a hit. Neither critics nor audiences were certain what to make of Ridley Scott‘s visionary adaptation of a mind-bending Philip K. Dick novel; nor were they used to seeing Harrison Ford get his ass kicked.

    Still, “Blade Runner” was a milestone, one that created the template for how movies would visually depict the urban future, introduced Dick’s brain-twisting storytelling to movie audiences (making possible the likes of “Total Recall” and “Minority Report“), and offered early career boosts to such actors as Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, and Edward James Olmos. Now, with a sequel on the horizon (October’s “Blade Runner 2049“), it’s worth going back to learn how Scott, Ford, and the rest of the “Blade Runner” team overcame personal differences and pre-CGI effects challenges to create a lasting vision of the future.
    1. Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” drew Hollywood interest when it was published in 1968. At one time, Martin Scorsese hoped to direct it. It would take 14 years before Dick would see a screenplay that didn’t make him want to punch the screenwriter in the face.

    2. Hampton Fancher, who wrote a Dick-approved script, got the title from William S. Burroughs’ book “Blade Runner: A Movie,” an adaptation of Alan E. Nourse’s novel “The Bladerunner.” Neither book had anything to do with Dick’s story, but Ridley Scott liked the name so much he optioned the film rights just to keep the title.
    3. Scott had already turned down the project once; instead, the “Alien” director had been developing a version of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic “Dune.” When that fell through, he returned to “Blade Runner.”

    4. Harrison Ford wasn’t the first or second choice to play replicant-hunting detective Rick Deckard. Initially, Fancher wrote the part with Hollywood legend and film noir veteran Robert Mitchum in mind. Scott spent months meeting with Dustin Hoffman, but the actor ultimately declined.
    5. Many other stars were on the short list, including Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Tommy Lee Jones, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Burt Reynolds, and Arnold Schwarzenegger (who’d eventually play the lead in the Dick-derived “Total Recall”). Ford got the part on the recommendation of Steven Spielberg, who’d just finished directing him in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

    6. The movie’s striking visuals, which have influenced so many movies made since, drew inspiration in turn from Fritz Lang‘s silent classic “Metropolis” (another futuristic nightmare where the wealthy live in towers while the workers live below), French comic-book artist Moebius, and “Nighthawks” painter Edward Hopper.
    7. For antagonist Roy Batty, Scott cast Rutger Hauer without ever having met him; he simply knew he wanted the Dutch actor after having seen him in several Paul Verhoeven movies.

    8. The eerie, atmospheric, layered, neon-lit look of the film was created in-camera, using a technique called multipass exposures. A scene would be shot with the camera guided by a computer; then the film would be rewound and re-exposed as the computer guided the camera along an identical path, but with new lighting or new visual elements introduced. Some scenes used as many as 16 passes.
    9. Ford and Scott have both acknowledged that they clashed often on set. Scott has chalked this up to his own inexperience as a feature film director (“Blade Runner” was his third movie), dealing with a leading man who was a 15-year Hollywood veteran with several landmark movies on his résumé. For his part, Ford grumbled about having to shoot 50 straight nights in the rain.

    10. What really irked Ford, though, was recording the voiceover narration, which was forced on the filmmakers by panicky producers after test-screening audiences found the movie confusing.
    11. Ford thought the voiceover dialogue, meant to evoke the classic film noir movies that had been inspirations for “Blade Runner,” dumbed down the film, and he called recording the narration a “f***ing nightmare.”

    12. Dick was just 53 when he died of a stroke in March 1982, three months before the first film based on his work was released. But he got to see about 20 minutes of “Blade Runner” and praised the sets, effects, and Hauer’s appearance as exactly what he’d had in mind.
    13. Today, the “spinners,” the flying cars (above), would probably be created digitally, but for “Blade Runner,” Scott’s production crew built life-size spinners that weighed several tons each. To simulate flight, they were hoisted by cranes. The constant rain effects helped hide the cables.

    14. If the footage at the very end of the movie, with its helicopter shots of an idyllic countryside, look familiar, that’s because they’re leftover second-unit footage from “The Shining,” which Scott obtained from Stanley Kubrick.
    15. Producer Alan Ladd, Jr. picked June 25 as the release date for “Blade Runner” because the 25th of the month had proved lucky at the box office for two of his previous sci-fi releases, “Star Wars” and “Alien.”

    16. “Blade Runner” cost at least $23 million to make; some sources say $28 million. It made back just $27.6 million in North America.
    Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar17. The release date turned out to be not so lucky after all, since it came at the tail of a month-long sci-fi glut that included “The Road Warrior,” “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” and “The Thing.”

    18. The Academy nominated “Blade Runner” for two Oscars, for art direction and visual effects. Incredibly, it lost both, the former to “Gandhi,” the latter to “E.T.”
    19. There have been at least seven different cuts of “Blade Runner” put forth before the public over the years. The three best known versions start with the initial domestic cut, with the voiceovers and countryside ending. Then there was the 1992 “Director’s Cut,” with the voiceover and countryside footage removed, for a more ambiguous telling of the story. Despite the name, however, Scott has said his involvement in this release was minimal. He eventually oversaw a fully restored print of the film cut to his liking, the 2007 “Final Cut,” which includes some violent scenes previously shown only to international audiences, as well as the full-length unicorn dream sequence that suggests Gaff (Olmos) believes Deckard to be a replicant.

    20. The Domestic Cut and Director’s Cut left it up to the viewer to decide whether Deckard was himself a replicant or a natural-born human. Ford himself believed Deckard to be human, but in 2007, Scott said he’d always considered Deckard to be a replicant.
    21. In a 2001 online chat with fans, Hauer called “Blade Runner” his favorite among his own films. As he put it, “‘Blade Runner’ needs no explanation. It just IZZ. All of the best. There is nothing like it. To be part of a real MASTERPIECE which changed the world’s thinking. It’s awesome.”

    22. Scott and Fancher spent years trying to develop a sequel or prequel to “Blade Runner.” After several abortive attempts, we’re finally getting one this October. Directed by “Arrival‘s” Denis Villeneuve, “Blade Runner 2049” will be set 30 years later, with Ryan Gosling in the lead role and an appearance by Ford.

  • 18 Things You Never Knew About Steven Spielberg’s ‘E.T.’

    Admit it: “E.T.” made you cry. It still does.

    If you didn’t find yourself misting up at certain points late in “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” you either have a heart of stone or have been away from Earth for the past 35 years, since the film’s release on June 11, 1982. After all, “E.T.” was, for many years, the biggest film on the planet, the one that cemented Steven Spielberg‘s reputation as a chronicler of childhood and a crafter of populist art. It also made a star out of Drew Barrymore, launched the careers of several other young stars, and had the world saying, “E.T. phone home” in a funny voice until the novelty ran out.

    35 years later, you probably remember the film vividly, but the story of how it got made may remain a mystery to you. So hop in your time machine, pop some Reese’s Pieces, and read on for the interstellar secrets of “E.T.”
    1. “E.T.” and “Poltergeist” famously originated as separate subplots in Spielberg’s “Night Skies” idea. The plot about a friendly alien visitor was in turn inspired by Spielberg’s own childhood trauma, the divorce of his parents. He recalled his own boyhood desire for an imaginary pal, “a friend who could be the brother I never had and a father that I didn’t feel I had anymore.”

    2. While Spielberg was in Tunisia directing Harrison Ford in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” he met Ford’s girlfriend, Melissa Mathison. When the filmmaker learned she was one of the screenwriters of the classic boy-and-his-horse movie “The Black Stallion,” he knew she’d be the right writer to develop his “E.T.” idea into a full screenplay. She tried to convince him he was wrong, but he wore her down over time. Back home in California, the two worked up the screenplay in just eight weeks.
    3. Wearing an Indiana Jones costume, Henry Thomas, then nine, nailed his audition to play Elliott by crying on command. He summoned up the tears by recalling how his chihuahua had been mauled to death by a neighbor’s dog.

    4. Columbia Pictures turned down the chance to make “E.T.,” dismissing the project as “a wimpy Walt Disney movie.”
    5. Five-year-old Drew Barrymore proved to Spielberg she was imaginative enough to play Gertie by telling the director a tall tale, that she was the leader of a punk band.

    6. Future “Baywatch” babe Erika Eleniak made her film debut as the tall classmate Elliot kisses during the frog sequence.
    7. A year before he starred as Ponyboy in “The Outsiders,” C. Thomas Howell made his film debut in “E.T.” as Mike’s friend Tyler.

    8. In a story that’s become a famous case study in product placement, M&M/Mars turned down the chance for M&Ms to be the candy Elliott uses to gain E.T.’s trust. Legend has it that M&M/Mars said “no” because the company thought the little alien was so ugly that he’d scare children, but the specific reason for the rejection has been lost to history. But Hershey was willing to pony up $1 million in advertising featuring E.T. in order to popularize a relatively new candy product. So it was Reese’s Pieces instead that saw the stranded space traveler send sales soaring astronomically, by as much as 300 percent.
    9. Puppeteer Carlo Rambaldi, who’d designed the aliens for Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” re-teamed with the director to create E.T. The designer based the creature’s face on those of such wizened sages as Carl Sandburg, Albert Einstein, and Ernest Hemingway.

    10. The alien seen in the film is actually several E.T.s, including four animatronic heads and one set of prosthetic hands, all used for close-ups, and a full costume worn by three different actors. Two were adult dwarfs, and the third was Matthew DeMeritt, a 12-year-old boy born without legs. He walked on his hands, so scenes displaying E.T.’s distinctive waddle or occasional stumble were his.
    11. Like Elliott, the young Thomas was a “Star Wars” fan, so he was less than impressed the first time he saw his squat intergalactic co-star. “When I saw this alien with the weird feet and the telescopic neck, I was like, ‘What the hell is this? Where is my lightsaber?’” he recalled 30 years later. “But I guess I got a flying ­bicycle, so I can’t complain.”

    12. In a deleted scene, Harrison Ford would have been seen as Elliott’s elementary school principal, scolding the boy for drinking, then flummoxed into silence by E.T. showing up and demonstrating his ability to levitate objects with his mind.
    13. “E.T.” cost a mere $10.5 million to make. It returned $359 million in North American theaters during its initial run and $619 million worldwide.

    14. It held the record as the biggest moneymaker of all time for a decade, until the release of Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” in 1993.
    15. The movie was nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Picture. It lost to “Gandhi,” though even “Gandhi” director (and future “Jurassic Park” star) Richard Attenborough said he thought “E.T.” deserved to win. It won four prizes, for John Williams‘ instrumental score, for sound mixing and sound effects editing, and for visual effects.

    16. For the movie’s 20th anniversary, Spielberg notoriously edited the lawmen’s guns out of the final chase and replaced them digitally with walkie-talkies. As he explained in 2011, “I was overly sensitive to some of the criticism ‘E.T.’ got from parent groups when it was first released in ’82 having to do with Elliott saying ‘penis breath’ or the guns.”
    17. He restored the original rifle footage for the 30th anniversary Blu-ray release, saying of the revision, “It was okay. for a while, but I realized what I had done was I had robbed people who loved ‘E.T.’ of their memories of ‘E.T.’”

    18. Thomas, who says not a day goes by when someone doesn’t say to him, “E.T. phone home,” noted in 2012 that, “if the film had been made in present-day Hollywood, it would have been at least a trilogy,” says Henry. “But I think a sequel would have ­cheapened it. What would happen? E.T. would come back? Or Elliot would go on vacation with him? It could be like an intergalactic ­reunion with Elliott and E.T. at a beach resort.” He added that he’d even return to play Elliott if Spielberg ever asked. “I don’t think Spielberg will touch it, although I’d love to see Elliott and E.T. ­sitting at the end of the bar: ‘How’s it been for you man? Good man, another beer?’”

  • Donald Glover is Having a Blast as Lando Calrissian

    Donald GloverWe don’t get to see the solo Han Solo movie until May 25, 2018, but we love hearing how much fun Donald Glover is having as Lando Calrissian.

    While talking to Deadline, Glover said that playing the smooth businessman first portrayed by Billy Dee Williams is “one of my favorite experiences ever” and “really fulfilling.” It also sounds like he’s got some freedom to approach the character in his own way:

    This is probably one of my favorite experiences ever. For working under, like, a huge conglomerate, it’s actually been quite an enjoyable, artistic thing. I get to play him in a way that I think is honest and true and cool. And it’s great ’cause I didn’t have to write anything, I’m focused strictly on being this guy. And I really respect him and I respect the actor who played him before. I’ve learned a lot about this character, so it’s actually been really fulfilling and nice to just turn off everything else and focus on just being someone. So it’s been cool.

    Of course, Lando was always his favorite character, he admits. “Lando seems to be a lot of people’s favorite character. It’s cool. It’s a lot of pressure, but it’s also very exciting… I grew up on ‘Star Wars.’ It’s just cool to see him again,” he tells Deadline.

    He also shares that the future BMOC of Cloud City is a lot more complicated than his buddy Han. “I feel like people like him ’cause he has a lot of style, but also he’s a complicated character in this world. I think even Han isn’t as complicated as Lando is.”

    It’s not clear if he’s talking about the “Empire Strikes Back“-era Lando or the younger version of the character he’s playing in the prequel when he says, “From the first time you meet him, you don’t know whether to trust him or not, and you’re constantly not knowing whether to trust him. I like that about him.”

    Glover was spotted having lunch with Williams back in February, where they talked over all things Lando. The veteran actor shared with THR later that Glover thought he wasn’t as “cool” as Williams, but that Williams regards him as “a very delightful young man.” And that he gave him his blessing – although not in so many words — to take over the iconic role.

    Feel the Lando love!

    [Via Slashfilm]

  • ‘Avatar’ Multiplayer Game Will (Probably) Be Out Before Sequels

    AvatarThose “Avatar” sequels are taking so long to happen, we’ll probably see a new “Avatar” multiplayer game first.

    FoxNext president Salil Mehta tells THR, “We are evaluating rollout but believe [the game] will come out before the sequels. It’s an incredible way for many global fans to experience the world of Pandora.”

    This news comes as a result of FoxNext, a division of 21st Century Fox division, acquiring mobile game developer Aftershock. Aftershock was already working with Fox and James Cameron‘s Lightstorm Entertainment on a multiplayer mobile strategy game based on the 2009 blockbuster.

    Other upcoming FoxNext movie-based games: a “Planet of the Apes”-themed experience tied to “War for the Planet of the Apes,” and a multiplayer VR game based on the “Alien” franchise.

    Last we heard, those long-in-the-works “Avatar” sequels are scheduled for December 18, 2020, December 17, 2021, December 20, 2024 and December 19, 2025.

    Cameron told CNN earlier this year that he’s not worried about flagging interest after such a long delay: “It was a seven year gap between ‘The Terminator’ and ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day,’ seven year gap between ‘Alien’ and ‘Aliens.’ It’s gonna be obviously more like a ten year gap between ‘Avatar’ and ‘Avatar 2.‘ But ‘Avatar 2’ you are going to with not the promise, but the certainty of three more films beyond that, and that’s a very different concept with the audience. And a lot of the delay has been around creating that overall vision.”

    In the meantime, if you’re craving a Pandora fix, you can visit the newly opened “Pandora — The World of Avatar” at Disney’s Animal Kingdom park in Orlando, Florida.