It wouldn’t be until after Robert Rodriguez’s WIP screening at SXSW that his newest psychological thriller, Hypnotic, would land a distributor and release date for May 12. That update now comes with an official trailer via Ketchup Entertainment which you can view below with Ben Affleck starring from a script by Rodriguez and co-writer Max Borenstein.
It wasn’t that long ago that a fan film began stirring about to help bring cult comic book favorite, El Gato Negro, to the mainstream.
Trade news made the rounds as of Wednesday with Netflix announcing its cast for superhero action adventure comedy, We Can Be Heroes. Production is already underway with writer/director Robert Rodriguez back at the helm on the Texas set for the story of a team of children who must work together when alien invaders kidnap their superhero parents.
Word has it that Robert Rodriguez’s latest manga segue, Alita: Battle Angel, may tank with a finish of about a third or a quarter of its budget after its release on February 14. It’s unfortunate too since the film actually started looking like something after completely blowing it with the first trailer back in 2017, and plus, judging by my friend Eoin’s review at The Action Elite it sounds like it should be a fun time for folks checking it out on the big screen.
From kicking ass, riding shotgun and freefalling from an exploding plane with Michelle Rodriguez to watching as biomechanical villain Norman Reedus catches your puny little bullets, STXsurreal is making it official this week launching their VR entertainment banner with Robert Rodriguez’s 20-minute action thriller, The Limit.
If you were to tell me last December that Robert Rodriguez’s latest gamble with live-action manga filmfare Alita: Battle Angel was going to eventually pull me in by it’s release, I’d stop short of telling you to have your head examined before long.
Jon Landau took to a live Q&A panel with actress Rosa Salazar, James Cameron and director Robert Rodriguez for a discussion on upcoming manga adaptation, Alita: Battle Angel. Hosted by 20th Century Fox, and much to our delight however, the studio didn’t make fans wait too long as they presented the newest official trailer at the top of the live video ahead of the film’s December 21 release.
Robert Rodriguez recently premiered a clip at this year’s MIPTV event for his new virtual reality shortfilm endeavor, The Limit. The project hails from Robert Simonds’ STXsurreal in its newly-announced co-financing and producing partnership with Academy Award-Winning VFX firm DNEG.
As Scott Roxborough’s coverage at The Hollywood Reporter noted on Wednesday, The Limit reunites Rodriguez with Fast saga and Machete Kills co-star Michelle Rodriguez in the role of a genetically enhanced weapon of mass destruction hellbent on destroying the covert agency that created her. The Walking Dead series star Norman Reedus will also appear in the shortform VR production.
The Limit will kick off this summer, inagurating STX’s upcoming slate of premium, original, short-form VR series. As part of the deal according to a press announcement a week ago, DNEG will exclusively provide STXsurreal post-production VFX and 3D conversion services on a minimum of six projects.
Others in the slate as included in prior reports in the past week include, but are not limited to, an untitled Dave Bautista action-comedy, Peter Berg’s Mile 22 spinoff The Kiev Exchange, and a sci-fi-thriller from John Wick writer Derek Kolstad. The slate will premiere on STX’s previously announced pay-per-experience VR channel “SURREAL,” launching as an app on VR headsets this summer with dates currently pending.
“With the SURREAL channel, STX is revolutionizing what it means to create premium, original, narrative VR content,” said Rick Rey and Andy Vick, Co- Presidents of STXsurreal. “By partnering with DNEG, and utilizing their Oscar-winning visual effects expertise, we’re doubling down on our promise to bring audiences a truly cinematic and high-quality immersive experience featuring the most sought-after writers, directors and stars in the world today.”
“We’re incredibly excited to be partnering with STXsurreal to create this revolutionary new narrative VR content,” said Matt Holben, CEO, DNEG. “The combination of visionary filmmaking talent like Robert Rodriguez, STXsurreal’s ambition and expertise in the VR and immersive content space and DNEG’s creative pedigree and experience in visual effects makes for a dynamic collaborative partnership that is producing some truly outstanding premium VR content.”
The director’s previous groundbreaking work on Spy Kids 3: Game Over and Sin City are the crux of Roxborough’s coverage in discussing STX’s high-end immersive VR content as Rodriguez’s next phase of creativity.
“POV (point of view) is really, really good in VR, it’s like you’re really inside and action movie,” Rodriguez told The Hollywood Reporter, explaining how The Limit differs from most attempts to do fiction in VR. “We’re a bit less than 360 degrees, we’ve got a 220-degree field of view. So we still have a frame. The viewer can look around, but we’re still directing their attention, they can’t turn around and walk away,” he said.
Most VR, Rodriguez argued, fails to engage the audience. “I always think I’m missing something behind me, so I turn around to look, I’m not paying attention to the action,” he said. “The VR actually makes the experience less engaging for viewers. I wanted to use VR to make them more engaged with the characters and the story.”
Rodriguez returns to the big screen on December 21 with 20th Century Fox’s Alita: Battle Angel. Read more at The Hollywood Reporter.
You lost me at groundbreaking but……………………………………okay ?.
Back in 2013 we eventually caught wind from the trades of the efforts underway at 20th Century Fox to reboot John Carpenter’s cult classic, Escape From New York. There is a lot that has stirred in terms of casting options but the word now is that Robert Rodriguez is poised as the frontrunner to helm the picture.
As The Tracking Board notes, Neil Cross is providing a script that that follows dystopian outlaw Colonel Robert “The Snake” Plissken on an 11-hour mission to find the villainous heir to an agrochemical and biotech corporation as a major hurricane approaches. Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman are still on board to produce under their Picture Company banner with Carpenter executive producing.
Starring Kurt Russell, the original 1981 saw our protagonist on a mission to rescue the President whose chopper crashes in the New York City borough Manhattan, out-fitted as its own maximum security prison. The film went on to gross more than $25 million dollars after its theatrical release prior to Russell later reprising his role in the sequel, Escape From L.A. in 1996, which flopped at the box office. Both films were directed by Carpenter.
Rodriguez, noted for titles such as The ‘Mariachi’ Trilogy, Sin City and the Grindhouse Machete movies is currently on deck with Alita: Battle Angel at Fox.
The Movie Is On Screen for Two Days Only, November 6 and 9, Along with an Exclusive Filmmaker Q&A
It’s been roughly 17 years since blockbuster filmmmaker James Cameron broke the bank with his stellar sunken ship love story, Titanic, and about 12 years since topping it with Avatar. The latter will evidently have him quite the busy man through 2019 with at least four movies to date, but that doesn’t mean he’s dropped the ball on previously-pondered works.
I’m talking Battle Angel Alita, a 1990 Shueisha publication by author Kishiro Yukito which focused on an amnesiac cyborg whose head is found by a scientist in a scrapyard in a futuristic dystopian America and reenvisioned as a battle-capable cyborg huntress named after the scientist’s cat. The manga eventually saw its way through as an animated property, which, as time proved, had already caught Cameron’s eye by the time all the Titanic hype was well and done.
Alas, after fiften years of underwater documentaries and an epic Avatar movie amid all the stops and starts, it looks like Cameron and Lightstorm Entertainment partner Jon Landau is about to go full-speed ahead with Robert Rodriguez also on board to direct for 20th Century Fox, according to THR:
“Robert and I have been looking for a film to do together for years, so I was pumped when he said he wanted to do Battle Angel,” stated Cameron. “He’s very collaborative and we’re already like two kids building a go-kart, just having fun riffing creatively and technically. This project is near and dear to me, and there’s nobody I trust more than Robert, with his technical virtuosity and rebel style, to take over the directing reins. We’re looking forward to learning a lot from each other while we make a kick-ass epic.”
Added Rodriguez: “Battle Angel is an incredibly rich and vibrant epic in the tradition of Jim Cameron’s spectacular, character-driven films. Getting to work from Jim’s terrific and visionary script while learning the cutting edge techniques he’s pioneered is a master class in filmmaking. It’s an honor to explore the world of Alita along with Jim and Jon, whose films have impacted me for decades.”
Rodriguez‘s current prospects also include what remains of the popular El Rey TV adaptation of From Dusk Til Dawn, as well as a hopeful third installation of the Machete trilogy and an adaptation of the Hanna/Barbera-produced classic cartoon, Jonny Quest.
Cast and crew info are pending, among other specifics. Eyes peeled, folks!
The new trailer for Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For, may very well be the sexiest trailer I have ever seen for any action movie as of late. Ever.
Directed by Robert Rodriguez and original graphic novel author Frank Miller, the film made a splash at San Diego Comic-Con over the weekend promoting the sequel to 2005’s Sin City, and this week, the official SDCC red-band trailer has now gone viral. To be honest though, I don’t even need to say much beyond this point. The trailer pretty much sells itself, and yes, it’s quite sexy, in almost every way imaginable.
SYNOPSIS:
In the dark alleys of Sin City, Dwight (Josh Brolin taking over from Clive Owen) seeks revenge against the woman who betrayed him, femme fatale Ava Lord (Eva Green). Meanwhile, Nancy (Jessica Alba) is trying to cope with the death of her protector, Detective Hartigan (Bruce Willis), and a gambler named Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is out to destroy his enemy at his best game.
Watch the footage and get ready for its August 22 release!
P.S. – Eva Green, you had me at your first character poster. 😉
Matador chronicles the unlikely rise of Tony “Matador” Bravo (Gabriel Luna), a popular soccer star who comes to be known as much for his playboy antics off the field as his dynamic moves on it. But what his fans and family don’t realize is that it’s all a cover—in truth, he is a skilled covert operative executing missions for a little-known branch of the CIA. “Matador” has the kind of fame and notoriety that affords him access to powerful circles of corruption and villainy. But, in balancing the dueling roles in which he’s been cast, he will be forced to confront the question of his true identity… and it is this mission which will prove to be his most dangerous.
The promotional campaign for the latest noir action crime follow-up from co-directors Robert Rodriguez and graphic novelist Frank Miller, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, had a small share of mild controversy in the past few weeks due to the MPAA’s banned poster with actress Eva Green’s right boob; A non-issue if you ask me. I dig the poster, and I’m hard-pressed to believe I’m alone in its approval.
At any rate, the film is poised to release nationwide on August 22. I still need to see the first film so I can have a viable opinion. And this is my niche too, so… yeah.
*Sigh* …Life gets in the way of living. (borrowing that one from Darren actually, lol.)
Check out the trailer below and feel free to take a gander at the latest Reddit AMA Miller himself hosted on Wednesday!
SYNOPSIS:
Co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller reunite to bring Miller’s visually stunning “Sin City” graphic novels back to the big screen in Sin City: A Dame To Kill For. Weaving together two of Miller’s classic stories with new tales, the town’s most hard boiled citizens cross paths with some of its more notorious inhabitants.
The series is executive produced by Rodriguez who directed the pilot, and also executive produced by Alex Kurtzman and the newly announed Star Trek 3 helmer, Robert Orci, as well as Dan Dworkin and Andrew Orci who created the series with Jay Beattie; Entertainment One will handle the show’s international distribution.
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