Film News: Dead By Dawn programme revealed, Aronofsky talks The Wolverine, and more

Feature by News Team | 04 Apr 2014

DEAD BY DAWN 2014 PROGRAMME ANNOUNCED
From 21 to 27 April, annual horror-fest Dead by Dawn takes over Edinburgh's Filmhouse cinema for the 21st year, with a blood-soaked, gore-spattered selection of horror classics, premieres and special events. This year, Dead By Dawn are celebrating the life and work of director William Castle, the director, producer, screenwriter and actor known for his headline-grabbing promotional tactics, used to promote B-movie classics like House on Haunted Hill (1959) and 13 Ghosts (1960). There will be two special screenings of Castle's films; the Vincent Price-starring House on Haunted Hill, and Mr. Sardonicus (1961), both introduced by video call by Castle's daughter Terry.

The Dead By Dawn festival also features some exclusive premieres, including a first look at Oculus, starring Doctor Who's Karen Gillan and Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff; and visionary Japanese gore-master Takashi Miike's Lesson of the Evil. Four more UK premieres and two Scottish premieres are also featured in the programme, alongside some screenings of horror classics like Candyman, Friday the 13th, The Howling and Twilight Zone: The Movie.

The Twilight Zone screening is also partly a competition, based on the series' tagline: 'Do you wanna see something really scary?' The Dead By Dawn organisers have set a challenge for horror fans attending the festival: "We're asking festival-goers to send us a selfie of their scariest face, or a 5-second video designed to give everyone nightmares," they say. Legendary filmmaker Joe Dante, who directed a segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie and The Howling, will make a video call to the Filmhouse to announce the winner after the screaming – sorry... screening – is over.

Other events include the annual Shit Film Amnesty, allowing you to hand over the most embarrassing pieces of crap on your shelf – so it's time to stick those Scary Movie and Zack Snyder DVDs in a poly bag. There will be a programme of short film screenings, and Kier-la Janisse, author of House of Psychotic Women, will host an event called School of Shock: Pain and Pleasure in the Classroom Safety Film. You can also attend Spawn of Dawn, a movie marathon from midnight showing five features and up to ten shorts selected from the main festival programme. Visit the Filmhouse site to book a full festival pass.

DID SUPERMAN CAMEO IN GRAVITY?
Okay, so this was an April Fool's Day joke – but it was a really good one, so we thought we'd share it again in case you missed it. It's pitched as an alternate take on the opening scene of Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity. By now, you can tell where this is heading... but YouTube user Krishna Shenoi has done a cracking job of editing this together. And what's more, if Supes had really been involved, it's unlikely the film would have been much longer than 1 minute and 11 seconds. Keep watching until the surprise finale. [via IndieWire]

THE RUMOUR MILL: JOSH BROLIN: WHY I TURNED DOWN LEX LUTHOR, DARREN ARONOFSKY: WHY I TURNED DOWN THE WOLVERINE, FANTASTIC FOUR CASTS ITS DOCTOR DOOM, HOLLY HUNTER JOINS CAST OF BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN
Josh Brolin
spoke this week about his reasons for turning down the part of Lex Luthor in the forthcoming Batman Vs. Superman. In an interview with Yahoo Movies, Brolin reveals: "Me and Zack [Snyder] had a conversation about it and there were several reasons why we said it wasn't the best idea on both sides. I had mine and Zack had his. To me it’s not about being cool and all that stuff. Looking back over your shoulder and saying that one line everyone’s going to remember? Maybe I could do that. But I do roles that aren't necessarily all that cool. All my stuff is a little off." Having seen the spurious US remake of Oldboy and charmless gangsploitation farce Gangster Squad, we can't disagree.

Holly Hunter, meanwhile, has agreed to join the BVS cast, it was revealed by Deadline this week – Oscar-winning Hunter's role is as yet unknown – 300: Rise of an Empire’s Callan Mulvey and The Wolverine's Tao Okamoto have also been added to the list of names confirmed for the film.

Darren Aronofsky, meanwhile, whose Noah is currently trying to sell audiences on the premise of Russell Crowe as a Bible-era eco-warrior and animal activist, has spoken out on the reasons he passed up The Wolverine a few years back. "I loved the script and I thought the film came out great," says Aronofsky in an interview for MTV. "I just had... it was a hard time in my life."

Aronofsky was in the middle of divorcing his wife when he was offered the project: "I couldn't leave New York for that long an amount of time," he says. "The possibility of Noah had started to emerge, and here was something I'd been thinking about for years. I was really excited by that." In the same interview, he defends Zack Snyder's Watchmen, another project to which his name was attached at one point, saying: "I thought it was great. I thought that as a fan of the comic, you couldn't hope for a better interpretation. I liked the orthodoxy of it."

Could the long-gestating rumours about a possible Top Gun 2 actually be true? Producer Jerry Bruckheimer seems to think so. Speaking to Huffington Post this week, Bruckheimer bellowed: "We've been trying to get that movie made for 30 years and I think we're getting closer and closer." The project was in development at the time of original director Tony Scott's death, but now Bruckheimer believes he has a concept for the sequel which might actually fly. The film will ask the question "are pilots obsolete because of drones," he says, adding belligerently: "Cruise is going to show them that they're not obsolete. They're here to stay!"

Our final rumour of the day: the already much-maligned Fantastic Four reboot, helmed by Chronicle director Josh Trank, has found its Doctor Doom, according to Deadline, the iconic metal-faced villain will be played by Toby Kebbell, last seen in War Horse and Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror. He also has a role in the forthcoming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. It's not the most controversial casting decision so far on this project – we have no objections to a black actor playing the Human Torch, but find it hard to imagine Jamie Billy Elliot Bell filling The Thing's capacious wrestling trunks. 

TRAILERS: LUC BESSON'S LUCY, SEX TAPE, THE DROP
A few trailers for you – first up, fresh from her turn as a deadly alien seductress in Under the Skin, Scarlett Johansson returns in an all-action near-future SF Lucy, from director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element), playing an unfortunate drug mule who becomes a pumped-up, super-intelligent, kung fu-fighting badass when the bag of drugs inside her bursts. Simultaneously gross and awesome as a concept, and with a trailer that veers very close to sexploitaton, this looks like good, if mindless, fun. 

Next up, it's Sex Tape. In which Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz make a sex tape to spark up their dull relationship. Oh dear. I mean, with a plot that could be scribbled on the back of a fag packet or a beer coaster, completely obvious casting, and a predictable array of in-camera product placement opportunities, how good could this movie possibly be? Let us put it this way: the clip goes viral after the couple give everyone they know – including the postman – an iPad as a Christmas gift. This is the kind of brightly-polished consumerist fancy that Hollywood seems to squat out on a fairly regular basis these days, and frankly, it makes us long for the days when Diaz was styling her fringe with dried spunk for the Farrelly brothers. Compared to Sex Tape, even There's Something About Mary looks like a cinematic classic of Kurosawa-like proportions.

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Last but not least, The Drop, which sees the final performance of the late, great James Gandolfini, playing the bartender at an infamous 'drop bar' in Brooklyn. He is drawn into a web of intrigue and deception after a heist goes awry. A tense, claustrophobic gangland thriller, it also stars Noomi Rapace and Tom Hardy. The screenplay comes from Dennis Lehane, the scribe behind Mystic River, Shutter Island and Gone Baby Gone.

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