Mark Wahlberg has appeared in a handful of remakes throughout his career, but the only ones worth seeing are the two reworked from foreign films ("The Departed;" and I'm counting British classic "The Italian Job" as the other). Hopefully this means good things for the Hollywood remake of Oskar Jonasson's "Reykjavik-Rotterdam," which might star the artist formerly known as Marky Mark, according to Variety. Wahlberg is also attached to produce the new version of the Icelandic thriller along with fellow "Entourage" executive producer Stephen Levinson.
"Reykjavik," one of 60 films in the running for next year's foreign-language Oscar, is about a former alcohol smuggler recruited for one last job. The original has the protagonist as a former crew member of a freighter regularly traveling between Reykjavik, Iceland, and Rotterdam, Netherlands. For the English-language version the locations will be changed of course, but to what? New York and Toronto, maybe? Read more...
Ralph Fiennes may be squeezing time in between "Harry Potter" scenes to play Hades after all, as Louis Leterrier's refurbished "Clash of the Titans" film went into production this week. Also starring Liam Neeson as Zeus and Sam Worthington as Perseus, the movie is a remake of the 1981 classic by the same title, which was directed by Desmond Davis and produced by legendary special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen.
The new "Clash of the Titans" is scheduled to film at studios in London, as well as locales in Wales and the Spanish Canary Islands, with some aerial work being done in Ethiopia and Iceland, according to a press release from Warner Bros. Read more...
Radiohead’s music has often had a futuristic, almost otherworldly quality to it, and now the legendary band’s frontman might be coming to a post-apocalyptic future near you. “Terminator Salvation” director McG announced at New York Comic-Con that he’s been talking to Thom Yorke about contributing to his forthcoming franchise reboot.
At first McG was considering handing over the entire score to Yorke and Gustavo Santaolalla, the Argentine composer whose “Babel” score won an Academy Award in 2006. “We talked about Gustavo getting with Thom Yorke from Radiohead, which I thought would be a very interesting combination,” said the director. Eventually he signed Danny Elfman (“Batman,” “Spider-Man”) to compose the score, but Yorke and Santaolalla have stayed in the mix. “They still may do a couple of sounds for the movie,” McG revealed. Read more...
There are a few cardinal rules when interviewing a celebrity at a junket. Chief among them? Don't ask about other movies until you actually bother talking about the one you're there for. In her eagerness to ask "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D" star Brendan Fraser about his "G.I. Joe" cameo, our intrepid reporter Vanessa managed to throw everything out the window and made it her very first question. Maybe it was all that Icelandic yogurt or perhaps it was the bumpy horseback ride, who knows. Whatever. It happened. Brendan's unforgettable (and hilarious) reaction in the video below.
Last week we sent intrepid producer Vanessa White Wolf to Iceland for a slew of reports on the land that helped set the scene for the upcoming "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D." Yes, we're jealous too.
Thursday started kind of slowly and ended up being completely incredible. We woke up early – again – and after breakfast, headed out for the Hraunfossar waterfalls and some nearby caves. We then drove on literally the bumpiest road ever, a Kaldidalur mountain road between two huge glaciers.
At one point, we heard a loud pop and could have sworn a tire just blew, but the bus kept rolling for another hour. When we pulled up to the Hotel Valhalla for lunch, the bus driver discovered that we were right – he had blown a tire. I have no idea what would have happened to us in the middle of nowhere, in between glaciers, if our bus would have broken down. It’s been an incredibly lucky week. Read more...
We've sent intrepid producer Vanessa White Wolf to Iceland this week for a slew of reports on the land that helped set the scene for the upcoming "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D." Yes, we're jealous too.
Today was so incredible – and barely any of it was spent in Reykjavik. We left the hotel early (not until I had another helping of Skyr, obvs) and headed west for the Snaefellsness area. Our first stop was the Snorrastadir horsefarm where half the group rode Icelandic horses around the area. One of the noteworthy traits of the Icelandic horse is their ability to move each of their legs independently of each other – I didn’t see this so I’m still not sure exactly what that means. I tapped into my Native American heritage and rode a horse, but was alarmed to see the photos afterwards. Like, my helmet didn’t really fit and I was easily twice the size of my horse. I actually looked like a crazy person.
After our ride we headed inside for snacks of smoked lamb and dried fish, while we learned about Iceland’s volcanic landscape from geologist Oddur Sigurdsson. We headed out to our lunch destination, theHotel Hellnar, which features an Italian chef who was living in Scotland. After filling up, we were ready to tackle the truly breathtaking Snaefellsnes glacier. Everyone suited up in overalls and boots – and while most of the group jumped into a snowcrawler to make the trek up to the top, I was one of the few who braved it on a snowmobile. After a 20-minute ride up, at times at a 45-degree angle, we were at the very top and could look out over the land and ocean. It was unbelievable. Read more...
We've sent intrepid producer Vanessa White Wolf to Iceland this week for a slew of reports on the land that helped set the scene for the upcoming "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D." Yes, we're jealous too.
It’s 12:30 a.m. and outside it’s barely sunset. Summers in Iceland mean almost nonstop sunshine -- which I had read about but am still totally surprised by. I'm back at the Hilton Nordica after a completely exhausting but incredible day. I can’t believe I landed in Iceland just 17 hours ago!
Those of us on the “Journey” tour quickly made friends and sped through customs and baggage together. We then met our tour guide -- and now my personal hero -- Thor. (I mean, of course he’s named Thor.) Born in Iceland, spent a decade in Denmark and then several years in Red Bank, NJ. He played keyboards in a rock band, people. He’s amazing.
Today happens to be Iceland’s Independence Day, so the streets were virtually empty -- luckily for us that meant it took no time at all to arrive at the hotel, where we checked in and gorged on the breakfast buffet. I’m now currently obsessed with this weird Icelandic yogurty thing called Skyr. After crashing for a few hours, we regrouped and headed to Iceland’s National Centre for Cultural Heritage for a quick study of ancient Icelandic manuscripts and medieval sagas -- interesting stuff, but really important to know since Icelandic history plays a huge part in “Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D.” Read more...
We've sent intrepid producer Vanessa White Wolf to Iceland this week for a slew of reports on the land that helped set the scene for the upcoming "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D." Yes, we're jealous too.
I never in my life thought I'd ever get the chance to travel to Iceland. I always thought I'd see Paris, Rome, London -- all before Iceland. But here I am -- sitting on the questionable floor at Gate 2, in JFK's Terminal 7, waiting to board the 8:35 p.m. Icelandair flight to Reykjavik.
My weeklong journey is all thanks to the upcoming film "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D." WB decided to take a group of journalists on a tour of western Iceland -- seeing places where "Journey" was filmed and learning more about the movie's backstory. I couldn't be any more excited, and I'll be bringing you updates all week. Like just now -- I changed $45 into 3,000 Iceland krónur and used my remaining $15 to buy a Wolfgang Puck pizza and a bottled water. See? The journey's just begun.
As previously mentioned, the director of the upcoming fantasy blockbuster "The Golden Compass, Chris Weitz, has agreed to participate in an exclusive weekly blog series for MTV in which he'll be answering your questions. We're thrilled to now roll out the first installment, in which Chris responds to the burgeoning religious controversy, discusses the reason behind tweaks the film makes to the beloved book, reveals the status of the sequels and more.
QUESTION #1 (from Simon):
Some changes were made in the adapting process -- taking out talk of religion, original sin, beating death, etc. -- to avoid controversy. And yet, some religious groups are still upset. If you can't please everybody either way, if it's not possible to avoid controversy by taking religion out, do you feel more or less emboldened to put it back in the rest of the films?
ANSWER:
It's very important that people understand that nobody just hands you a couple hundred million dollars and says "Go ahead, knock yourself out!" What you have is a dynamic -- you could call it a debate -- between me, the filmmaker, and them, the studio -- that, one hopes, results in a good film. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. It is my job to fight, by hook or by crook, for the best adaptation of the book possible. It is their job to get the movie to pay back its investors. Even Peter Jackson had to deal with this dynamic, which is why there were shorter theater releases and longer DVD releases of the LOTR movies. But also consider that there was practically nothing that might be deemed controversial in LOTR (other than what you might consider some reflexive racism on Tolkien's part). Read more...
