Thursday, August 26, 2010

ANGELINA JOLIE'S DIRECTORIAL DEBUT IN SERBIA AND BOSNIA. FANS WANT RYAN PHILLIPE AS "IRON FIST". PAUL VERHOVEN GOING EXOTIC IN "THE HIDDEN FORCE"

Angelina Jolie has been traveling around Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia last week, because she is planning to make a movie set in the time of the collapse of Yugoslavia, in the early 90's. She will mark her directorial debut with this film for which she also wrote the story herself. The film will focus on a Serbian man and a Bosnian woman who meet on the eve of the war and the effect the war has on their relationship. Rade Serbedzija ("Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows") will play the father of the Serbian man. Here in ex Yugoslavia, we don't really like when foreigners make subjective and ignorant films about us, so let's hope Angelina will keep politics out of her project.

For today's superhero update, I have some news on "Iron Fist" film. According to "MovieWeb", Marvel has hired "xXx" screenwriter Rich Wilkes to write the "Iron Fist" comic book movie adaptation. The comic book centers on Danny Rand, a martial arts expert who after killing a dragon gains a mystical power that turns his fists into indestructible weapons. I'm guessing actors will fight for this role. I've noticed that comic book fans around the net are cheering for seriously underused Ryan Phillipe to get this role.
Paul Verhoeven ("Starship Troopers", "Robocop") will go exotic in his new project. He will adapt "The Hidden Force" a book by Louis Couperus which is set in the year 1900 on the island of Java. Set in the exotic Dutch East Indies the story will follow a colonial official who is undone by his willful application of reason to a culture that is steeped in the mystical and irrational.

Even though his daisies aren't blooming, Tom Cruise will do "Mission Impossible IV" and currently a bunch of young actors is apparently auditioning for one of the roles beside him. On the list to join him as his partners in the 4th installment are Anthony Mackie ("The Hurt Locker"), Kevin Zegers ("Air Bud") and Christopher Egan ("Letters to Juliet").

25 comments:

  1. Verhoeven hasn't done a movie in a while.

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  2. let us know how jolie does. i thought you mentioned this movie on an earlier post, and didn't have high hopes for it... is this the same one?
    that christopher egan guy looks familiar... is he the cousin in eragon?
    another superhero movie! that's it! i'm keeping count! :)

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  3. @Alex
    yes, for about four or five years, and even that one was in Dutch language :)

    @Vics
    yes, that's the one, one of the producers has rejected her here in Serbia (at least according to his own words) but she found another one :) She says it will be a love story, not a film about politics, but somehow I'm not convinced, we shall see.
    Edd Spelers was the actor in ERAGON (the lead one) but he does look like Egan.

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  4. I hope Angelina's movie would be a love story and not some kind of a movie that will portrait Serbs negatively.

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  5. "so let's hope Angelina will keep politics out of her project."

    I'm going to guess that the chances of this happening are somewhere between slim and none.

    And, I'm sure somehow she'll work to turn this into some sort of anti-Bush screed. Bleh. This is a project that someone more familiar with the actual subject material should be doing, not someone from Hollywood looking to make a name for themselves as an actress-cum-director.

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  6. well, my dear Mike, we already know that Angelina wrote the script so that the father of the main male character in the film will be portrayed as an Orthodox Serbian nationalist so that's already a prejudiced view, isn't it? :(( And since none of the Serbian actors would take such a role, she found Rade Serbidzija to take it.

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  7. @MJ
    well, Bush does deserve all the hell he gets, just like Clintons deserve it too, because they've ruined lives of people down here for many generations to come.

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  8. Hmm, no offense but none of these sound that exciting to me. Still you never know so thanks for sharing as always Dezmond!

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  9. I really dislike it when film makers interject their personal politics, especially when the politics disagree with mine, so I agree with you about Jolie's efforts. Hopefully the film won't be her soapbox.

    And about my alliteration post. I was trying to be funny, but I think some readers thought I was being serious. The post was a satirical parody of my weekly debate topics. Since I thought I might have rankled some readers recently with controversial topics I thought I'd come up with a totally silly topic. I guess it was taken for its silliness.

    And as far as your English, I for one would never have guess it was your second language. Your mastery comes across superbly.

    Lee
    Tossing It Out

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  10. Is this her first time directing?
    I'm surprised she'd take on such a challenging picture for the first one.

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  11. @Andrew
    What about "A Place in Time" (2007) ?
    According to imdb she directed it.

    @Dezz
    Not to mention the Serbian camp where the Bosnian girl will be imprisoned.

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  12. @Matt
    yes, the news in August are usually boring :) I can't do anything about it, but I must confess something to you: even though I found it difficult finding interesting film news this month due to a dry period in Hollywood, the number of visitors at this blog has shot up right to the sky, and I'm now having 1000 or even more readers every day since last week. Go figure? :)))

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  13. @Arlee
    first thanks for the wonderful compliment on my language (in)competence :)) And secondly, yes I've noticed that some of your readers got your last post seriously. I also thought you were serious although I was kinda suspicious about the unusual tone :) I guess next time you should put a big smiley in the end of a humorous post :)))

    @Andrew
    she says it's her directorial debut, and I personally have no idea.

    @Mike
    yes, yes, that one will be super-prejudiced. Russians and Serbians always the bad guys, even though those two nations fought against evil in both WWs and had the biggest number of casualties. I guess history means nothing today.

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  14. I'm kinda not excited about Jolie's project. It would be good though to have enough backing to write AND direct your own film ;)

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  15. Wow, this was some really interesting Angelina news here! But you know how a lot of big-name actors are with their politics and wanting to broadcast it to the world...

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  16. I didn't know about the Jolie movie. I think I am kind of intrigued.

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  17. Dezz buddy, you have a rockin' award awaiting you!

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  18. @Lynda, Amanda, Miss Pery
    well, it seems there's now a chance that Angelina's movie won't even happen because famous Serbian director Emir Kusturica is planning to sue her, since this plot of hers seems terribly identical to the plot of his Cannes Film Festival film LIFE IS A MIRACLE in which the story was also about love between a Serbian man and a Muslim woman who is his war prisoner.

    @Alex
    thanks, Alex, I shall check it out immediately :)

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  19. I wonder what Jolie's planning. You'll definitely have to let us know what the word is over there.

    Btw, and this is so tangential it's not even funny, but I'm assuming you've seen BALKANCAN. What did you think?

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  20. Glad to hear Ryan Phillipe will get a chance to shine! Angelina needs to leave politics out of here; Sounds like it has already started. Sorry!

    You cracked me up with the Tom Cruise comparison,"even thought his daisies aren't blooming." He may just have to join his wife on broadway...

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  21. Love Jolie.
    She's leads such an interesting life!
    Keep us updated!

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  22. Oh really? Well, we shall see.

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  23. @Rosie
    very vaguely, I think it's something Macedonian, not really popular around Ex Yugoslavia.

    @Ana
    welcome to Hollywood Spy, Ana ;)

    @Ellie
    well, Tom really is gone with the wind :)

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  24. Yes, Ryan Phillipe would do very well w/ that role. I hope he'll also have a few scenes looking like he does in the above picture.

    Am curious about Angelina Jolie's directorial debut. I know she's written a book, haven't read it yet, but didn't know she also wrote screenplays. Will be interesting to see how it all turns out.

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  25. Yes, Lisa, we wouldn't mind Ryan looking like that in any film :)
    Well, if you read one of my comments above you'll see that we are not sure whether she writes or steals screenplays :)

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