movie news roundup!

[naushika]

This post brought to you by an attempt to post to my dw more and not restrict all my interesting fandom thoughts to tumblr!

First up:

All-but-confirmed casting rumors for the next installments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

- Bradley Cooper to be the voice of Rocket Raccoon in GotG (that get your attention, beyondthepen? XD). I have no strong feelings about this.

- Elizabeth Olsen to be Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch in Avengers 2: Age of Ultron.



She definitely looks the part. A very, very young part. I wish they were casting Wanda (and Pietro) older. But I will live with it. I don't have any opinion on if she can do Wanda because I've never seen her act in anything. But Marvel hasn't really let me down so far.. there is not a single actor in their current roles I don't think is doing a great job. So until the MCU lets me down, I will trust in their casting choices. :D

Second up:

Apparently talks started back in 2011 to do a feature re-make of Stephen King's The Stand. Apparently (and I say apparently for all this because I hadn't heard about any of this before) Ben Affleck was originally set to direct, and today it was announced Ben Affleck was being replaced by Scott Cooper. Interesting the news comes a day after we find out he was cast as Batman (still loling over that over here).

Am I the only one that thinks a Stand movie is a horrible idea? I'm not actually one of the book purists that gets absolutely enraged when any part of a book is dropped for a film adaption. I totally recognize that some stuff must be removed or edited to make a film work. (Eg you don't see me upset that the HP movies completely cut out the SPEW storylines or that Daniel Radcliffe's eyes were the wrong color.) But The Stand is one of those books that there is SO MUCH material, and SO MUCH of it is super relevant to the plot and story, that I don't think a simple ~2 hour movie can possibly capture everything the book tries to say. The multipart Stand miniseries, even being 16 hours, STILL cut out a lot. I'm sorry but there's no way you can cram 1000 pages into 2 hours and have it come out resembling the original story. Not to say it wouldn't still be a GOOD movie. But. I'm just really unsure about this.

Now, a SERIES of Stand movies might be okay. I would watch, like, anywhere from 3 to 6 Stand movies spread out over a few years. Eh? Eh? Let's do that! Still less hours of material than the first miniseries, but, at least it wouldn't be compressing everything into 2 hours.

Comments

[queer_theory]

I'm definitely with you on The Stand. I was disappointed with the miniseries (not everything about it, but A LOT of things about it), and I can't imagine a film capturing that book any better than the miniseries did. And I get that there are things that have to be different too. I even get that the original release of the book was very good and that cut out a number of things released later (I've read both versions), so it's possible to make the story track without ALL of that information, but still... I'm wary of this.

[naushika]

Yeah, I mean, I think the miniseries did as well as it could. And actually I like a lot of the casting choices (nobody else can ever be Tom Cullen or Randall Flagg or Trashcan Man or Stu Redman to me..), just, on the whole it was a mediocre result. So I'm very wary!

[queer_theory]

I agree about Tom Cullen and Trashcan Man, though I could totally see other people as Randall Flagg and Stu Redman (though I did love the casting on both, and I can't see Jamey Sheridan as not Randall Flagg when I watch him in things >_>). The only casting choices I really hated were Molly Ringwald as Frannie and Laura San Giacomo as Nadine.

[naushika]

Heh, yeah, Frannie and Nadine were the two weakest spots for me too. Also I could take or leave Corin Nemec as Harold Lauder. I think a lot of the casting choices were just.. who is well known/popular right now? Let's cast them! (Also, yep, I totally watched like 4 seasons of Law & Order Criminal Intent and called Jamey Sheridan's character Randall Flag the entire time, lol.)

[queer_theory]

YES. I totally agree about Corin Nemec. I loved his television show, but him as Harold just... didn't work for me. I think one of my favorite casting choices was Rob Lowe as Nick Andros. I was really pleased by how that turned out, though skeptical at the time.

[outoftime]

The Stand is my favorite book ever and there is no way in hell they can do it properly in a feature length movie. I thought the Miniseries in the 90's did a good job, and that was 6.5 hours. I am not looking forward to this, especially seeing how much they messed up Under the Dome.

[naushika]

Oh, it was only 6.5 hours? For some reason I thought it was longer! They did pretty well with just 6 hours then. But yeah, it would never work with 2 hours.. never! It might be a fine movie but it won't really be The Stand.

And omg Under the Dome is just bad.. so bad. Yikes.

[outoftime]

Well, it was technically 8 hours, but I deducted commercial time.

I am so disappointed with Under the Dome, you don't even know. I read and LOVED the book this summer, and the show is a mere shadow of the book. It's a shame.

[beyondthepen]

UGH WHY DID YOU MAKE ME LOG ON TO DREAMWIDTH

BUT BRADLEYYYYYY

[naushika]

LMAO. YOU'RE WELCOME. :D

[kungfuwaynewho]

The Stand is by far my favorite Stephen King book, and I do like a lot about the miniseries, but yeah. It's not great. As much as I love Gary Sinise as Stu and Bill Faberbakke as Tom Cullen (honestly, those are the only two I just can't imagine being recast), most of the rest of the casting is...not great. Who honestly thought Molly Ringwald was a good idea?!

I just can't see it working as a movie at all. And I think even a miniseries isn't quite enough time. A limited, single season series would work, but it's so rare to see those on American TV. American Horror Story: The Stand, mayhap?

I've never seen Elizabeth Olsen in anything, either, but she got raves for MMMM, so I'm pretty optimistic. Young, but who isn't these days in Hollywood.