Rushes Returns – Tonight’s Movie News Mountain | Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV News and Rumors

That’s the cover to the Green Lantern Blu-ray. More news on the surprising addition to this release in a moment…

I’m still trying to catch up on some of the small stories missed when I was ill, and it seems like good value to mix them with some off-kilter stuff, so here’s my second Rushes post in 24 hours. I wish I could find the time to do one very 24 hours, to be honest.

Now, the various versions of the Green Lantern DVD and Blu-ray release have been announced and the surprise inclusion is an extended version of the film. This will in 2D only, but included with both the 3D and 2D Blu-ray sets – and not on the DVD set at all. Is this going to represent Martin Campbell‘s preferred cut of the film or is it just an all-in edit looking to mop up dollars? Doesn’t really matter anyway – the script was fundamentally faulty from the core. Adding to the film won’t fix this.

Universal have pulled the plug on another expensive picture. This time the victim is Ouija, an adventure film based on the occult artefact/fun children’s toy. McG was attached to direct, and he and producer Michael Bay now have the chance to take the project to another studio. I just consulted with the spirts of the otherside/my idiomotor effect, and the sliding glass said “No chance”. Paramount have already passed. [NYMag]

Lee Unkrich reminded the world via Twitter that Toy Story wasn’t always going to be called Toy Story and had a whole raft of possible other titles. I can’t imagine some of these were considered for more than a couple of seconds:

Bring Me The Arm of Buzz Lightyear
Wind the Frog
Rex’s First Movie
For the Love of Peep
Toyz in the Hood
Each Sold Separately
Wings & Pullstrings
Some Assembly Required
The Favorite

Pinewood Sheperton are reporting a 68% increase in revenues from film production now that they’ve canned TV. [Independent]

In 1972, Sydney Pollack shot a documentary film detailing Aretha Franklin‘s Amazing Grace tour and the recording of her live album of the same name. It was never released, but now it looks like the rights have changed hands and plans were starting to get underway to bring it to the screen… until Aretha’s lawyers stepped in. Apparently she might negotiate a deal for the film’s release “at some time in the future”. When the price is right, perhaps? [TMZ]

Jane Lynch has a new book out and by Jiminy does she want you to know it.

Chazz Palminteri played Mafioso man Paul Castellano in the old TV movie Boss of Bosses. He’s about to repeat the trick, a decade down the line, for Barry Levinson‘s Gotti. Does this make it a sequel? Can I at least say it does? Please? [Variety]

As well as The Iron Lady, which will see Meryl Streep play the infamous milk snatcher on the big screen, there’s going to be a small screen biopic for the wicked witch next year too. Forging The Iron Lady will recount the events of Margaret Thatcher’s ascendancy to leadership of the Tory Party in 1975. She was only a green grocer’s daughter, you know. A green grocer’s daughter who sold her country down the river. [The Wrap]

Telltale Games are to release retail versions of their movie tie-in games, such as Back to the Future and Jurassic Park. [Joystiq]

You can now watch The Godfather for free and legally via YouTube. The quality isn’t up to DVD even, really, but… er… no. I can’t see an upside. Just buy the Blu-ray or DVD, or borrow it from your local lending library. [Badass Digest]

Yearbook photos of Scarlett Johansson, Ryan Reynolds, Jennifer Lopez et al. prove that, yes, they did go to school. [Daily Mail]

: Justin Timberlake used to be quite a looker, what went wrong?

Christian Bale might be in any one of the following films: Darren Aronofsky‘s Noah; Michael Mann‘s Gold; Clint Eastwood‘s do-over of A Star is Born; as the villain in Spike Lee‘s new take on Oldboy; or Scott Cooper‘s Out of the Furnace. Any of those could be his first engagement after The Dark Knight Rises… or none of them. And what he’d do next is even less predictable. But for now at least we’ve got five likely options on. Anybody care to place a bet? [Variety]

Lynn Cooper says that reshoots to John Carter tempered her character’s fighting scenes. Originally, she says, the filmmakers were trying to make Dejah Thoris into a real scrapper but they since went back, refilmed the sequences and took out “a lot of punches”. [Collider]

The Whistleblower stars Rachel Weisz as a UN peace keeper who finds out that her colleagues are complicit in the sex trade in Bosnia. It’s now going to be screened to the UN. Can’t imagine they’ll be serving popcorn at that screening. [Deadline]

Guillermo Del Toro is still planning to bring us At The Mountains of Madness, thank heavens. He says:

I will do anything to do MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS the right way. It was a very hard decision not to compromise on the rating from the get-go.

Bless him.[Ain't It Cool]

Here’s a trailer for Hell, an apocalyptic thriller from Germany. It was produced by Roland Emmerich who, at this point, has me thinking he actually gets off on the notion of civilization’s final collapse. Brrrr.

The Kung Fu Panda 2 disc is to feature something called The Animator’s Corner. It’s virtually the same runtime as the film so I suppose it’s a picture in picture thing – hey, and it will probably be in the corner. And have animators. Anyhow, I look forward to it. [BBFC]

A UFO expert is fielding questions on Reddit as part of the promotions for Apollo 18.

Has Sesame Street made names like Grover and Elmo more or less popular? [Canada.com]

David Foster joins the ranks of would be Star Trek resurrectionists with his pitch for a new TV series in the franchise. He says he has “a solid 5-7 year series plan, pilot script and a conceptualized finale that intends to define Star Trek for generations.” I say he has a snowball and CBS is as hot as hell. Good luck, though. [TrekWeb]

The Art of the Adventures of Tintin is being translated into French, Dutch, Spanish and Japanese. Here’s hoping the title scans better in one of those. [Wetanz]

There’s Muppet nail polish now. It connects the rainbow from “Gettin’ Miss Piggy With It” to “Fresh Frog of Bel Air”. What’s with all the Will Smith business? Does he have a stake in this somehow? [Hollywood Life]

The sequel to Taken, which could easily be called something delicious like Retaken, Taken Again or Takens but I bet they just go for Taken 2, will film this October. [Coming Soon]

Here’s some sad news about the director of Taken 2 via Twitter.

Sad news, folks - Olivier Megaton is a nom de plume.

August 24, 2011 3:53 pm via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@JHoffman6

Jordan Hoffman

COLOMBIANA director Olivier Megaton "takes his name from his birthday ... the 20th anniversary of the dropping of the Hiroshima A-bomb."

August 24, 2011 12:20 pm via webReply RetweetFavorite

@TimGrierson

Tim Grierson

Raol Ruiz‘ final book will be published in January. The director died this week, aged 70. The book is called, with some sad irony, L’Esprit D’Escalier. [Lexpress]

Anne Hathaway says she learned her awful Yorkshire accent in One Day from watching Emmerdale. But… what else could she have picked up from this most daffy of soaps? [Guardian]

Doc Savage meets Tarzan meets a vampire in Cambodia – that’s the loose idea that people are picking up from a new spec script sale. The project doesn’t have a director, or even a name yet, but it does have the same producers as the new Conan the Barbarian. Oops. [Hollywood Reporter]

Isaiah Washington is going to play a recurring role on the new Charlie’s Angels TV show. He’ll be a detective. Maybe he’ll get to ride a horse. That would be good. The internet would like that. [TVline]

Mech battling combat game Hawken might well be a movie before you know it. It’s apparently Romeo and Juliet meets District 9. [Wrap]

Adam Green today tweeted this image from The Diary of Anne Frankenstein, his superb installment of the Chillerama exploitation anthology. Here you have Kane Hodder as… well, you can see who. Wait until you see his hair. Brilliant. [Lockerz]

Justin Lin has lined up a slate of projects at Universal. These include a new Terminator film, very possibly with Arnold Schwarzenegger back on board; an untitled tale of the 442 Japanese American batallion in WWII; and an adaption of Leading Man, the comic by B. Clay Moore and Jeremy Haun. I vote for the latter. If you don’t know it, just check out this blurb:

There’s more to the world’s hottest actor than sexy starlets, tabloid gossip and primo parts, because Nick Walker isn’t just a Hollywood hunk, he’s also a superspy! When a routine investigation off the coast of France turns up a terrorist training facility, Nick must juggle espionage and screen time in this explosive and astonishing adventure!

And all because the lady loves Milk Tray. [Deadline]

Jonah Hill has joined the cast of Akiva Shaffer‘s Neighbourhood Watch. Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn are already on board for a story about a bunch of guys using neighbourhood watch as an excuse to get together and be guyish… until they discover an alien conspiracy in their ‘hood. [Deadline]

Okay. That’s going to have to be enough for now. Goodnight.