Author Archives: Candace Ramirez

About Candace Ramirez

"Sun is bad for you. Everything our parents said was good is bad. Sun, milk, red meat... college." -Woody Allen Accomplished wearer of dresses.

Tie-In Novel To Be Released For The Dark Knight Rises

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Titan Books announced Monday that the official tie-in novel for The Dark Knight Rises will be released July 20, the same day as the film premiere. The Dark Knight Rises, to be released by Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures, will be the final installment in director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.

The film will be adapted to novel form by award-winning author Greg Cox, and published by Titan Books, according to a press release.

Cox has novelized DC Comics Universe stories before, including Infinite Crisis (2006), 52 (2007), Countdown (2009) and Final Crisis (2010).

Nick Landau, a publisher for Titan Books, said he is excited to be involved with the Batman project.

“Batman is one of the most iconic characters of popular culture,” he said. “We’re tremendously excited to work with Warner Bros. on the novelization of ‘The Dark Knight Rises,’ especially since it is the culmination of everything Christopher Nolan has done with his amazing trilogy. This is a part of motion picture history.”

Christian Bale, Liam Neeson and Gary Oldman will reprise their roles in the film. This will be the last film in the series, however, as Christian Bale has decided to leave the franchise.

Additions to the cast include Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada) as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception) as John Blake and Tom Hardy (Inception) as the film’s primary villain, Bane.

The official plot of the film and tie-in novel will follow the events of the previous film. After the death of Harvey Dent, Batman assumes responsibility for the crimes committed by Dent. He is subsequently hunted down by the police of Gotham City. Then eight years later, Batman returns to Gotham City where he meets the mysterious and alluring Selina Kyle, also known as Catwoman, as he tries to stop villainous Bane from destroying the city.

The Dark Knight Rises will be released in theaters and book form on July 20th, 2012.

Netflix To Premiere Exclusive Horror Series Hemlock Grove

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Horror connoisseurs Eli Roth and Brian McGreevy are creating a new series to be released exclusively on Netflix Instant. The new series, “Hemlock Grove” will premiere an entire 13-episode season for viewers to watch at their own convenience, or marathon on Netflix Streaming.

Due to the success of horror-based shows “The Walking Dead” and “American Horror Story”, other filmmakers are looking to capitalize on the genre’s budding mainstream popularity.

While some of these contenders (among them a revamp of “The Munsters”) are likely just jumping on the bandwagon, Roth and McGreevy hope to have created something unique.

Roth recently did an interview with the website, ShockTillYouDrop regarding his new television project:

If you do something well and you have an original take on something, then absolutely go for it.”

The series, based on McGreevy’s novel of the same name, has a dark and mysterious premise. The official synopsis describes it as:

The body of a young girl is found mangled and murdered in the woods of Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania, in the shadow of the abandoned Godfrey Steel mill. A manhunt ensues—though the authorities aren’t sure if it’s a man they should be looking for. Some suspect an escapee from the White Tower, a foreboding biotech facility owned by the Godfrey family—their personal fortune and the local economy having moved on from Pittsburgh steel—where, if rumors are true, biological experiments of the most unethical kind take place. Others turn to Peter Rumancek, a Gypsy trailer-trash kid who has told impressionable high school classmates that he’s a werewolf. Or perhaps it’s Roman, the son of the late JR Godfrey, who rules the adolescent social scene with the casual arrogance of a cold-blooded aristocrat, his superior status unquestioned despite his decidedly freakish sister, Shelley, whose monstrous medical conditions belie a sweet intelligence, and his otherworldly control freak of a mother, Olivia.

Roth went on to tell the site that the series will deal with the supernatural.

It’s actually a drama set in this world and has the themes of vampires and werewolves and monster mythology, Frankenstein mythology. It’s this new biotech world.”

Fans of Roth’s blood-and-guts style of direction need not worry about the show being toned down for television. Being a Netflix Original, Roth won’t have to worry about advertisers or ratings boards. He’ll be able to focus on content without having to censor himself, allowing for more mature subject matter.

That’s what I liked about it. That we could do something that was adult subject matter, and if we want to go dark and violent, we can.  If we want to have the language, we can. We have the freedom to do something like it’s on cable… to go as R-rated or as NC-17 as we want. Where the teenagers could really behave like modern adolescents.”

While gore and shock value are crucial elements in Roth’s films, he said the story will be his top priority with “Hemlock Grove.”

We don’t want to make a show where you watch one episode and go, ‘Oh God, why did I see that?’ Roth said. “I want people to watch the show and go, ‘Holy fuck, I can’t believe what they did on Hemlock Grove. Did you see that transformation scene? That was awesome, I want to watch more.’ I think there’s a fine line between kicking an audience’s ass and making them feel like they’ve been kicked in the balls.”

On March 21, 2012, Netflix announced that “Hemlock Grove” will be coming to the instant streaming collection in early 2013.

Emily Blunt Joins All You Need Is Kill Adaptation

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Warner Bros. has chosen Emily Blunt to co-star with Tom Cruise in an adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka‘s 2004 sci-fi graphic novel All You Need Is Kill.

The story can be likened to Groundhog Day, but with a twist, according to Variety.com.

“A soldier in a war against aliens finds himself reliving his last day over and over after being killed,“ according to Variety.com. “Through the training and battles he experiences in these time loops, he becomes a better soldier.”

The official summary of the graphic novel is as follows:

There’s one thing worse than dying. It’s coming back to do it again and again… When the alien Gitai invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many raw recruits shoved into a suit of battle armor and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to find himself reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On the 158th iteration though, he sees something different, something out of place: the female soldier known as the Bitch of War. Is the Bitch the key to Keiji’s escape, or to his final death?

Blunt, who is most known for her role on The Adjustment Bureau as well as the upcoming film The Five Year Engagement, will be cast as another soldier, fighting alongside Cruise.

Doug Liman, whose credits include The Bourne Identity, as well as the rest of the Bourne trilogy, will be directing the film.

Though certainly similar to Groundhog Day, the plot of All You Need Is Kill sounds like it could make for an interesting movie. Big screen adaptations of graphic novels have been popular in recent years, as proven by The Walking Dead, whose second season finale received a record-breaking number of views.

Liman has a history of directing successful films, so Sakurazaka’s work is most likely in  good hands.

The film, dubbed “We Mortals Are,” is set to be released in 2013.

 

Hunger Games Star, Liam Hemsworth, Gains Paranoia

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Liam Hemsworth, one of the stars from The Hunger Games, has signed on to star in the big-screen adaptation of Joseph Finder’s New York Times bestselling novel Paranoia.

“Paranoia tells the story of a young man, unhappy with his job, who funds a co-worker’s retirement party with company money,” according to Deadline.com. “Caught by his boss, he is given the choice of embezzlement charges or spying on the company’s competitor to steal top-secret project information.”

Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman are also likely to star, though they are both working on other projects.

Ford is currently filming Ender’s Game, and Oldman just completed filming The Dark Knight Rises.

Robert Luketic is set to direct the film although the choice is somewhat unexpected. Luketic’s body of work includes romantic comedies such as Legally Blonde, Monster-in-Law and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton.

Luketic’s two current projects, however, suggest he may be looking to get more serious. Aside from Paranoia, he is also working on Brilliant, a thriller starring Gerard Butler that is set to be released next year.

Those wondering whether Luketic can effectively handle weightier genres may want to check out 21, his 2008 Vegas crime drama.

Though a departure from his usual template, the film received mixed reviews, including a 35 percent rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Reviewers on the film rating site said Luketic took a fascinating true story, and added melodrama and glitz until the premise was lost, resulting in a dull final product.

If Luketic can use his past criticisms to improve his storytelling skills, he may be able to effectively tell Finder’s story.

See the full synopsis from Finder’s official website below:

Adam Cassidy is twenty-six and a low-level employee at a high-tech corporation who hates his job. When he manipulates the system to do something nice for a friend, he finds himself charged with a crime. Corporate Security gives him a choice: prison—or become a spy in the headquarters of their chief competitor, Trion Systems.

They train him. They feed him inside information. Now, at Trion, he’s a star, skyrocketing to the top. He finds he has talents he never knew he possessed. He’s rich, drives a Porsche, lives in a fabulous apartment, and works directly for the CEO. He’s dating the girl of his dreams.

His life is perfect. And all he has to do to keep it that way is betray everyone he cares about and everything he believes in.

But when he tries to break off from his controllers, he finds he’s in way over his head, trapped in a world in which nothing is as it seems and no one can really be trusted.

And then the real nightmare begins. . . .  

There is no word yet on who will star in the project, or an expected release date.

 

Walking Dead Creator Announces New Series For AMC

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AMC announced Wednesday that Robert Kirkman is adapting his newest graphic novel series, Thief of Thieves for the cable television network.

The Walking Dead writer/executive producer is working with Chic Eglee (Dexter, The Shield) and David Alpert (The Walking Dead) to develop the new show.

Kirkman, who still writes monthly issues of The Walking Dead, has released two issues of Thief of Thieves, each of which sold out on its respective release date.

The third issue was released on April 11th from Skybound/Image Comics.

Though The Walking Dead continues to break viewership records with its portrayal of the zombie apocalypse (the season two finale drew 9 million total viewers, according to The Hollywood Reporter), viewers of Kirkman’s new show will notice a distinct lack of “walkers.”

Thief of Thieves, as its title suggests, is instead a heist story. The series is about Conrad Paulson, “the world’s greatest thief,” according to skybound.com.

He vows to steal only what’s already been stolen, in an effort to right the great wrongs of his life. But he may be too late for redemption.”

Kirkman said he hopes his adaptation will bring something new to television, just as The Walking Dead did.

Much like The Walking Dead brought horror to television in a unique and groundbreaking way, I feel Thief of Thieves can do the same thing for heist stories, showing the humanity of all the characters, including the criminals,” Kirkman said in an AMC release.

While the announcement has evoked much excitement from Kirkman’s fans, one question seems prevalent.

Will starting the show so early in the comic series compromise the quality or direction of the story?

Not much of the story will have been fleshed out, so characters and arcs could have to develop simultaneously. For most writers, this would seem a daunting task, but Kirkman’s track record suggests there is no need to worry.

Kirkman said he feels his work is in good hands at AMC, which adds to the success of his projects.

AMC recognizes the limitless ideas generated by the comic industry,” Kirkman said in a release. “Their dedication to bringing The Walking Dead to life as a TV show has been key to its success and I’m excited about the potential of Thief of Thieves to reach similar levels of success.”