cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/20565434

> > Len Deighton published his first spy novel, The Ipcress File, shortly after the blockbuster success of the very first Bond movie, Dr. No. When The Ipcress File became a bestseller, Bond producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli tapped Deighton to pen the script for the sequel, From Russia with Love. Not much of his screenplay made it to the final film, but the producers enjoyed working with Deighton. > > > >Saltzman decided to adapt The Ipcress File for the screen in the hope of launching a second spy movie franchise that could run alongside the Bond films. He cast Caine to play the lead role of Palmer, with the aim of bringing him back for an endless string of sequels. The Ipcress File was conceived as the polar opposite of the Bond films, with a naturalistic style drawing from the world of kitchen-sink drama. It seemed like a sure-fire path to success, but the Palmer movies never reached the same blockbuster heights as the Bond movies. > > > > ... > > > > Palmer’s stories are the opposite of Bond’s in every way. Whereas the Bond movies offered lighthearted escapism, the Palmer movies offered gritty realism. Whereas Bond is characterized as posh and upper-class, Palmer is a working-class hero. Whereas the Bond films carried an optimistic message about good triumphing over evil and maintaining the world order, the Palmer films took a bleaker and more pessimistic approach to their storytelling. The cynical tone and grounded, naturalistic style of the Palmer movies had more in common with John le Carré’s espionage stories than 007’s globetrotting adventures.

> While investigating the history of a newly discovered ancient artifact, a renowned archaeologist (Jackie Chan) unwittingly establishes a mystical connection with a heroic Han dynasty general, blurring the lines between past and present right as the general prepares to wage war against the brutal Hun army.

Featuring a de-aged Jackie Chan!

Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1gwc08m/oc_the_10_highest_grossing_film_directors_of_all/

> Writer-director Jim Abrahams, who co-wrote and co-directed some of the most iconic comedy films of the 1980s including “The Naked Gun” and “Airplane!” (aka. “Flying High”), has died. He was 80. Abrahams died of natural causes at his home in Santa Monica according to his son Joseph in a statement issued to THR. Together with […]

> It’s only a few months away, but Marvel isn’t done with their endless tinkering on “Captain America: Brave New World.” > >Yes, scooper Daniel Richtman (via CBM) is reporting that a third round of test screenings for the film recently took place, and once again the reaction wasn’t what Marvel had hoped for. More changes are being done on the film. > >It’s not clear how extensive this new additional photography is, and whether “director” Julius Onah is present, but there’s gotta be an end to all of this, right? The film gets released a little over two months from now. > >Recently, a rep close to the ‘Brave New World’ production wrote to me, and described the additional photography as “standard in the business, and specially on large films requiring pick up.” > >This is the third round of reshoots on ‘Brave New World.’ Earlier in the year, Marvel got to see a rough cut of the film, but felt the action scenes “were not big or satisfying enough.” A poorly rated test-screening didn’t help. Word was that three major action sequences were being reshot from scratch.

> “The Scarlet Drop,” a work of legendary six-time Oscar-winning American filmmaker John Ford, has been found nearly in its entirety after being lost for over a century reports The National News.

The 1918 film follows Harry ‘Kaintuck’ Ridge (Harry Carey) who skips out on the American Civil War to join a gang of marauders and at the end of the war finds himself a fugitive.

Going west, he becomes a bandit and ends up winning the love of a woman he has taken captive after holding up a stage coach.

It was one of 26 westerns Ford made with Carey, the most prolific partnership of Ford’s career even as his work with John Wayne remains his most famous partnership. Ford’s career ultimately spanned over 130 films and more than 50 years from 1917-1970.

Until this discovery, only about 30 minutes of footage from the film existed in the Getty Archive with no full cut thought to remain intact.

The movie was rediscovered by the owner of a warehouse in Santiago, Chile just one day before it was set to be demolished. Going through the building’s contents, the owner discovered a trove of films once owned by a local collector and left untouched for forty years after his death.

The owner contacted a film academic and film festival director who rescued the films from being discarded. It was digitised but is still in need of a full restoration and there are still some “missing partial aspects of the film”.

Plans for a wider release of the film have not been announced.

> Ridley Scott plans on making a Gladiator threequel, and his greatest inspiration is The Godfather trilogy. The director told USA Today that “Yes, it’s true,” Gladiator III is on the way, and his ideas for it trace back to the mafia drama by Francis Ford Coppola. He said: “I sat and pondered all this over a weekend, and I realized, well, I’m stealing this whole notion from Francis.” > >Gladiator II to the progression of the Corleone family in the first two Godfather movies. In the new sequel, Lucius (Paul Mescal) is living peacefully in a far-off Roman colony, yet he is still dragged back to the Colosseum by force – just like his father Maximus (Russell Crowe) in the first movie. Scott compared this to The Godfather II, saying: “At the end of The Godfather, you see that Michael doesn’t want the job at all. I just love that idea of a guy who’s inherited a role that he just cannot get out of. That really intrigues me.”

> The last "Star Trek" feature film released in theaters was "Star Trek Beyond" back in 2016. The movie was directed by Justin Lin, the filmmaker behind "Better Luck Tomorrow" and several of the "Fast and Furious" movies, and it was co-written by Simon Pegg, who also played Scotty in the film. "Beyond," the third film in the Kelvin timeline, was ... pretty good. The action was clear and the character work was solid — the entire cast brought their A-games — but the film overall was generic action nonsense; it was the fourth "Star Trek" film in a row about a twisted villain on a mission of revenge. Sadly, "Beyond" wasn't as big a hit as Paramount wanted, and it seemed to be the end of the road for "Star Trek" in theaters. > >Ever since, though, Paramount has been persistently struggling to make a fourth "Star Trek" movie set in the Kelvin timeline. As of this writing, some new plans are afoot to finally make said film along with a prequel movie set at an earlier point in the "Star Trek" timeline. Given how many false starts there have been on "Star Trek 4," however, one will simply have to bide their time to see if anything comes to fruition > > ... > > In an interview with Katee Sackhoff on "The Sackhoff Show," Pegg talked a little bit about his "Star Trek" experiences. In doing so, he admitted he has a hard time imagining "Star Trek 4" ever getting made, seeing as it would be "tainted" by Yelchin's absence. > > ... > >> "I'd love to do more. Obviously, it's been forever tainted because we lost Anton, and that was a really hard thing for everyone involved, and for the real world, let alone anything else. If we do come back, if there is another opportunity to come back, I'd love to. Because as we were saying earlier on, it's a group of guys that I dearly, dearly love and don't get to see very often [...] It would be good to get back together with them."

> It’s Thanksgiving and all the films that are potential Best Picture contenders have screened for AMPAS, guild, and select press. Granted, we’re still not entirely sure who the winner will be, that’s still very much up for grabs, but the pretenders are starting to reveal themselves. > >The last movie to screen was James Mangold’s “A Complete Unknown” — the film itself has been politely approved of but it sounds more like an acting showcase than a best picture contender. Regardless, with the exception of ‘Complete Unknown,’ I’ve now seen everything that needs to be seen, “Anora” and “Conclave” are still the top two films to beat — nothing else comes close in my estimation. This is how I currently have the race ranked: > >1) “Anora” >2) “Conclave” >3) “The Brutalist” >4) “Emilia Perez” >5) “Dune: Part II” >6) “A Real Pain” >7) “Sing Sing” >8) “Wicked” >9) “Nickel Boys” >10) “A Complete Unknown”

It was on my list because of the soundtrack, so when I didn't hear the iconic track at all during the movie I looked it up.

Turns out that there is a re-scored version with a completely different soundtrack, and that was the version we got...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04p5k25

> . Featuring an exclusive new soundtrack curated by Zane Lowe.

I will be watching this movie again next weekend, with the proper soundtrack

> Stahelski says:

“We’re bringing it forward from the early 1500s in the highlands to the beyond present-day New York and Hong Kong, and seeing how it goes. There’s big opportunity for action.

There’s a chance to play a character that not a lot of people get to play. And it’s a bit of a love story, but not how you think. On ‘John Wick,’ I learned a lot on how to bend the storytelling a little… another kind of myth.”

Stahelski then goes on to explain how he pitched the project to Cavill and the uniqueness of the role being one of its draws:

“My selling point was, to [Henry Cavill], look, you’ve got a guy that’s been alive for over 500 years. He’s the last person in the world that wanted to be in this situation. So you get to cover quite a broad spread of a character arc there. And you get to experience someone that’s trained over 500 years and sort of played [with many types of] martial arts.”