The Batmobile has had quite the evolution since actual volition appeared in the ’60s television version to its altogether super-suped up version heading your way in The Dark Knight Rises . Its latest incarnation includes some nifty gadgetry including a rocket launcher, the vehicle’s creator Andy Smith told Beyond The Trailer host Grace Randolph at Comic-Con where the vehicle, aka The Tumbler, is on display along with previous versions of The Batmobile. Smith has a history in race car work and worked on a car for a James Bond film and for an earlier Batmobile back in ’89. The current Tumbler is a hybrid of a Humvee and Lamborghini and it’s the only one that has ever been named something other than a ‘Batmobile.’ Smith gives a rundown of interesting factoids in the video below, including Christopher Nolan and production designer Nathan Crowley’s hand in creating The Tumbler after toying with various model kits. Of note, The Tumbler is 9 feet, 2 inches wide and 15 feet, 2 inches in length. Those stats keep it from being street-worthy at least legally speaking. It also has a top speed of 110mph, but “film makes it look much faster,” Smith notes. The video also shows previous Batmobiles including an interview with one owner and an interview with an early Batmobile designer who also designed many other famous on-screen vehicles including four-wheel stars appearing in Knight Rider , The Dukes of Hazzard and even The Monkees .
The Batmobile has had quite the evolution since actual volition appeared in the ’60s television version to its altogether super-suped up version heading your way in The Dark Knight Rises . Its latest incarnation includes some nifty gadgetry including a rocket launcher, the vehicle’s creator Andy Smith told Beyond The Trailer host Grace Randolph at Comic-Con where the vehicle, aka The Tumbler, is on display along with previous versions of The Batmobile. Smith has a history in race car work and worked on a car for a James Bond film and for an earlier Batmobile back in ’89. The current Tumbler is a hybrid of a Humvee and Lamborghini and it’s the only one that has ever been named something other than a ‘Batmobile.’ Smith gives a rundown of interesting factoids in the video below, including Christopher Nolan and production designer Nathan Crowley’s hand in creating The Tumbler after toying with various model kits. Of note, The Tumbler is 9 feet, 2 inches wide and 15 feet, 2 inches in length. Those stats keep it from being street-worthy at least legally speaking. It also has a top speed of 110mph, but “film makes it look much faster,” Smith notes. The video also shows previous Batmobiles including an interview with one owner and an interview with an early Batmobile designer who also designed many other famous on-screen vehicles including four-wheel stars appearing in Knight Rider , The Dukes of Hazzard and even The Monkees .
The last pre- Dark Knight Rises weekend at the multiplex came and went without much incident, unless you call The Amazing Spider-Man losing his grip on the No. 1 spot after one week an “incident.” You decide! Either way, your Weekend Receipts are here. 1. Ice Age: Continental Drift Gross: $46,000,000 (new) Screens: 3,881 (PSA: $11,853) Weeks: 1 The Ice Age franchise celebrated its 10th anniversary by rolling its opening-weekend domestic gross back to 2002 prices — the fourth installment of the series earned almost precisely what the original earned out of gate a decade ago. It still amounts to only the third highest opening of the series, but Fox will take it (not to mention deposing one-week wonder The Amazing Spider-Man for No. 1). 2. The Amazing Spider-Man Gross: $35,000,000 ($200,900,000) Screens: 4,318 (PSA $8,106) Weeks: 2 (Change: -43.6%) It took 11 days — including a holiday — for Sony’s comics reboot to hit the $200 million mark domestically. That’s fine and all, but in the summer of The Avengers and mere days ahead of the Dark Knight Rises megastorm that will wipe Spider-Man off the map, it’s not really good enough, is it? 3. Ted Gross: $22,147,000 ($158,993,000) Screens: 3,303 (PSA: $6,705) Weeks: 3 (Change: -31.2%) Time and time again over the last few weeks, the one conversation that seems to come up among me and people whose taste I generally trust involves the title Ted and the phrase, “It was better than I expected.” If its box-office hold after three weeks is any indication, I am not the only one having this conversation. 4. Brave Gross: $10,695,000 ($195,596,000) Screens: 3,392 (PSA $3,153) Weeks: 4 (Change: -45.5%) Another reasonably good hold here, though what’s really worth watching is how the overseas grosses start to mount over the next two months of foreign rollouts . The slowest of slow burns — Brave indeed! 5. Magic Mike Gross: $9,030,000 ($91,850,000) Screens: 3,090 (PSA $2,922) Weeks: 3 (Change: -42.3%) Yeah, I’d say a sequel might be worth a try. [Figures via Box Office Mojo ] Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Also in Monday morning’s round-up of news briefs, Daniel Radcliffe is set to return to fantasy playing a rape suspect. A trio of titles lead the specialty box office’s newcomers over the weekend. And Roger Ebert breaks down the stats on upcoming dueling The Hobbit and Avatar blockbusters and theaters’ ability to show them. The Absence Wins Top Prize at Comic-Con The sci-fi thriller by writer/director Alex DeMille won the judges’ choice award at Comic-Con. It also won Best Film in the science fiction/fantasy film category. Natural 20 centered on the interactions between four people playing a Dungeons & Dragons-esque game won Best Humor. Glow: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling won Best Documentary and Lost Rites took “best cosmic-oriented film,” THR reports . Seth MacFarlane: “I’d be open to making Ted 2 ” MacFarlane told fans at the American Dad panel during Comic-Con over the weekend that he’d be open to making a Ted 2 , but didn’t elaborate on any possible reunion with co-star Mark Wahlberg. It has become one of the biggest R-rated comedies at the box office, Deadline reports . Daniel Radcliffe to Grow Horns for Next Role The British-born actor will return to fantasy for his next project, starring in Horns , a supernatural thriller directed by Alexandre Aja ( Piranha 3-D ). He will play the lead suspect in the rape and murder of his girlfriend, The Guardian reports . Imposter , Farewell My Queen , Easy Money Lead New Releases: Specialty Box Office A slew of new specialty rollouts hit theaters over the weekend with mixed results. Indomina’s Sundance documentary The Imposter came in as the per-theatre-average winner, with a single location in New York. Other strong specialty openers include Farewell My Queen and Easy Money , Deadline reports . The Mega-Epic Pissing Contest Peter Jackson caused a stir saying he’ll release his upcoming The Hobbit at 48 frames per second, to be released in two parts in December 2012 with the follow-up a year later. James Cameron, meanwhile, plans to shoot Avatar 2 and the follow-up at 60 frames per second. The standard frame rate, however, is 24 frames per second and there are many theaters that do not have that capacity, Roger Ebert breaks it all down .
Recalling his early years mixed with Sixties feminists and Black Panthers, filmmaker John Waters again charmed and amped an audience at the start of Outfest late last week where he received the Los Angeles LGBT film festival’s 2012 Achievement Award. Never one to bore or to deliver a saccharine tale, he implored the audience to take a “Act Bad” and to use humor as a way of social dissent. He told a cheering audience to hail fashion insults outside the homes of anti-gay politicians and told budding filmmakers that if a studio says your story is “too gay,” then to get your “gay screenplay friends and go back to the studios and yell out the grosses of all their hetero-flops.” He talks about being a Yippie (‘to get laid’) in the ’60s and a hilarious chant in London at a protest against the pope. The 30th edition of Outfest runs through July 22nd in L.A.
Breaking Bad got the Comic-Con treatment ahead of tonight’s ultra-anticipated season premiere, with stars Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn and others joining series creator Vince Gilligan in San Diego to talk over all things Walter White — including how television has usurped movies’ standing as the home for serious storytelling for adults. But what of the oft-discussed feature-film treatment that might be in the offing as the two-part final season commences? Movieline pal Grace Randolph was there to talk it over with the Breaking Bad team; click through for her video report. Read more of Movieline’s Comic-Con 2012 coverage here .
Man of Steel enjoyed one of the more bonkers receptions at this weekend’s Comic-Con, culminating in — what else? — a teaser poster just for its San Diego coming-out party. They’ve thought of everything. It doesn’t reveal much of Henry Cavill’s Superman, however, which led Movieline pal Grace Randolph to hit up costume illustrator Phillip Boutte for more details about the look of Zack Snyder’s upcoming blockbuster. Click through for the poster and video.
After bringing 12 minutes of The Hobbit to Comic-Con — where Peter Jackson purposefully did not present footage in the 48 frames per second/3-D presentation that perplexed audiences at CinemaCon — the Lord of the Rings filmmaker spoke further about his desire to explore even more ground in the fantasy universe created by J.R.R. Tolkien. One possibility may be a third Hobbit film culled from Tolkien’s expansive LOTR notes and appendices, though Jackson admitted that the author’s posthumously published Silmarillion might present more of a challenge. Familiar faces filled the screen in the Hobbit preview, which gave Comic-Con fans glimpses of Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel, Ian McKellan’s Gandalf, Orlando Bloom’s Legolas, and new cast member Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins in the two-parter, which will hit screens in December 2012 and 2013. Speaking with press, Jackson acknowledged his choice to present the footage in 2-D rather than the 48 fps that earned mixed-to-negative buzz at CinemaCon. “We have to try to figure out ways to make this cinematic experience much more spectacular, more immersive,” he said. “But you know, Hall H isn’t the place to do it.” Neither is showing just ten minutes of footage in 48 fps an adequate way to introduce the format to thousands of uninitiated fans who may not even be used to big screen 3-D, he insisted. CinemaCon seems to have also taught Jackson not to let 48 fps overshadow the actual film at hand. “I didn’t want to repeat the CinemaCon experience where literally people see this reel and all they write about is 48 frames a second. That doesn’t do us any good. It doesn’t do 48 fps any good. To accurately judge that, you really need to sit down and watch the entire film.” Meanwhile, Jackson and collaborators Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh are in the early stages of looking at a potential third Hobbit film based on the vast 125-page appendices in Tolkien’s Return of the King , some of which was used to flesh out The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again . “Philippa and Fran and I have been talking to the studio about the other things we haven’t been able to shoot and seeing if we can possibly persuade them to do a few more weeks of shooting — possibly more than a few weeks, actually — a bit of additional shooting next year,” Jackson said. “There are other parts of the story that we’d like to tell that we haven’t had the chance to tell yet.” Jackson looked to the additional Tolkien notes to fill in certain character backstories and events missing from the primary texts. “For instance, in The Hobbit where Gandalf mysteriously disappears for chapters on end and it’s not really explained in any detail where he’s gone, much later Tolkien fleshed those out in these appendices,” he explained. “It was altogether a lot more dark and more serious than what was written in The Hobbit . And I do want to make a series of movies that run together so if any crazy lunatic wants to watch them all together in a row, there will be a consistency of tone.” A completist’s cinematic tour of the LOTR world might include Tolkien’s Silmarillion , a collection of universe-building mythology edited and posthumously published by Tolkien’s son Christopher in 1977. The problem, Jackson says, is in who controls the rights to the work. “ The Silmarillion is the big volume, but that’s owned by the Tolkien estate,” he said. “It’s not owned by Warner Bros. or MGM — and I don’t think the Tolkien estate are very fond of these movies, so I wouldn’t expect to see The Silmarillion any time soon.” Read more from Comic-Con 2012 here. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Hold onto your hats, there will be a season 2 of animated series The Legend of Korra . Beyond The Trailer host chatted with actor PJ Byrne who offers up his insider knowledge on a slew of Korra trivia and even found out during his conversation he’s allowed to say there is a second season of the show. He got the OK from a publicist standing nearby and continues to say “a lot happens,” but then he gets a gesture from the handler to say no more… All good, Byrne gives his take on the character he voices, Bolin and the Korra, Mado, Bolin love-triangle (things are apparently complicated). Back in the non-animated world, Byrne notes that he moves around a lot when working the sound booth voicing his character “with a lot of grunting and a lot of jumping around…” He also talks about working with his co-stars and their interaction when at the studio and more…
There’s a case to be made for the idea that Greece has more ghosts than the average country. This argument would involve space – having relatively little, especially for their dead, Greeks rent out cemetery plots for three years maximum before the body is exhumed to make room – but also the fact that Greece’s is one of the more fully recorded histories we have. And what ghosts exist that are not remembered? Alps , the latest from Athens-born director Yorgos Lanthimos, tells a certain kind of ghost story. Lanthimos is most famously the director of 2009’s Dogtooth , the creepy, Oscar-nominated fable of clannish perversion that made the film world sit up and wonder, “What the fuck is up with Greece?” Alps carries over several of that film’s themes and intensifies its aesthetic mood of earthly limbo: Several of its scenes are set in a hospital, the rest are infused with a similarly antiseptic starkness. The tone is one of deadpan discombobulation, a world turned 45 degrees to the left but presented with a clear, dry perspective. Whether you are willing or able to match that perspective will determine the better part of your response to Alps , which opens with a puzzling sequence and only gets weirder from there. A young woman (Ariane Labed) performs a rhythmic gymnastics routine to a swollen orchestral recording, protests to her coach (Johnny Vekris) that she wants to perform to pop music, and is promptly threatened with a grisly death. Next we meet a paramedic (Aris Servetalis) with an odd way of comforting accident victims: “You may be about to die,” he says to a critically injured teenage girl in the back of his ambulance. “Who’s your favorite actor?” As is revealed at the director’s mischievous leisure, that question is more purposeful than it first appears. As the nurse (Aggeliki Papoulia) who receives the ailing teen girl – an accomplished tennis player – tells the girl’s parents, “Death is not the end.” In fact, she offers, after reminding them of how important it is to remember the deceased, it could be the beginning a beautiful relationship, one that involves her stopping by a few times a week and “substituting” for their daughter, equipped with a costume and a few salient preferences, including the fact that her favorite actor is Jude Law. Papoulia (who played the elder sister in Dogtooth ) knows she is not the intuitive choice for this particular gig. That would be Labed (none of the characters are named), the other female in their four-person troupe (including Vekris and Servetalis) of substitutes. They meet in the gym to debrief, try out celebrity impressions, and agree on their group name, Alps, chosen because no other mountain could stand in for an Alp but the Alps could stand in for any other mountain. Resemblance and age-appropriateness are less important than you’d think, as is acting facility: The Alps know their lines (usually) and hit their marks, but that’s about it. The customers don’t require total fidelity — just bring them a body. The troubled, empathetic nurse emerges as the central character, and through her Lanthimos explores the lonely succor of standing in for what’s been lost. He keeps the focus on the substitutes, the customers are only seen in fragments, blurred, or from behind; only their need is felt. There is no talk of money, though we know the first three visits are free. Client requests are highly specific, and usually involve repeating the same lines over and over again; fights and confrontations are reenacted with mordantly wooden timing. The script (which Lanthimos co-wrote with Efthimis Filippou) feels at once tightly controlled and improvisational — each moment is deeply, almost mechanically constructed, and yet they play out in a sequence that is too lax for too long. The layering at work is so subtle as to seem incidental; Lanthimos resists easy signposts or even a clear demarcation of the lanes, never letting us settle on what to make of this misfit, distinctly patriarchal crew. When a ghost gets ghosted, Alps cracks open and one character’s desperation drives the final third of the film. The climax errs on the side of the overwrought and overdetermined, like an earnest adolescent’s first attempt at a short story. And yet Papoulia’s extraordinary performance lingers, as does the film’s provocative existential fog. Slowly but with terrible surety, Alps reveals the fracture lines within its subjects, their families and the group itself, so that by the end it’s no longer clear who is substituting for whom. Only that the dead are surely better loved than the living. Follow Michelle Orange on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
