When I was in college, I once went on a weekend trip with my two roommates to Cape Cod, where someone had scrounged up a summer home belonging to a family friend who was willing to let us stay for a few days. The owners were in the middle of renovating the place, so instead of windows there were just sheets of plastic that bulged in and out with the wind. Half the rooms didn’t have electricity, and we had to go to the tap outside to get water — but hey, someone was letting us stay in their house in a scenic location far from our shabby apartment near campus, and for free. No one was complaining. Except that it got dark, and the fact that we were out in the woods down a narrow driveway removed from the road with nothing sheltering us from the outside but transparent tarps (just the thing for wrapping up dead bodies) started to seem a little spooky. We were three young women huddling around one of the few working lamps in a house in the middle of nowhere, and I started to reflect on the fact that if we were in a movie, we’d for sure get murdered in a few minutes by someone with chainsaws for hands or something. And then the friend who’d set this up, a sporty, outgoing environmentalist who’d definitely outlive me in any theoretical slasher flick, mentioned offhand (she wasn’t joking ) that the owners of the house had mentioned that if we saw a guy in the woods outside in the middle of the night, it was probably their friend Bill, who was helping with the remodeling and sometimes stayed in their shed. What’s my point? My point is that you don’t want me telling you about the premise for The Cabin in the Woods , so instead I’m inflicting on you this personal story of a cabin in some woods (spoilers: we then drove into town and ate seafood). It’s true that the film, which was written by geek demigod Joss Whedon with Drew Goddard (the latter of whom served as director) is much more fun to watch if you don’t know anything about the plot going in. But I’m concerned that all this trumpeting about how sensitive the movie is to being disrupted by oversharing will set up expectations for something filled with reversals and silly twists, when in fact your enjoyment will be derived from an appreciation for how clever its concept is. Goddard and Whedon have devised a meta-movie about horror tropes that comments on its genre without foregoing a plot or characters of its own — it’s funny and scary enough to please the deeply fannish, while being sufficiently quick and smart to entertain those less inclined to dork out on the many horror in-jokes in store. Suffice it to say, the film introduces two groups of characters. The first, made up of Bradley Whitford, Richard Jenkins, Amy Acker, Brian White and others, work in a compound somewhere seemingly official, though not so official that they don’t sexually harass each other for fun, bitch about their spouses and run office pools. The point of the film is how they fit together with the second group, which consists of five college students headed out for a weekend away at, yes, a cabin in the woods. There’s good girl Dana (Kristen Connolly), her friend Jules (Anna Hutchison) and Jules’s football-player boyfriend Kurt (Chris Hemsworth), Kurt’s studious teammate Holden (Jesse Williams) and their stoner friend Marty (Fran Kranz, who steal the show). The five fit these types from afar, but don’t up close. Kurt and Jules aren’t just a jock and his blonde bimbo girlfriend — when he teases her about bringing textbooks along, they fall into a pitch-perfect reenactment of the old “I learned it by watching you!” anti-drug PSA. Dana’s getting over a complicated break-up, Holden’s kind and perceptive, and Marty sees a lot more than you’d expect through his haze of pot smoke. The relationship of our expectations of characters and plot developments to the genre and why we keep coming back for more even when we think we know what’s going to happen is examined throughout the movie, which plays off all the old slasher standards while being about something very different. Making a film that depends on an audience’s recognition of other films is a tricky thing — not just because it presumes existing knowledge, but also because meta-humor often just stops at making a reference instead of actually going on to do something with it. When you look at Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer’s _____ Movie series of (for the most part) awful spoofs, most don’t get further than a “Remember this? How about this? You saw this one, right?” Cabin in the Woods touches on everything from characters who have sex being doomed to J-horror to classic monsters, but it is also questions, for the most part not in a scolding way (the slight but discernible touch of that is the film’s only real downside), the reasons why we like watching these scenarios unfold so much that we’ve worn the ideas out like an overused record. Cabin in the Woods does what Scream only halfway managed, which was to find something new by looking back at the familiar — and at least in Whedon’s world, the geeky ones are never first on the chopping block. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
‘I can’t wait to see what all my fans think,’ RiRi tells Capital FM of upcoming clip. By Jocelyn Vena Rihanna Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/ Getty Images While fans are salivating for the chance to see what Rihanna and Drake will be up to in their highly anticipated “Take Care” video, the singer opened up a bit about the clip. In an interview with Capital FM , the always-feisty Rihanna teased that she recently saw the finished video and it lived up to her expectations. “I can’t wait to see what all my fans think. I saw it a couple of days ago. I love it,” she said. “It’s beautiful. It’s different from anything Drake has ever done.” Ri was spotted heading to one of Drake’s shows earlier this week in London when he performed at the O2 arena. Post-show, the twosome were spotted at London hotspot Low. Perhaps she saw the video during their hangout session? Rihanna and Drake previously appeared together in her video for “What’s My Name?” In the clip, the real-life pals played a lovey-dovey couple, and fans have been waiting to see what these two had in store for the “Take Care” video since February, when word of the shoot went public. Director Yoann Lemoine called the three-day shoot “very minimal” and “mellow,” adding, “They seemed to be super close, and that’s what I wanted for the video. They fit together pretty well, so it was just easy. “There’s a lot of space in the video, and I wanted the visuals to pay tribute to that,” he continued. “It pays tribute to nature. When I listened to the track, I was seeing a landscape … involving animals and massive landscapes. I won’t say too much, but it’s very surprising that there are very few elements in it. It’s very simple but there’s this big sense of emptiness in it. It’s not narrative at all, and it involves animals.” What are you expecting from the “Take Care” video? Share your ideas in the comments! Related Artists Rihanna Drake
Amid word that E.L. James’ best-selling novel Fifty Shades of Grey is being developed into a movie , speculation has already arisen as to who should play the leads. The NSFW book’s protagonist, Anastasia Steele, and her troubled, controlling man, 27-year-old millionaire Christian Grey, will surely be sought-after roles. Which actor would best embody the young, attractive, tall, finely dressed character with “unruly dark-copper-colored hair and intense, bright gray eyes”? Or the smoking hot seductress – she of the “vulnerable qualities” but “mahogany hair,” “big blue eyes” and “flawless” skin – that he can’t get enough of? Vote in our surveys to tell us who you think should play Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele in 50 Shades of Grey , and comment below with other ideas! Who should play Christian? Who should play Anastasia?
**Posted by Phineas In a new Firewall series, Bill Whittle wants to look at the ideas in play in American politics today. But, before dealing with Right versus Left, Conservative versus Liberal, democracy versus republic, or even Mary Anne versus Ginger, Bill starts with the fundament upon which all else is built: the nature of Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Sister Toldjah Discovery Date : 08/03/2012 09:18 Number of articles : 3
People are so vapid and useless that their ideas of the perfect girl are so fucking emotionally disconnected….shit like “she’d be a good mom and homemaker”….or “she’s rich”….or “her family is nice to me”….or “she lets me watch sports or knows sports”….or “she kicks it with the guys and has a beer”….or “I can trust her”…or “we like the same things”….or “we have great conversations”….or “we broke down all odds to be together cuz we were love at first sight”….or “she makes me laugh….all superficial and not the core of what matters in a real fucking connection with another person… …and the core of what matters is “she has great small fake tits, a hot pussy, she sucks my dick on command, she treats my dick like a sport and most importantly she let’s me fuck other girls when she’s on her period”….simple…. I can assume these pics of Sara Jean are part of the tips Ryan Seacrest gave her to be the perfect girl to dudes, both G4TV or not….cuz he’s got a lot of experience in knowing what guys want…you know she he fucks them… Here are her PUSSY PICS WE PUT UP YESTERDAY cuz she’s hot…. Here are pics of her and her friend being crazy drunken college chicks I want to fuck…
What a weekend for Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax : The environmentally tinged adaptation became the latest of the beloved author’s film spinoffs to capture the top box-office perch. Meanwhile, the raunchy Project X settled in quietly behind it, earning roughly a dollar per topless scene en route to second place. Your Weekend Receipts are here. 1. Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax Gross: $70,700,000 (new) Screens: 3,729 (PSA $18,960) Weeks: 1 What can I say? A generation is indoctrinated to the left! Lou Dobbs will be outraged ! Malia Obama for president in 2036! 2. Project X Gross: $20,775,000 (new) Screens: 3,055 (PSA $6,800) Weeks: 1 Not so bad an opening for the critically reviled bit of mayhem from the mind of Todd Phillips — but good enough for a sequel? Project Y , coming to DVD and Blu-ray by the holidays? Hell, the way these things are shot, maybe by Memorial Day. 3. Act of Valor Gross: $13,700,000 ($45,239,000) Screens: 3,053 (PSA: $4,487) Weeks: 2 (Change: -44%) The Navy SEALs-against-the-world propaganda exercise held up reasonably well in its second week, setting up next weekend’s crucial Lorax vs. Valor ideology face-off for fourth place — or maybe even third place, considering the smallish release for Eddie Murphy’s A Thousand Words . Place your bets. Or I can just wake you when it’s April, your call. 4. Safe House Gross: $7,200,000 ($108,200,000) Screens: 2,533 (PSA $2,820) Weeks: 4 (Change: -34.1%) I can only imagine the back-and-forth between Denzel Washington’s WME team and Ryan Reynolds’s CAA crew this morning as they struggle to take primary credit for their stars’ stunning collaborative success. If I didn’t know any better, I’d just attribute the whole phenomenon to Harvey Weinstein, because what triumphs hasn’t he wrought in the last seven days? 5. Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds Gross: $7,000,000 ($25,745,000) Screens: 2,132 (PSA $3,283) Weeks: 2 (Change: -55.1%) Tyler Perry is nothing if not consistent, on track for another mid-$30 million performer sans the Madea muumuu. He’d argue that a wider release would sweeten the box office, and for this one in particular I’d agree — though I’d rather simply see him split the franchise difference and attempt Why Did I Get Married 3-D . They’ve got The Rock in the series now! Seriously, blockbuster city. [Figures via Box Office Mojo ] Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
“Ralph McQuarrie was the first person I hired to help me envision Star Wars . His genial contribution, in the form of unequaled production paintings, propelled and inspired all of the cast and crew of the original Star Wars trilogy. When words could not convey my ideas, I could always point to one of Ralph’s fabulous illustrations and say, ‘Do it like this.'” [via WSJ ]
“Ralph McQuarrie was the first person I hired to help me envision Star Wars . His genial contribution, in the form of unequaled production paintings, propelled and inspired all of the cast and crew of the original Star Wars trilogy. When words could not convey my ideas, I could always point to one of Ralph’s fabulous illustrations and say, ‘Do it like this.'” [via WSJ ]
What week for Harvey Weinstein: Win a truckload of Oscars on Sunday, re-up on a PR war with the MPAA on Tuesday, and then today — as his company’s other notable French import Intouchables prepares for its U.S. premiere in New York City — start a trans-Atlantic flame war with France’s most infamously racist old coot. It’s like Linsanity, but for Hollywood megalomaniacs! Weinsanity! And there’s more . First though, here’s the notorious, ultra-conservative French nationalist and political firebrand asshole Jean-Marie Le Pen weighing in on Intouchables , the blockbuster buddy flick about (per a Weinstein Co. statement) “a wealthy, physically disabled risk taker, the picture of established French nobility, who lost his wife in an accident and whose world is turned upside down when he hires a young, good-humored, black Muslim ex-con as his caretaker.” I don’t know how one exclaims, ” Say whaaaa? ” in French, but it probably sounds something like this: That aforementioned Weinstein Company statement translates: “France is like this handicapped person stuck in this wheelchair, and we are going to have to wait for the help of these suburb youngsters and the immigration in general. I don’t subscribe to this point of view. It’s a movie, a novel. And we have to take it that way and not like an example for the future. It would be a disaster if France would find itself in the same situation as this poor handicapped person.” On the one hand, this is just Le Pen being Le Pen. Big deal. On the other, check out Harvey being Harvey — i.e. waiting a full month after the interview aired (he acquired Intouchables ‘ distribution and English-language remake rights last summer) to lay into the easiest, fattest target imaginable on his film’s behalf: “It’s not a surprise to hear such an intolerant statement from the man who founded and was president of the extreme-right, xenophobic, racist National Front party. Le Pen made a repulsive statement, representing a bigoted world view. And right now, Jean-Marie’s daughter, Marine Le Pen, is running for president of France as the leader of the National Front party — and she is fourth in the polls with almost 16% of the population intending to vote for her. That’s frightening to me, and I think it’s important to speak up and speak out against Le Pen and his ideas. That’s why I’m proud to bring THE INTOUCHABLES to American audiences. This movie is based on a true story, and it’s a funny, extremely entertaining illustration of how simple human connection trounces socioeconomic, religious and racial divides.” Perfect . Did I mention Intouchables premieres this evening as the Opening Night film of Lincoln Center’s prestigious Rendez-Vous with French Cinema series and opens May 25 in limited release? Ahem. Meanwhile, all of Harvey’s recent protesting-too-much has received one of its most devastating rebuttals to date from Mark Lipsky, the former indie exec turned filmmaker who got his start in the Weinsteins’ Miramax regime. That experience yielded today’s extraordinary takedown at indieWIRE , where Lipsky further exposed Harvey’s hypocritical, gratuitously self-serving and exploitative handling of his documentary Bully : I hate bullying and always have. I also have an abiding contempt for hypocrisy. If Harvey has, in fact, reformed, he needs to come out and say so publicly. He needs to own his past behavior, admit to his addiction – bullying is an addiction, after all, both to power and dominance – and pledge to never bully anyone again. If he’s looking for ink and controversy (and he certainly is) there’s no more honest or powerful way for him and the film to get it. Harvey, you have a rare opportunity with Bully to actually move the needle and leave the world a better place. I believe that you’d like to see bullying stop. I believe that you “want every child, parent, and educator in America to see “Bully,” and not just for the boxoffice. So get up on that incredibly high horse of yours and use that bully pulpit to assure children, parents and educators everywhere that if you can reform, anyone can. Light a fire, Harvey, for every kid that’s ever bullied someone and for every parent who taught them how. Ouch. Your move, Harvey. Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Film journalist and biographer David Hughes has long written with authority on subjects from Stanley Kubrick to David Lynch. But few writers know more about the vicissitudes of that uniquely Hollywood phenomenon known as “development hell.” Hence the updated, revised edition of Hughes’s book Tales From Development Hell , which arrives in store and online today. And Movieline has an exclusive excerpt that you can browse now. Development Hell is chockablock with gossip, infighting, false starts and dirty little secrets that afflicted films both realized ( Indiana Jones 4 , Total Recall ) and abandoned ( Crusade , Crisis in the Hot Zone ), with a little bit of limbo thrown in for good measure ( Fantastic Voyage , The Sandman ). In this exclusive excerpt, Hughes revisits the Batman franchise’s tortured road back to respectability — by way of the stalled Superman franchise. Really. ======= Warner Bros evidently saw a team-up movie as more than just a tantalizing possibility, but a viable way of bringing the Superman and Batman franchises out of the development mire. It was soon confirmed that the studio was excited about a script entitled Batman vs Superman , written by Se7en and Sleepy Hollow scribe Andrew Kevin Walker and subsequently “polished” by Akiva Goldsman ( Batman Forever , Batman & Robin , A Beautiful Mind ), in which the characters would begin as allies, albeit with radically different worldviews, before facing off in a showdown brought about by Bruce Wayne’s familiar desire to avenge the violent killing of a loved one. The story begins five years into Bruce Wayne’s life post-Batman, having put his costume back into the closet following the death of Robin. He has settled down, married a woman named Elizabeth, and is happier than ever. Over in Metropolis, however, Superman has not been so lucky in love, having been dumped by Lois Lane due to the myriad difficulties of being Clark Kent’s girlfriend. When The Joker, previously thought dead, kills Elizabeth with a poison dart, Bruce takes it hard. First, he blames Superman, because the Man of Steel saved The Joker from a fatal beating just before the murder; second, he resumes the mantle of Batman — not, this time, under any pretense of metering out justice, but for the sheer cathartic pleasure of beating up bad guys. Superman, who has been busy wooing his first love, Lana Lang, in Smallville, tries to talk Bruce out of his vengeful ways, an act which ultimately pits the two heroes against each other. Eventually, it transpires that Superman’s nemesis Lex Luthor was behind The Joker’s return, hoping that Batman and Superman would kill each other. Instead, the two heroes unite to defeat first The Joker, and finally Luthor, the man fundamentally behind Elizabeth’s death. Opinions from Internet script reviewers were divided, either over the details of the Walker and Goldsman drafts, or the very idea of having Batman and Superman go mano a mano . Responding to an unfavorable review of Goldsman’s rewrite by Coming Attractions’ Darwin Mayflower, Batman on Film reporter “Jett” said that, while he had not read the Goldsman draft, “I very much liked Walker’s original… I thought it was a very dark and powerful script and had a very clever way of pitting Batman against Superman. Mayflower flatly does not like the squaring off of Bats and Supes… [whereas] I found it quite exciting — plus you know that they are going to end up as allies in the end. Mayflower also has a problem with Goldsman’s (who many credit for the killing of the Bat-franchise with his p.o.s. Batman & Robin script) rewrites,” Jett added. “The only reason I can come up with why WB let Goldsman do rewrites was to lighten the script up a bit. Walker’s original — in my opinion — was dark. Perhaps WB thought too much so.” Nevertheless, the studio was sufficiently excited about the script to postpone its plan for a new stand-alone Superman film and a fifth Batman in order to fast-track Batman vs Superman for a 2004 release, with Wolfgang Petersen ( Das Boot , The Perfect Storm ) at the helm. “It is the clash of the titans,” the German-born director told Variety in July 2002. “They play off of each other so perfectly. [Superman] is clear, bright, all that is noble and good, and Batman represents the dark, obsessive and vengeful side. They are two sides of the same coin and that is material for great drama.” Petersen subsequently spoke to MTV.com about his love for the Batman and Superman films, “especially in both cases the first two. I saw them over and over again.” Batman vs Superman , he added, would be part of the lore of the films and the comics, “but it’s also different. First of all, the dynamics are different because if they are in one movie together it changes a lot of things and it gives you a new perspective on superheroes… You also have the look and feel of Metropolis, the bright golden city, and the feel of Gotham, which is a shadowy, sinister city, in the same movie. This is Superman/Batman of the time after September 11th, also. It takes place in today or tomorrow’s world.” Unsurprisingly, the announcement of a fast-tracked Batman vs Superman movie led to a surge of speculation as to which actors might don the respective capes. “We have a script that really very, very much concentrates on the characters,” Petersen told MTV.com. “It’s really material for two great actors.” Although he had previously cited Matt Damon as a possible star, Petersen later clarified that he was merely an example of the kind of actor he was looking for. “Someone who we so far did not really think of as a big action hero, who turned out to be a great actor who can also do great action… He’s one of these guys, but there’s a lot of these guys out there.” As far as the rumor-mills were concerned, Jude Law and Josh Hartnett were apparently front-runners to play Superman/Clark Kent, while Colin Farrell and Christian Bale — the latter previously connected with the Year One role — were widely mentioned for dual duties as Bruce Wayne and Batman. (“No, that’s Bateman , not Batman,” quipped Bale, referring to Patrick Bateman, his character in American Psycho .) Barely a month after the Variety announcement, however, Batman vs Superman seemed suddenly to have fallen out of favor with the studio, leading director Wolfgang Petersen to quit the project in favor of Troy , an epic retelling of Homer’s The Iliad starring Brad Pitt. The studio’s swift about-face was based on a number of factors. Firstly, on July 5, Alias creator J. J. Abrams had turned in the first 88 pages of a new stand-alone Superman script, designed to be the first of a trilogy. Bob Brassel, a senior vice president for production at the studio, called producer Jon Peters, urging him to read the work-in-progress. “I did,” Peters told The New York Times , “and it was amazing. In a world of chaos, it’s about hope and light.” Abrams delivered the remaining 50 pages of the script in mid-July, just as Spider-Man began its amazing assault on box office records, suggesting that light and airy, not dark and powerful, was the way to go with superhero flicks. At that point, Peters, Abrams and Brassel met in the offices of executive vice president for worldwide motion pictures Lorenzo di Bonaventura — the man behind the Harry Potter and Matrix movies, and a long time champion of Batman vs Superman — who said that he liked the script (“It had more epic ambition than earlier Superman scripts,” he said later), but that he planned to release Batman vs Superman first. According to Peters, Abrams said, “You can’t do that,” suggesting that it was akin to releasing When Harry Divorced Sally before When Harry Met Sally . Both sides had their points: with two iconic heroes for the price of one, Batman vs Superman arguably stood the better chance in a marketplace soon to be crowded with superhero films, ranging from Hulk to Daredevil , and more sequels featuring Spider-Man and The X-Men; however, if the darker sensibility of Batman vs Superman did not connect with audiences, it could effectively kill both franchises before they had had a chance to be revived. Besides, if either Batman or Superman failed, the studio would still have the team-up movie to fall back on. As studio president Alan Horn told The New York Times , “In reintroducing these characters we wanted to do what was in the best interest of the company.” Thus, in early August, Horn asked ten senior studio executives — representing international and domestic theatrical marketing, consumer products and home video — to read both scripts, and decide which of them stood the better chance in the post- Spider-Man marketplace. “I wanted some objectivity,” Horn explained. “Why not get an opinion or two?” At the meeting, di Bonaventura argued in favor of Batman vs Superman ; others, however, felt that Abrams’s three-part Superman story had better long-term prospects for toy, DVD and ancilliary sales. Besides, even if the majority had not favoured the Superman script, Horn had the casting vote. “I said I wanted to do Superman ,” he told The New York Times . “At the end of the day it’s my job to decide what movies we make.” The plan, Horn later told The Hollywood Reporter , was that Superman , the long-mooted Catwoman spin-off, and “a Batman origins movie” (presumably Year One ) would revive both franchises, paving the way for a team-up movie. “I’d like to think that each character will evolve so that when we have Batman vs Superman , the meeting of the two will feel more organic,” he said. Peters, the former hairdresser and Batman producer who had toiled through the development of a Superman film for eight years, was moved to tears when Alan Horn phoned to tell him the news. “I swear I heard the flapping of angel wings when Alan was talking,” he said. Peters, in turn, called Christopher Reeve, who had played Superman in four films between 1978 and 1987, and had recently guest-starred on the small-screen Superman show Smallville , despite a crippling spinal injury he suffered in a fall from a horse. “He told me that his original idea was to do a film of Superman vs Batman ,” Reeve later recalled. “They were pretty far into it, and then Jon saw that documentary that my son made about me and how five years after the injury I started to move.” According to Reeve, Peters began to rethink the idea: “‘Why should [they] have two superheroes fighting? ’ The movie that Warner Bros is making now will be a much more uplifting and spiritual story.” In August, Warner Bros officially switched off Batman vs Superman ’s green light. Days later, on Sept. 4, its greatest champion, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, quit after 12 years at the studio, giving credence to the widespread speculation that Horn vs di Bonaventura — an epic battle of wills between two of the studios biggest guns over two of its biggest assets — had contributed to his departure. Where all this left the Batman franchise was unclear. Almost anyone, it seemed, was invited to apply for the vacancy of the next film’s screenwriter, and even Grant Morrison, author of one of the biggest selling graphic novels of all time, Arkham Asylum , threw his hat into the ring. “My own movie agent at Creative Artists Agency submitted a treatment I’d entitled Batman: Year Zero , which had a young Batman traveling around the world, slowly assembling the familiar components of his outfit and disguise in the year before returning to Gotham as its protector.” As a change from The Joker or the Penguin, Morrison’s villains were Ra’s al-Ghul and Man-Bat from Denny O’Neil’s widely acclaimed Batman stories of the 1970s. Although Morrison’s application was unsuccessful, the team which was assigned the restoration of the Bat-franchise evidently agreed with his approach, electing to return to Batman’s roots as part of their restoration effort. It was in early 2003 that Warner Bros revealed the new curator of the Bat-franchise: Christopher Nolan, director of the tricksy Memento and a well-received remake of Scandinavian thriller Insomnia . “All I can say is that I grew up with Batman,” Nolan commented. “I’ve been fascinated by him and I’m excited to contribute to the lore surrounding the character. He is the most credible and realistic of the superheroes, and has the most complex human psychology. His superhero qualities come from within. He’s not a magical character.” Although Variety also reported that both Year One and Catwoman — the latter scripted by John Rogers ( The Core ), starring Ashley Judd (later to be replaced by Halle Berry) and directed by visual effects veteran Pitof — were also on the cards, Nolan’s untitled Batman project seemed the most likely to move forward, although it remained unclear which script would form the basis of the film. Nolan, who knew Batman but was uncertain about his wider comic book context, turned to David S. Goyer, who scripted Dark City, The Crow: City of Angels , the comic book adaptation Blade and its sequels, and unused drafts of Freddy vs Jason , for help with the script. Ironically, Goyer, whose lifelong dream had been to write a Batman movie script, was unavailable, preparing to direct Blade: Trinity — but agreed to give Nolan some ideas pro bono . As Goyer recalls, “I said, ‘If I did do it, this is what I would do, and you can have my ideas for free.’ I talked for about an hour and spitballed a large amount of what the film is, and Chris said, ‘Wow, that sounds great.’ He went away again for a few more days, [then] I got a call saying, ‘You have to do this.’” Goyer carved out the time to write the first draft of the script. The Nolan-Goyer Batman set out to achieve something no comic book or film had accomplished thus far: tell a definitive origin story, charting the journey from the murder of young Bruce Wayne’s parents all the way to the formation of Batman as a masked vigilante. Drawing heavily on the comic book history of the character, Nolan and Goyer filled in the blanks, working with Nolan’s regular production designer Nathan Crowley to build a Batman story from the ground up — exactly the approach which Warner Bros wanted to re-boot its biggest property. Released on June 5, 2005, Batman Begins made just over $200 million at the US box office — $50 million (and a few million audience members) short of Burton’s Batman , but a healthy start to what would, with The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012) signal the return of the bat to box office dominance — not only among its comic book peers, but Hollywood in general. Sixteen years since Tim Burton’s Batman gave birth to the film franchise and Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin killed it off, the Dark Knight had returned — with a vengeance. The updated and revised Tales From Development Hell is available today in stores and online .
