Unless you happen to be from Chile, you might not have ever heard of director Nicolas Lopez. But chances are you soon will. After creating the top grossing Chilean films in both 2010 and 2011 with Que Pena Tu Vida and Que Pena Tu Boda, the director is next moving on to helm Aftershock, the newest film from Eli Roth. This one is a disaster movie that Roth and Lopez wrote together, and that Roth will be starring in. Apparently the idea for the film came to Lopez after his country was hit with a pretty bad earthquake back in 2010, but it’s got some of Roth’s horror sensibility in there as well. The story is largely about dangerous patients that escape an insane asylum after the quake. If horror fans have any sort of issue with getting some Lopez mixed in with their Roth, then maybe this awesome quote from the director will assuage your fears: “I was a fan of Cabin Fever and Hostel, and I love that we’re mixing our sensibility. People will be shocked when they see this movie. It’s nothing that you could expect. I want this to be my Robocop.” Anybody who doesn’t think their career is complete until they’ve made their Robocop is okay with me. Roth thinks he’s pretty okay too. When talking about his collaborator he said, “He has the incredible combination of commercial sensibility with an artistic eye, and what he has done here in Chile with their film industry [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Let it never be said that director Tom Hooper doesn’t make some interesting choices when it comes to filming his projects for maximum veracity. His Oscar-winning hit The King’s Speech was shot on a former porno set (grit!), he used Colonial Williamsburg for a number of sets for his John Adams (gritty, in a different way!), and now it looks like he’s going full-hilt on his first musical feature. Hooper’s next film is a full-scale musical feature version of the done-to-starving-death Les Miserables, and while a new take on Victor Hugo’s classic material doesn’t strike most people as necessary, Hooper is going to give the project its own spin to liven it up. No, no, he’s not going to make it some sort of bizarre “reimagining,” he’s going to make its stars actually sing. No, no, it’s much more interesting than that – he’s going to make them sing live. A “source close to the production” has told the Sun UK that “the director is determined to make the project as authentic as possible.” As such, “the cast will record their vocals live on camera rather than go into a studio first then mime on film to the pre-recorded vocal…First they have to learn the complex songs, then they’ll have to get it right on set in front of the other stars and crew.” This does provide a look inside Hooper’s vision for the film, which may be much more classically theatrical than first suspected. Hooper has already lined up [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Back in August, Justin Lin vacated the director’s chair for the latest in Hollywood’s seemingly endless string of remakes – jumping off Highlander to spend more time making Vin Diesel and Paul Walker jump off moving trains on to moving cars (or similar) with his next entry into his wildly successful spin on The Fast and the Furious franchise. Summit Entertainment has now announced that Juan Carlos Fresnadillo will take on directorial duties for their Highlander reboot/magination/whatever, so let’s all pause to yell “there can only be one!” and move on with the news. Fresnadillo will direct from Melissa Rosenberg’s script, with the film poised to start filming in the spring of 2012. Summit’s official press release gives a quick plotline for the new film – “In HIGHLANDER, after centuries of dueling to survive against others like him, Connor MacLeod, an immortal Scottish swordsman must confront the last of his kind, a murderously brutal barbarian, who lusts for the Prize” – so, yes, rest easy, this is definitely a Highlander film.

How news of remakes continues to shock me, I’ll never know. There’s been buzz about a Point Break remake for a while now, but Warner Bros. and Alcon Entertainment have finally decided to just get totally radical and announce their planned remake of the 1991 Kathryn Bigelow  film that remains a cinematic classic for surfers, stoners, Angelenos, adrenaline junkies, idiots, and Keanu Reeves fan everywhere (hey, back up, I count myself as one of those idiots). Alcon snatched up the rights for the film on the eve of its twentieth anniversary, with co-founders and co-CEO’s Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove set to produce the new project, along with Michael DeLuca, John Baldecchi, Chris Taylor, and Kurt Wimmer. As previously rumored, Wimmer penned the screenplay for the remake (hat tip to our pals over Twitch for reporting on this way back in June). The film is without a director as of yet, but it’s being “fast tracked” with a helmer search launching soon. The new Point Break will, in both completely inexplicable and totally expected news, not necessarily take place in the world of surfing, but “in the world of international extreme sports.” What, like street luge? Parkour? Say it’s parkour, please say it’s parkour. But the remake will still focus on “an undercover FBI agent infiltrating a criminal ring.” That’s all we’ve got for now. Wait, isn’t that The Fast and the Furious? Just tell me said FBI agent has a Johnny Utah-esque name, and all will be forgiven. Frankie New [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Shooting in downtown Chicago for Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman movie Man of Steel will begin on Wednesday, and local rag Chicago Business has scoops on some of the locations that will be used and what they will be doubling as. More specifically, while they’re not sure of the locations of any street shots, they know what building Snyder plans to use as the headquarters of Metropolis’ number one newspaper The Daily Planet. Apparently Chicago’s Board of Trade building will serve as the Planet building exteriors (with digitally inserted globe atop, I’m sure) and the interiors of the newspaper office will be filmed inside of the Wesley Willis Memorial Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower). These choices make a lot of sense, because the Board of Trade is a big imposing building that looks nice standing at the end of a street, and the Willis Tower is huge, so there’s probably plenty of room inside to be converted into movie sets. Eagle eyed Chicago enthusiasts or great big super hero nerds might have noticed that there’s a sweet little bit of trivia created by Snyder’s choice though. The Board of Trade looks so good as a big imposing building that it was also used as the headquarters for Wayne Enterprises in Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise. Using the same building twice for two big superhero movies shouldn’t be a big deal; you slap a big W on it the first time, you put a big globe on it the second time, [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Daniel Craig and the James Bond 23 crew are hoping to film a big train stunt in India come this February, but they’ve hit a stumbling block in the form of some red tape being put in front of them by Indian Railways. You see, how the scene was originally written in the script, Bond would have been jumping a motorcycle onto the top of a moving train, scattering a group of people who were riding illegally on the train’s roof, and then jumping to another car that was equally packed with freeloaders. Indian Railways has a problem with this, because they don’t want rooftop train riding encouraged, and they don’t want India being portrayed as having a problem with rooftop train travel. When talking to Agence France-Presse, Indian Railways Minister Dinesh Trivedi was pretty straightforward about the matter, “Rooftop travel is illegal in India and it cannot be encouraged.” He also argued, “There are many trains in India and not all trains have people traveling on the rooftops.” Of course, taking the people off of the roof isn’t a big deal, and director Sam Mendes and crew have already agreed to film the scene with a clear roof instead; but might this not be the end of the problems the film will face trying to shoot in India? Shooting is scheduled to take place starting in February and lasting through March in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Goa, and they’ve already let officials change one of their scenes. Now that they’ve [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Writer/Director James Gunn has done many things. Most recently, he’s become a beloved Twitter celebrity and delivered the uber-popular web series PG Porn. But beyond that, he makes movies.

Danny Huston is joining the cast of the upcoming Ridley Scott film Robin Hood, which is currently shooting in England.

FSR reader Christopher M. sent us over a tip early this morning about some new photos from the set of Jonah Hex. And no, they weren’t of Megan Fox in her wild west hooker costume. This time we actually get to see Josh Brolin as the film’s title character.

Our brothers in arms over at Crave Online have scored a few photos from the set of the Louis Leterrier directed epic Clash of the Titans today, giving us our first look at Terminator Salvation star Sam Worthington in a skirt.

The folks at Disney know that in order to get intelligent guys to go out and see another Nic Cage movie, it is going to take some heat. Enter Monica Bellucci.

The production blog for Sylvester Stallone’s upcoming action film The Expendables has posted a brand new image from the film that features Sly holding on for dear life to a plane that appears to be flying away.

Earlier today our cheeky British friend Brendan Connelly over at /Film filed an interesting report about Gwyneth Paltrow and the expansion of her role as Pepper Potts in Iron Man 2.

You may have heard this, but the Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk) directed remake of Clash of the Titans began shooting this week. And with that start of production comes the final stage of casting…

Since it has become aparent that all of you need updates on everything that happens in the lives of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren we are happy to share with you a few photos from the set of their upcoming collaboration, Universal Soldiers: The Next Generation.

Two new cast members sign on to Iron Man 2, Jon Favreau twitters from the set and wait, did we miss the fact that one of our favorite guys from AMC’s Mad Men is playing Tony Stark’s father?

Per Shock Till You Drop, Michael Myers will spend about 70% of H2 without a mask. Myers, the iconic masked boogie man, will walk around for most of the new film with a beard on his face instead of a mask. Note to Zombie… a dude that looks like the lost and retarded fourth member of ZZ Top is not scary.

The folks at Paramount Pictures have revealed to the world, with the help of Yahoo and USA Today, the list of robots that will be featured in Michael Bay’s upcoming sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

It’s an obvious connection, but if we’re about to learn anything from these first photos from Thomas Jane’s directorial debut Dark Country, it is that its going to be a very dark film. It is also going to be on the forefront of filmmakers doing new and cool things with 3D.

I don’t know how to make this story not sound at least a little dirty, despite the fact that it’s all about a damn kids movie.