The Motion Picture Association of America must die. It’s a monopolistic behemoth that poisons creativity and commerce while hiding behind the failed task of educating parents about film content, and the time has come to call for its dissolution. The above logo is what we, as movie fans, are most familiar with when it comes to the MPAA because we see it on trailers and home video, but that symbol is really a trick of PR. The goal of the MPAA is not to rate movies, even if that’s the product we know and loathe best. The MPAA’s founding, fundamental aim is to maintain the corporate dominance of its members – the six largest studios. It does not serve fans. It does not serve families. It does not serve filmmakers.

Internationally loved cologne salesman, Charles Bronson, was already a massive star by the time he made Death Wish, but it’s his role as Paul Kersey that might be his most famous simply because he owns it completely. Sure he’s rugged and charismatic in The Dirty Dozen, he’s surprisingly vulnerable in The Great Escape, but in the Death Wish movies he’s in command and the streets bow down to him. So maybe a remake is in order? According to the LA Times, that’s the thinking of MGM and Paramount, and the partnership wants Joe Carnahan to clean up from fighting wolves for The Grey and come help them out with it. It must be tough coming out of bankruptcy, but MGM really has nothing except remake concepts going for them. That’s pretty damned sad. Of course, the big question with a remake like this (beyond the fact that remakes aren’t doing good business currently) is how to re-create something that tapped into a social feeling in the 1970s. The same heat just isn’t there, there is no grand panic in society of rising crime rates and a feeling of helplessness in the face of a bewildered law enforcement culture. In fact, police are so good at doing their jobs now, they even find time to pepper spray people in the face at random. So who becomes the villain here? And even better, who could possibly replace Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey? Jason Statham did the job recently for The Mechanic, but [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]

On January 11, 1991, the then-head of Disney studios, Jeffrey Katzenberg, circulated an incredibly important memo about the state of the movie industry and the products they were making. It was called, “The World is Changing: Some Thoughts on Our Business,” and it had a simple purpose: to locate the root of a growing problem and to take steps to avoid falling victim to it. Katzenberg began the memo by stating: “As we begin the new year, I strongly believe we are entering a period of great danger and even greater uncertainty. Events are unfolding within and without the movie industry that are extremely threatening to our studio.” As we begin a new year two decades after this memo was written, it’s critical to look back at the points Katzenberg made to see that his period of great danger is now our period of great danger, to note that the same events unfolding within and without the industry still threaten the entire studio system in 2012, and to predict our future based on the past.

Recently, Paramount sent around one of those pat-yourself-on-the-back sorts of press releases announcing that they made more money worldwide than any other studio last year. Of course, not one to dwell too long in the past, they also managed to slip in a little paragraph bragging about how good their upcoming 2012 looks as well: “In 2012, Paramount’s release slate highlights include World War Z, a zombie thriller starring Brad Pitt and directed by Marc Forster, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, the next installment in the global franchise starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Channing Tatum, a new chapter in the Paranormal Activity franchise, and The Dictator, starring Sacha Baron Cohen and directed by Larry Charles, the team behind Borat.” The interesting part of this paragraph is that, in addition to mentioning a bunch of high profile projects that we already knew about, the studio is also claiming that they have another Paranormal Activity movie in the works, which is news. All of these other movies are in various stages of post-production, but Paranormal Activity 4 is naught but a glimmer in some profit-minded executive’s eye.

With $1.1b in international revenue for the third film alone, it’s not really news that Hasbro is drooling for another Transformers flick, but The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that the company is currently in talks with Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay about moving forward. This also isn’t a surprise, and since it’s widely known that Bay and star Shia Labeouf have been unenthusiastic about returning to the franchise, it won’t be a surprise when they pass on the director’s chair and the star trailer respectively. However, there’s something important to consider here. With Bay gone, the biggest force in the franchise is gone, and without Labeouf, its face is gone as well. That means that someone can pull out the old drawing board and start again on creating a franchise that does a better job of focusing on the cool part of Transformers (the Transformers) and on crafting a better sci-fi story. Meanwhile, Hasbro continues fruitless development on their other projects. Battleship is storming the beaches in the near future, but Candyland, their Ouija Board movie and several other projects are still not nearly as far along as they should be for the amount of time that’s been spent promising them. That’s probably a good thing. The world doesn’t need another Clue movie, but another shot at getting transforming robots might be just the thing humanity is crying out for.

There’s no clue as to who exactly is describing Hyperdrive as The Fifth Element meets 48 Hrs, but the combination sounds fantastic, and that’s the two films The Hollywood Reporter is tossing out for context. According to them, Paramount just bought the script for the film, written by David Daniels and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil co-writer Morgan Jurgenson. The story focuses on a science fiction author who is asked by a cop to help track down a murder witness, but during the hunt, they “find themselves in the middle of a space opera playing out on Earth.” It sounds like it has the potential to be a big adventure, and it could have a lot of fictional science of a little, but the Hollywood sales pitch of tough crime meeting head on with insane sci-fi is definitely enough to perk some ears up. Plus, at a baser level, it’s always nice to see original sci-fi given a chance.

A lot of movie-goers liked J.J. Abrams’ reboot of the Star Trek franchise because it introduced a modern aesthetic to the property, injecting it with exciting action sequences, while also making it feel less like a bunch of people standing around spewing jargon in a space ship (something for nerds only), and more like a big budget adventure that everyone could enjoy. I just liked it because it was Abrams finally paired up with some material that he couldn’t treat like a great big mystery. It was Star Trek, we know what Star Trek is, so sorry, Mr. Abrams, no super secret viral ad campaign there. Of course, once he got a chance to start marketing the “what’s in the train” aspect of his next film, Super 8, he was back up to his old tricks. And now Deadline New Suffolk reports that Abrams has yet another top secret project in the pipeline, which has just been picked up by Paramount. This one pairs him with red hot screenwriter Billy Ray, a guy who not only is scripting a Peter Pan movie called Pan for Joe Roth, but also a Tom Hanks-starring vehicle directed by Paul Greengrass called A Captain’s Duty, the long-awaited 24 movie for Fox, and a remake of The Secret in Their Eyes, which he will also direct. Busy guy. The film that Abrams and Ray are working on is said to come from an idea that they brainstormed together, and it’s going to be a mystery adventure of [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]

You may already be a film industry cynic. Maybe you think Hollywood is a barren wasteland, devoid of creativity and originality. Maybe you’re sick of seeing talented people get ignored and vapid hacks get splashed all over the trades. Maybe you’re tired of 3D everything and having to re-buy your movies every five to ten years. I’m not here to dissuade you of any of that. Hell no, I’m here to make it worse. Get ready, because this is some of the rottenest shit of which the film industry is capable. These are the things so terrible that Hollywood has to cover them up, lest God see their sin and smite them accordingly (and keep various government entities and lawyers off their backs, of course). If you still had any kind thoughts toward Hollywood, I suggest you prepare yourself for crushing disappointment. But first, I’d like to give a very huge shout out and thank you to writers C. Coville and Maxwell Yezpitelok for their help on this article. You guys are great! And now back to the shit storm, already in progress:

When an adaptation of “World War Z” was first announced back in 2008 with Marc Forster at the helm, a major question was how they would take an oral history that recounts a globe-spanning amount of zombie action and turn it into a workable movie. After all, the conversations of the book take place after the war and deal closely with survival and societal themes. As it turns out, the answer is apparently to redo the entire thing. According to the synopsis sent out by Paramount, the movie will look a little something like this: “The story revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself.  [Mireille] Enos plays Gerry’s wife Karen Lane; [Daniella] Kertesz is his comrade in arms, Segen.” Aside from nitpicking that they didn’t use the word “decimate” correctly, that description looks more than a bit different than the book…

You wouldn’t expect that a movie about an Indian burial ground that brings dead pets back to life in rabid, vicious zombie form could be considered an untouchable classic, but horror fans are very protective about what they like. And Stephen King, while a horror icon on the literary shelf, has a much spottier record when it comes to film adaptations. That 1989’s Pet Sematary turned out to be one of the best King adaptations adds to its status as modern classic meant to be cherished. By now it should be clear though that nothing is sacred in Hollywood, especially horror properties. So of course a remake of Pet Sematary has been in the works for a while. The last time we heard about the project, Paramount had hired Matt Greenberg to write a script for a remake. He already had some experience adapting King work with 1408, so I guess the choice made sense. And it turns out Greenberg took Paramount’s request pretty seriously, this isn’t a goof, the man has now turned in his script. So the next step toward getting this thing off the ground is finding a director. Enter Piranha and The Hills Have Eyes director Alexandre Aja. Twitch reports that Aja is close to taking on the job. Paramount is actively pursuing him, and while Aja has a project called Cobra: The Space Pirate he’s looking to do, that film has yet to find adequate funding, and isn’t scheduled to start shooting until 2013. A [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]

The future of J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek sequel has been a mystery for a while now. The movie industry has turned into a brand name driven environment where as soon as a film makes ten bucks over its budget, a release date gets set for the sequel. And it’s usually a date that’s closer than the filmmakers would like. So what’s been going on with Star Trek? Are we going to get a sequel? And if not, why not? Who does J.J. Abrams think he is? Recently a clue surfaced in the ongoing mystery when co-writer/producer Roberto Orci said that while a script wasn’t finished, they had a big ol’ outline done, and they were just waiting for Abrams to get done with his current projects before they pushed production into high gear. And now a second clue has come to light. While talking to Cinema Blend, Abrams himself confirmed that Star Trek 2 would in fact be his next project; and he even talked a bit about its release date and whether or not he’s looking to make it in 3D. He started off by saying, “The next thing we’re working on, and hopefully we’ll be able to pass information out sooner or later, is the next Star Trek.” When asked about the too close for comfort release date that Paramount has the film penciled in for, June 29th 2012, Abrams was less than committal. “I care much more that it be good than it be ready,” he said, “I’m, obviously [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]

While Warner Bros. is busy confusing themselves about what they’re going to do with Batman, Superman, and the rest of the entire Justice League up on the big screen, Paramount has been busy raiding their coop, and they’ve come away with the rights to one of their lesser known properties. Normally all of the rights to things published by DC Comics goes to their parent company Warner Bros by default, but apparently “The Mighty” started off as creator owned work and rights to the big screen adaption were still controlled by creators Keith Champagne and Peter Tomasi. This has allowed them to cut a deal and cash in on their creation.

Yesterday we got to see some poster goodness from The Adventures of Tintin, and, as promised, the teaser trailer has followed suit. It’s quick, but it spends its precious few seconds creating some suspense and teasing the action. A young man chasing a car into the street with a gun, a bi-plane crashing in the desert, a ship pounding its way through the seas. See it for yourself:

While Bridesmaids is clearly an ensemble comedy with a lot of great performances, I came out of it thinking that it had one clear star making turn. If you want to believe the oft-repeated marketing hype that Bridesmaids is a female version of The Hangover, then the clear Zach Galifianakis of the group was Melissa McCarthy. Everyone in the film gets at least a couple strong zingers to throw at the audience, but it’s McCarthy who provides most of the big, gut punching belly laughs by fearlessly laying bare all of the character’s foibles for everyone to see. I’ve never seen Mike and Molly, so I don’t know what she’s like on that show, and I can barely recognize her as the same actress who played the bubbly and annoying Sookie on Gilmore Girls; so her performance hit me as a real revelation. When I walked out of Bridesmaids, the strongest reaction I had to it was a feeling that we’d be seeing a lot of Melissa McCarthy in the days to come. Well, it looks like that future is already coming to pass. In an interview with Inside Movies McCarthy spills the beans on not only a new project that Bridesmaids director Paul Feig is developing for her, but also on a project that she is writing for herself. On working with Paul again, McCarthy said, “It’s really overwhelming. If Paul asked me to come over and vacuum his house, I would be like ‘Ab-so-lute-ly! Do you need your [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]

Go tell your mother that Mark Wahlberg has developed a film with Justin Bieber over at Paramount that will see Wahlberg playing mentor figure to a basketball playing Bieber. According to Deadline Lawrence, the tone of the film has been described as The Color of Money meets The Karate Kid. The remake or the original? Why don’t they clarify? It matters! This is a perfect moment of reflection for Wahlberg. He started as a pop star, transitioned into serious acting while holding a basketball (and while playing yet another character named Mickey), and here’s a chance for him to come full circle with a kid who’s a pop star but clearly wants to enter the world of acting. Ladies and gentlemen, Justin Bieber is this generation’s Mark Wahlberg. Does that mean that in a few years, Bieber will play a porn star in a tragedy, then a soldier in the Middle East, then get a role on a Planet of the Apes movie, then alternate action roles with existential comedies on the road to two Oscar nominations? Yes, yes it does.

It might be nice to have a timeline on this so we know exactly how long we have to be on the edge of our seats, but J.J. Abrams has nevertheless dipped his toes into what might become his next project over at Paramount. According to Deadline Omaha, Fringe co-executive producers Monica Breen and Alison Schapker have been hired to re-write a script for Zanbato – a story involving Japanese history, fighting robots, and whatever else the pair has up their sleeves. As we all know, Zanbato is a type of large sword called a “horse-chopping sword” because it was built to kill a rider and his horse in one fell slice. Robots with big swords? Abrams? The Fringe writers? How long do we get to be in this state of excitement again?

On a wet, nasty Wednesday evening in New York, Paramount CEO Brad Grey, J.J. Abrams and the rest of the studio’s team gathered a group of journalists and other VIPs for a showing of select scenes from Abrams’s much-anticipated summer blockbuster Super 8. By the power of Film School Rejects, I had the privilege of attending the fete at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater. Grey first took the stage. In between jokes about “springtime” in NYC and a heartfelt tribute to the late Elizabeth Taylor, he got down to the business at hand: celebrating the studio’s unequivocally notable turnaround under his nearly six-year stewardship. Noting the Mount’s annual blend of tentpoles, smaller franchises and Academy Award-worthy fare, the boss pointedly stressed the personal importance he placed in upholding the legacy of one of Hollywood’s iconic institutions in this, its 100th year. After an extended promotional montage connecting Paramount films of old with the 2011 slate – – which includes Martin Scorsese’s Hugo Cabret, Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tin Tin and sequels to Paranormal Activity and Transformers — Abrams, the man of the hour, got up to speak.

If you’re a science fiction fan, John Scalzi is probably no stranger. He’s a talented writer, has a unit of measurement named after him, and generally hangs out with old men and androids. It’s a charmed but difficult life, I’m sure. The good news of the day is that movie rights to his novel series “Old Man’s War” (which ostensibly includes “The Last Colony” and “Zoe’s War”) have been sold to Paramount. Unlike some novel rights news, this bit comes with a director attached in the form of Wolfgang Petersen. It also comes with a screenwriter attached in the form of David Self. Petersen is a veteran with a lot of big budget material under his belt, although he’s looking for some redemption for Poseidon. Self will probably be angling for a little redemption as well since he worked on Wolfman, but Road to Perdition is as smart a script as you could hope for. With these two kicking things off, Old Man’s War might be the start of a great new sci-fi trilogy. The story focuses on John Perry who, at the age of 75, joins the Colonial Defense Forces and has his mind transferred into a genetically enhanced body based on his DNA. The similarities between Scalzi’s work and Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” is remarkable, but with Petersen at the helm, it’s doubtful that a movie version will stray into square-jawed parody. Actually, it might. You never know. Scalzi had this to say about the project:

The easiest thing for Paramount to do would be to take a copy of Mary Lambert’s 1989 adaptation of Pet Sematary, bury it in an old Native American graveyard, and wait for the new version to emerge from the dirty depths. Instead (according to the LA Times), they’ve hired 1408 writer Matthew Greenberg to start on a script for a remake. They’ll probably also find a director and a crew and film it when they’ve got perfectly good, perfectly cheap voodoo magic that could make the movie for them. On second thought, they’ll probably be using voodoo magic, too. Stephen King is a ridiculously prolific writer, but he also has an uncommon amount of his work adapted for screen. It’s unclear why the world needs another Pet Sematary, especially when Lambert and company did it so well, and especially when there are tons of other King properties out there that need some movie love. This move is most likely part of the King re-invigoration seen with the massive Dark Tower project and continued by word that The Stand will also be a feature film. In other words, this might not be the last King adaptation we see go into development. Anyone out there want to make “Strawberry Spring” or “The Man Who Loved Flowers”?

Back when Tim Burton was going to direct a biopic of Robert Ripley (the journalist behind Ripley’s Believe It Or Not), I could not wait to see the project get off the ground. With its epic nature and colorful period piece-ness, it seemed like a mixture of Big Fish (a movie he’d just directed) and Ed Wood and Indiana Jones. Burton seemed perfect for the project. Now, that may be a different story. And the script itself will be a different story, because (according to Deadline Dalesville) Paramount has hired Eric Roth to do a completely clean slate script re-write. What does that mean? The screenwriter behind Forrest Gump will most likely make this a sprawling travelogue that focuses on the people more than the oddities. The movie (the script at least) will be huge but feel close to home. Granted, Roth tends to steal from himself a lot, so Robert Ripley (still set to be played by Jim Carrey) might look a bit too much like Gump or Button. It remains to be seen, of course, but Roth is an undeniable talent, and his addition to the project seems like Paramount is making a big move in the right direction.