Jeff Daniels linked to Steve Jobs biopic, but Natalie Portman has passed
http://www.gamesradar.com/jeff-daniels- ... as-passed/

They're just not having any luck with that film though Daniels is usually good.
...

James Gunn scotches rumours of a Guardians / Avengers crossover
http://www.gamesradar.com/james-gunn-sc ... crossover/

Good, GOTG is ridiculously overhyped

And Your Top 5 Candidates To Direct 'Star Trek 3" Are...
http://www.latino-review.com/news/and-y ... trek-3-are
...

Ghostbusters
http://www.latino-review.com/news/sonyh ... s-insights

Considering the director, that actually makes me more hopeful! Now if he can just stop relying on the sort of humour that only women find funny... But then there was also this

http://schmoesknow.com/is-sony-planning ... -up/32460/
...

Sandman talk
http://schmoesknow.com/check-out-who-ne ... man/32495/

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 33636.html

Er, stop taking sh1tty roles like in Thor then.

Via a friend on Friendface:

"I just had the greatest idea ever. And it's to use CGI to do a shot for shot remake of the Peter Jackson Hobbit trilogy, with one simple twist....
...All of the heroic party will be recast as dwarf-sized recreations of old school hip hop stars.
Oh, what's that, you think I'm crazy? WELL CHECK OUT THIS CAST LIST, YO:
Chuck D - Thorin,
Flava - Bofur
Terminator X - Bifur
Easy E - Killi
Dre - Dwalin
MC Ren - Balin
Ice Cube - Fili
Run - Dori
DMC - Nori
Jam Master J - Ori
Biggie Smalls - Bombur
LL Cool J - Oin
Ice T - Gloin
-and-
(wait for it)
Vanilla Ice - Bilbo
AND
Rick Rubin as Gandalf the Grey.
All dialogue shall be delivered in rap, to the fat beats of hip-hop middle earth."

Leaked Sony emails describe The Interview as "desperately unfunny"
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/news ... funny.html

More Sony e-mails apparently reveal that Idris Elba was being eyed as a Bond.
That's not a Bond villain, but as the spy 007.

Mark

Nothing to do with Elba, I'd take almost anyone after Craig's script-enforced dreariness.

Iirc Craig is contracted for this group of three films. At the rate they make them, that means they won't be seriously talking about recasting until maybe 2020.

Idris is excellent but I don't think he'd make a good Bond tbh. Nothing to do with his skin - I always thought Colin Salmond should have been given a shot - but if anything he's an even more intense actor than Craig. If you thought Craig's performance was dreary....

What really annoyed me was they got it so right with Royale, only for it to descend into the 'Make it darker!' bollocks that's ruined so many potentially great films. Combined with gritty elements that worked better in the books, and the all-pervading censor ratings, you wind up with films that can't really be one thing or the other. Not that Quantum even had that excuse.

Craig himself was never the problem. An ongoing, bare bones story arc with crap villains and a cipher central character has been for me though. They're just muddling through IMO, and unfortunately the media promotes Bond for free ensuring a ridiculous box office over quality ratio.

QoS is in the running for being the worst Bond film ever, no argument about that. I think there's an issue in that there are two factions in Bond fandom, there's the 'Roger Moore' faction who want it to be big and brash and fun and the 'Timothy Dalton' faction who want very 'by the book' Bond, which are much more your rather dark, realist style and can be a bit dull. They're constantly pulled between those two lobby groups and often end up pleasing neither.

Well apart from everything Moore and Brosnan did with the part.

Die Another Die was in the pound shop earlier , though I think Brosnan is as close as they've gotten to merging the fan groups Jon mentioned. I've no problem with that myself. This sort of thing happens with almost every film franchise.

And I'd watch even Moore's worst over the last two - at least his were intended to be funny by design!

I haven't seen Craig's last two efforts...are they really that bad? Worse than A View To A Kill and Octopussy?

QoS is so bad there's a bit where he wrenches a door handle off like Superman. Skyfall... It's around 50 minutes or so before the baddie even appears. Oh, and he's a slightly camp weirdo. I know quite a few people who fell asleep even after he appeared.

QoS makes the cardinal sin - it's dull. Staggeringly dull in fact. Plus none of the characters good or bad are even slightly relatable or interesting. There's one decent sequence the whole damn film. It's two hours of nothing much memorable.

As for the baddie, the bare fact is a lot of the Bond baddies are weird. Normal people don't try to steal later satellites or make luxurious hideaways inside extinct volcanos.

I like Skyfall more than Ernie does - I think we've discussed this in the past - but it's not classic Bond, I'd say it's not even top 5. It's 'OK'. Given it's certainly better than what preceded it, I hold out some hope for 'Spectre'.