J.J. Abrams is an allusive chap it must be said. I tried to get the Star Trek director on the record about his next project and he managed to mostly avoid my question twice by with a cheeky bit of vagueness. He did say that he would like to direct a script that he himself is writing but I couldn't get him to say what it was. I did manage him to talk about Lost and the fact that he would love to make a return in the final season.
After the bump you can read the extract from my interview on Abrams' plans for the future...
What your doing next always seems to have something of an air of mystery about it, there is the untitled Hunter Scott project, producing an earthquake movie, Mystery On Fifth Avenue, The Dark Tower and Cloverfield 2. Can you enlighten us on your next project and what is currently closest to your heart?
I’m playing around with an idea that hopefully will take root, and in the meantime we have a movie that we start shooting next month that we are producing with Harrison Ford and Rachel McAdams, Morning Glory (directed by Roger Michell), which is a comedy written by the woman who wrote The Devil Wears Prada.
What about directing and writing for yourself?
I’m working on a script right now again, hopefully it’ll happen. If it does then that’d be something I’d like to direct.
Is there any possibility that you will return to Lost before the show ends? Is that something that you’d like to do?
My guess is not. I would love to do it, but given the things I’m working on, and the fact is they have formed this family and Jack Bender who is the director/producer, he’s got to direct the finale, he has too. If there is time it would be a wonderful thing to come back. I miss those people and so many of them are new, since I was there working on the show the cast has grown enormously and there’s this whole other amazing group of actors there. I remain amazed at the work Damon, Carlton, Jack and the other do. Every time someone’s like ‘man, I loved last night’s Lost’ I’m like I’ll tell Damon, I’m so thrilled. It’s all about what those guys do.
It’s just the gift that keeps giving back…
It really is that I’m telling you. Makes me feel guilty.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Mystery man: J.J. Abrams
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Human Cyborg Relations and Terminator Salvation
"You think you're human?" – John Connor
One of my earliest profound experiences in cinema was seeing James Cameron's original Terminator movie. It was probably the darkest, bleakest film experiences I'd had up until that point and it featured Bill Paxon dressed up like a punk rocker and getting stabbed by a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first five-minutes. Crazy. Between the first film and Terminator 2 I salivated at the prospect of seeing the future post-apocalyptic world envisioned by Cameron as a place where humans are hunted down by robots only to fight back under the leadership of John Connor and realised in its own standalone film. Now that time is nearly upon us and the last person I would have expected to be delivering on it was McG.
Here it is, the second trailer for Terminator Salvation which is currently hosted on Yahoo! Movies. It certainly gives a better idea of what we might be able to expect and what kind of weight the screenwriters (Jonathan Nolan, Anthony E. Zuiker, Shawn Ryan, Paul Haggis) who have worked on the project have been able to insert into this massive studio project. It's Warner Bros and that gives me hope, but it also big budget and the pressure is on to prevent an R-rating. Four screenwriter credits isn't the most appealing advertisement, but considering the hoops this story has been through with the studio it's unsurprising. I'm feeling pretty good about this film right now, especially the concept of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) the discontinued terminator who believes he is human. Plot synopsis after the jump, trailer looking suitably mechanised and grundgy is embedded below:
Set in post-apocalyptic 2018, John Connor (Christian Bale), the man fated to be the leader of the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators, and the future he was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet's operations, where they find out a terrible secret that may lead to the possible annihilation of mankind.
