Addressing the 80s crisis of muscular men who could only afford bow-ties and cuffs as formal wear, Tony Scott will direct a film about the rise and fall of Somer “Steve” Banerjee, the man who created Chippendales.  While Banerjee built his male strip club into an 80s phenomenon, he was undone by excess and paranoia which was highly unusual for 80s strip club owners.  According to Variety, Lisa Schrager, who penned the Heidi Fleiss story “Pay the Girl” for Nicole Kidman at Paramount and “Gangsta Bitches” at Universal, will adapt the film from a manuscript written by Rodney Sheldon.

I for one think this is a great pairing of director to material because Scott will be taking on a person I have no interest in whatsoever.  He also can’t waste Denzel Washington’s time because Banerjee was of Indian descent.  Finally, the perception of Chippendales will fit with Scott’s hyper-kinetic style.  I imagine the film will just be 90 minutes of smash cuts and zooms of men’s junk and oily muscular chests.  That would still be an improvement over his remake of “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3″.

I hadn’t even heard of “Cracks” before today and after watching the trailer and reading the synopsis, I’m wondering when I’ll get the chance to see it.  Directed by Jordan Scott (the spawn of Ridley Scott who also produced the film alongside his brother Tony), “Cracks” looks like it has a nice “Picnic at Hanging Rock” vibe to it although the plot seems like a dark, twisted version of “Dead Poets Society”. The film also stars Eva Green being all sexy and mysterious.  I like all of these things.  The trailer leaves the details of the plot a bit fuzzy so I’ve also included a brief synopsis as well as the poster which also went online today.  Check out this “Hanging Rock”-”Dead Poets”-Sexy/Mysterious Eva Green-hybrid after the jump.

We wrote about this a couple of days ago, but it seems that the rumors are now being confirmed.   This summer’s breakout star, Sharlto Copley, from “District 9″ is now in final negotiations to portray “Howling Mad” Murdock in director Joe Carnahan’s adaptation of the cult 1980’s television show, “The A-Team”.

Not only will Copley be joining the team but we also now have news that Jessica Biel will be joining the rouge squad as the former love of “Faceman” (Bradley Cooper).  Don’t you love it when a plan comes together?  You can get some more details when you hit the jump.

Rosario Dawson has now joined the cast of Tony Scott’s latest film, “Unstoppable”. She will now be starring alongside Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. To find out more about this film which is amazingly inspired by a true story hit the jump.

A few months back, we reported that Ridley and Tony Scott were attempting to resurrect (if you’ll excuse the term and forget your enmity towards the fourth film in the series) the “Alien” franchise by bring Carl Rinsch on board to direct a new installment in the franchise. While Tony Scott confirmed that the fifth film would be a prequel, he offered no details on the story.

Hit the jump to find out how it fell apart and how Fox is trying to put it all back together.

Denzel Washington may be giving up on “Unstoppable”, the action drama that would have reunited the star with director Tony Scott for the fifth time.  Back in April we told you that Washington would be following Scott’s train-based drama “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3″ with the train-based drama “Unstoppable” - which probably seemed like a good idea until “Pelham” went off the rails with a measly $61 million domestic take.  Find out how “Unstoppable” got stopped after the jump…

I didn’t have much hope for Tony Scott’s remake* of the brilliant 1974 film “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” (we don’t spell out words anymore because words are for queers) but I hoped that it would at least acknowledge the greatness of that movie and if it wanted to update the story (and I’ll admit there’s room for an update although the original still works perfectly), it would show a little love towards Joseph Sargent’s film.  Maybe they would remix David Shire’s unforgettable theme from the flick and use that to open the movie.

And then they open with Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” and you realize that this isn’t a remake you tolerate as much as you endure it.

I could have talked with screenwriter Brian Helgeland for an hour. That’s because he’s written some great scripts and worked for some amazing directors. Here are some of the films he’s written:

• L.A. Confidential
• Payback
• Mystic River
• Man on Fire
• Conspiracy Theory
• A Knight’s Tale

And that’s just part of his resume, as his new movie “The Taking of Pelham 123″ arrives in theaters this weekend and he has four other films in production or post-production. Perhaps you’ve already heard of “Green Zone”, “Cirque du Freak”, “Robin Hood” and “Salt”. If you haven’t, they’re directed by Paul Greengrass, Paul Weitz, Ridley Scott, and Phillip Noyce. Not a bad list of directors.

Anyway, I got to speak with him for “The Taking of Pelham 123″ and the film stars Denzel Washington and John Travolta and it’s a remake of the 1974 film that starred Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw. Here’s a link to the synopsis and six clips from the film.

During our interview we talked about why he wanted to write the remake, did he know Denzel would be in it, what’s it like to work for Tony Scott, does he still get studio notes and what does he do with them, what kind of research does he do, and we talked about his other projects like “Robin Hood” and how he’s going to direct a film later this year that’s currently called “Untitled Cop Movie”.

If you’re a fan of Brian’s writing or just want to hear about how he works, it’s a great interview. Take a look after the jump.

Opening this Friday is director Tony Scott’s “The Taking of Pelham 123″. The film stars Denzel Washington and John Travolta and it’s a remake of the 1974 film that starred Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw. Here’s the synopsis:

Denzel Washington stars as New York City subway dispatcher Walter Garber, whose ordinary day is thrown into chaos by an audacious crime: the hijacking of a subway train.  John Travolta stars as Ryder, the criminal mastermind who, as leader of a highly-armed gang of four, threatens to execute the train’s passengers unless a large ransom is paid within one hour. As the tension mounts beneath his feet, Garber employs his vast knowledge of the subway system in a battle to outwit Ryder and save the hostages.  But there’s one riddle Garber can’t solve: even if the thieves get the money, how can they possibly escape?

To help promote the film, I recently attended a press conference with director Tony Scott and Denzel Washington. They talked about all the usual subjects like what was it like to make the movie, filming in New York, how did Denzel create his character, what they have coming up, and a lot more.

If you’d like to read the transcript, it’s after the jump. But if you’d rather listen to the press conference, you can click here to download/listen to the audio. If you have the time, I’d recommend listening. Press conferences are always better that way.

Finally, here’s a link to some movie clips from “Taking of Pelham 123″.

A couple weeks ago, we reported that Tony Scott confirmed Carl Rinsch as the director for a new “Alien” movie and that said “Alien” movie would be a prequel as opposed to a full-on reboot.  And there was much rejoicing and chest-bursting.

But today Entertainment Weekly is reporting that according to their sources, Fox will only go ahead with an “Alien” prequel if original director Ridley Scott comes on board.  It’s actually the smart move on Fox’s part because while they could easily bully a freshman director like Rinsch, the “Alien” property has lost so much clout over the years that the only way to re-ignite interest is to put the man who launched the franchise back in charge.  However, if this is a deal-breaker for Fox, it looks like this deal will be broken because Scott already has eighty-bajillion projects on his plate, including an adaptation of the board game, “Monopoly”.

If The Hollywood Reporter is to be believed, then director Tony Scott is about to get much better than he deserves.  The guy already has some sort of weird hold on Denzel Washington (my guess: explicit photos of Washington curbstomping infants which is really unfair because those photos lack context) and now it looks like he’s going to get Chris Pine onboard his terrible-looking train movie, “Unstoppable”.  According to THR, Pine would play a newbie train conductor (stay with me) whose brought onto replace the veteran train conductor played by Washington (stay with me) due to company cutbacks.  I don’t really understand how replacing one guy with another guy saves the company money but okay.  They find themselves in a race against time to stop an unmanned, half-mile-long freight train carrying enough combustible liquids and poisonous gas to wipe out a nearby city.

So…someone put all the combustible liquids AND the poisonous gases on the same half-mile train?  What was the alternate title for this movie, “3:10 to Are You Fucking Kidding Me?”  I don’t know where “Unstoppable” will fit in with scheduling for “Star Trek 2″ but at least Pine has that film in his back pocket and can afford to do what is, at best, a paycheck movie.  That or Scott had damning photos of Pine also curb-stomping infants.  Why would these celebrities do that if they know it’s so frowned upon?

I’m not big on Tony Scott.  It’s not just his ADD-style of directing.  It’s that he uses it for all of his recent films, regardless of the story, pacing, characters, or tone.  He’s like a Michael Bay that’s always out of his element.  Sure, Bay only knows how to give you high-adrenaline explosions and the notice that “This shit just got real,” but it usually fits the ridiculous story.

But I was hoping that Scott’s bombastic editing would meld beautifully with his intended remake of Walter Hill’s 1979 cult classic “The Warriors”.  That film is already kind of insane and it would be great to see his over-the-top style match up with over-the-top characters in over-the-top costumes with over-the-top dialogue like “Waaaarriors….come out to plaaayeeeaayy…”

And then he had to open his mouth and tell Rotten Tomatoes what he intends with his remake: “I love the original ‘Warriors’ and I’m using the same basic story. It’s really still 10 guys stuck at point B and they need to get back to point A. But I’m going to set it in Los Angeles and it’s going to be a kind of study of gang culture in LA today.”

Are you kidding me.  The one time where he’s perfectly suited for the material and he wants to do a serious study on gang culture in Los Angeles.  I cannot dig it.  I cannot dig it at all.

Opening on June 12th is director Tony Scott’s “The Taking of Pelham 123″. The film stars Denzel Washington and John Travolta and it’s a remake of the 1974 film that starred Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw. Here’s the synopsis:

Denzel Washington stars as New York City subway dispatcher Walter Garber, whose ordinary day is thrown into chaos by an audacious crime: the hijacking of a subway train.  John Travolta stars as Ryder, the criminal mastermind who, as leader of a highly-armed gang of four, threatens to execute the train’s passengers unless a large ransom is paid within one hour. As the tension mounts beneath his feet, Garber employs his vast knowledge of the subway system in a battle to outwit Ryder and save the hostages.  But there’s one riddle Garber can’t solve: even if the thieves get the money, how can they possibly escape?

To help promote the film, we’ve been provided with 6 clips and a featurette. They’re all after the jump so take a look:

A few days ago, Bloody-Disgusting reported that 20^th century Fox was going to remake “Alien” and director Carl Rinsch would be helming the movie. Immediately fandom exploded with venom. I think one of the main reasons is that the original is a classic, and 20^th Century Fox hasn’t been making films of that caliber recently.

So at today’s junket for Tony Scott’s new film “The Taking of Pelham 123″, I went up Tony after the press conference ended to ask him what was up with the remake.

The big news is he confirmed Carl Rinsch would be directing it and that it’s a prequel to his brother Ridley’s classic!

What Tony told me is after the jump:

Since they’re rebooting “Predator”, it’s not a surprise that a reboot of “Alien” couldn’t be far behind.  Even though I think it’s an over-hated film, “Alien Resurrection” along with the justly-hated “Alien vs. Predator” movies have killed the franchise but with the lovely Xenomorph so iconic (and potentially profitable), Fox is giving it another go, according to Bloody-Disgusting.

Original director Ridley Scott is on board to produce along with brother Tony Scott and Michael Costigan.  They’ve tapped music video director Carl Rinsch to direct and I’m always interested to see fresh talent behind the camera rather than someone whose an established failure (at least artistically; hi, Shawn Levy, Brian Robbins, Tim Story, and Adam Shankman!)  BD also mentions that they’re looking for a new Ripley and I understand that.  Even though she looks good for her age, Sigourney Weaver is almost sixty and while I wouldn’t be opposed to her having a cameo or even a full supporting role, it’s time to let a new young actress take on one of the strongest and well-written female leads in cinema history.

Finally, BD notes that it will just be the one alien stalking the ship as in the original.  I’m not opposed to this but if you’re going to relaunch the series, take us someplace new, namely: the Xenomorph planet.  But perhaps they’re saving that in the event that this relaunch is successful.

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