Man... somedays the news that comes from a specific person just feels like a medicine ball in an unexpectant gut of a geek. It'll just knock the wind out of ya. Harry here to pass you that bitter medicine ball pill to swallow and gag upon...
First up was the news that Warners has finally given the greenlight to James Gunn's SCOOBY DOO script (which has had nothing but bad buzz escaping from those that have read it (or at least claim to of read it). I've been having people begging me to try and warn Warners from the forward progression upon this apparently ill-fated mistake... but until I read the script myself... I'm hardly going to do that... Afterall... (prepare for sarcasm on level 6)... With the amazingly skilled directorial prowess of Raja "HOME ALONE 3 and NEVER BEEN KISSED" Gosnell... how can anyone imagine the film being ANYTHING but a wondroooous success... mmmhmmmm, riiiiiiiiiight. Shooting to begin in Feb. 2001.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE LATEST CLARAFICATION UPON "HOUSE OF THE DEAD" AS IT NOW SOUNDS PRETTY FRICKIN COOL!!!Next up was a cool title, HOUSE OF THE DEAD... but upon closer inspection I find that it's an alleged SCREAM meets ZOMBIES flick about a bunch of happy self-refrential hardee har har teenagers battling zombies. Oh joy. I mean, we are all so aware of how well the 'teen horror' genre is right now. Each one of these type films are falling quicker and quicker. Now if they played it straight. Made it the most terrifying experience of their lives... and bleak and violent and real terrifying... that'd be great. But a winky winky Zombie flick... you won't do it better than RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 1 or 2 or 3 for that matter.
Then there was the cheerful frickin' news that Frank Herbert's son and Kevin Anderson are going to write a six book prequel to DUNE... JOY... I mean, God knows that Herbert did such a shoddy job with the back story and overall history of the DUNE universe that we need folks to start throwing out more product that can be sold off to Hollywood or god forbid, the Sci-fi channel, who's abortion... DUNE THE MINISERIES will be dumped upon earth like a plague. I've seen about 45 minutes of rough stuff from this... and besides it being some of the hands down worst acting, lighting, set and costume design I've seen in forever... It just came across as being plain boring.
Now I know I sound overly negative here... but damn this stuff sounds terrible. Only the new Farrelly Brothers and Barry Blaustein projects seemed good in the mix... but go check it out yourself at Variety
