Producer/director Robert Rippberger (Those Who Walk Away) recently wrapped production on the sci-fi thriller Renner, which sees Frankie Muniz and Violett Beane taking on a manipulative A.I. Now Rippberger is heading to the European Film Market in Berlin to launch sales on his slate of upcoming films – the first project in the line-up being a horror thriller creature feature called Monstrosity, which is reminiscent of the classic sitcom The Munsters (which recently received a feature film update from Rob Zombie) in that it focuses on a family that consists of classic monsters. In this case, a werewolf, a vampire, a zombie, and Frankenstein’s Monster. The mixture also brings to mind the ’80s classic The Monster Squad.
Variety reports that Monstrosity, which is currently in pre-production, has the following synopsis: A young village boy goes missing down a mine shaft. His father blames a strange family in the neighboring house, but of course far more is at play. The family of misfits are actually a werewolf, a vampire, a zombie, and Frankenstein’s monster, and they are all guarding the mine to keep evil barricaded behind a Hell Gate.
Rippberger will be directing the film and producing it (under his SIE Films banner) alongside writer Sabir Pirzada, whose credits include the Marvel / Disney+ shows Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel. Concept artist Aaron Sims, who has worked on the likes of Stranger Things, Ready Player One, and Wonder Woman 1984, has designed the creatures, and Monstrosity will be filming later this year at “one of the Morgan International full-service special effects facilities in Europe.”
Rippberger had this to say about Monstrosity: “Like superhero films, monster movies have an avid fanbase. (Similar to The Avengers), we are immersing the vampire, werewolf, zombie and Frankenstein’s monster into the 21st century.” He went on to say that this film is going to “flip these characters and the horror genre on its head.“
Other Rippberger productions include the documentary How to Build a Truth Engine, which was executive produced by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, and the stop-motion animated film The Inventor. In addition to the horror thriller Those Who Walk Away, he has also directed the social drama Strive and the documentaries Public Enemy Number One, 7 Days in Syria, Face of Unity, Visions for the Future, and Breaking the Cycle.
Does Monstrosity sound interesting to you? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
If you’ve played the original Final Fantasy VII, you know the game ends on a bittersweet note. Sure, the day is saved by the remnants of the revolutionary group Avalanche, but as illustrated in the film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, the gang is left to deal with a lot of residual trauma from their journey.…
If you’ve played the original Final Fantasy VII, you know the game ends on a bittersweet note. Sure, the day is saved by the remnants of the revolutionary group Avalanche, but as illustrated in the film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, the gang is left to deal with a lot of residual trauma from their journey.…
Several months ago, word leaked out that Maggie Gyllenhaal was set to direct a film called The Bride, a new take on the concept of the 1935 classic The Bride of Frankenstein (watch it HERE), for the Netflix streaming service. At that time, Gyllenhaal had even already secured two cast members for the film: her TheDark Knight co-star Christian Bale and her husband Peter Sarsgaard. Penelope Cruz, Jessie Buckley, and Annette Bening have since joined the cast as well, and The Bride is gearing up to start filming in New York on March 4th. With just weeks to go until he has to report to set, Bale has revealed that he will be shaving head for the movie… and he might have to eat fertilizer for it as well.
The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Bale at the groundbreaking ceremony for a sixteen year passion project of his, a village of homes in Palmdale, California where foster siblings can live under one roof. When they asked him what’s next on his film schedule, he answered, “I’ve got to shave my head next week (for The Bride). I asked them to please let me hold off on doing that but everyone was going, ‘What’s wrong with Bale? What’s up with him?’ I said, ‘Just let me get through the groundbreaking and then I’ll be off to join you.’ I’ll be working with the wonderful Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jessie Buckley and so many talented actors in the cast.” He jokingly added, “I’ve got to get busy getting on the rack, breaking my bones and eating lots of fertilizer or something to try and grow.” Indicating that he’s playing Frankenstein’s Monster in the film.
The Bride (which may not end up going with that title, as The Hollywood Reporter says it’s currently untitled) has the following synopsis: A lonely Frankenstein travels to 1930s Chicago to seek the aide of a Dr. Euphronius in creating a companion for himself. The two reinvigorate a murdered young woman and the Bride is born. She is beyond what either of them intended, igniting a combustible romance, the attention of the police and a wild and radical social movement.
Production List had reported the following line-up of cast and characters: “Cruz as the bride Myrna, Bale as Frankenstein, and Sarsgaard playing a detective.” But a later report described Buckley as “the star” of the film, so there’s a chance she’s playing the bride.
This isn’t a Universal project, but it wouldn’t be the first Bride of Frankenstein remake to be made by a different company. In 1985, Columbia Pictures brought us another movie simply called The Bride, which starred Sting as Baron Charles Frankenstein, Jennifer Beals as Eva (the bride) and Clancy Brown as Viktor (the monster). A few years ago, it was announced that Scarlett Johansson was going to star in a similar project called Bride for A24 and Apple, but that still hasn’t made it into production.
Are you looking forward to seeing Christian Bale play Frankenstein’s Monster in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s take on The Bride of Frankenstein? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
Rachell Hofstetter always wants to do more. With four million subscribers on YouTube, the streamer known as Valkyrae has become one of the top women creators in gaming since she started back in 2015. Viewers can’t get enough of her bubbly personality and quirky antics, devouring her streams as she trash-talks in Valora…
Rachell Hofstetter always wants to do more. With four million subscribers on YouTube, the streamer known as Valkyrae has become one of the top women creators in gaming since she started back in 2015. Viewers can’t get enough of her bubbly personality and quirky antics, devouring her streams as she trash-talks in Valora…
Jon Bon Jovi is a rare hairband act who has been able to extend his hit music career beyond the 80s metal rock era. He crossed over as a solo artist, but his band remains to be one held to high regard in the rock genre with hits such as “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “You Give Love a Bad Name” (which was played all over the trailer to Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt’s ode to stuntmen in David Leitch‘s The Fall Guy). Hulu has now released the trailer for the upcoming documentary for the story of the band told from their own personal accounts. The Hulu doc, Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story teases their famous frontman preparing audiences by saying, “I’ve got a story to tell.”
In the official release from Hulu, the synopsis reads, “The series joins the band in February 2022 and follows their real time journey with its fits and starts as they attempt to chart out their future. As thrilling as the story of a once-in-a-lifetime talent is, it is even more rare that a legend like Jon Bon Jovi lets the world into his most vulnerable moments, while he’s still living them.
40 years of personal videos, unreleased early demos, original lyrics, and never before seen photos that chronicle the journey from Jersey Shore Clubs to the biggest stages on the planet. The series relives the triumphs and setbacks, greatest hits, biggest disappointments, and most public moments of friction.”
Thank you, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story is directed and executive produced by multiple Emmy® Award winner Gotham Chopra (Kobe Bryant’s Muse, Man in the Arena, Tom vs. Time). The film is also executive produced by Giselle Parets and Ameeth Sankaran for ROS, and it is produced and edited by Alex Trudeau Viriato, who played a critical, creative role in shaping the series.
Bon Jovi famously performed on the soundtrack for Young Guns II and recently Lou Diamond Phillips alluded to a third film being in limbo, but he would also say that it’s not dead. “I got that phone call a year ago. I know that Emilio has been working on it, and what’s even more encouraging is that John Fusco, the creator of the first two movies, is working on it with him. There’s just enough ambiguity about Chavez’s death that means he might have survived just like Billy the Kid did…Did you see the body? You never saw the body! Some people go, ‘But the spirit horse came for you.’ And I say yes, but there was nobody on the back of the spirit horse, was there? The advantage of that is myself and a couple of other people died off screen. The ones who got shot to bits, they’re not coming back.”
Whenever the future is depicted in movies, it is generally a dark, depressing dystopian future where something happens in our present that sets forth the collapse of our society. Even Disney is not immune to showing us a future where Earth is no longer inhabitable (the belovedWall-E). But occasionally, a movie shows a future that doesn’t look so bad—one with self-lacing shoes, 19 Jaws movies and flying cars. Of course, if we are being technical, this movie is also in the past. It’s time for us to hop in our DeLorean, generate the necessary 1.21 Jigowatts and travel to the futuristic world of October 21, 2015, as we take a look at what Back to the Future Part II got right and wrong about the future of technology… from eight years ago!
Coming off the success of the original Back to The Future, writer/ director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale and Producer Steven Spielberg, knew audiences wanted one thing out of the sequel: to see the future. For some of the technological advances, they had a leg up with emerging technology that was in the early phases while others were flourishes of pure creative genius. So, what radical ideas did the filmmakers successfully predict nearly 35 years ago?
When we first arrive on October 21, 2015, we are treated to a rainy dystopian future that doesn’t look too appealing. Still, when the rain stopped, precisely as Doc Brown predicted it would, the world of 2015 looked like a cool, majestic, hip and, most importantly, futuristic world.
The idea of bending over to tie your shoes is something so many of us wish we didn’t have to do, so the idea of a shoe that ties itself was something we all wished we had! The question is: did the writers predict where technology was going, or was it sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy? The technology as it exists in the movie isn’t quite what we have in today’s world, but Nike did put out a line of shoes called the Adapt BB that will conform to the wearer’s foot, with some designs even resembling the shoes Marty wore in the film. So I think this is a case of the film being so popular that Nike decided to make it a reality, a reality that will cost you around 500 bucks!
One thing that the movie didn’t get right was that we sadly never got to Jaws 19.We did get Jaws 2, Jaws 3D and Jaws: The Revenge, but that is where the money train stopped. I guess if you count the numerous home video releases of the first movie, it’s like there were nineteen Jaws films. But even in that miss, the filmmakers got a big thing correct: holographic marketing that looks like it is coming right at you. Marty ducks and covers when a holographic shark comes to bite his head off. In today’s world, if you were walking around Tokyo, you would think Dragons were coming at you, or giant cats just wanted to play. These advertisements look futuristic even in today’s world!
Back in 1985, it seemed like a far-fetched idea that you could use your thumbprint on an electronic device to send a payment, but writer Bob Gale says they did not invent that idea but had seen it in various other science fiction films. In today’s world, not only is using your fingerprint to unlock your portable devices something many of us do but biometrics, using facial ID or thumbprints for other security purposes such as entering your home, has been adopted by many people who see the unique print of their thumb or an ocular scan as more secure than a key.
Even the portable devices in themselves are something the film got right. Today, you no longer have to wait in a mechanics lobby with just the rabbit-eared TV playing Sally Jesse Raphael. We each own our own phones and tablets that allow us to kill time in any way we choose. Go to most restaurants these days, and many waiters will have tablets with card readers right there, so you can pay quickly and be on your way.
Another miss may not be a full-on miss, but when was the last time anyone saw a Texaco station?! In the film, it would appear Texaco is the Gas station of choice for Hill Valley. Still, today, it seems the once giant gas station brand has fallen on some hard times, filing for bankruptcy in 1989 before merging with Chevron in 2001 and is now only in 16 of the 50 states in America.
Once Marty enters the retro Cafe 80s. one of the things that Back to the Future Part II got right that is only now becoming a major issue is the use of Artificial Intelligence. Not long ago, the SAG-Aftra strike was settled after a deal was struck that featured heavy AI protections. Yet in this Cafe ’80s, if you wanted a Pepsi, all you had to do was ask an AI version of Ronald Reagan while ordering a cheeseburger from Michael Jackson. Sure, it was just an AI, a version of a celebrity taking your order at a niche cafe, but where was the world heading? What would AI have looked like in Back To The Future 2023?!
As a kid watching Back To The Future Part II, there were some cool things on display that any of us would have put on our Christmas lists, but the one thing every kid and probably adult wanted was a Hoverboard. To be able to float through the air magically was the envy of all kids. In today’s world, there are things on the market called Hoverboards, but let’s be honest… they don’t hover! They have wheels gliding on the ground as you maintain your balance. So the question is: is this one the film got wrong? Not quite. In the year 2016, just one year after the events of this movie, BBC reported that engineers had discovered a way to make real-life hoverboards by using magnets, semiconductors and the freezing properties of liquid nitrogen, you know, the stuff the T-1000 was made out of! In a video posted to their site, they showed the technology, although on a slightly smaller scale than the skateboard-sized ones seen in the film. Shortly after, a company called Hendo Hover did seem to make a valiant effort to get the technology out to the masses. However, in the seven years since that report, hoverboards have not become a part of our everyday life, but the technology is there, which counts as a win for Back to the Future Part II!
In the future world of 2015. It seemed kids weren’t walking zombies to their phones and tablets as they seemed in the real world. That’s because they are obsessed with their glasses that work as a virtual world with everything from the TV to the Phone right there in front of their eyeballs. The writers got this correct, as Virtual Reality has become a multi-billion dollar market with devices such as the Meta Quest and the Playstation VR2. While the glasses featured in the film function more like a Google Glass-type device, where they are able to watch TV and see incoming calls, there is no doubt that wearable tech was something the writers knew was going to be part of our future.
Once we get to the run-down neighbourhood where Marty and his family live, we see a dog being walked by a drone. While we may not allow our four-legged family members to be walked by Drones just yet, one can’t deny that they are a vital part of our world. Not just in terms of military use, where the US can drop a bomb on a target from thousands of miles away, but also in our filmmaking, with many filmmakers like Michael Bay using Drones to capture some amazing shots while kids can head to their local toy store and pick up their own personal drone to play with.
Inside the McFly home, the McFlys are greeted by a Siri-like voice when they enter their home, while a simple voice command allows them to illuminate their home. While the thought of not having to flick a switch to turn on your lights in 1985 was a far-off idea, in today’s world, it is a feature many of us enjoy with our smart devices while Siri and Alexa greet you however you desire. In the living room, Marty takes part in a business transaction gone wrong on his large flat-screen TV using video-conferencing, which is part of our daily lives in today’s world.
Of course, with as much as they got right in that home, there were a few big misses. First, if you were going to be fired, you probably wouldn’t be fired by receiving ten faxes around your home! I guess in the 80s, fax machines were the next big thing, but that was one technological advancement that stayed in the past. The other big swing and miss was the self-hydrating pizza from Pizza Hut. According to writer Bob Gale, Pizza Hut asked to do a tie-in with the movie, and Gale and Zemeckis thought about what could possibly be the next big advancement past the microwave oven. Miniature food that hydrates in seconds, of course! I think we can chalk that one up to true science fiction, as I don’t believe that technology is even in the research and development stages anywhere in the world!
One thing the filmmakers nearly got right, which truly would have been amazing, given the entire theme of the movie hinges on someone saying they wish they could go back in time and make a sports bet. The Chicago Cubs hadn’t been a great baseball team for a while. They had the longest streak ever without winning the World Series, which in 2015 was 107 years. And then, in the 2015 MLB postseason, it looked like everyone in the world wished they could go back in time and bet on the Cubbies as they entered the postseason as a wild-card team, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates before taking out the St. Louis Cardinals in the Divisional round. With only four teams remaining, it seemed the Cubs were ready to make history, but sadly, the New York Mets stopped that when they defeated the Cubs in a four game sweep in the Championship series. Although the writers weren’t far off in their prediction as the Cubs would go on to win the World Series the following year, with many people wishing they had their own Sports Almanac in their back pocket.
A line in the film says that the Justice System runs so smoothly now that all lawyers have been abolished. Sadly, that was a big swing and a miss. Lawyers are still all around us, and our justice system is anything but flawless!
Any film set in the future gives their wardrobe department free reign to create outfits they see as futuristic but functional. Back to the Future Part 2 was no exception as they crafted a unique look for Biff and his cronies that in the real world of 2015 wasn’t quite accurate. However, with some of the clothes I have seen people wear, I wouldn’t say they were far off either!
Of course, there are two big things that Back to the Future Part 2 got wrong, and they are the things that nearly all time travel movies get wrong.
Flying Cars
Time Travel itself!
Christopher Lloyd has said many iconic lines in his career, but one stands above them all: “Roads, where we’re going, we don’t need roads.” Doc, Marty and Jennifer would then hover above the street as an older/ humbler Biff Tannen looks on with the familiarity of a flying DeLorean. When we emerge from the clouds we are in the future of October 21, 2015, where highways are both on the ground and in the sky. As much as we all may want to imagine a world where we can get in our own vehicle and take to the skies, never having to worry about TSA again, it is just something that isn’t a reality. Granted, the filmmakers didn’t invent the idea of the flying car. That idea has been around for decades, with many of us first being introduced to it with the 1960s cartoons of The Jetsons. But as with all things impossible right now, this tech may soon be a reality as there are several companies working on a flying car. There is the Netherlands Liberty Sport, the Moroni H1, the Alec Model A, and the Klein Vision AirCar, and if you have $770,000 lying around, you could land yourself the Samson Switchblade in 2025. Of course, these “flying cars” seem just to be personal aircraft, like a Cessna, with sleek designs allowing them to drive on the roads. Basically, they all look like The Homer!
And of course, the big miss, the miss in every time travel movie: time travel does not exist… we think! Who is to say that in the future time travel will be invented with very specific rules that if you go back in time, you can not interfere with the people of the present?! You don’t know that isn’t true, do you?! The idea of seeing our own future is as old as time itself, and who wouldn’t want to see where we are 5000 years from now? Or even IF we still are! Many of us would love to take a trip back in time to see the dinosaurs or the signing of the Declaration of Independence or even see our own parents in their teens, which was Bob Gale’s original idea when he thought up the first Back to the Future. He saw a picture of his father in high school and wondered if they would have been friends. That idea spawned one of the greatest trilogies ever made.
Despite Back to the Future Part 2 now being in our past, the sleek design and innovative tech on display will never get old. It may have taken place over eight years ago. Still, it will forever remain timeless, and that is because despite getting enough right to feel prescient, the filmmakers let their imaginations run wild, and that is why Back to the Future Part 2 will always feel like a distant future we may never see unless we put on our virtual reality glasses while watching our flatscreen TV in our home that welcomes us with an automated voice.
And I still want my Black & Decker Hydrator so I can make a delicious Pizza Hut Pizza in 2 seconds!
The episode of WTF Happened to This Horror Movie? covering Hannibal was Written by Mike Holtz, Narrated by Travis Hopson, Edited by Joseph Wilson, Produced by Andrew Hatfield and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.
When The Silence of the Lambs was released upon the world in 1991 and not only became a financial and critical success but also the third film in history to win all five of the big awards at the Oscars, you knew it meant one thing… Tostito’s Pizza Rolls! Because that’s the best way to celebrate any achievement. No, it meant a sequel. Thank God it released in the 90s and not today! Forget a sequel, Disney would have purchased the rights and farmed out an entire cinematic universe. I can see it now… (trailer voice) “You’ve seen Hannibal Lecter behind bars. But have you ever seen him… in the classroom? This summer on Disney +… Hannibal High”. Why does it feel like that’s a thing that would actually happen and why is it so frightening? Anyways, a Silence of the Lambs sequel was destined to produce itself. But this was no ordinary follow up. The Silence of the Lambs was based off an uber popular novel by Thomas Harris. So, any respectable sequel would need to follow the same path. The follow-up novel, however, would take seven years to make its appearance in 1998. Which, again, would be unheard of by today’s sequel standards. The film would release only three years after that in 2001. Sounds like an easy production which easily brought back the trio of Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, and director Jonathan Demme to create a sequel that naturally feels like a successor to the original award-winning film, right? Wrong. Nothing would be the same. So, sit back, pop some Pizza Rolls in the microwave OR oven, if you’re fancy (personally, I think Lecter would be an oven guy) pour yourself some chianti and let’s get into just WTF Happened To Hannibal?
Originally, everything was in place just as you would imagine. It was expected that Jodie Foster would return to the character she cared so much about and that Jonathan Demme would direct. The table was set.Bad choice of words! Well, as I learned from the same place I get all my life lessons from, a Steven Seagal movie: ”assumption is the mother of all *bleep* ups”. The book was a best seller with wild financial success that was met with middling reviews. Stephen King loved it, however, ranking it alongside The Exorcist as one of the scariest novels of all time. All this was good enough to convince producers Martha and Dino De Laurentiis to pay a whopping 10 million dollars for the rights to adapt Hannibal (watch it HERE) into a film. That number may seem absolutely nuts but the De Laurentiises had more skin in the game than a room full of Buffalo Bill dresses. You see, they produced the first ever Lambs franchise film in 1986 with Manhunter, an adaptation of Harris’ first Lecter novel, Red Dragon, that Dino wasn’t all that impressed with. So much so that he lent the rights to Orion to make The Silence of The Lambs for free. Which also seems utterly insane until you hear Martha describe the choice, saying “We were afraid to make the movie. You could be terrible and say no, or you could demand money, which was kind of, why be greedy? Or you let them use it, and if its succesful, your asset has value.” And it had value by the buttload. All this and we haven’t even mentioned a settled 25 million dollar lawsuit they got into with Universal over the production of the sequel. The De Laurentiises were knee deep and involved with this franchise since the beginning. They weren’t about to walk away now.
There was just one problem… the book they’d just purchased the rights to, while financially successful and Stephen King approved, was absolutely nuts! The end of Thomas Harris’ novel would take the beloved character of Clarice Starling, which Foster and Demme were understandably precious about, on a Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 level departure off the deep end. The book would ultimately end with Starling and Lecter as not only teammates but lovers. That’s right. Lovers. In the book, they dined on Ray Liotta’s prefrontal cortex together before Clarice revealed one of her breasts to Lecter (who BY THE WAY had spent a considerable amount of time using multiple versions of “therapy” to turn her into…. wait for it…. his long-lost SISTER) before the two ran off together and lived happily ever after where they spent their days having sex, dancing, and learning new languages. That actually happened.
Now, I respect the absolute marbles on this man for having the guts to get so wackadoodle with his storytelling… but neither Jonathan Demme, Jodie Foster nor Silence of the Lambs screenplay writer Ted Tally felt the same way. Tally refused to write the screenplay although he would later return to write Red Dragon. When asked by Inside Film Online why he refused to write Hannibal, he told them, “The Director, Jonathan Demme, and I read it and were horrified. We didn’t see how we could make a movie from it that we could be proud of and not feel sleazy about it, without making it a totally different story, which we could have done on our own. It was upsetting because we had a friendship with Tom Harris and felt we owed him a lot. But he was defensive and didn’t want anything changed and it was frustrating because it would have been the biggest payday for all of us, putting us up there in Spielberg territory.”
The whimsical romance between Lecter and Starling wasn’t the only hold up, however. Those hesitant to come on board with the film often used the words “lurid” or “explicit” to describe the parts of the book they didn’t enjoy. What they meant by that was a subplot (not included in the final film product) that featured a character named Margot who ends up sodomizing her own brother with a cattle prod to gather his sperm to impregnate her bodybuilder girlfriend; So, I mean… stuff like that… perhaps?
Determined and ten million dollars lighter, the production pushed on and De Laurentiis was able to acquire Alien director Sir Ridley Scott himself to helm the project. In a hilarious exchange, Dino handed Scott the script for Hannibal while Scott was making Gladiator which he immediately rejected, thinking it was about the historical figure and Carthaginian general, saying “Dino, I don’t want to do elephants coming over the Alps. I’m doing a Roman movie now.” They sorted out the confusion and the rest is history. Really weird history. Scott also thought that Harris’ original ending was as baffling as the rest of us, saying, “I couldn’t take that quantum leap emotionally on behalf of Starling. Certainly, on behalf of Hannibal… I’m sure that’s been in the back of his mind for a number of years. But for Starling, no. I think one of the attractions about Starling to Hannibal is what a straight arrow she is.” Harris was slightly open to the changing of his ending but wanted to know what it would be. Though he was famously reclusive, they somehow got the writer to sit in a hotel room for four days with new screenplay writers David Mamet who wrote Glengarry Glen Ross and Steven Zaillian who would later write The Irishman and hash everything out. And so, the film had gone out and got itself a new writer and director. At least they’d have the cast back, right? RIGHT? Because you have to put the lotion in the basket. Or you get the hose again. We were all about to get the hose again and in a big way. That sounded weird.
Jodie Foster, much like Demme before her, remained unpleased with the drastic changes to her character. She would ultimately walk away from the project, later saying “The official reason I didn’t do Hannibal is I was doing another movie, Flora Plum. So, I get to say, in a nice, dignified way, that I wasn’t available when that movie was being shot.” Ouch. She would also say “Clarice meant so much to Jonathan and I… and I know it sounds kind of strange to say but there was no way that either of us could really trample on her.” All I can think about is poor Thomas Harris sitting there just being metaphorically hit in the face with his own book like it was a phone book and he’s just been caught cheating at the Bellagio. I’m sure the ten million dollars made it easier to sleep at night. Foster would say after watching the final product of the film she wasn’t in, “I saw Hannibal. I won’t comment.” Probably means she loved it so much she couldn’t find the words, right?
Then there’s the other side of the story… which, Dino De Laurentiis says is drastically different in a 2001 interview with The Guardian, saying that her agent said she wouldn’t even read the script without an offer of $20 million. His alleged response? “Give my love to Jodie Foster, goodbye.” And was happy about it, saying he “didn’t believe she was right from day one when I read the book.” Regardless of the truth of the matter, the search for a new actress was on. After considering multiple actresses from Cate Blanchett to Angelina Jolie landed on Assassin’s actress Julianne Moore. Moore was widely respected and honestly a great choice to replace Jodie Foster. Unfortunately, it just wouldn’t have felt right for the audience no matter who replaced Foster. Never the less, its commendable that Moore had the guts to go in and give it her all.
Anthony Hopkins, though said to be both hesitant and heart-broken when Foster wouldn’t return… would be the polar opposite of difficult and really, the actor equivalent of that friend who’s always down to go out for a pint when you need a buddy. Hopkins hilariously said of his return “I thought, OK fine, let’s see what it’s like. I tend to be low key about things like that.” Later, they would ask him for his approval on Moore’s casting to which he replied “Oh yes. Jolly good.” I just want to hug him. Is that weird? Shut up, you’re weird! He did later say about the project however, “I think it’s a good film. The reservation I have about that idea though is that when Lecter is let out of his cell he has no power. Because when he’s confined in that cell he’s like a tarantula in a bottle. Once you let him out of that cell there’s nothing frightening about him.” In the end, Lecter would feel quite less intense than he did in Lambs. Hopkins said he considered the character more “mellow” ten years later and “probably a much richer character.” The character definitely felt a lot more refined with Scott and Hopkins diving head first into the “cultured” side of Lecter, all as he disemboweled detectives from rooftops and made chicken nuggies out of Ray Liotta’s brain.
Speaking of Ray Liotta, the cast was rounded out most excellently with his hire as the resident FBI asshole who coined the term “country pone” in regard to female genitalia, whatever that means. Liotta was great in the film, as he was anything with his name attached to it and allegedly got the part because he kept running into Ridley Scott at the gym and one day asked if he had any parts for him. Hollywood is so weird. Most of the people at my gym are just old guys with a proclivity to walk around naked in the locker room throwing baby powder around like pre-game Lebron James. Speaking of which, the title of biggest creep in the film didn’t belong to Liotta’s character or even Lecter himself. No, that title belonged to the character of Mason Verger, a rich pedophile who looks like Mitch McConnell went ten rounds with prime Mike Tyson, was eaten by a T-rex and shat into a volcano. Underneath all those lovely layers of absolutely haunting makeup which took 5-6 hours a day to apply was Gary Oldman. Though you might not have known it since he wasn’t mentioned in any of the opening credits. To hear Martha De Laurentiis tell it, Oldman wanted top billing alongside Hopkins and Moore but for a while left the project when he couldn’t get it. He then returned and asked not to be credited at all for the project, likely realizing that it would create the sort of legend and mystique that actors dream of and Jonah Hill still can’t attain no matter who he sells his soul to. Just kidding, Jonah. You know I love you. Interestingly enough the part was originally offered to the great Christopher Reeve, who thought that maybe playing a disgusting and disfigured pedophile wouldn’t be all that great for his image. Copy that, Superman.
In one of the wildest and coolest stories of the film, Verger wants revenge on Hopkins for you know, making him look like a bag of milk had a threesome with a Five Night’s at Freddy’s animatronic and an old catcher’s mitt. This, after Lecter had come over and seduced him, gave him a few poppers, and then told him to literally cut off his own face. And he did it! This leads Mason to concoct a wild plot to put Starling in danger so that Lecter will come for her and then he can catch Lecter and feed him to a pack of wild boar that he keeps hanging around the farm like sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads. This all sounds crazier than Courtney Love after a six pack of Monster Energy Drinks and it is. But the boars definitely made for some of the coolest horror FX in the film with the crew buying a Russian boar head off of eBay and then using it for the close ups or creating full size human bodies made up of gelatin and stuffed with chicken and other assortments so that we, the audience had the pleasure of seeing them believably and horrifyingly eat human beings. It was awesomely gnarly.
The crew outdid themselves, however, with the one scene you think about every time you think about Hannibal. No, not the one where Clarice and Hannibal bang because thankfully even Ridley Scott wasn’t into that idea either. And they ended up not using it although they did allegedly film a version of that ending for Harris just to see if it would work (it didn’t). Rather, it was a scene in which Lecter cuts chunks of Ray Liotta’s brain out of his head as he’s still lucid and cooks them on a skillet. For this scene the crew had to create a full-scale model of Liotta to painstaking detail and simultaneously shoot a version where Liotta himself sat in the chair with makeup . The result is unforgettable and one of the most iconic horror scenes of all time, despite the overall reception to the film being quite murky.
Hannibal debuted to the highest box office gross for a movie with an R rating on opening weekend, raking in $58 million dollars. It went on to a worldwide total of $351 million overall. The film boasts a positive audience score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes but 39% rotten critics score with one critic saying it has “No tension, no rhythm and no sense of purpose unless you count helping Faces of Death fans feel more evolved”. Hey, what’s that guys problem with Faces of Deathfans?
One must admit the process of watching Hannibal is a strange one. The film in itself is a well-made Ridley Scott film with an interesting story and some great horror moments peppered throughout. It suffers from a bit of Halloween Ends-itis however, as while one could argue it to be a good stand-alone movie, it is in many ways a poor follow up to its predecessor. The tones of the two films just don’t synch up well at all, especially when you add in the fact that despite her best efforts, it’s just weird to have a different human being in the role of Clarice when Hannibal is still the same Hannibal. It’s also a little hard to suspend belief that someone on the FBI’s Most Wanted list and famed serial killer with such distinct physical traits is just walking around in the open, giving lectures on art and sipping wine on restaurant patios. Even in the book, Lecter had undergone plastic surgery to make this all more believable. In the end, Hannibal crossed the finish line, made a whole bunch of money and is quite an interesting watch, despite never truly feeling like the follow-up to The Silence of the Lambs. And that my friends, is WTF happened to Hannibal.
A couple of the previous episodes of WTF Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
The live-action TV series based on the Goosebumps books written by R.L. Stine that was released through the Disney+ and Hulu streaming services last October (read our review HERE) drew inspiration from five of Stine’s Goosebumps stories (Say Cheese and Die!, The Haunted Mask, The Cuckoo Clock of Doom, Go Eat Worms!, and Night of the Living Dummy). We’re going to have the chance to see more Stine stories brought to life, as Variety reports that Goosebumps season 2 has officially been given the greenlight – but the show is taking the anthology route, so we can expect a season that has “an entirely new cast and setting based on Stine’s iconic Scholastic book series.” Season 2 will also consist of eight episodes, two shorter than the first season.
The first season of Goosebumps centered on a group of five high schoolers as they embark on a shadowy and twisted journey to investigate the tragic passing three decades earlier of a teen named Harold Biddle — while also unearthing dark secrets from their parents’ past. The show’s cast included Ana Yi Puig (Senior Year), Miles McKenna (Nocturne), Will Price (The Equalizer), Justin Long (Tusk), Zack Morris (EastEnders), Isa Briones (Star Trek: Picard), and Rachael Harris (Lucifer).
Season 2 will pick up when teenage siblings discover a threat within their home, setting off a chain of events that unravel a profound mystery. As they delve into the unknown, the duo find themselves entangled in the story of five teenagers who mysteriously vanished in 1994.
Rob Letterman, who directed the first Goosebumps movie, created this series with Nick Stoller, and Hilary Winston serves as showrunner on the new season. Stoller is executive producing the show through his company Stoller Global Solutions. Letterman and Winston are also executive producing Goosebumps alongside Neal H. Moritz and Pavun Shetty of Original Film, Conor Welch of Stoller Global Solutions, and Erin O’Malley. The show comes to us from Sony Pictures Television Studios.
Ayo Davis, president of Disney Branded Television, provided the following statement: “Audiences everywhere fell in love with the series’ chills, thrills, heart and humor, making it one of Disney Branded Television’s most-watched shows of last year. We can’t wait to dive deeper into the brilliant mind of R.L. Stine, and to collaborate once again with Sony Pictures Television, Scholastic Entertainment, and our fantastic creative team to bring an entirely new mystery to Disney+ for season 2.“
Katherine Pope, president of Sony Pictures Television Studios, added: “We are incredibly proud of the work of our writers, producers, cast and crew and the vision they brought to season 1, which a new generation of fans are loving alongside those who grew up in R.L. Stine’s iconic world. Like when you cracked open a new book in the Goosebumps series, we can’t wait to see how the writers flip the show on its head as we explore the series as an anthology. Thanks to Disney Branded Television, who remain steadfast partners throughout this wonderfully chilling journey.“
This is the second Goosebumps TV series, as a Goosebumps anthology series ran for 4 seasons and 74 episodes back in the ’90s.
Are you a fan of Goosebumps, and are you glad to hear the new show is getting a season 2? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
