Ruben Fleischer was asked what’s going on with the sequel, and this is what he had to say:

“They’re writing the script right now but I haven’t seen it and I suspect that the longer we wait, the less relevant it will be. I mean, all the actors would love to do it and the director would love to do it but I’m not sure what’s happening.

I can promise you it’s something we all want to do,” Fleischer told Coming Soon. “I think the reality of it happening is getting less and less real. It’s just harder and harder every day, because everybody’s gotten really busy and the reality is that we’ve never had a script that we’ve all just fallen in love with. Until there’s a script that we all can say, ‘This is it,’ it’s more of an idea than an actual thing that we can work towards prioritizing and realizing.”

More yack yak yak. Do you honesty believe we will ever see a Zombieland 2? Thoughts?

In the action-comedy Nick is a small town pizza delivery guy whose mundane life collides with the big plans of two wanna-be criminal masterminds. The volatile duo kidnaps Nick and forces him to rob a bank with a bomb strapped to his chest. With mere hours to pull off the impossible task, Nick enlists the help of his ex-best friend, Chet. As the clock ticks, the two deal with police, hired assassins, flamethrowers, and their own tumultuous relationship.

Let’s hope the film is as funny as the talent is, because I have yet to be impressed with the trailers and this poster certainly hasn’t helped. In theaters August 12th.

The film will be directed by Fright Night 3D’s Craig Gillespie.

Source: Dread Central

I’m sure that pleases the attendees of Zombieland. It does me. But still, that doesn’t mean a sequel would follow Jesse Eisenberg’s, Emma Stone’s, or Harrelson’s characters.

He’s sort of right, sadly. While I think there’s plenty of fans that would love more surprise cameos (here), zombies, and fun, Jesse Eisenberg got all Oscar on us with The Social Network, Emma Stone playing around with Spidey, and well, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the screenwriters, have a ton of projects on their plate, I doubt if Sony could get them back all on the same page again.

Cowboy Ninja Viking is by AJ Lieberman and art by Riley Rossmo, which is a publication of Image Comics. So what is it actually about? You know despite having such a cool title.

“Cowboy Ninja Viking follows a unique sort of covert agent called a triplet. A Triplet is three-counter-intelligence-operatives-in-one, as each triplet is afflicted with multiple personality disorder. And the triplet of the title, Cowboy Ninja Viking, is the one called upon to rein in the other triplets when they become out of control assassins.” Lieberman told CBR last year.

Source: /Film

While his newest film won’t be released until August 2011, he’s unsure when the sequel would start up since he’s interested in Babe in the Woods and an untitled Buddy Cop film for DreamWorks.

Source: Shock

The Inception after effects continue…

Earlier this year, we talked to Toby Sells (here) about his helpful work in the film, after his stellar work in Zombieland, and he concluded one thing to me about The Crazies: “I’ll give credit to where credit is do: I was tagging along with Rob Hall. I was Rob Hall’s bitch!” The Crazies is coming back to audiences from Anchor Bay/Starz on June 29th on Blu-ray/DVD, and Killer Film catches up with the busy Rob Hall to reminiscence about the film and his work.

“The Crazies came to me by the way of my old friend and he told Breck to visit me. I think he saw my work in Quarantine, but they almost hurt me to an extent, since Breck wanted to make sure we didn’t do the same thing,” remembers Robert Hall. “I obviously, wanted to make sure that wasn’t the case either. Well, the great news for us, was that George Romero was on such a shoe-string budget, there wasn’t no “crazies” make-up. But it was on us to come of with a unique look for them.”

True, Romero’s crazies weren’t as elaborate looking, almost looking like his zombies from Night of the Living Dead, but in color. But this offered the team one of the chances to really do their own thing with the film, another key to its success. “It was mostly us trying to think what to do in doing something different. I heard through the grapevine that the Zombieland people were pointing to my stuff in Quarantine from Fangoria, saying that’s how they wanted to have their zombies look like. So I found that funny and reciprocal,” laughed Hall. “Luckily, for us, Breck did a whole years worth of research and came to us with a wealth of ideas that could work or wouldn’t work. It’s refreshing in that regard, just a big collaborative effort, that made us come up with some pretty unique stuff for the film.” You can read more with Breck Eisner here with an earlier interview we did at the time of the film’s release.

Working on a remake to a cult film can be a daunting task for a team, just because of fan’s loyalty to the said cult film. But there was no real trepidation for Hall. “I’m a giant Romero fan,” explains Hall. “But his Crazies wasn’t one of his stronger films. But what Romero was so tapped into with that film, it works better today for it. He was ahead of his time, so I was excited to work on a film that could become quote-unquote a better film. That’s exciting knowing when your going back to the shop.” It also helps to have a solid director behind the camera and Hall was appreciative of Eisner’s efforts.

“He offers a unique approach and is very detail-oriented. He blocked shots a certain way I would have never thought and I felt privileged to work with him to see his different take on things.” Like we noted, the film was a success, and that was all beneficial to Almost Human FX. “It certainly helped that The Crazies proved to be a good movie and turned out well and it helped our visibility, but things we are doing now are repeated business like Quarantine 2. It never hurts when you have a film that does well at the box office,” explains Hall. The film was budgeted at $20 million and grossed domestically, nearly $50 million all said and done.

The Crazies comes to Blu-ray and DVD June 29th.

The orthodox community in New York is extremely tight-knit. Gold works for his father in the garment district, prays often at home and at Temple, and courts a girl at arms-length on his parents’ couch. Exuding awkwardness, Sam makes another Jew, Woody Allen, look like a smooth operator. Enter Justin Bartha (National Treasure films and The Hangover) as Yosef, a fallen-away Jew who tempts Gold with women, cars, independence, and lucre. The running leitmotif of the film: Man’s fall from grace as the dialogue of God and Adam in the Garden of Eden is recounted three times. Gold’s fall includes several comic sequences. Alone in a seedy hotel room, he furtively checks out topless tennis players, evening soft-core porn in Holland. In another, when an exotic blonde attempts to give him a cocktail to relax, you have never seen one from tribe of Judah backpedal so fast.

Director Kevin Asch captures Sam’s Dante-like descent into hell with the somber red lights of the Netherworld club. After he takes X for the first time, Sam wanders aimlessly, reminiscent of Catch-22’s Yossarian, searching for salvation as a mournful sax and piano play in the background. Predictably Sam cuts off his peyos (those curly sideburns) as he breaks from his family (Cue Yentl). As the film tumbles forward toward its inevitable denouement, Gold’s innocence-turned-naiveté wears thin. Rapper Q-Tip’s brief role as Netherlandian drug dealer is wasted. In the 1970′s the Scottish Bay City Rollers made “Saturday Night” their anthem, touting dancing and partying; this Holy Roller, on the other hand, would have been better off spending Saturday night with his parents at Temple.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Eisenberg is the newest addition to a cast that involves Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari, Nick Swardson and Michael Peña. The story revolves around a junior high history teacher (Ansari) and a pizza-delivery man (Eisenberg) who are forced to rob a bank when one of them is strapped to a bomb vest. Ben Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld are producing under Red Hour Films with Jeremy Kramer.

Principal photography is locked in the summer with no release date at the moment. You can check out Eisenberg in action by renting or buying the horror comedy Zombieland on DVD and Blu-Ray. If you’d prefer to see him on the big screen, keep an eye out because not only is he appearing in Holy Rollers, but he also pops up on the big screen in Solitary Man on May 21rst.

The Film:

Remember in The Dark Knight when Batman apprehends the copycat Batmans, and one questions: “What gives you the right? What’s the difference between you and me?” Batman calmly puts it: “I’m not wearing hockey pads!” That scene and verbal exchange struck me when I watched Defendor. In this film Woody Harrelson (2012, Zombieland) plays Arthur Poppington, a man who is sick of crime and the filth, and decides if no one else will clean up the streets, he will. It’s a black comedy, a deep satirical look at comic books and the heroes who occupy the pages, but it’s also an interesting character study of the character of Arthur, who in the film, just might not be all there in the head.

Defendor is sort of brilliant. Seriously. Throughout all of the costume changes, the tough guy-comic book hero talk, the spin on the genre, it also has a serious tone, that really echoes through the plot. It gives us weight, and even though poor Arthur might just be disillusioned, we care for him. The film defiantly has to be good at its balancing act, because Arthur is a cheeseball; when he is Defendor, he proclaims big talk, like Adam West in the 1960′s Batman TV series, but there are key moments of sympathy and turmoil in his eyes, that really flip the film back from just a send-up of the comic book genre.

Periodically, Arthur listens to a radio show, and in voice overs, the host tells about the crime in the city, the drugs and prostitution, and a caller chimes in saying why does he talk about it all the time. The radio host, says even if he does stop, the crime is still going to be there, and by not talking about it, it won’t get cleaned up by itself. This is the hook of the film. There are so many instances in our city’s news, where citizens look away. We don’t want to get involved. Do you remember when you saved Jack’s life? I’ll never forget what you did that day. You were just a regular guy doing something remarkable. You don’t need a costume. Ordinary people, they do extraordinary things all the time. You’re always going to be that hero, Arthur, just by being yourself. Arthur is told that, and even though he might be “not-all-there” in the head, his intentions speak loudly, and resonates with us, especially when we flip through our newspaper this evening.

The world needs a hero, and I would be glad if Defendor was there. Don’t judge it by the DVD cover art, this is a hidden gem, that should have been given a decent theatrical release. Defendor is what Kick-Ass wanted to be, but wasn’t.

The DVD:

Audio/Video: Sony delivers a sweet disc. The film has a gritty, real world New York feel to it, and the transfer perfectly recreates this. It’s a detailed standard definition transfer, with nice facial textures and some blacks. The audio is lively as well, with nice bass and urban atmospherics in the surround speakers.

Commentary: Everyone is here, the director Peter Stebbings, producer Nicholas Tabarrok, and actors Woody Harrelson and Kat Dennings, for a solid chat. It’s a fun listen, but also informative with plenty of good tidbits.

Featurettes: Broken up into five parts, we get nearly an hour of behind-the-scenes footage with set visits and interviews. It’s a decent watch for the earnest look at low budget film making.

Deleted Scenes that actually offer up some good material and Outtakes round out the extras.

Conclusion: A diamond-in-the-rough is Defendor, so see it now.

The Film: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The DVD: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Producing the feature is Gavin Polone and Nicholas Stoller. This is the latest project that Fleischer is attached to ever since his hit horror comedy feature Zombieland came out in theaters last year.

Stone recently was seen in the horror comedy Zombieland and can next be seen lending her voice to the character Mazie in the family feature Marmaduke. Carell can next be seen co-starring alongside Tina Fey in the action comedy Date Night.