The Playlist

The obsessives' guide to contemporary cinema via film discussion, news, reviews, features, nostalgia, movie music, soundtracks, DVDs and more.

Interviews

Robert Zemeckis In Talks To Direct Tom Hanks In 3D Toy Adaptation 'Major Matt Mason'

By Oliver Lyttelton
|
June 12, 2011 1:35 AM
|
1 Comment

HBO Adaptation Of Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods' Planned To Be Effects-Heavy Six Season SeriesThe colossal failure of motion-capture animation "Mars Needs Moms," and the subsequent cancellation by Disney on the planned performance capture remake of "Yellow Submarine," seems to have given Robert Zemeckis, something of a pioneer of the format, pause for thought. The director of mega-hits like "Back to the Future" and "Forrest Gump" hasn't made a live action picture since 2000's double bill of "What Lies Beneath" and "Cast Away," but recent months have seen him linked to any number of potential projects starring real people, rather than dead-eyed facsimiles, including a remake of "The Wizard of Oz" (not happening, thank God), "The Man of Steel," a sequel to "Roger Rabbit," and long-gestating time travel romance "Replay."

By Oliver Lyttelton
|
April 13, 2011 1:20 AM
|
1 Comment

The Broadway hit is no longer the dead cert for a transfer to a big-screen that it once was, but as ever, if studio executives see the queues forming on the Great White Way, they smell the kind of built-in audience that makes their lives easier, even if the path to the big-screen proves trickier than it used to be. The new management at Universal, in particular, having made a pretty penny with "Mamma Mia" a few years back, seem convinced that the stage musical is as fruitful a subject for adaptation as it was in its 1960s heyday: the company has hired recently-minted Oscar winner Tom Hooper for the long-running musical "Les Miserables," and has been developing a version of "The Wizard Of Oz"-themed megahit "Wicked" for some time.