Dean Devlin will be making more crappy movies

From AICN,

QUINT: I have to say I'm looking forward to seeing a good dog fight flick. We don't often get WW1 air battle films...
DEAN DEVLIN: This is the first in 40 years. The first World War 1 since BLUE MAX. It's so hard to get anything original done. That's why we did this independently. I mean, this is done without any studio. We did this completely independently, raised all the money without domestic (distribution) in place, without foreign (distribution) in place and we did it because there was no studio that was going to do something original anymore. I mean, not at the cost of $30 million.
QUINT: I don't know much about the movie besides what is in the trailer. Can you tell me a little about the film?
DEAN DEVLIN: It's based on the true story of Lafayette Escadrille. Now, who these guys were... It was 30 American boys who volunteered to fight for France in World War 1 before the United States entered the war, and they became the first fighter pilots. The airplane had only been invented 11 years earlier and suddenly now they're using it as a war machine. Most people had never even seen an airplane, let alone flown one. Suddenly they were in combat. It was an incredible group of people.
Their mascot was a lion, that they had runnin' around. They were not issued parachutes because they were told that the airplanes were more valuable than the pilots and they were afraid that the pilots might bale out if they got scared. They gave you a pistol with one bullet in it because if your plane caught on fire, it was better to shoot yourself in the head... And the life expectancy of a pilot was 4 to 6 weeks.
So, it was a really exciting and amazing (time). We wanted to tell their story. In fact, the real interesting part of that was... of the group, one of them was an African American and he became an Ace, but when United States entered the war he said, "I have to, obviously, go fight on behalf of the US now," but they wouldn't let him fly because he was Black.
QUINT: That's nuts, man. What attracted you most to the film? The opportunity to show vintage warfare or was it more the human element?
DEAN DEVLIN: Well, it was a combination. I always think that someone who volunteers for someone else's battle is interesting to begin with. You're not being told by the government that you have to do this, they're not doing it to save their own country... they're doing it for other reasons. Some over principal, some simply to learn how to fly, some it just seemed cool, some of 'em to run away from the law. I'm always in stories like that on the human level.
But on the other side of it was... You know... for many, many years I was told, "You can't make a pirate movie. Pirate movies suck. They die. No one wants to see them. That was something that was cool in the '50s, but now... forget it." And then, obviously, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN comes out and completely revives the genre and I have the same feeling about World War 1 dogfight movies. This was something that, when I was a little boy, people still had fond memories of. People remembered WINGS, which was the first film ever to win an Oscar, HELL'S ANGELS... and somehow the genre died. And if you talked to a studio executive they'd say, "Well, no one cares about WW1, no one cares about those airplanes. They want to see fast jets. They want to see rockets." And I thought, "You've forgotten how cool the genre is!"
So, we wanted to bring it back. We wanted to bring back how amazing these dogfights were.
QUINT: Well, that was one of my favorite aspects of the KONG remake was seeing the aerial action at the end with the biplanes...
DEAN DEVLIN: Those are '30s biplanes! These are 1917 biplanes, so these guys... When they first went up in the air, they actually shot off their own propellers. So, then later the French came up with the brilliant idea of making the propellers out of metal, so that it wouldn't shoot off the propeller, but every 3rd bullet would ricochet back at the pilot! It wasn't really until this one French engineer came up with this idea that he patterned off the movie projector, of how you can coordinate the slides of frame. He figured he could coordinate the blades with the gun and they made one plane, he had the prototype. It got shot down. The Germans got it and got the technology and they mass-produced it. They had the first guns that could actually shoot and they dominated the war for a long time.
QUINT: I remember watching a MAIL CALL with R. Lee Ermy where he went in detail on the inner-workings of this technology. Really fascinating... I love that kind of stuff. The computers and microchips of modern battle aren't as interesting to me as the mechanical ingenuity of the early weapons.
DEAN DEVLIN: Well, the thing is... These guys knew the names of the guys they fought. They'd come back and go, "Oh, I fought Baron Von Richtofen!" They had a code of honor of when you shoot and when you don't shoot. It was really interesting because in the air you had this kind of gentlemen's war, yet on the ground you had mustard gas, 9 million people killed... It's really interesting. You had modern warfare developing on the ground while you had this kind of chivalrous thing happening in the air, so it made for a really interesting dichotomy.
QUINT: What do you think the biggest hook for the audiences will be?
DEAN DEVLIN: I think the air battles because even in the best of the old movies they could only do what was safe. I think (Howard) Hughes pushed the limit the most and he lost 3 pilots doing it, but the truth is... in these real battles more people died from collisions than died from bullets. They flew incredibly close. They were incredible cowboys. So only now, being able to mix real airplanes with CG, can we actually show the way it really was.
I saw a web-blogger the other day complaining about our trailer saying "They have a guy running on top of a Zeppelin!" Well, the truth is, in WW1, they had gunners on the top of the Zeppelins, but they weren't in some station, protected. They were literally standing on the top with a little railing that they held on to and a machine gun. That's how crazy it was then!
The interesting thing is to see how these incredibly flimsy planes were flown by incredible daredevils and what they did and accomplished.
QUINT: What do you have coming up next? I heard you were going to direct a film...
DEAN DEVLIN: First I'm going to produce the third installment of LIBRARIAN and we're producing a big science fiction film called ISOBAR, but right after that I'm going to direct a film next year called GHOSTING. It's about a group of cops who flatline in order to do investigations from the other side.
QUINT: That sounds really cool!
DEAN DEVLIN: It's a bunch of cops who die for a living. (laughs)
QUINT: For those who might not know the story of ISOBAR, could you give us a little rundown?
DEAN DEVLIN: Roland Emmerich originally came to the US from Germany in 1990 to do a film called ISOBAR. It's an amazing Science Fiction adventure that takes place in a world that has so destroyed it's environment that there is no longer any oxygen on the planet's surface and all cities now exist beneath the surface of the Earth. Without air, air travel is impossible. So underground trains is the only means of travel. This story takes place on the debut voyage of the world first five story luxury liner underground train ride from Los Angeles to Tokyo. But a stow-a-way on board threatens the entire adventure.
Roland and I re-wrote the script back in 1990 but the film never got made. Over the last couple of years, I've managed to get the project back and have been developing a new draft of the script. We hope to be shooting by January next year. We're all really excited about the project.
QUINT: You mentioned on the panel that you finally have the rights back to make sequels to STARGATE. What was holding the rights up?
DEAN DEVLIN: It's not that the rights have cleared up. The previous regimes at MGM have been very wary about doing the sequel movies. There's a new group of people running MGM now and they're all big science fiction fans. So I've been talking about doing the sequels with them. There is no deal in place yet to make these films and we're only in the very early stages of discussion. But at least there seems to be genuine interest in continuing the franchise.
QUINT: Will the second film pick up with the same characters from the original, continuing that story?
DEAN DEVLIN: When Roland and I developed the original STARGATE film, we had always envisioned it as the first of a trilogy of movies. There was a larger mythology to tell and we've always wanted to finish telling the story we started.
The sequel would take place about 12 years after the original and would pick up with Daniel making a discovery that leads him back to Earth and the discovery of a new and different Stargate!
QUINT: Where are you currently with the development of the sequels?
DEAN DEVLIN: At the moment, we're only in discussions about the possibilities of doing it.
QUINT: What's your favorite dirty joke?
DEAN DEVLIN: My favorite dirty joke? It's a little long...
QUINT: That's fine.
DEAN DEVLIN: Okay, here's my favorite dirty joke: A little boy comes down stairs to go to school. His mother says, "Look, I can't drive today, you have to walk." He goes, "Mooooommm!" She says, "You have to walk!" So, as he's walking to school he sees a naked woman standing in the window of her house. She's rubbing her breasts and going, "I want a man! I want a man! I want a maaaannnn!" The kid can't believe it. He can not believe it.
Next day he comes down stairs to go to school. His mom goes, "C'mon! Hop in the car." He goes, "No, ma. I think this walking is good for me. I'm gonna walk." He walks down the street and sure enough, same naked woman in her window, rubbing her breasts saying, "I want a man! I want a man! I want a maaaannn! The kid's just blown away.
The third day, his mom goes, "You want to..." He says, "No, no, mom, I'm walkin'." So, he walks to school, but this time the naked woman is in the window with a naked man and they're making mad, passionate love. The kid can't believe it! He drops his books and he runs back home and he runs up to his bedroom and he pulls open the window and he takes off all his clothes and starts rubbing his chest and he goes, "I want a bike! I want a bike! I want a biiiiikkkkeee!"

I had a real good time talking to Devlin. He seems to really get the geeks and doesn't give off a self-important vibe that you'll sometimes feel with people in the industry, especially producers. His enthusiasm for all the projects he mentions were totally authentic and listening to someone that enthusiastic only got me to feel that way as well. I hope you enjoyed the chat. Still have tons more coming in the near future!

Spielberg basically says nothing

From Empireonline, "Getting one of the Indiana Jones triumvirate to talk about the fourth sequel is a rare opportunity, but getting George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford to spill at the same time is as infrequent as finding a needle in a haystack under some hen's teeth on a blue moony night at the end of a month of Sundays.

But Empire was lucky enough to speak with the trio as part of our massive Indiana Jones 25th anniversary celebrations and it seems that Indy IV is going to be a tad controversial.

“We’re basically going to do The Phantom Menace”, says Lucas (stay with him here, he’s making a point). “People’s expectations are way higher than you can deliver. You could just get killed for the whole thing…We would do it for fun and just take the hit with the critics and the fans...But nobody wants to get into it unless they are really happy with it”.

The ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation has freed up an idea for a plot that was originally deemed too incendiary.

“I discovered a McGuffin,” continues Lucas, still reluctant to name said McGuffin. “I told the guys about it and they were a little dubious about it, but it’s the best one we’ve ever found… Unfortunately, it was a little too ‘connected’ for the others. They were afraid of what the critics would think. They said, “Can’t we do it with a different McGuffin? Can’t we do this?” and I said “No”. So we pottered around with that for a couple of years. And then Harrison really wanted to do it and Steve said, “Okay”. I said, “We’ll have to go back to that original MacGuffin and take out the offending parts of it and we’ll still use that area of the supernatural do deal with it”.

“Hopefully it will be different in all the right ways and the same in all the familiar ways,” adds Spielberg.

As for timing, Lucas says that filming is scheduled for mid-2007, for a 2008 release but getting the gang back together is a tricky proposition. “Before I was just working with Steven and Harrison. Now everybody’s a superstar, so it’s a little bit more difficult than it was then”. “But there’s a good chance it will happen,” assures Ford. “There are things left for this character to do”."

SARAH JESSICA PARKER IS CREEPY

From WWTDD, "This is what I picture when people tell me how great "Sex and the City" was. It was a show about a goblin who slept around. Fantastic. Maybe my taste isn't sophisticated enough to realize how awesome that is, but I want to watch this monster have sex about as much as I want to watch my grandparents have sex. I think she's on the red carpet because she won the prize for luring the most children into an oven. I'm sure Garnier is thrilled to see her hair look like this after they paid her millions to endorse their stuff. Either this hagged bitch is about to get hit by lightning or she needs a new conditioner. And if she's such a famous fashion icon, why does her husband dress like my 8th grade civics teacher."

Despite Jordan's attempts to stop it, Superman will return again

As Superman flies high, the question about whether or not there will be a sequel has finally been answered. This summer's big comic flick "Superman Returns" will in fact have a sequel coming. With a projected box office estimate of $400 million worldwide for the bottom line, the fifth "Superman" movie outgrosses last summer's "Batman Begins." Warner Brothers President Alan Horn was hoping for something closer to the $500 million mark, but with such high numbers working for it "Superman" is lightyears away from being a failure.
In regards to the film itself, ComingSoon.net quoted Horn's explanation of his thoughts on the gap between his expectations and the reality of the profits. "We should have had perhaps a little more action to satisfy the young male crowd." While that may hold true for some, I don't believe this is a wise strategy to take into the production of a sequel. It's very possible that with Singer behind the wheel this idea would not be allowed to jeopardize the depth and complexities that made "Superman Returns" a wonderful return to all that Superman can and should be. Then again, it's possible that any tweaking of the material in that direction could run Superman right off the road that he only just got on towards a brand new future.
Don't get me wrong, because I'm very excited that there will be another new "Superman" movie. But, I don't wish to see the character or the subject matter suddenly cheapened for the sake of drawing more moviegoers. Now that it's certain they are doing a sixth "Superman" film, I would love to see them take the awe and wonder of "Superman Returns" and expand upon it. This movie had to reintroduce Superman and his supporting characters to an entire generation and bring him back to the forefront. On a whole, "Batman Begins" seems to have gotten a better reception by general audiences than "Superman" but "Superman" blew past "Batman" at the box office, and yet "Superman" seems to have this aura around it as if it disappointed its fans as well as its makers.
There is no reason the studio shouldn't have every confidence in making the next one, and there's no need to fix what clearly isn't broken. The story began in the middle of something, and some were merely scrambling to catch up, but that has happened, and now people are ready to make a smooth and less distant transition into the next chapter. Superman will make his next stand even taller now that he has re-established himself and returned to the public spotlight and the cinema. Happily, Superman will return again in 2009.

Snakes on a Plane is an embarrassing failure

From Darkhorizons, "Whilst Hollywood's 'tracking' figures have been off much of this Summer, their predictions of a soft opening for the much hyped "Snakes on a Plane" proved more correct than even they surmised. The Sam Jackson starrer generated just $13.9 million at the box-office this weekend, coming in second behind a three week old Will Ferrell comedy.

Maybe it was the hype which bloomed too early, maybe it was the late August opening which guarantees a weak start, and maybe the recent terror scare and Draconian security measures that came along with it turned people off movies involving planes. Whatever the case, the finger pointing and attempts at justification will now begin in blogs and editorials everywhere.

After all, for your average $30 million action thriller it's a disappointing opening. For one so talked about though, it's a crushing blow. The online hype was far more intense than most films of this calibre, and the actual concept has become a part of the cultural vernacular, yet traditional forms of the film's publicity (posters, trailers) were all low-key and disappointing which probably contributed a lot. Expect the film to quickly vanish from theatres but earn a nice dividend for New Line in the video/DVD market.

The 'Snakes' did a tad better than Justin Long comedy "Accepted" which had a more average $10 million opening. The collegiate comedy was hurt by a last minute delay of one week in its release, lack of star power, and rather run-of-the-mill concept. It performed better than Hilary & Hayley Duff snoozer "Material Girls" whose $4.6 million opening failed to reach even the low expectations of the studio.

"Talladega Nights" continues to hold well in its third weekend, dropping just 36% and comfortably clearing the $100 million mark. The smallest drop was the much panned "Barnyard" which fell just 22%, the toddler market is keeping that film chugging along it seems. "Pirates" still keeps declining comfortably at a rate of 30.8% this week, and officially passed the $400 million mark on Sunday.

"World Trade Center" held the best of last week's entries, falling a decent 42.3% whilst superhero family film flop "Zoom" (down 46%) fared better than "Step Up" (-52%) or "Pulse" (-57%). "Little Miss Sunshine" expanded into more theatres, nabbed a #7 spot, and landed an $8,212 per screen average, triple that of most other films in the top ten.

Sundance flicks "The Illusionist" and "Half Nelson" fared the best on the limited front, taking in around $18,000 per screen averages in their limited runs. The former opened on a mere 51 screens and fared better than expected. Other limited releases this week were Matt Dillion drama "Factotum" with an alright $10,133 average, and David Duchovny/Julianne Moore romance comedy "Trust the Man" which bombed with a mere $4,631 average on 30 screens."

Hellboy 2 has a stupid name

From Latinreview, “Hellboy 2: The Golden Army picks up after the events of the first film – Hellboy and his fiery girlfriend Liz are trying to make a go of living together, but there’s a lot of tension. Aquatic Abe Sapien still lives in a water tank, but he has a new and updated breathing gear for when he’s walking around. And Agent Tom Manning, the liason for Hellboy and the team at the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Development is still trying to deal with Hellboy’s antics, where he is more and more being noticed and photographed.
He shouldn’t bother, though. When a Manhattan auction house is attacked by a sword-wielding elf and a troll, the event serves as Hellboy’s coming out party. While battling a flesh eating mass of tooth fairies – they’re creepier than they sound! – Hellboy manages to take the fight to a crowd of reporters, where he and the BPRD are completely outed. Cue the opening credits!
Being public brings new problems to the team as they deal with autograph hounds, hate mail and an appearance on Jay Leno. Meanwhile, the elf from the auction house turns out to be the prince of all elves, and son of the leader of the fairy realm. They’ve lived in peace with humanity for millennia, but the prince has a different idea – he wants to reclaim the Earth. To do that he needs to get his hands on the Golden Army, ten thousand goblin-built robots hidden somewhere. To control them he needs three parts of a crown, but his twin sister, who is against his plan, has run off with one part. And Hellboy has a problem closer to home – his antics have made the government give BPRD a new leader in the form of Johann, a German made of ectoplasm who may or may not be putting the moves on Liz.
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is a huge movie. It’s much bigger than the first, including flashbacks to the Golden Army tearing through a human army, a troll market filled with dozens of strange monsters, a five story tall tree elemental battling Hellboy on the Brooklyn Bridge, Yokai spirits rampaging in Tokyo and a dragon attacking Moscow. And that’s just for starters!
It’s also action packed. The script barely lets up from battle to battle, each getting bigger with bigger stakes. But the script, by Guillermo del Toro, doesn’t sacrifice these vivid and fun characters for the sake of action. Abe gets more screentime this go round, and he has a very touching emotional story, and even Mysterio-looking Johann has an emotional journey. Of course at the center is Hellboy and Liz trying to hold their unlikely love together.
In a lot of ways Hellboy 2: The Golden Army reminds me of Ghostbusters 2 if that movie was done well. It’s a bigger, more ambitious story with characters who are already established. Hellboy 2 doesn’t spend a lot of time catching up with the characters. When Johann is introduced and Hellboy says he doesn’t like Germans, you have to know the first movie to know why. But it’s never a major point, and the stuff that needs to be explained is, so even new people can come to this movie.
When people first heard that Hellboy would be fighting fairies and elves and mythical creatures, some thought it sounded silly, but del Toro really goes back to the early versions of these fables and myths to create some tough and nasty beasties for Hellboy to punch. And he punches a lot of them. Fans will be happy to know that even when the BPRD gets product placement Hummers, Hellboy still prefers to solve his problems with his big rock fist.”
The first Hellboy was a modest hit that found a bigger audience on TV and DVD, but Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is bigger in every way. And it doesn’t look like the end of the story, either. By the end of Hellboy 2 there are big changes in Hellboy’s life that will make for a really interesting Hellboy 3. And when you finally do get to see the movie in 2008, stick around past the end credits. Del Toro drops in a little hint as to what we might see Hellboy taking on in Hellboy 3, and fans of the first film will be really excited!

Guy who can't write hates Grudge 2 and gives the entire movie away

From AICN, "Hey Harry, I got a chance to sit in on a test screening of the Grudge 2 last week and thought you might want to hear about it.

The short version:

AVOID THIS MOVIE AT ALL COSTS!!!!

The long version: SPOILER WARNING----

I think the makers of this film had a grudge against the audience, because this movie hurt to watch. Its awful, it tries too hard to be scary and ends up looking corny. The acting is far worse than the plot. Speaking of plot...The movie starts out with Jennifer Beals living in a apartment complex in Chicago. She ends up killing her husband by pouring hot bacon grease on his head then beating him with the frying pan. It was pretty lame so right away I knew this movie was going to be just as bad as the first if not worse,...it was worse.

The movie starts off right after the first one ends. Sarah Michelle Gellar's character Karen is locked up in the hospital accused of murdering her boyfriend and setting fire to the cursed house. Her little sister Aubrey, played horribly by Amber Tamblyn, shows up to bring her home.

Well, that old Grudge ghost ends up chasing Karen all the way up to the roof of the hospital and throwing her off. Big whoop. She was in the movie for a total of five minutes and I think she still gets top billing.

Next we meet Allison, played by Arielle Kebbel. In everything else this chick is in she is smoking hot but in this she look pretty ragged and wears and obvious black wig. She wants to fit in with the "IN" crowd and decides to venture up to the cursed house with two hotties and is willing to be locked in the closet for one minute. After about three seconds she begins to freak out and sees the ghost. She runs home crying as her friends have a good laugh. They are then killed off in very lame ways. One is pulled through a mirror never to be seen again and the other is swallowed alive by, I shit you not, GHOST HAIR, in a public telephone booth no less.

NO WAIT!!! I PROMISE IT GETS BETTER....Okay I lied, but you've read this far, you might as well finish right? Aubrey ventures into the house with her new journalist friend Eason. They are now both cursed and begin seeing strange things, like objects in photograghs that werent there before. Eason and Aubrey do a little research and find out that the ghost's mother was an exorcist in a small village a few miles away. She used to exorcise demons and "feed" them to her daughter. Eason then dies when the ghost jumps out of a plastic bucket in a dark room. Scary shit!!!

The movie then jumps back and forth to Jennifer Beals and her family in Chicago. Their young son begins to hear strange noise coming from the neighbors apartment. He works up the courage to become a felon and commits a B and E on the neighbors place. There he sees a person dressed like the unabomber sitting in a room taping newspapers over the windows. Big surprise, he runs away screaming.

Aubrey in the meantime ventures to the small village to see the Ghost's mother. She basically tells Aubrey that she was a con artist and if her daughter is a ghost, she is only a ghost because she thinks she is a ghost. Can you believe this crap???

Aubrey goes back to the house only to be killed by the ghost of the husband that killed his wife and child, along with the family cat. We then cut back to Chicago to find out that the person dressed like the unabomber is really Allison, back from Japan and living next door to Jennifer Beals and her family. Jennifer Beals goes nuts and kills her entire family except for her step son. He gets killed five minutes later with Allison in the apartment hallway by the ghost. And the ghost lived happily ever after. The End.

So there you have it. The ghost is now in living in Chicago while the ghost of Aubrey is now haunting the house in Japan. So I guess the ghost just needed a vacation, and what better place than the midwest.

I know it was a free movie and all but I left wishing I had spent the last two hours of my life getting a root canal. And like always we had to fill out a survey at the end of the movie. They asked what movie the Grudge 2 reminded me of. I could only think of one horror movie sequel that was this bad, and that is THE RING 2. So if you like that, you will love this. The kept several people who rated the movie excellent in the theater. I can only hope it was to offer a complimentary C.A.T Scan, cause there was obviously something wrong with these people."

This isn't Heaven, this sucks!

From the BBC: A 21-year-old US man ended up in hospital after spending two hours trapped in a vat of chocolate, police in Wisconsin said on Friday.
The man said he had climbed into the tank before becoming trapped waist-deep in chocolate, police chief Randy Berner told AP news agency.

However, other reports suggest he was stirring the chocolate when he fell in.

Rescue workers and staff at the Debelis Corporation used cocoa-butter to thin out the chocolate and pull him free.

"It was pretty thick. It was virtually like quicksand," Captain Berner said.

"It's the first time I've ever heard of anything like this," he added.

The worker said his ankles were sore after the incident, and he was taken to a local hospital where he is recovering.

The accident involved dark chocolate.

Adrift looks tense

Based on true events, ADRIFT tells of six long-time friends who gather for an ill-fated celebration aboard a luxurious yacht. The champagne flows freely and soon some of the group decide to go for an impromptu swim in the middle of the ocean.

Amy, a serious hydrophobia sufferer, stays on board to look after her baby and the party’s host, Dan, keeps her company. On impulse Dan decides to cure Amy of her fear of water through aversion therapy. But when he picks her up and jumps overboard with her in his arms he discovers the major planning flaw that will test the whole group’s will to survive. Nobody had thought to put ladder down and there is no way back onto the boat. Powerless in a place they once thought was paradise, the friends suddenly find themselves in a desperate struggle to live.

See the tense trailer here: http://www.greenroom-press.com/clients/Pathe/theatrical/Adrift/movies/adrift_full_trlr_med.mov

Lucas arouses a generation

From Starwars, It was Princess Leia's Organa's most memorable wardrobe choice -- albeit chosen by Jabba the Hutt -- the brief brass bikini worn while chained to the bloated gangster in Return of the Jedi. Developed in sketches by Nilo Rodis-Jamero, it was actually the ILM Model Shop that was tasked to construct the real costume worn by actress Carrie Fisher.
"Nilo was doing sketches, and I had seen what he was planning," recalls Lorne Peterson, veteran ILM modelmaker who has worked on all six Star Wars films. "Incidentally, at the same time, someone I went to college with happened to sit beside me at a café who I hadn't seen in something like 18 years. In striking up an old friendship, I realized that he was a sculptor, and many of his own private sculptures were very much like Princess Leia's outfit."

That sculptor, Richard Miller, joined ILM for Jedi, and stayed on to work on many other films, including the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

"An interesting aside is that one of the moldmakers, when he realized he was going to get to do the body-casting of Carrie Fisher... he talked about it every day," recalls Peterson. "And somewhere in Production, at the last minute, they changed and had another moldmaker do it, much to his chagrin. If he had just kept his mouth shut and not been so enthusiastic, they would have let him go through with it!"

Haley Joel Osment looks awkward

From Thesuperficial, "Haley Joel Osment was charged with four criminal counts today including: driving while having a blood alcohol content of .08 percent or higher with the special allegation of having a blood alcohol content of .15 percent or higher (especially bad!), and possession of marijuana while driving. Osment's blood-alcohol content was 0.16 (double the legal limit) and the charges come from an incident last month when he crashed his 1995 Saturn, flipping it and breaking a rib.

I don't think anybody saw this coming. At least Mel Gibson has a history of drinking, but the only thing Haley Joel Osment is known for is looking cute and hitting puberty. If convicted he faces up to six months in county jail, but considering it's Haley Joel Osment the judge will probably just ask him to say "I see dead people" and then let him go for being a national treasure.

NOTE: Speaking of which, Mel Gibson pleaded no contest to his DUI charges today and faces no jail time but has to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Which should be good, because nobody is more anonymous than Mel Gibson. Except maybe Mr. T. Or the Kool-Aid man."

From WWHD, "In other DUI news, "Sixth Sense" star Haley Joel Osment was formerly charged yesterday with drunk driving and marijuana possession following his car crash last month. Osment, 18, flipped his 1995 Saturn after colliding with a brick mailbox in West Hollywood, breaking his rib and injuring his shoulder in the process. Also broken was the record for lamest Hollywood car crash, solidly trouncing the time Jake Gyllenhall rolled into the crosswalk because he thought a bee was on him."