"Beverly Hills Cop 4" Plot Details Revealed

LatinoReview received a scoop about the upcoming "Beverly Hills Cop 4," which is to be directed by Brett Ratner (Rush Hour) with a script by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas.

In the script, Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) leaps to his death from the 20th floor of the Los Angeles Police headquarters. When Axel (Eddie Murphy) hears the news about his former partner, he feels that it wasn't suicide but murder. As a result, he takes the next flight to Beverly Hills to investigate.

Axel is involved in a small shoot-out and chase in the opening and then there is no more action until he gets into a small fistfight with some East LA gangbangers, which is 50 pages into the script.

Axel will have a new partner, Goodwin, who is a fat rookie with low self-esteem. As a side-plot, Axel plays matchmaker between Goodwin and a female police officer who works in the facial recognition department. He is also teaching Goodwin how to be a better cop.

For comic relief, Axel will also be joined by a limo driver named Elliot. Murphy has previously been the funny one, but in this fourth installment, he is completely unfunny.

Axel finds out that Billy has learned about a group of corrupt LAPD officers, who were involved with gun running with a Beverly Hills rich kid with ties to the military.

The scooper says that the script is not bad, but it is not a script for a "Beverly Hills Cop" movie. Murphy is not funny, but more of a supercop. There are lots of seemingly-boring parts and the entire fish-out-of-water concept that has been so prevalent in the first three installments is pretty much gone. Axel knows more about Beverly Hills than his new partner, who was born there. The script even mentions that a local restaurant has named a sandwich after Axel Foley.

At this point, it seems that the studio loves the draft, but Eddie Murphy is not too happy with it.

Unnecessary Censorship "Come and Play Edition" Jimmy Kimmel Live 6-27-08

This is hilarious

Roger Ebert on the Death of the Film Critic

“As the CelebCult triumphs, major newspapers have been firing experienced film critics. They want to devote less of their space to considered prose, and more to ignorant gawking. What they require doesn’t need to be paid for out of their payrolls. Why does the biggest story about “Twilight” involve its fans? Do we need interviews with 16-year-old girls about Robert Pattinson? When was the last time they read a paper? Isn’t the movie obviously about sexual abstinence and the teen fascination with doomy Goth death-flirtation?”

“Why do we need critics? A good friend of mine in a very big city was once told by his editor that the critic should ‘reflect the taste of the readers.’ My friend said, ‘Does that mean the food critic should love McDonald’s?’ The editor: ‘Absolutely.’ I don’t believe readers buy a newspaper to read variations on the Ed McMahon line, ‘You are correct, sir!’ A newspaper film critic should encourage critical thinking, introduce new developments, consider the local scene, look beyond the weekend fanboy specials, be a weatherman on social trends, bring in a larger context, teach, inform, amuse, inspire, be heartened, be outraged.”

“Perhaps fearing the challenge of reading a newspaper will prove daunting, papers are using increasing portions of their shrinking news holes in providing guides to reading themselves.” … “The celebrity culture is infantilizing us. We are being trained not to think. It is not about the disappearance of film critics. We are the canaries. It is about the death of an intelligent and curious, readership, interested in significant things and able to think critically. It is about the failure of our educational system. It is not about dumbing-down. It is about snuffing out. The news is still big. It’s the newspapers that got small.”

Read full rant here

Helliversity

From bloodydisgusting, One of the most popular "underrated" sequels here on Bloody-Disgusting is HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH, which is so popular that it has it's own dedicated "appreciation thread". Fans of the film should get excited as director Tommy Lee Wallace is making his return to horror have six years MIA with Helliversity. You can read all about it beyond the break.

The writer-director behind "Halloween III" and "Fright Night Part 2" is taking horror film fans back to school.

Tommy Lee Wallace will helm "Helliversity," the first film in FarCor Studios and Indusa Global's new joint venture to produce low-budget indie features. FarCor co-president Dwayne Corbitt and Indusa president James Ram will lead the endeavor.

In "Helliversity," a group of American exchange students is terrorized by a vengeful spirit while locked inside a high-security foreign university.

A six-week shoot is set for March in Los Angeles and India. Steve Langford, a longtime writer-producer on ABC's "Family Matters," co-scripted with Wallace.

Corbitt and FarCor partner Ralph Farquhar are attached to produce an adaptation of Michael Baisden's best-seller "The Maintenance Man" for Screen Gems and have backed several series, but this is one of Indusa's first pacts.

James Kellem of JKA Talent & Literary Agency, which reps Wallace, Langford and both companies, brokered the deals.

Look to Sky for Spectacular Sight Monday

(Nov. 29) - Every once in a while, something will appear in the night sky that will attract the attention of even those who normally don't bother looking up. It's likely to be that way on Monday evening, Dec. 1.

A slender crescent moon, just 15-percent illuminated, will appear in very close proximity to the two brightest planets in our sky, Venus and Jupiter.

People who are unaware or have no advance notice will almost certainly wonder, as they cast a casual glance toward the moon on that night, what those two "large silvery stars" happen to be? Sometimes, such an occasion brings with it a sudden spike of phone calls to local planetariums, weather offices and even police precincts. Not a few of these calls excitedly inquire about "the UFOs" that are hovering in the vicinity of our natural satellite.

Terrible movie takes box office

By Thomas K. Arnold, Special for USA TODAY

There were plenty of winners and few turkeys at the box office over the Thanksgiving Day holiday weekend.

Warner Bros.' seasonal comedy Four Christmases, with Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon, rode the traditional wave of family appeal to the top of the charts for both the three-day weekend ($31.7 million) and the extended five-day holiday ($46.7 million), according to studio estimates from Nielsen EDI.

Warner distribution chief Dan Fellman says Four Christmases rose to the top on the strength of families, with 35% of its audience coming in groups. The film also was strong across the country, in urban as well as rural areas and in small towns as well as large cities. The film's top five markets: Los Angeles, Dallas, New York, Jacksonville, Fla., and Atlanta.

"We just hit everybody," Fellman says. "People wanted to laugh."

Another family film did what few movies ever manage to do. Disney's Bolt increased its three-day haul its second weekend on the big screen, grossing $26.6 million (up 1.4%) and snagging the No. 2 spot. The animated comedy, about the canine star of a fictional action show who believes his superhero powers are real, managed to squeak by the vampire saga Twilight, which took in $26.4 million. The brooding romance outdid Bolt over the five-day holiday ($39.5 million to $36 million) and crossed the $100 million mark (to $119.7 million), but it took a bigger-than-expected (62%) drop from its opening weekend.

The No. 4 spot went to the latest James Bond adventure, Quantum of Solace, which finished the three-day weekend with $19.5 million, falling just 27% from the previous three-day frame. The Bond flick's total haul so far: $142.1 million.

Baz Luhrmann's Australia exceeded expectations by about 20%, landing at No. 5 on both the three-day ($14.8 million) and five-day ($20 million) chart, while Gus Van Zant's acclaimed Milk, a drama about the assassination of San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone, opened on just 36 screens but took the crown for per-screen average with a whopping $52,627 over five days for a $1.9 million total.

The weekend's other new wide opening, Lionsgate's Transporter 3, was seventh with $12.3 million Friday-Sunday and $18.5 million over the five-day holiday.

Overall, U.S. theaters grossed about the same as last weekend, but the tally was up 126% from the comparable weekend last year. This follows three consecutive weekends of up box office totals.

"What's encouraging for the business is if you remember we were supposed to have a new Harry Potter movie this Thanksgiving, and when that pulled out there was a lot of concern that the year-end box office couldn't match last year's," says Greg Kilday, film editor for The Hollywood Reporter. "So far, that's proving not to be the case."

I'm still nuts, folks!

From thesuperficial, What did Winona Ryder have to be grateful about this Thanksgiving? Probably the fact that her celebrity status allows her to get high out of her mind on goofballs, swipe whatever she wants and pretty much walk away from it all without legal repercussions. Fresh from her Xanax-fueled airplane collapse last week, Ryder, who has a history of "forgetting" to pay for things, apparently got a sweet, sweet discount on $125,000 worth of diamond jewelry over the weekend. The New York Post reports:

Read about crazy eyes' latest caper here

Horrible franchise resurrected

From filmstalker, I find it hard to believe the ideas that Hollywood has sometimes, particularly in the field of remakes and sequels, and the latest news today of two new films is perhaps the hardest to fathom. There's going to be a sequel to the films Three Men and a Baby and Three Men and a Little Lady, imaginatively titled Three Men and a Bride.

The news also reveals that the original cast are ready to get on board the film, and there's a sketchy plot outline all ready.

According to Steve Guttenburg himself they're all on board, but only hopeful for the film to actually get made.


"Tom Selleck, Ted Damson and I are looking to make another Three Men and a Baby film...It's called Three Men and Bride. The script is pretty much written and we are really keen to get that made. We're very hopeful."

Probably more hopeful than we are, that's for sure. Oh okay, the original was some fun, but can they really bleed another film out of the idea?

Well apparently they can, for this blurb from The Guardian suggests that they've already got the story line nicely laid out, but how much does this make you think Father of the Bride times three?


Three Men and a Bride will feature the team as a trio of middle-aged men brought together at the wedding of an American girl who regards each of them as a surrogate dad.

It's hard to believe, or perhaps remember, that the original Three Men and a Baby (my lord, it was actually called 3 Men and a Baby!) was the biggest Hollywood film of 1987. The sequel, Three Men and a Little Lady (also swapping the number for the word), did not do so well but still featured the three actors, Guttenburg, Ted Danson and Tom Selleck.

While the newspaper article suggests that the inspiration for the film has come from Mamma Mia! (Filmstalker review), I'm not so sure. Yes the film features three men all of whom could be the father of the bride, but the films are going to be wildly different, for the main part this won't be a musical, nor will it be based on a hugely successful stage show, nor will it feature musical numbers based on hugely popular songs that get people singing and dancing. Another aspect that this film will miss is the mystery of who is the father - wasn't that already proven in one of the previous films?

Wow, it already looks like it's up against it. What it will have going for it are the three stars who did share a good on screen chemistry, and the idea could give rise to some good comedy moments. However it does feel like it's all been done already.

Horrible franchise resurrected

From filmstalker, In a spectacular shock-horror news report just in, it seems that there's another Steve Guttenburg project that is in the early stages of an attempted revival. Not content with bringing the Three Men and a... films back to life, he's working on bringing back, now wait for it, Police Academy.

Right now it appears that a script is being written and two very major stars have been asked if they want to appear in the film, it would mark a return to the series for both actresses.

I have no idea how they had the nerve to ask, but Steve Guttenburg reveals that Kim Cattrall and Sharon Stone are the stars that have been asked to return.

Cattrall appeared in the original 1984 film with Stone appearing in the fourth, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, in 1987. I have to admit to only watching the first two and after that I gave up. They soon became worse and worse, diving into the realms of pain and torture.

However Guttenburg seems confident that the film will get made, and speaking through Starpulse Blog he says:


"We are doing a new movie and it is going to be great fun. A script is being written and so far it is really great, everyone from the original movies who is still around will return. I know Kim and Sharon have been asked but they haven't said yes yet. It would be really great to have them onboard."

I would be really surprised if either one of them said yes. I think that the script would have to be pretty amazing, the budget big, and the original cast to return for a one off spectacular return, otherwise it's just going to be another terrible sequel.

To be fair these stories are coming out because Steve Guttenburg is appearing on stage, I think perhaps in panto, in Britain just now and he was interviewed on British television the other day, so that means there will be all sorts of rumours and pushed projects in the hope that they'll get heard and picked up.

Even if a script is underway, I find it hard to believe that it would work as well as the original. Do you?

First Look: Taylor Kitsch as Gambit in Wolverine

From slashfilm, Empire Magazine has the first official photo of Friday Night Lights star Taylor Kitsch as Gambit in Gavin Hood’s Wolverine.

Attendees at Comic Con were lucky to see an early preview of the film which featured Gambit in action. I still think Lost star Josh Halloway would have been a better fit for the character.

Gambit first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #266 in August 1990. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artists Jim Lee and Mike Collins, Gambit is skilled in card throwing, hand-to-hand combat, the use of a b?, and possesses the ability to manipulate kinetic energy. A professional thief and self described ladies man, the character has had a longtime on and off again romantic fling with Rogue.

Wolverine will be the character’s first appearance in a movie. The fan favorite has appeared in previous television cartoons and video game releases. The character was supposed to make a small appearance during the prison convoy scene of X-Men: The Last Stand, but Marvel decided the role was too small for the character. James Franco supposedly auditioned for the part.

The Wolverine movie trailer will be attached exclusively to The Day The Earth Stood Still.

TRZ?

From slashfilm, I’m not sure how reliable this intel is right now. We’ve passed along information from the subscription trade magazine Production Weekly in the past is reporting that Disney’s Tron sequel has been renamed from the horrible Tr2n to the even worse TRZ. I have an idea, why don’t you call it… Tron 2? or Tron 2.0 Wow. I’m sure the brand and name probably still has value with today’s movie-going public. I’m pretty sure the little kids aren’t going to think it’s cool because its written in “cool” online abbreviations. Plus, when will companies like Disney realize that when they try to copy a “cool trend”, it always rubs the X-generation as “Dad is trying to talk like his kids in gChat.” There is really no reason for the change, but I digress.

Production Weekly also has a short plot synopsis: “After being transported into the surreal landscape of a mainframe computer to destroy an intruder, a programmer finds himself allied with the leader of a rebellion against a corrupt cyber-entity.” The early test footage/trailer shown at comic con featured Jeff Bridges, reprising his role as a programmer named Flynn from the first film, but possibly with a turn to the dark side. If the new plot synopsis is true, this would mean that Flynn is teaming with a new programmer to defend the system from his former friend Tron.