Morning News Bulletin

Good morning all.

The Morning News Bulletin is your daily roundup of film news that happened over the last couple of hours while we were fast asleep over here in SA. In today's headlines, Tribeca Film has acquired the US distribution rights to the Bang Bang Club, Tom Hardy is rumoured to play the villainous Dr. Strange in The Dark Knight Rises and news on yet another alien invasion movie. Details after the jump.


After debuting a couple of weeks ago at the Toronto International Film Festival, locally produced film The Bang Bang Club has been acquired by Tribeca Film for US distribution. Based on the book of the same name by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva, the film tells the story of four photographers, the two authors plus Kevin Carter and Ken Oosterbroek, who covered politically motivated violence in the South African townships during the twilight years of apartheid. It stars Ryan Phillippe (Crash), Taylor Kitsch (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and Malin Akerman (Watchmen) with local documentary filmmaker Steve Silver writing and directing. There's no word yet on when it will be released in South Africa but we'll be sure to let you know as soon as we find out.

Before the world ends on December 21, 2012 there are some highly anticipated films that will be released that year. One of those films is the sequel to The Dark Knight (TDK) which will be titled The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR). Almost as soon as TDK came out and started breaking box office records like it's nobody's business people have been speculating who will follow in the now legendary footsteps of the late great Heath Ledger as the villain in the third installment of Christopher Nolan's critically acclaimed Batman franchise. Villains like the Penguin, Catwoman and the Riddler have been rumoured to appear in the threequel with big name stars like Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp apparently attached to play those roles respectively. To add to those rumours a new one has popped up via Batman News claiming that Tom Hardy (Inception) will appear in TDKR as Dr. Strange. With Tom Hardy already confirmed as part of the cast for TDKR this particular rumour appears more likely to happen than the aforementioned fantasy castings. Personally, Tom Hardy as Eames was my favourite character in Inception so, if true, this bit of casting news gets my seal of approval.

If I were an alien from a civilisation that is technologically superior to the human race I would have absolutely no interest whatsoever in invading the Earth. In the grander scheme of things, Earth is just an insignificant rock orbiting an insignificant star in an insignificant corner of the galaxy that has no intelligent life to speak of. Unfortunately for us Hollywood doesn't think that's the case and since they have pretty much sucked the life out of the current vampire craze they need some fresh meat to stick their fangs into and have now identified alien invasion movies as their new box office money-spinning genre. Within the next two years alone you can expect to see Skyline, Battle: Los Angeles (by the AFDA educated, South African director Jonathan Liebesman), Cowboys and Aliens, and Battleship attempt to take over the Earth or at least it's box office. As if that isn't enough, you can now add Earth Defense Force to this growing list of Independence Day wannabes. According to the very brief synopsis:

“EDF is set after three alien fighters attack the planet, leaving countries humiliated. The governments of Earth then race to create a space fighting force in preparation for a second attack by an approaching alien horde.”

You can't really tell much from this but this does sound very generic to me and I honestly can't say that the premise excites me that much. It's only redeeming quality as things stand is that it will be directed by Pierre Morel (Taken). This is one of those projects that the best we can do is simply apply a wait and see approach and hope that it brings a fresh take(n) on a genre that is turning stale at an alarmingly fast rate.

It's quickly becoming tradition to end off the Morning News Bulletin with a trailer and this morning is no different. Today's one is the Green Hornet (not to be confused with the Green Lantern).




That's it for today. See again tomorrow morning same place, not neccessarily same time.