Tuesday in Action — The Mechanic, Xerxes and Batman Live
The Mechanic Red Band
Jason Statham is one of the few actors in Hollywood who seems to embrace the typecasting that has made him the number one action star in film. Yes! I said it. Can you think of another current actor who brings more action clout to a film than Statham does? I’m overjoyed that Statham keeps his stream of action films flowing like a mighty river of explosions and arm bars because there are few actors who can compete.
Still testing his action meddle is Ben Foster, who proved that he can handle the grueling physical nature of action films with Pandorum. The Mechanic should be a nice training ground for the young actor to further hone his action chops. Also, any film with an assassin apprentice has my undivided attention. The Red Band trailer is here!
Xerxes
It’s perfectly normal that you have gone as Leonidas on Halloween for the last four years. It’s also perfectly normal that you spend just as much on makeup (to emphasize the shadows in your rippling abdomen of course!) as you do on clothing. Well, the next chapter in your 300 fantasy has finally begun. Since 300 was an unexpected success back in 2007, Zack Snyder has maintained that he won’t do a sequel until his source material has a sequel. That means that the follow up to 300 is almost completely dependent upon Frank Miller buckling down and spitting out some more blood-soaked Grecian formula. Apparently, that time is now, as Miller is well on his way to completing the prequel to 300, Xerxes. Miller plans on writing Xerxes as a 6-part min-series. Geoff Boucher from the LA Times caught up with Miller recently:
“The story will be the same heft as ’300′ but it cover a much, much greater span of time — it’s 10 years, not three days”This is a more complex story. The story is so much larger. The Spartans in ’300′ were being enclosed by the page as the world got smaller. This story has truly vast subjects. The Athenian naval fleet, for instance, is a massive artistic undertaking and it dwarfed by the Persian fleet, which is also shown in this story. The story has elements of espionage, too, and it’s a sweeping tale with gods and warriors.
The time frame begins 10 years before ’300′ and the story starts with the Battle of Marathon, which was killer to draw, by the way, even if it was a lot of work,” Miller said. “The lead character is Themistocles, who became warlord of Greece and built their navy. The story is very different than ’300′ in that it involves Xerxes search for godhood. The existence of gods are presupposed in this story and the idea is that he well on his way to godhood by the end of the story.”
Outcasts
Yesterday we got our first peak at Fallen Skies, the new sci-fi epic television show produced by Steven Spielberg. Not to be outdone by its counterpart across the pond, the BBC just released the first look at its own sci-fi epic Outcasts.
Set in 2040, Outcasts takes place on a new planet and tells of the lives of the people colonizing the new world. It is up to the only surviving population from Earth to form a new civilization on this life-sustaining planet. It is their final chance to take the lessons learned from Earth and to put them into action.
Batman Live
With all of the shenanigans surrounding the release of the Spider-Man musical, Julie Taymor’s Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, you might think that a Batman musical is the last thing that Batman or Broadway need. Batman Live is set to premiere this coming summer in Manchester and it is hoping that lower production costs, compared to its web-slinging brother, will result in a more successful adaptation. Check out the concept art below and you might even leave this article with the impression that the show might not be as bad as the idea would seem. Emphasis on “might”.
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