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MISSION IMPOSSIBLE II bits
What with all the speculation of John Woo problems with MISSION IMPOSSIBLE II, I figured it would be best if I kinda turned the ol magnifying glass over to that particular film.
I didn't find out too terrible much, but I did hear a thing or two. First off.... The 'alleged' problems with John Woo are... in fact... not there. (Even though I do have a couple of 'never before heard of' spies that claim to the contrary... until their predictions of doom come true... I won't be backing their stories up) Word from the cracks of the project says that John and Cruise are getting along fine and there is not an ego clash.
Next up is that Dougray Scott will indeed be playing the heavy in the film, and that Ian McKellen will be playing a senior IMF fella and not a villian. In fact McKellen (cheated out of his SAG award IMHO) will be playing the part of a mentor... ala Alec Guinness in THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM.
Word is that the script is... 'pretty good' but it is still being worked on... and the FINAL writer (after "10 zillion writers" and millions spent) will be Robert Towne. He'll be staying with the production for the rest of the way.
Production is on hold... but that is only till a couple of details in the script and the conception of action scenes are ironed out... That way they won't be 'wasting money' on folks that don't need to be working on the project for until another couple of weeks goes by.
And that is where things are at right now. For some reason there seem to be a lot of rumors about John Woo wanting larger and larger action sequences... BUT when you really get down to it... That is what this film is. It's a BIG HUGE Tom Cruise Actioner with the King of Action, John Woo, directing it all. The budget will be huge... because well... that's the type of movie it is. Things should be moving fine in a couple of weeks I'm told...
Here's what one MonkeyBoy had to say about it all....
Next up is that Dougray Scott will indeed be playing the heavy in the film, and that Ian McKellen will be playing a senior IMF fella and not a villian. In fact McKellen (cheated out of his SAG award IMHO) will be playing the part of a mentor... ala Alec Guinness in THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM.
Word is that the script is... 'pretty good' but it is still being worked on... and the FINAL writer (after "10 zillion writers" and millions spent) will be Robert Towne. He'll be staying with the production for the rest of the way.
Production is on hold... but that is only till a couple of details in the script and the conception of action scenes are ironed out... That way they won't be 'wasting money' on folks that don't need to be working on the project for until another couple of weeks goes by.
And that is where things are at right now. For some reason there seem to be a lot of rumors about John Woo wanting larger and larger action sequences... BUT when you really get down to it... That is what this film is. It's a BIG HUGE Tom Cruise Actioner with the King of Action, John Woo, directing it all. The budget will be huge... because well... that's the type of movie it is. Things should be moving fine in a couple of weeks I'm told...
Here's what one MonkeyBoy had to say about it all....
Production is on hold... but that is only till a couple of details in the script and the conception of action scenes are ironed out... That way they won't be 'wasting money' on folks that don't need to be working on the project for until another couple of weeks goes by.
And that is where things are at right now. For some reason there seem to be a lot of rumors about John Woo wanting larger and larger action sequences... BUT when you really get down to it... That is what this film is. It's a BIG HUGE Tom Cruise Actioner with the King of Action, John Woo, directing it all. The budget will be huge... because well... that's the type of movie it is. Things should be moving fine in a couple of weeks I'm told...
Here's what one MonkeyBoy had to say about it all....
Here's what one MonkeyBoy had to say about it all....
A few troubling developments downunder with Mission Impossible II. Lots of
rumours flying around about how Woo and Cruise are having "creative
differences" but a few things are certain:
Shooting has been delayed for at least two weeks. According to sources at
Sydney's Fox Studios
it will not begin on March 20 as scheduled, but they would not confirm nor
deny reports staff
had been stood down and there were script problems. They are also not sure
when filming will
start now.
Most of the crew however --- construction and art department staff --- were
stood down last Friday and
are now looking
for work elsewhere. Just a skeleton crew remains. But despite the
development, it looks like
the film
still be shooting in Sydney. There are reports that some of the foreign
scenes in the script will be cut to keep the budget down and most of it will
be filmed downunder, even many of the Spanish scenes (this brings back awful
memories of the 1980s MI revival filmed in Queensland but set unconvincingly
around the world). Tom Cruise (minus Nicole) arrived in Sydney in his
private jet on Friday and was in studio meetings most of the weekend. And on
Saturday the studio went ahead with a casting call for "Hispanic-looking
extras" for the major street festival of fire scene planned to be shot over
two nights next month. (The scene is set in Spain but will be filmed in
Sydney). Also, the crew is still looking for a Spanish mission-style mansion
after owners of the waterfront home Boomerang (no joke) rejected the offer
of $20,000 a day to film there. Even though Janet Jackson and Ricky Martin
had just used the house, built in 1926, for a Pepsi commercial and many
fashion shoots are shot there, the owners thought the crew of a big-budget
movie would be too disruptive.
It also look like the much-awarded Aussie actor Richard Roxburgh will take
the lead Antipodean role as rumoured. Two weeks ago he sent publicists for
the Sydney Theatre Company season of Art into a panic when he pulled out of
one of the starring roles at the last minute. His reason was so he could
take part in a major film about to be shot at Sydney's Fox studios...
The next week or so should be interesting...
Monkey Boy
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Here we have all the ingredients for 2 great movies: One is a great American action movie in the vain of Die Hard and T2, and the other is John Woo's great American action movie, his American Hard Boiled if you will. However, one factor will assure this film will not be one of those two senarios. The dreaded PG-13 rating. No doubt the studio wants to repeat if not succeed the financial profit from the first film. Which is why they are willing to pour more money into the budget, but are not willing to give Woo the "big" action scenes he wants. I hope that I'm wrong and this will be a Woo film much like MI was a De Palma film. If the studio let's Woo and Cruise take over then the movie is a garanteed classic. If not Woo fans have another reason to lament his American output, despite the bright future Face/Off casted.
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I love John woo and his style, don't get me wrong. Face off was amazing and broken arrow wasn't bad either.
But MI isn't a john woo style of film, it isn't just mindless action, its cerebral, it requires a terribly intricate plot and i don't think it'll work if MI2 just turns out to be another bang bang action flick. IMO they should've gotten Brian De Palma for MI2 again.
just my 2 cents. -
I have to disagree here. John Woo is the perfect man to helm the Mission Impossible series. De Palma did the last one and we got an overly complex plot, bordering on incomprehensible. John Woo can definitely orchestrate a sotryline, just watch Face/Off or better yet, The Killer. Besides the best action sequences money can buy, Woo just needs a decent script and a good star in order to be able to tell a story. He has Cruise and hopefully the script will be fine. As for the R-rating, I can't imagien Fox owudl ahve hired Woo if they weren't going to do an R-rated movie. That would be moronic. But if they did, they should cave and let him all out. Oh, also is Ving Rhames in this one? That guy is sweet.
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Woo may be directing but Cruise is calling the shots. out
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ROBERT TOWNE!!! COOL! This guy wrote one of the greatest scripts ever: CHINATOWN! With Woo and Cruise, who is now my favorite movie star due to his impeccable taste in directors, this is sure to be interesting. I dont look forward to sequels much, but this is just one more film of 99 that ill be first in line for. The scene where Faye Dunaway talks about the "flaw" in her eye to jack Nicholson. In retrospect, with her getting shot in the eye and all, the scene is writer's pure gold.
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I have seen Broken Arrow, Face Off, and The Killer. I am sure that Woo has 14000 other movies I haven't seen but those are the ones I've seen. And all of them, well, suck. That's not really true. The Killer might have been much better in its native language but without that it was hard to watch. A lot of the action sequences were pretty cool, except that when the extras get shot they always jump in the air and go into canniptions(sp?). The other two I can't make a good judgement about because they both star John Travolta and whenver I see him trying to act evil I just about wet myself. Ryan Philippe is more convincingly evil (I'm not proud that I've seen that movie). but one thing I have noticed is the contrived endings in these movies, especially Face/Off. The bad-guy dies, he's alive again, then he's dead, no wait he's alive again. It reminds me of playing with my GI Joe men and not being willing to end it. Anyway, now he's got Cruise, who I like, and Ving, who's cool and we'll see. But I've got a sneaking suspicion that I just don't like the dude. Uh oh, looks like Cobra commander is alive again. This time I'm gonna impale that sucka on a nuclear weapon.
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MovieManaic said something like John Woo is better at mindless shoot-em-ups than cerebral, complex, intelligent action movies, and GodBear said that The Killer and Face/Off both suck. Well, forgive me, but you are both just wrong. I've seen most of his Hong Kong action movies a number of times, and they are all brilliant. They are not simply mindless shoot-em-ups. They deal with issues of loyalty, conscience, and the role that supposed law-keepers play in society. The movies wouldn't work without extemely strong characters put into situations that the average person can hardly imagine. Woo does have his limitations: he has yet to create a really strong female character, and some of his plots (like Hard-Boiled) can get a bit muddled, but he is, in my mind, unquestionably the best action director in the world today. The only mindless action movie I can think of that he's ever made is Hard Target, and that wasn't his fault (and it was still ok for what it was). Face/Off was a step toward the sort of thing he did in Hong Kong, but he still hasn't made his American classic. If the studion lets him do what he wants with this one, this could be it. I didn't like MI too much mostly cuz it didn't make any damn sense, but this one has real potential.
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Alright, so maybe The Killer doesn't suck and maybe if Travolta wasn't so annoying I would've liked Face/Off (what's with the slash anyway? Is the movie both a Face and an Off or is the movie so good that even the words in the title need to be separated or they'll start murdalizing each other?) Anyway, don't get me wrong. I love seeing grown men/women shoot at each other and I wish I had some movies to enjoy like that. So if someone out there can recommend the best John Woo movie from Hong Kong I'll rent it and god I hope I like it. Mind you I'm not going to Hong Kong to rent the thing so it will have to be one of the more popular releases. I'm not stoopit, I can enjoy some intelligent moovees, but just don't tell me I don't get the subtle issues being addressed. The guys got two pistols in his hands, for god's sake. And maybe I just need to learn to watch a movie where the dubbing makes the characters rush their lines and sound stupid. And if you're wondering, no I don't have anything better to do at work!!
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Alright, so maybe The Killer doesn't suck and maybe if Travolta wasn't so annoying I would've liked Face/Off (what's with the slash anyway? Is the movie both a Face and an Off or is the movie so good that even the words in the title need to be separated or they'll start murdalizing each other?) Anyway, don't get me wrong. I love seeing grown men/women shoot at each other and I wish I had some movies to enjoy like that. So if someone out there can recommend the best John Woo movie from Hong Kong I'll rent it and god I hope I like it. Mind you I'm not going to Hong Kong to rent the thing so it will have to be one of the more popular releases. I'm not stoopit, I can enjoy some intelligent moovees, but just don't tell me I don't get the subtle issues being addressed. The guys got two pistols in his hands, for god's sake. And maybe I just need to learn to watch a movie where the dubbing makes the characters rush their lines and sound stupid. And if you're wondering, no I don't have anything better to do at work!!
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I swear to god I didn't just double post that thing! It was one of those "document contains no data" things. I take back every time I made fun of someone double posting. Ooh, that's embarassing!!
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I knew it! Things are perfect now. Why's that? Because this is how great movies are assembled. Mission: Impossible was a really great type of film, and the type is self it's pretty good. Now since the type, or sub-genre it's self isn't the most appealing, it can't be compared to all great movies. However the film was a good debut, and now I think they can really mine those characters for all they're worth. MI was a few good steps away from the showm but it still tried to stay a little similar. Now's a chance to take advantage of the interesting possibles and the cool characters left at the end of Mission: Impossible and run with them. You assemble a nifty cast, the best director imaginable for the job, and create the script through a large cadre of writers who concentrate on action, settings, basic situations. Then you get a really talent writer like Bob Towne (who writes all Tom's movies), to work on dialogue and character development. Now they just need Danny Elfman to do the best darn action score possible! Maybe he can get some pointers from Hans Zimmer or someone like him. And I think it may be possible to have great Woo film as PG-13, just not have as much graphic blood, and keep the profanity low like in the first one (I loved that). You notice Bond doesn't have a lot of profanity either. And MI was free of sex and nudity, another plus (don't indulge the horny pervert in you). ;Anyway, on the rating, they could make it a fairly clean R, like Air Force One. That one made a lot of money, but many parents let their young teens see it too.
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The only reason why I saw "Mission: Impossible" was because my all-time favorite filmmaker, Brian De Palma, directed it. Hell, I'd pay $7.50 to see the big-screen version of "Veronica's Closet" if it bore the legend "Directed by Brian De Palma." Normally, big-budgeted action "event" movies put me to sleep, no matter how loud. If the script is written on toilet paper, no special effects, no matter how grandiose, can make up for it. But since De Palma was directing, and the screenplay was written by Robert Towne and David Koepp, I decided it couldn't be all that bad, since most of De Palma's films have been written by excellent writers (David Mamet, Oliver Stone, De Palma himself). To make a long story short, I thoroughly enjoyed "Mission: Impossible." I think it's wise that De Palma didn't do a sequel. Instead of treading on familiar grounds, he's exploring fresh territories, with the upcoming "Mission to Mars," starring Gary Sinise and Don Cheadle, and "Mr. Hughes," a biopic about reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes to star Nicolas Cage. (P.S. If you REALLY want to see John Travolta in an Oscar-worthy performance, pick up the underrated but extremely satisfying "Blow Out", which was released in 1981, and directed by Brian De Palma. This movie haunted me weeks after I saw it, mostly due to Travolta's gut-wrenching performance. A real classic!)
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this film should be pretty good, i trust tom cruise's track record. i just hope when woo asks him to film a scene where he dives into the air, firing a pistol with each hand, tom says " uh...no."
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Firstly, GodBear, I recommend Hard Boiled - my fav' Woo flick, and quite intelligent, too (if you bother reading the subtitles).
Secondly, YES, I believe Rhames HAS been cast for MI2.
Thirdly, I'm not a big fan of formula film-making, and so far everything about this flick SCREAMS FORMULA!
My three cents... -
I don't care. I just want that this film ends soon, so that Tom and Spielberg can begin " Minority Report "
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Paramount and Disney wanted the slash in there so people wouldn't think they were about to see a movie about hockey (no joke). Danny Elfman taking lessons from Hans Zimmer?! Are you crazy! Hans Zimmer drives me nuts! His action scores are all so similar they might as well be for the same movie. I'm not saying Elfman is the greatest composer since Beethoven, but his work has variety at least.
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Paramount and Disney wanted the slash in there so people wouldn't think they were about to see a movie about hockey (no joke). Danny Elfman taking lessons from Hans Zimmer?! Are you crazy! Hans Zimmer drives me nuts! His action scores are all so similar they might as well be for the same movie. I'm not saying Elfman is the greatest composer since Beethoven, but his work has variety at least.
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then you must.......do it.
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