And…

I saw “Watchmen.” It’s fucking astounding. The Non-Disclosure Agreement I signed prevents me from saying much, but I can spout the following with complete joygasmic enthusiasm: Snyder and Co. have pulled it off.

Remember that feeling of watching “Sin City” on the big screen and being blown away by what a faithful translation of the source material it was, in terms of both content and visuals? Triple that, and you’ll come close to watching “Watchmen.” Even Alan Moore might be surprised at how close the movie is to the book. March can’t come soon enough.

Don’t forget, this is from the guy who thought Lord of the Rings was nothing but “a bunch of guys walking around for 3 hours” - but still - we can hope this holds true. Link.

Well, not exactly, but it sure as hell reminds me of it. Maybe it’s the satellites, black helicopters and explosions. Plenty of flicks have those these days though. Hmmmm….

A new trailer for the Ridley Scott directed action-espionage film Body of Lies has hit the tubes, this time a bit more loudly than the first sneak attempt (which did nothing for me). The film stars that guy from Titanic and that other guy from Gladiator that both seem to be unnaturally attracted to Oscars. The movie looks interesting and fun, no doubt - but I still can’t seem to shake a particularly sad feeling while watching it…

I mean, isn’t this made by the same guy who gave us Blade Runner and Alien? Body of Lies seems kind of… uninspired… by comparison. No? Link.

Anyone have a source for the footage that was shown at Comic-Con?

Update: Ask and you shall receive! Wyverex points us to Film Stalker’s adventures in tracking the TR2N teasers online presence. With the pace Disney has been C&D’ing this trailer you would think they were working for Master Computer! He’s found yet another copy! Link.

Enough is enough. I’m calling it so we can all move on - The Dark Knight WILL NOT beat the domestic gross of Titanic. It’s just not going to happen, $15 IMAX ticket sellouts or not. At 342mil, the film is still about 60mil away from eclipsing 2002’s Spider-Man and more than 80mil from 2006’s Dead Man’s Chest, and about to enter it’s third week of release - the week where even well performing films slow down considerably no matter how popular.

1997’s Titanic, in contrast, started slow - built over a series of weeks, slowed down, then won a record amount of Oscars, giving the film it’s second best day of its entire run 56 days into release at a measly 13.1mil. A recent E! Online article highlights how Titanic grew its audience over time, rather than play the “How Much Audience Can We Keep Week-to-Week” game of recent challengers…

Opener smaller than The Flintstones. (Titanic is the 238th “biggest” of all time)

Play at fewer theaters, at your peak, than Lost in Space.

Never, ever make more than $13.6 million in a single day.

Post your second-biggest day ($13.1 million) on your 58th day in release.

Instead of falling by 50 percent in your second weekend, go up by 24 percent.

Go up by 25 percent in your fifth weekend.

Don’t sell fewer than $1 million worth of tickets until…day 102.

Bottom Line: The way to 600mil is to build an audience with repeat customers who bring friends week-to-week. A portion of The Dark Knight’s audience is returning, no doubt - but they aren’t bringing friends the second time around.

Step 1 was to extract several thousand still frames from the original movie. Easily done if you have a copy and know how to use mplayer’s video filters.

Step 2 was to take the Speed Racer trailer and extract the individual frames and soundtrack. Again, easily done with mplayer.

Step 3 is as simple as doing some magic foo with your mosaic tools so you end up with mosaic versions of each trailer frames, using the original movie frames as tiles. Easy but slow.

Step 4 is to put the mosaic’d trailer frames back with the soundtrack and encode it all with mencoder. Doodle.

We’ve all seen this effect as posters, but the result as moving video is beyond trippy. Hit the link to see the vid in action, and be sure to check out the 120mb two minute video download, if your rig can handle that kind of action. Link. [via]

Ever wonder how long the average time between cuts is? The guys at Cinemetrics have, and they decided to find out with a little heavy-lifting help from their friends… If you consider their “friends” anyone with a PC or flash-enabled web-browser that is willing to watch a film while clicking their mouse at every cut.

You are presented with a simple interface allowing you to push buttons as shots on the movie player switch. The software must be run simultaneously with the user watching the movie. So one movie’s dynamics data can be gathered in one viewing. There is an option to pause for tea as well. Once the movie is over, you are presented with some basic statistics (length of the movie, number of shots, average shot length).

The results are then uploaded to Cinemtrics database which, in true crowd-sourcing fashion, is open to everyone for viewing and analysis. Did you know the average length of a single cut in The Matrix Reloaded just barely squeaked past 3 seconds? Well, now you know.

I love the internets. Link.

“Mohney says officers who were dispatched early Sunday to the theater arrived to find employees restraining a man wearing a purple suit, a green wig and face paint…”

Well, at least Batman isn’t the only one getting arrested these days. Link.

A trailer for the first *official Wolverine film, slated for May 2009, screened at Comic-Con this past weekend. Inevitably, it has leaked and is now available for online viewing for what is presumably a limited time viewing period (quick, try to stay ahead of the lawyers!) by clicking here and then here. The trailer is full of geeky goodness, including appearances by Marvel favs Sabertooth, Gambit and Deadpool, among others.  [via]

*I consider X-Men 2 the unofficially the first Wolverine film.  Disagree?  Prove me wrong.

Geeks of Doom brings us the latest info on the sequel to the nu-classic cult-film The Boondock Saints, entitled Boondock Saints: All Saints Day. The sequel has been tied up in a stack of lawsuits for years, mostly related to the fact that Duffy had signed away the DVD rights for the film, leaving him none of the estimated $100,000,000 million home-video take. According to a recent radio interview, everything has been settled, a script is written, everyone is back, and shooting begins in August in Canada. Click here to listen to the radio interview (warning: Duffy spoils practically the entire plot of the sequel) and see above for the first in what will hopefully be a series of video blogs coming out of the production.