Dan Owen reviews

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MOVIE NEWS

THE ISLAND

Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting, right) will star in The Island for director Michael Bay (Bad Boys II), says 'The Hollywood Reporter'.
The Island is a sci-fi project that follows a "harvested being" that makes a bid to escape the utopian facility where he is being kept.
Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (The Legend Of Zorro) are writing the script, which originated as a spec script by Caspian Tredwell-Owen.
McGregor arrived in New York on 29 July, marking the end of a 20,000 mile round the world motorbike journey. Accompanied by best friend Charley Boorman, the actor spent three months on the road completing the journey on a pair of 1,150cc bikes.

AUSTIN POWERS 4
The 'Chicago Sun-Times' talked to Seth Green about the possibility of another Austin Powers film. Green has played Scott Evil in all three movies.
Green: "Mike Myers hasn't ever told me that. Here's the great thing - no one who has anything officially to do with any of the Austin Powers movies has ever said anything about anything when it comes to another film. All these rumours about yes or no are perpetuated by people who are not involved."
"I kind of felt like the trilogy was wrapped up pretty well. No one is looking for more."

SPY HUNTER
The Rock has commented on his upcoming action movie, based on the popular 80's arcade game, saying: "Yeah, it's going to be awesome. And I mean awesome. John Woo is on board, and we're going through many script changes. We're starting in March next year."

BOND 21
According to reports, the current draft of the next Bond movie, by screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, is based on author Ian Fleming's debut James Bond novel Casino Royale.
Purvis and Wade previously based their screenplay for Die Another Day on Fleming's Moonraker novel.
Casino Royale was published in 1953. A year later, it was adapted as a CBS one-hour teleplay with Barry Nelson as 007, and because Fleming had sold the film rights, Casino Royale was not part of the Cubby Broccoli/Harry Saltzman 'Eon Productions' deal.
That meant that the rights to Casino Royale were acquired by producer Charles K. Feldman, who released the 1967 Bond spoof Casino Royale, featuring David Niven, Peter O'Toole, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen.
'Sony' acquired 'Columbia Pictures' in 1990 and subsequently relinquished rights to the novel to 'United Artists' and 'MGM'.
In related news, speaking on Jay Leno's Tonight Show, director Quentin Tarantino again confirmed his desire to film Casino Royale with Pierce Brosnan - setting the film in the 60's. Of course, Brosnan recently quit the franchise, but would he be lured back if Tarantino directed the movie - currently pencilled in for 2007 release?

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III
Jimi Mistry (The Guru, right) has landed a role opposite Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible III, as Cruise's IMF colleague.

RED EYE
Director Wes Craven (Scream) will helm the thriller Red Eye for 'DreamWorks', after completing troubled werewolf movie Cursed.
The film, written by Carl Ellsworth, focuses on a woman held captive by a stranger on an airliner who threatens to kill her father unless she helps him arrange the assassination of a wealthy businessman.

THE RING 2
'Variety' reports that 'Dreamworks' has pushed the release of The Ring 2 back to 24 March 2005 after production delays and the last-minute director change to Hideo Nakata (Ringu).

X-MEN 3
'The Hollywood Reporter' has revealed that director Bryan Singer will not be involved with the third X-Men movie, due to his commitment with Superman.

TRAILERS

Blade - Trinity

(Trailer link)

More bloodsucking martial-arts mayhem?
I should think that's a distinct possibility of that, yes. Blade Trinity is the third vampire action-adventure starring Wesley Snipes as half-vamp/half-human nosferatu slayer Blade.

Who's in the hot seat this time?
Interestingly, the franchises' writer - David Goyer - has stepped into the director's chair.

Gulp. Never a good sign when the writer takes control, in my opinion.
Well, Goyer is actually a good director in his own right, although Blade 3 will be his first major project. He's undoubtedly in full command of the characters and plot, having also written this instalment.

Okay, so what's Blade 3 about?
Not entirely sure, beyond the fact that Blade is "outed" by the FBI, he teams up with a gang of vampire hunters, then has to defeat the originator of the vampires - Dracula.

Ugh, I hate it when genre movies pretend a fictional character is real. Remember that Buffy episode - gah!
Yes, I know what you mean. It seems quite lazy, but early word is that Blade 3 is another fun and frantic round of blood-letting and kick-ass action, although not quite as good as the first two movies. The trailer certainly looks decent enough - but it does contain a lot of footage from the earlier films to set itself up.