Well for everybody who loves a little bit of aliens with their predators there is great news, the two are at it again and this time………it’s for the kids. Ok, not really, but some young ones are involved. The good folks over at yahoonews.com gave us this:
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Shareeka Epps, John Ortiz and Johnny Lewis have been cast in “Alien vs. Predator: Survival of the Fittest.” “Alien vs. Predator” marks the first studio role for Epps since her acclaimed onscreen debut opposite Ryan Gosling in the Sundance Film Festival favorite “Half Nelson,”. Epps, a high school senior, will play Kendra, a young girl who must protect her little brother. Ortiz, who most recently appeared in Michael Mann’s “Miami Vice,” will play a recently elected sheriff. Lewis, a featured player on “The O.C.,” will play Ricky, a troubled kid. The next installment is set in a tranquil town where the townspeople must join together to battle a predator and an onslaught of aliens. Production begins in the fall with the studio eyeing a 2007 release.
Why are they making this? The last on got a 22 out of 100 at rottentomatoes.com. It didn’t make a ton of money. Does the world really need another?
Ok enough of my bellyaching, lets look on the bright side of this. John Ortiz is a good actor, aliens are cool, predators are creepy and maybe, just maybe this could be entertaining and scary.
What is interesting as I look at the people involved with this movie is that most of them have never done the kind of roles that they are doing. The actors have never been leads (Epps has done one lead, but in an indi movie) the directing brother duo Greg and Colin Strauss have been working their way up the ladder for quite some time and although they have done a lot of special effects supervising on big sets they have never gotten their hands on something that they could direct themselves. Add to that the writer Shane Salerno who has only assisted in writing movies in the past and this may end up being something worth watching.
When new people work together on something that nobody has big expectations for, well sometimes what comes out is surprisingly good.
I have to agree with Chefy. Look on RT for the updated “Lassie”. A whopping 97% !!
Your next question is “there was a new Lassie movie?’ yep. Nobody went to see it, because we all love Rin Tin Tin, I ‘spose. A high/low rating on RT only counts critics reviews. But then, what if you get something like John Carpenter’s remake of the Thing from ’82? The critics at the time tore that to pieces. Only in the passage of time have critics come to respect it.
But Chefy, wipe that smile off your face. Critics also loved the first two Alien films. Most critics thought ‘Predator’ was good. So let’s not *complelety* dismiss film critics.
AvP was okay. Wasn’t great. Wasn’t anything new. It was recycled junk. Junk that was somewhat fun, but Paul WS Andersen’s ideas altered rules previously established in both franchises. That is what pissed most people, including myself, off. I was more disappointed that since Andersen was so bent on Henriksen loosely reprise his ‘Bishop’ Weyland role, that he didn’t find room for an Adam (Serenity) Baldwin cameo. [see Predator 2] . Andersen was too fanboy-like; if a director really wants to win over the fans, the director must first win over new fans in the process. Winking at them every five minutes without putting any creative fingerprints on the picture is reckless and unimpressive.
I wasn’t too thrilled when it was a hit (in some people’s minds) and a sequel wasn’t needed. I’d rather have Alien 5 or Predator 3..and if they keep having the aliens on Earth, what is the point of the Alien movies? What is ‘an alien’? The idea was to keep a mystery about them. Watered down by the fourth film and a thankless joke every few minutes, it failed [I fault Joss Whedon for most of this, although I thought his unfilmed ‘alternate’ ending was a great idea and should have been the one shot] and now with the AvP films we got a mixed backstory, rough on continuity. In fact, the aliens in AvP should have had a different look about them, since the aliens slightly mutate in appearance after having a new species host. I love the games. The Dark Horse comics were fine. [I believe there was one story about a buff female chick stowing away on a Predator ship and they visit a planet with Aliens?]
Now we get this storyline. I betcha the Preds will kill unarmed people and see people in mud now. I bet we will see the Alien Queen procreating.
This looks promising. I really like Johhny Lewis as an actor. He can play a serious role(Smallville) and funny(O.C). Don’t know much about the rest of the cast.
I for one enjoyed AVP a lot. It was mucn better then Predator 2 and Alien 3. And it’s been reported that this one will be a lot more violent.
I’m concerned for Shareeka Epps. She put in such an amazing performance in “Half Nelson” that I’m afraid that doing this crap is going to take her away from another potentially amazing performance. I hope she comes back!
The AvP comic that I read in 1993 gave me many hopes for the first one. It was TOTAL trash and borderline corny. This one being specific to a small middle-of-nowhere town, pretty much confirms that it will suck (atleast for me).
I don’t know about this one. I give it a 50/50 chance. While I love the Alien and Predator series’, I had very high hopes for the first AVP. But then it came to be Paul W.S. Anderson as the director. Aside from Event Horizon and some of the first Mortal Kombat movie, boooooo!!! Then it having a PG-13 rating, what the hell were they thinking?! Then the story was no where near as cool as it should of been and most the actors and characters sucked. They should of just stuck more close to the comic book. All in all aside from a few cool, although limited PG-13 battles, it sucked. Wasn’t even scarry at all.
But this next one is set to be R rated and more hardcore like the Alien and Pred movies of are past. Getting back to it’s roots is where they need to be. Some hope, some good hope. And does sound a little more like it’s gearing tword the comic book’s style some. Plus Paul W.S. Anderson isn’t involved. I think this series deserves a second chance. They need to bring the scare back and the dark twistedness.
Still not sure about it being set in modern times, but this series can be REALLY bad ass, if these new people making it can just realise that. Lets just hope they do. If they just think huge scale like they’re claming to, and stick close to the root, then it could be an amazing action Sci-Fi horror film. If not, then Fox should just give up on making this series what it should be. The first one should of been the best action Sci-Fi horror film of are time, but it wasn’t…
Poor Shareeka Epps. After her great performance in the great “Half Nelson” picture, she has been reduced to this. I hope it bounces off her and she does something bigger and grander and better.
~Drewbacca
MoviePatron.com
Don’t hold your breath and stop kidding yourself. This is going to be “Dawn of the Dead” meets Aliens and Predators. Hackneyed, mythos shattering, derivitive crap.
To be fair, however, AVP made 110 million (worldwide- it was 20 million profitable in the US alone)over it’s 60 million production budget. Any way you slice it (and no matter how bad it was), you can’t say it didn’t make a ton of money. It did. And hence- a suck for suck sequel.
As for the Tomatometer, it’s my firm belief this “tool” is being overplayed. A “22%” on the tomatometer is no indication of anything. It just says 22% of critics firmly thought it was enjoyable. There’s smidgeons of gray that aren’t represented– 88% isn’t to say 88% of the country hated it- it’s to say “88%” of the critics giving their reviews to RT didn’t give it a full endorsement. But then, how representative is a critic opinion against popularity anyway? “Click” received “30%” on the Tomatometer, yet opened at #1 and has grossed $137 million in the U.S alone (BEFORE DVD sales). “Hollywoodland” was almost 70% rated on the Tomatometer and carried positive critical buzz- it’s rocketed out of the top ten (to 18 last weekend) in under a month with a paltry $14 million take so far.
That said, referencing the Tomatometer is really only a measuring stick as to what the critics think- not whether a movie is good or not– or succesful for that matter.