Brett Ratner

[JG]

it means someone needs to put brett ratner's face all over this poster:



SUBTITLED BY BRETT RATNER

[polkablues]

Ratner Classics: A Ratnerspective

[The Perineum Falcon]

Wow.

[Gold Trumpet]

Yea, these are beginning to be beyond funny. Now occupy a little realm of brilliance.

[Stefen]

haha, oh, man.

[MacGuffin]

20th TV signs Brett Ratner
Pact is part of filmmaker's expansion in TV
Source: Variety

Brett Ratner is looking to increase his TV output, sealing an overall deal with 20th Century Fox TV.

Besides its two-year pact at 20th, Ratner's Rat TV shingle has signed prexy Martha Haight to a two-year term.

Ratner's TV expansion comes as the producer has lined up development at CBS, Fox, TNT and the CW.

Ratner's partnership with 20th dates to "Prison Break," which he directed.

He's such a prolific guy," said 20th exec VP Jennifer Nicholson Salke. "We've had a five-year love affair with him. More than anything, we love his enthusiasm and his ability to find talent. He has an affinity for pop culture and everything about it."

Ratner said he's looking to move beyond helming TV, having brought in Haight to help him build a smallscreen division in the manner of, say, Jerry Bruckheimer or Brian Grazer.

Storytelling is what my craft is; I don't care about the medium," Ratner said. "Most TV shows now are better than a lot of features. It's a great medium to explore and experiment. I can try things that I wouldn't try on a feature."

Projects in the works include "Chaos," set up at CBS. Drama, from scribe Tom Spezialy ("Reaper," "Desperate Housewives"), takes a satirical look at the world of the CIA.

At Fox, William Blake Herron ("Role Models") has created "The Devil and Daniel Webster," a fresh take on the Stephen Vincent Benet short story and Faust tale. And at TNT, Sean Jablonski ("Nip/Tuck") is behind spec scriptThe Dead Beat," a buddy cop drama.

I'm looking for great characters," said Ratner, who is onboard to direct much of his scripted development. "And that's what attracts the better actors ... I like to keep honing my skills as a director, and we've collaborated with some great writers."

On the nonscripted side, Rat TV is behind reality scavenger hunt project "The Lost Weekend." Justin Hochberg ("The Apprentice") came up with the idea.

Ratner said he was drawn to "Lost Weekend," having participated in several scavenger hunts as a teen in Miami.

Rat TV is also pitching an adventure food show to cablers; project follows two female chefs as they travel around the globe to find where good food originates. Also in the food space, Ratner said he'd like to develop a vehicle for original "Top Chef" host Katie Lee Joel.

Ratner praised his partnership with 20th, pointing out that the studio has allowed him to bring in his feature team to shoot TV projects.

A lot of TV companies micro-manage and want you to use TV people, but there's a shorthand I have with (20th execs) when I walk into the room," he said. "They've been really supportive and smart and have backed me up 100%."

[Pedro]

[Ravi]

The Shooter Series, Volume One: Brett Ratner - DVD of Ratner's music videos

[Pubrick]

The Shooter Series, Volume One: Brett Ratner - DVD of Ratner's music videos

pumba bought it last year..

[MacGuffin]

CANNES: Relativity Acquires Scifi 'Skyline'
By MIKE FLEMING; Deadline Hollywood

EXCLUSIVE: Brett Ratner is proving to be quite the creative catalyst for Relativity Media. Ryan Kavanaugh's company has acquired Skyline, the scifi thriller directed by Greg and Colin Strause, the visual effects wizards who've worked on such recent films as Avatar, Iron Man 2 and 300. The Strause Brothers financed the film through their Hydraulx Entertainment banner. Ratner brought the project to Relativity. Domestic distribution is still being worked out.

The film stars Donald Faison, Eric Balfour, David Zayas, Scottie Thompson and Brittney Daniel. It takes place in a high-rise in downtown L.A., where a couple of friends return from a night of hard partying and slowly realize they are among a small group of survivors after most of humanity was wiped out by a deadly unknown force. The film has an extraterrestrial twist, and fits the template of recent modest budget thrillers like Paranormal Activity, Cloverfield and JJ Abrams' next directing vehicle, Super 8.

The Strauses will produce with Kristian Andresen and Liam O'Donnell. Ratner will be exec producer along with Kavanaugh, Tucker Tooley, and Brian Tyler. Tyler composed the score. Joshua Cordes and Liam O'Donnell wrote the script.

Ratner recently steered Relativity into the purchase of Catfish, the Sundance documentary that will be distributed through Kavanaugh's Rogue. As director, he's nearing a productions start on Tower Heist, with Universal recently hiring his Rush Hour scribe Jeff Nathanson to do a final rewrite.

Skyline was packaged by CAA and Industry Entertainment, and IM Global's Stuart Ford continues to sell offshore territories. That effort predated Relativity's involvement. After buyers were shown a short trailer, territorial deals were made by Momentum (UK), SND (France), Eagle (Italy), Wild Bunch (Germany), Hopscotch (Australia), Splendid (Benelux), Nordisk (Scandanavia), CP Media (Russia), Korea Screen (Korea), and Playarte (Latin America).

[MacGuffin]

Brett Ratner's Herculean task?
Source: Los Angeles Times

Exclusive: Brett Ratner was once reported to be the director of the new "Conan" movie for Avi Lerner and his Millennium/Nu Image. Now it looks like Ratner could make a movie for the action maven based on a different classic hero: Hercules.

Ratner is in talks to direct Lerner's long-developed tale of the mythological god (Hercules to the Romans, Heracles to the Greeks). The producer has been developing the movie for more than three years, with the project gaining new momentum of late, though it's still in the development stage. Little is known about the specifics of the new version, though it's expected to bring Lerner's classic action ethos to the larger-than-life character.

Is Ratner a good choice? The director has taken on action comedy in "Rush Hour" and superhero action in "X-Men: The Last Stand," both of which have echoes in "Hercules," though "X-Men: The Last Stand" engendered some sharp reactions from the online fan community. We'll see how they react to this one.

Swords-and-sandals are showing surprising swagger at the global box office -- "Clash of the Titans" made nearly half a billion dollars around the world, prompting a sequel, and even domestic disappointment "Prince of Persia" was a huge hit overseas.

Hercules has been the subject of a number of foreign films, and Disney made an animated movie in the 1990s, but the character hasn't had a live-action American treatment since the mid-1980s, when Lou Ferrigno played the character. And of course Arnold Schwarzenegger played Hercules 40 years ago in "Hercules in New York." We don't see him coming back, though.

[RegularKarate]

Brett Ratner to finally make his "black Ocean's Eleven"...starring Ben Stiller
The Onion A/V Club

by Sean O'Neal August 24, 2010

Some years back, a script called Trump Heist was bouncing around Hollywood, pitched as an African-American ensemble comedy about a bunch of dudes—including Eddie Murphy, Chris Tucker, Chris Rock, and Dave Chappelle—plotting to rob Donald Trump. Naturally, it was tagged as the "black Ocean's Eleven." Naturally, it was attached to Brett Ratner, because Ratner is for the streets. Unfortunately, it never got made, even though Ratner still liked to bring the script up from time to time, mostly to remind people that one of its authors, Ted Griffin, originally wrote Ocean's Eleven for Ratner to direct, which is supposed to prove something, we think.

Anyway, it seems as though Trump Heist is finally getting made this November—only it's gone through some significant changes. Most importantly, Ratner decided back in February that Eddie Murphy's role would be "perfect" for Ben Stiller, which is the sort of wild casting leap that we thought only happened in trenchant Hollywood satires. Stiller will "play the overworked manager of a luxury building who, along with other staff, lost their pensions to a Bernie Madoff-like Wall Street crook." (Donald Trump, victim of his own increasingly cartoonish image, is no longer the villain.) Now renamed Tower Heist, the movie finds Stiller leading a group of other blue-collar cohorts in "the ultimate heist," planning an elaborate robbery of the Madoff figure's penthouse apartment.

So just so we're all up to speed here: Rather than a play on Ocean's Eleven whose selling point is that it gathers some of America's favorite black comedians in one film, it's now a play on Ocean's Eleven whose selling point is that it stars Ben Stiller, which means it "has a lot of heart to go with the humor," and Owen Wilson will probably be in it somewhere. (Even more promisingly, the script has already been through no less than eight screenwriters by now, so you know it's good.)

[Reinhold]

i saw this morning that they're casting it where i work... i wonder if ratner will be around.

[polkablues]

Tell him I say hi. He'll know what it means.

[polkablues]

If you guys haven't been keeping up with Ratner Films lately, you've been missing out on some great work by mod:







and myself: