I just felt bad for poor Davey, his thread was the only one with no posts.
I really have nothing to say.
So, Mission Impossible 3, should be pretty cool huh?
Fincher will have to get very creative in at least trying to break the structure of the worn out action film that this series of films banks on so much. I put up with the first two movies but the more that come out, the more I see a need for something new so Fincher has his work cut out for him but if he is really talented (and has the power to do so), he can change this around into something new or do the predictable thing and just include his own little style into a worn out story that will be a hint darker in tone because, well, its a david fincher film.
Observe one of most creative and greatest of all directors was Buster Keaton - who made straight genre romantic comedies but had so much talent that his films went above the genre.
~rougerum
I posted this news elsewhere, but on ChuckPalahniuk.net there was a recent link to an interview with Chuck in which he said Fincher was deliberating about doing MI3, but that (major thrill) he had arranged a deal in which Chuck would write. Just has to be one of my dreams come true... Fincher directing Cruise delivering a Chuck role/dialogue! So here's hoping.
I like his darkness.
I kill time.
Darkness may not make a film but it can defenitely help. The mission impossible movies have fallen to the conventions of "normal" action films. A foreboding mood or elements of black comedy that Fincher and Palahniuk could bring to screen would defenitely contribute positively to the new project.
Quote from: Anonymousdarkness doesn't make a movie
I never said it did. Dont assume things on message boards, youll get shreaded up.
:wink:
roger avary stated on his site today that hes starting to rewrite the script to finchers next film.
now is it for im3 or rama? only time will tell
Loved Mission Impossible. Clever, intelligent, suspenseful.
MI:2. Nothing more than John Woo going, this is going to be damned cool.
I just pretend it has nothing to do with the first one and it's totally fine.
MI:3. I don't want it, even if Fincher's directing. The first is good enough as it is. We didn't need 2, we certainly don't need 3.
Quote from: bonanzatazLoved Mission Impossible. Clever, intelligent, suspenseful.
MI:2. Nothing more than John Woo going, this is going to be damned cool.
I just pretend it has nothing to do with the first one and it's totally fine.
that is so exactly what i think.
QuoteMI:3. I don't want it, even if Fincher's directing. The first is good enough as it is. We didn't need 2, we certainly don't need 3.
but it might be cool if it turns out to be more similar to the first one, except with fincher-esque stylings? i don't think tom cruise could survive in one of fincher's worlds he creates.
Quote from: sphinxi don't think tom cruise could survive in one of fincher's worlds he creates.
Not Tom Cruise as we know him, but what of the thrill of Tom Cruise as we don't yet know him? Like, Crowe and Spielberg were just rehearsing him but Fincherworld really gets to the fear in his soul? He'll be fucking invincible!
Having said that, Fincher ain't
that dark. He always seems to step away with a joke at the moment of real intensity*, so maybe the Cruise shell will remain intact?
*
may not be able to substantiate that, it's more a feeling
they always bring finch in on the 3's. Alien, MI....
they need to bring him in on SWep3.
Quote from: Travis Bicklethey need to bring him in on SWep3.
And we learn that all along, Luke
is his father.
Quote from: budgieNot Tom Cruise as we know him, but what of the thrill of Tom Cruise as we don't yet know him? Like, Crowe and Spielberg were just rehearsing him but Fincherworld really gets to the fear in his soul? He'll be fucking invincible!
truly. what a sight it would be to see a broken tom cruise.
Quote from: sphinxwhat a sight it would be to see a broken tom cruise.
So we could take him apart and see what he's truly made of. Just a shell or fish, blood and bone like the rest of us?
In an article from Variety on Tom Cruise's production company, C/W Productions, the trade mentions that Cruise is expected to shoot Mission: Impossible 3 next for Paramount with David Fincher directing a script from Robert Towne.
C/W Productions has been involved in such films as Narc and The Others and the company has 20 more films in development.
Upcoming releases with C/W production credits include the tale of a fallen journalist (Lions Gate's Shattered Glass), a serial killer thriller for Paramount (Suspect Zero), a historical epic (The Last Samurai) and "M:I-3".
Of the 20 C/W projects in development, about a dozen are potential Cruise vehicles.
The more intriguing, not necessarily including Cruise, are: The Light at the End of the Chunnel, about Middle Eastern immigrants trying to sneak into England; a remake of War of the Worlds; Carter Beats the Devil, about a 1920s magician; 17 Stone Angels, a mystery set in Argentina; and Bondswoman's Narrative, based on the first known novel authored by a female fugitive slave.
Seems like Carter Beats the Devil has been in the works forever. I wonder if they'll ever actually make it.
Quote from: MacGuffinThe Light at the End of the Chunnel, about Middle Eastern immigrants trying to sneak into England.
:shock:
Quote from: MacGuffin
Of the 20 C/W projects in development, about a dozen are potential Cruise vehicles.
i hope they release all twelve Cruise-vehicles at once. that would make for some funny...
Will Cruise Shoot Mission: Impossible 3 Next?
Columnists Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith dismiss reports that Tom Cruise is set on shooting Mission: Impossible 3 next this fall.
Cruise is still shooting The Last Samurai, won't return home from filming the epic in New Zealand until mid-April and only then will deal with what he'll do next.
The duo add he'd like to make a film this fall, but as for whether it will be the third "Mission", apparently there is still no script for the project and no idea when there will be.
Quote from: MacGuffinWill Cruise Shoot Mission: Impossible 3 Next?
Columnists Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith dismiss reports that Tom Cruise is set on shooting Mission: Impossible 3 next this fall.
Cruise is still shooting The Last Samurai, won't return home from filming the epic in New Zealand until mid-April and only then will deal with what he'll do next.
The duo add he'd like to make a film this fall, but as for whether it will be the third "Mission", apparently there is still no script for the project and no idea when there will be.
I'm not too thrilled with Fincher directing Mission Impossible 3, but if he has too, Cruise better be a part of it. I don't think I'd be able to forgive Fincher if it was one of those crappy sequels with a different actor(or trilogy or whatever you call it).
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cetniks.com%2Fphoto%2Fcice%2Fimages%2FKelly%2520Brook.jpg&hash=ec943ff30f64e2d733061f35ccacd599f01fa342)
Hope the Finch uses her for what's she's good at :wink:
The rest of you wouldn't mind stepping out of the room for a minute, would you?
Outside the room? What's outside the room? Do NOT tell me there is anything outside the room!!!
Quote from: PawbloeThe rest of you wouldn't mind stepping out of the room for a minute, would you?
Sure. 20 seconds enough time? :yabbse-cheesy:
Quote from: MacGuffin
Sure. 20 seconds enough time? :yabbse-cheesy:
Plenty.
not to be melodramatic, but if Fincher does MI3 can we remove him from the list...especially following up that Panic Room effort.
According to Harry Knowles, Fincher is off MI:3 and Joe Carnahan, who directed NARC is on.
Paramount Pictures has tapped "Narc" director Joe Carnahan to helm action franchise "Mission: Impossible 3" following the withdrawal of David Fincher.
The studio is in negotiations with Carnahan over the third installment, to be produced by Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner with Cruise portraying agent Ethan Hunt.
Carnahan won strong notices for writing and directing "Narc", with Cruise and Wagner signing on as producers and helping to persuade Paramount to release the film. The enthusiasm over Carnahan's handling of the gritty cop thriller led to his recent attachment to helm the Paramount/DreamWorks co-production of "Killing Pablo", the tale of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Fincher had been attached to "Mission: Impossible 3" since early last year but recently committed to direct "The Lords of Dogtown", centering on the surf and skate culture that took root in the 1970s, for Sony.
Robert Towne remains attached to pen the script for "Mission: Impossible 3". Dean Georgaris, who penned the "Lara Croft" sequel, "Paycheck" and "The Manchurian Candidate" for Paramount, also has been mentioned as a likely scripting candidate recently.
Quote from: MacGuffinParamount Pictures has tapped "Narc" director Joe Carnahan to helm action franchise "Mission: Impossible 3" following the withdrawal of David Fincher.
THANK CHRIST!
SO happy Fincher's off.... and even happier Carnahan's on.
How is Carnahan's style? I have not seen NARC yet, so the only exposure ive had to him is the BMW film he made, which if i let myself judge from that, it will probably be like MI:2, since from what i saw in the BMW film the guy has a visual style similar to Woo. (maybe im completely wrong here, as i havent seen NARC so im not fully aware of Carnahan's abilities) So please give me some insight? 8) I too would love to see a darker more serious MI film...
I cannot believe Fincher was thinking of directing a Mission Impossible film...! Okay: maybe I can.
Alright: I absolutely LOVE Fight Club - I think it's one of the best, most important films ever (seriously), and I have similar feelings about Se7en (though not quite as much) but I always had this nagging suspicion in the back of my mind that Fincher was kind of - I don't know - POSING a little as this nihilistic anti-capitalist. It felt a little like an image. Panic Room troubled me a little by being pretty damn conventional (maybe a tad darker than your average, but surely one of the lamest following acts in movie history - to follow Fight Club with that...), but I calmed myself by thinking "don't worry: the next one will be great, the next one will be great..."
And now I find out he's considering directing M:I 3. Jesus Christ... I'm gonna have a hard time defending that decision against my cynical side. I feel like we're now seeing again the Fincher who started by making those great-looking adverts for Nike. What would Tyler - or, for that matter, Jack - say? He's an incredibly talented filmmaker, but maybe he just likes to make things look fucking cool, you know? It used to be corporate logos, next it was musicians, then it was pessimism. And now it's the sequel to a brainless action movie...
Quote from: children with angelsI cannot believe Fincher is directing a Mission Impossible film...! Okay: maybe I can.
Alright: I absolutely LOVE Fight Club - I think it's one of the best, most important films ever (seriously), and I have similar feelings about Se7en (though not quite as much) but I always had this nagging suspicion in the back of my mind that Fincher was kind of - I don't know - POSING a little as this nihilistic anti-capitalist. It felt a little like an image. Panic Room troubled me a little by being pretty damn conventional (maybe a tad darker than your average, but surely one of the lamest following acts in movie history - to follow Fight Club with that...), but I calmed myself by thinking "don't worry: the next one will be great, the next one will be great..."
And now I find out he's directing M:I 3. Jesus Christ... I'm gonna have a hard time defending that decision against my cynical side. I feel like we're now seeing again the Fincher who started by making those great-looking adverts for Nike. What would Tyler - or, for that matter, Jack - say? He's an incredibly talented filmmaker, but maybe he just likes to make things look fucking cool, you know? It used to be corporate logos, next it was musicians, then it was pessimism. And now it's the sequel to a brainless action movie...
brainless action movie eh?
first off if u think fincher's intention in fight club was to promote anti-capitalistic nihilism u might want to watch the film again. (listen to the commentary if your still confused.) I would love to see fincher do a MI, esp. with a half decent script written by anyone except the a-hole who wrote MI2. I don't understand all the shit fincher fans give him for doing something like panic room. why, b/c it doesn't make profound social and/or political commentary that makes movie buffs cream their pants? Tarantino's movies NEVER do that, and no one seems to care when he does movies like jackie brown and kill bill.
Quote from: children with angelsI cannot believe Fincher is directing a Mission Impossible film...!
He's not. You may wanna read the bottom of page two, and also this:
http://xixax.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=255
No: I realise that Fincher wasn't promoting an all-out acttack against capitalism - it's about growing up and realising that the seduction offered by groups like Project Mayhem is false and doesn't hold all the answers - all I'm saying is that Fight Club is a supremely intelligent film that questions our perceptions of accepted society and our relationship with it. You surely can't deny that there is a definite critique of capitalism going on, even if its not a total rejection. All I'm saying is that having displayed that kind of intelligence and interest on those kind of issues, it's disappointing to see him move onto films devoid of any kind of point other than the entertainment of the masses. And, okay: etertainment of the masses is no bad thing - of course it isn't: that's what many films I love are soley aiming to do - but I basically think that he's shown he can make much more profound films than Panic Room or a Mission Impossible sequel, and it's a shame he doesn't want to keep trying at it. Hopefully his pulling out means that maybe he does.
As for Tarantino: he's never shown an interest in making movies for any other reason than to show us cool characters with cool dialogue to make us feel cool and excited while watching them, so for him to not want to make profound "cream-your-pants" points is no big deal - for Fincher, I can't help but feel its a regression...
alright i agree. i just don't think him doing MI3 is the end of the cinematic world as some people seem to think 'round here. he's still relatively young. he has lots of time for more fight clubs.
Quote from: children with angelsNo: I realise that Fincher wasn't promoting an all-out acttack against capitalism - it's about growing up and realising that the seduction offered by groups like Project Mayhem is false and doesn't hold all the answers - all I'm saying is that Fight Club is a supremely intelligent film that questions our perceptions of accepted society and our relationship with it. You surely can't deny that there is a definite critique of capitalism going on, even if its not a total rejection. All I'm saying is that having displayed that kind of intelligence and interest on those kind of issues, it's disappointing to see him move onto films devoid of any kind of point other than the entertainment of the masses. And, okay: etertainment of the masses is no bad thing - of course it isn't: that's what many films I love are soley aiming to do - but I basically think that he's shown he can make much more profound films than Panic Room or a Mission Impossible sequel, and it's a shame he doesn't want to keep trying at it. Hopefully his pulling out means that maybe he does.
As for Tarantino: he's never shown an interest in making movies for any other reason than to show us cool characters with cool dialogue to make us feel cool and excited while watching them, so for him to not want to make profound "cream-your-pants" points is no big deal - for Fincher, I can't help but feel its a regression...
Although Fincher obviously felt some affinity with the subject of Fight Club, you can't really align him with it as a social critique, because that belongs more to Chuck P. (not even taking into account the change in the ending from book to film - who did Fincher agree with there?). There just aren't gonna be many books/scripts to allow the meaning of Fincher's style to be understood so powerfully, and so readily. Before you dismiss less challenging thrillers and action movies, don't you think that the style a director uses can transform a seemingly 'brainless (meaningless?' narrative into something that does have a social comment/view? It just isn't so obvious to read because its expressed visually instead narratively.
I don't know - I guess you're probably right: I can't think of any examples right now... (suggestions?) But I still reckon its content rather than style that will always communicate better...
Quote from: children with angelsI don't know - I guess you're probably right: I can't think of any examples right now... (suggestions?) But I still reckon its content rather than style that will always communicate better...
... or is just easier to read because we've been schooled in literary narrative not visual literacy. It's getting better, though pictures still seem to cause a lot of nervousness.
Suggestions? Any Kubrick movie? Punch-Drunk Love?...
hey guys, i'm not sure if you've already heard about this, but i read in hotdog magazine a couple of weeks ago that fincher, free from m:i 3 constrictions (the guy who directed narc has taken over that one) he was planning a fictionalised account of dogtown and z-boys, that documentary that did quite weel about the skateboarders.
the source was roger avary, who let it slip in an interview about the rules of attraction. he said he's on script writing duties at the moment. i doubted it to begin with, but when avary began talking about how fincher wanted to try out computer generated camera angles a la tony hawks pro skater (apparently fincher is also a huge ps2 fan) it began to sound more credible.
i'm still a little disappointed though. for a director who has managed to merge a story-telling ability with his undoubted technological genius, he seems to be slipping more towards his cg fetish with the still pretty good
panic room, and now this.
what does everyone else think?
Quote from: The Walking Clichecg fetish
Mmm... cg fetish. I say: let's see a pure Fincher movie, nothing but movement through spaces.
i hear he has to wrap all his film-making computer equipment in plasti-wrap.
you know, so he doesn't get, um, coffee stains on them.
as for a pure david fincher movie, how about a pure cameron crowe movie? the camera looking lovingly at tom cruise's majestic figure as he runs...
hmm. maybe cameron crowe actually directed minority report. after all, he made a cameo - spielberg didn't. (PTA did as well, by the way)
Quote from: The Walking Clichewhat does everyone else think?
http://xixax.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=255
Fincher IS directing MI:2, alongside Joe Carnahan.
Mission: Impossible 3 Moved Back
Source: Variety
Paramount Pictures has quietly stepped away from a May opening for its Tom Cruise tentpole "Mission: Impossible 3."
The studio, which had no official comment, moved off the date recently after Michael Mann announced plans to direct "Collateral" for DreamWorks, with Tom Cruise expected to topline and lensing starting in the fall. As a result, "M:I 3" is now expected to begin shooting in January, which clearly precludes the previously planned May 21 release.
The studio has not set a new release date, but the most likely scenario would be for "M:I 3" to open during the 2004 holiday season or in May 2005.
"Mission: Impossible 3" Looking for Leading Lady; January 2004 Start Confirmed
While the plot of "Mission: Impossible 3" is being kept more secret than the formula for Coca-Cola, casting notices obtained by FilmJerk.com this morning give us a clear look at who will be the requisite female team member-turned-love interest for our intrepid hero, when filming begins in Los Angeles this January: Leah Quint.
The character is described as a natural American beauty and endowed with grace, warmth and vulnerability. She is exceedingly intelligent with a compelling presence and a great, disarming sense of humor. Leah has had extensive training with the IMF (Impossible Mission Force), starting her training with the agency right out of school. She has extensive experience for someone her age, a force to be considered with, as she can instantly turn into a person of steely resolve and toughness.
The ideal actress being sought would be between 24 and 36 years old, and in keeping with the casting of Thandie Newton in the previous installment, could be a person of diverse ethnicity. Producers and casting agents are looking for a facile, confident and skilled actress with a significant depth of range, and should have a "perfect American accent" if she is not American. While previously rumored actresses Jennifer Lopez and Kelly Brook both would fit within these character traits, no actress has been signed for the role and this casting info indicates that both will not be a part of this project.
"Narc" director Joe Carnahan is still on board as director, although it is currently unknown if "Paycheck" and "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" screenwriter Dean Georgaris is still the sole writer of record. It is more than likely Robert Towne will take a pass at the script before production begins.
Mission: Impossible III: The draft is finally in at Paramount, whilst Philip Seymour Hoffman is apparently under consideration for one of the two villains. The previous female lead role of Leah has been scaled back to a small part in the film's opening segments.
Frank Darabont Writing Mission: Impossible 3?
Source: Ain't-It-Cool-News
Ain't-It-Cool-News is reporting that Frank Darabont (The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption) is on board to write the script for Tom Cruise's third outing as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible 3. If this is correct, Darabont will take over the task from Dean Georgaris (Paycheck), who was previously announced as the one penning the film.
Darabont co-wrote the upcoming Cruise action-thriller Collateral for DreamWorks. Paramount Pictures is aiming for a May 6, 2005 release date for "M:I-3," to be directed by Joe Carnahan (Narc).
Darabont recently turned in a draft for Indiana Jones 4 to Paramount which got Steven Spielberg's approval but not from George Lucas.
Mission: Impossible III
Source: Dark Horizons
On top of what looks to be Phil Seymour Hoffman playing the villain, the likes of both Scarlet Johanssen and Carrie-Ann Moss have apparently been contacted for two female roles in the film - that of 'Leah' and Ethan's love interest respectively.
Carrie-Anne Moss Accepts Third Mission
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
"The Matrix" trilogy star Carrie-Anne Moss has signed on to Mission: Impossible 3, which is aiming for an August start date, says The Hollywood Reporter.
Moss will take a leading role in the sequel, which will see Tom Cruise reprise his role as secret agent Ethan Hunt. His Paramount-based Cruise/Wagner Productions has recently been scouting locations in Ghana and Berlin.
As much as I love The Matrix I dont really like her
Quote from: andyk (10)As much as I love The Matrix I dont really like her
i dont really like u so there.
Quote from: ©bradQuote from: andyk (10)As much as I love The Matrix I dont really like her
i dont really like u so there.
I gotts say it, I like neither her or the Matrix
Quote from: A Matter Of ChanceQuote from: ©bradQuote from: andyk (10)As much as I love The Matrix I dont really like her
i dont really like u so there.
I gotts say it, I like neither her or the Matrix
I like your honesty.
Branagh Takes on an Impossible Assignment
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Kenneth Branagh has joined Tom Cruise and Carrie-Anne Moss in Mission: Impossible 3 for C/W Prods. and Paramount Pictures, says The Hollywood Reporter.
Branagh, who appeared as Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, has signed on for the action-adventure sequel, though details about his character are being kept under wraps. He may play a villain, but that's not confirmed.
The trade adds that further casting is under way on the sequel, which is due to go into production in late summer. Frank Darabont is writing for the third installment, which Joe Carnahan will direct.
Scarlett Johansson Takes on Mission: Impossible 3
Source: Variety
Lost in Translation star Scarlett Johansson has joined the cast of Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible 3 for Paramount Pictures.
She is set to portray an ally of Cruise's Ethan Hunt character. Other cast members include Kenneth Branagh, Carrie-Anne Moss and Ving Rhames.
Narc director Joe Carnahan is helming "M:I 3," produced by Cruise and Paula Wagner via their Paramount-based C/W Productions with filming starting this summer for a May 2005 release.
ooh this will be interesting
IF the movie ends up like this :
Dir : Carnahan
Writer : Darabont
and the final full cast ends up including : Branagh, Scarlett, Carry an moss, and phillip seymour hoffman ...
let me just say :shock: :shock: drool
Carnahan's out.
http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=17987
M:I3's new mission is to fill the director's chair! Cue the Theme Music!!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here... Not sure what to make of this news. I don't know much about Carnahan (never did catch NARC, although I'm told it's pretty awesome), but I'm sure he would have done a good job. Who'll they for next? I hope it's someone who understands how to direct actors and can capture some subtlty in the characters that fan-boy fav. Frank Darabont has written. Still dig the hell out of this cast, though... I wouldn't be adverse to being introduced to Scarlett Johansson... Hrmmm... Scarlett... drooooollll. "Mission: Impossible 3" has a new mission: finding a replacement director for the blockbuster Tom Cruise franchise.
Joe Carnahan ("Narc") has dropped out of the director's seat because of "creative differences," the standard Hollywood explanation in such cases.
The film remains scheduled to begin shooting as planned next month in Berlin, said Rob Friedman, vice chairman of the Paramount Pictures Motion Picture Group.
Carnahan came on board to direct the latest sequel in the popular franchise in February 2003 after David Fincher exited the project in favor of "Lords of Dogtown," which Catherine Hardwicke is now directing. Carnahan won acclaim in 2002 for his violent cop thriller "Narc," on which Cruise served as an executive producer.
In "M-I:3," Cruise is set to reprise his role as secret agent Ethan Hunt, with Scarlett Johansson, Carrie-Anne Moss, Kenneth Branagh and Ving Rhames rounding out the cast. The 1996 original was directed by Brian De Palma, and the 2000 sequel by John Woo.
The news comes shortly after Paramount announced it was shifting the release date of the film by seven weeks, moving it from its original slot in the first week of May to June 29, 2005. Cruise returns to theaters Aug. 6 with Michael Mann's thriller "Collateral," co-starring Jamie Foxx .
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
Z
oh what the hell, i'll direct the fucking thing.
Too late, cbrad! Brett Ratner beat you to it.
Quote from: GhostboyToo late, cbrad! Brett Ratner beat you to it.
Our beloved Ratner........................................................ :?
Is this for real?
J. J. Abrams is the latest rumored director. That man knows his spy action stuff.
Did he direct the Alias second season ender? Cuz whoever did should direct MI:3. I swear I held my breath for the last ten minutes of that episode.
AICN reported that Ratner signed on this morning: http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=18019
How you like them apples?!
:( :( :( :( :(
I go away for 5 days and this is what happens :shock:
QuoteDefinitely bring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker into the IMF Team. They're all assigned to protect some family man, played by Nicholas Cage -- who ultimately turns out to be the villain. Charlie Sheen will be the reporter who gets in the way because "money talks".
:lol:
Fucking hell..
Ratner.
:(
So is this cool news or real confirmed news?
it's shit news.
Source: Variety
After some rumors in the recent weeks ... it's now official.
J.J. Abrams (the screenwriter of "Armageddon," is also the TV creator of "Alias" and "Felicity") will direct the third installment of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise starring Tom Cruise. Abrams will be replacing director Joe Carnahan ("Narc"), who bowed out of the project last month due to creative differences.
Previously being prepped in Berlin, the film is now set to begin shooting in the summer of 2005. Having directed all three of his series, Abrams makes his major motion picture directorial debut with "Mission: Impossible 3"
Meanwhile, Tom Cruise will be filling his working schedule with "The War of the Worlds," a big-budgeted sci-fi project based on H.G. Wells' classic. The updated version will re-team Cruise with "Minority Report" director Steven Spielberg. Production for that film is set for November.
at least its not Ratner :oops:
'Alias' scribes on 'M:I-3' mission
Source: Hollywood Reporter
J.J. Abrams is reteaming with "Alias" writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who are coming on board to work on the script of "Mission: Impossible 3." The move comes in the wake of the announcement last month that "Alias" creator Abrams will helm the second sequel in the successful franchise after Joe Carnahan dropped out. Several writers have been involved with the project, including Dean Georgaris, Dan Gilroy, Robert Towne and Frank Darabont.
Cruise's Big Dreams Delaying 'Mission III'
Hollywood star Tom Cruise's extravagant plans for the long-awaited Mission Impossible III film are reportedly causing problems for Paramount Studios, who fear the budget will spiral out on control. The actor is producing and reprising his role as agent Ethan Hunt in the sequel to 2000 hit Mission: Impossible II, which is scheduled to begin filming in June 2005. According to Fox News gossip columnist Roger Friedman, Paramount is concerned because no script exists for the movie. Friedman explains, "The rest of it is in Tom's head." In July, Narc film-maker Joe Carnahan quit the project citing "creative differences", and was replaced by first-time movie director JJ Abrams, whose previous credits include directing episodes of TV drama Alias. Despite decided locations in Germany, Belgium, Ghana, Canada and the US, Paramount is reportedly getting increasingly nervous over Cruise's plans to film in 15 countries, raising the budget to $234 million. Friedman says, "I am told that Cruise actually assembled a trailer for it, including credits, voiceovers and clips that he screened for friends as a way to bolster his ego. Trailers are made after a film is completed, not before it's even been shot."
Mission: Really Impossible for Scarlett & Carrie-Anne
Scarlett Johansson and The Matrix star Carrie-Anne Moss have quit the second Mission: Impossible sequel because of ongoing delays. The two in-demand actresses were slated to team up with Tom Cruise in M:I 3 but director JJ Abrams reveals he has had to let them go because of scheduling problems around the film's script. He tells website About.com, "The script was rewritten. I'm a huge fan of each actor that they cast originally, but to have kept the actors when we are reinventing the story would have been an odd process. "To say, 'Write a script with these people in mind for characters that haven't been written,' just felt like we had to start over with a clean slate." Abrams, who has yet to announce his replacements for the project, is committed to starting the shoot in July.
That sucks... I was looking forward to see Scarlet in this...
Quote from: MacGuffinFriedman says, "I am told that Cruise actually assembled a trailer for it, including credits, voiceovers and clips that he screened for friends as a way to bolster his ego. Trailers are made after a film is completed, not before it's even been shot."
i cannot believe the cruise would do this.
Yes, Cruise needs a trailer to bolster his ego. Like it or not, he is Hollywood.
Your mission, Ethan, if you choose to accept it, is to stop the world's supply of cocaine from passing through Lindsay Lohan's nose...
An Impossible Mission for Lindsay Lohan?
Source: Access Hollywood
May 17, 2005
Herbie: Fully Loaded star Lindsay Lohan reportedly let slip to LA's 102.7 KIIS-FM this weekend that she has a role in director J.J. Abrams' Mission: Impossible 3.
Access Hollywood caught up with Lohan to get an update on the possible role. "I actually met with J.J. Abrams, who is directing (the film)," said Lohan. "I'm a huge fan of.. 'Lost' and 'Alias', so hopefully, we will see what happens. If so, I'll be in training for a few weeks, putting on some muscles."
Regarding how it would feel to work alongside superstar Tom Cruise, the actress said, "It's kind of an incredible feeling, I'm scared. If I do 'Mission: Impossible 3' that is going to be so exhilarating. I'm so excited, I just can't wait to do stunts and get all into it."
Paramount Pictures is targeting a summer 2006 release for the third
installment.
the age difference (if she's a romantic interest) makes katie holmes seem as old as nicole kidman!
Felicity Starlet Might Join M:I-3 Team
Director wants her on board.
Source: IGN.FilmForce
Mission: Impossible 3 looks to be adding more female talent to its cast. While it appears that young Lindsay Lohan (Herby: Fully Loaded) is counting on a part in the new spy actioner, director J.J. Abrams recently told TV Guide that he'd like to get actress Keri Russell involved as well – perhaps in place of Lohan.
"There is a role that I think Keri would be spectacular for, but there's a process I must go through [before I cast her]." TV Guide seems to think that the "process" might involve ditching Lohan. Abrams' own words are less suggestive, so there could be room for both up-and-coming starlets.
The connection between Keri Russell and Abrams goes back to Felicity, the college drama TV series that Abrams created, and in which Russell starred. The 29-year-old actress also appeared alongside Mel Gibson in the recent war film We Were Soldiers.
The new Mission: Impossible film won't be shooting until the fall, so there's plenty of time for Abrams to finalize his talent roster.
Quote from: MacGuffinperhaps in place of Lohan.
they can't shoot her in the state she's in.
Monaghan's 'Mission' is to attract Cruise
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Michelle Monaghan is the first of the new cast to sign on to Paramount Pictures and C/W Prods.' "Mission: Impossible 3."
Scarlett Johansson, Carrie-Anne Moss and Kenneth Branagh had been cast in the Tom Cruise vehicle, but the project's numerous delays led to them dropping out. Ving Rhames, who appeared in the previous "Mission: Impossible" films, remains in the cast.
Details of the plot are being kept under wraps, though Monaghan has been confirmed as Cruise's love interest.
J.J. Abrams is directing from a script by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.
Monaghan, repped by Endeavor, appears in the upcoming features "Syriana" and the untitled Niki Caro project as well as in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." She is one of the stars of Shane Black's "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang."
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angry liv tyler.
Rhys Meyers on the force for 'Mission'
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Jonathan Rhys Meyers is the latest to join the cast of Paramount Pictures and C/W Prods.' "Mission: Impossible 3."
This week, Michelle Monaghan joined the cast, which is being retooled after the production suffered delays. Tom Cruise returns as agent Ethan Hunt. Ving Rhames also returns.
Rhys Meyers will play a member of Cruise's Impossible Missions Force.
J.J. Abrams is directing from a script by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.
Rhys Meyers is coming off Woody Allen's "Match Point," which gained considerable acclaim this month at the Festival de Cannes. The movie's sale is imminent. Rhys Meyers also received praise for starring as Elvis in CBS' "Elvis" miniseries. His credits include "Bend It Like Beckham" and "Velvet Goldmine."
Cruise's New Mission in Jeopardy
Is Tom's religion to blame?
On the face of things, Mission: Impossible III seems like a sure bet. Actors have been signed, filming dates have been arranged, money has been spent, and Tom Cruise is enthusiastic. But if we're to believe The New York Times, not all is well with the production; in fact, the broadsheet claims that Paramount chairman Brad Grey is thinking about pulling the plug on the third installment of the highly successful spy series.
The reasoning behind this possibility rests on Tom Cruise's behavior in his most recent media appearances. The popular actor, who is both producing and starring in M:I-3, has been busy promoting another upcoming blockbuster of his, the Spielberg-directed War of the Worlds. However, executives have reportedly been unimpressed with the extent to which Cruise has been publicizing both his romance with Katie Holmes and his adherence to Scientology. In fact, Ms. Holmes was the dominant topic of conversation in Cruise's recent appearance on Oprah.
One DreamWorks spokesman has reportedly said that Cruise's personal publicity could be drawing some attention away from the movie, which opens on June 27th. On the other hand, Paramount and DreamWorks have toned down the promotional press junket for War of the Worlds, saying that the film has gotten enough press already.
As far as Cruise's religion goes, his outspokenness regarding Scientology could be making the studios nervous. The conflict was evident during the filming of War of the Worlds, as Cruise insisted on having a Scientology tent on the set in spite of Universal's rules against on-set solicitation.
So Cruise's antics and religion may make good fodder for tabloids and gossip columnists... But does it really make sense to halt a high-profile, expensive movie production just because your star is getting too much attention? Especially when it's a sequel to a movie that put 100 million bucks in the studio's coffers.
What's more, Mission: Impossible III is a joint effort between Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks and Paramount, just like War of the Worlds. Is Tom Cruise's buddy Steven really going to let the studio ditch Tom's project this close to the start date?
At any rate, if War of the Worlds posts big audience numbers four weeks from now like it's expected to, is there any way the studios can say no to M:I-3? That's a mission you don't want to turn down.
'M:I-3' on Cruise control
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Paramount Pictures said Tuesday that it will begin principal photography on "Mission: Impossible 3," starring Tom Cruise, on July 18 in Italy. The announcement was made by Paramount Pictures chairman and CEO Brad Grey. In recent weeks, several press reports speculated that the film might not be given a green light even though casting was under way because of concerns over its budget as well as intense media coverage of Cruise's public romance with Katie Holmes, which some reports contended was damaging his standing as an A-list star.
phil hoffman. signed on. villain.
cruise vs. hoffman
Quote from: sickfinsphil hoffman. signed on. villain.
cruise vs. hoffman
He's been signed on since Page 4.
Quote from: MacGuffinHe's been signed on since Page 4.
:yabbse-sad:
Keri Russell Accepts "Mission"
Keri Russell has accepted her Mission.
The former Felicity star is reuniting with director J.J. Abrams to star opposite Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible 3.
Russell will portray a junior agent mentored by Cruise's character, Ethan Hunt.
The role was originally intended to be played by Scarlett Johansson, but the Lost in Translation star pulled out of the film last month due to scheduling delays.
Lindsay Lohan had also expressed interest in the part, but Russell, 29, ultimately won out.
The cast is rounded out by Ving Rhames, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Michelle Monaghan and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
M:I-3 received the official green light from Paramount just last week after the studio reached a deal with executive producers Cruise and Paula Wagner to pare down the budget and adjust Cruise's profit participation deal.
Before the film got the go-ahead, rampant speculation existed that making Mission might become impossible due to its swollen budget. The New York Times also reported that Cruise's increasingly erratic behavior of late was cause for concern among higher-ups at Paramount and DreamWorks, the two studios behind Cruise's upcoming War of the Worlds.
Now that casting is complete, M:I-3 will begin shooting in Italy next month. The film is slated to open in theaters on May 5, 2006.
Apart from her upcoming Mission, Russell currently appears in the Steven Spielberg-produced miniseries Into the West, about life on the American Frontier. The TNT series' premiere drew some 6.4 million viewers last Friday.
Keri Russel replacing Scarlett? I dont think so... she is like 10 years older... and she was famous also like 10 years ago... no way
Fishburne, Hoffman set new 'Mission'
Source: Hollywood Reporter
"Mission: Impossible 3" is getting closer to accomplishing its mission, signing Laurence Fishburne and Philip Seymour Hoffman to the Paramount Pictures project.
They join Tom Cruise, Michelle Monaghan, Ving Rhames, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Keri Russell in the sequel, which is being produced by Cruise and his production partner Paula Wagner through their C/W Prods. banner. Fishburne will play Cruise's mentor; Hoffman will play the villain. J.J. Abrams is set to direct.
Rhames and Cruise are the only holdovers from the original cast assembled to shoot "M:I-3" when it was scheduled to film last year. That cast also included Carrie-Anne Moss, Kenneth Branagh and Scarlett Johansson.
The film was put on hold in the summer after director Joe Carnahan opted out over creative differences close to the original production date. Abrams quickly emerged as the frontrunner but was unavailable to shoot last year as he was committed to direct the ABC series "Lost." Cruise filled the gap, filming "War of the Worlds." "M:I-3" is set to start lensing July 18 in Italy and will shoot on location throughout the world.
Last year wasn't the first time the film was put on hold. "M:I-3" was originally aiming for a summer 2004 release date but was pushed back to make room for Cruise's "Collateral," which Paramount and DreamWorks Pictures joined forces to co-finance.
The latest version of "M:I-3" was greenlighted this month, with the film now scheduled for a May 5 release date.
they should just get Altman to direct this and get it over with..
Quote from: Pubrickthey should just get Altman to direct this and get it over with..
I can imagine the audience now:
"Everyone was talking over each other, I couldn't hear who was saying what."
New pics from the M:I3 set!!
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Laurence Fishburne should be Morpheous again... maybe before he actually discovered about The Matrix and all that he was working with Ethan Hunt... and they are all dreaming
Its the only way I can picture him in another character... and the only way the exagerated special effects and ridiculous action sequences could be possible
Maggie Q to Star in 'Mission Impossible'
Hong Kong actress Maggie Quigley will get a leading role in the next "Mission: Impossible" film that begins shooting in Italy next month, a newspaper reported Friday.
Quigley, best known as Maggie Q, will be playing a good character as she stars with Tom Cruise, the South China Morning Post quoted her agent, Yong Mee-yian, as saying.
"Maggie went to Los Angeles last week for the last casting and we are glad to hear that she was given a role," Yong was quoted as saying.
The actress's father is American and her mother Vietnamese. She also starred in the comedy "Rush Hour 2" and Jackie Chan's "Around the World in 80 Days."
Quote from: MacGuffin
She also starred in the comedy "Rush Hour 2" and Jackie Chan's "Around the World in 80 Days."
wow! now thats an impressive resume...
cruise: "maggie Q, you know that you got to pray to the aliens each night on set. you got to thank exharbax the IV for strength"
Q: "leally? cruise, i will prahy and wok hald fol you! ..long time"
Haha!...offensive, I love it.
Making M:I-3 Possible
Scribes say first two don't count.
Screenwriters Alex Kurtman and Roberto Orci have been quite busy over the past two years. Their latest movie, The Island, opens on Friday; their script for the live-action The Transformers movie is now in pre-production; and they have two projects currently shooting, The Mask of Zorro and much delayed Mission: Impossible III. Recently in New York, the writers answered questions about M:I-3, particularly, how will they take the movie in a new direction?
Says Kurtzman, "If you ask [director] J.J. Abrahms, he'll tell you that when we all sat down to conceive of this movie, we said to ourselves this movie has to work in spite of the fact that Tom Cruise is in it. It can't be about that at all. "
Kurtzman admits the direction they decided to take is that the movie had to stand on its own. "This should be a movie that if you took him out of it it should still be great. And that fact that it happens to be Mission: Impossible is a very secondary thing. The fun is it was, the first two movies… we watched them, we liked them, but they didn't come into play."
For the character of Ethan Hunt the writers had little back-story to build upon. That being the case, they were essentially given the freedom to take the character wherever they wanted to go. "The only thing that we know about Ethan Hunt is that his parents died, so we had very little that we had to follow," says Kurtzman. "The fun of Mission: Impossible for us is finding out how to make a movie that was really exploration of that character in a way that the previous two movies have not done. Aside from some unbelievable action sequences."
"The way we look at it is Mission: Impossible is a spy movie," says Orci. "And unless you're going to say that all spy movies are somehow indebted to the genre, this isn't. It's a new movie. For us as screenwriters, the fact that he's called Ethan Hunt becomes irrelevant if you're really treating it as a character thing and really trying to find new ground. It also makes you conscious of the fact that you want to find new ground. You don't want to just do a continuation of whatever they were doing in the first two movies."
Orci adds that the same can be applied to Zorro. "The sequel is now about a guy who's married and has a family. He has a child and he's trying to continue his job and it's very much sort of a contemporary story in that. That works alone whether or not he's Zorro. When you approach it from a character point for us, it helps to know that you're not ripping everything off all over again, like it's the same damn movie again. It helps if you don't feel that way."
Crudup Accepts Mission
Big Fish star joining Cruise flick.
Big Fish and Almost Famous star Billy Crudup has joined Tom Cruise and company in Mission: Impossible III, according to today's Variety. Crudup is a late addition to this picture which started shooting in July under the direction of J.J. Abrams (Alias).
The trade doesn't have details on Crudup's part except to say that he's been cast in a "lead role" in the Paramount Pictures actioner. The thesp is currently shooting The Good Shepherd, directed by Robert De Niro.
In addition to Cruise, Crudup joins Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Michelle Monaghan, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Maggie Q and Sasha Alexander on the film.
Screenwriters Alex Kurtman and Roberto Orci have hinted that the film will be a departure from the previous two installments in the blockbuster series. They've also really fleshed out the character of Ethan Hunt.
"The fun of Mission: Impossible for us is finding out how to make a movie that was really an exploration of that character in a way that the previous two movies have not done, aside from some unbelievable action sequences," Kurtzman says.
The movie will shoot in Italy, the United States and China.
M:I-3 is set for a May 5, 2006 big-screen debut.
Quote from: MacGuffinCrudup Accepts Mission
:yabbse-smiley: :yabbse-thumbup:
Maybe I'll pay to see this movie after all.
haha, yeah, i like crudup alot. i like the way he treats women :yabbse-wink: ...i will be seeing this now too.
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Pegg briefed on 'Mission' sequel role
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Simon Pegg has signed on to join Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible 3." He will play an ally of Special Agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise).
Directed by J.J. Abrams, "M:I-3" boasts an ensemble cast that also includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup, Michelle Monaghan, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Keri Russell and Maggie Q.
Pegg, best known for toplining and co-writing the indie breakout "Shaun of the Dead," is a veteran of British TV. His film credits also include "The Reckoning" and a cameo in "Land of the Dead."
Said Abrams: "I've been dying to work with Simon since I saw 'Shaun of the Dead.' His comedic skill is remarkable; he's able to be hysterically funny while always seeming 100% real, even when he's killing zombies with vinyl records."
SWEET. dude, jj abrams is all about the hip british comedy after casting ricky gervais on alias and now this. he rules. :yabbse-thumbup:
Maybe this could also mean a guest spot for him on Lost!
Tom's going to have to be on his A-game, Magnolia-style, or he runs the risk of being shown up by the rest of the cast. So he'd better get his Stanislavsky on and make sure Katie wears her "pregnant" costume every time she goes out from now until May.
EDIT: I just told my girlfriend about this and she said, "The only thing wrong with the movie is Tom Cruise." Classic.
tom cruise will ruin this movie!!1!!!!!!1
:saywhat: Thanks for the insight, cockmaster.
I don't get it. Tom Cruise is a good actor... :saywhat:
Teaser was supposed to debut tonight but it leaked in some russian site.
Teaser Trailer here. (http://www.filmz.ru/pub/9/6362_1.htm)
I liked PSH.
Quote from: Fernando on December 12, 2005, 10:13:04 AM
Teaser was supposed to debut tonight but it leaked in some russian site.
Teaser Trailer here. (http://www.filmz.ru/pub/9/6362_1.htm)
Now on Yahoo (http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/missionimpossible3qt.html)
Edit: ok, I just watched it...PSH fucking dominates those few seconds. Not to draw inappropriate comparisons, but there was a Peter Sarsgaard quality to it, just a bit. Which is fine, they're both my favorite actors right now. That shot of the explosion knocking Cruise into the car was FUCKING COOL. I hope they stick with the spy elements a bit more than the action, but I don't care, it looks great. fuck John Woo.
Quote from: Fernando on December 12, 2005, 10:13:04 AM
Teaser was supposed to debut tonight but it leaked in some russian site.
Teaser Trailer here. (http://www.filmz.ru/pub/9/6362_1.htm)
I liked PSH.
who else watched it in ULTRA RESOLUTION?!
also, that poster, espn.
Quote from: cronopio on December 12, 2005, 11:48:35 AM
Quote from: Fernando on December 12, 2005, 10:13:04 AM
Teaser was supposed to debut tonight but it leaked in some russian site.
Teaser Trailer here. (http://www.filmz.ru/pub/9/6362_1.htm)
I liked PSH.
who else watched it in ULTRA RESOLUTION?!
:waving:
I liked the part with Tom dressed as the priest. That was cool. :yabbse-thumbup:
Eyyyyyyyy this looks good. Go J.J.
It will definitely have more spy elements with J.J. It looks like this will have everything that I loved about Alias, with better action.
I hope its good... I'm excited for JJ Abrams... and Cruise is the best even though he lost his mind
Quote from: A Matter Of Chance on December 12, 2005, 03:07:55 PM
I liked the part with Tom dressed as the priest. That was cool. :yabbse-thumbup:
yeah, followed immediately by a shot of cruise making out with some chick. if i were a catholic, i'd have all my buddies protesting right about... now.
From Joblo.
Paramount recently slipped us some new pics from Tom Cruise's upcoming action extravaganza MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3. They also let us know that the first M:I:III TV spot will run during the Super Bowl on February 5th. It will then be available in HD Quicktime on Apple's trailer section on Monday February 6th after 6pm. They further mentioned that the TV spot will contain key information to complete the first clue for those participating in the M:I:III Scavenger Hunt. This first clue will then be released after 5pm on Monday February 6th. So, we're clear on all that? M:I:III opens May 5th.
Mac or Mod, which other trailers will air during the SB? Not that I'll be watching it, just to know what trailers I'll be checking up monday morning.
Quote from: Fernando on February 02, 2006, 02:01:19 PMMac or Mod, which other trailers will air during the SB? Not that I'll be watching it, just to know what trailers I'll be checking up monday morning.
The World's Fastest Indian - Magnolia Pictures
Running Scared - New Line Cinema
Mission: Impossible III - Paramount Pictures
The Shaggy Dog - Walt Disney Pictures
16 Blocks, Poseidon, V For Vendetta - Warner Bros. Pictures
pretty lame lineup there.
Yeah I was hoping for something new on Superman Returns or X3
In the Super Bowl commercial for this, PSH looks like he's playing a clean-shaven variant of Mattress Man.
How cool is that.
"That's that!"
Quote from: Fernando on February 02, 2006, 02:01:19 PMthe first M:I:III TV spot will run during the Super Bowl on February 5th. It will then be available in HD Quicktime on Apple's trailer section on Monday February 6th after 6pm. They further mentioned that the TV spot will contain key information to complete the first clue for those participating in the M:I:III Scavenger Hunt. This first clue will then be released after 5pm on Monday February 6th.
'M:I-3' ad starts scavenger hunt Paramount Pictures was ready to take advantage of Super Bowl Sunday's massive viewership to kick off the Ultimate Mission, an online scavenger hunt promoting "Mission: Impossible 3," which opens in May. A 30-second commercial, which was set to air during the game's first half, promoted the interactive contest that involves clues hidden in specially created original shorts available for viewing on various Web sites. The spot also held the clue to solve the first question in the competition, which begins today and plays out over the next three months. "It's only a taste, but this spot will definitely tell you what we've got in store on May 5," said Gerry Rich, president of worldwide motion picture marketing at Paramount Pictures.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/missionimpossibleiii/
is this thing going to sink? i can't walk two blocks without hearing someone say "i'm so done with tom cruise."
Quote from: ©brad on February 06, 2006, 08:28:28 AM
is this thing going to sink? i can't walk two blocks without hearing someone say "i'm so done with tom cruise."
Seriously, I"m so done with hearing people say that.
Cruise Bullies Kanye West Into Impossible Mission
Tom Cruise persuaded rapper Kanye West to change his mind about creating a new theme for Mission: Impossible III by paying him a visit. The movie star was adamant West should be involved in the soundtrack and when the rap star announced he was too busy to play around with the classic theme, Cruise refused to take no for an answer. Cruise tells MTV News, "I'm a big fan of his work and we said, 'What's Kanye doing?' - 'He's busy, busy, busy.' So... I went by and he's got two songs that he wrote that are just unbelievable - he did a version of 'Mission: Impossible' and an original... It is 'Wow'. When you see an artist that you just respect and he's so talented. I was like, 'Man, I'd love to see what he's gonna do with this.' You've got to hear what he did with it. It's Kanye West and it's really extraordinary. I looked at him and said, 'Man, you killed it.'"
the following is a translation of the above article..
Quote from: MacGuffin on February 09, 2006, 02:11:43 PM
Cruise Bullies Kanye West Into Impossible Mission (to be taken literally)
Tom Cruise persuaded rapper Kanye West to change his mind about creating a new theme for Mission: Impossible III by paying him a visit (sending hired goons). The movie star was adamant West should be involved in the soundtrack and when the rap star announced he was too busy (too scared of Cruise) to play around with the classic theme, Cruise refused to take no for an answer (resorted to using physical force, see: katie holmes). Cruise tells MTV News, "I'm a big fan of his work and we said, 'What's Kanye doing?' - 'He's busy, busy, busy.' (see 'too busy') So... I went by and he's got two songs that he wrote that are just unbelievable (acceptable to a rich white man) - he did a version of 'Mission: Impossible' and an original... It is 'Wow' (as in 'so fetch'). When you see an artist that you just respect and he's so talented. I was like, 'Man, I'd love to see what he's gonna do with this.' You've got to (or his people will break your kneecaps, effectively ending your couch-jumping career) hear what he did with it. It's Kanye West and it's really extraordinary. I looked at him and said, 'Man, you killed it.' (to be taken literally)"
That was funny Pubrick... but just the image in my head of Cruise and Kanye talking makes me laugh my ass off.
And I'm really dying to hear that song...
New japanese Trailer here (http://progressive.stream.aol.com/aol/us/moviefone/movies/2006/missionimpossible3_014799/missionimpossible3_trlr_02_dl.mov).
'MI-3' Pits Cruise Against Hoffman
How's this for an impossible mission: Tom Cruise against Truman Capote?
Theater owners got a sneak peek Tuesday of two key scenes in Cruise's summer sequel "Mission: Impossible III," in which his undercover operative Ethan Hunt takes on a villain played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who won an Academy Award this month for playing author Capote in "Capote."
Director J.J. Abrams, creator of TV's "Lost" and "Alias" who makes his big-screen debut with "Mission: Impossible III," told a crowd at the theater-owner convention ShoWest that he set out to make an action film that put characters first, spectacle second.
"The reason the action works so strongly is that J.J. tells a story, and what drives the story are the characters, the people," Paula Wagner, Cruise's producing partner, said in an interview with The Associated Press alongside Abrams.
"The action happens because the people are trying to get something accomplished, get something done, and that's great storytelling."
Distributor Paramount showed off an exchange in which Hoffman's character, imprisoned by the Impossible Missions Force, delivers a chilling threat to Cruise's Hunt.
"Do you have a wife, a girlfriend?" Hoffman asks Cruise. "Because if you do, you know what I'm going to do next? I'm going to find her. I'm going to find her, and I'm going to hurt her. I'm going to make her bleed and call out your name. ...
"And then I'm going to kill you right in front of her."
Abrams also presented a fiery sequence in which Hoffman's allies try to rescue him from Cruise and his gang, which includes returning co-star Ving Rhames.
"Mission: Impossible III" also co-stars Laurence Fishburne, Michelle Monaghan and Keri Russell, who starred in Abrams' series "Felicity."
After delays on the sequel that included scheduling conflicts and an earlier director dropping out, Cruise decided Abrams was the right filmmaker after watching episodes of "Alias." Cruise and Wagner let Abrams toss out the earlier story line and held off on "Mission: Impossible III" until he was able to free himself up from getting "Lost" on the air.
Though they both were hits, the first two "Mission: Impossible" movies were criticized for focusing on style and action in service of perplexing story lines. "Mission: Impossible III" presents a clear plot centered on elaborate chess moves between Cruise and Hoffman's characters, said Abrams, a co-writer on the movie.
"This story is trackable, unlike a lot of stories we've seen in the spy genre, certainly everything from episodes of `Mission: Impossible' on TV, and certainly I'm guilty of it in episodes of `Alias,'" Abrams said. "There are stories that can get so convoluted that you're just barely hanging on, but this I think you can follow the story beat for beat."
Quote from: MacGuffin on March 15, 2006, 01:15:28 AM
How's this for an impossible mission: Tom Cruise against Truman Capote?
Somebody should take that fake picture of Tom Cruise engaged in a knife-fight with Matt Lauer and photoshop Truman Capote's face over Lauer's.
On second thought, please don't.
Quote from: MacGuffin on March 15, 2006, 01:15:28 AM
"Do you have a wife, a girlfriend?" Hoffman asks Cruise. "Because if you do, you know what I'm going to do next? I'm going to find her. I'm going to find her, and I'm going to hurt her. I'm going to make her bleed and call out your name. ...
"And then I'm going to kill you right in front of her."
Hahaha...
That's a lot funnier than the characters saying it.
New Trailer here. (http://download.ifilm.com/qt/portal/2710579_300.mov)
So, what do you guys honestly think of this film...I love PSH and i agree that he'll kick ass...But overall, yea or nay?
Quote from: Neil on March 17, 2006, 05:29:44 PM
So, what do you guys honestly think of this film...I love PSH and i agree that he'll kick ass...But overall, yea or nay?
well considering none of us have seen it, we can't say yea or nay. but I'm betting on two things:
A) PSH will be the best thing in it.
B) some people will avoid it cuz of Tom Cruise.
I never thought I'd say this, but he might actually
hurt the box office this time.
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shouldn't it be "the mission resumes" or "continues" or something to that effect.
Out of the May blockbusters I have to say this is the one I've decided to get excited about. Primarily Phil Hoffman - his delivery of the lines in the trailer make me want to stand up and cheer every time I hear them. Secondly is the first meeting of Hoffman and Cruise since Magnolia - Parma Versus Mackey. Thirdly a shot of Cruise's grin driving a some kind of motor boat down a canal which I'd like to see more of. And finally, the fact the director has promised more team action like in the TV series.
These guys were a team:
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The only really off-putting part about what I've seen so far is the excess of explosions in the trailer. Out-of context explosions are the most numbing of any promotional footage and the cheapest way to put a trailer together.
PSH is going to rule and, of course, will be the best thing about it. But for some reason, I think it will kick anus big time. The trailer is damn cool.
I'm seeing this movie, of course. I just don't expect my critical judgement to tag along. The most interesting part of Mission Impossible 3 is how much money it will make and how it will juxtapose the image of Tom Cruise to the world. For the last 6 years, he has been consistently coming out with one film a year. The difference is not how screen time he gets in every film (he always gets ample amount) but how each film carries a different marker for the Tom Cruise persona. Every film gives him a new sympathy or endearment. With Collateral, it was the smarter-than-anyone-in-the-room bad guy. In Minority Report, the martyred hero. With Mission Impossible 2, the limitless hero. With The Last Samurai, just cliches. Vanilla Sky, the role of all extremes with no ties in. A role similiar to his one in Magnolia but with no depth of character attached.
The one film that did try to give him somewhat of an interesting character was War of the Worlds. A few scenes did show a down and out father, but those scenes were few and far between all the ridiculous ones of him running and jumping to green screen projected imagery. It is not unexpected for a film star to cater to roles that show them in a good light but Cruise has so thoroughly avvoided character roles the last 6 years its just ridiculous. Julia Roberts similarily kept to just comedy for a while and a lot of films that ridiculously showed her as an art buff. (I counted 4 roles that did that)
I remember reading an interview recently where a writer complained of wanting to go into criticism for aesthetic studies of film but fell into commenting on the societal popularity of movies instead. I personally dispell such a retract but I admit I am heading that way for any new and (likely) future Tom Cruise movie. His trend of one movie a year is not stopping and by looking at his upcoming projects I don't think their lack of objectivity or talent will stop either.
but the explosion here was different, he did a pretty competent wire-rig stunt in the same shot as the explosion--this was not some star diving towards the camera in slow motion onto an air mattress. he was pulled by a wire and slammed into the side of a car. it was a minor stunt, but still, no other star would do it.
Quote from: ®edlum on April 22, 2006, 02:42:52 PM
The only really off-putting part about what I've seen so far is the excess of explosions in the trailer. Out-of context explosions are the most numbing of any promotional footage and the cheapest way to put a trailer together.
True. But I still dont quite understand the physics of him behind being him slammed into that car.
Quote from: ®edlum on April 23, 2006, 04:56:48 AM
True. But I still dont quite understand the physics of him behind being him slammed into that car.
Ethan Hunt can't die, though he can be slightly injured. That is the only law of physics that remains constant in the M:I universe. All other laws of physics are bent or broken to keep that one constant. See the jump from the exploding helicopter to the train in the Chunnel from the first M:I as well as all of M:I 2 for further details.
I'm glad other ppl are excited by this, I could care less about the Cruise persona although it does bother me a little but whatever, he's been making good to great to awesome films for many years and actually the only shitty film he has made in 16 years is Far and Away and still it was watchable, and we have Days of Thunder in those years so the guy has more than delivered to me.
FWIW, modage beloved Harry Knowles raved about it here (http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=23062).
News Rack Destroyed in 'Bomb' Scare
Source: Los Angeles Times
A newspaper promotion for the upcoming movie "Mission: Impossible III" misfired Friday when a Los Angeles County sheriff's arson squad blew up a news rack, thinking it contained a bomb.
Instead, the Los Angeles Times coin machine near the intersection of Sand Canyon and Soledad Canyon roads in Santa Clarita held a digital musical device designed to play the "Mission: Impossible" theme song when the rack's door was opened.
The incident came amid several bomb reports made by newspaper buyers startled to see a red plastic box with wires protruding from it attached to the interiors of racks.
In West Los Angeles, federal police at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center called in the sheriff's bomb squad after a newspaper buyer spied the 6-inch-long, 2 1/2 -inch-wide box and its wires.
By then, deputies were aware that the box was a musical, not explosive, device.
Times officials said the devices were placed in 4,500 randomly selected news boxes in Los Angeles and Ventura counties in a venture with Paramount Pictures designed to turn the "everyday news rack experience" into an "extraordinary mission."
"In this day and age, anything a little odd-looking arouses suspicion," said Times Publisher Jeff Johnson.
The devices weren't supposed to be seen by the public, said John O'Loughlin, The Times' senior vice president for planning. "This was the least intended outcome. We weren't expecting anything like this."
Newspaper executives said the "singing news racks" were the first of their kind. They are scheduled to be in operation through May 7. The Tom Cruise movie is to open May 5.
The bomb squad excitement was unexpected, said Mark Kurtich, senior vice president of operations for The Times. "I think Paramount is pretty happy about it."
Retired Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. Mike LaPerruque, now security manager for The Times, said law enforcement agencies around Los Angeles were advised Friday afternoon that the devices were a movie promotion and not dangerous.
"I got a call from one agency even as I was on the phone making the notifications," he said.
"With the wires leading to the micro-switch on the news rack doors, I can easily see how someone might have misconstrued it as an improvised explosive device," LaPerruque said.
At first, Abrams' 'Mission' did seem impossible
The "Lost" and "Alias" director hadn't helmed a feature film, and the scheduling was no good. But Cruise had faith.
Source: Los Angeles Times
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Tom Cruise was so determined to get J.J. Abrams to direct the third installment of his "Mission: Impossible" franchise that he persuaded Paramount Pictures to put the project on hold for a year. He also helped persuade Steven Spielberg to move up production on "War of the Worlds" and postpone work on "Munich" to accommodate Abrams' schedule.
Once he finally stepped behind the cameras, Abrams found himself wondering how he, a neophyte filmmaker who had come to fame on the small screen creating the influential television hits "Lost" and "Alias," had ended up on the set of a $165-million Tom Cruise movie.
"There were moments of lucidity where I would realize, 'What in the name of God am I doing?' " Abrams said. "And then I would just get distracted by the issue at hand, run off and blow something up."
The opening entry in this year's expanded summer movie season, Friday's "Mission: Impossible III" will naturally be seen as an audience referendum on Cruise, who is coming off both his biggest career hit ("War of the Worlds") and an equally outsized barrage of problematic publicity.
But Paramount Pictures is also looking to the Abrams-Cruise partnership to break its nearly yearlong box-office slump (for every hit such as "Four Brothers," Paramount also has had clunkers like "Elizabethtown") and perhaps help reverse a broader box-office malaise.
Although few doubt that the movie will be a success with young men who flock to action titles, some Paramount executives are privately worried that Cruise's unpredictable off-screen exploits might have hurt the actor's appeal with women. A few people associated with the film even hoped Cruise would play the part of the dedicated dad and stay home with his newborn daughter rather than travel overseas for the film's several premieres. (Cruise ultimately attended premieres in Rome, London and Paris, traveling with his two older children.)
A competing studio contends audience interest in the sequel is running about a third lower than it did at the same point before the premiere of 2000's second "Mission: Impossible" installment, although Paramount said comparisons with a 6-year-old movie are worthless. But one internal Paramount tracking report reveals that Sony's "Da Vinci Code" is generating much stronger audience interest even though it opens two weeks after "Mission: Impossible III." And among women 30 and older, "Da Vinci Code" is sparking twice the enthusiasm of "Mission: Impossible III."
A recent change in Paramount's marketing campaign, which pushes the film's plotting and character over its action to appeal to women, had been planned all along, the studio said, after its initial campaign targeting a core audience of younger males had played out. The studio said Friday that the campaign's pursuit of women was working; interest among female moviegoers was up.
Abrams, who has attracted millions of female viewers to his popular TV series including "Felicity," says he's aware of the marketing challenges, but Paramount "has it covered."
Regardless of the sequel's ultimate performance, one thing already is certain: Abrams, unlike some who preceded him on the "Mission: Impossible" films, was able to find common creative ground with Cruise. That was crucial, because Abrams wasn't just directing Cruise, he was working for him — the actor, along with partner Paula Wagner, produces the "Mission: Impossible" movies.
"So many people I know warned me not to do this movie, just for that reason," Abrams said. "Not because of Tom in particular. Just the notion of a star producer — they thought I was an idiot. But I felt like I could trust him. He said, 'I want this to be your "Mission: Impossible." I'm the actor. You're the director.' "
Hitting it off
Abrams said he had little idea what his longtime agent was referring to when he called in the middle of dinner two years ago.
"Are you aware of the conversations?" agent David Lonner asked cryptically.
"The conversations" were that with just weeks before production was to commence on "Mission: Impossible III," director Joe Carnahan ("Narc") was off the film and Cruise wanted Abrams as his replacement. The switch would cost Paramount some $30 million in sunk costs.
Abrams, 39, grew up loving the original TV show, which ran from 1966 to 1973, and had a boyhood crush on one of its stars, Lynda Day George. But he had yet to put a foot of film through a feature film camera, and "Lost" had yet to become a premiere, let alone a sensation. Still, he was more than a little intrigued.
Cruise and Spielberg previously had wanted Abrams, whose screenplay credits include "Regarding Henry," "Forever Young" and "Armageddon," to rewrite "War of the Worlds." But Abrams wasn't available to work on that movie as he was in the middle of the "Lost" pilot.
All the same, Cruise and Abrams hit it off.
Then Cruise watched the first two seasons of "Alias," which, Abrams explains, was partially inspired by the "Mission: Impossible" TV show. The actor apparently liked what he saw.
"He invited me and my wife to a concert one night, and I invited him to my birthday party," Abrams said. "He came, hung out and was one of the last to leave. It was like — 'How the hell is Tom Cruise at our house?' "
Around that time, Abrams was angling to direct "Superman Returns," having written a script about the superhero for Warner Bros. Warners chose "X-Men's" Bryan Singer instead (who then rewrote the Abrams script), but three weeks later, Carnahan was out, and Abrams potentially in.
"I met with Tom and Paula, and Tom gave me that 'Risky Business' smile and said, 'Do you want to do it?' And I said, 'Yeah, I want to do it. But what is it? What's the story? I haven't read the script,' " Abrams said.
The once-robust "Mission: Impossible" franchise had been dormant since 2000, and the screenplay for the third film had undergone countless revisions under Frank Darabont ("The Shawshank Redemption"), Dean Georgaris ("Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life"), Dan Gilroy ("Two for the Money") and Robert Towne ("Chinatown").
Abrams gave the script a look: "I felt my heart sink." Abrams believed the first two "Mission: Impossible" movies had not captured the quintessential spirit of the TV series, and he found the screenplay for the third film too dark, too political, too impersonal.
"I'm just not the guy to make that movie," Abrams said he told Cruise after reading the script. "And he said, 'What would you want to do?' And I said, 'I don't know exactly, but I know I want to do a much more personal story, something more character-based than mission-based.' I thought he would say, 'Well, we have to shoot in two months. Next time, we'll do something.' But he said, 'Let's do that version.' "
Cruise's 180-degree turn on a script he had personally developed was certainly peculiar, but the logistics of his about-face were even stranger. Cruise had to put "Mission" on hold for a year and help coax Spielberg into changing production schedules for both the director's "War of the Worlds" and "Munich."
"All of a sudden, you have Tom Cruise saying, 'And I want this TV boy to direct the movie,' " Abrams said. "There is no good in that scenario. And [former Paramount head] Sherry Lansing did it. I was hired by Tom and given a stamp of approval by Sherry. But I don't think the stamp landed with a loud thud. I think it was a reluctant press of a stamp. By the way, I could not blame her less. I don't know what I would have done in her situation, besides panic."
Where the first two "Mission: Impossible" movies (directed by Brian De Palma and John Woo, respectively) were full of gadgets and complex, sometimes hard-to-follow narratives, Abrams and "Alias" writing collaborators Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci wanted the third movie to be more about Hunt.
"Our question was, 'What would the "Jerry Maguire" version of Ethan Hunt look like?' " Kurtzman said. Added Orci: "Who is he today? Who is he as a married man?"
In the new film, Hunt is engaged to be wed and trying to cut back on secret agent gigs. He reluctantly returns to help rescue a former spy student (Keri Russell, who starred in "Felicity"). Hunt then spearheads a job inside the Vatican to kidnap Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a villain involved with a mysterious weapon called the rabbit's foot. What really gets Hunt going, though, is when his fiancée (Michelle Monaghan) is taken hostage.
The exact risk of Davian's doomsday device isn't all that clear, and intentionally so. Hunt isn't out to save the world from some unspeakable weapon. He's out to save his girl.
The issue now is whether moviegoers will once again embrace Cruise — and give Abrams the same huge following he has enjoyed in television. Although Cruise's "Oprah" antics didn't seem to hurt "War of the Worlds," the actor, 43, has come under recent scrutiny for, among other things, blasting Brooke Shields' use of medication for postpartum depression and fathering an out-of-wedlock baby with actress Katie Holmes, 27.
Rather than looking shellshocked by so many distractions, Abrams is eager for more of the same and just agreed to try to breathe new life into Paramount's stalled "Star Trek" movie series.
"You obviously worry when you're doing a show or a movie and you realize that if that person does anything in an extracurricular way, is that going to affect what you do?" Abrams said. "But you have to live in a practical way in that you try to control to the best of your ability what you can control."
This is a pretty great piece of entertaining fluff. I enjoyed every second of it. I'll probably have forgotten most of it in a week, but whatever. I really loved how back-to-the-basics it was. There was no visible CGI, and some of the stunts are pretty breathtaking.
Tom Cruise comes pretty close to regaining credibility. It's sorta hard to take him doing all the love dialogue, in retrospect of last summer, but he's still got that charisma that made him a star, and it works for him. Which means that GT will hate this.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman's role is a complete throwaway part, but he totally steals the movie anyway. Best casting decision I've seen in ages.
J.J. Abrams Finds the Big Screen
"Alias" began with Jennifer Garner's head in a toilet; "Lost" opened on a crash-strewn beach; and "Mission: Impossible III" starts with Philip Seymour Hoffman demanding from a captive Tom Cruise the location of "the rabbit's foot."
J.J. Abrams, the creative force behind all three, clearly has a fondness for starting in the middle of things.
"In this movie especially, I felt that audiences know the mechanics of the genre so well, to start the movie in a place where you think it's going to go, it dispels any preconceived notions," says Abrams. "It engages you as a puzzle."
That, of course, isn't surprising, coming from the man who has captivated (and frustrated) millions by creating the backstory-loaded mystery "Lost."
But that's why Abrams was brought in to helm the newest "Mission: Impossible" to infuse a stalled franchise with some new life.
With a budget of more than $150 million, "Mission: Impossible III" has been reported as the most expensive directorial debut in Hollywood history.
The son of TV producer Gerald W. Abrams, J.J. (short for Jeffrey Jacob) was raised on studio backlots and has known since he was 8 that this was his dream.
"I loved magic when I was a little kid and I remember going on the Universal Studios tour with my grandfather and realizing it was just a magic trick. It was all just an elaborate magic trick," he says. "I became incredibly comfortable and familiar with that world, so it never felt like anything but second nature to be on a set. Even as a little kid, all I ever wanted to do was be one of those guys on any level."
Making explosions with firecrackers and experimenting with rudimentary effects like making his sister disappear, Abrams constantly played with his Super 8 camera as a boy.
Later, while attending Sarah Lawrence College, he sold his first script: the 1990 comedy, "Taking Care of Business." Soon he sold another screenplay, the Harrison Ford drama "Regarding Henry," and later (with others) wrote the 1998 blockbuster "Armageddon."
Abrams then created TV shows, for which he's best known: first "Felicity," then "Alias," and most recently "Lost." But it was "Alias" that caught Cruise's attention. After watching the first season of the spy series on DVD, Cruise believed Abrams was the man who could save "M:I3," which had been stuck in development for years.
Directors David Fincher ("Fight Club") and Joe Carnahan ("Narc") were both attached at one point. Then, a script was written by Frank Darabont ("The Shawshank Redemption").
Cruise and Steven Spielberg had earlier spoken to Abrams about writing "War of the Worlds," but Abrams was busy with the pilot of "Lost." When he approached him to direct "M:I3," Abrams said Darabont's dark, political script wasn't for him.
"It just, for whatever reason, felt less like a `Mission: Impossible' movie than another sort of heavily mission-based film," says Abrams, who wanted to bring "M:I" back to the TV series' teamwork ethos. "I just knew it wasn't a version I was best to deliver."
To Abrams' surprise, Cruise put his faith in him to write his own version.
Writing in Time magazine for its issue on the "world's most influential people," Cruise said of Abrams: "He was born to impinge on and invade pop culture."
Though Abrams now had enough industry sway to direct any number of projects, "M:I3," he says, was perfect for him.
"Had I started on a film that was a tenth of the budget, it would have been to work up to a movie like this," he says. "This was literally like someone saying and it was Tom who gave me this opportunity `Do you want to make the kind of movie you always wanted to make?'"
Abrams and his writing partners from "Alias" (Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci) built their own story, which has some parallels to "Alias."
"M:I3" is also much more of an ensemble than the film's Cruise-centered publicity has suggested. The cast includes Hoffman, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup, Keri Russell (who starred on "Felicity") and Ving Rhames.
Rhames, the lone holdover besides Cruise from the earlier films, thinks the ensemble feel harkens back to the original TV show, and was impressed by what Abrams brought to "M:I."
"He reminds me almost of a young Quentin Tarantino," says Rhames, who co-starred in Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction." "They both have a youthful energy for film."
Abrams, who next will write and produce the 11th "Star Trek" feature film, has a wife and three kids and is approaching his 40th birthday, but he appears younger. Energetic and fast-talking, he could easily be carded at a bar.
"It does feel like, right now, there is no difference for me than when I was a little kid," he says. "It's almost exactly the same to the point where, when I was making this movie, I was struck by how similar it felt to being 12 or 14 and making movies."
"Instead of 8 millimeter, it's 35 millimeter. Instead of a little 1/60th-scale car, it's a car," he says, smiling gleefully. "But the reality of what the process is, it's that magic trick again."
*spoilers
During the big climactic fight at the end, I love how Cruise magically regains his strength and beats the shit out of PSH. Classic. :bravo:
I wish Billy Crudup played russel from stillwater in this movie. dope.
agree with ghosty. this is a pretty great ride. its so non-stop i wish jj had a little more time to flesh out bits of the story. if it had been a tv show it could've been like a 6 episode arc, so to cram that much info into 2 hours is tight. but if you think you will like this, you will. if you're not interested, the movie isn't going to change your mind.
spoilers...
The whole vatican sequence was true mission impossible. This film really carved out a mission impossible identity.
Favourite bits: "humpty dumpty sat on a wall", Phil Hoffmns shoe and the opening title sequence.
worked
cruise crazy not bleeding into his work
fishburne's invisible man gag (which I and a friend of mine were the only two to get in a packed theatre)
psh
felicity with a gun (I am in love with Keri Russell now)
opening sequence
failed
the third act's story (execution was well done)
similarities to true lies
michelle monaghan (though she has mcadams potential)
winner
simon fucking pegg
Great stuff all around. It was everything I expected and more but certain sequences left me rolling my eyes at how sentimental it was.
More satisfying than a Snickers bar. This is exactly how blockbuster action movies should be done.
If I were pressed to pick out a favorite moment, it would probably be the big reveal: "It's complicated." Such a JJ Abrams moment. And of course, when Tom tossed the gun to Felicity, I thought I was drowning in cool.
I love movies that I can enjoy without reservation. They're rare these days, but this is one of them.
pretty enjoyable, billy cudrup and philip seymour (as the most one-dimentional villain of all time) were really cool to see, especially billy, that vintage face of his fits the movie. but the ending was horrendous. horrendous. this is the first thing i see by jj abrams, it wasn't bad, i particulary liked the quick shot of the Transportation thing pamphlets when *spoiler* ethan's escaping the IMF, did anyone else caught that.
Quote from: cronopio on May 06, 2006, 08:04:45 PMi particulary liked the quick shot of the Transportation thing pamphlets when *spoiler* ethan's escaping the IMF, did anyone else caught that.
I did. That was cute. But ya I was surprised by how much crudup fit, although I can't shake the image of him from almost famous.
Did anyone notice a special thanks to The Hanso Foundation in the end credits?
I liked this well enough. It gave me pretty much exactly what I expected/wanted. It was basically a good episode of Alias with Tom Cruise plugged in, down to the twists and macguffins, but not quite the stuff of the great Alias episodes, which were some of the most mindblowing things I've ever seen. But I liked seeing what Abrams could do with a big budget a lot. It was a lot of fun to watch.
This also had the most effectively brutal PG-13 death that I've ever seen. Even for those who see it coming, it's just so gruesome. I also agree that the gun toss was pure kickass.
The river village part they shot in China--I've been there. It was so strange to see, but really neat to recognize those small bridges and the alleys and such. It's just sort of the last place I expected to ever see in a big movie.
I was expecting MI3 to either match or out perform Running Scared's adrenaline, I'd say it came close. I definitely enjoyed it, and getting to see it for free was a bonus. I really enjoyed how it was shot too, even at calm moments, it had a fast pace to it.
PSH's performance in this film beats Capote any day. Seriously. SPOILER Remember the scene where he's flying away in the helicopter and looking down at Ethan? Perfect. That gave me chills. END SPOILER With each new PSH movie, I wonder how he can possibly create an entirely new character, and yet... here's another one... completely distinct and unlike any character he's done before.
Yes, this is how action films should be made... except for some horrifying bits of dialogue and except SPOILERS the end, of course. What's the deal? No cliffhanger? :doh: And there were definitely some head-shaking moments involving Michelle Monaghan, especially near the end when she's confused and asking Ethan what's going on.
this movie rocked. gb is right-- it's totally refreshing to see an action movie that's not drenched in CGI.
jb- that part gave me chills, too, as did the entire opening sequence.
Only 48 MILLION for the weekend... way below MI2 and studio estimates... not good for Tommy
Quote from: kal on May 07, 2006, 12:57:41 PM
Only 48 MILLION for the weekend... way below MI2 and studio estimates... not good for Tommy
48 million is still good. and sunday isn't over yet.
MI made 45, MI2 made 57, and this one was expected to make 60-70. It's not bad, but for the press and the studio is not good.
Also, considering the movie had a production budget of 150 million, plus the heavy marketing... they need to make a lot more.
The 48 million includes Sunday estimates. Although the day isnt over, they calculate the projections for the day very well based on the last two days. They usually dont miss for more than 1 or 2 mil.
Too bad about the poor box office opening. I enjoyed this entry. Perhaps it will just linger in the top 10 for the weeks to come since this flick is getting positive word of mouth from the people who have seen it already. One thing that I disliked about the film was the score, the music seemed like it could be in any generic action flick.
i liked the music and thought it was probably more of a throwback to the series as far as the 60's flourishes go. (not as good as the incredibles though).
The score sounded a lot like the general Alias score.
I enjoyed the music enough, but I do think that between scoring Alias, Lost, and this film (and those are only 3 that I'm aware of), Michael Giacchino was probably just stretched too thin, or had to do this really quickly. I didn't think it was a weak score, but I could imagine it being better if perhaps more time was spent on it.
I also enjoyed the general mood in the theater of "What the fuck are we watching? I thought this was supposed to be an action movie..." towards the beginning of the movie, after the prologue piece, with the party and all the cutesiness and good vibes (not to mention The Emotions).
I think it was interseting how:
SPOILERS FOR THIS FILM AND Television's LOST!!!!!
The scene where hot wife is giving CPR to Tom Cruise is almost exactly done in the same way that Jack reviving Charlie in season one of Lost was done....very intense, escalating, then pounding, with very minimal music. Lost's worked better, but still fucking great.
END SPOILERS
This movie was so cool. Every action was so intense, I think I will have beaten David Blaine for holding my breath the longest. And I just can't say enough good shit about PSH....he steals the fucking show. Simon Pegg was awesome, if only to see him again. Keri Russell was actually impressive, I never watched Felicity, but I enjoyed her performance. Hated the ending, but what can you do?
Quote from: matt35mm on May 07, 2006, 07:51:49 PM
The score sounded a lot like the general Alias score.
yah, the score is the only thing that irked me. it wasn't necessarily bad. it just seemed to bounce all over the place. they coulda utilized the classic theme in a cooler way.
I loved it... much better that what expected... and I think everybody loved it so maybe that will help their BO results for the next weeks (until X3 and all the others start).
Anyways, PHS was terrific. Its true, like others said, how he becomes the character. If you see Tom, I couldnt help but imagine Jerry Maguire at the beginning during the party and all that, and I thought about Vanilla Sky at one point when he cant walk very well... but PHS was just the bad motherfucker of MI3 and nobody else during the movie!
The ending wasnt great, but what can you expect? Its MI3 after all...
I would have liked more screen time for PHS and Felicity... she was great but it was just too short!
I noticed a lot of similarities to Lost and Alias... especially the way the story is told, and the mix between reality (their real, human, emotional life) and the action *mission impossible*!
Interview: J.J. Abrams
The co-writer and director of M:i:III!
IGN FilmForce recently took part in a conference call interview with J.J. Abrams, the co-writer and director of Mission: Impossible III, his feature film helming debut. Abrams is currently one of the most powerful creative forces in U.S. television, having created such series as the powerhouse Lost, the departing Alias and the past hit Felicity.
Abrams spoke to the press about the rigors of making M;I:III, as well as what fans of Lost and Alias can look forward to:
Q: Did any of the ideas in Mission: Impossible III, be they for action scenes or other elements, come from anything you wanted to do at some point on Alias, but could not for whatever reason being they were not appropriate for Sydney Bristow or for a TV budget?
J.J. Abrams: There were so many things that we wanted to do on Alias that we could never in a million years afford, and one of the things that we did in this movie was this Vatican break-in sequence, which a sequence like that requires so many pieces. It is a very intricately, visually intricately told sequence, and in television you never have the time to do the kind of pieces that you need to really sort of tell it properly. Clearly, sequences like on the bridge, the helicopter chase, the whole factory sequence, the Shanghai jump, each one of them in a weird way was a dream version of the kind of thing we might conceive of doing on Alias, but never have the time or budget to properly execute.
Q: Now that you have completed Mission, will you be returning your focus to running Lost or are there other movies?
Abrams: I look forward to going back to Lost, although ultimately I hope to do both. It is an amazing work experience doing this movie, and if they will have me back to direct another movie I would love to do it.
Q: In talking to some of the stars in the movie, invariably they get asked how they felt about you being a first time feature director and coming from television. I was wondering what is it like to have all those questions floating around about you, and secondly, did you ever doubt yourself?
Abrams: I am getting the same question too, which is what was it like to be a first time feature director. The opportunity to do this movie was so remarkable. I cannot think of anyone else who would let someone who never directed a feature before take the reins of something that is this large in scale, this expensive, and yet Tom [Cruise] did. I mean he believed in me, and never wavered from that during the entire experience. I do think that there were moments that I was in shock that I was given this opportunity, but the truth is I wanted to do this all my life. The pressure and experience of doing television seemed to continually confirm that doing a movie was something that was certainly possible. I did not necessarily think that the first movie I would get a chance to direct would be something as large as this one, but the crew was so incredible. Tom, and his producing partner, Paula Wagner were so supportive from the beginning that I always felt, and I believe the whole crew always felt, incredibly supported and safe, which always allows for more creativity. So the whole experience was great, and I honestly never doubted that I could do it. It actually felt incredibly comfortable doing it. It was a fun challenge.
Q: What were you looking for with the other IMF team members?
Abrams: I wanted to make sure that we were casting actors and writing parts that were as strong as they could be because you know when you got Tom Cruise, it is that blinding star power. You cannot put him on screen with someone who cannot play at that level or they will get drowned out and the movie will not have a spark. So you bring in actors like Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, certainly Philip Seymour Hoffman. And you find people like Michelle Monaghan or Maggie Q, and I got to bring Keri Russell back because I worked with her on Felicity. It was incredibly important to me for not just the team, but for all the supporting actors, that they be not just wonderful actors, but have a certain level of that charisma. It was great to see Tom with all these actors because I am sure he could feel that same energy coming from them, and it only made him better and that certainly makes the film better. Populating it with people who are that compelling to watch.
Q: With his immediate IMF team in particular, what were you looking for as far as how they would compliment his activities?
Abrams: Well, I wanted to make sure that very quickly everyone felt incredibly distinct. What I loved about Jonathan Rhys Myers is he sort of felt to me in many ways the Irish version of where Tom was in the first Mission movie, which is a little bit more of a cocky guy who is at an age when he has not been doing this for very long. With Maggie Q, I really wanted to have an incredibly strong female and powerful voice and character, and someone who was as lethal as she is brave, and as she is vulnerable, and Maggie brought all that. She also looked incredibly good. That red dress that she wears to of all places, the Vatican. I knew we had Ving [Rhames] coming back, who I had loved in so much of the work he had done in other films. I felt like he still had not been as relatable as I wanted him to be in the first two films, and I just think he so brought an incredible personality to the role of Luther. So it was just important that Tom's character be surrounded by distinct and unique and compelling other characters.
Q: In this Mission, you seem to go into a lot more details about the tricks of the trade, like showing how the masks are made and how Ethan calibrates the wire for his signature drop. Was that a conscious decision to kind of lift the curtain a little bit and show how the team does what they do? Why did you go for that?
Abrams: Yes, and thank you for mentioning that little calibrating thing on the wire. That kind of stuff to me was... it was so easy not to do that stuff, but I thought part of the fun of Mission: Impossible the series for me was always not just the what and the why but the how, and I just loved watching this team using the kind of equipment, and using it with such a precision that I wished I had that kind of equipment, and I wished I knew how the hell to do that stuff. It is easy to skip that stuff, and go over right to the end game, and get to the point, but I feel like part of getting to know and love the team is seeing them do their job, and appreciating why they do their job, and appreciating why they have been chosen to be out in the field. Doing that kind of stuff with the mask or doing the little moments with the calibration thing here and there, when Tom puts the cross on the wall, or when we see Ving open up the drill case... all these little details were to me the things that it felt when I watched the show. It respected the audience in their ability to track the sort of machinations of that kind of operation, and I just feel like if you lose that stuff you are not getting to really see the details that matter. So that was really important to me that we do that stuff.
Q: You throw Ethan out of windows or off the top of building. Then he leaps off the building in Shanghai. Why are you so attracted to the jump?
Abrams: To me the fun of the movie is having the crazy larger than life moments, and also the incredibly relatable intimate character moments, and so part of that stuff... the jumping off a building, the repelling down, which is obviously just a nod to the first films... that stuff was for me. Just part of showing the extreme measures that Ethan has to go to, to either pull off a certain mission or rescue the woman he loves, and its classic old school physical thrills, but those do not really thrill us anymore unless we have characters that we relate to, and so the goal was to try and do both.
Q: The first two films were such huge blockbusters. Why mess with success in terms of adding elements of romance and humor? And, secondly, do you think the film may be hampered or perhaps even helped by the publicity surrounding Tom's life?
Abrams: I did not think going into this [thinking] that I wanted to copy the first movie or the second movie. What I thought was my dream version of Mission: Impossible still had not gotten made, which was a version that allowed us to see who these characters were as people not just as spies. And I loved the idea of exploring what it would look like when Ethan Hunt goes home. Not just what his home looked like but who is there, and if there is a woman in his life does she know what he does? My guess is no, and if not how does he live with himself betraying this woman? And he must know these two roles are going to collide. It is just going to happen. So that became sort of one of the themes of the movie. It was not a question of messing with success, I actually felt that the first two films for me would have been even better had they spent some time investing in the characters, and the people. In a movie like Jaws, when Roy Scheider is sitting at the table and his kid's mimicking him and his wife is watching, you know you could have lost that scene from that movie and told the same story, but it would not have allowed you to invest in the people as much as you do. And that is my favorite thing that the great blockbuster-type movies have done, which is they have the thrills and the action but the critical thing is investment in character.
In terms of Tom's publicity, I am sure you can find evidence that any publicity is good publicity, and also find evidence equally valid that having him go on Oprah is not a good thing for him. It is like you can probably find anything to support a point of view, but my feeling is, what I control, what I can do is try and make a movie that is entertaining, and hopefully one that you leave a theatre feeling better and more empowered then you did when you got there. So I am hoping that the audience... and I believe that the audiences who will see this film are smart enough to differentiate the two, the actor and the character. I think that the opening sequence of the movie is very purposefully shocking and terrifying, and I wanted to see this character as vulnerable and as frightened as he has ever been, and it was not because of any publicity stuff. It was just simply having Tom Cruise in a movie. He is such an icon that I wanted from the very beginning of the movie not to have him playing a cool guy, but rather having him play an absolutely vulnerable, relatable man who we relate to. I got to tell you, knowing Tom as well as I do, I see everyday who this guy is as a real person, and he is funny, and he is self deprecating, and he is smart, and he is easy going, and he is kind. Not just to me, but to everyone who worked on the crew. He is a good person. So I wanted to see a little bit less of an icon and a little bit more of us, for the everyman in this character. I think the audience will see that.
Q: What was the most challenging thing for you making this film?
Abrams: The most challenging thing was probably the logistics of filming in the United States, in Los Angeles and Virginia, and shooting in Italy in two cities, and China in two cities, and Berlin, and having all the visual effects shots there. There are many, many visual effects shots in this movie, special effects and stunts, and it was really just logistically preparing this. A lot of that credit goes to the producers of the movie who helped schedule and set up the production of the film, but you know we were incredibly responsible I think making this movie. We finished ahead of schedule and under budget. For me it was totally a result of having a crew that was just hard working and dedicated and great at what they do, and my TV training has gotten me used to limited time and budget. But the hardest thing truly was always just in every scene where people are talking, making sure you believe that those people hate each other or that those two guys are great friends or that couple is in love. I mean it was always the stuff that was the most relatable stuff, the most mundane that ultimately people will just know rings true or not. So the stunt work was always a cool and exciting challenge but the hardest stuff was always the most unexpected kind of small character work.
Q: Will there ever be a Lost movie?
Abrams: I think we make it every week. I honestly do not know what else we would do, but there have been discussions of sort of all different types of things in Lost, but it feels like to me that the ambition at least in the production in that series is to try and make a little movie every week.
Q: You've got a bunch of TV finales coming up. With Alias ending I think a little sooner than all of you might have hoped, has it been hard to tie up all of the threads you had going?
Abrams: Not really. I got to say on Alias, which is the only show that really needs to tie up everything, this is something we had been anticipating for awhile. I think it is the right time to end the series. It is definitely bittersweet for a lot of obvious reasons. It is an incredible cast and crew. We will miss them but hope to work with all of them again. It is actually a really good finale. I think it is incredibly satisfying. It connects all these pieces that have been in the Alias universe from the beginning, and I am really proud of the work that Jeff Pinkner and Drew Goddard and the other amazing writers in the show have done. Not just this year but building up to the finale, which I think is going to be a really, really powerful and exciting ending.
Q: And with Lost, do you have to come with a season cliffhanger that will top the hatch in the last season?
Abrams: I can tell you that Damon Lindelof has done just that. The ending of this year of Lost blows the ending of last season out of the water. It is an incredible finale.
Q: But there has not been like a single thing... like last year, the hatch was sort of a dominant mystery. Now there is so many. What is the one thing that you can leave hanging?
Abrams: You will see what happens but I can tell you that a lot of it has been there and has been building from the beginning of this season. It is not out of the blue, but what happens at the very end of this year is... for me, it is like the greatest finale I have ever heard.
Q: Any thoughts on an Alias movie?
Abrams: Alias is going to rest and in just the right way. It is the right way for it to go out.
spoiler kinda
it was fun and serious, which was good I guess. I liked how every action sequence set the heroes back just a little bit more. I enjoyed the movie all the way until the climax, then it ended too abruptly and quickly. In movies where the hero is obviously bigger and badder than the bad guy, you really need a leverage, and there was none in this movie. it was so short and uneventful. the ladies here were all very bland. Maggie Q is a hottie but she just wasn't very charismatic or starlike in this one, dunno if it was her fault or maybe the producers didn't want the ladies to compete with Tom Cruise. His wife was really really plain and Kerri Russel got to shine just a tiny bit.
Watch Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and you will fall in love with Michelle Monaghan (I can't believe you haven't already. Also I'm embarrassed that I've been confusing her name with Bridget Moynahan for some time now. Their IMDb pictures are incredibly similar as well.)
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on April 22, 2006, 11:09:21 PM
I'm seeing this movie, of course. I just don't expect my critical judgement to tag along. The most interesting part of Mission Impossible 3 is how much money it will make and how it will juxtapose the image of Tom Cruise to the world. For the last 6 years, he has been consistently coming out with one film a year. The difference is not how screen time he gets in every film (he always gets ample amount) but how each film carries a different marker for the Tom Cruise persona. Every film gives him a new sympathy or endearment. With Collateral, it was the smarter-than-anyone-in-the-room bad guy. In Minority Report, the martyred hero. With Mission Impossible 2, the limitless hero. With The Last Samurai, just cliches. Vanilla Sky, the role of all extremes with no ties in. A role similiar to his one in Magnolia but with no depth of character attached.
The one film that did try to give him somewhat of an interesting character was War of the Worlds. A few scenes did show a down and out father, but those scenes were few and far between all the ridiculous ones of him running and jumping to green screen projected imagery. It is not unexpected for a film star to cater to roles that show them in a good light but Cruise has so thoroughly avvoided character roles the last 6 years its just ridiculous. Julia Roberts similarily kept to just comedy for a while and a lot of films that ridiculously showed her as an art buff. (I counted 4 roles that did that)
I remember reading an interview recently where a writer complained of wanting to go into criticism for aesthetic studies of film but fell into commenting on the societal popularity of movies instead. I personally dispell such a retract but I admit I am heading that way for any new and (likely) future Tom Cruise movie. His trend of one movie a year is not stopping and by looking at his upcoming projects I don't think their lack of objectivity or talent will stop either.
I would say that his character in Collateral goes way beyond being just showing him as the "smarter-than-anyone-in-the-room", I would say is actually a character role. That's how it clicked to me on first wiewing and then watching the movie with Mann's commetary I think they were actually aiming for a full character and they got it...
About M:I:3, I enjoyed it while it lasted, but the harsh truth about it, as it is for the other two, is that is nothing but a forgettable action film with nothing even slightly original going on...PSH could have been the true kick ass villain of this decade but this is TOM CRUISE movie, and that's that...All the girls are there for ornamental porpuses, all the other actors too. I like Cruise because of how crazy he really is, and he has some good moments here (the first scene with Hoffman is actually a respectable follow up to their last time together onscreen in that awful frogs movie), but this is just candy of the kind that rots your teeth....
I found this to be totally fun and awesome. The perfect way to start up the summer movie season.
So, my question for you JJ fans, is this the sum of all of his work in TV? Or should I really go back and check out alias? I already plan on jumping into Lost in the near future.
check out ALIAS. its better, because even though they dont have the budget for this level of awesome action you have a lot longer to develop the characters and storylines. but stop after season 2.
Quote from: Alexandro on May 09, 2006, 03:25:03 PM
I would say that his character in Collateral goes way beyond being just showing him as the "smarter-than-anyone-in-the-room", I would say is actually a character role. That's how it clicked to me on first wiewing and then watching the movie with Mann's commetary I think they were actually aiming for a full character and they got it...
I disagree. The mainstay of a character is emotional depth. Cruise's character, while realistic enough, is an intimidation performance set to counter Foxx's character. Never do we understand how Cruise's character came to be the way he is. We merely get his weird philosophy and antics the same way we got it from Orson Welles in the Third Man. That film is considered by many to be unique for the time, but the redeeming qualities is Welles' presence and his "Cuckoo clock" speech. A similar redemption is in Collateral, except the writing is awful. Cruise's character is really the dumbest villian I've ever seen in a movie. And Welles only appeared in The Third Man for twenty minutes. The mystery around his character increased the effectiveness of his limited on screen performance. Tom Cruise appears through out Collateral and his performance becomes numbing.
Quote from: Alexandro on May 09, 2006, 03:25:03 PM
About M:I:3, I enjoyed it while it lasted, but the harsh truth about it, as it is for the other two, is that is nothing but a forgettable action film with nothing even slightly original going on...PSH could have been the true kick ass villain of this decade but this is TOM CRUISE movie, and that's that...All the girls are there for ornamental porpuses, all the other actors too. I like Cruise because of how crazy he really is, and he has some good moments here (the first scene with Hoffman is actually a respectable follow up to their last time together onscreen in that awful frogs movie), but this is just candy of the kind that rots your teeth....
This I more agree with. I enjoyed this one more than any of the others, but I knew my enjoyment wouldn't last to a second viewing and the movie was bad enough to not even make me desire a second viewing. Its just this one had some humility where the others didn't.
First, the Tom Cruise persona did impede on this film. The character of his wife was a non-character. It was a re-affirmation (on screen) of Tom Cruise's love for Katie Holmes. After the initial prologue with PSH, the film starts out with a family scene that could have been ripped out a 1980s nostalgia movie. Never have I felt a scene planted on for an effect the way this one was. Then through out the film we get no measure of the relationship or her character besides Cruise's implications of how serious it is to other characters. I especially loved the moment when Tom Cruise said "my wife" to Ving Rhames with a don't cross me tone. The character of his wife is a stand in role for her to look sad at every right moment and be an enough of a look a like to Katie Holmes. Them running away happily at the end has more to do with the projected image Tom Cruise wants the audience to have of him than anything necessary for the movie. The porthole this films shows the meaning of marriage as defined by Cruise is a good study in propaganda.
Second, this wasn't even a good action movie. Besides the intricacy of some of the action sequences, the drama and suspence played to stiff showing. J.J. Abrams set up almost every tense situation as a what-can-come-around-the-corner potboiler. It keeps the audience guessing and in suspence the first time around but no doubt second and third viewings will lag because there is so little story. There is no signs of character to mesh between all these action sequences. I'm not talking dramatic character portraits. I'm speaking of the amazing mesh the original Die Hard was able to have between an action situation and following characters and a story. Abrams filmed this movie as a standard Alfred Hitchcock circus only. The only thing that mattered were effects to utilize suspense.
See, I sincerely believe Alfred Hitchcock has to be the most overrated filmmaker ever. I don't even think he was very good. He was a technician of suspence with camera tricks he perfected in the 1930s and 1940s and never updated afterword. He never got more daring with story. He kept the same motions of camera work and character objectivity through out all his films and when he was dealing with weaker stories (especially in the 1960s) he did nothing to direct above them. He directed them as according to every film he directed before and the resulting films (like The Birds) were weak and embarassing. Only good writing ever saved Hitchcock. J.J. Abrams utilizes Hitchcock's book of suspence and plays with all the tricks in the action sequences that the resulting film is an exercise in how effective suspence can be but also a definite reminder it can never make an entire movie.
The sad thing is that we are neck deep in the CGI-laced world of filmmaking that we excuse Mission Impossible 3 because it bucks this trend just a little bit even if it is really a bad movie. I'll still rewatch Die Hard anyday.
And really, JB, Philip Seymour Hoffmann's role here is better than his one in Capote? How can you even compare the roles? And how can you not but respect what he did in Capote so much more because it is played with such life around it and this one is played to such genre conventions?
GT, we are definetely seing different things on Collateral. I don't expect to convince you of anything, but I just wanna say something. I agree that a character to be a character needs emotional depth, but I don't think that for emotional dept to be there by necessity you need to understand why someone got to be the way he is on the particular film you're watching at that particular point in their fictional lives as film characters. Just as life, sometimes you know someone for ages and never fullly understand how they became who they are, let alone in a period of one night. Mann's and Cruise's approach to the character of Vincent was that they had this brief period of time to portray him as a real person, but they never indended to flesh him out completely. Nevertheless, they both had an input on the character on things that didn't end up in the film but that were part of Vincent's life story, such as his childhood in Indiana, his father's line of work, when did he started to like jazz, who did he work for before, etc...these things are besides the point of the main storyline on collateral, but for an actor, they make a difference. You said it yourself that his performance was of a "smarter than anyone in the room", and now you say he's the dumbest villain you've ever seen. I think that's because what he appears to be at the beginning of the movie and what he really is at the end are different things, and that's because Vincent is not the machine-like assasin he's trying to appear, and he's crumbling down. There's a dynamic that goes on during collateral between the two characters, and in my opinion, it's a rich one. From where I'm standing, both Mann and Cruise gave a lot of effort and commitment to that character and it shows. For me it's never numbing. I actually think is Cruise's finest moment along with Magnolia, with the difference that T,J, Mackey is a showy role with big dramatic moments and Vincent is all about control and restraint. But if it's not your cup of tea, then, well, that's fine.
About Hitchcock, I agree and disagree. Obviously his films were better when a good, solid script was behind them, but he wasn't a writer, so as a director, I think, you only need Psycho as a prove of his brilliance. He had a huge ability to entertain and at the same time lurk into darker issues that sometimes only he knew how personal really were for himself. In any case, we should have more overrated Hitchcocks nowadays, instead of overrated JJ Abrahams who seem ot be getting way more credit than they actually deserve.
Alexandro, I understand your point of realism in the film. Its a good point. I just think the picture painted of Cruise's character has so much showmanship to him that an emotional center needs to be unearthed for me to buy into him.
Also, when I referred to him as smarter than anyone in the room, I was referring to his attitude. His actions in the end are very dumb.
Agree to disagree?
Totally...
Cruise, even despite of himself, is actually a pretty good actor. He has a screen persona that gets in the way for recognition on that area but that's now, and that at some point is gonna end. Years will pass, his bullshit movies will fade, and only the good ones (and he has quite a few) will remain, and people with a vague idea of who tom cruise is will only see the character, and maybe some of his better works will be more appreciated.
I just got the latest american cinematographer, and HOLY SHIT. I had no idea that much of the film was cgi-ed, shot on green screen on all sorts of elaborate fake sets. I kept on wondering how they did that thing in shanghai and noticed something a little fishy when the neon tower was in like every shot (like the fuji mountain in Japan in non-Japanese movies) but holy crap, I thought they cut back on the cgi and it was just the opposite. everything was just really awesomely plated and matched--sometimes with different locations, different takes, even different cameras! it was crazy. I need to watch it again now.
and as I was reading that on the train, I heard loud music from the other side of the subway cart and saw these two dudes busting out acrobatics. one dude backhand sprung his way to my side of the cart and capped it all off with a very low and sharp backtuck, in the midsts of all these people. I was so psyched. you don't need millions of dollars, some dudes just do it inside a moving train.
Kind of like how Tom Cruise looks like a fast runner because he moves his arms in that way.
Quote from: Garam on May 29, 2006, 07:03:14 PM
Did anyone else get a headache from the camerawork in this?
ur getting old dude.
spoiler
die hard did not have a low key ending. the dude fell from a skyscraper. PSH got hit by a suv, not the same thing.
The important thing in both cases is that the movies ended with the intimation that the hero was about to totally get some.
M:I3 had some pretty cool action set pieces (The Vatican, the bridge, the Shanghai skyscrapers) and PSH was absolutely evil as the bad guy. PSH's character needed more scenes to balance out the Tom Cruise scenes and provide more reason for us to care about the mission. We've seen most of this stuff before, but its meant to be disposable fun entertainment. Don't go in expecting a film that explodes the action-adventure genre and you'll be satisfied.
Quote from: Garam on May 29, 2006, 07:03:14 PM
Did anyone else get a headache from the camerawork in this?
When I saw clips on TV, I noticed it a lot, but somehow on the big screen it didn't seem to distract me.
My two cents:
It felt like a rejected Alias script, which was good and bad because it's what JJ does best, but at the same time it felt familiar. After an excellent opening and set-up, when the conclusion came, I felt cheated. It was like the writers were painted into a corner and you expect Ethan to kick some ass, but no. It was a weak MacGuffin. This all leading to double-crosses and twists that I found more confusing than everyone found the first Mission. And that too many cooks spoiling the plot got in the way of Hoffman being the supreme villian that he should have been. When you have a Hanz Gruber, you let him loose because that's when you and the hero become one at getting the nemesis. I feel if MI:3 scaled it down to being a triangle of Ethan, fiancee and Davian, the movie could have really been a top-notch actioner, because the action was excellent; like the best parts of Alias.
I noticed the shaky camera less in this than I did in Bourne Supremacy, though it didn't bother me in either film.
Quote from: polkablues on May 30, 2006, 02:13:00 AM
I noticed the shaky camera less in this than I did in Bourne Supremacy, though it didn't bother me in either film.
on a somewhat related note, i think soderbergh is the master of the hand-held camera.
Quote from: ©brad on May 30, 2006, 08:14:06 AM
Quote from: polkablues on May 30, 2006, 02:13:00 AM
I noticed the shaky camera less in this than I did in Bourne Supremacy, though it didn't bother me in either film.
on a somewhat related note, i think soderbergh is the master of the hand-held camera.
Yeah, I've noticed on Lost and MI3 (not that they share any cameramen or real link, except Abrams) that the shaky camera sometimes loses too much of its central focus, shifting too far off center and lingering elsewhere. Soderbergh knows how to magnify and heighten his subject with the camera movement.
Quote from: MacGuffin on May 30, 2006, 01:31:10 AM
And that too many cooks spoiling the plot got in the way of Hoffman being the supreme villian that he should have been. When you have a Hanz Gruber, you let him loose because that's when you and the hero become one at getting the nemesis. I feel if MI:3 scaled it down to being a triangle of Ethan, fiancee and Davian, the movie could have really been a top-notch actioner, because the action was excellent; like the best parts of Alias.
Without a really good nemesis I kind of stopped
caring about what happened and enjoyed the action scenes on their own. Which means I wasn't invested in the film. PSH stole the show whenever he was on-screen, but he needed more screen time.
The MI:3 Film That Never Happened
Source: Cinematical
Right now, I know what you're thinking: "But dude, they already made a Mission Impossible: 3 and it came out in May -- what the hell are you talking about?" See, Hollywood is like a serial dater -- they keep screwing different people until eventually committing to what, at the time, seems to be the best thing out there. In the case of MI:3, the film swapped hands a number of times before finally landing in the lap of J.J. Abrams.
For example, did you know David Fincher was originally tapped to helm the third installment in the Mission Impossible franchise? Yes, David freaking Fincher. Imagine that one. However, with Tom Cruise running the show and Fincher being, well, Fincher, no one expected that relationship to last long. Actually, Fincher's version had Cruise playing his age and not acting like the superhero he was in the first two films. Seeing as Cruise is, in fact, a superhero in real life, that idea was shelved immediately. Following the Fincher affair, writer Joe Carnahan (Narc) was brought on to try and update the franchise by giving it a grittier, darker edge. However, in the end, Tom Cruise doesn't do dark stuff and so J.J. Abrams was brought on to make sure the film retained its "commercial blockbuster" status.
In a recent interview with the French website, Mesclun Art Media (http://mesclun.chez-alice.fr/intmi3dumas.htm), storyboard artist Rusty Dumas provided us with some details regarding Carnahan's version of the script. Dumas was the original storyboard artist on MI:3 and even went as far as to give us a peek at his storyboards for what was supposed to be an opening sequence set in Africa. While the interview is in French, the good folks over at Dark Horizons were able to get a rough translation. It seems Carnahan's version was awfully political, focusing on the "links between arms sales in the States, the Baltic and the African West."
MI3 to hit DVD October 30
According to the USA TODAY, Paramount's MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III will hit shelves on October 30 as a special collector's edition DVD. Interesting to note that the release date is a Monday, and not the typical Tuesday. The studio is calling it "Mission Monday."
The DVD will release simultaneously on DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray disc formats. Each two disc set will include four behind-the-scenes featurettes and various deleted scenes.
The HD DVD comes with extra enhanced commentary by Tom Cruise and J.J. Abrams.
Quote from: MacGuffin on August 11, 2006, 12:58:08 PM
The HD DVD comes with extra enhanced commentary by Tom Cruise and J.J. Abrams.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg299.imageshack.us%2Fimg299%2F7283%2Fdb20060421cruiseyg5.jpg&hash=eabcbd561b45519d3fdb2cfbba723540e0384ccd)
"This scene was really hard to film, woooo!"
New Mission: Impossible Star?
Superstar rumored as Cruise replacement.
A year ago it would have been unthinkable that Tom Cruise and Paramount Pictures would get a divorce. But that's what happened. After Paramount opted not to renew the superstar's production deal (complete with a very public tongue-lashing from Viacom parent company chief Sumner Redstone), Cruise is now set to finance his own films through a deal with Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder.
While Paramount topper Brad Grey has publicly suggested that the studio and Cruise could work together again down the line, the divorce raised questions about the future of Paramount's Mission: Impossible franchise. Cruise was held personally accountable by Redstone for the expensive M:i:III's lukewarm box office results.
Now the rumor mill is suggesting that Paramount might replace Cruise as the star of the Mission: Impossible film series. According to British tabloid The Daily Mail, the same outlet that first named Daniel Craig as the new 007 months before it was officially announced, Paramount is considering offering Cruise's Interview With The Vampire co-star Brad Pitt the lead role in Mission: Impossible IV.
"MI:IV will not include Cruise's character, agent Ethan Hunt," the Mail's source claims. "They're considering a brief mention, saying Hunt retired to live a safe life with his new wife. ... They're set on Brad taking over as a gutsy new head operative who puts together his own unique team of specialists."
The tabloid suggests that Paramount is willing to pay Pitt a hefty salary to ensure that he stars in the sequel. With Cruise gone, Pitt is now the biggest star on the Paramount lot.
If these rumors prove true then it would not be the first time Paramount has recast the lead role(s) in one of their biggest franchises. The role of Jack Ryan has been played by three different stars so far, and the Star Trek film franchise switched out the original TV cast for their Next Generation successors. Paramount now reportedly wants to bring in a new cast for Star Trek XI.