Er…Nintendo?

So Nintendo's new console is no longer called Revolution…which is a pity when you find out what the new name is: Wii. Pronounced "we".

Er…guys…honourable Nintendo masterminds…you do know what that means over here don't you? It's one of the more polite slang terms for urine, for anyone reading this who isn't from the UK. Now, while I'm amused by the seemingly limitless possibilities for taking the…er…Wii here, you have to admit it's a pretty terrible name. I can just picture the scene in Game this Christmas: "Hello, yes, I'd like to buy some Wii for my son, he's been pestering me for months", or on Christmas day: "Yes, Mummy and Daddy bought me a Wii for Christmas", and my personal favourite: "I'll be there in a minute Mum, I'm just playing with my Wii".

And if the console itself is named Wii, what does that make the controller?

Good news and bad news

Good:

It sounds like Christophe Gans is going to direct a film version of Onimusha next. No doubt this will be slammed by critics but loved by fans, in much the same way as Silent Hill. I have high hopes for this; Onimusha features similarly demonic elements, and given the excellent job Gans did on Silent Hill, he should capture the atmosphere of the games nicely. It'll be interesting to see if the film is set in the past, or present, or both (as one of the more recent games did). It'll also be interesting to see if Jean Reno comes on board…

Bad:

Wes Craven and son are writing the sequel to The Hills Have Eyes. Didn't Wes already do that? It sounds like a rush job; the studio want to release the sequel on the same day as the original came out, but one year later. They describe some nonsense about the national guard performing a training exercise around the mines featured in the first film, and then tangling with the mutant miners from the first film. But…didn't they already kill them all off? There'll certainly be no room for Billy Drago in the sequel. Aja isn't interested in directing (perhaps because it sounds rubbish?) so Craven has lined up Michael J. Bassett (Deathwatch) instead.

2001 (or “How the Solar System Was Won”)

"…After various false starts and twelve-hour talkathons, by early May 1964 Stanley agreed that "The Sentinel" would provide good story material. But our first concept, and it is hard now for me to focus on such an idea, though it would have been perfectly viable — involved working up to the discovery of an extraterrestrial artifact as the climax, not the beginning, of the story. Before that, we would have a series of incidents or adventures devoted to the exploration of the Moon and Planets. For this Mark I version, our private title (never of course intended for public use) was "How the Solar System Was Won."

The Kubrick site has a brilliant excerpt from Arthur Clarke's 2001 Diary, which makes for entertaining reading. It's a nice little insight into the production of 2001, and into the creative process in general.

I Am Smith

ComingSoon reports that Will Smith is going to star in I Am Legend. Oh dear.

This rumour has been kicked around before, but ComingSoon make it sound fairly official. Akiva Goldsman has rewritten the script and is producing, which probably means we'll get I, Robot with vampires. Except for the fact that ComingSoon describes the film as "Set in post-apocalyptic New York, I Am Legend is about the last healthy man following the release of a virus that decimates the population. To survive, he must battle mutants that wreak havoc during the night." So I, Mutant then. Hang on, mutants? No! Vampires; I Am Legend is about vampires for God's sake, even though they're never mentioned by name. Near Dark never mentions vampires by name either, and that's not about mutants is it? Having said that, maybe in the remake…

What it sounds like we're going to get is a remake of The Omega Man, rather than a faithful adaptation of Richard Matheson's classic novel. Which is a damn shame; Matheson's book would make a beautiful film if done right, full of sadness and tension. In order to do it right though, you need a leading man who's capable of convincingly and interestingly being the only thing on screen for a large chunk of the running time. I don't think Will Smith can do that. Although, there was talk of Arnie being in this a while back, and Smith is probably a better choice. Probably…

And if you've never read the book, do so - if you hadn't guessed it's one of my favourites. It won't take you long, trust me.

The Masters return

Fango has a nice write up on the next season of Masters of Horror.

To summarise:

John Landis directs Family - starring George Wendt (Cheers). Wendt is superb in Stuart Gordon's King of the Ants; I'm looking forward to this one.

Dario Arengto directs Pelts - starring Meat Loaf. Dario Argento directs Meat Loaf? Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd write.

Tobe Hooper returns.

John Carpenter directs Pro Life.

Ernest Dickerson joins the masters for the first time. I'm a big fan of Demon Knight, so this could be good.

Joe Dante returns - same scriptwriter as his last episode. I've heard bad things about Homecoming, so we'll have to wait and see on this one.

Stuart Gordon directs Poe's The Black Cat. Gordon does Poe, rather than Lovecraft; that makes a nice change.

Mick Garris returns.

Brad Anderson joins. Session 9 is a superbly creepy little film; I have high hopes for this one.

Tom Holland joins. The man that brought us Child's Play and the oft-forgotten vampire classic Fright Night takes his rightful place at the master's table.

Best Case Scenario?

Richard Brunton over on Filmstalker has been blogging from Dead By Dawn over the last few days (lucky swine).

One of the many fantastic events he's been able to attend over the past few days is a talk by the producers of Worst Case Scenario, a brilliant looking nazi-zombie movie that seems to have been in development for an age. So far, all we've seen are two excellent teaser trailers, which Richard got to see on the big screen - those of us not lucky enough to be there will have to make do with watching it on our computers. 

I'm glad this project is still alive - if nothing else it should prove to be an incredible looking film, but I really hope that someone with some financial clout gets behind this. Get some decent actors and a good effects budget and this could be something very special.