May 7, 2010

Brad Bird's 'Mission: Impossible IV' and a 'Planet of the Apes' prequel get release dates!

Here are both stories, starting with the M:I4 one from Collider:

Paramount Pictures has set December 16, 2011 as the release date for Mission: Impossible IV. No director has been announced, but when we last reported on the film, it appeared that the studio was hammering out the final details with Oscar-winner Brad Bird (The Incredibles). There are no story details on the fourth film, but Tom Cruise will return as Agent Ethan Hunt. J.J. Abrams, who directed the third film, will return as a producer. Screenwriters Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec are attached to write the script, from an original idea by Cruise and Abrams.

There are three films currently slated to open in December 2011 other than Mission Impossible 4: Martin Scorsese’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret on December 9th, Alvin and the Chipmunks 3D on December 16th, and The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn on December 23rd. Of these four films, Mission: Impossible IV is the only one that isn’t set to be in 3D. Of course, I wouldn’t be shocked if M:I-4 was infected by the 3D plague somewhere down the line.

Tom Cruise just today confirmed that it's apparently Bird in the director's chair.

-Here's the Apes story from Variety:

Twentieth Century Fox will release prequel "Rise of the Apes" on June 24, 2011, with Rupert Wyatt confirmed to direct.

Title is tentative.

Studio is partnering with Peter Jackson's visual effects company WETA Digital on the film, which relaunches the "Planet of the Apes" franchise.

Chernin Entertainment is producing.

Wyatt will direct from a script by Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa, who also are producing with Chernin Entertainment's Peter Chernin and Dylan Clark.

"Rise of the Apes" is an origins story set in present-day San Francisco. The film is a reality-based cautionary tale, where man's own experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy.

WETA will render, for the first time ever in the film series, photo-realistic apes rather than costumed actors.

-Thoughts?

2 comments:

  1. I don't think either film is really necessary, but I think both have solid potential.

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  2. And here's what Tom Cruise said in an interview about picking Brad Bird to direct over runner-up Edgar Wright:

    I dig Edgar. Very nice guy, very smart, very talented, I’d really like to do something with him,” said Cruise, talking to Empire recently in Los Angeles. “I met Edgar on the set of Mission 3. Simon Pegg and those guys are hilarious. I love Shaun Of The Dead. It’s amazing. But we’re working with Brad right now. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it but everything’s signed… Brad is doing it.

    I might have preferred Wright, but both are interesting directors, so no complaints here.

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