LA Times’ 24 Hours is reporting that Robert Rodriguez is in negotiations with new home studio 20th Century Fox to direct X-Men Origins: Wolverine spin-off, Deadpool.

According 23F:

There’s no deal yet, and the sides need to agree on a number of key points, but it’s moved beyond the casual discussion stage and into the more substantive realm of deal points.

This is exciting news, and if the deal comes off it’s a smart move for Fox – Rodriguez has proven ability to deliver high octane action on a modest budget, Deadpool as a character has great potential.

With this and Matthew Vaughn’s work on X-Men: First Class, it seems Fox is willing to put their trust in talented, individual directors.

Now this IS interesting…

According to Deadline, Lost’s Damon Lindelof has been signed up to do some re-write work on Jon Spaihts’ script for Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel movie(s).

In addition to the Alien work, Deadline reports that Scott and Lindelof’s meeting resulted in an idea for an stand-alone sci-fi film, that may also see the light of day as a seperate project.

After being released to generally positive reviews, and respectable box office, it seems that Fox’s gamble on a mid-budget Predators film has paid off, as IGN reports, according to producer Robert Rodriguez, they are now likely to request another chapter.

Speaking at Comic-Con, Rodriguez said:

[The studio] said, ‘Let’s do some other ones. What other story ideas do you have?’ Because it was like, let’s test out the market with this one. They really wanted it to be pretty contained, pretty scaled-back. They didn’t want to put too many of the ideas into it that we could save for a second one. So we could see what the appetite was, because the bigger movie would actually be what comes following that. That kind of sets up a new storyline, new location and world, and then you can really go crazy from there.

Rodriguez says the next step it to now work with writers to to flesh out the ideas he currently has. Considering the quick turn-around for the current film, it might not be too long before we get Predators 2

A bunch of stunning new character posters for Machete are now online.

Co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis, Machete stars Danny Trejo, reprising his role from the trailer, alongside Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson and Jeff Fahey.

Predators is now out in the wild.

The weekend box office was respectable, but not stellar – perhaps potential viewers had been put off by the atrocious AvP movies that preceded it…

Anyway, reviews around the net, as well as in print, were generally positive.

 

 

 

According to Massawyrm at Ain’t It Cool News:

… it is the sequel that the original PREDATOR always deserved. It is faithful, fun, loud and hits every note that you want out of a PREDATOR film. More importantly, it is without a doubt the very best PREDATOR sequel thus made, one that will make you completely forget that the property was nearly buttfucked into oblivion by the unholy pairing of it with the ALIEN series …

Awesome summer fun, this is the film that will wash the taste of the AVP series out of your mouth and remind you why you dug this series so much in the first place…

Capone on AICN also had fun:

I thought this fairly faithful sequel to the original PREDATOR got the job done, and I had a blast watching a group of seriously talented and fun actors get put through the paces on a game preserve planet being hunted by a handful of predator creatures…

My only complaint was that I would have liked a few more surprises in terms of who lives and dies. It’s pretty clear from the first 10 minutes who’s going to make it to the end of the film and perhaps live to fight more predators in a possible sequel.

The team at CHUD were all pretty much in agreement in their review:

an adrenaline-fueled action film that has more than enough dismemberments, explosions, and f-bombs, with ample artillery, sweat, and masculine posturing to be a memorable night out during a truly drab summer…

Predators is the ultimate fan flick, except it’s been made by pros. The concept is threadbare, extremely so for a major motion picture. The idea is that of a child’s with a handful of toys thinking of the quickest way to get down to business. It’s even more raw and basic than the plot of the first Predator. Tough guys sent to an alien world to be hunted by the fan favorite monster. Without a one stop shop like Robert Rodriguez pulling the strings something like this could never get past the focus group studio mentality of today…

Meanwhile, according to the folks at Empire Magazine:

A solidly okay Saturday night effort, but unambitious considering the talent involved. Maybe Rodriguez should direct Predator Resurrection, but get a science fiction writer to script it.

So, what did you think? Share your thoughts below…

20th Century Fox has released the full trailer for Machete, based on the fake trailer from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse double bill.

Here it is, courtesy of IGN:

Co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis, Machette stars Danny Trejo, reprising his role from the trailer, alongside Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson and Jeff Fahey.

We’re taking a break for week, so there may or may not be any updates.

We’ll be back next week with a full update of everything that’s happened while we’ve been away.

Apologies for the lack of updates lately – real life took over somewhat for a few days.

However, we are back with news of an excellent international trailer for Predators that has hit the web:

Predators stars Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Alice Braga, Danny Trejo and Walton Goggins. Directed by Nimrod Antal and produced by Robert Rodriguez, the film is scheduled for release in July 2010

There’s a new video out showing the Predators scoring sessions taking place with composer John Debney. You can check it out below.

Predators stars Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Alice Braga, Danny Trejo and Walton Goggins. Directed by Nimrod Antal and produced by Robert Rodriguez, the film is scheduled for release in July 2010

Apologies for the lack of recent updates – it’s been a busy few days here, but now we’re back.

Thanks to badtaste.it and screenweek.it, we have a selection of new international posters for Predators.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Predators stars Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Alice Braga, Danny Trejo and Walton Goggins. Directed by Nimrod Antal and produced by Robert Rodriguez, the film is scheduled for release in July 2010