Archive for the ‘‘Red Dawn’’ Category
FilmDistrict has handed out a November 2, 2012 release date for the long-delayed action remake Red Dawn. The movie was shelved for the past two years, due to MGM’s financial troubles. We reported in September that FilmDistrict picked up Red Dawn’s distribution rights.
Red Dawn stars Chris Hemsworth, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Adrianne Palicki, Josh Hutcherson, Isabel Lucas, and Josh Peck. The story centers on a group of youngsters dubbed “Wolverines,” who fight back against a Communist invasion on U.S. soil. We also reported back in March that the Communist enemy was changed from Chinese to North Korean, with the filmmakers digitally changing all of the Chinese flags to North Korean.
Red Dawn will square off against the Paramount comedy My Mother’s Curse and Pixar’s reck-It Ralph on November 2, 2012.
Red Dawn comes to theaters November 2nd, 2012 and stars Chris Hemsworth, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Adrianne Palicki, Josh Hutcherson, Isabel Lucas, Josh Peck, Brett Cullen, Matt Gerald. The film is directed by Dan Bradley. (Source)
A remake of the invasion movie Red Dawn — with its villains now digitally modified from Chinese to North Korean — will finally hit American shores next year.
The new version of the Reagan-era classic will be released in the U.S. by independent studio FilmDistrict, according to people familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss it publicly. FilmDistrict is finalizing a deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the studio that produced the movie in 2009.
In the original Red Dawn, a group of teenagers in a Washington town battle invading Soviet forces; in the remake, the invaders were changed to Chinese. But that decision turned the film into a hot potato.
After MGM emerged from bankruptcy in late 2009 and decided it wouldn’t release the movie, no other studio wanted to touch “Red Dawn” for fear of offending the government of China, a hugely important market in the increasingly global film business.
As a result, the movie’s producers last winter used digital technology and creative editing to change most of the invaders to North Koreans. (Staunchly communist North Korea is economically isolated and not a market for any American products.) Still, it took most of the year to find a distributor willing to take the movie on.
FilmDistrict Chief Executive Peter Schlessel declined to discuss “Red Dawn.” Given that final details are still being worked out, however, it likely won’t hit theaters until 2012.
The new Red Dawn cost about $60 million to produce. It stars Chris Hemsworth, who played the title character in Thor, and was directed by Dan Bradley, second unit director on the last two “Bourne” movies and the upcoming “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.”
FilmDistrict, which is backed by finance and production company GK Films, launched in April with the horror hit “Insidious.” Its most recent release is the Ryan Gosling L.A. noir film, “Drive.” (Source)
Lionsgate are close to acquiring the distribution rights to MGM’s long-delayed irreverent horror film Cabin in the Woods. Written and directed by Cloverfield producer Drew Goddard, with a little assistance from Joss Whedon, “Cabin in the Woods” stars Chris Hemsworth, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Jesse Williams, Fran Kranz, Kristen Connolly, Anna Hutchison and Amy Acker.
“Cabin in the Woods” was originally set to be released in October 2009, but was delayed so it could be converted into 3D. The delay has little to do with the quality of the film. It was once slated to be released by MGM on Oct. 23, 2009, but was pulled back because it was going to be converted to 3D. Then, everything froze at MGM because of the strangling debt load, and The Cabin in the Woods was among several pictures that languished. By the time the picture is released, Thor will have established Hemsworth’s star value, which will certainly help a film that also stars Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford.
That leaves the remake of Red Dawn as the last holdover MGM film seeking a distributor. That picture also stands to gain from having sat on a shelf. That one also stars Hemsworth as well as Josh Hutcherson, who was just set to star in The Hunger Games, and Adrianne Palicki. (Source)
IGN movies recently interviewed Chris Hemsworth about Thor, during which time they also got him to chat about two of his long-delayed releases at MGM, Red Dawn and The Cabin in the Woods. Here’s what he had to say about them:
You’re also in the remake of Red Dawn, which MGM has had on the shelf for awhile now. They’re going back and changing the villains from the Chinese to the North Koreans. Has that required you to go back and record any new dialogue for it?
No, not really. It was always pretty vague even when we were shooting. They kind of never mentioned who it was anyway. It wasn’t heavily suggested, so I think it was an easy technical fix for them whether they do it with a little CGI or the occasional voice-over line. But the Russians were in there, maybe the Chinese and they mention someone else, so it just wasn’t really the focus. It wasn’t really a political take on anything. It could’ve been the Australians for all we cared. I guess MGM have their reasons for doing it, but we as the actors were never really involved with it.Your Avengers director, Joss Whedon, also wrote The Cabin the Woods, another MGM film. Have you guys heard anything about when that might finally come out?
Yeah, we’re hearing that’s possibly later in the year, but those films have been tied up at MGM as you say for awhile now. I’m hearing great things about both of them. I’ll look a few years older by the time they come out.
The Los Angeles Times ran a story earlier in the week which revealed that the MGM remake/reboot Red Dawn was being digitally altered to change the invading enemy force from Chinese to North Korean. Of course, a lot of fans and film pundits balked, calling this a “chicken shit” move. The altering of the adventure film, which sees a group of teens defending themselves against a militant takeover, is being done to make the movie more appealing to potential distributors, and to not disrupt our country’s current alliance with the Chinese governemnet.
The digital altering of Red Dawn is ripe for discussion and debate. Today, “Red Dawn” producer Tripp Vinson has issued a statement via email addressing this very concern, saying that the decision to make the villains hail from North Korea is only going to make the thriller scarier and timelier. And perhaps even stronger.
Take a look below at what Tripp Vinson had to say:
“I know there is a lot of interest and questions as to the changes announced regarding Red Dawn.
This movie has been rebooted because the filmmakers all love the original movie. The experience of seeing Red Dawn as a young boy in the middle of a Cold War, was life changing for me and a generation. I assure you that everyone involved with the reboot is keenly aware of the responsibility of delivering a movie that can stand eye to eye with the original.
The changes made to Red Dawn in the last few weeks were made in consultation with military think tanks and people that specialize in game theory. Really smart people that spend their days constructing doomsday scenarios for our military and government. The type of people that know the limitations of the North Korean military. The type of people that can project a series of events that could lead to some very scary things happening to our Country. I can assure you, we listened well to those people, especially with regards to the capability of the North Korean military.
Red Dawn isn’t for everyone. So, if you are interested in seeing a movie filled with preachy political discussions – Red Dawn ain’t for you. If you love movies in which Americans are the bad guys – Red Dawn ain’t for you. If you get emotional watching daytime television – Red Dawn ain’t for you. If you’re a vegetarian – Red Dawn probably ain’t for you.
But! If you like meat with your potatoes, muscle cars that roar, tanks, guns and things blowing the fuck up by American’s kicking some Commie ass – then we have something special coming your way.
WOLVERINES!Tripp Vinson”
Red Dawn comes to theaters in 2011 and stars Chris Hemsworth, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Adrianne Palicki, Josh Hutcherson, Isabel Lucas, Josh Peck, Brett Cullen, Matt Gerald. The film is directed by Dan Bradley. (Source)
MGM’s financial woes are the stuff of legend at this point.
As long as I’ve lived in Los Angeles… just over twenty years at this point… MGM has been “in trouble.” There have been several major shifts in ownership, and who owns what, and the MGM library has been broken up and resold many times over. As a result, this latest round of MGM difficulty has been a fair amount of white noise for me, more of the same, with the notable exception of the fates of “Bond 23″ and “The Hobbit.”
Those were the biggest stories tied up in this larger story, and as Greg Ellwood wrote last night, it looks like “Bond 23″ has become terribly important to Sony. And why not? They had a major part in both “Casino Royale” and “Quantum Of Solace,” and they’ve gotten used to that James Bond money. They’ve also been part of laying some narrative groundwork that I hope pays off finally in this next film, and with Sony already in the Daniel Craig business in a big way with Fincher’s “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,” it makes sense that they want to keep track of him and be part of scheduling his time over the next few years.
But now that the big questions are out of the way, there are a few other important issues on the table, and it looks like Sony may be riding to the rescue of some smaller films that need the help. In particular, “Red Dawn” and “Cabin In The Woods,” which have been missing in action for a while now, and which are both movies that deserve their day in court.
(Click here to read more…)
MGM recently completed its restructuring with a $500 million line of credit that will go toward developing the 23rd “James Bond” installment and back-to-back “The Hobbit” prequels.
The studio won’t emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection officially for several more months, but once it does, it will work on getting its “Red Dawn” remake into theaters. The film is one of three completed projects and will be released in 2011.
“Red Dawn” focuses on a group of teenagers looking to save their town from an invasion of Chinese and Russian soldiers. It stars Chris Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
Although things are looking up for MGM with Spyglass Entertainment possibly coming on board to manage the studio once the more than 100 creditors forgive the debt for equity, it hasn’t stopped the studio from pushing back it’s projects.
There’s still no official green light for The Hobbit films and the James Bond 23 producers are waiting it out before moving on with the production.
While it had been expected, MGM’s Red Dawn remake that was scheduled for a November 26 release has now been pushed back to a date to be determined. The movie stars Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas, Connor Cruise and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
We’ll also have to wait longer on Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods, which had been set for a January 14, 2011 release. That movie stars Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams and Brian White.
I’ve just updated the gallery with some photos of Chris on the set of Red Dawn from October and unknown dates. More will be added as they become available.
Rush (2013)
Thor 2 (2013)
Red Dawn (2012)
The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
