Ever since the release of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome in 1985 cult film fans the world over have been waiting for George Miller to follow through on his promise to continue the saga.

25 years on and just as filming was about to start Australia had other ideas and the shoot got rained off as their once arid location picked for its distinct ‘apocalyptic hell-hole’ look suddenly sprouted some startlingly un-apocalyptic flowers on a brand new carpet of grass. A year on and filming of Mad Max Fury Road has moved to Africa where the weather gods are a little more kind to the dystopian film maker.

In order to do this many of the film’s principal props have had to be shipped over from their original location. Happily this includes many of the ridiculous custom-made cars that will pepper the wasteland, cars presumably fuelled exclusively by testosterone, baby’s tears and the concept of hate:

Other photos were snapped on the back of loaders taking the cars to storage in South Africa that depict several copies of Max’s famed ‘Interceptor’, his coupe of choice from the original movies. My guess is that they won’t meet a pleasant end:

Whilst they are surely a mechanic’s dream and/or nightmare, it’s all very encouraging for the future of the franchise. After struggling for so long to take the new film into production it looks like things are definitely being given the go ahead. If all goes to plan the cars here could be hitting a screen near you sometime in the near future along with new Max Tom Hardy and his prospective co-stars Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult. I for one can’t wait.

Source: The Age

Ben has just come out of an interview with Seth Rogen for his new movie, 50/50 which is set to play at this years London Film Festival. In the interview, Seth spoke about the movie that he’s been trying to get off the ground for some time which had the title, Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse. He let us know that the title of that movie will now simply be Apocalypse.

Seth also told us that the script is now complete and although the movie doesn’t have funding, they hope to start filming in February 2012. The cast list for the movie continues to grow with both Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel on board to star as well as write and direct. Also linked with the project are James Franco, Danny McBride and Jonah Hill.

Apocalypse is based on a short film which Baruchel and Rogen made back in 1997. The trailer for it is below.

More as we get it.

We first got a taste of what to expect from the next film in the [REC] series, [REC] 3: Genesis, back in November last year when the synopsis and teaser posters for the third and fourth films were released.

Then came a great new poster for the third film back in April, and now its first teaser trailer has landed, courtesy of Bloody Disgusting, and it’s really pretty good.

I must confess, I’m still yet to see any of the [REC] films, but since I (am probably one of the few people who) quite enjoyed the American remake, Quarantine, I can imagine that the originals are even better and that I’d love them. If this teaser’s anything to go by, it should definitely be worth watching, so I’ll have to catch up on the first two in the series soon.

“The original [REC] crew are back, ready to submit their ensemble cast to another fight for survival against the zombie infection. This time to the backdrop of an original soundtrack. The new chapter will see the film “open up” by using a more traditional cinematographic style. However, the film’s roots have not been forgotten, and viewers will still be immersed in the action watching certain events unfold through the eye of the video camera. The action in [REC] Genesis encompasses the events of the first two films and after the sense of claustrophobia previously experienced. The action now takes place miles away from the original location and partly in broad daylight, giving the film an entirely fresh yet disturbing new reality. The infection has left the building. In a clever twist that draws together the plots of the first two movies, this third part of the saga also works as a decoder to uncover information hidden in the first two films and leaves the door open for the final installment the future, [REC] Apocalypse.”

The film is directed and co-written by Paco Plaza, along with his frequent writing collaborator Luiso Berdejo, with the co-director of the first two films, Jaume Balagueró, producing the project. Though the third and fourth films were originally to come out in 2011 and 2012 respectively, Genesis has had its release date in Spain pushed back to 30th March, 2012, so [REC] 4: Apocalypse could well see its release date pushed back a little further too. Time will tell. For now, enjoy this great teaser, and hopefully we can look forward to getting a full trailer for Genesis soon.

Seems to be something in the air right now which is bringing out the zombies…

If you’ve already digested the latest Resident Evil trailer then you’ll be happy to see this, new artwork from the film series which, in a nice contrast to the Resident Evil movies, often seems like a video game – Paco Plaza and Jaume Balaguera’s [Rec].

A nice spot this by Bloody Disgusting, who combed one of the numerous videos to come out of Cannes this year to find a shot of a poster advertising [Rec] 3 (which will be subtitled Genesis) and [Rec] 4 (which is accompanied by the legend Apocalypse) from the move site Mad Movies.

Both films got the greenlight at the beginning of May and will split the directors up, each to take the bookends of the series of which [Rec] and the recent sequel [Rec] 2 are the middle chapters.

Plaza will go back to the beginning with [Rec] 3: Genesis and deal with the infection’s origins (and as I’ve not seen the second film in the series all I have to go is the scant information glimpsed at the end of the first film) and Balaguera will presumably end the world with [Rec] 4 Apocalypse.

Here’s the artwork,

Curiously I do wonder if they’ll keep to the found footage/handheld camera device or will they go all Book of Shadows and seek to open up the world of [Rec] in a more traditional manner.

As long as it’s not in 3D I won’t mind, I can imagine the smell of the cinemas showing that one…

Love it or hate it, there’s no denying Independence Day was a big movie, with a place in cinematic history. Roland Emmerich has been the prince of diminishing returns since, but remains the current king of the global disaster movie. With next week’s 2012, he’s hoping to get his career back on track.

10,000 BC was universally panned, so he has decided to go back to what he does best. Namely, destroying contemporary landmarks, and killing a large percentage of the population. Emmerich loves himself a budget, and epic scale CGI, and judging from the trailer, he has used both liberally. There have been plenty of pre-release clips to encourage the hype. You can see a five minute clip in full HD here, some additional clips here, and some behind the scenes footage here.

As usual, however, there is a human story to be told. In this case, it’s the story of John Cusack’s failed novelist, divorcee Jackson Curtis, now a part-time limo driver. Whilst on a trip to Yellowstone park with his two children, he meets a crackpot who warns him of the coming apocalypse. When the warning signs begin to start, Curtis hires a plane, rescues his wife, and together they must make their way to China, where great arks have been built to carry the human population to safety. Cusack has played the ordinary Joe to great effect in films like High Fidelity, but has shown his action credentials in Con Air and Grosse Point Blank. The Randy Quaid crackpot role is played by Woody Harrelson this time, as trailer park DJ Charlie Frost, who predicts the imminent apocalypse.

With Danny Glover as President Thomas Wilson, and Oliver Platt as his advisor Carl Anheuser, there’s some interesting casting here. Four actors who’s recent CV’s have been spotty at best. Good timing for Harrelson and the movie though, well positioned to capitalise on his performance in surprise hit Zombieland. Harrelson’s star looks to be ascending again. One actor already at the top of his game, the quietly brilliant Chiwetel Ejiofor, plays another of the president’s aides, Adrian Helmsley. Brilliant in smaller masterpieces like Children of Men and Serenity, 2012 will be his biggest film to date.

The cause of the apocalypse this time round is the Mayan prediction of the end of days. Of course, this ‘prediction’ is an interpretation of an ambiguous belief. In actual fact, the Mayans didn’t predict anything. Rather, their calendar resets the date to zero every 1,872,000 days, which makes it next due on December 21st 2012. It’s not known the particular significance of this event to the ancient civilisation, but some have taken it to mean an evolution, some a revolution. Emmerich has used it to suggest a slate wiped clean, the annihilation of the human race and all it has created. It could simply have been a mathematical anomaly.

2012 features earthquakes, super volcanoes, mass suicides, floods and a giant tidal wave. Whilst the ‘weather gone wild’ part of the story is similar to Emmerichs previous The Day After Tomorrow, with the addition of the Earth’s crust displacement, and the vaguely supernantural element of the ‘prediction’ causing global panic, there should certainly be enough here to elevate 2012 beyond some of Emmerich’s previous work.

In a fairly quiet November movie-wise, with the shadow of Avatar yet to loom, 2012 could easily be a box office big hitter. We are all suckers for a big popcorn disaster movie, and they’re obviously confident based on the news of a possible TV series (Read our story here). It’ll certainly need a landslide victory in the box office charts to recoup it’s $200 million budget. If 2012 flops, Emmerich could find his budget for his next movie, possibly the proposed Independence Day 2 (ID5?) reduced to rubble. And that would be a disaster.

You can find our story on the proposed sequel here.

You can try and win a 2012 poster here.

2012 is released this Friday 13th November in the US and UK. You can read our review next week.

Bazmann