Movie News for July 20th

A video presentation for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was shown and is probably an unfinished trailer for the upcoming film. It featured the first shots of many aspects of the new film. The Quidditch World Cup, Cho Chang, Mad-Eye Moody, the Yule Ball and more.

Bryan Singer was at the convention to show and discuss what is going on with Superman. He says they are shooting 14-18 hours a day as they move quickly towards a wrapping of shooting in September.

Peter Jackson was not in attendance but he showed a clip of the new King Kong film, which featured a part of Kong's fight to protect Naomi Watts' character from attacks by raptors. Kong fights them and gets bitten and they fight while falling off numerous cliffs.

Director Darren Aronofsky(Pi, Requiem for a Dream) showed off his new film for the first time. It's a movie called The Fountain. It revolves around the Fountain of Youth and a romance between Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. The film is set in three different times, 1500, 2000, and 2500 AD.

Scenes from Doom were also shown off. A new trailer explaining what was going on and that set up the stories plot and then a clip showing off a sequence in the movie that is shot first-person as the video game is, to the delight of the fans. Doom opens in theaters on October 21.

The Smurfs have been acquired by Paramount and they plan to make a CGI movie with the help of Nickelodeon. Paramount is actually planning a trilogy for the blue folks. The first film would come out in 2008 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Smurfs. The Smurfs debuted in 1958 as a comic strip in Belgium. They became a worldwide novelty in 1981 with the release of a cartoon TV show.

Steven Spielberg may have lost his mind. He is considering making a sequel to his 1982 classic ET. Drew Barrymore is interested(and I suspect the one who thought of doing this movie) in coming back as a grown up Gertie who meets ET again as he needs help in saving his family.

A biopic about Liberace is in the works. Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman are both vying to get role of the legendary entertainer.

A remake of The Omen is being made. The 1976 film starring Gregory Peck was about a man who made a deal to allow the son of the devil to be born into the world after his wife lost a previous child.