Jake Gyllenhaal confirmed as Prince of Persia
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jake Gyllenhaal and (relatively unknown) Gemma Arterton are set to star in the upcoming Prince of Persia movie.
Among other things, the nameless Prince now gets a name (”Dastan”), Farah is now “Tamina”, Jerry Bruckheimer talks about how he’s always discovering new stars (such as NICOLE KIDMAN and KEIRA KNIGHTLEY, DON’T YOU FORGET IT!) and everyone in Persia is white.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to this movie, though. I still think Gyllanhaal’s not the best choice as the Prince, I don’t understand why they decided to change Farah’s name (what, to make it more exotic-sounding?) and… I probably shouldn’t go there with racial representation. Nevertheless, the movie looks really promising, and with Bruckheimer at the helm, I’d suspect it’ll be something like Pirates of the Caribbean, except with less water and more sand.
Linkspam time!
Yes, sorry darlings. I’m not dead, and I’M GONNA REVIEW SOMETHING SOON, DAMMIT.
Disney (Animation Studios) and Pixar have announced their upcoming movie slate for 2008-2012, the list which as follows, is:
- WALL-E. DWEE.
- Bolt. Christ, another dog movie again?
- Tinkerbell (Straight to DVD). WHATTT?! WHAAAAAT?! DIDN’T BOB IGER SHUT THIS DOWN? (Oh wait, he didn’t. Le sigh.)
- Up. Spacetiemz 4 old man dreamz come tru. You just know this is going to be heartwrenching story. I’m taking my hanky.
- Toy Story in 3D. Not interested. 3D makes me all crosseyed and dizzy.
- The Princess and the Frog. I seriously cannot contain my joy at 2D making a comeback.
- Tinkerbell: North of Neverland (Straight to DVD). Okay.
- Toy Story 2 in 3D. Still not interested. Speaking of which, I need to go dig out my TS2 DVD.
- Toy Story 3. I’m… really okay on this. I didn’t like 2 very much, I adored 1, so… we’ll see.
- Rapunzel. YEAH! YEAH YEAH YEAH GLEN KEANE ILU!
- Tinkerbell: A Midsummer Storm (Straight to DVD). … Okay.
- Newt (Pixar). It’s the same guy who directed ‘Lifted’, if you remember that hilarious short. I’m definitely looking forward to this.
- The Bear and the Bow (Pixar). It’s Pocahontas meets Brother Bear, from the synopsis of it.
- Tinkerbell: A Winter Story (Straight to DVD) (Disney). Okay, I give up. !$*&#!@$*(!#^$!*(#$^!@(*#&!*(#&!@(*#
- Cars 2 (Pixar). The synopsis didn’t give too much away, but since it’s directed by Brad Lewis, I have good faith in it. It does puzzle me that they would choose Cars of all the movies to get a sequel - in comparison to the other Pixar films, this one didn’t do as spectacularly at the box office, neither did it fare as well with the critics.
- King of the Elves (Disney). Snow White in guy form. Sounds like it.
New Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian posters and promo images. Yum, although he looks like he’s 15.
New promo images for Cars 2, Toy Story 3, Bolt and a bunch of others.
Next Prince of Persia rumour: Jake Gyllenhaal. Still DO NOT WANT.
High School Musical 4 in the works already, even before HSM 3 has begun shooting. President Rich Ross already stated the whole cast isn’t coming back in HSM4, so I think they’re going to dub it ‘the next generation’ as their subtitle or something. Too much of a good thing isn’t good, Disney! Remember the boybands mantra - when one guy leaves, everything goes to pot!
Prince of Persia - My thoughts, let me show you it.
As with any gossip column, this piece of news hardly has any weight to it. Zac Efron and Orlando Bloom are battling it out for the lead role in the Prince of Persia movie. There are other rumours that a real Persian prince is wedging himself in there, but I won’t get into that.
Prince of Persia is an action-adventure video game series, beginning in 1989, and became hugely popular when Sands of Time was released in 2003. This resulted in a trilogy following along this particular storyline, with Warrior Within and The Two Thrones released in 2004 and 2005 respectively. The plot went along the lines of an hourglass that could control time, and the prince - through circumstances out of his control - managed to control this power, therefore controlling time. The story follows the prince’s journey to 1. stop the bad guy from taking control over the sands of time, 2. stop his own death, 3. … stop the bad guy from taking control over the sands of time.
The lead character, only known as ‘the prince’, was an extremely wonderful character to play as. He was funny (very much unlike the usual steroid-infused protagonists on games nowadays), witty, realistic and sympathetic. Throughout the game, you’d be able to hear his inner monologue, and it was just hilarious to listen to (except in Warrior Within, where apparently the production designers decided that he didn’t have big enough balls). I loved the character of the prince, and yes, I’m a huge fan of the Prince of Persia series.
Disney has purchased the rights to PoP, and… well, I feel rather conflicted about this. Any gaming fan knows that the majority of movies based on games have been utter disasters (see Hitman, Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within), and the probability that PoP’s going to fall into ‘a big waste of money’ is going to be very high. The addition of either Efron or Bloom as the title role just summed my feelings up into a massive DO NOT WANT.
Here we have typecasting working against Efron. Zac’s been cast in overtly bubbly, my-butt-vomits-sunshine type of movies. Sticking him into a movie where he’s supposed to fight bigass sand monsters (and presumably his father) is not going to go well. Frankly, he looks like his ass could get pummeled in about 5 minutes. Maybe his LAZEREYES will smite his enemies to death, I don’t know.
Orlando Bloom seems to be the more obvious choice, with him having a great load of fighting experience, but I have to remind you that almost all of his successful films cast him as a supporting actor. The movie where he was lead actor generated only a lukewarm response and was a box office failure. I’ve always been of the opinion that Orlando’s not a very good actor either (he can’t work a closeup, have you noticed? Watch Pirates of the Caribbean again) but his prettyboy status and physique will certainly draw the girls to the movie.
I’m not expecting much for Prince of Persia, even if it is a Jerry Bruckheimer/Disney production. I guess I’ll just stick to replaying the game and listening to the awesome voice that is Yuri Lowenthal.
