It is likely to be classy and visually eccentric, in typical Del Toro fashion.

Less classy, vastly cheaper and much more clichéd (no doubt) will be the Asylum’s inevitable exploitation version of the unreleased blockbuster, named with unsubtle cunning Pacific Rim.

Produced by Asylum alumni David Michael Latt (who will likely direct), David Rimawi, and the Asylum’s canny overseer Paul Bales, Atlantic Rim sounds not dissimilar to Legendary’s effort, though I’m sure the onscreen similarities will be superficial:

When giant monsters crawl out of the Atlantic Ocean and attack the Eastern Seaboard, the US Government is forced to trust A.I. robots to defend the country.

It starts shooting in December.

I haven’t been paying attention to what the Asylum is up to lately, but I notice that they’ve got American Warships (US-2012; dir. Thunder Levin) [Battleship], which looks at least credible in the trailer, though it will undoubtedly suffer at full length:

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Also Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies (US-2012; dir. Richard Schenkman) [Abraham Lincoln, Vampite Hunter], which is more feasible as zombies movies can be made much more cheaply than SFX spectaculars:

and the older Almighty Thor (US-2011; dir. Christopher Ray):

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No Avengers?

Source: via Avery Guerra

Source: via Peter Orullian. By Bobby Chiu.

The film will have quite a nostalgic quality to it as it means that Hideaki Anno (famous as the director of Neon Genesis Evangelion) and Hayao Miyazaki (one of the world’s greatest animation auteurs and founding director of Studio Ghibli) will work together on the film, with Miyazaki doing design work on the titular kaiju. The pair once worked together on  Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind [aka Kaze no tani no Naushika], which Miyazaki wrote and directed from his own manga and on which Anno was the head animator.

Nausicaä had its own fair share of giant monsters, all of which were manifestations of the violated ecological system. This includes Giant God Warriors, which Anno apparently used as an inspiration for the “angels” of Evangelion.

Here’s two of the not-so-humanoid giants from Nausicaä:

Centred around the arrival of a nuclear-spawned monstrous God Warrior in the much kaiju-visited Japanese capital, Kyōshinhei Tokyo ni Arawaru will be directed by Shinji Higuchi, who was a storyboard artist on Evangelion.

It will not be using computer graphics, but is intended to celebrate traditional filmmaking techniques, especially the use of miniatures. The God Warrior is apparently an updated version of the God Warriors from Nausicaä. You can get some idea of what he looks like from the following teaser clip:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

In association with the film, figures makers Max Factory, Kaiyodo, and Good Smile have created a series of statues and figurines of the Mad God:

Beautiful!

Sources: Twitchfilm via Avery Guerra; AnimeNews Network; Crunchyroll.com. Text by Robert Hood.

Addendum:

Here’s a curiosity. I don’t know what this is, but there’s a certain similarity to the design of the creatures, though the animation leaves much to be desired. It appears on YouTube after you run the Anno clip, but clearly has nothing official to do with it.

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How did it come about? Here’s the news from Todd himself:

“Terry Rossio contacted me in regards to my American Godzilla ’94 graphic novel, and told me he was a fan (Terry is co-author with Ted Elliott of the 1994 rejected TriStar Godzilla screenplay, which you can actually read here. They also wrote the screenplays for Aladdin, Legend of Zorro, and the entire Pirates of the Caribbean series, among others). Now Terry has asked me to finish the G’94 graphic novel — and how could I refuse such an offer?

“Publication possibilities are being looked into, but job number one for me is getting it all finished.”

Todd has even sent the Backbrain some new artwork: three images of Godzilla rampant from page 80.

Great stuff!

For those who don’t know, Todd’s graphic novel adaptation has been running on his American Kaiju website for a long time, finally reaching as far as page 78. You can check it out here — and if you haven’t, you should. How can you resist reading 78 pages of a Godzilla graphic novel? Free!

More News from Todd: American Kaiju

In June 2011, Todd announced that he’d been contracted by Bluewater Productions to produce a series of American Kaiju comics — an ambition he’d been fostering for years. Some of his work toward it appeared in the subsequent articles American Kaiju: Aligon Attacks! and Gigante vs King Komodo, and The Big Eight.

This project continues apace — and you can follow developments on Todd’s blog. Meanwhile here are some images from this original — and awesome — comic series. This first one is PETT:

In this one, New York City prepares for the worst:

What is the worst? Something like this:

You can click on any of these to see them bigger.

Just so you know, Todd, I can’t wait for both these series to arrive!

• Source: Todd Tennant, to whom all images are copyrighted, by the way. No reproduction without consent!

The title Auf den Spuren des weissen Sklavenhandels. II. Teil Durch Schiffbruch zum Strande translates as “On the Trail of White Slave Traders, Part 2: The Stranded Shipwreck”. It is a German film from 1922 [according to KinoTV] and was directed by Edmund Linke. The website KinoTV, which references its source as Der Film #19, 1922 (Kritik), claims that the film was also written by Linke and stars Herbert Hübner, Kadja Lana, Anna Perra, Robert Pirk and Fritz Reiff. That seems to be the extent of available information, though the “Part 2″ in the subtitle suggests that it is part of a serial or series.

Filmportal references a film called Auf den Spuren des weissen Sklavenhandels. I Teil (1921) by Edmund Linke, which is presumably the precursor. Its production company is given as Orient-Film, Linke & Co. (Leipzig) and the producer as Oskar Linke. It does not list a Part 2.

Referring to the poster, Michael Organ commented to me: “It is very much German Expressionism, so the monster probably relates to the evil of the slave trade, rather than actually being a monster/dragon as in Lang’s Nibelungen (1924). The image is very cool, though.”

It is indeed. If anyone out there has more information on it, let us know.

Returning to our shared office at work the other day, a colleague reached to open the door, shrieked and started back in horror. Why? There was a spider hanging by a single thread from the door-knob. The spider was about the size of a large dust mote but nevertheless the reaction was marked. Being a hero of epic proportions I gently palmed the arachnid menace and released it out the nearest window, apologising to the beastie for the inconvenience as it scurried up the wall.

That’s the thing with spiders: something about their alien appearance is enough to cause cries of terror and dismay, no matter how small and innocuous the spider might be. Obviously the bigger they are, the worse the reaction. I, too, though undaunted by the dust mote, baulked at the hand-sized huntsman that appeared on the wall of my study a week or so ago, opting to leave him in peace (he eventually left of his own accord). Sure, they get much bigger than that  — you know, in jungles and on banana plantations, where they trap and eat birds — and are very scary indeed, but should they grow to be the size of a house they would be objects of extreme horror. Ask Stephen King, who made a giant spider the climactic el supremo monster in his excellent novel It (following in the footsteps of Tolkien, perhaps, who made Frodo face the giant spider, Shelob, on his way into Mordor).

Cinema has exploited humanity’s essential arachnophobia for many decades, especially when it comes to spiders of the giant kind. Hanging from massive webs in prehistoric jungles or blocking the warrior’s path in dank tunnels beneath castles, giant spiders have made cameo appearances in various filmic variations on The Lost World and in fantasy epics like Ator, the Fighting Eagle [aka Ator l'invincibile] (Italy-1982; dir. Joe D’Amato). But mega arachnids really hit the big time with Jack Arnold’s 1955 film, Tarantula, a classic 1950s giant bugfest, the effectiveness of which remains undiminished today despite the dodgy super-imposed SFX. Arnold tried again with a normal-sized spider becoming monstrous relative to the diminishing protagonist of The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). Other entries in the subgenre followed, including Earth vs the Spider (US-1958; dir. Bert I. Gordon),  Son of Godzilla (1967) with a Godzilla-sized Spiga, The Giant Spider Invasion (US-1975; dir. Bill Rebane), right through to the big-budget Eight Legged Freaks (US-2002; dir. Ellory Elkayem), which featured not just one species of ultra-giant spider but many of them, all startlingly CGI-rendered. Even though it doesn’t include giant spiders as such, we really should mention Frank Marshall’s Arachnophobia from 1990, which, like the earlier Kingdom of the Spiders (US-1977; dir.  John ‘Bud’ Cardos), has so many spiders in it they surely add up to a couple of Big Ones. Meanwhile, Jeff Leroy’s Creepies series managed to squeeze in an assortment of daikaiju tropes, including giant robots:

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Other more recent giant spider films include Spiders (US-2000; dir. Gary Jones), Spiders II: Breeding Ground (US-2001; dir. Sam Firstenberg), Arachnia (US-2003; dir. Brett Piper), Ice Spiders (US-2007; dir. Tibor Takács), and Spiders 3D (US-2010; dir. Tibor Takács).

Now, to prove that the appeal hasn’t disappeared, we have a new giant spider epic coming soon from director Mike Mendez — Mega Spider.

Mega Spider [a.k.a. Dino Spider] (US-2012; dir. Mike Mendez)

A 50-foot tall alien spider escapes from a military lab and rampages the city of Los Angeles. When a massive military strike fails, it is up to a team of scientists, soldiers, and one clever exterminator to kill the creature before the city is destroyed.

Mega Spider stars Greg Grunberg, Lombardo Boyar, Clare Kramer, Ray Wise, Patrick Bauchau, Lin Shaye and produced by Klaus von Sayn-Wittgenstein, Patrick Ewald, Shaked Berenson, Travis Stevens. The picture below is a wrap shot with cast and crew and eight-legged antagonist.

Director Mendez (previously known for some decent directorial work on the indie horror film The Gravedancers) describes Mega Spider as a “Tremors-style creature feature” (implying, one hopes, that it is good-humoured and intelligently crafted action-thriller, with appealing characters, a terrific script and lots of suspense).

“The script was hilarious, and as we got into the creature design and the casting, we had one objective in mind: fun! I love the tone of this movie and think audiences are going to have a wild time.”

Above: Patrick Bauchau and Ray Wise

Lead actor Greg Grunberg commented after filming was done: “They say never work with animals and babies; I want to add giant spiders to that list. Having such a blast, laughing every day, and yet the movie is scary as shit!”

Above: Greg Grunberg as Alexis Mathis and Clare Kramer as Lt. Karly Brant

By way of confirmation, co-producer Travis Stevens (pictured below in the thick of production) sums it up this way:

“This is a movie about killing a big-ass bug. There’s a lunacy to the concept that we’re really having fun with. You look at classics like Tremors or Starship Troopers, and the humor is just as important as the mayhem. I think we’re finding a great balance between the two.” (Source)

And just to prove that the spider gets down and dirty in the big city, we have this money shot to keep you interested:

Making the Monster:

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Mega Spider is currently in post-production, but I just know all you arachnophobes out there will be dying to see it!

Addendum:

I have no idea what it has to do with the movie, but here’s a video of director Mendez and Make-up artist Emma Jacobs singing “It’s No Good” by Depeche Mode while moving in to the location shoot!

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New approaches to storytelling are running rampant through the jungles of Skull Island, it seems. Though the film based on artist Joe DeVito and writer Brad Strickland’s illustrated novel Kong: King of Skull Island hasn’t materialised as yet (see this article from 2009 and this from July last year for information on the film), the book has been translated into a new, very-up-to-date format, specifically designed for the iPad. An interactive app of Kong: King of Skull Island is up and running in the iTunes App store.

“It is part 1 of three in a whole new medium that I hope Kong fans everywhere will enjoy,” DeVito commented. “Right now it’s iPad only, though other versions are in the works. It’s Kong as he has never been seen or heard before!”

The Opening:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Here DeVito talks about the app:

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Produced by Copyright 157 LLC, with production design by Colin Fuchs and Peter Coyne, project management by Kelley O’Connnor, motion graphics by Christopher Griffin, music by Nick DeGregorio and app design by Chris Coddington, the Kong: King of Skull Island iPad app is a magnificent re-imagining of the story.

With an immersive use of text scroll and intelligent reveals of the underlying artwork, it is indeed like plunging into a new kind of interactive reading and I for one found it effective and engrossing. The music, too, adds greatly to the effect.  If DeVito and Strickland’s original book was a worthy addition to the Kong mythos, the new app version expands and enhances the experience even more, taking it in yet another direction. It’s probably fair enough to call it a “groundbreaking experience”. This app doesn’t represent a mere re-design job, but a re-imagining of the way in which pictures and words can work together to tell a story. Spectacular enough here, it nevertheless offers lots of potential for future development.

The original book is out (with abbreviated art) in iBook, Kindle and Nook form as well.

Part 2 of the app, The Wall, is coming soon:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Source: Joe DeVito via Avery Guerra. Writing and review elements by Robert Hood.

Art by Elden Ardiente.

Source: Deviant Art; shared by Kean Gilbert via Marianne Plumridge

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Thanks to Producer Bill Dever, Undead Backbrain has acquired the first concept drawings of the new Gila! (see The Gila Monster Grows). It’s by Charles Chiodo (of the Chiodo Bros fame), who has been involved in many memorable films, but whom I remember particularly fondly as co-writer and production designer for the cult classic Killer Klowns From Outer Space (US-1988; dir. Stephen Chiodo) and as puppet art director on the unforgettable Team America: World Police (US-2004; dir. Trey Parker).

[click image to enlarge]

In other breaking Gila! news, the new remake of The Giant Gila Monster is now to be released theatrically in drive-in theaters across the US!

• Source: Producer Bill Dever via Avery Guerra. Written by Robert Hood