SamWorthington

I remember when Avatar was first gearing up for production and the Internet was humming with casting rumors swirling James Cameron's fabled film. Most of that buzz concerned all the supporting roles, though, as Cameron was quite vocal about going after an unknown actor for the lead of Jake Sully. As we all know, that actor ended up being Australian soap-star Sam Worthington, but the LA Times is now shedding some light on the Jake Sullys that could have been: Matt Damon and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Cameron tells the LA Times that he doesn't think the two actors turning down the role had anything to do with the atypical working conditions, rather that he wasn't too enthusiastic about recruiting them for a trip to Pandora. "Honestly, did I go out and try to woo them? No. I had my heart set on Sam. Maybe they sensed my lack of 100% commitment from me. Maybe it was the subject matter. This was a big 'Star Wars'-type movie. They're both serious actors."

Now if that reads as though some of the higher ups at Twentieth Century Fox asked Cameron to at least go out and talk to some bigger, A-list actors to spearhead their considerable investment, that's because it's exactly what it was talk is precisely all Cameron did. Personally I can't imagine either Damon or Gyllenhaal wearing the digital loincloth of the Na'vi, which I suppose is a testament to how much Worthington made the role his (or the fact that I saw Avatar three-too-many times in theaters).

What say you? Would you have liked Jason Bourne or Donnie Darko to tame Toruk Makto? Or a third party, for that matter?

I like this rumor a lot, but it is just a rumor, and CinemaSpy evens says so in their exclusive - Chris Pine is on the short list to play Captain America in the live-action Joe Johnston film of the same name.

I'm sure he's been talked about, whether he's on a list or not. He's got the look, the charisma, and the right amount of up-and-coming star power to play the role. Remember, the person that plays Captain America will need to lead the team of Iron Man and Thor in the eventual Avengers film. This means he needs a comfortable command presence; you need to be able to buy that Robert Downey Jr. (as Tony Stark) would take orders from this man. I think Pine has that quality - certainly in a way that Sam Worthington (also rumored for the role) does not.

We'll have more as it develops - Captain America: The First Avenger should be assembling its cast in the coming weeks. What do you think of Pine as Cap?

With Benicio Del Toro ready to debut as Lawrence Talbot in Joe Johnston's The Wolfman tomorrow, it's time to pay tribute to transformations. When Lon Chaney Jr. played The Wolf Man in 1941, the physical transformation was effected through make-up and dissolves. But the idea wasn't just that Lawrence Talbot was changed physically, but that his interior life changed as well. All the make-up and special effects in the world can't hide a character who doesn't grow (or devolve) from the experience.

Science fiction opens up the possibilities considerably, expanding the idea of cross-species commingling. Here are my top ten sci-fi transformations, listed (almost) in alphabetical order.

1. Sam Worthington in Avatar
Jake Sully is a broken man in more ways than one, rendered paraplegic during his military service and broken of spirit as a result. He doesn't take much convincing to accept a mission that may earn him an operation to regain the use of his limbs. Little does he know that it's his increasingly intimate dealings with the Na'vi that will transform him body and soul. He may appear to be nine feet tall and blue, he may wag a new tail, but deep inside, it is his very essence that is changing.

2. William Hurt in Altered States
Eddie Jessup is a brilliant scientist, far more interested in expanding his mind and consciousness than worrying about his physical being. Yet the hours he spends floating in a sensory-deprivation tank -- not to mention the drugs -- begin to have an effect upon his body as well, drilling down far deeper than even the brilliant Jessup could ever have anticipated. The result is one of the more bizarre apparitions to appear on screen.

Sony does indeed have a new Flash Gordon movie in development with Breck Eisner (Sahara) attached to direct, that much is true, but there's a casting rumor coming from Hollyscoop -- the same site that reported the Taylor-Swift-as-Supergirl hooey just a few weeks ago. Sam Worthington is said to be the number one contender on a wish list that also includes Ryan Reynolds.

I'm sure he is. With Avatar on the top of the box office charts, it positions Worthington as the genre action hero of the moment. This isn't even remotely close to actual casting news -- it's someone (who may or may not be involved with the production) just throwing the name of a likely actor out there and saying, "Gee, you know who'd make a pretty good Flash Gordon?" It's spit-balling. Everybody can do that. I'm sure you've thought of a couple cool casting choices for Flash Gordon just now, while you read this.

My first exposure to Flash Gordon was the Filmation animated series, but most people are familiar with him from the 1980 cult camp classic film. His comic book roots go all the way back to 1934, when Alex Raymond created the character as a blatant rip-off respectful competitor to Buck Rogers -- another popular comic of the time about an all-american hero transported to a hostile alien world.

There's only three months between now and the release of Louis Letterier's Clash of the Titans remake, but star Sam Worthington told the L.A. Times they're not close to finished. Warner Brothers is apparently pleased with what they've seen so far, and the studio is getting out their wallet to add more bang for the buck to the FX-driven film.

"There were some creaky parts but they are the parts that we knew were creaky and that we knew were going to be creaky going into it," Worthington said. "The studio is also letting us add some gods and scenes. And they're talking about making the movie a 3-D film."

Is three months enough time to convert a film into 3-D? Do they scrap all of their existing marketing materials to reflect the change? I'm not sure if Worthington is just drunk with delight over this weekend's Avatar numbers, or if he's actually dishing out some insider information. If Clash is being converted to 3-D, I would expect an official announcement from Warner Brothers very soon, like this week. It seems like much too big a task this late in the game, certainly not without delaying the film's March 26 release date.

It seems like we're getting a new Clash of the Titans trailer every couple of days and each one is pretty much the same as the last with only a handful of new shots. Apple has the newest one and it looks very much like the last one, which was released about four days ago. Maybe less. Who's counting, anyway?

But if my movie looked as awesome as this one does, I'd be making a trailer every hour on the hour out of sheer principle. I'm not a particularly big fan of the original Clash of the Titans film (outside of Harryhausen's amazing stop motion, it's a bit of a slog), but I'm a minor Greek mythology buff and I am literally quivering in anticipation for this one. I think we're going to get a lot of complaining about a) How this is nothing like the original film, and b) How this is nothing like the original myths! Welcome to the internet, where nostalgia and intellectual pretension finally find a place to unite.

I think I can effortlessly ignore the pre-release grumblings because I've seen Sam Worthington riding Pegasus while battling a massive Kraken summoned by Liam Neeson's Zeus. I'm set. I'm sold. Bring on March 26, 2010. I can't think of a movie I'm looking forward to more.

The buzz and buzzkill leading up to Avatar, it turns out, found inadequate purchase now that the world has finally glimpsed the fabled film. The echo chamber of hype that believed it would drastically alter the landscape of filmmaking forever, the virulent, vitriolic cries of Dances with Smurfs, the total indifference...all misplaced.

You are not prepared for Avatar. Roll your eyes at that; laugh it off, you've heard that pitch before. It's not hyperbole, though, it's bald truth. Whether it's your most anticipated movie of the year or your least, it is not precisely what you think it is. How could it be? Avatar is a motion picture precedent, after all. It's fair to say that the core conflict is less than revolutionary and that parts of the narrative are broad, but those ills are scarcely symptomatic of James Cameron's ultimate goal. It's not about challenging the formula of Group X oppresses Group Y, who then fight back. Nor is it about only showcasing the bleeding edge technology that Cameron and company have invented and licensed over the last decade. Avatar is about transporting a viewer to the awe-inspiring alien world of Pandora and integrating them into its fantastic way of life for 150 minutes. That's the bullseye Cameron is aiming for, and that is the bullseye he obliterates.

Don't worry; I have no intention of spoiling plot points or scenes that aren't featured in the trailers for Avatar. I was one of the guys left unimpressed by the first trailer for the film -- one of the naysayers who moaned that it looked less like a movie and too much like what the next generation of video games might be. I think the second trailer was stronger overall, but nothing I'd seen left me feeling really pumped.

I had trust in James Cameron as a director though, a trust that kept me from dismissing the film outright. I hoped for something that matched the strength of his earlier sci-fi projects, but I couldn't seem to get excited over the images of ten-foot tall blue cat people running around, shooting arrows at military gunships, on a planet that looked an awful lot like Star Wars' Naboo. Sam Worthington was also still a cypher to me -- a forgettable addition to an undercooked sequel (Terminator Salvation).

Now that I've seen the film, I understand what a challenge the trailers for Avatar must have been for Fox.

By the time Sam Worthington graces the screen in March 2010 for Clash of the Titans, the Aussie-import will have gone from completely unknown to geek actor no. 1. Terminator: Salvation, Avatar, Titans -- the guy clearly takes genre work seriously.

Looks like Worthington isn't getting tired of it either, because he's attached to appear in another sci-fi property. The first installment of comic book mini-series The Last Days of American Crime won't hit shelves until January 19, but an adaptation of the series is already under way with Worthington on board.

Penned by Rick Remender and illustrated by Greg Tocchini, The Last Days of American Crime seems to take a page out of the 'ol Philip K. Dick book of oppressive future governments by envisioning an America where the feds covertly broadcast a signal preventing citizens from breaking the law. Remender comes to the table with a wealth of sci-fi/geek street cred. -- if the name doesn't sound familiar, he's recently worked on The Punisher (Dark Reign: The List - Punisher) and the still on-going sci-fi comic series Fear Agent. Before his comic days, Remender was an animator, with credits on The Iron Giant and Titan A.E.

There's been talk of a Fear Agent screen adaptation as well, and with something popping up under Remender's imdb.com page as "in development", we hope to have more news on that in the future.

(via Variety)

In a scant twelve years, Louis Leterrier has gone from being a production assistant on Alien: Resurrection to directing what has just, with a single trailer, become one of my most anticipated films of 2010: Warner Brothers' remake of Clash of the Titans. Sure, he has progressively proven himself a champion of the fantastic, evolving from The Transporter series to last year's The Incredible Hulk, but as much as I've been impressed by his eye for spectacle thus far, I wasn't ready for how fun his take on Titans looks. It's just our first look, but I couldn't stop smiling by the end of this teaser.

And yet, I don't know why I should be so surprised. The original is, after all, a landmark fantasy film packed with Ray Harryhausen's indelible stop-motion imagery. Add on Leterrier commanding a great cast ranging from Liam Neeson to Ralph Fiennes to Sam Worthington, and a script whose bones were written by Raiders of the Lost Ark screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan before WB brought in the duo of Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi to flesh things out. Perhaps the shock of seeing this trailer came from just how indelible Harryhausen's Titans actually were. I knew it would undergo an extreme visual overhaul, but in the back of my mind I was still expecting stop-motion giants, not Troy by way of God of War.

There's nothing stop-motion about this new re-envisioning of the wars between Gods and men. Purists will not be on board with the amount of digital wizardry, but any fan of seeing mythological worlds brought to life should be in love with the energy Leterrier has infused in his Clash of the Titans. You can see for yourself over at Cinematical, or click over to Moviefone to grab it in a variety of HD flavors.