Original Clash of the Titans movie poster

Matt Carrick   Pittsburgh Horror Film Examiner

Brand new casting news on the upcoming remake of the 1981 creature classic ‘Clash of the Titans,’ Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures have just signed Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes to play the warring gods Zeus and Hades respectively. The new film, directed by Louis Leterrier, is expected to open in March of 2010. Neeson and Fiennes are joining an ever-growing cast that already includes Gemma Arterton as the priestess Io, Sam Worthington as the legendary hero Perseus, Alexa Davalos as Andromeda, and Mads Mikkelsen as Draco. The remake is rumored to follow the same basic plot structure as the original with our hero Perseus questing across faraway lands and battling the mighty Kraken to save the princess Andromeda.

And, like all remakes, this affords us the perfect excuse to go back and look at the original. In this case, the original ‘Clash of the Titans’ was the last film that legendary effects wizard Ray Harryhausen worked on. Harryhausen was the undisputed king of stop-motion creature effects. His credits include ‘It Came from Beneath the Sea,’ ‘One Million Years B.C.,’ and the too often overlooked ’20 Million Miles to Earth.’ The list of movies that Harryhausen has provided effects for is essentially a list of films that every movie enthusiast, and especially horror and science fiction fans, should see.

Today Harryhausen’s stop-motion effects may look dated and even at the time they weren’t fooling anyone, but there’s still an indefinable charm to these films. Riding on the success of the original Godzilla (correctly pronounced Gojira) released in 1954, much of Harryhausen’s effects work was hitting theaters at the height of the American giant monster cycle of films. Without a doubt, Harryhausen produced some of the best giant monsters to ever come out of American studios, a distinction (at least in my mind) of the highest degree.

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 Fresh from the scares in “The Haunting in Connecticut,” Kyle Gallner has signed on to move to New Line and Platinum Dune’s remake of “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”

     Variety reports the film (described as a reboot to the hit horror franchise) will see Jackie Earle Haley handle the role of Freddy Krueger with Samuel Bayer directing. The script was written by Wesley Strick. Gallner will handle the role of Quentin – a teen boy tormented by Krueger.

      The film is produced by Platinum Dunes’ Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form. It is co-produced by John Rickard.

Freddy started haunting dreams in 1984 and sprung from the mind of horror master Wes Craven. The Freddy role was handled by Robert Englund – who helped turn the character into a pop-culture icon.

     Gallner returns to the big screen in the indie comedy “Cherry,” and Fox Atomic’s upcoming “Jennifer’s Body” – which was written by Diablo Cody (“Juno”) and stars Megan Fox.

Hugh Jackman as Wolverine

Sydney, Australia (CNS) – The visual effects company that “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” has been entrusted to denies responsibility for the film’s leakage onto the Web.

20th Century Fox was left furious after learning that their forthcoming superhero film, which stars Hugh Jackman in the title role, has been pirated and leaked onto the Internet this week, a month before its official theater release date on May 1.

The film studio quickly involved the FBI into investigating the matter, fully planning to prosecute the culprit for the leak.

Some reports have claimed that the leakage must have come from the Australian-based special effects company, Rising Sun Pictures, since the company logo appeared in a caption found in the bootleg copy.

The report is vehemently denied by the company.

Chairman and co-founder Tony Clark said in a statement posted on their website, “From the reports we’ve had, the stolen material is a work in progress version of the film with many incomplete sections.”

“As we worked on individual sequences within the film, neither RSP or its staff members have ever been in possession of a full-length version, so it would have been impossible for the movie to have been leaked from here.”

He added that it’s a common practice for them to incorporate their company’s watermark logo to the various edits of the film for screening, which would explain why their name appeared on the pirated copy wandering on the Web.

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