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Development: Fandango selling IMAX films; Brad Bird sets next film; Supernatural bringing back familiar face; more
What's cookin' and developing in Hollywood these days? Well, Fandango's getting freaky with IMAX, Brad Bird is directing a musical, Supernatural's gearing up for a big reunion, and David Fincher's getting into animation.
Fandango announced today that it will be the first digital retailer in America to sell IMAX-enhanced films for the home video market. In short, they'll be releasing movies of IMAX quality that can be watched in the comfort of your own home.
Sony Electronics, Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and Sound United have all come together for the IMAX Enhanced Initiative.
"FandangoNOW prides itself in offering consumers the highest quality image and widest catalogue of premium format movies to enjoy on demand,” said Cameron Douglas, Head of FandangoNOW, in an official statement. “We are thrilled to be collaborating with IMAX and DTS to serve as the exclusive digital retailer in the U.S. for IMAX Enhanced content releasing later this year, helping consumers access premium 4K HDR content as the filmmaker intended in the home.”
Fandango plans to start selling its IMAX-enhanced films (both features and documentaries) later this year. Given the partnership with Sony and Paramount, expect movies like Venom, Into the Spider-Verse, and Overlord.
“For decades, Fandango has helped millions of movie fans enjoy IMAX movies on giant screens by creating innovative movie discovery and ticketing services using next generation online, mobile and voice technologies,” added Geir Skaaden, EVP, Chief Products and Services Officer at Xperi Corporation, parent company of DTS. “Now, with the company’s video on-demand service FandangoNOW and its support of IMAX Enhanced films, Fandango can help deliver to fans a level of quality never before experienced at home.”
How about some Brad Bird news now, huh?
Fresh off the success of Incredibles 2, the accomplished filmmaker has set his next project, a musical/animation/live-action hybrid with music by Michael Giacchino, Bird told Variety.
“Well it’s a musical, actually," he said. "I don’t know anything about musicals so I figured I should do this, because I’m deathly afraid of it and it seems like a cool thing. It’s a project I’ve been wanting to make for a long time, it’s got about 20 minutes of animation in it. It’s an original project, I assure you you don’t know.”
That's a pretty vague description, but Bird has (for the most part) never steered us wrong. Barring Tomorrowland, the writer/director has released a string of cultural hits since The Iron Giant in 1999. He first partnered with Giacchino on the first Incredibles movie in 2004, and the composer's scored all of Bird's films since.
If you were wondering what David Fincher's been up to (other than World War Z 2), you can wonder no more!
The filmmaker has been developing an adult-oriented animated series of shorts for Netflix with Deadpool and Terminator 6 director Tim Miller. Both directors are serving as executive producers alongside Jennifer Miller and Josh Donen. Fincher already has a relationship with the streaming company thanks to House of Cards and Mindhunter.
Titled Love, Death & Robots, the show will center around 18 anthological shorts that fall into the categories of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and comedy—a "genre orgy," if you will. For example, you can expect self-aware dairy products, haywire robots, werewolf combatants, garbage monsters, alien spiders, and bloodthirsty demons, and more!
“Love, Death & Robots is my dream project,” said Miller in an official release provided to SYFY WIRE. “It combines my love of animation and amazing stories. Midnight movies, comics, books and magazines of fantastic fiction have inspired me for decades, but they were relegated to the fringe culture of geeks and nerds of which I was a part. I’m so f***ing excited that the creative landscape has finally changed enough for adult-themed animation to become part of a larger cultural conversation.”
Each episode, ranging between 5-15 minutes, will employ a different animation style, from the traditional 2D to CGI.
