Video at Work

Adam Sandler enters his third decade of making movies and his audience loves him in Dad mode, so his
only on-screen appearance of 2012 should be a hit, even without his go-to director Dennis Dugan behind the camera
(Hot Tub Time Machine duo Sean Anders and John Morris were called up to handle this father-son yelling match).
Even if Leighton Meester would never be with a guy like Andy Samberg in real life, if she’s unleashed, wouldn’t she
deliver the best one-liners here?

A huge worldwide hit, Alex and his pals might stall their return to NYC until Paramount decides how to
continue or spin off this story. (Isn’t it time one of these characters had a baby?)

It’s official: add any “Lost” creative mind to your project, and suddenly every detail becomes part of a
larger mythology steeped in layers within layers. In this case, co-writer Damon Lindelof has been the chief rumor-
mill architect, offering bits of character information while we sit here and wonder just how closely Prometheus will
be tied to the Alien bloodline. Ridley Scott’s lips are sealed as he alludes to not just the Alien universe, but also Blade
Runner’s. My best guess is that Michael Fassbender’s robot and a heroic Noomi Rapace are the ones left standing.

Every other year or so there seems to be a race between two studios to get a similarly themed project
into production first. This year, we’ll apparently see two dark interpretations of the Snow White character;
Tarsem’s Grimm-faithful version was initially set to debut before this equally lustrous promise from director Rupert
Sanders, who turned industry heads with his promo spots for Halo 3: ODST, but Universal whipped up a potion to
get their version in front of audiences first. We like this version’s casting a bit more and, honestly, we love all the
newsy drama surrounding both projects. Our only question: have people already forgotten how Red Riding Hood
fared?

What we do know: Tommy Lee Jones finally agreed to reprise his Agent K after a protracted period of
negotiations; the story will involve Will Smith’s Agent J traveling back to 1969, where he encounters a younger
version of his alien-fighting companion, played by Josh Brolin; the story was still being written as filming
commenced.

What we think: writer Michael Soccio, the guy brought in as cameras were rolling, got his start on “The Fresh Prince
of Bel-Air”, and something tells us this threequel is a Will Smith joint all the way, and he’s having it catered to his
comic sensibilities as either a last hurrah or a potential future solo outing for Agent J? We’re only guessing.

So it looks like the New Year’s Eve/Valentine’s Day formula is being applied to other movie genres … and
you cannot keep Jennifer Lopez away from this sort of starring role. The saving graces for those of us dragged to the
theater by our lovers? Amiable director Kirk Jones (Waking Ned Devine) and screenwriter Shauna Cross (Whip It).

Rihanna shooting heavy artillery. It’s the sort of absurdity we expect from this level of blockbuster, right?
That and a theme song by Aerosmith. The pressure on Universal to make this picture under the terms of their deal
with Hasbro has been obsessively tracked by industry watchers, with development on Monopoly and other planned
game-to-movie ideas on a slow simmer — though expect that to change pronto if the Navy lights up the box office as
they lay waste to alien forces. To that end, I really want to see who will play Gloppy in Candy Land.

For some of us, this Burton-Depp union carries more weight/causes more anxiety than the sum of their
recent string of remakes/reimaginings; Alice and Willy, while treasured, are less sacred than the vampire Barnabus
Collins. We have no doubts about the project’s respect for the past and we’re sure Burton and screenwriter Seth
Grahame-Smith (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) have injected the story and
outfitted Collinwood Mansion with welcome eccentricities. Unsure how you feel about the real-life Barnabus and
other cast members making cameo appearances? Us too.

Morten Tyldum’s crime/thriller has been on the radar for about a year, as word-of-mouth spread on the
film-festival circuit about a Norwegian thriller with a protagonist that’s hard to like. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s
character is the target of the crime that drives the story into some dark, messy places, and it will be cool to see
Coster-Waldau play against his “Game of Thrones” villain, Jaime Lannister. Over at the studio Summit, a remake is in
the works with Sacha Gervasi on script duties.

In a way, wouldn’t it be cool if development on all other comic-book movies stopped here? The fact that
Joss Whedon, who for many people is the definition of the beloved underdog creative type, has been called upon to
co-write and direct this superhero call-to-arms ratchets up the expectations that turned X-Men into a franchise and
Watchmen into a cautionary tale.