Caffeinated Clint
The Internet is full of it.
Bullshit.
Day in Day out there’s an all-new movie-news rumour doing the rounds that, quite likely, encompasses information about as precise as one of those five buck watches you buy on the streets of Kuta.
Sure, much of the word on the net is on the money, and those running the more reputable websites have great bullshit detectors – largely stemming from the years we’ve been doing this, but now and then, one sneaks through.
Here’s 20 bogus news items that suckered quite a few of us in :
20. Robin Williams as the villain in “X-Files : I Want to Believe”
Remember this one? Captain Web had it that ol’ Patch Adams would be spoon-feeding alien-busting Fox Mulder some bad medicine. The only reason this rumour ostensibly had legs is because it surfaced around the same time Williams was working on “X-Files” star David Duchovny’s directorial debut “House of D”.. or maybe an “X-Files” fan had just seen Christopher Nolan’s “Insomnia” and thought Mork would make for a great foe. Whatever… Good work, bored virgin.
19. Billy Bob Thornton as ‘Freddy Krueger’
Whoever came up with this porky pie must be pretty proud of themselves – it got a better run than Cliff Young’s ever had. Shortly after it was announced that Platinum Dunes’ would be remaking Wes Craven’s seminal horror classic “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, word hit the web – and spread rather quickly – that Billy Bob Thornton would be inheriting the razor-fingered glove. Not even Nancy could kill this rumour… it just kept stalking the info superhighway. Oh, and no, Thornton was never ever considered for the role.
18. Hugh Jackman as Jonathan Kent in “Superman Returns”
Another rumour that got some fat airplay largely because it was, well, easy enough to believe : Jackman, the star of the “X-Men” films, reuniting with that film’s director, Bryan Singer, for the new “Superman” film that the latter was doing for Warner Bros? Sounds logical. Problem? Singer never even approached Jackman to be in the film.
17. Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis doing Tarantino’s “Basterds”
One of the oldies, but a goodie. Rumours in the early noughties had action stars Sly, Arnold and Bruno teaming up as gun-toting soldiers in Quentin Tarantino’s long-gestating “Inglourious Basterds”. Tarantino would deny and deny the rumour, but yet it kept on keeping on. Someone’s idea of fantasy casting ultimately sparked an idea in Stallone though, didn’t it? (see 2010’s “The Expendables”)
16. Dolph Lundgren reprising Ivan Drago for “Rocky Balboa”
Lundgren would eventually reunite with his “Rocky IV” opponent Sylvester Stallone, but it wouldn’t be in a “Rocky” film. The ever-so-reliable fake worldly news reported that Lundgren’s Drago was set to make an appearance in the final “Rocky” movie; this time, Drago would be tied to a hospital bed, dying from AIDS. Surprised whoever made this one up didn’t add ‘… and James Brown comes in, just as Lundgren’s about to close his eyes, and sings ‘I feel good’!
15. Hot-Chick from “Transformers” will be cinema’s new “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer”
I believe the ever-so-trusty UK press cooked this one up. To be fair, Megan Fox has been the subject of many a falsie in years gone by – she was also said to be playing ‘Wonder Woman’ in a movie… that didn’t exist – and reports that suggested she’d be playing ‘Buffy’ in a bigscreen movie were, quite honestly, ‘just another’. Fox was quick to debunk this one; the star of “Transformers 2” and “Jennifer’s Body” doesn’t like being linked to films that aren’t classy.
14. Melissa George is Superman’s cousin!
Being that Ms George wasn’t doing much at the time, it was quite likely she enjoyed seeing her name back in the papers (it’d seem so, she never issued a denial). Warner Bros was quick to point out that not only was the one-time “Grey’s Anatomy” star not set to star in their new ‘Supergirl’ movie, but more so, there was no new ‘Supergirl’ movie. In more recent times, Taylor Swift’s name has been erroneously linked to a fictional ‘Supergirl’ movie.
13. IMDB has Jason Biggs doing “Kill Bill”, must be true!
Only it wasn’t. Biggs himself told me so when he visited Australia a few years back to promote that third, abysmal “American Pie” movie. Biggs said as he’s rapt as he’d have been to have received a call from Quentin Tarantino asking him to be a part of his action epic “Kill Bill Vol.1”, it wasn’t true – someone just decided to add Biggs name to the casting listing for the film on IMDB one day. From there, it grew like a rose in Spring…
12. John Cena vs. the Predator!
Way before Fox even considered [re]approaching Robert Rodriguez about relaunching the franchise, someone dreamt up a third “Predator” movie starring Wrestler cum actor John Cena. Cena knew nothing about it, let alone Fox… it was all the doing of some ‘ugly mother fucker’. (Just for the record, if someone had slipped us a rumour suggesting Adrien Brody was going to star in a third “Predator” movie we wouldn’t have believed it either; see, sometimes it really is hard to spot the real ones from the fake).
11. Joss Whedon directing “Sailor Moon”!
If your bullshit rumour includes the words ‘Joss’ or ‘Whedon’ you can pretty much guarantee that, no matter how bogus they sound, it’s gonna get some play somewhere. This one, suggesting the “Buffy” creator was bringing Japanese cartoon classic “Sailor Moon” to the big screen, led a fairly short life… but left it’s mark all the same.
10. Cher as Catwoman!
Vomit a little, too? Our friends in the UK decided to run with a little story suggesting the 60-something fishnet-stockings spruiker was set to play an “aging cat burglar in her twilight years” in Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to “The Dark Knight”. Even Sonny did a flip when he head the suggestion! (Somewhere, as we speak, Nolan is sipping a coffee and still laughing about the suggestion). That’s one Pussy nobody wants to see.
9. “Clueless” sequel?….as if!
This is one I so wanted to be true. My girl Alicia Silverstone. Head honcho Amy Heckerling. Some Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Barney’s and Betty’s of all age, race and religion. Whoever cooked up this early 2010 rumour – suggesting everyone was reuniting for a sequel to 1995’s “Clueless” – deserves to have Wallace Shawn lick their armpit for a night! Shame! (I found out it was bogus by dropping Ms Heckerling a line. She, not surprisingly, laughed).
8. The Frat Pack are the new ‘Ghostbusters’
Back before it was even a smidge of a possibility (it’s still not much more than that), “Ghostbusters 3” was – according to a guy we now all hate – going to be a vehicle for comedy frat-packers like Seth Rogen and Steve Carell. Considering there wasn’t even a script at the time (well, only Dan Aykroyd’s thrice-rejected “Ghostbusters from Hell” which nobody at Sony liked), it was fair to say this report was counterfeit right off the bat. When I asked Rogen about the rumour a few months after it first hit, he said it would “never be true”… he would never want to be a part of the “Ghostbusters” franchise; he’s too much of a fan and would hate to fuck it up. Smart man.
7. Kevin Smith sells out : “Jaws 5”
Kevin Smith was pretty quick to take a pontoon to this “son of a bitch”, even joking – on one of his DVDs – that had it been real, “[Ben] Affleck would have played the fucking shark”. A lifelong fan of Spielberg’s classic (as most of us are), Smith was also quick to debunk a later rumour that, well, didn’t even have anything to do with him. Disturbed by a report that suggesting Universal were working on a direct-to-video sequel to his beloved “Jaws”, Smith dropped a contact at the studio a line who was only too happy to put him at ease. (Note to bullshit artists : Don’t make Kevin Smith the subject of your fake rumor. That dude lives on the net; he’ll debunk it before it’s even had time to spread to a British news wire).
6. “E.T 2” Lives!
I say ‘lives’ because at one time, “E.T 2” was a reality. Spielberg had a treatment for a follow-up to his 1982 hit but he’d decided against fleshing it to script length by the time… well, 1983 came around. A few years back rumours surfaced that an “E.T” sequel was again on the cards and that Drew Barrymore was set to reprise her role as a now more bosomy Gertie. “I’m never going to make E.T II – E.T is a closed story”, Spielberg said in response to rumours that he and Barrymore were quietly developing the sequel. Did Henry Thomas start the rumour?
5. The Rock as Lt. Harry Callahan
Dirty… rumour. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnston scoffed at suggestions that he could take over for Schwarzenegger in sequels to “Predator” and “The Terminator”, so why on earth would someone cook up a story suggesting the big guy was set to nudge Clint Eastwood out of the way so he could play San Francisco’s most reckless cop!? Scarecrow from “The Wizard of Oz” likely started this one – it reads like a rumour initiated by someone without a brain.
4. Eminem and Batman. They go together like Peas and Carrots.
…. Or so some silly schmuck thinks. First the rapper cum actor was said to be the frontrunner to play the Caped Crusader in Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” (I remember a top-selling Australian gossip magazine donating at least half a page to that item) then a couple of years later – last September I believe – Eminem’s name again comes up in relation to Batman… only this time he’s said to be up for ‘The Riddler’ in the “Dark Knight Rises”. Unlike the first, which was a slim and shady rumour thankfully put out of its misery fairly early in the game, Eminem only added fuel to the fire of the more recent one by suggesting he’d be interested in playing the character.
3. Lucasfilm secretly working on “Star Wars 4, 5 and 6”.
I’ve been doing Moviehole since 1998 and during that time I can safely say this rumour has probably popped up about four or five times. Maybe more. I think we all know what’s going on here : Some obsessed fanboy gets on his untraceable hotmail account and sends his dream movie idea to any webmaster that will listen… either that or Billy Dee Williams is getting hungry.
2. The Twilight Saga : The Spider-Man Years
With the “Twilight” franchise rocking the box-office, and girls pressing the tongues up against pull-out pin-ups of it’s cast, no surprise that Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner – the series’ vampire and werewolf, respectively – would be two of the first names to be linked to the new “Spider-Man” movie (releasing 2012, starring Andrew Garfield). Pattinson were said to be in the mix to play the web-slinger himself, while Lautner was reportedly in negotiations to play Flash Thompson, high-school bully. “They weren’t ever in consideration, let alone talks, because both [Pattinson and Lautner] had no interest in doing Spider-Man”, a contact at Sony tells us. “Their publicists at the time probably let the rumours run for a while because, well you know, press is press”. The guys these make up these rumours, are they on the payroll at PMK?
1. Heath Ledger ‘resurrected’ for “The Dark Knight Rising
I really hope the pimply mother’s boy that came up with this tasteful bit of BS is experiencing an irrepressible attack of acne… and ball thrush… and impenetrable ear wax. This was terrible. Shameful. Distasteful. Why would Christopher Nolan even consider using a computer, and some outtakes from the previous film, to see the late Ledger reprise his role as The Joker in the upcoming Batman film? The man, unlike the shit that came up with this rumor (and one that, sadly, spread), has a heart.
