All the News That’s Fit to Rank: Week of August 7, 2015

These are the top movie stories that got the Flickchart staff talking this week. We rank ’em, you read ’em.

1. Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One given 2017 release date

Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One was a geek sensation when published in 2011, and it was clear it wouldn’t take too long for it to make its way to the screen. Well, it’s going to end up taking six years and release December 15, 2017, but the wait should be worth it, as Steven Spielberg himself is going to direct. The story concerns a virtual reality game world that ultimately becomes more real than the “real world.” Were you a fan of the book? Is Spielberg the right guy for it? (via Variety)

2. Robert Rodriguez says live-action Jonny Quest will be “a real action/adventure film”

Your parents might remember Jonny Quest, the Hanna-Barbera animated adventure series from the 1960s, but Robert Rodriguez and Warner Bros hope you’ll love their upcoming live-action version. Rodriguez wants to distinguish it from his Spy Kids series, which he considers to be “kids’ films.” Jonny Quest, he says, will be a “real action/adventure film” along the lines of Indiana Jones or James Bond that just happens to star kids. I could get on board that, how about you? (via Nerdist)

3. Disney releasing Miyazaki Blu-ray box set in November

At long last, Disney is releasing a Blu-ray box set commemorating the career of Hayao Miyazaki, including all eleven of his feature films from Lupin The Third: The Castle Of Cagliostro to The Wind Rises. Most of these film are already on Blu-ray individually, but the set looks to be a nice one, and also includes a TV pilot he directed and some TV episodes he storyboarded, as well as a book highlighting his career. (via AV Club)

4. Pez candy is getting its own movie

Now that Hollywood has raided the worlds of video games, board games, and toys for movie adaptations, is the candy aisle next? Sounds like it, as production company Envision Media Arts (producers of Celeste and Jesse Forever, among a few others) is planning to create “a world unique to Pez and a story that will touch the hearts of many.” We don’t have many more details than that. What kind of Pez movie do you want? (via /Film)

5. Monty Python and the Holy Grail to be re-released in a sing-along version

Could Monty Python and the Holy Grail be the next Rocky Horror Picture Show? I suspect it’s already as beloved, but now it’s getting an official sing-along version to be released in the UK in November. Variety mentions a US distributor as well, but no specifics about the US release. Which character will you dress up as? Remember, you gotta bring your own coconuts. (via Variety)

6. The Coen Brothers set to adapt (and maybe direct) 1966 crime novel Black Money

The latest Coen Brothers film Hail Caesar releases in February, and we’ve already got news of their next project – writing the adaptation of the 1966 crime novel Black Money (by Ross MacDonald) for Warner Bros. It’s possible but not confirmed that they will direct it, as well. I certainly hope they do. The Coens haven’t done direct adaptations that often, but No Country for Old Men and True Grit both turned out quite well, and they certainly have the sensibility for a neo-noirish detective thriller like this. (via /Film)

7. Jerry Lewis’s long-suppressed The Day the Clown Cried may be screened…in ten years

If you’re among those who think Roberto Benigni‘s sentimental/humorous take on the Holocaust in Life is Beautiful is offensive, wait until you get a load of Jerry Lewis‘s The Day the Clown Cried, which “stars Jerry Lewis as a clown who gets sent to a concentration camp after publicly mocking Hitler and is eventually tasked with leading children to the gas chambers, Pied Piper-style.” Lewis has suppressed the film for decades to the point that it’s become a cinematic urban legend. Now he’s finally donated it (along with his other personal prints) to the Library of Congress, with the stipulation that it can’t be screened for at least ten years – which would likely be after the 89-year-old comedian’s death. Of course, they’re under no obligation to screen it even then, but can they resist? (via AV Club)

8. Silent movie buffs search the screen for clues to origins of “Mostly Lost” films

What’s this, a group of film fans watching a movie with their laptop screens blazing, yelling out at the screen when they recognize something or someone? Yep. Because this is no ordinary screening. At the “Mostly Lost” Festival held by the Library of Congress, unidentified silent films from their collection are run for an audience of scholars and film buffs whose knowledge of the time period might just help place these films and discover that we’ve had copies of films long thought lost all the time. What a cool way to see rare cinematic history and help the archive at the same time. (via LA Times)

9. USC study shows if you want to work in Hollywood, you should be straight, white, male

USC Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication’s Media Diversity and Social Change Initiative has just published the most comprehensive study of diversity in popular film ever conducted, studying data from the Top 100 box office films for each year from 2007 to 2014. The results aren’t pretty, showing that in those seven years, screen representation for women and ethnic minorities as well as behind-the-camera talent has remained staggeringly low and stagnant. We know this anecdotally, but this is cold hard data. (via USC Annenberg)

10. Woody Allen’s next film remains untitled, but the full cast has been revealed

Despite the scandals that continually follow Woody Allen around, he remains a kind of gold standard for every actor in Hollywood – it’s like you haven’t really arrived until you’ve worked with him. His latest film Irrational Man has just opened, and now it’s time to look to his 2016 project, which hasn’t got a name yet, but has got an impressive cast including Jesse Eisenberg, Blake Lively, Jeannie Berlin, Parker Posey, Kristen Stewart, Corey Stoll, and Bruce Willis. (via /Film)

Top Trailers of the Week

Deadpool is the latest Marvel hero to make the jump to the big screen, and it looks like Ryan Reynolds is really dialing up the sarcastic tone.

---

Zoolander 2…or is it 2oolander? Or wait, is it Zoolander II? Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) and Stephen Hawking argue it out. If that’s not enough to hook you, I don’t know what to say.

---

Any new Kate Winslet film is a cause celebré as far as I’m concerned, and this one snuck up on me – it’s The Dressmaker, about a woman who returns to her small Australian town after leaving in disgrace years earlier. I admit I didn’t watch the whole trailer as it started looking spoilery.

---

Director Hou Hsiao-hsien is celebrated for his thoughtful dramas, but The Assassin is his first foray into wuxia – from the look of things, it’s still more contemplative than action-packed, but it certainly looks gorgeous!

https://youtu.be/cQ_AcOHMsi4

---

It’s paranormal investigator Anthony Hopkins vs paranormal killer Colin Farrell in the upcoming thriller Solace, which looks like it could go right off the rails, but also looks like it could be interesting. The fact that it’s been on the shelf for a year isn’t encouraging, but let’s give it the benefit of the doubt?