Montreal gets a big-budget boom with three movie shoots
BRENDAN KELLY
The Gazette
Saturday, September 01, 2007
The 20th Century Fox studio is expected to shoot three big-budget movies in Montreal over the next year; each has a budget of at least $100 million. The films are the Night at the Museum sequel Another Night, Independence Day director Roland Emmerich's remake of the sci-fi flick Fantastic Voyage and
a big-screen adaptation of the Japanese manga Dragonball Z.
Another Night is the follow-up to the family film directed by former Montrealer Shawn Levy, which grossed $250 million at the North American box office last year. Like the first film, the sequel will once again be set at New York's Museum of Natural History and will feature many of the same characters, including the nightwatchman played by Ben Stiller. Robin Williams, who played Theodore Roosevelt, is also expected to be back.
It is not known if Levy will direct Another Night. The screenplay was penned by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, the creators of Reno 911! and the screenwriters behind Balls of Fury.
The ironic twist for Montreal is that the first Night at the Museum was set to shoot here, and local crews had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building sets at Mel's Cité du Cinéma studios. But the shoot was moved to Vancouver at the last minute to accommodate Stiller's schedule.
Emmerich, who shot the 2004 weather-gone-wacko epic The Day After Tomorrow in Montreal, will be back in town for Fantastic Voyage, an update of the 1966 film that starred Raquel Welch. It is about a scientist who is dying of a blood disorder. A group of his colleagues attempt to save him by being shrunk down, put in a miniature ship and injected into his bloodstream.
Emmerich's own company, Centropolis Entertainment, will be producing in partnership with James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment. Emmerich tried to make this film 10 years ago, but it didn't come to fruition.
Dragonball Z is adapted from the manga created by Akira Toriyama; the work was also turned into a Japanese anime series that played all over the world. It tells the story of an alien sent to destroy Earth, who has a change of heart and decides to join the humans in their fight against various aliens and bad guys.
There are no details yet as to when these three shoots will begin, but they are expected to wrap production by next July.
bkelly@thegazette.canwest.com
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007
It's bad enough as a cartoon show (although the manga is manageable); I don't know how I sat through the shows I managed to catch as a kid.
