The Forbidden Kingdom

Directed by	Rob Minkoff, Yuen Woo-ping (action director)
Produced by	Ryan Kavanaugh, Casey Silver,
Written by	John Fusco (screenplay) Wu Cheng'en (story)
Starring	Jackie Chan Jet Li Michael Angarano Liu Yifei
Cinematography	Peter Pau
Editing by	Eric Strand
Distributed by	Lionsgate The Weinstein Company
Release date(s)	2008
Country	USA
Language	English

The Forbidden Kingdom is a film collaboration between Jackie Chan and Jet Li, with action choreography by Yuen Woo-ping. The film is currently in production as of July 11, 2007. As of April 2007 the film is officially titled The Forbidden Kingdom, before it had been often referred to as The J & J Project. Director Rob Minkoff (who previously helmed such films as The Lion King and the Stuart Little films) will be behind the camera while Yuen Woo Ping will handle the fight choreography. Film studios Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company, will share distributing duties.

Actor

Jackie Chan AS ---> Lu Yan

Jet Li AS ---> Sun Wukong The Monkey King / Lan Cai He

Lie Bingbing AS ---> White Haired Demoness

Liu Yi Fei AS ---> Golden Sparrow

Michael Angarano AS ---> Jason Williams

Collin Chou AS --> Warlord


In a posting on his official blog at Alivenotdead.com, Jet Li sheds light on his character(s) in the highly anticipated movie "The Forbidden Kingdom," in which he pairs (finally!) with Jackie Chan in a Westernized take on the classic "Journey to the West" tale.

In this re-telling, an American teenager (Michael Angarano) discovers a staff which transports him to ancient China where he joins in a quest to return the staff to the Monkey King. Jet Li plays the dual role of the Monkey King and Silent Monk while Jackie Chan will play a kung fu master named Lu Yan.

"[W]hen I first received the script three years ago the producer approached me to play the role of the Monkey King, but at that time there were problems with the script ... At that time they portrayed the Monk as a great fighter [which is a huge departure from the original story]," he writes.

Feeling Asian audiences would not accept this drastic of a change, Jet suggested they have the Monkey King transform into the monk. "Since the Monkey King knows the 72 'earthly methods for transformations,' he can pull one of his hairs out and transform himself into the Monk."

Other than that, Jet suggested to the producer they take more liberties with the story saying, "This is a dream of this American kid's interpretation of these characters so there is a lot of room for creativity."

As for "Fearless" being billed as Jet Li's final martial arts movie, you wouldn't believe in all that marketing spin, would you?

"Forbidden Kingdom" is directed by Rob Minkoff ("Stuart Little") for a 2008 release; the film also stars Collin Chou, Li Bingbing, and Liu Yifei. Yuen Woo-ping will choreograph all the action.

The Simpsons Movie

The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 animated comedy film based on the animated television series The Simpsons, directed by David Silverman, and scheduled to be released worldwide by July 27, 2007. The film was produced by James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Mike Scully, and Richard Sakai and written by eleven of the television series' most prolific writers: Scully, Jean, Brooks, Groening, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, Ian Maxtone-Graham and Matt Selman. It stars the regular television cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Pamela Hayden, and Tress MacNeille and features Albert Brooks and Green Day in prominent guest roles.

After previous attempts to create a film version of The Simpsons had failed due to script length and lack of staff, production began in 2001. Numerous plot ideas were conceived by the writers, with Matt Groening's being developed into the film. The script was re-written one hundred times, continuing even after animation had begun. This meant that "two films' worth" of finished material was cut, including cameos from Isla Fisher, Minnie Driver and Erin Brockovich. Tie-in promotions were made with 7-Eleven, who transformed their stores into Kwik-E-Marts, and other companies such as Burger King. The film premiered in Springfield, Vermont, who had won the right to hold it through a Fox competition.

Plot

Homer decides to buy a pig, whose droppings Homer puts in a silo. Later that day Green Day are holding a concert at the lake. Their barge is dissolved by the pollution in the lake and sinks, killing the band. Lisa starts a project about climate change called "An Irritating Truth", however she becomes distracted by an Irish boy named Colin. A community effort is successful in cleaning up the lake, that is, until Homer dumps the silo of pig (and his own) waste into the lake to save time and make it to a free donut giveaway. The lake becomes horribly contaminated, mutating a squirrel into a (small) thousand-eyed monster. The EPA discovers the mutated animal and gets the go-ahead from President Arnold Schwarzenegger to take over Springfield, placing a giant dome over the town so that it will not affect the environment any more. The Simpsons find a way to sneak out of the dome before a raging mob kills them and flee to Alaska as the rest of the town now hates Homer. During the escape, 742 Evergreen Terrace is burned and vandalized, and sinks into a giant sinkhole and is destroyed, along with Homer's pink car and Bart's treehouse. The family drives to Alaska in a new pickup truck. Homer and Marge nearly break up when Homer refuses to go back to the town to save it from becoming the new Grand Canyon, the dome began to chip and break so the EPA decided to detonate a gigantic bomb inside it, destroying Springfield. Eventually Homer is led by a mystical native woman (whom he calls "boob lady") who swings her gigantic breasts to point the direction back to Springfield after a mystical dream he has (a la the hot chili episode). Homer returns to Springfield and saves the town, his marriage, and his status as "dad" with Bart, who had adopted Ned Flanders as a father figure by using skills he developed in the "Ball of Death" fair game to zoom around the inside of the dome with Bart holding the bomb, which he throws out the small hole in the top, saving the town.