Aliens to escape from Area 51 in new family movie

Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

Aliens held hostage by the US government at Area 51 are to be freed by their own kind in a daring extraterrestrial prison break next February.

Escape from Planet Earth is a 3D animated family comedy from The Weinstein Company and Rainmaker Entertainment. The movie is voiced by the likes of Brendan Fraser, Jessica Alba, Sarah Jessica Parker and James Gandolfini. Its plot is officially described as follows:

“Escape from Planet Earth catapults movie goers to planet Baab where admired astronaut Scorch Supernova (Brendan Fraser) is a national hero to the blue alien population. A master of daring rescues, Scorch pulls off astonishing feats with the quiet aid of his nerdy, by-the-rules brother, Gary (Rob Corddry), head of mission control at BASA. When BASA's no-nonsense chief Lena (Jessica Alba) informs the brothers of an SOS from a notoriously dangerous planet, Scorch rejects Gary's warnings and bounds off for yet another exciting mission. But when Scorch finds himself caught in a fiendish trap set by the evil Shanker (James Gandolfini), it's up to scrawny, risk-adverse Gary to do the real rescuing. As the interplanetary stakes rise to new heights, Gary is left to save his brother, his planet, his beloved wife Kira (Sarah Jessica Parker) and their adventure hungry son Kip!”

This official blurb makes no mention of Area 51, but an early animation test for Escape to Planet Earth leaves no doubt as to the movie’s setting...

Escape from Planet Earth is due for release February 14, 2013.

Area 51 movie “a work in progress”, plus more alien-themed ‘found footage’ movies on the horizon?

 Silver Screen Saucers

Found footage, missing movie: there's still no
sign of Oren Peli's Area 51.

Horror movie news site ShockTillYouDrop.com (STYD) posted an article last week highlighting the continuing popularity of ‘found footage’ movies and previewing some future entries in the sub-genre.

Most of the upcoming movies mentioned in the STYD article have paranormal themes (ghosts, demons, etc.), but, judging by the brief story outlines provided, a handful of the titles may turn out to feature aliens. Indeed, one of them – Area 51– definitely does (no great surprise there).

Regular visitors to Silver Screen Saucers will know that Area 51 has gone through a bumpy – or, at least, staggered – production process. In June of last year, the film’s producer, Jason Blum, told STYD, "I anticipate the movie will be mostly done in three or four months." Obviously, that was seven months ago, and still no sign of it.

Here’s what STYD has to say about Area 51:

“Oren Peli’s sophomore directorial effort has been in the can since November 2009. Sort of. While Peli, who has been wearing his producer cap since Paranormal Activity, will remain mum on anything related to Area 51 that hasn’t stopped the rumor mill from churning out whisperings of re-shoots that continue to this day. Producer Jason Blum told us in an interview that it was a work in progress. With so many projects in development from Blum/Peli, they can afford to take their time. However, will similarly-themed Area 51 films being made take the wind out of this film’s sails by the time it comes out?

The film itself, when it reaches the screen, follows a trio of kids who trespass on the eponymous government base and encounter an alien menace that has been set loose.

Status: Completion and release date unknown. Paramount is distributing.”

You’ll notice that STYD mentions “similarly-themed Area 51 films”, implying that others may be in the works. If there are, I’m not aware of them. Unless, of course, STYD is thinking of the upcoming Area 51 TV series based on the controversial book by Annie Jacobsen?

In addition to Area 51, there are also three other upcoming ‘found footage’ movies in which ETs might put in an appearance.  

Here they are as described by STYD:

Bermuda 

“Here, the found footage consists of the final days of a documentary film crew that ventures into the Bermuda Triangle. Again, a no-brainer, I suppose. “Found footage” is going to permeate every possible thematic angle; it was only a matter of time before the Bermuda Triangle came into play.

Status: In development at WWE Studios with a script by Bobby Lee Darby and Nathan Brookes."

Evidence 

“About a camping expedition that goes wrong when the main characters encounter a bevy of weirdness out in the woods, including a creature that runs around on four legs, government experiments and more.”

Status: Complete. Seeking U.S. distribution."

You can read an early - and very positive - review of Evidence over at DreadCentral.com, where you'll also find clips of the movie. You can view the trailer right here...

The Warning

“UK found footage thrills from director Dominic Burns.

The plot goes like this: In December 2011 a strange futuristic-looking artifact was uncovered in an uncharted Mayan temple in Mexico – examination of the artifact revealed binary coded information which appeared to be encoded footage. The content was unlocked by students at Chicago state university and appeared to be several hours of video footage heralding the end of the world… time stamped in the near future. Investigation of those featured in the footage produced several names and the authorities attempted to question those involved about the validity of the footage. But all of the people featured in this footage have disappeared.

Status: In production.”

So, we have one film (Bermuda) in development; one film (The Warning) in production; one film (Evidence) complete and seeking distribution; and one film (the hotly anticipated Area 51) pretty much in the can but clearly not yet ticking enough boxes on distributor Paramount’s checklist of audience-friendly qualities to justify its theatrical release at this time.

Will Area 51 see the light of day in 2012? Maybe, but don’t hold your breath. Still, it will hit the big screen sooner or later, and with that in mind, let’s just hope it’s more compelling than Hollywood’s last alien-themed ‘found footage’ movie, Apollo 18 (note to screenwriter: rocks not scary... even with legs).

UFO movie news round-up (25 Nov. 2011)

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

Veteran producer Gale Anne Hurd has optioned Annie Jacobsen’s controversial book Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base for a potential TV series. According to Deadline the series “will follow two men working on the base who are thrust into danger when they uncover secrets that the government will protect at any cost.” Annie Jacobsen will work on the project as a consulting producer.

In other news, new images of Ridley Scott’s hotly anticipated Alien prequel Prometheus have emerged through Entertainment Weekly. One of the stars of the movie, Michael Fassbender, seemed to confirm to EW that the aliens featured in the existing franchise will indeed appear in Prometheus: “There’s definitely a link to Alien,”he said, “There’s creatures in it that you’ll recognize.”

Ridley Scott's Prometheus (2012)

For more new images from Prometheus, see here.

Finally, and again through Entertainment Weekly, Disney has released a new image from its forthcoming Mars-based epic John Carter, which shows the eponymous hero doing battle with one of the great White Apes of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic source material.

John Carter is due for release March 9, 2012.

Area 51, UFOs, and media manipulation

Silver Screen Saucers

As Hollywood’s first Area 51 movie – creatively entitled Area 51 – edges nearer to the big screen (no official US release date has yet been set, though it is expected sometime in Spring, 2012), over at The Presidents UFO Website, tireless researcher Grant Cameron has a new, in-depth paper about Area 51 and the Bob Lazar S-4 story.

It’s a must-read for any student of UFOlogy – especially those who are interested in the government’s covert efforts to manipulate media representations of UFOs. In this context, Grant revisits two cases involving filmmaker Robert Emenegger:  the bizarre 1988 TV broadcast of UFO Cover-up Live, and the 1974 government-backed documentary UFOs: Past Present and Future. And there’s a whole lot more besides in Grant’s epic article, so check it out.

Related posts:

'Area 51' movie update

'Area 52' headed for the big screen

A History of Government Management of UFO Perceptions through Film and Television

'Area 52' headed for the big screen

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

Not content to have two ‘secret underground base’ movies currently in production (Area 51 and Umbra), Hollywood is now planning a third – Area 52.

Summit Entertainment is to develop a live action adaptation of the four-issue comic book series Area 52, which was published in 2001. Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian will produce the movie.

According to Deadline:

“The comic focused on a top secret warehouse in Antarctica called Area 52, a government storage dump for otherworldly discoveries, manned by a ragtag group of misfits who have been exiled to the middle of nowhere to staff it. When an alien killing machine is accidentally hatched in this repository, the group must band together and use the stored mythological weapons and artifacts to save themselves and the world. They are tying up the underlying rights to the Brian Haberlin comic, and will go out to writers shortly.”

This won’t be Hollywood’s first visit to Area 52, however: director Joe Dante took us there in 2003 in his movie Looney Tunes Back in Action, which mixed live action and animation to bring Warner Bros.’ Classic cartoon characters to new audiences in the 21^st century. In a pivotal scene, the film’s human protagonists (played by Brendan Fraser and Jenna Elfman) along with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck stumble across a Top Secret military base in the Nevada desert where they see live alien creatures sealed in giant glass jars; the self-reflexive twist here, though, is that all of these specimens are iconic ‘monsters’ or characters from science-fiction cinema and television: the eponymous Robot Monster and the Man from Planet X; Daleks from Doctor Who; a Mutant from This Island Earth; and Warner Bros.’ very own Marvin the Martian. The odd one out alongside these fantastical celluloid creations is a typical alien ‘Grey’ from UFO-lore stretched out on a medical table; this supposedly fact-based rendering effectively fictionalised by its association with the line-up of schlock Hollywood creatures that precedes it.

Tonopah Test Range

“So, this is Area 51, right, the secret military base where they keep the aliens?” asks Bugs Bunny, to which a scientist (played by Joan Cusack) replies: “No, Area 51 is actually a paranoid fantasy we concocted to hide the true identity of this facility.” Behind the characters, a bold red sign clearly reads: “AREA 52: KEEPING THINGS FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SINCE 1947.”

In 2008, Joe Dante told me that the decision to call the base “Area 52” in his movie was purely a comedic one, apparently unaware that a site bearing this name really does exist. Located in the Nevada desert approximately 70 miles northwest of Area 51, the Tonopah Test Range is designated by the US Department of Energy as “Area 52,” and, like its infamous sister site, it has long been a testing ground for Top Secret military technologies, including the F-117A Nighthawk, more commonly known as the Stealth Fighter.

According to Dante, his film’s corporate overseers attempted to have the Area 52 scene removed in its entirety. Warner Bros.’ concerns were not political, Dante told me, but artistic: “There was pressure to take the scene out of the picture, but it was because the studio thought the monsters were stupid, it wasn’t because they had any issues with Area 51.”

When I told Dante that the Pentagon had denied its cooperation to Independence Day in 1996 due in part to the film’s Area 51 plotline, he replied: “Well the cat’s out of the bag, I’m afraid; I mean it’s a little late [for the Pentagon] to be worrying about that – this thing [Area 51] has entered folklore.” Indeed it has, and now Area 52 looks set to join its numerical neighbor as a permanent fixture in the folkloric realm.

What is 'UMBRA'?

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

NOTE: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS POTENTIAL PLOT SPOILERS FOR A FORTHCOMING MOVIE

"UMBRA" is a Latin word that refers to "a dark area, especially the blackest part of a shadow from which all light is cut off."

"UMBRA" is also a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) code word used to denote the highest-level compartment of Communications Intelligence (COMINT) - also known as Special Intelligence. Notable in this context is a "Top Secret UMBRA" NSA affidavit dating from October 1980 which gives reasons why certain information relating to UFOs is exempt from disclosure.



Now, UMBRA is to be a Hollywood movie. A paranoid thriller, to be precise, "about a man who finds an old cassette tape which reveals a horrifying secret."

Details of this movie first emerged back in 2009, when Roger Donaldson was attached to direct and Nicholas Cage to star, but budgetary concerns about the production - as well as Cage's numerous other movie commitments at the time - meant that it never really got off the ground.

The movie's original screenplay was written by newcomer Steven Karczynski and was leaked online in June 2009 and reviewed by a handful of bemused amateur critics. The consensus was that an intriguing and gripping conspiracy thriller in the vein of Coppola's The Conversation was torpedoed in its final act by an unexpected sci-fi twist. The screenplay itself is no longer viewable online, but the reviewers' original comments remain, and they confirm what many will already be suspecting: UMBRA is - or, at least, was - a UFO movie.

The script reviewers' comments are not entirely revelatory, but they do tell us that the would-be movie's plot features a "top secret government agency... apparently powerful enough to employ trained killers, track citizens, intercept phone calls and emails, and gain access to private security deposit boxes." The NSA immediately springs to mind, even if it is not explicitly referred to.

One reviewer noted that "the last name of the man who escaped in the script is 'Lazar'" - a possible nod to Bob Lazar, who famously thrust Area 51 into the spotlight in the late-1980s.

The screenplay's ending apparently is ambiguous, but one reviewer speculated that, in the film, "aliens were harvesting humans for their chromosomes or cross-breeding with them or turning them into surrogate wombs 'ALIEN' style."

"I am a little confused," wrote another reviewer, and asked "was the government trying to stop them [the aliens], were they part of it [the conspiracy], or was there little left of the government that wasn't alien?"

Any questions concerning UMBRA's original incarnation are likely to remain open, however, as the script is now being re-written by Joe Carnahan (The A-Team (2010)) who will also direct the movie for Endgame Productions (the film originally was to be produced by Relativity Media). Whether or not the script's alien element will survive its reboot is uncertain and there is no release date for the movie as yet, though it is unlikely to hit cinemas before the end of 2012 as new director Carnahan is currently tied up with another project entitled The Grey (not alien-related).

Intriguingly, UMBRA's original director - Roger Donaldson - worked closely with the Pentagon on the political thriller Thirteen Days, and with the CIA on Agency pet project The Recruit. Donaldson also directed the alien movie Species. While new helmer Joe Carnahan's production history isn't nearly so interesting as Donaldson's, UMBRA - if and when it reaches the big screen - is nevertheless certainly one to watch out for.

'Area 51' movie update

There's still no official release date for Area 51 - the low-budget, alien abduction/secret base-themed sci-fi chiller from director Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity). Indeed, it turns out that the film is still in production.

"I anticipate the movie will be mostly done in three or four months," says the film's producer, Jason Blum. "Like Paranormal Activity, we went back like fifty times for additional photography. The great thing about doing extra shooting for inexpensive movies is that the cost is low, so we screen and shoot and screen and shoot." Blum has indicated, however, that the film should hit cinemas before 2012.

For further details on this story, head on over to Empire.