Battle: Los Angeles Review Thread (Spoilers)

[GreenScar]

Updated July 31

They just added another cast member (and of course Aaron Eckhart)

It’s a really slow news day (how can you follow Ridley Scott going back to Alien?) so here are a few small casting notes to chew on. First, appropriately, is the news that Billy Crudup has joined the adaptation of best-selling memoir Eat, Pray Love. Variety notes that he’ll work alongside Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem and Richard Jenkins under the direction of Ryan Murphy. Crudup will play husband to Roberts’ protagonist, who leaves him behind to undertake a global journey of self-discovery. The film goes before cameras next week.

Meanwhile, three actors have been added to the science fiction action flick Battle: Los Angeles, and they’re all after the jump.

We’ve known for a while that Aaron Eckhart will topline Battle as the central Marine, but now we’ve got new names to fill out the roster alongside him: THR reports that Michelle Rodriguez, Michael Pena and Bridget Moynahan are all on board. This is one of those movies we’d love to see succeed: an original sci-fi action spec script seemingly inspired by stories of UFOs over LA during the early days of US involvement in WWII. But the Chris Bertolini script has been slammed online (reports suggest at least one rewrite has cleaned it up) and the resume of director Jonathan Liebesman (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and Darkness Falls) has raised doubts. But what the hell, he’s said he wants to make something like “Independence Day meets Black Hawk Down,” so I’ll wait and see what happens here.

Rodriguez will be a key player, as radio battalion Crpl. Adriana Santos. Moynahan plays a veterinarian and Pena plays the father of a boy found by Eckhart’s marines. Liebesman is shooting the film in the fall; the plan has been to film in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which should make an interesting double for LA.

Updated July 30

We have some casting news for Battle: Los Angeles

The cast of Jonathan Liebesman's new sci-fi action film Battle: Los Angeles is finally starting to come together. It was already announced late last year that Aaron Eckhart would star as a Marine staff sergeant. THR announces today that Michelle Rodriguez, Michael Pena and Bridget Moynahan have also joined the cast. Battle: Los Angeles is about a Marine platoon that faces off against an alien invasion in Los Angeles. Its been described as a Black Hawk Down-like energetic action movie. Rodriguez will play Crpl. Adriana Santos, a member of a radio battalion; Moynahan will play a veterinarian. Shooting starts this fall.

Battle: Los Angeles is a movie I've been looking forward to quite a bit. Something about it just sounds like it'll be pretty frickin' awesome, and I've heard that there was a rewrite of Chris Bertolini's script (that was initially reviewed poorly online). This is an interesting casting announcement because I'd expect to hear more male names involved in this (as they've got to fill up an entire Marine platoon) but at the same time, both Rodriguez and Moynahan are great actresses and I'm happy to see them involved. Though I am a bit worried about what kind of alien invasion action story we'll see that involves a veterinarian? Stay tuned!

I bet Michelle Rodriguez gets shot

This movie has been described as Black Hawk Down meets Independence Day. I'll believe it when I see it. It would be great to get a fresh epic Alien invasion pic. I'm just wondering if it's possible.

Battle: Los Angeles will be directed by Jonathan Liebesman of Darkness Falls and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. The story follows one Marine platoon's encounter in the battle against an alien invasion on the streets of Los Angeles. It will be distributed by Sony.

I hope they make a good movie.

[Septimus Prime]

I think I saw them filming a sequence for this at my local mall last year. They wouldn't tell me what it was, other than an "alien movie." All I saw were a few people wearing camo and hugging the wall of Macy's.

[GreenScar]

Apparently they did some scouting and filming in LA and even added some CG Aliens to the footage in order to pitch it to the studio.

[Drexyl666]

hopefully it will be rated-R.

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by Drexyl666

hopefully it will be rated-R.

You know better than that.

I'm a sucker for Alien movies, so I'm interested in learning more about this.

[GreenScar]

We have some casting news for Battle: Los Angeles

The cast of Jonathan Liebesman's new sci-fi action film Battle: Los Angeles is finally starting to come together. It was already announced late last year that Aaron Eckhart would star as a Marine staff sergeant. THR announces today that Michelle Rodriguez, Michael Pena and Bridget Moynahan have also joined the cast. Battle: Los Angeles is about a Marine platoon that faces off against an alien invasion in Los Angeles. Its been described as a Black Hawk Down-like energetic action movie. Rodriguez will play Crpl. Adriana Santos, a member of a radio battalion; Moynahan will play a veterinarian. Shooting starts this fall.

Battle: Los Angeles is a movie I've been looking forward to quite a bit. Something about it just sounds like it'll be pretty frickin' awesome, and I've heard that there was a rewrite of Chris Bertolini's script (that was initially reviewed poorly online). This is an interesting casting announcement because I'd expect to hear more male names involved in this (as they've got to fill up an entire Marine platoon) but at the same time, both Rodriguez and Moynahan are great actresses and I'm happy to see them involved. Though I am a bit worried about what kind of alien invasion action story we'll see that involves a veterinarian? Stay tuned!

I bet Michelle Rodriguez gets shot

[GreenScar]

They just added another cast member (and of course Aaron Eckhart)

It’s a really slow news day (how can you follow Ridley Scott going back to Alien?) so here are a few small casting notes to chew on. First, appropriately, is the news that Billy Crudup has joined the adaptation of best-selling memoir Eat, Pray Love. Variety notes that he’ll work alongside Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem and Richard Jenkins under the direction of Ryan Murphy. Crudup will play husband to Roberts’ protagonist, who leaves him behind to undertake a global journey of self-discovery. The film goes before cameras next week.

Meanwhile, three actors have been added to the science fiction action flick Battle: Los Angeles, and they’re all after the jump.

We’ve known for a while that Aaron Eckhart will topline Battle as the central Marine, but now we’ve got new names to fill out the roster alongside him: THR reports that Michelle Rodriguez, Michael Pena and Bridget Moynahan are all on board. This is one of those movies we’d love to see succeed: an original sci-fi action spec script seemingly inspired by stories of UFOs over LA during the early days of US involvement in WWII. But the Chris Bertolini script has been slammed online (reports suggest at least one rewrite has cleaned it up) and the resume of director Jonathan Liebesman (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and Darkness Falls) has raised doubts. But what the hell, he’s said he wants to make something like “Independence Day meets Black Hawk Down,” so I’ll wait and see what happens here.

Rodriguez will be a key player, as radio battalion Crpl. Adriana Santos. Moynahan plays a veterinarian and Pena plays the father of a boy found by Eckhart’s marines. Liebesman is shooting the film in the fall; the plan has been to film in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which should make an interesting double for LA.

[GreenScar]

I’ve been hearing great things about Jonathan Liebesman’s Battle: Los Angeles for a while now, and apparently Sony Pictures also think they might have a winner on their hands. They have moved the sci-fi war movie from it’s original February release (one of the worst months to release a big action movie) to the coveted “300” slot on March 11th 2011.

Battle: Los Angeles will go head to head with Disney’s 3D animated film Mars Needs Moms, and will play a week before The Dark Fields and Paramounts animated film Rango, and two weeks before Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch.

The intense real-time war movie stars Aaron Eckhart as a Marine staff sergeant who must lead his new platoon through an alien attack on Los Angeles. The film has been described by some as “Blackhawk Down” meets “Independence Day”. Here is the official plot synopsis:

Liebesman is probably best known as the director a couple mediocre horror films, Darkness Falls and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. His single-room thriller, The Killing Room premiered at Sundance in 2009 to mostly positive reviews, and proved to me that he was a talented up-and-coming filmmaker that just hadn’t been given the right opportunity to shine. Could Battle: Los Angeles be a redemption for Liebesman?

[Sith]

Weak, I thought this was a Rage Against the Machine blu ray announcement.

[CZAR]

Actually Darkness Falls & TCM: The Beginning were both pretty damn good but the Killing Room was mediocre. Got Em!!

[SquidPuppet]

I wonder why there is only one platoon fighting?

[GreenScar]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

I wonder why there is only one platoon fighting?

First response probably. Probably be explained.

[GreenScar]

This is one movie that I think may sneak up and surprise audiences at Comic-Con this year. I was walking to the convention center earlier and passed by the Hard Rock Hotel and noticed some banners up with various alien invasion-like black and white imagery as well as a soldier and text saying "Los Angeles 2011." All of the banners (photos below) have links to the website that initially connects to a Sony website for the upcoming alien movie Battle: Los Angeles, then forwards to the ReportThreats.org and a site called W.A.T.C.H., which stands for: Worldwide Assessment of Threats Concerning Humankind.

The W.A.T.C.H. site, as well as the banners on display at Comic-Con, are all focused on a few actual real-life historical mysterious alien events, including the pinnacle Battle of Los Angeles event in LA in 1942 (you can read all about it at that link). The site contains a huge collection of "Expert Analysis" videos, links to a bunch of "Evidence" articles and "Eyewitness Testimonials." Beyond all that we're not sure if this will lead to any major viral events in San Diego or if it's just the start of the viral for Battle: Los Angeles and only the first of many websites we'll see related to these creepy historical extraterrestrial events. Click below to visit the site:

I've added a few of the photos of the viral banners I found on display below, for reference. I can't wait to see more from this including the footage at the panel later this week and I hope it's as awesome as I'm expecting it to be. I've actually heard from someone who saw it who said it was badass, essentially an alien invasion movie about a squad of marines who travel on foot throughout Los Angeles thwarting these extraterrestrials. Aaron Eckhart leads the pack and is joined by Michelle Rodriguez, Michael Peña, Bridget Moynahan, and many others. We'll keep you updated on this movie, but in the meantime check out this new viral website!

Read more: http://www.firstshowing.net/2010/07/...#ixzz0uNrYJELn

[WyldeMan45]

I am officially intrigued..................

[vegeta88]

That premise sounds really interesting. And really cool cast! I'm a big fan of Eckhart. I have not seen anything directed by Jonathan Liebesman. This movie has serious potential.

[Blu-Generation]

When I was a kid I was always hype on this.
Mysterious light over LA, people firing at it but miss or didn't hit a shot. It was interesting.

Now they're making a movie on the subject. Sign me up.

[Foggy]

Just saw the Trailer streamed online, it was laggy, but it sounds like a lot of explosions

[STARSCREAM]

This sounds awesome! Can't wait to see some footage.

[GreenScar]

The real meat of the Sony panel on Thursday in Hall H was our first look at Battle: Los Angeles, a blend of Independence Day, Transformers, and Black Hawk Down that opens on March 11, 2011. We saw several minutes of footage and were treated to a few tidbits of information from producer Neil Moritz, director Jonathan Liebsman (Darkness Falls), and stars Michelle Rodriguez and Aaron Eckhart.

Hit the jump to hear about the footage and what was said on the panel.

battle_los_angeles_set_photo_aaron_eckhart_01First the footage. It starts with the tease of a real event that happened in 1942 when several thousand people in Los Angeles saw a UFO, the military fired thousands of rounds at it and nothing happened. It then cuts to a fleet of helicopters who are mowed down by meteors which are almost appearing out of thin air over the Los Angeles skyline. These meteors contain aliens and one unit of Marines has three hours to get to Santa Monica to find a group of stranded civilians among the wreckage. Then on the street, those Marines are almost totally blinded by a cloud of dust as we get glimpses of creatures that sort of look like Michael Bay’s Transformers, but smaller. After the scene ends, the footage transitioned into a montage of action — buildings burning, huge crowds running, and the line “We must not lose Los Angeles.”

Battle: Los Angeles is obviously a long way off and not much is finished effects-wise. So it’s no surprise that we didn’t get to see too many action scenes. Still, what was shown didn’t really seem too exciting. I love the idea of this movie, but without seeing the aliens or how huge the action really gets (many of the epic shots in the footage looked like establishing shots) I can’t tell if it’s going to be as great as it probably could be.

The Q&A was more promising. Liebsman said he wanted aliens that weren’t exactly creatures, like in Alien, or bugs, like in District 9. He said the aliens in his movie are “literally alien” and almost defy description though they have a bio-mechanical influence.

Moritz said one of the reasons he was drawn to the project was the way it took a huge mythos, alien sightings, and gave it an interesting context. Each of these sightings that you’ve heard about can be explained in one way in this movie – they were scouting missions for an alien invasion in 2011, and he loved that idea.

Eckhart said that he and the actors spend three weeks in boot camp before shooting and it really bonded the actors to a point where he thought they were actually looked and acted like Marines. Rodriguez said that though she didn’t go through as intensive a training regiment as the boys, she did learn to disassemble an M4 in under a minute. “Modern Warfare doesn’t teach you that.”

The director and producer were drawn to the project because they’ve never seen an alien invasion told through the eyes of such a small group of people and wrapped in the motif of urban warfare. They wanted it to be intense and Rodriguez said that, after watching 40 minutes of the movie, it truly reminded her of a first person shooter like Modern Warfare or Halo.

avatar_james_cameron_movie_image_michelle_rodrigue z_01For Rodriguez, the most grueling part of the preparation for her was the research to be an Air Force Tech Sergeant. She said that everything she saw made her realize that “America is a very safe place.”

The moment Eckhart knew he wanted to do the movie was when Liebsman popped up a video of real soldiers on YouTube and said “This is what I want our movie to look like,” though it was a real challenge to keep the balance between the reality of war and the aliens. The way they did that was, much like James Cameron oversees design, make everything as realistic and plausible as possible. Everything the aliens does has a purpose and explanation.

Someone asked Rodriguez if she would ever take a less macho role to which she replied, “You mean like get raped and win an Oscar?” which got quite the response. She added, though, that right now she’s really drawn to kick ass, physical roles and hopes those roles become more prevalent for women in Hollywood.

Honestly, the Q&A got me a more excited for Battle: Los Angeles than the footage. The cast and crew said all the right things and seemed genuinely excited by their participation. But, until we see more from this movie, don’t flip out just yet.

Source

[Q?]

Battle: Los Angeles Footage Description/Video Blog

I was sold on Battle: Los Angeles from the moment I found out the plot synopsis—a real-time alien invasion movie set in LA—but today was the first time anything from the film has been shown to an audience (unless you count the viral campaign spread around the Comic-Con convention center). Check after the break for a breakdown of what we saw, and our reactions.

The footage opens with references to past extraterrestrial attacks in the US, detailing historical moments of purported alien contact, such as military firing blindly into the sky at UFOs with no effect. Text reads: “These events have never been explained… Until now.”

Cut to the inside of a helicopter, with soldiers awaiting battle. They arrive to a devastated LA, which has now become a full-on battlefield. Gunfire and missiles rain down onto the city. Buildings have been reduced to rubble. Others are in the midst of being reduced to rubble, with an alien ship laying waste to the entire landscape.

Later, the soldiers—among whom is Aaron Eckhart—are given a rundown of their objective. “If it isn’t human, kill it.”

They walk through a cloud of dust in the city, which has now been deserted. They hear something up ahead. Out of the dust appears a dog, its leash still on. They relax briefly to take care of it, and a storm of laser-esque bullets is unloaded on the group. Obscured aliens are firing from every direction.

Unsure of where the gunfire is coming from, a solider retreats into the laundry room of an abandoned apartment complex. He tries to make contact with the rest of the group, but is soon spooked by an alien shadow. He darts outside, his gun at the ready. Slowly, he makes his way forward, shifting nervously as the threat of the alien looms. Then, he looks up—a tall, barely visible creature (wearing what appears to be a mechanized suit) launches at him, and the soldier is no more.

Cue montage of explosive alien action, featuring: Aaron Eckhart holding a kid in his arms as he runs to a helicopter that’s decimated by a missile; dozens of alien ships blasting through the city; citizens running away from intensive gunfire; and quick-cut shots of epic-scale mysterious alien entities (or possibly some sort of attack vehicles).

Somehow I missed this entirely.

I love alien invasion stuff

I hope it's ultra realistic.