Star Wars in 3-D rumors rearing up again

With Avatar having beat out most of the top-grossing films of all time in a mere matter of weeks, the press is sniffing around those old rerelease rumors, digging up comments from various directors and basically? A big fat maybe. What else is new? The relevant bit:

George Lucas, the director, spent $13m filming the original in 1976, added special effects in 1997 and 2004, and will now spend another $10m to change it into a 3-D spectacular.

“George cannot leave it alone,” said an associate. “He is salivating at the opportunity to play with it again. This time the Death Star is really going to explode all over the audience and leave them gasping.”

At the moment there are only half a dozen companies that can turn reels of celluloid into 3-D digital movies.

An ‘associate.’ That’s cute.

Video: Nostalgia Chick looks for The Last Unicorn

This isn’t the best Nostalgia Chick, but it’s The Last Unicorn! It was my favorite movie as a kid – I watched it so much that my mother hates it to this day – so I couldn’t not post it. And hey, Christopher Lee!

I can’t believe that it was made by the same guys who did that horrible animated Lord of the Rings. That cartoon is why it took Peter Jackson four-plus hours and a cliffhanger to get me to actually read the trilogy.

Meanwhile, the Nostalgia Critic has a tribute to two other staples of my childhood, Siskel and Ebert. (Is that weird? That the syndicated tv show of two movie critics is a staple of my childhood? TOO BAD.)

Movie news: Clueless director to take on Vamps

As if!Anything you can do to draw attention to your mouth is good. Clueless director Amy Heckerling is making a vampire romantic comedy. I can’t believe they found a way to actually might make me kind want to see a vampire movie. (No, Alicia Silverstone is not involved – Krysten Ritter is – but I am not one to resist a cheap Photoshop gag.) In related news Saturday Night Live’s Twilight spoof has been burning up the internet.

Oh, James Cameron. The New York Times claims that Avatar’s price tag is a cool $500 mil. Well, at least the latest trailer actually bothers to make it look like an action movie.

Mumble mumble fourth. The Los Angeles Times’ Geoff Boucher looks at the difficulty of making upcoming films for several different franchises: Lord of the Rings, Spider-Man, X-Men and Pirates of the Caribbean. On that note, io9 quotes the relevant parts of a /Film podcast where X2 screenwriter Michael Dougherty describes what X3 might have been.

Shocking! ‘Archival footage’ from that cheesy alien abduction movie actually fake. People, did we learn nothing from Blair Witch?

Also… The ‘lost’ cantina scene of Star Trek; Ian McKellen and Viggo Mortensen talk The Hobbit; New poster for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.

This post is brought to you by the letter T

It’s Monday and I got nothing. Granted, I just got here, so don’t give up on us yet. But for now, take a look at The Secret Life of Toys. It has stormtroopers, Indiana Jones, and bloodthirsty Muppets. Score!