Attack the Block update!

If it's in Empire, then it must be true.
I thought production was farther down the line than this but I'm not complaining. I happen to be free in February if they need me!

It’s been circling for a while, but today it was finally confirmed that Attack The Block, the sci-fi comedy that will mark the directorial debut of the taller half of Adam & Joe, Joe Cornish, will start filming in February.
Edited to add that Joe also confirms this during his Arts Attack interview at The Roundhouse which was recorded a week earlier.

The story of a gang of Sarf London teenagers who are forced to defend their tower block from alien invasion, Attack The Block will see the culmination of Cornish’s increased involvement in the movie world.

Lately, for example, he’s co-written, with Edgar Wright, the screenplay for Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Black Unicorn, and is still working on the script for Wright and Marvel’s Ant-Man. Attack The Block, though, is a solo screenplay from the man who once narrated Empire’s short-lived TV show, Orange & Empire At The Movies.

Word on Cornish’s screenplay has been stellar for a while now, and we’re already looking forward to this one. The film will be a co-production between Big Talk and Optimum Releasing, with Nira Park and James Wilson producing. Edgar Wright is one of the film’s executive producers, along with Matthew Justice, Tessa Ross, Will Clarke and Jenny Borgars.

“Attack The Block is one of the most inventive and entertaining scripts we have ever read and a great project to kick off the relationship [with Big Talk],” said Will Clarke, CEO of Optimum Releasing. “We look forward to seeing the film come alive and thrilling audiences around the world."

Love the way they are using Joe's gorgeous bed-head picture.

Optimum Releasing is good news. They've gone from strength to strength over the last few years. I bloody love some of their choices. They've got a nice little trailers channel on YouTube and that.
Will it be too much to hope that we might get some Paul/Scott Pilgrim stylie production treats thrown at our stupid, eager, net-gazing faces?

The main thrust of the news is about the Optimum/Big Talk handshake.
This from Screen International.

The first film out of the deal will be Joe Cornish’s directorial debut Attack The Block, which will be launched at the next week’s American Film Market. Developed by Big Talk, and backed by Film 4 and UK Film Council, Attack the Block is about a gang of South London teenagers defending their tower block against an alien attack.

......and Variety.

The first project to come out of the Big Talk-Optimum deal will be Joe Cornish's "Attack the Block," about a gang of South London teenagers defending their tower block against an alien attack. Cornish's screenplay was the subject of keen interest in the U.K. film industry earlier this summer with studio interest in acquiring the project before Optimum topper Will Clarke prevailed.

THR has it covered too but it's all the same press statement waffle really.

Joe Cornish's directorial debut "Attack The Block," which will debut to buyers at next week's American Film Market via Studio Canal's sales arm, will be first out of the new look pact between the three.

What a delicious luxury for a British film with a debut feature director going in front of the cameras with distribution deals potentially in place.

Big ol' hearts going out to Cornballs.

This blogger has brought together all the little nibbles we've been sampling over the months. At first glance, the only omission is the lovely Robin Cooper AudioBoo and the little podcast reference to when Joe was storyboarding in August.

An attractive young woman walks home through dark, dangerous streets in south London. She falls into an ambush. Five ghoulish, hooded youths surround her— they take her mobile, her purse, her engagement ring, but they want more. Just then, a fireball explodes out of the sky and destroys a nearby parked car.

From the wreckage emerges a vicious little alien that the youths hunt down, kill and triumphantly parade back to their block. But their adventure is not over. The night is still young and the attack on the block has only just begun…

Surely, it can't be long before the IMDB entry edges out of "In Development" status so that the fan-buzz can begin.

Electric Proms - BBC6 Music has the visual evidence

The dictates of my heady social life have made this update a little tardy. I'm fairly pleased I didn't go into some lengthy waffle yesterday because I believe this little film says it all, or at least, quite a lot.

A bulging thank you to Adam, Joe, James and all the other people involved in bringing this wonderful hour of fun to us (or just under 13 minutes if you weren't there).


I know the BBC media isn't always available worldwide so you can find this split into three parts on YouTube.

I'm in a mood for some pointless drivel so I'll start by saying how warm and stupidly relieved I felt to see Adam togged up in his cycle gear. His L-bone must have fully recovered and his sudden chin alopecia seems to have abated as well. Buckles order has been restored.
Update: Really sad to say that either the MRI link on Saturday's show was a total sham, or the Lbone is not so painful as to prevent him at least wearing his cycling gear. So just when he starts to feel a bit better, someone steals his bike. This is rough justice of an extraordinary kind......just because of one indiscretion with an umbrella.

Was that Danny Wallace's voice doing the intro?

I was surprised that Joe didn't know why Adam's Quicktime/VLC comment caused a giggle or two. VLC is the final refuge of the stubborn media file but it's so bloomin' unstable. You don't want to go there unless you really can't 'Ctl, Clk. OpenWith' your way out of trouble using another media app. That said, at one point, Adam started to launch FinalCutPro and we'd still be sitting there waiting for it to load, if he hadn't swiftly aborted. I guess Joe must have a runner to open his media files for him nowadays, hence his confusion.

As with BUG, the show was driven from Adam's Mac and he had a nice bunch of silly files on his desktop. I'd seen some before but there were new ones too. Joe mused that the only genuine file was the one marked "Pictures of my genitals".

The compilation of some karoake entries was very satisfying, especially as several contributors were in the audience. It's a pity the video doesn't feature the Emmett family a bit more. You can see them sitting near the front of the audience but Joe talked to them quite a bit (and very sweetly, at some length after the recording). He should cast them in his film. Where else would you find an entire family so closely attuned and ready to perform?

Take a moment to see what a miracle young Ben Mercer worked with Joe's already wonderful song, bleeding fingers and all. All that talent and yet he looked so sweetly nervous sometimes.

Didds & Trish entertained everyone waiting in the entry line by emerging for a quick coffee swathed in scarves to hide their chin make-up. Their performance on the day was even better than their winning YouTube entry. If they were nervous, it didn't show and they really looked like they enjoyed themselves.

It's a shame Joe only sang over the fully mixed version of Dr Sexy but that concern pales in comparison to Adam's attempt to undermine the entire performance by pretending he'd never heard the song before with his weirdly detached portrayal of Nurse Totties. He was even trying to steal the limelight with a silly dance at the beginning. (Had to say that to balance the bit about Joe not knowing why VLC is a problem).
If you're wondering why Joe chose to serenade Ben, it was because he was the only person in the room with tight enough jeans. That's not entirely true because my jeans were very, very tight but I'd had a big breakfast and there's no cure for the particular strain of sexy disease that I have. Joe would have been all night trying to sort me out. Anyway, as you can see, Ben felt dirty after all that and from where I was sitting, it looked like he employed the international symbol for "I'm not yet comfortable enough with my sexuality to have a man almost twice my age run his mike up and down my body" but what do I know?

In reply to Joe's rendition of Dr Sexy, Adam did his Sushi song which he told us he put together some time ago in order to save the rhino (mission accomplished, I believe). Time didn't allow it to be included in this video, apparently but I enjoyed it. Joe doesn't like sushi. How does that work?

Adam told us of a pitch idea he blamed on Joe, to make a show called Silly Question Time and proceeded to pick random silly questions previously written down by the audience. When the author of the enquiry had been located, they were accosted with inappropriate touching and forced to read it out. The replies were the usual freeform we have grown to love.

Joe wanted to give us a teaser for some of this weekend's made-up jokes and delighted in the contemporary nature of an HD based item. Adam would have preferred a Blue Ray gag so put your thinking caps on.

Boggins the dog made a brief visit to the stage area but Adam managed to wrangle him into a box. Sadly, said box was a little bit too small for him which made it impossible for him to move his jaw. Joe wanted to take the temperature of the humane culling climate in the room and I think he seemed fairly pleased at the general enthusiasm to keep the sweet, stinky, old thing alive.

Edited to add that I completely forgot they showed their 1998 pop promo for Sweet Johnny couched in a brief anecdote about Dom Joly (had any new ideas lately?) and The Chart Show. Happily, this particular nugget is on the Tube for You.

It all went by too quickly but was gratifyingly rounded off with the much talked about silly home movie featuring the impossibly young Joe, Louis and Adam jerking around to Dee-Lite's "Groove is in the Heart". This was shown at the Greenwich BUG and one of the BUG 15s and I was quite miffed that I had previously missed it. It was demented. Thank you.

Here's the main Adam And Joe, Electric Proms page in case you missed it. It has about a dozen (that's twelve, Joe) photos.

I snagged one myself (see above) and in the video you might have noticed the extraordinary backdrop with a bearded Joe. Goodness knows why I find that strangely erotic. (shut up, Goodness. Keep it to yourself)

Finally, you may like to check out the day through the eyes of another blogger, here.

Electric Proms - BBC Website has pictures!

As the life of this blog rests in the balance due to slowly seeping embarrassment, I couldn't let the day pass without making some kind of post. I wasn't sure what to waffle on about but then the very efficient Electric Proms platoon of the Castle's cyberstaff put some snaps up at lightening speed.

So fill your boots with this little bunch.

I might come back with something silly to say about lunchtime with Adam and Joe but right now, all you need to know is that Ben was amazing, despite his sore throat and sick joke.

This was when Joe serenaded Ben Mercer. Just noticed the BBC are encouraging hotlinks.

Apparently, we'll have some video evidence sometime tomorrow (4pm has been mentioned elsewhere), according to Jane. I'm fairly confident I was hiding in plain sight.

Wot? No Boggins?

Am I aurally retarded or was there no reference to Boggins in today's show?
The butterfly mind of a haughty Cornball has left us high and dry with no continuity but I was distracted, so perhaps I missed it.

The main thing was that I was unusually in company for the Black Squadron command so I was able to carry it out with great ease. That said, I should make it clear that solitary tickling presents few problems for me so I'm not sure why Dr Sexy thought it would be a challenge for singletons.

How lame will I allow this blog to get now that the Squadron Leaders are back in situe?
Stats are still healthy & I can always use it as a portal for 6Music blog alerts and stuff but that just seems like doubling up. I do notice that Blogger stuff comes up in searches when BBC blogs don't. I can always throw a little webcam shot up here, I s'pose. Like most of my net based mumbles, I'll add something when I really have nothing better to do, I guess.
Who knows, I might even be grand enough to offer my opinion on current A&J output!

1) v worried that the first few mins were as lame as this blog
2) deliriously happy that they got back on track at lightening speed
3) incandescent with joy at the prospect of a Song Wars next week.
4) frustrated that Joe had a jingle in his pocket that he failed to share with us due to a sudden rhyming concern - a predicament which has hitherto never halted his presentations

Is it wrong to have a dream like this?

I've been really hoping that a little video gift would pop up here but I kept calming myself with the reasoning that they'd be a bit exhausted after getting back into the early start thing & just scuttle off after doing the podcast links.

Not so! Our wonderful, perky boys gave us the treat I'd longed for - an up-to-date, physical exam. Good Times.
A little bit of thanks goes to James, too (stick to the day job, mate).



It's sweet that Joe imagines the country would only tip in the rush of departing wives when he has a tan. I can usually detect a permanent leaning as the ladies (and let's face it, some men) play a little game of Cornish-gazing relay - tan or no tan.
It's the national status quo, Joe.

(but Don't Make Me Choose)