Red Dawn has a(nother) new release date! BoxOfficeMojo.com report that the film will hit cinemas on November 2nd 2012. The film was shot in 2009 and has gone through several changes throughout those years. We’ll keep you updated…

With all the new interviews and Immortals features we’ve been getting, I thought it was time to update some of our content pages. And so I have updated the Trivia and Quotes pages, as well as our Filmography page for Immortals and Isabel’s other recent movies – The Wedding Party, Red Dawn, and The Loft. I’ll add pages for Knight of Cups and Isabel’s other rumoured upcoming films when they’re officially confirmed. Charity, Style and some fun new media and games are coming next

In the latest on the much held-back Red Dawn, the Bellingham Herald has the film’s release date listed as March 22nd 2012. We’ll keep you posted…

A remake of the invasion movie “Red Dawn” — with its villains now digitally modified from Chinese to North Korean — will finally hit American shores next year.

The new version of the Reagan-era classic will be released in the U.S. by independent studio FilmDistrict, according to people familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss it publicly. FilmDistrict is finalizing a deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the studio that produced the movie in 2009.

In the original “Red Dawn,” a group of teenagers in a Colorado town battle invading Soviet forces; in the remake, the invaders were changed to Chinese. But that decision turned the film into a hot potato.

After MGM emerged from bankruptcy in late 2009 and decided it wouldn’t release the movie, no other studio wanted to touch “Red Dawn” for fear of offending the government of China, a hugely important market in the increasingly global film business.

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The Sydney Morning Herald have published a new interview with Isabel, in which she talks about the usual things, but as always it’s a very interesting read. She mentions Red Dawn, why she wanted to do A Heartbeat Away, travelling, who she wants to work with in the future and more. The interview has been added to our Press page.

Former Home and Away star Isabel Lucas has cracked Hollywood. Ed Gibbs finds her at odds with her ditzy reputation.

Her big break in the US may have been stymied by a film studio in free-fall but former soap star and notorious environmental activist Isabel Lucas now appears set for well-earned breakout success in 2011.

Having survived the collapse of MGM (best known as the long-time home to James Bond’s 007 licence), Lucas’s follow-up to 2009′s big-screen debut, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, is Red Dawn , which is firmly back on track for its blockbuster release. And, as if to make up for lost time, there’s a second major film due out as well.

In addition to the long-delayed remake of the 1980s cult hit – in which Lucas stars opposite fellow Melburnian Chris Hemsworth – audiences will also see the starlet alongside A-listers Mickey Rourke, Stephen Dorff and John Hurt in the Greek mythology drama Immortals. The two films are polar opposites for the 26-year-old, who was famously plucked from acting college when she was 17 and groomed for her Australian soap debut in 2002.

“I’ve heard it’s amazing but I haven’t seen the finished product yet,” she says of Red Dawn. “We were doing boot camps and martial-arts training, learning to use different weaponry in the cold Detroit winter. It’s classic action. When you’re an actor, when opportunities come up, you go with the flow. You jump.”

Read the full interview

More on the Red Dawn changes, this time directly from a producer. Article from Ain’t It Cool News.

I just got off the phone with RED DAWN producer Tripp Vinson, who is understandably concerned with the reaction to yesterday’s LA Times article in which it was revealed that the film’s invading force would now, via digital trickery, hail from North Korea instead of China. I know Vinson and the rest of the team behind the RED DAWN remake have been incredibly frustrated with their film getting shelved for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with its quality. The simple fact of that matter is that MGM is bankrupt, and, as a result, could not release the movie as planned last November.

And now they’re getting criticized for digitally altering their villains in order to make the film more appealing to potential distributors.

While this is certainly a rare occurrence, Vinson believes the changes have actually made the film scarier and, perhaps, stronger. So he sent along this email to share with our readers…

I know there is a lot of interest and questions as to the changes announced regarding Red Dawn.

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Looks like Red Dawn is undergoing some big changes. Here’s hoping the studio will be happy after this and release the film…

China has become such an important market for U.S. entertainment companies that one studio has taken the extraordinary step of digitally altering a film to excise bad guys from the Communist nation lest the leadership in Beijing be offended.

When MGM decided a few years ago to remake “Red Dawn,” a 1984 Cold War drama about a bunch of American farm kids repelling a Soviet invasion, the studio needed new villains, since the U.S.S.R. had collapsed in 1991. The producers substituted Chinese aggressors for the Soviets and filmed the movie in Michigan in 2009.

But potential distributors are nervous about becoming associated with the finished film, concerned that doing so would harm their ability to do business with the rising Asian superpower, one of the fastest-growing and potentially most lucrative markets for American movies, not to mention other U.S. products.

As a result, the filmmakers now are digitally erasing Chinese flags and military symbols from “Red Dawn,” substituting dialogue and altering the film to depict much of the invading force as being from North Korea, an isolated country where American media companies have no dollars at stake.

The changes illustrate just how much sway China’s government has in the global entertainment industry, even without uttering a word of official protest. Although it’s unclear if anyone in China has seen “Red Dawn,” a leaked version of the script last year resulted in critical editorials in the Global Times, a communist party-controlled paper.

That followed postings of pictures on China’s popular Web portals Sina and Tiexue in late 2009 of the “Red Dawn” set showing actors posing as Chinese troops and mock propaganda posters of the U.S. Capitol building smashed by a hammer. The posts received tens of the thousands of views. “When does it come out?” read one Chinese comment. “There is no hope for theatrical screening [censorship], wait for pirated version.”

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It seems there is now more hope for the future of Red Dawn! After the news that MGM have received funding meaning the film may be able to be released, the very first promotional photo of the cast has found it’s way online today! In the photo we can see Isabel alongside other main cast members Chris Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki and Connor Cruise.

Seeing as MGM have only just been rescued, there is no release date for the film yet, but speculation is it will be in the Fall of this year.

What do you think about the photo? Are you excited that this film may get a release now? As always feel free to post a comment with your thoughts!

The future looks brighter for “Red Dawn,” the remake of the 1984 movie about teens defending the homeland filmed in the tri-county area in 2009 then shelved during the MGM bankruptcy.

MGM completed its restructuring with a $500 million line of credit from JPMorgan — a move seen as a vote of confidence for the storied studio’s prospects, namely the 23rd James Bond movie and back-to-back movies of “The Hobbit,” which begin shooting in New Zealand in February.

Beyond Bond and “The Hobbit,” the MGM slate is murky at best but the fresh funding is a ray of sunshine to all the locals who landed small roles in “Red Dawn” scenes filmed in Royal Oak, Mount Clemens, Pontiac and Detroit. They wonder if they made the final cut.

“This sounds very hopeful to me,” said Cindy LaFerle of Royal Oak, who was cast with her neighbors as captured families. “And, like all the extras who worked on this project, I can’t wait to finally see the film on the big screen.”

A huge thanks to the lovely Ida for pointing me in the direction of the video of Isabel on Sunrise earlier today! A typically soft-spoken Isabel talks about the differences between The Wedding Party and Transformers and Red Dawn, plus Home & Away, the paparazzi, and Adrian Grenier! Watch away …