/Film

Saoirse Ronan Will Lead Disney’s ‘The Order of the Seven,’ Formerly ‘Snow and the Seven’

Russ Fischer — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:26:19 +0000

For quite some time, Disney has been developing a new live-action version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in which the old story would get a fairly modern makeover. Michael Chabon wrote the initial version, but the film has been tweaked a few times over the past decade with directors as disparate as Yuen Wo-ping and Francis Lawrence attached at different times.

Then something happened. Or, really, two somethings happened, as Universal and Relativity Media beat Disney to the punch with Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror, Mirror, both of which are set to open this year. Two live-action Snow White re-tellings is goofy enough, and adding a third would strain audience interest like crazy.

So the Disney movie, which has had various titles over the years (most commonly Snow and the Seven) has been reworked again to eliminate all overt Snow White ties. What’s left is The Order of the Seven, a martial arts action film centered around a young heroine. Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones, Hanna) is in talks to take that lead role.

Variety offers a description of the new storyline in The Order of the Seven:

Ronan would play Olivia Sinclair, a British expat in 19th century Hong Kong, who seeks the protection of a centuries old group of warriors, now a jaded group of outlaws. After the reemergence of an ancient evil empress, Sinclair helps the warriors reclaim their destiny and noble roots.

Those who’ve been keeping up with current trends in film financing and global sales will probably already have made a certain assumption based on that synopsis: there are roles in this film for Chinese actors, which will help the film sell in China.

In fact, says Variety, there are roles for Chinese, Russian and Japanese actors, and Disney wants well-known stars from those countries to help fill out the film’s “global team of heroes.” Here’s the synopsis we got last year, which might shed some light on what we can expect:

The seven are a 19th century-set disparate band of international warriors belonging to a centuries-old order who have lost their way. Their meeting with an Englishwoman being chased by an ancient evil is the catalyst for their redemption. While the project is set in China, the warriors will be from locales near (the U.S.) and far (Russia), and each warrior will have a unique fighting style.

The film will ideally shoot this fall under the direction of Michael Gracey, a commercial director and visual effects supervisor who gets to make his feature debut here. Jayson Rothwell and Michael DeBruyn wrote the current draft.

Zombie Romance ‘Warm Bodies’ Pushed From Summer to February 2013

Russ Fischer — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:00:08 +0000

If you have any spare sympathy cards lying around, might want to address one to Nicholas Hoult. The actor had a good turn last year in X-Men: First Class, and had two films set to release in 2012: Jack the Giant Killer and Warm Bodies. But last month Jack was pushed to March 2013, and now Warm Bodies has been pushed from August 10 of this year to February 1 of 2013.

Is that move actually a bad thing? There is currently no competition on the new 2013 date, and mid to late August has been more of a dumping ground in the past few years than has January or February.

In Warm Bodies Hoult plays “an unusual zombie who rescues a girl from imminent death at the hands of his cohorts and their unlikely romance setting in motion a chain of events that will transform him, his fellow dead, and maybe even the whole lifeless world.” It’s the sort of film that could need help finding an audience.

A good showing from Jack the Giant Killer might have given it an assist, as it would have raised Hoult’s profile. But now that Warm Bodies has to open before Jack, that August date could have seen it suffering from the movie fatigue that seems to hit audiences at the end of July. It might have a much better chance in February. This is a Summit release, and the recent Lionsgate purchase of that studio could have something to do with the move, too.

Jonathan Levine (The Wackness, 50/50, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) directed Warm Bodies. The header image above is one of the few images we’ve seen from the film so far. [Variety]

Gallery: ‘Batman’ Directed By Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Ang Lee, Guillermo Del Toro, Brad Bird and More

Germain Lussier — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:30:05 +0000

We all know that after The Dark Knight Rises on July 20, Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale will officially hang up the cowl. We also know Warner Bros. is going to continue making Batman movies without them. So what happens after Nolan’s trilogy ends? Who will be chosen to continue the legacy?

The Los Angeles Times Hero Complex had some fun with that idea, commissioning graphic artist Sean Hartter to design 15 different visions of a new Batman by some of the finest filmmakers in the world.

After the jump, check out posters for all kinds of different Batman films directed by Matthew Vaughn, Todd Phillips, Wes Anderson, Rob Marshall, Brad Bird, Guillermo del Toro, Ang Lee, Catherine Hardwicke, Guy Ritchie, Martin Scorsese, Hayao Miyazaki, Neill Blomkamp, Tim Burton, Zack Snyder and Ridley Scott.

Thanks to the Hero Complex for all of these images. Below, we’ll provide links to write ups explaining the thinking behind each one.

Some of the best things about these posters are the casting in each. Make sure you click and see which actors got chosen for what roles.

And to explain, here are the links to each set of images:

Matthew Vaughn’s “Batman: Mad City”; Todd Phillips’“Dude, Where’s My Batmobile?”; Wes Anderson’s “Alfred Pennyworth: The Life Nocturnal”

Rob Marshall’s “Gotham!”; Brad Bird’s “Mr. Freeze’s Icy Revenge”; Guillermo del Toro’s “Batman”

Ang Lee’s “Wayne Manor”; Catherine Hardwicke’s “Batman: Moonlight”; Guy Ritchie’s “Gotham by Gaslight”

Martin Scorsese’s “Batman: Caped Fear”; Hayao Miyazaki’s “Batmite”; Neill Blomkamp’s “Batman: Arkham City”

Tim Burton’s “The Dark Knight Returns”; Zack Snyder’s “World’s Finest”; Ridley Scott’s “Batman Beyond”

I think they odds are small that any of these filmmakers will actually be the one to redo Batman in the coming years. Each probably just has way too much going on and too much to lose. But, if I was able to choose one to see, my top three would be Burton’s Dark Knight Returns, Scott’s Batman Beyond and Ritchie’s Gotham by Gaslight. From those, I honestly just think the Batman Beyond movie would be the most interesting to see.

What do you think?

Page 2: X-Men, The Big Lebowski 2, Kevin Smith, Lost, Smallville, Rango, Superman, Elton John

Ty Burrell Joins ‘Switch,’ the ‘Jackie Brown’ Prequel

Russ Fischer — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:00:03 +0000

Ty Burrell has had a pretty great career trajectory: he went from being a bit player in Black Hawk Down to (very effectively) acting like a total dickhead in Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake to being a core part of one of the most praised shows on TV, Modern Family.

Now the recent Emmy winner will be in Dan Schechter‘s Switch, which is effectively a prequel to Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown.

Switch, which is based on the novel of the same name by Elmore Leonard, was announced a couple years back, but casting just began in the past few days. The story follows Louis Gara and Ordell Robbie, played in Jackie Brown by Robert De Niro and Samuel L. Jackson.

In Switch, however, the roles will be played by John Hawkes and Yasiin Bey (nee Mos Def) and in this story they aim to kidnap Mickey Dawson, “the wife of a corrupt Detroit real estate developer. When the husband refuses to pay the ransom for his wife’s return, the ex-cons are forced to re-conceive their plan, and the angry housewife uses the duo to get her revenge.”

Variety says Ty Burrell will play Marshall Taylor, “a married country club member who harbors a crush on Mickey and spends most of the film in a moral dilemma after witnessing her kidnapping.”

There’s no casting announcement yet for Mickey Dawson,but we can expect to hear something pretty soon.

You’ll see Ty Burrell next month in Butter (pictured above), which has been done for a while but has taken some time to get to theaters. He’s also in Goats, which just premiered at Sundance.

Transformers 3 Visual Effects Artistry Deconstructed

Peter Sciretta — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:30:47 +0000

It’s easy for some to completely write of Transformers: Dark of the Moon as a forgettable Summer big budget blockbuster, but I think it would be wrong to overlook the technical achievements of some of the awesome action sequences.

ILM and Digital Domain have both released videos breaking down all the work that went into the action you saw on screen. You might be surprised to find out that Optimus Prime, Autobots and Decpticons weren’t the only CG additions in the film. Whole real-world environments and complete shots were created within the computer – buildings, vehicles, bridges, skyscrapers, cities and planets.

For me, these visual effect breakdown videos are the closest thing we have these days to the “Movie Magic” specials from my childhood. While I agree those were more fun, and nothing will beat the magic of practical effects done right, its still fun to get a look behind the curtain and see how the magic was constructed. Watch the videos embedded after the jump.

ILM:

Digital Domain:

via: TLAMB

The Tobolowsky Files Ep. 54 – The Long Road to Somewhere Else

David Chen — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:00:09 +0000

The conclusion of the heart story trilogy. Stephen finds the missing time from the recovery room. It comes with a message he didn’t expect and will never forget.

Come see The Tobolowsky Files LIVE in New York and Boston!

The Tobolowsky Files is a podcast from the people who brought you the /Filmcast, featuring a series of stories about life, love, and the entertainment industry, as told by legendary character actor Stephen Tobolowsky. You can buy Stephen’s new story (EXCLUSIVE to the e-book format) by going to stephentobolowsky.com and you can e-mail Stephen at stephentobolowsky(AT)gmail(DOT)com.

Download or Play Now in your Browser:

Subscribe to The Tobolowsky Files:

Superhero Bits: The Dark Knight Rises, Youngblood, V for Vendetta, The Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man

Germain Lussier — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:00:04 +0000

What does Dark Knight Rises star Tom Hardy think of all the Bane mumbling memes? Will we ever see a Youngblood movie? Want to read Gary Oldman‘s cryptic description of a scene in The Dark Knight Rises? What’s the deal with Marvel, Ghost Rider and lawsuits? Is there a connection between Beyond Watchmen and a famous Internet photo? Has Alan Moore embraced the real life symbolism from V for Vendetta? Read about all this and more in today’s Superhero Bits.

Tom Hardy spoke to MTV about Bane’s voice in The Dark Knight Rises. He’s not worried and has watched some of the jokey videos about it.

Gary Oldman was at a Q&A (via Collider) and hinted at a very emotional Alfred scene in The Dark Knight Rises:

Watching Michael Caine work, as Alfred, was a great lesson for me. Just focus, concentration. He has this emotional scene. I’m kidding you not. It was tears and the whole thing. And it’s ‘Take 1.’ (Oldman snaps his fingers) He got it. ‘Take 2? (snaps his fingers again), Got it. Take 3 (snaps his fingers) Got it. He’s just on the money. Every single time. It’s just extraordinary… You get inspired by it.

The Avengers are at Toy Fair. Thanks to Marvelous News (via Comic Book Movie).

Gamma Squad lists 5 Reasons Boycotting The Avengers is Pointless. And they’re right.

These Avengers mugs are currently on sale on the Disney site. Thanks to Thats Nerdalicious.

Smallville Season 11 is coming to comics, as announced yesterday, and What Culture has listed 10 things they’d like to see.

The art by Mike Deodato Jr. shows Marvel characters taking down a Sentinel. Thanks to Geek Tyrant.

In a surprising and upsetting legal turn of events, Marvel is ordering Gary Friedrich to pay them $17,000 to acknowledge that he created Ghost Rider. He’s the one suing them over ownership. Read the full story at Movies.com or the legalese at DannyBoy.

Continue Reading Superhero Bits >>

Due to the amount of graphics and images included in Superhero Bits, we have to split this post over THREE pages. Click the link above to continue to the second page of Superhero Bits.

Patton Oswalt Will Spice Up Ben Stiller’s ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’

Russ Fischer — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:30:55 +0000

I’ve really enjoyed watching the rise of Patton Oswalt as an actor. His early stand-up remains hugely entertaining (as is his recent comedy), but his legit acting work has been improving massively since his early role on The King of Queens. I still dig his leading performance in Big Fan, and his work in Jason Reitman’s Young Adult is one of the best supporting roles of 2011.

It’s a shame Oswalt didn’t score an Oscar nomination for Young Adult, but we can take heart in the knowledge that filmmakers saw his work, and he’ll likely be in more movies as a result. The next film role looks like it will be in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which Ben Stiller will direct and star in.

Walter Mitty is a photo editor at LIFE magazine who daydreams his way out of his life; Kristen Wiig plays the co-worker he has a thing for, and Shirley MacLaine is Mitty’s mom.

Now Patton Oswalt is in talks to play Todd, “a friendly eHarmony counselor who helps the protag create an online dating profile.”

There is no shortage of material for Oswalt to work with in a role like that. He likely won’t be on screen much, but I’d be willing to bet that his scenes will be some of the films funnier moments. He’s also in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, the trailer for which just hit yesterday, and will be in the Stephen Sommers Dean Koontz adaptation Odd Thomas and Todd Rohal’s new comedy as well. [Variety]

Chris O’Dowd, Aidan Gillen Join Brendan Gleeson in ‘The Calvalry,’ From Director of ‘The Guard’

Russ Fischer — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:30:10 +0000

The Guard, starring Brendon Gleeson and Don Cheadle, became a tidy little art-house hit last year, and director John Michael McDonagh is planning his next film, called The Calvary.

The movie is set to shoot this September, and has distribution sales going on in Berlin right now. The film brings Gleeson and McDonagh back together, and is now adding Chris O’Dowd and Aidan Gillen, with Kelly Reilly and David Wilmot joining as well.

Variety says the film is set on the Irish coast, in Sligo, and is “a dark comedic drama about a good priest (Gleeson) being tormented by his community. The priest is told in the confessional that somebody is going to kill him within a week.”

That’s a great premise, especially with Gleeson as the priest.

Chris O’Dowd had been building a nice little career, and was probably best known for his work on The IT Crowd, before blowing up thanks to Bridesmaids. Now he’s got a couple new films in the can (Hippie Hippie Shake and Frankie Go Boom) and Judd Apatow’s This is 40 in post-production.

Aidan Gillen, meanwhile, had probably his best-known role as Thomas ‘Tommy’ Carcetti in The Wire, and as of late has been playing Petyr Baelish in Game of Thrones. He’s also got a small part in one of this year’s smaller movies, The Dark Knight Rises.

And Now Russell Crowe is Linked to Jaume Collet-Serra’s ‘Dracula’ Retelling ‘Harker’

Russ Fischer — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:00:46 +0000

Briefly: I don’t know what Russell Crowe‘s agent is doing, but it is working. Casting news and rumors have been thick of late for the actor. Though he said the report of MGM looking at him for RoboCop was untrue, there is still the matter of Crowe being in talks for Darren Aronofsky’s Noah and Akiva Goldsman’s adaptation of the Mark Helperin novel Winter’s Tale. He’s also playing Inspector Javert in Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables.

And now Crowe is also reportedly in talks with Warner Bros. to take a starring role in Harker, the Dracula retelling that Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan) is developing to direct.

Vulture says that WB wants Collet-Serra to do Harker and then possibly a version of Akira made with a reduced budget.

Harker, written by Lee Shipman and Brian McGreevy, follows an altered version of Bram Stoker’s character Jonathan Harker, who is revamped as a Scotland Yard detective following Dracula’s murders on English shores.

This is one of those weird situations where the basic concept of the film sounds mostly unappealing, but I like Crowe and can see him being fun to watch in this role. Given how much he’s got going on this seems like a longshot anyway, but we’ll keep tabs on it. Crowe’s own Twitter feed is probably the place to look for quick updates; that’s where the RoboCop denial came from.

Lionsgate Will Film More ‘Twilight’ if Stephenie Meyer Writes a Fifth Book

Russ Fischer — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:30:31 +0000

When Lionsgate bought Summit Entertainment a couple weeks back — or when Lionsgate bought Twilight, I might say to be more direct — Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer said he would like to continue Twilight, either on film or television.

Now, during a conference call to report Lionsgate’s third quarter earnings for 2011, Rob Friedman, the co-chair of the studio’s motion picture group, says they’re ready to make a sixth Twilight film if Stephenie Meyer will write another book.

THR reports that Friedman said,

If she (Meyer) wishes to do it, we’ll be there to support her.

If this was a J.K Rowling series they were talking about, the author would probably be able to silence the talk with little more than a withering glance. But Stephenie Meyer doesn’t seem to be so dedicated to a full-stop end for her signature series. In 2009 she left the door open for another book:

I am a little burned out on vampires right now. I think I need a little break. I might go spend some time with my aliens. I might do something completely different. I’ve got to cleanse the palate. I may come back to it. I did envision it as a longer series. But I wrapped Breaking Dawn in a way that I felt satisfied with, so if that moment didn’t come, I’d be okay.

A few years ago Meyer was writing a fifth book, Midnight Sun, which was actually a rewrite of the first Twilight novel from the perspective of Edward Cullen. She quit writing that book in 2008 when the first twelve chapters of the unfinished novel were leaked online. She said,

If I tried to write Midnight Sun now, in my current frame of mind, James would probably win and all the Cullens would die, which wouldn’t dovetail too well with the original story. In any case, I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on Midnight Sun, and so it is on hold indefinitely.

At that point she also said that she wanted to leave the book alone for a couple years, and perhaps go back to finish it when it seemed like people had forgotten about it. Given the continued popularity of Twilight, that forgetting doesn’t seem very likely.

The DVD and Blu-ray release of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 take place late tonight, and a trailer for Breaking Dawn Part 2 will premiere in front of The Hunger Games when that film opens on March 23.

‘Brotherhood of the Wolf’ Director to Make ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Starring Vincent Cassel and Lea Seydoux

Russ Fischer — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:00:14 +0000

Just over ten years ago, French director Christophe Gans got a lot of attention for helping raise global awareness of Monica Bellucci when he cast her in his movie The Brotherhood of the Wolf, inspired by centuries-old stories of beasts raiding the French countryside. He has only made one film since: Silent Hill, which received a much more chilly reception than did Brotherhood.

Now Gans is one of several people trying to revive the classic story of Beauty and the Beast. We’ve just seen the 3D re-release of Disney’s version, and there was the horrible tween take called Beastly released last year. Two new TV version are in the works, at ABC and the CW. Now Gans has written and will direct his own, starring Vincent Cassel (The Brotherhood of the Wolf) and Lea Seydoux (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol).

Variety says the French-language film is based on “one of the earliest published variants of the traditional fairy tale.” Clarification shouldn’t be necessary, but Cassel will be the beast and Seydoux the beauty in Gans’ version.

The film will shoot in October, and distribution for many markets is being sold at the European Film Market going on now at the Berlin Film Festival. No US distribution is set at this point, but that could change very quickly.

Gans said of his plans,

With this picture, I want to unleash my imagination. Although I will keep to a form of storytelling of this timeless fairy tale that is in keeping with the same pace and characters as the original, I will surprise the audience by creating a completely new visual universe never experienced before and produce images of an unparalleled quality. Every single one of my movies has presented me with a challenge but this one is, by far, the most exciting and rewarding.

Well, alright, then. Sounds like he’s ready to directly challenge the famed, gorgeous and strange 1946 film version directed by Jean Cocteau, or at least take real inspiration from it.

The Best WWII Movies You Probably Haven’t Seen

Jordan Hoffman — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:30:07 +0000

This friday Agnieszka Holland’s In Darkness opens in New York and Los Angeles. It ought to have a decent run at art houses in select cities after that, particularly if it wins the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year. (If anything is poised to upset A Separation, it’s this one.)

In In Darkness, Holland, director of Europa, Europa and a few key episodes of The Wire, tells a fascinating true story of a group of Polish Jews who survived for over one year in a city’s sewer system. In the press notes she commented that, just when we thought we’d heard all the World War II stories, she discovered this one. It got me thinking that, yes, not only are there a number of great World War II stories out there that haven’t been told, there are already so many that deserve to be rediscovered by a new audience.

So, with that, let’s set the way-back machine to the madness of mid-century and check out some tremendous art that grew from tragedy.

The Grey Zone (2001); Tim Blake Nelson, director

We’ll kick this one off with one of the most depressing and difficult to watch movies I’ve ever seen.

For those that felt Schindler’s List candy-coated the horrors of the Nazi extermination camps, I offer The Grey Zone. No narrative film has more directly detailed the functions and living conditions at Auschwitz as Tim Blake Nelson’s story of a rebellious group of Sonderkommando. The Sonderkommando, if you don’t know, were the groups of healthy, young Jews who were kept alive and forced to aid the the machinery of death at the camp. Yeah, pretty bleak stuff.

The story of this impossible revolt (and there were others – check out Jean-Francois Steiner’s book Treblinka for a similar tale) is a fascinating portrait of bravery in the face of insurmountable odds and absolute evil.

Hope and Glory (1987); John Boorman, director

Okay, we need to lighten up a little bit, and quick.

Hope and Glory is told from the point of view of a ten year old boy who, despite a vague understanding of distant suffering, thinks World War II is the greatest thing that ever happened to him. School is constantly cancelled, the London blitz offers new destroyed houses to stomp around in and he gets to spend some nights sleeping in the subway station.

It’s hard to make the war seem fun without being flip but Boorman’s quasi-autobiographical tale does the trick. It features a wide and wonderful cast of characters, the full tapestry of British society that held that country together. Among my favorites, the men rejected by the fighting army but relegated to the secretarial pool, puffing their chests and reminding themselves that “we’re typing for England!”

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946); William Wyler, director

After the bullets fly and the flags are planted, the war still rages within the minds of the men who fought it.

Best Picture winner The Best Years of Our Lives was one of the first American films that showed the psychological damage done not only on the battlefield, but on the homefront as well.

Three men of different social classes meet after the war on their way back to a fictional midwestern city. Each finds it difficult to reintegrate into their previous lives. There’s drinking, flashbacks, marital regret, love affairs and adjustments to physical handicaps. The Best Years of Our Lives is basically soap opera, but it is striking to see such issues framed in the conventions of 1940s cinema.

The Best Years of Our Lives won a whole slew of awards, including a Best Supporting nod for “non-actor” Harold Russell, a war veteran who lost both of his hands. Don’t judge this movie too harshly by the clip shown above (one of the few I could find.) Once you get into it, it really is quite good.

Stalingrad (1993); Joseph Vilsmaier, director

Okay, back to the action.

It was Wolfgang Peterson’s 1981 masterpiece Das Boot that made it “okay” to root for Germans in a World War II film provided that a) we were on the side of simple soldiers caught up in the larger machinations of war and b) lots of Germans died. Stalingrad takes this formula and runs it head-on into the ice cold hell that was the Battle of Stalingrad.

Joseph Vilsmaier’s epic features sieges, tank battles, the horrors of penal colonies, assaults on civilians, survivalism and an examination of loyalty versus common sense. There were 260,000 men in Germany’s 6th Army who went to Stalingrad. 6000 returned.

Continue Reading The Best WWII Movies You Probably Haven’t Seen

Page 2: Banksy, Simpsons, Orson Welles, William Shatner, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Dinosaurs, Jean Dujardin, Real Steel, Wes Anderson, Hobbit, Drive, Aliens, Harry Potter, Simon Pegg

Peter Sciretta — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:00:53 +0000

What is Page 2? Page 2 is a compilation of stories and news tidbits, which for whatever reason, didn’t make the front page of /Film. After the jump we’ve included 58 different items, fun images, videos, casting tidbits, articles of interest and more. It’s like a mystery grab bag of movie web related goodness. If you have any interesting items that we might’ve missed that you think should go in /Film’s Page 2 – email us!

Header Photo: Banksy does The Simpsons.

IFC lists the five Hammer Films-produced horror movies everyone should see.

Jeff Goldsmith tweeted this photo of an Orson Welles art piece on display at the Arclight, made out of “vintage newspaper articles about young savants, early radio theater, alien invasions, The Shadow, RKO Pictures, and being an Auteur and the Mercury Theatre.

Jordan Hoffman takes a look at the doctors of Star Trek.

Photo: William Shatner hanging out with Stan Lee.

Dave Perillo‘s Alice in Wonderland print is now on sale.

Edgar Wright on Eastbound & Down Season 3.

Grantland’s Robert Mays spent 48 hours in multiplex hell and lived to write about it: “Robert’s Excellent Dumpuary Adventure”

Today’s t-shirt of RIPT Apparel is a Indiana Jones/Star Wars-inspired design “Raiders of the Galactic Empire”

Jenna Fischer and Rita Wilson have joined the Indie Drama Kiss Me

Continue Reading Page 2 >>

No Related Post

Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Counselor’ is Next For Ridley Scott; Michael Fassbender May Take Lead

Russ Fischer — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:30:37 +0000

Cormac McCarthy is helping delay the production of the new Blade Runner film. The author recently sold a spec screenplay called The Counselor, about a respected lawyer who tries to get into the drug trade without being completely pulled in, but quickly finds that he’s out of his depth.

The script sale led to the quick attachment of director Ridley Scott. (Who was trying to develop an adaptation of McCarthy’s novel Blood Meridian a couple years back.) Now it looks like The Counselor will be Scott’s next film, and Michael Fassbender could be in the title role.

Deadline reports that “The Counselor might well be traveling on the fastest track toward production of any film in recent memory.”

Ridley Scott often likes to do a lot of rewrite work on scripts before committing to production, but how much work is anyone going to do to a Cormac McCarthy script? It’s not that he’s perfect, but who’s going to rewrite McCarthy? Either you shoot what the guy put on the page, or not.

A May 1 start date could happen, and Deadline says “a group of top actors” has read the script and want to be part of it. While an offer hasn’t been made to Fassbender, his schedule is relatively open for the year, and I can’t see any objections to him being in the lead.

It’s worth revisiting what producer Steve Schwartz said about the script when the sale was announced:

Since McCarthy himself wrote the script, we get his own muscular prose directly, with its sexual obsessions. It’s a masculine world into which, unusually, two women intrude to play leading roles. McCarthy’s wit and humor in the dialogue make the nightmare even scarier. This may be one of McCarthy’s most disturbing and powerful works.

Sequel Bits: ‘Star Trek 2,’ ‘Machete Kills,’ ‘John Carter 2 and 3,’ ‘Indiana Jones 5′

Germain Lussier — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:00:12 +0000

The sequel news never stops and we’re here to report it all. After the jump, read more about the following:

Bruce Greenwood is happy with how Christopher Pike is being handled in Star Trek 2.
A teaser image for Robert Rodriguez‘s Machete Kills appeared at the European Film Market.
John Carter 2 was being written two years ago when John Carter was being shot.
George Lucas Says He Should Be Working On Indiana Jones 5.

Star Trek 2 is now filming so most of the stars are too busy to really comment on it. We’re sure to see some Chris Pine quotes soon with This Means War on the horizon, and Zoe Saldana talked a bit not long ago. Now Bruce Greenwood, who plays Admiral Pike in the sequel and stars in the ABC show The River, had this to say to Crave Online (via Trek Movie) after being asked: “Are you happy with the way Captain Pike is being handled?”

Of course, yeah. I’m really content with it so it’s a great script.

On the more violent side of things, the following piece of art was seen at the European Film Market where a ton of film news is being made. It’s a sales poster for Robert Rodriguez‘s sequel to Machete, Machete Kills, thanks to Coming Soon. We’ve heard it might start shooting in April:

Earlier today, Peter put up his reports from the set of John Carter. In case you didn’t read the full interview with director Andrew Stanton, revealed some interesting information on the development of John Carter 2 and 3. Remember, this was in 2010 and a lot has changed since then. 3D was added, post-production was long and costly, reshoots were done, marketing went into action, you name it. But, at the time, this was the plan:

We outlined three altogether. But the nice thing about not doing anything in tandem is that we can learn from the first and go, “oooH! I like that guy. I like that situation. Let’s see if we can tweak that into the second and third.” We’re constantly growing and constantly adapting. We’re trying to stay ahead of it. We’re writing the second right now while we’re working on the first…

There will surely be more information on these films in the coming weeks, especially when we see if John Carter is a hit or not.

And, finally, as if to pour salt in the wound, in the controversial interview George Lucas did with The Hollywood Reporter, he teased that he should have been working on Indiana Jones 5 instead of doing an interview. He was asked, “What’s the status of Indiana Jones 5? Steven Spielberg says he’s waiting to hear from you.”

I know, and I’m supposed to be working on it right now, but I’m talking to you instead. (Laughs)

Obviously, a joke, but the film is on his mind.

‘Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World’ Trailer and Poster: Steve Carell and Keira Knightley’s Apocalyptic, Romantic Comedy

Germain Lussier — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:49:01 +0000

You’ve just found out there are three weeks until the inevitable end of the world. What do you do? If your the characters played by Steve Carell and Keira Knightley in Focus’s upcoming romantic comedy, you fall in love looking for your loved ones. The film is called Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World and it’s written and directed by Lorene Scafaria, who wrote Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

In addition to the two leads, the star studded cast includes Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights), Adam Brody (The OC), Rob Corddry (Children’s Hospital), Rob Huebel (Human Giant), Gillian Jacobs (Community), Derek Luke (Antoine Fisher), Melanie Lynskey (Away We Go), T.J. Miller (Cloverfield), Patton Oswalt (Big Fan) and William Petersen (CSI). It’ll be released on June 22 and the trailer and poster has just come online.

Thanks to Yahoo Movies for the trailer.

I’ve gotta say, this trailer looks pretty damn solid. Great cast, interesting balance of drama, comedy and romance. If it’s all handled well, this could be something really special. Melancholia meets The 40 Year Old Virgin. Plus it’s rated R, which means it doesn’t pull any punches.

Here’s the official plot description and poster for the film.

Set in a too-near future, a man searches for a meaningful connection as humanity’s last days are at hand. Can he find his greatest love at the worst possible time? As the respective journeys of Dodge and Penny converge, the two spark to each other and their outlooks – if not the world’s – brighten.

Do you think Seeking a Friend for the End of the World has promise? Or will it get lost in the high powered Summer shuffle?

DreamWorks To Remake Alfred Hitchcock’s Only Best Picture Winner: ‘Rebecca’

Germain Lussier — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:00:30 +0000

Alfred Hitchcock‘s filmography reads like an all-time best of list: Psycho, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Notorious, The Birds, it goes on and on. But out of all of Hitchcock’s movies, only one received the Academy Award for Best Picture: 1940′s Rebecca. Hitchcock’s first American project, Rebecca featured Laurence Olivier as a widower whose new wife (Joan Fontaine) is overwhelmed by the spirit of his late wife, the title character. It was based on a 1938 book of the same name by Daphne du Maurier.

Now, DreamWorks and Working Title are planning to go back to the source material and remake the story with Steven Knight, who wrote Eastern Promises for David Cronenberg, hired to write the screenplay. Read more after the jump.

Variety broke the news of this deal, which almost make sense in a weird kind of way.

Hitchcock’s movies have, for the most part, been handled with kid gloves when it comes to remakes. Yes some of his lesser works got remade or reimagined, TV adapted a few here and there and even Gus Van Sant did Psycho but, for the most part, the true greats have been left untouched. Rebecca is certainly one of Hitchcock’s great films but, even with the Oscar win, is still kind of underrated. If you were a studio executive looking not to piss off film fans but also find a great, relatively unknown piece of art to rip off, Rebecca would be at the top of the list.

All that said, just go rent the original because it’s really fantastic.

Can you live with a film like Rebecca being remade? What about Knight – who also just adapted the Dan Brown novel The Lost Symbol – as the screenwriter?

‘Just Like Being There’ Trailer – Gig Poster Documentary Premieres at SXSW 2012

Germain Lussier — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:30:00 +0000

Maybe you’ve noticed over the past few years, but we here at /Film are fans of limited edition, pop culture art. This is evidenced by the copious amounts of posts we write on the subject, be it Mondo, Gallery 1988, Spoke Art or just some talented artist who does work portraying TV, movies or comics. And maybe you remember last year when we exclusively revealed that an in-production documentary on that subject was titled Just Like Being There. We even revealed some early, early footage.

That film, directed by Scout Shannon, has finally been completed and was accepted into South by Southwest 2012. However, as tends to be the case with any documentary, in the several months since we first wrote about it, the film’s focus has shifted a little. The music gig poster, while still a major part of it, also led the filmmakers to explore the current movie poster craze driven by the work by the aforementioned galleries and companies. So the crew ended up at several Mondo Mystery Movies, Gallery 1988 openings and even a certain /Film writer’s apartment to see his disgusting collection.

To that aim, they’ve cut a brand new trailer for the film and you can check it out after the jump.

Here’s the trailer for Just Like Being There.

And here’s the official synopsis:

In the gig poster community, artists such as Daniel Danger and Jay Ryan prove that creating this artwork is a way of life, more than just a career. These artists are at the forefront of an expansion of the gig poster genre. MONDO’s reinvigoration of “the film poster as an art form,” and Gallery 1988′s theme based exhibits are only two ways in which this artwork is reaching a greater public. In a community with strong roots, dating back to the 1960s, this expansion is controversial- refreshing to some, sacrilegious to others.

Though I was interviewed for Just Like Being There, I have yet to see the film and have no idea how it turned out. Considering it’s about a topic I’m passionate about, I have high hopes, but the real test will be if it’s a movie that can draw in the average audience member who doesn’t know Olly Moss or Daniel Danger from a homeless man sleeping on the side of the street.

We’ll have more on the film as SXSW draws nearer but, for now, what do you think of the trailer?

Jason Reitman’s LACMA ‘Reservoir Dogs’ Reading Will Feature All-Black Cast

Germain Lussier — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:43 +0000

Our apologies. Even if you live in Los Angeles, posting about Jason Reitman‘s awesome live readings at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is torture. The casts are so fantastic, the projects so good and yet it’s virtually impossible to go because they sell out so quickly. In fact, they sell-out weeks before the script or cast is even announced.

I was lucky enough to see The Princess Bride a few months back with Paul Rudd, Mindy Kaling, Patton Oswalt and returning cast members Cary Elwes and Fred Savage. Reitman has also done The Apartment with Natalie Portman and Steve Carell, The Breakfast Club with Aaron Paul and Jennifer Garner and more. It’s super-impressive.

The penultimate reading, long sold out, happens February 16 and it’s Quentin Tarantino‘s Reservoir Dogs. That by itself is insane. But instead of simply casting alternative famous people to play roles actors like Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi and Tim Roth made famous, Reitman and co-curator Elvis Mitchell decided to change the entire race of the project. They’ve selected an all-black cast. Read the list after the jump.

For Mr. Blonde, originally played by Michael Madsen, Reitman has cast Terrence Howard.
For Mr. Pink, originally played by Steve Buscemi, he’s cast Anthony Mackie.
For Mr. Orange, originally played by Tim Roth, he’s cast Cuba Gooding Jr.
For Nice Guy Eddie, originally played by Chris Penn, he’s cast Anthony Anderson.

And for Mr. White, originally played by Harvey Keitel, he’s cast…we don’t know yet. The Entertainment Weekly article leaves that role open for debate at this point, along with others like Mr. Brown (originally played by Tarantino), Joe, the cop Marvin Nash and the radio DJ originally voiced by Steven Wright. Odds are, Mr. White will be the biggest name of the bunch as Reitman likes to save one big name for last. My guess? Morgan Freeman.

If you live in Los Angeles, there will be a stand-by line for this but odds are it’ll start early and only a few of those people will get in. Head here for more info. Ahead head over to EW, who broke the news, to read Reitman’s quotes on the event.