August 2009 Archives

MAD MEN star Christina Hendricks will appear alongside Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel in the Warner Bros. flick LIFE AS WE KNOW IT.

The film follows two unattached adults whose worlds are turned upside down when their mutual best friends die in an accident and name them as caregivers of their orphaned daughter. Hendricks will portray the best friend to Heigl's and Duhamel's characters, according to Variety.

Greg Berlantin will direct from a script by Ian Deitchman and Kristin Rusk Robinson. Shooting kicks off in Atlanta this fall.

Martin Freeman and Mandy Moore are set to star in the new romantic comedy SWINGING WITH THE FINKELS for Kintop Pictures/Reliance and Starlight Films, so says The Hollywood Reporter.

The film will see the duo play husband and wife in the film. Jonathan Silverman and Melissa George play another married couple. Jerry Stiller also stars, according to the trade.

Jonathan Newman directs and writes, adapting the story from his short film SEX WITH THE FINKELS.

Steven Spielberg is to develop Michael Crichton's final novel PIRATE LATITUDES for the big-screen, according to USA Today. The story is an adveture set off the coast of Jamaica all of the way back in 1665.

Screenwriter David Koepp, who worked on Crichton's JURASSIC PARK and THE LOST WORLD screenplays, will script the new movie.

DreamWorks Studios describes the novel, set for release Nov. 24, as the story of "a daring plan to infiltrate Port Royal, one of the world's richest and most notorious cities, and raid a Spanish galleon filled with treasure."

There is no word as to whether Spielberg will direct the proposed feature.

Variety reports that Fox are bringing an updated version of the 1989 film HEATHERS to the small screen. 20 years on, the dark comedy will be adapted for TV by writer Mark Rizzo, with an assist from "Sex and the City" alum Jenny Bicks, according to the trade.

The original movie starred Christian Slater and Winona Ryder. The story revolved around Veronica (Ryder) as she navigates a clique of mean girls -- all named Heather -- and rebels after meeting J.D. (Slater), the new guy at school. Soon, the Heathers start "accidentally" dying at the hands of Veronica and J.D., who cover up the deaths by faking them as suicides.

All of the original characters from the original are said to be returning for the new project.

Variety reports the news that award-winning fimmaker Mike Leigh has started work on his next film, his first since the Academy Award nominated HAPPY GO LUCKY. The untitled film will star Imelda Staunton, Jim Broadbent and Philip Davis, according to the trade. David Bradley and Stuart McQuarrie will round out the cast.

The flick is shooting in London for the next nine weeks.

The Hollywood Reporter are reporting that Blake Lively has joined the cast of Ben Affleck's THE TOWN. The film is set up at Warner Bros. and already has Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall and Jeremy Renner amongst the cast. Affleck directs this adaptation of Chuck Hogan's novel Prince of Thieves.

The story follows a bank manager (Hall), the career criminal (Affleck) who stole more than her heart and the dedicated FBI agent (Hamm) trying to bust the crook and his gang, of which Renner is a part.

The trade adds that Chris Cooper is also in negotiations to join the ensemble cast

As we predicted last week, Quentin Tarantino's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS made a whole heap of money at the US box-office over three days, taking a huge $37m. Well, the Brad Pitt starring WWII movie did well in the UK two, easily topping the box-office for its first few days.

'Basterds' took three times as much as it's nearest rival, the big-screen version of the book THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE, which scored just under GBP1m (compared to IB's GBP3.5m). Positions three and four were made up by two animated fares in the form of G-FORCE and ALIENS IN THE ATTIC. HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE is a stayer too, making another GBP598,335, securing it the number five position.

All in GBP:

US singer and actor Chris Brown has been sentenced to 180 of community service following his admission to beating pop star Rihanna. Brown admitted the charge back in June.

The BBC reports:

The 20-year-old R&B star pleaded guilty in June to beating Rihanna, his former girlfriend, before the Grammy awards in Los Angeles in February.

The judge said Brown must do physical labour, not community service, and attend domestic violence counselling.

Brown must also stay at least 100 yards from Rihanna for the next five years.

More at the end of the link above.

BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD creator Mike Judge has suggested that he might be up to make a sequel to the duo's first big-screen outing.

Judge spoke to Collider:

"I like to keep the door open on Beavis and Butt-Head, because it's my favourite thing that I ever done. It's the thing I'm most proud of."

He added: "Another movie... the problem is it takes a year and half, two years, two and a half years - maybe - to do that right. And that's a pretty strong level of commitment. I'm going to look at that again. That comes up every three years."

According to Digital Spy, Disney and Pixar have registered a bunch of domain names online which may indicate the title of a forthcoming movie sequel. The film sequel in question is CARS 2, and the studio have registered cars2-worldgrandprix.com, cars2worldgrandprix.com, carsworldgrandprix.com and worldgrandprix-movie.com. So, will the title be CARS 2: WORLD GRAND PRIX?

Director John Lasseter has already announced the sequel, though not the title, and has said that the follow up, starring the vocal talents of Owen Wilson as Lightning McQueen, will be a road movie.

More news as and when.

Source: Digital Spy

WANTED helmer Timur Bekmambetov has revealed to MTV that he wants Angelina Jolie to come back for the sequel to the 2008 visual-fest. Odd, considering what happened to her.

The Russian director told MTV:

"If you remember from the first film, we have a recovery room with the baths of wax," Bekmambetov told MTV News. "We know how to do this, but it's still tough to do, because the bullet is inside her head."

"But there has to be a reason for her to come back... and we know the reason," he added. "I think we found the reason for her to come back."

The sequel is apparently set to start shoothing this winter.

Source: MTV

Variety are reporting that Susan Sarandon is to play the mother to Shia Labeouf's character in WALL STREET 2: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS, the sequel to the 1980's classic, which will be directed by Oliver Stone.

The film revolves around a young Wall Street trader (Shia LaBeouf) who falls under the seductive influence of Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). Frank Langella also stars in the film, which is set up at 20th Century Fox.

Source: Variety

The word over at Aint It Cool News is that Warner Bros. and director Christopher Nolan already have plans for a follow up to THE DARK KNIGHT, and plan to make the third film in the franchise in entirely in the IMAX format.

The THIRD chapter of Christopher Nolan's Caped Crusader's saga could very well be FULLY shot in IMAX, not IMAX Digital - but the beautiful, stunning IMAX that we saw pieces of THE DARK KNIGHT in.

Now this is something that I'm sure a lot of you will feel is a no-brainer. Nolan blew us away with the IMAX sequences in that film - but it was a very tough process to work in. Mainly due to the limitations of how many available real IMAX rigs there are. Not only that, but lenses had to be created, adapted and god forbid one broke down. Part of the reason that Nolan went forward with INCEPTION first - besides taking a creative break from the cape and cowl adventures... was possibly to create a few new IMAX cameras made to his specs. Once again - the cost of shooting an entire feature film on IMAX... the stock, the time it takes to reset, to load, to move the cameras... Well... it is daunting, but as Nolan proved with DARK KNIGHT - the difference is stunning.

More at the end of the link.

Source:Ain't It Cool News

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Ericson Core will direct the third film in the XXX franchise, XXX: THE RETURN OF XANDER CAGE.

Core is a director of photography turned helmer and has worked on films like the Vin Diesel starrer THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS. Diesel will reprise the role of Cage for the third film in the hit series after skipping the second flick XXX: STATE OF THE UNION, which starred Ice Cube in a different role. John Brancato and Michael Ferris (TERMINATIOR: SALVATION) wrote XXX 3. Neal Moritz and Joe Roth are producing.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

• Galactopedia
• Historical Documents: The Story of Galaxy Quest
• Never Give Up. Never Surrender: The Intrepid Crew of the NSEA Protector
• By Grabthar's Hammer, What Amazing Effects
• Alien School - Creating the Thermian Race
• Actors in Space
• Sigourney Weaver Raps
• Deleted Scenes
• Thermian Audio Track
• Theatrical Trailer HD

Willis tells MTV that he hasn't filmed the scene yet, and that he's still "waiting for a call from Sly about when we're going to try and make that happen." And while he has yet to read any script pages, Willis was able to confirm that the cameo appearance involves sharing the screen with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stallone.

• English and French 5.1
• Spanish 5.1 (Blu-ray only)
• English and French subtitles
• Commentary with Director Tony Scott
• Commentary with Writer Brian Helgeland and Producer Todd Black
• No Time to Lose: The Making of Pelham 123
• The Third Rail: New York Underground
• Marketing Pelham
• From the Top Down: Stylizing Character
• Cinechat (Blu-ray only)

Warner Brothers are remaking the classic Richard Pryor movie BREWSTER'S MILLIONS, and have hired Michael Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan to write it.

The film will actually be based on the original source material, the 1902 novel George Barr McCutcheon. The book first became a play back in 1906, and has been turned into a film no less than seven times, the 1985 Pryor comedy being one of them.

The story centers on a man who inherits $1 million from a rich grandfather. When a rich uncle who hated the grandfather also passes away, the will leaves the young man $7 million -- but under the condition he spends the grandfather's million within a year and not end up with any assets from the spending spree.

The new version revolves around two friends who form a justice league of comic geeks to plan and execute a daring heist at Comic-Con in order to save their beloved neighborhood comic shop from the clutches of an evil corporate takeover.

More at THR. 

Here's one that has literally come from nowhere. It seems that Guy Ritchie is/has brought on his SNATCH main man Brad Pitt to star as the villian Professor James Moriarty in his Warner Brothers based SHERLOCK HOLMES movie.

Britain's Daily Mirror reports:

"It was an oversight in the film not to make a bigger deal about Moriarty. He is mentioned as Holmes' arch enemy, but the bosses wanted Guy to make more of him," a source told the newspaper.

"Jude Law (who plays Dr Watson) and Robert Downey Jr (Holmes) have already shot their scenes. But now that 10 extra days have been added to shoot the new ones, they may be called back for a day or two."

The Hollywood Reporter are saying that the Wayans brothers are planning a sequel to their hit comedy WHITE CHICKS.

The trade says that Marlon and Shawn Wayans reprise their roles as sibling FBI agents posing as a pair of white ladies.

Keenen Ivory Wayans, another sibling is on board to direct the sequel, which all three Wayans are writing.

• English, French and Spanish language options
• Set Antics: Outtakes and Other Absurdities From The Proposal - Bloopers and light moments on set with the cast and crew of The Proposal
• Deleted Scenes
• Audio Commentary by director Anne Fletcher and writer Peter Chiarelli
• Alternate Ending

If you look up "1990s" in the dictionary, Go might be the movie pictured there. With its story of a particular party culture, it just screams "Nineties" to me - or at least "second half of the Nineties". Whether or not it still holds up a decade later remains to be seen.

To stave off eviction, Ronna (Sarah Polley) works shift after shift as a grocery clerk. To make money, she picks up more time from Simon (Desmond Askew); he wants the time off to make his first-ever visit to Vegas. Adam (Scott Wolf) and Zack (Jay Mohr) needs drugs for an all-night rave, and they usually get their supplies from Simon.

"Between meals on set, I'd eat a No. 1 Value Meal at McDonald's and then Doritos on top of it. It was absolute heaven."

The horror website Bloody-Disgusting is reporting that Iron Man himself Robert Downey Jr. is to play the vampire Lestat in a re-jig of Anne Rice's novels. The novel INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE was mane into a 1994 film with Tom Cruise in the Lestat Du Lioncort role, but it seems that the slightly, more junior actor Downey will play the charming throat-biter in a new movie.

Universal plan to reboot the series with a new film. The books in the series are "Interview With The Vampire," "The Vampire Lestat," "The Queen of the Damned," "The Tale of the Body Thief," "Memnoch the Devil," "The Vampire Armand," "Pandora," "Merrick," "Blood and Gold," "Blackwood Farm" and "Blood Canticle."

Stuart Townsend play Lestat in the 2002 movie version of THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED

More here.

• English 5.1
• English and Hindi subtitles
• Audio Commentary
• Making of
• Deleted Scenes
• Bloopers
• TV Spots (x4)
• Stills Gallery & Pre-Production Gallery

Some scenes in the film will offer select sequences in 3-D. The film will hit cinemas on October 30. Hit the link for more.

QUESTION: Which of these films did Vinnie Jones star in as Bullet Tooth Tony?

a) LOCK STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS
b) SNATCH
c) MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN.

• 1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year is a fascinating tribute to a year considered to be one of Hollywood's greatest. This documentary, narrated by Kenneth Branagh, had its on-air premiere in July as part of TCM's month-long festival saluting that year's 'bumper-crop' of films.
• Gone with the Wind: The Legend Lives On is an exploration of the legacy of this most beloved film through illuminating interviews, footage and visits to historical sites, events and museums.
• Moviola: The Scarlett O'Hara Wars -- a 1980 WBTV Special, never before seen on home video.

"It's been a secret for too long. In 1996 Michael asked me if I would give him my sperm and I said yes.

"It was a gift to him, no money was paid, it was something I was honoured to do. He wanted children so badly." He added.

"He realised having kids was a natural thing but that he just couldn't do it. I think he'd already tried using his own sperm but it hadn't worked, so I made an off-the-cuff comment saying, 'Try mine!'"

Lester said the resemblance between his own daughter Harriet, 15, and Paris has been also been noted.

Every year, Lionsgate gets the blood pumping for its new SAW film with the SAW "Give 'Til It Hurts" blood drive, benefiting the Red Cross. As part of that tradition, the studio produces an ad campaign starring the SAW nurse, a sexy sister of dubious mercy who wants your blood.

This year's ad campaign was created by Ignition Print and was photographed by Co-President of Marketing Tim Palen... and it's the wildest yet with the SAW nurse sporting a uniform you won't see at just any old doctor's office. That's because it's designed by the downtown NY fashion darlings The Blonds, the corset kings who have outfitted the likes of Beyonce, Katy Perry and Rihanna.

IESB has learned exclusively (believe me this is solid and I've confirmed it three times over with studio executives and our close ties to CAA) that one of the biggest producers in Hollywood history is currently in active negotiations to develop the feature film adaptation and no it's not Jerry Bruckheimer or Peter Jackson. It's the man behind Jaws, E.T., Indiana Jones and Transformers, Mr. Steven Spielberg.

Spielberg is blown away by writer Stuart Beattie's take on the game in his script entitled HALO THE FALL OF REACH. This coupled with the fact that his Dreamworks umbrella is looking for a big tent pole to help launch their newly independant studio with distribution over at Walt Disney Pictures after losing Transformers to Paramount in the separation, it's the perfect combination.

"My approach to 3-D is in a way quite conservative," he said. "We're making a two-and-a-half-hour-plus film and don't want to assault the eye every five seconds. I want it to be comfortable.

"I want you to forget after a few minutes that you are really watching 3-D and just have it operate at a subliminal, subconscious level. That's the key to great 3-D, and it makes the audience feel like real participants in what's going on."

Moments after the sudden landing, Kutcher reported the incident on Twitter, writing, "My plane just had to do an emergency landing. Engine over heated. Fire engines everywhere good times." He later posted an update saying he was "happy to be alive" and adding that he wanted to celebrate at the Turtle Bay Bar.

Police spokesman Richard French says the 47-year-old actor was arrested Wednesday night in the downtown area. French did not have details of the incident.

French said Sizemore remained jailed Thursday morning. His bail was set at $20,000.

Sizemore couldn't immediately be reached for comment. Representatives for two agencies listed as representing Sizemore said they no longer did so.

More here.