the most anticipated...

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Actor/comedian Danny McBride ("Tropic Thunder," "Land of the Lost") and director Jody Hill are re-teaming for the comedy "L.A.P.I." for Rough House Pictures says Screen Daily.

McBride is expected to play an over the hill, hardboiled private investigator though other plot details are unknown. Michael Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan penned the script.

McBride and Hill previously teamed on "The Foot Fist Way", "Observe and Report" and the TV series "Eastbound & Down".

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Anchor Bay Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights to "Solitary Man," starring Michael Douglas, Susan Sarandon, Mary-Louise Parker and Danny DeVito.

Directed by Brian Koppelman, pic tells the story of a car magnate (Douglas) whose life goes into a tailspin because of business and romantic indiscretions.

Pic preemed in September at the Toronto Film Festival, where it played alongside the Coen brothers' "A Serious Man" and Tom Ford's "A Single Man."

"'Solitary Man' features Michael Douglas at his finest," said Anchor Bay prexy Bill Clark.

Deal was negotiated by Clark, senior VP of acquisitions Kevin Kasha annd Richard Turner of Anchor Bay. Avi Lerner and David Sobieraj for Nu Image also took part in the acquisition.

Recent releases for the distrib have included "Spread," starring Ashton Kutcher, Jeff Bridges starrer "The Open Road" and "Frozen," which bowed at Sundance and opened in limited release on Friday.

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Aussie hunk Sam Worthington ("Avatar," "Clash of the Titans") has signed on to star in Ami Canaan Mann's very dark thriller "The Fields" reports Production Weekly.

Based on a true story, Worthington would play a homicide detective from Texas investigating a strong of unsolved murders amidst the oil refineries in the state's south-east with the help of a peer from New York.

Mann's father, Michael Mann, is set to produce alongside Michael Jaffe. Don Ferrarone, a former DEA agent, penned the script.

Filming kicks off in early April in Louisiana.

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Kathryn Bigelow, Robert Rodriguez, and Tomas Alfredson have all apparently declined offers to direct Fox's "Caesar", their proposed upcoming reboot of the "Planet of the Apes" franchise reports Vulture.

The article indicates producer Peter Chernin has been having difficulty getting top-tier directors interested in the property. Yet with the studio intent on making the project, offers are still out.

The latest batch of candidates are somewhat less high-brow including Albert and Allen Hughes ("From Hell," "The Book of Eli"), Pierre Morel ("Taken, "From Paris with Love"), James McTeigue ("V for Vendetta," "Ninja Assassin"), Dennis Illiadis ("The Last House on the Left") and Scott Stewart ("Legion").

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William Fichtner ("Armageddon," "Contact") and Amber Heard ("The Stepfather," "Zombieland") are in talks to star in "Drive Angry 3D" reports Bloody Disgusting and Collider.

Nicolas Cage plays a man on a vendetta to kill the people responsible for his daughter's murder and granddaughter's kidnapping. His pursuit leaves bodies in his wake as his quest for vengeance comes closer to realisation.

Patrick Lussier directs from a script he co-wrote with Todd Farmer, the pair serving in essentially the same capacities they did on last year's "My Bloody Valentine".

Filming kicks off in Shreveport, Louisiana in March for release next February.

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Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Marion Cotillard are all close to joining Steven Soderbergh's viral outbreak thriller "Contagion" reports The Playlist.

Much like the helmer's "Traffic", the story follows numerous characters in multiple storylines across several continents with a global viral pandemic being the common element.

Scott Z. Burns ("The Bourne Ultimatum") penned the action thriller currently being shopped to studios. Filming kicks off in the Fall once Soderbergh finishes work on the ensemble spy thriller "Knockout".

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Amber Tamblyn is set to play the love interest of James Franco's Aron Ralston character in "127 Hours" for Fox Searchlight reports Deadline Hollywood.

Based on a true story, Ralston is a mountaineer who spent five days with his right forearm pinned under a boulder during a climb in May 2003 and had to use a dull knife to amputate the limb before scaling a wall and seeking rescue.

Tamblyn will appear as his girlfriend in flashbacks that inspire him to keep going. Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire") directs from a script by Simon Beaufoy. Filming kicking off next month in Utah.

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Sam Worthington has signed to star in "The Fields."

The "Avatar" star will play a Texas homicide detective who joins with a New York detective to investigate unsolved murders in the Texas bayous.

Ami Canaan Mann is set to direct the feature, to be produced by her father Michael Mann and Michael Jaffe for QED and Forward Pass Inc.

Don Ferrarone has written the screenplay, based on a true story.

QED founder Bill Block will be selling international rights at the upcoming European Film Market in Berlin.

CAA, which represents Michael Mann and Worthington, set up the project with QED, which is financing. QED and CAA are co-representing domestic rights.

Pre-production has already begun in Louisiana, with the project scheduled to start shooting in early April.

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J.J. Abrams will produce but NOT direct the upcoming fourth "Mission Impossible" according to a press release from Paramount Pictures.

The announcement confirms that Tom Cruise will return as star and producer on M:I-4 which will target a Memorial Day 2011 release. Bad Robot Productions and Skydance Productions will co-finance and produce.

Cruise and Abrams are currently in the process of selecting a director. Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec, who served as showrunners on the final few seasons of Abrams' "Alias" and the short-lived American "Life on Mars" remake, are attached to pen the script.

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Scribe Peter Briggs ("Hellboy") and producer Gary Kurtz ("Star Wars," "The Dark Crystal") are teaming for the supernatural war thriller "Panzer 88" reports Screen Daily.

Filming kicks off later this year in Eastern Europe and the story is described as a a creature feature set around a group of blue-collar fighters in the German tank regiments in October 1944.

Briggs is directing from a script he co-wrote with Aaron Mason and James Cowan. Some concept art and an interview with Briggs about the film is up at Bloody Disgusting.

Briggs is also attached to direct "Mortis Rex" which Jim Jacks is producing. That film is currently in pre-production for shooting to kick off in the Spring.

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New Line Cinema is quickly moving forward with plans to remake John Carpenter's 1981 dystopian action classic Escape From New York, thanks to a rewrite from Allan Loeb, the man who rescued the Wall Street sequel from development limbo over at Fox. A big reason for the fast track was creative: Loeb nailed the humor in Plissken without slipping into camp, and he changed Snake's rescue-mission target from a president to a female senator, thereby upping the banter quotient. But just as big a factor was economic: They found a much cheaper way to turn Manhattan into a giant prison.

In the original, set at the end of World War III, New York City was a husk of itself after being turned into a giant prison, but that kind of destruction gets pricey.* So in Escape 2.0, the Big Apple that the as-yet-uncast Snake Plissken is dropped into will be geographically undesirable, but intact: This Manhattan was evacuated and turned into a privately run penal colony after the detonation of a crude radioactive dirty bomb on the outskirts of the city. "It is not a disaster movie," says a source close to the project. "It is an exposé of an ecosystem, if you put a huge wall around Manhattan and then dropped in the most fucked-up, dangerous criminals on Earth." This means New York will still be recognizable to audiences, à la I Am Legend, rather than an entirely new Armageddon Island. (Previous scribe David Kajganich, who wrote The Invasion, is credited with this solution.)

Much like in the original movie, the authorities have set up shop in the Statue of Liberty (though this time it's not the police, it's a private, KBR-like security company)*, and now new prisoners are being processed through Ellis Island. And more importantly, good ol' Snake remains largely the same. Legally, he has to be. We learned that in order to land the rights, New Line had to sign a contract with John Carpenter stipulating, among other things, that Plissken "must be called 'Snake'"; "must wear an eye patch"; and that he would — and we're not making this up — "always be a 'bad-ass.'"; So, if you ever catch the new Snake watching Grey's Anatomy or complaining that the senator isn't "emotionally available," just know that somewhere, some poor development exec is about to be carted off to jail.

[zakk]

David Kajganić? Really?!

Enivej, kako god, ne radujem se ovom rimejku...

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http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1738734/

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Brit helmer Mike Newell is attached to write and direct an untitled feature about the mysterious death of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko.

Project is set at Warner Bros and is being overseen by London-based Warner VP of production Ollie Madden.

Newell, who most recently directed "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" for Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, is developing the pic with scriptwriter David Scarpa.

No talent is attached yet to the project, which is said to be in an advanced stage of development.

Project is based on the book "The Terminal Spy" by New York Times' London bureau chief Alan Cowell.

The film rights deal for the book was Madden's firstacquisition when he joined Warner Bros. in January 2007.

Litvinenko's death remains shrouded in intrigue. The ex-Russian spy, who was poisoned in 2006 by polonium-210, personally accused then-Russian President Vladimir Putin of being behind his murder as he lay dying in a London hospital bed.

Story became one of the most mysterious and perplexing crimes of the post-Cold War era, triggering an international investigation and diplomatic tension between British and Russian officials.

Initially, authorities thought Litvinenko was poisoned at a sushi restaurant, but alternative theories have since emerged.

Cowell's book, published by Doubleday in the U.S., has been translated into numerous languages.

Helmer Michael Mann was also developing a rival Litvinenko project with Litvinenko's wife Maria at Sony, though that appears to have stalled in recent months.

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The Ghost Writer (aka The Ghost)
12 February, 2010 | By Fionnuala Halligan


Dir: Roman Polanski. Fr-Ger-UK. 2009. 128mins.


A stylish, precise salute to Hitchcock's thrillers but still bearing all the hallmarks of Roman Polanski's distinctive style, The Ghost Writer is an effortless take on Robert Harris' best-selling novel and a film lover's delight.

Ewan McGregor is a rediscovery in the title role of the Ghost and thankfully Pierce Brosnan doesn't deliver an impersonation of Tony Blair
After the very disparate The Pianist (2002) and Oliver Twist (2005), The Ghost Writer marks a move back to Polanski's pacy terrain of Frantic (1998) or even The Ninth Gate (2000), all peppered through with Alexandre Desplat's entrancing retro score and even some breezy comic moments.

While fans of the troubled auteur will come away sated, however, Polanski may need all his notoriety to muster the might of the domestic multiplex for this low-tech political thriller — Frantic took $17m in the US, with The Ninth Gate only returning $18.6m, despite Harrison Ford and Johnny Depp respectively leading the charge. Wider audiences in the US could remain elusive.

Internationally, the outlook is brighter. While the book — about a former UK prime minister and his wife who cosied up to a warmongering US regime — was interpreted as a thinly veiled attack on the Blairs, Polanski, working with Harris on the screenplay, has extracted any whiff of Tony and Cherie from his film, to its immense benefit.

A Blair-weary UK public should respond enthusiastically, as will co-production territories France and Germany (despite the film's setting — an island styled after Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket — The Ghost Writer was shot entirely at Studio Babelsberg and on location in Germany).

Ewan McGregor gives his best performance in years as the titular 'Ghost', hired at the last minute to script the memoirs of former British prime minister Adam Lang (Brosnan) after the original author, the PM's former press secretary, suddenly commits suicide.

Polanski's operatic opening, on a car ferry, is an immediate attention-grabber. Ensuing sequences in a rain-soaked London witness the Ghost auditioning for the job at a powerful publishing house and introduce a subdued Timothy Hutton as the Langs' personal lawyer. However grey London is, it is outshadowed by the former prime minister's steely grey windswept retreat — a glass-walled bunker on "an island off the Eastern seaboard".

En route to start his job — with the prerequisite impossible timeframe in which to complete the memoirs — the Ghost discovers that Adam Lang may be indicted for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court over state-sanctioned torture during his tenure as PM.

At the seaside house in the decidedly off-season, the Ghost is introduced first to the icy Ruth Lang (Williams) and later to a preoccupied Adam by his suspiciously close PA, the Hitchcockian blonde Amelia (Cattrall).

The plot suitably thickens until our beleaguered, fairly ordinary hero (his last book was a magician's memoirs called I Came, I Sawed, I Conquered) finds himself in the middle of a maelstrom in which a car's satnav must play a decisive role.

The locations — inauthentic as they may be — and the elements are almost as central to The Ghost Writer as the events which take place on screen, and Polanski has mastered his forces here in an orchestral manner. The austere camerawork from DoP Pawel Edelman, who has worked with Polanski since The Pianist, complements Albrecht Conrad's design, and Desplat's score is a delicious through line.

McGregor is a rediscovery in the role of the Ghost, while it is an enormous relief to witness Brosnan delivering the book's cipher and not another tedious impersonation of Tony Blair.

A difficulty, though, is Olivia Williams' performance as Ruth Lang; she is convincingly angry, but it is a furious, one-note performance. The Ghost is required to be initially attracted to the former PM's wife, not terrified by her — or at least, not wholly.

As a final note, locations and set design are notably more convincing than the accents of the supporting cast. It may be a small world, but a US secretary of state with a European accent still seems some way in the future, despite Governor Schwarzenegger's inroads in California.

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A Warner Brothers release (in the U.K.) of a Pathe Prods. presentation, in association with the U.K. Film Council, of a Celador Films, Cloud Eight Films production. (International sales: Pathe, London.) Produced by Christian Colson, Robert Jones. Executive producers, Paul Smith, Cameron McCracken, Francois Ivernel. Directed, written by Neil Marshall.

Centurion Quintus Dias - Michael Fassbender
General Titus Virilus - Dominic West
Thax - J.J. Feild
Septus - Lee Ross
Bothos - David Morrissey
Gorlacon - Ulrich Thomsen
Gorlacon's son - Ryan Atkinson
Governor Agricola - Paul Freeman
Etain - Olga Kurylenko
Brick - Liam Cunningham
Macros - Noel Clarke
Leonidas - Dimitri Leonidas
Tarak - Riz Ahmed
Arianne - Imogen Poots

A raggedy band of second-century Roman soldiers scramble to escape revenge-bent Pict warriors in ancient Blighty in the rousing if slightly predictable chase drama "Centurion." Working with a heftier budget than he had for his last, "Doomsday," horror-trained British helmer Neil Marshall flexes strong action muscles and carves copious flesh here, creating the sort of broadsword-based bedlam that will thrill fans of ancient martial movies. Nevertheless, macho pic may lack the sort of cross-quadrant appeal that made Marshall's second, all-femme, ensemble "The Descent," a sleeper hit. Good word-of-mouth will be needed to build an empire of followers.

After a flashforward preamble that sees protagonist Quintus Dias (played by a chiselled Michael Fassbender) stumbling half-naked through the snow, it's established that action unfolds in 117 AD, on the very edge of the Roman Empire, in what's now Scotland. Like many a superpower that would follow in Rome's footsteps, the would-be continental conquerors are finding it hard work vanquishing the local barbarian horde, in this instance the Picts. Using guerrilla tactics, these fierce warriors bedevil the Roman legions with constant raids on the Romans' forts, one of which wipes out Quintus' cohort.

For unexplained reasons, Quintus can speak Pictish (per pic's press notes, subtitled dialogue for these scenes is actually Scots Gaelic since little is known about the real Pictish language), so he's taken prisoner instead of merely slain. While being marched across country by a small band of Pict guards, a skirmish with the Roman Army's Ninth Legion liberates Quintus. He joins forces with his countryman, who are led by roistering man-of-the-people General Titus Virilus (Dominic West, who's character name here is just a bit too on the nose, recalling the joke pseudo-Latin monikers used in Monty Python's "Life of Brian" and the Asterix comics).

As a guide to find Gorlacon (Danish thesp Ulrich Thomsen), the leader of the Picts, the Ninth are using mute Pict woman Etain (Olga Kurylenko, from "Quantum of Solace"). But she turns out to be a double agent who leads the Ninth into a trap (an impressive sequence featuring literal balls of fire and sword thrusts every quarter second), resulting in the near-total slaughter of the legion and Virilus' capture.

Only Quintus and a handful of men survive, including sturdy Bothos (David Morrissey), cheeky Thax (J.J. Field), middle-aged Brick (Liam Cunningham) who was -- naturally -- just about to retire, fleet-footed African Macros (Noel Clarke), killer-shot Greek Leonidas (Dimitri Leonidas), and cook Tarak (Riz Ahmed) from the Hindu Kush. The band tries unsuccessfully to rescue Virilus, and during their raid Thax kills Gorlacon's young son (Ryan Atkinson), which sets the horde after them for vengeance.

From this point on, plot adheres to a standard chase/horror movie template as the Romans are picked off by the Pict hunters. Since the preamble has already suggested only Quintus will survive, suspense resides only in waiting to see how each man gets offed. Thankfully, Marshall is inventive when it comes to killing characters, deploying just about every weapon in the ancient-world arsenal as well as wolves. Only a few stopoffs for bantering and backstory revelations, and an interlude at the home of an ostracized Pict woman (Imogen Poots) provide breathers from the relentless, sharply cut action sequences.

As popcorn entertainment, pic delivers well enough, and thesps rise more than adequately to the demands of their roles, apart from Kurylenko, who looks too spindly to convince as the ferocious woman warrior she's meant to be. An extra dimension or two in the script would have done no harm, and while "Centurion" serves well as an old-school thrill ride, it lacks the poignancy of "Gladiator" or the CGI dazzle of "300." However accurate the costumes and production design details might be here, "Centurion" never quite evokes a sense of antiquity; its core plot could be happening at any time. It will be interesting to see what the more cerebral helmer Kevin Macdonald ("The Last King of Scotland") does with "The Eagle of the Ninth," which also explores the fate of the Roman Ninth Legion.

Craft contributions are strong, especially lenser Sam McCurdy's high-speed interludes and color-drained palette that makes the copious quantities of blood look practically inky. Helicopter shots show off the exquisitely austere Scottish landscapes used to their best advantage. Pace and running time are just right.

Camera (Kodak color, widescreen), Sam McCurdy; editor, Chris Gill; music, Ilan Eshkeri; production designer, Simon Bowles; supervising art director, Jason Knox-Johnston; art director, Andy Thomson; set decorator, Zoe Smith; costume designer, Keith Madden; sound (Dolby Digital), John Hayes; sound design, sound supervisor, Matt Collinge; re-recording mixers, Jamie Roden, Mark Paterson; visual effects supervisor, Jacob Otterstrom; visual effects, Filmgate; special effects supervisor, Chris Reynolds; special prosthetic makeup effects supervisor, Paul Hyett; stunt coordinator, Paul Herbert; assistant directors, Phil Booth, Simon Aguirre, Dan Winch; second unit director, Ian D. Fleming, second unit camera, Rodrigo Gutierrez; casting, Debbie McWilliams; associate producers, Diarmuid McKeown, Ivana Mackinnon. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (market), Feb. 12, 2010. Running time: 97 MIN.
English, Gaelic dialogue.

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HBO has acquired US television rights to Adrian Grenier's crowd pleasing documentary Teenage Paparazzo, which has been drawing heavy interest from international buyers at the EFM.


The broadcaster beat out multiple bids from other domestic distributors who pursued Teenage Paparazzoimmediately after last month's sell-out world premiere at Sundance.

WME Global was handling North American rights but did not return calls. It sold international rights in Park City to T & C Pictures International chief David Jourdan, who has just closed deals with Madman in Australia and Klockworx in Japan.

The film charts the budding friendship between the actor and a young paparazzo whom he spots plying his trade among the typically older crowd of celebrity photographers.

Matt Damon, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan are among the famous faces who weigh in with their views on celebrity culture.

Grenier has a longstanding relationship with HBO through his starring role in the hit series Entourage and is understood to harbour strong directorial ambitions.

A steady flow of international sales will only serve to bolster his creditability in this area and Jourdan expects to announce further deals in the days ahead.

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(France-Germany-U.K.) A Pathe (in France)/Kinowelt (in Germany)/Contender (in U.K.)/Summit Entertainment (in U.S.) release of an RP Films, France 2 Cinema (France)/Elfte Babelsberg Film (Germany)/Runteam III (U.K.) production, with participation of Pathe Distribution, Canal Plus, StudioCanal, France Televisions. (International sales: Summit Entertainment, L.A.) Produced by Roman Polanski, Robert Benmussa, Alain Sarde. Co-producers, Timothy Burrill, Carl L. Woebcken, Christoph Fisser. Executive producer, Henning Molfenter. Directed by Roman Polanski. Screenplay, Robert Harris, Polanski, from Harris' 2007 novel "The Ghost."

The Ghost - Ewan McGregor
Adam Lang - Pierce Brosnan
Amelia Bly - Kim Cattrall
Ruth Lang - Olivia Williams
Paul Emmett - Tom Wilkinson
Sidney Kroll - Timothy Hutton
John Maddox - James Belushi
Richard Rycart - Robert Pugh
Old man - Eli Wallach
Rick Riccardelli - Jon Berthal


The best thing that can be said about Roman Polanski's pic version of Robert Harris' bestseller "The Ghost" is that auds won't need to read the original novel. With a few exceptions, and necessary tightening, it's pretty much all up on the screen -- page by page of plot, line by line of dialogue -- in one of the most literal adaptations (by the British journo-turned-novelist himself) since the Harry Potter series. Low on sustained tension, and with a weak central perf by Ewan McGregor in the titular role, "The Ghost Writer" looks set for moderate biz at best in Europe, with much briefer haunting of North American salles.

Pic's literalism is also its biggest handicap. Eight years since his last major success, "The Pianist," the 76-old-helmer brings not a jot of his own directorial personality or quirks to a political pulp thriller whose weaknesses (let alone lack of any real action or thrills) are laid bare when brought to the screen is such a workmanlike, anonymous way.

With Polanski himself unable to travel Stateside or to Blighty, the largely New England-set story was entirely shot in Germany -- and sometimes looks like it. Despite the abundance of art direction and props to convince viewers that the locations are in wintry Martha's Vineyard and not Sylt, northern Germany, interiors -- especially of the central house -- look unmistakably modern-Teuton in their clean lines and small details.

Some second-unit work was done in the U.K. and France, and post-production finished while the helmer was under house arrest in Gstaad, Switzerland -- probably the first such instance of remote direction since imprisoned Turkish director Yilmaz Guney in the '70s.

Sans any front-end titles, story gets right down to business as the body of Michael McAra washes up on the shores of Martha's Vineyard. McAra had just finished ghost-writing the memoirs of former Brit prime minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), to whom he was an old friend-cum-political advisor, and the publishers, who've ponied up $10 million for the tome, urgently need another ghost to jazz up the tedious manuscript.

Repped by his young American agent, Rick (Jon Berthal), a successful British ghost writer (McGregor) -- unnamed both here and in the novel -- is interviewed by U.S. publishing exec John Maddox (James Belushi, in a ripe but brief cameo) and Lang's Washington attorney, Sidney Kroll (Timothy Hutton). The Brit is hired on the spot for a month's work for $250k, and flown to a luxurious private house in Martha's Vineyard, where Lang is based during a U.S. lecture tour.

But the ghost is already suspicious of what he's getting into, after being mugged in a London street immediately after the meeting. At the New England coastal retreat, McAra's manuscript and Lang himself are guarded around the clock in a security operation run by Lang's (very) personal assistant, blonde iceberg Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall, with an almost flawless cut-glass Brit accent). Mooning around, with her claws mostly sheathed, is Lang's wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams).

Harris' novel made headlines at the time for its barely disguised similarities between Lang and former Brit p.m. Tony Blair, as well as between Ruth and Cherie Blair. But Brosnan is much more movie-star Brosnan than a Blair stand-in (was Michael Sheen unavailable?), though Williams, in the pic's best performance, adopts subtle hints of Cherie in her wardrobe and tart manner.

As the ghost starts interviewing Lang for color and juicy tidbits, the heat is turned up when Lang's onetime foreign minister, Richard Rycart (Robert Pugh), demands Lang be brought to trial for war crimes. Rycart claims Lang colluded in the kidnapping of four alleged Pakistani terrorists and their handover to the CIA for torture, during which one died. When the ghost learns that McAra had also uncovered a deeply buried truth about Lang's political past, he begins to fear for his own life as well.

All the ingredients are here for a rip-roaring political thriller, with corruption in the highest places and a cast of sexy and/or suspicious characters, but for the first hour there's little accumulated atmosphere or any sense of a bigger story hiding in the wings. Polanski simply transfers Harris' undistinguished prose direct to the screen and, though the pace picks up marginally in the second half, there's little wow factor in the revelations as they appear.

With McGregor a sappy lead and Brosnan hardly believable as a British ex-politician, it's Williams who provides the most pleasure in a gradually evolving role that at one point takes on a calculated sexiness. Tom Wilkinson hints at what the movie could have been in a beautifully played scene with McGregor that's packed with polite menace, and 94-year-old vet Eli Wallach pops up in a strongly delivered cameo.

More music by Alexandre Desplat, whose score is notably absent during the initial first hour, could have helped a little. Widescreen lensing by Polish d.p. Pawel Edelman ("Oliver Twist," "The Pianist") is fine at capturing the bleak wintry exteriors and cool, geometrical interiors. But what the picture most needed was a complete cinematic rethink and, yes, even some action to move it along.

Camera (color, Panavision widescreen), Pawel Edelman; editor, Hurve de Luze; music, Alexandre Desplat; production designer, Albrecht Konrad; supervising art director, David Scheunemann; art directors, Cornelia Ott, Steve Summersgill; set designer, Michael Fissneider; costume designer, Dinah Collin; set decorator, Bernhard Henrich; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS Digital), Jean-Marie Blondel; visual effects designer, Frederic Moreau; assistant director, Ralph Remstedt; casting, Fiona Weir. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (competing), Feb. 12, 2010. Running time: 126 MIN. The Ghost tabmarker Ewan McGregor Adam Lang tabmarker Pierce Brosnan Amelia Bly tabmarker Kim Cattrall Ruth Lang tabmarker Olivia Williams Paul Emmett tabmarker Tom Wilkinson Sidney Kroll tabmarker Timothy Hutton John Maddox tabmarker James Belushi Richard Rycart tabmarker Robert Pugh Old man tabmarker Eli Wallach Rick Riccardelli tabmarker Jon Berthal With: Tim Faraday, Marianne Graffam, Kate Copeland, Soogi Kang. (English dialogue)


With: Tim Faraday, Marianne Graffam, Kate Copeland, Soogi Kang. (English dialogue)

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The Illusionist
16 February, 2010 | By Lisa Nesselson


Dir: Sylvain Chomet. UK-Fr. 2010.  80mins.


An aging French magician who is a dead ringer for Jacques Tati uses sleight-of-hand to give a clueless Scottish girl a poetic assist toward adulthood in The Illusionist. Five years in the making, master animator Sylvain Chomet's follow-up to The Triplets Of Belleville deploys superb hand-drawn imagery to bring to life an unproduced screenplay the late Tati finished in 1959. Told with no dialogue but carried along by deeply evocative sound design, this visually rewarding film's timeless, near-universal appeal should translate to widespread critical praise and art house play.

Chomet's film is bathed in self-aware melancholy, lightened by slow-burn humour and a sensibility rooted in silent-era film-making
Set in Paris, London and Edinburgh in the late 1950s as the last vestiges of variety entertainment gave way to youth-oriented rock 'n' roll, The Illusionist is a delightfully bittersweet valentine to the music hall tradition. Aiming for the heart as well as the funny bone, Chomet - whose sardonic Oscar-nominated short The Old Lady and the Pigeons preceded 2003's zanily off-kilter Triplets ($15 million worldwide) - proves himself the perfect creative choice to resuscitate Tati's long-dormant script.

Viewers whose heart strings resonated at the sight of WALL-E enjoying his ancient cassette tape of Hello, Dolly! will almost certainly appreciate the beautifully crafted nostalgia that permeates The Illusionist. The film is bathed in self-aware melancholy, lightened by slow-burn humour and a sensibility rooted in silent-era filmmaking. Its 2D imagery (with a smattering of 3D props) simply couldn't be better – there is always plenty to look at, all of it magnificently rendered.

Working solo, except for an ornery rabbit whose pit bull-like personality is a consistently incongruous source of surprise and amusement, the magician sees his engagements dwindle to nearly none. (The entertainer's name on posters is Tatischeff, the genuine name the comic and film-maker behind Mon Oncle and Mr Hulot's Holiday shortened to Tati.)

Man, rabbit and suitcase travel to wherever the work takes them.  On a far flung Scottish isle whose residents are celebrating the long overdue arrival of electricity, local lass Alice believes Tatischeff to be truly magical. Since he can make coins and other objects appear out of thin air, she naively concludes that his conjuring tricks are real. From this misunderstanding springs an unasked-for father-daughter relationship when Alice follows the magician back to the mainland. The magician takes on extra work to which he is ill-suited in order to make the money to satisfy his penniless charge's culinary and sartorial whims.

The imagery excels at depicting less-harried times: as a train chugs over a trestle bridge in the country, its reflection in the water below is as stunning as the changing light over Edinburgh. And somehow the animated rain seems more real than the wet stuff in live-action films.

The deceptively simple story (which bears some scattered similarities to Chaplin's Limelight) is anchored in nostalgia for bygone traditions. And yet the theme of dedicated craftsmen (a clown, a ventriloquist, a magician) made obsolete by changing tastes (not to mention age making way for youth) remains relevant.

Tati's (1907-1982) own live-action endeavors (Jour De Fete, Mon Oncle, Mr Hulot's Holiday, PlayTime) were leisurely affairs, punctuated with meticulously calibrated physical humour. The additional factor here is a strong emotional component as the film explores self-reliance in a cruel world, making the best of increasingly dire uncertainty and striving to please without bursting anyone's bubble.

A scene in which the magician returns to his hotel drunk is dazzling - as the protagonist struggles to maintain his balance, one would swear Tati's hand-drawn stand-in has a functioning inner ear.

The musical score (composed by Chomet) and inchoate mumbles that mimic dialogue are spot-on.

The script could easily never have come to light. Its existence emerged when Chomet approached Sophie Tatischeff for permission to use a clip of her father on his bicycle from Jour De Fete in Triplets. Pleased with Chomet's storytelling approach and visual style, Sophie mentioned the script her father wrote from 1956-59. She died four months after giving her blessing to the project.

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StudioCanal has enjoyed a bumper EFM. Since selling The Last Exorcism (formerly known as Cotton) to Lionsgate for the US last week, the French major has racked up multiple major deals on its eclectic slate.


The Last Exorcism has also gone to Australia (Hopscotch), Russia (Film Depot), Korea (Daisy), Canada (Alliance).

Meanwhile, StudioCanal's new collaboration with Eli Roth and Strike Entertainment, The Other Woman, has gone to Italy (Eagle) and Mexico (Gussi). These deals were negotiated on the pitch alone.

The EFM was the first market at which footage of Brighton Rock was shown. Further deals on the Graham Greene adaptation have been closed with Greece (Village), LatinAmerica (Imagem), Portugal (Lusomundo) and the Middle East (Front Row.) US offers are also in the works.

Olivier Assayas' Carlos The Jackal, which is being made as a three-part mini-series and a feature film,  has gone to Madman in Australia, Mongrel in Canada and Gulf in the Middle East. Carlos was already pre-sold to the US to IFC and the Sundance Channel.

And Soon The Darkness has gone to Brazil (PlayArte.) Jean Becker's My Afternoons with Margauerite has gone to Spain (Golem).There is also strong buyer and festival interest in Bertrand Tavernier's The Princess of Montpensier and Rachid Bouchareb's Outside The Law.

"We had a very good Berlin. We did overall roughly 40% more sales than we did last year," international sales director at StudioCanal, Harold van Lier, commented of the EFM.

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Fortissimo Films have completed several major deals on their EFM slate titles. John Woo produced Reign Of Assassins has gone to Lionsgate for UK distribution here at the EFM.


Sundance hit Winter's Bone Doris Dörrie's Hairdresser and TIFF hit Road, Movie have all been snapped up by numerous territories.

Reign Of Assassins has also been sold to Film Depot /Volga Films for Russia and the Baltics and United King for Israel.

Winter's Bone, picked up for US distribution in Sundance by Road Side, has been acquired by Paradiso for Benelux, Pretty Pictures for France, Look Now for Switzerland, Lusomundo for Portugal, and Vivarto  for Poland with deals currently being finalised for Scandinavian distribution.

Hairdresser which received its world premiere here as part of the Official Selection as a Berlinale Special has been sold to Paradiso for Benelux, United King for Israel and Vivarto for Poland plus multiple offers for Korea.

Road, Movie, screening in Generations  has been acquired by Senator Film for Germany, Madman for Australia and New Zealand, Paradiso for Benelux, United King for Israel, with a deal for North America currently being finalised.

Shock Labyrinth: Extreme 3D was sold to Cathay for Singapore and Queen Cinema for Indonesia.

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Amanda Bynes has joined the cast of the Farrelly Brothers comedy "Hall Pass" for New Line and Warner Bros. Pictures says Variety.

The story revolves around two couples with both wives giving their husbands permission to engage in extramarital encounters. When the wives begin exercising the same privilege for themselves, things get complicated.

Owen Wilson, Jenna Fischer and Jason Sudeikis star in the project which Bobby and Peter Farrelly will direct and co-wrote with Kevin Barnett and Pete Jones.

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Gwyneth Paltrow is apparently joining the cast of the Steven Soderbergh-directed Contagion which Participant Media will co-finance reports Deadline Hollywood.

The $60 million project stars Kate Winslet, Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard and Jude Law in the story of a global attempt to contain a deadly viral outbreak.

Scott Z. Burns penned the script and the project is currently on offer with several bidders offering greenlight commitments.

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Jeffrey Dean Morgan ("Watchmen," "P.S. I Love You") has joined the cast of Ami Canaan Mann's dark murder mystery thriller "The Fields" for Forward Pass says Bloody Disgusting.

Based on a true story, the story follows a pair of cops - one from Texas (Worthington) the other from New York (Morgan), investigating a string of nearly sixty unsolved murders over two decades amidst the oil refineries and industrial wastelands of in the south-east Gulf Coast region of Texas.

Donald F. Ferrarone penned the script and filming kicks off in April in Louisiana. Michael Mann and Michael Jaffe will produce.

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"The Descent" and "Doomsday" director Neil Marshall will executive produce the thriller "Ghost of Slaughterford" for Intandem Films says The Hollywood Reporter.

Ian D. Fleming directs the project about a recently widowed novelist who begins work on a new book at a rented mansion in a remote village. The local residents warn her to stay away, but soon they become more of a threat than the apparent ghost that resides in the house.

Filming is expected to kick off in June. Fleming was Marshall's second-unit director on the upcoming auctioneer "Centurion."

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Scott Kosar ("The Crazies," "The Machinist") is set to perform re-writes on the young Dracula project "Vlad" at Summit Entertainment and Plan B says The Hollywood Reporter.

"Sons of Anarchy" star Charlie Hunnam penned the script which centers on the young prince Vlad the Impaler, the man behind the Dracula myth.

Anthony Mandler will direct the project which Brad Pitt and Dede Gardner will produce. The project is not to be confused with a similar project about Vlad the Impaler that Alex Proyas is directing and is setup at Universal Pictures.

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Best-selling American author Harlan Coben is getting another of his books adapted by the French reports Variety.

Gaumont has acquired rights to the France-set novel "Long Lost" about a sports agent who stumbles on a terrorist plot while searching for the long-lost daughter of an ex-girlfriend.

Coben's murder mystery novel "Tell No One" was adapted by actor turned filmmaker Guillaume Canet into an acclaimed French-language feature in 2006 starring François Cluzet and Kristin Scott Thomas. The film scored stellar reviews, making many critics Top Ten lists, and scored a $33.4 million global gross.

Nick Wechsler ("The Road," "We Own the Night") will produce 'Lost' which will be shot in English.

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Henrik Ruben Genz's dark comedy "Terribly Happy", this year's Danish entry for the foreign language Oscar, is getting a $10-15 million budget English language remake reports Screen Daily.

The story is based on Erling Jepsen's novel about a troubled police officer dispatched to a mysterious community on a swampy peninsula. Howard Rodman ("Savage Grace") will adapt the script for the remake.

Director Genz and his producer Thomas Gammeltoft will re-team in the same capacities on the new version which has three times the budget and will allow them to approach the material from a new point of view.

"I felt I wasn't finished with the material and wanted to explore it further. When the opportunity for a remake came up I felt I couldn't let go of this curiosity and energy that bound me to the material" says Genz.

Gammeltoft says the new version will allow them to get the story out to a wider audience, and give them the money to do things they couldn't do in the original which hit US theatres in limited release last week.

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"The Hurt Locker" star Jeremy Renner has already set his next two projects and is heavily considering a top secret third one.

Reuters reports that first off the block is "Raven", an indie period thinner co-starring Ewan McGregor which he'll begin work on shortly.

The story is a fictional spin on acclaimed author Edgar Allan Poe's final five days when he joins a hunt for a serial killer who has been inspired by his macabre stories.

After that he's in talks to star in Peter Berg's film adaptation of the classic board game "Battleship" for Universal Pictures. That film goes into production this Summer for a May 2012 release.

He's also had around half a dozen meetings for another project but declined to reveal what that would be, other than it will also be shooting over the Summer and he may have to choose between it and "Battleship".

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"The Hurt Locker" star Jeremy Renner has already set his next two projects and is heavily considering a top secret third one.

Reuters reports that first off the block is "Raven", an indie period thinner co-starring Ewan McGregor which he'll begin work on shortly.

The story is a fictional spin on acclaimed author Edgar Allan Poe's final five days when he joins a hunt for a serial killer who has been inspired by his macabre stories.

After that he's in talks to star in Peter Berg's film adaptation of the classic board game "Battleship" for Universal Pictures. That film goes into production this Summer for a May 2012 release.

He's also had around half a dozen meetings for another project but declined to reveal what that would be, other than it will also be shooting over the Summer and he may have to choose between it and "Battleship".

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Mania has been on the inside with every move regarding Relativity Media' redo of The Crow, which will eventually be directed by Stephen Norrington. A quick update from Norrington reveals that the new adaptation is moving towards a greenlight from the studio. "The producer and visual effects people are crunching numbers," Norrington said. "We've opened discussions with major cast but nothing is final yet." He also explains that he hopes to shoot it before Patrol, with a first draft screenplay to be delivered this month. As for the continuing adventures of James O'Barr's avatar of revenge, Norrington said he hopes to, "shoot in the summer, but nothing's certain," he said, adding, "Is it ever?" You're telling me. Give me something solid!

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Julian McMahon is set to headline the thriller "Faces in the Crowd" for Forecast Pictures, Minds Eye Entertainment and Radar Films says Variety.

The story revolves around a female murder witness (Milla Jovovich) who awakens from an accident with prosopagnosia (aka. face blindness), an impairment in the recognition of faces.

McMahon plays the woman's love interest who is also a detective. Julien Magnat will direct from his own script.

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"Cube" director Vincenzo Natali is set to helm the film adaptation of best-selling children's novel series "Tunnels" for Relativity Media.

Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams penned the book about a 14-year-old boy whose archaeologist father disappears. He soon finds himself drawn into the world of a secret subterranean civilization dominated by the sinister, vicious Styx. Two further books in the series have already been penned.

Simon Sandquist and Joel Bergvall are adapting the script while Ryan Kavanaugh, Mark Canton, Danny Davids and Neil Canton will produce.

Natali's most recent film, "Splice", premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last month.

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Fresh into production, Edgar Wright cohort Joe Cornish's feature debut Attack The Block is surely one of the more anticipated titles coming out of the UK in 2010.  Details have been scarce so far but we've got the first concept art - above - and the first detailed synopsis - below - for your reading pleasure.

Attack The Block is a fast, funny, frightening action adventure movie that pits a teen gang against an invasion of savage alien monsters. It turns a housing estate into a SCI-FI PLAYGROUND. A tower block into a fortress under siege. And weapon wielding teenage thugs into heroes. Think ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 only with monsters and a tower block. Or LA HAINE crossed with ALIENS. It's inner city versus outer space.

            Trainee nurse Sam is walking home to her flat in a scary South London tower block when she's robbed by a gang of masked, hooded youths. She's saved when the gang are distracted by a bright meteorite, which falls from the sky and hits a nearby parked car. Sam flees, just before the gang are attacked by a small alien creature that leaps from the wreckage. The gang chase the creature and kill it, dragging its ghoulish carcass to the top of the block, with they treat as their territory.

            While Sam and the police hunt for the gang, a second wave of meteors fall. Confident of victory against such feeble invaders, the gang grab weapons, mount bikes and mopeds, and set out to defend their turf. But this time the creatures are bigger. Much bigger. Savage, shadowy and bestial, they are hunting their fallen comrade and nothing will stand in their way. THE ESTATE IS ABOUT TO BECOME A BATTLEGROUND. And the bunch of no-hope kids who just attacked Sam are about to become her, and the block's, only hope.

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Leonardo DiCaprio is apparently keen on starring in "Prisoners" for Alcon Entertainment and Warner Bros. Pictures says Deadline Hollywood.

Aaron Guzikowski's Black List script centers on a small-town carpenter whose young daughter and best friend are kidnapped. After the cops fail to find them, the man turns vigilante and starts an investigation of his own.

Directors like Antoine Fuqua and Bryan Singer, and actors like Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman and Mark Wahlberg have all been circling or attached at one point in the past few years. All have since dropped out for various reasons.

DiCaprio's involvement will depend on who is directing and his schedule, whatever the case it's certainly not his next project. Andrew Kosove, Broderick Johnson, Kira Davis and Adam Kolbrenner will produce.

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Kevin James and Vince Vaughn are teaming up for Ron Howard's untitled comedy at Universal Pictures says Deadline Hollywood.

The pair play best friends and business partners. Vaughn witnesses James' wife seemingly cheating on her husband, forcing him into the difficult position of deciding whether to tell him.

Allan Loeb penned the script with Howard directing. Both Vaughn and Brian Grazer will produce.

Shooting kicks off in Chicago in the Spring.

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David Tennant, Thandie Newton and Jason Isaacs have joined the cast of the psychological thriller "Retreat" for Magnet Films says Screen Daily.

Newton and Isaacs play an estranged couple who head to a remote island getaway in an effort to rebuild their relationship. Tennant plays a dying military officer who arrives on their doorstep with news of a viral pandemic killing millions on the mainland.

Producer Gary Sinyor likens the film to "Dead Calm" with its three sole cast members, remote locale, sexual tension and psychological battle of wits.

Carl Tibbetts will direct from a script he co-wrote with Janice Hallett. Shooting kicks off this May in Canada.

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The cast for Steven Soderbergh's virus outbreak thriller, "Contagion," penned by Scott Z. Burns ("The Informant!," "The Bourne Ultimatum") keeps growing.

Kate Winslet, Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow are all already attached to star and now Laurence Fishburne is in talks to take on what is being described to us as a "major role" if his scheduling can be worked out.

Note, Fishburne's role is said to be as big as all the other actors announced thus far. Most of them will play an international team of doctors and scientists brought in by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) once the sickness outbreak starts. The vibe of the picture will be "ultra realistic" and apparently many of them will be jumping on planes to assist elsewhere; as we first reported, the film will be played out on four different continents. That might superficially make it sound from the outside like it's a superstar team ala the "Ocean's series," but again the tone will be radically different.

Yesterday, Warner Bros. picked up this $60 million dollar project, but it should be noted there were several good deals offered for "Contagion," but Soderbergh has a strong relationship with Sue Kroll at WB and feels she is the ideal person to sell this film (Kroll is the President of Worldwide Marketing WB).

Fishburne has been doing a lot of TV work recently (the lead role in "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" which is likely where the scheduling conflict could come into play), but also snagged what is mostly a cameo role in Nimród Antal's "Predators" film produced by Robert Rodriguez (though it should be a memorable appearance in the picture).

Meanwhile, scheduling doesn't always work. You'll remember that Dennis Quaid was supposed to appear in Soderbergh's "Knockout" as the protagonist, Gina Carano's father, but instead he's now in Hawaii on the set of, "Soul Surfer" apparently asking himself, "what am I doing here?"

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Matt Damon is attached to star in the Robert F. Kennedy biopic setup at New Regency says Deadline Hollywood.

Based on Evan Thomas' 'His Life' biography, the story will follow how the younger brother of JFK went from being in the shadow of his sibling to rising up as a strong national leader in his own right before his assassination in 1968.

It's expected to include some interesting and potentially controversial looks at the extent of his involvement in such things as the Cuban Missile Crisis and two presidential campaigns.

Steven Knight, who is adapting Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" into a film, will pen the script and Gary Ross will direct.

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In an interesting bit of timing, filming has just wrapped on Jim Loach's "Oranges and Sunshine", a film about the true story of Nottingham social worker Margaret Humphreys.

Humphreys uncovered an international scandal involving the organized deportation of children from across the United Kingdom to Australia. Emily Watson, David Wenham and Hugo Weaving star in the film which was shot in both the UK and Australia.

The wrap comes as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week made a historic apology in the House of Commons to the child migrants who were sent to Australia and other parts of the British Commonwealth as part of the organised migration programme. Due to the move, many suffered abuse and were forced to live in institutions or work as child labour.

Icon Films will release 'Oranges' in both territories later this year.

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Brian De Palma To Direct PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2!?!?
Beaks here...



There are many ways to look at this, and not all of them make me want to cry.

On one hand, I'm impressed with Paramount's willingness to replace the yanked-away director of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2, Kevin Greutert, with one of three immensely talented filmmakers. Undeterred by Lionsgate's colossal "fuck you" (reminder: the LG gang exercised an option on Greutert, which forced him off PA2 and back into the SAW fold for the franchise's big 3-D sendoff), Paramount seems determined to make a film that will be, if nothing else, classier than any of the SAW sequels (or the initial movie itself).

But do I need to see a "classy" PARANORMAL ACTIVITY?

Depends on the script, and whether the studio is willing to make a crazy, go-for-broke ghost flick like THE ENTITY. Because if Paramount is literally ready to unleash hell, then I want nothing more than to see Brian De Palma make his first full-on horror movie since THE FURY. And unlike Steven Zeitchick of the L.A. Times, I'm not worried about the quick turnaround; De Palma replaced Gore Verbinski at the last second on MISSION TO MARS, and still managed to deliver a visually stunning picture. Since most of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 will (I'm gussing) be set in one location, De Palma probably won't need more than a week of preproduction to cook up a number of bravura set pieces. This is what he does best, and it'd be a blast to see him do it again after a too-long layoff.

And yet the thought of Brian De Palma making a sequel to a gimmicky (if effective) low-budget horror movie depresses me a little. The man will turn seventy this year, and is one of the most respected directors living today (in the eyes of his peers, if not the critics). He should be doing whatever the fuck he wants. This is the kind of project you entrust to a rising talent, not the heir to Alfred Hitchcock.

But if this is what he has to do to (once again) earn his filmmaking freedom, then... please, Paramount, choose De Palma over the very capable Brad Anderson and Greg McLean. After three years of development futility (a good deal of which was centered on THE BOSTON STRANGLERS), I just want to see one of my heroes shoot a movie again. Let right be done. (And don't be shy about lobbying for your boy, Spielberg!)

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The "Wanted" sequel has apparently been cancelled after Angelina Jolie pulled out of the project reports Vulture.

According to the column, Universal decided to pull the plug on the film instead of recasting the role. The first film's helmer Timur Bekmambetov was set to direct and James McAvoy was going to return as Wesley Gibson in the film which was to shoot later this year.

Instead Jolie is now expected to star in the space thriller "Gravity" which Alfonso Cuarón ("Children of Men") is helming for Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures.

Jolie would play the sole survivor of a space mission gone wrong who desperately tries to return to Earth and see her daughter again

David Heyman, who worked with Cuaron on "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", will produce. Cuaron co-wrote the script with his son Jonás.

Jolie is currently shooting the Johnny Depp-led thriller "The Tourist" in Paris.

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Nicole Kidman has joined the cast of the Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy "Just Go With It" for Sony Pictures reports Variety.

The story has Sandler's character hiring a single mother (Aniston) and her kids to pretend to be his estranged wife and fake family. Allan Loeb, Tim Dowling, Tim Herlihy and Sandler co-wrote the script.

Details on Kidman's role are undisclosed but it is said to be a small but vital comedic supporting role along the lines of Tom Cruise's turn in "Tropic Thunder".

Sports Illustrated 2010 swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker will play Sandler's love interest. Dave Matthews also has a small role.

Dennis Dugan directs and shooting kicks off next month in Los Angeles.

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Dean Parisot ("Fun with Dick and Jane") will direct the comedy "Central Intelligence" for Universal Pictures says Variety.

The "Chuck"-esque scenario has Ed Helms plays an accountant whose reconnecting with an old friend through Facebook throws him head first into the world of international espionage. Helms' long-lost friend is still being cast.

Ike Barinholtz and Dave Stassen penned the script while Peter Principato and Paul Young are producing.

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"Gossip Girl" star Leighton Meester is teaming with "House" star Hugh Laurie in the dramedy "The Oranges" says Variety.

Jay Reiss and Ian Helfer's script follows a man who gets into a relationship with the daughter of a family friend. Catherine Keener also stars.

Julian Farino directs and shooting kicks off this April in New York City.

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Filming kicks off any day now on Danny Boyle's "127 Hours" —the follow-up to his Oscar winning smash "Slumdog Millionaire" — and the new print issue of the ever-excellent Empire Magazine (it's not online though) has a lengthy interview with the director, who reveals plenty of new details on the project. The project stars James Franco as Aron Ralston, a American mountain climber whose arm became trapped under a boulder while in Blue John Canyon in Utah. After being trapped there for six days, before cutting off his own arm with a penknife, rappelling down a 20 metre wall and hiking eight miles down the canyon, Ralston finally made his way to safety (a family he came across who gave him food and water).

It's an extraordinary story, but one that presents any number of problems in terms of putting it on screen, as Boyle admits, laughing, "If you're lucky enough to be in a position where you can do this, there should be a part of you that doesn't know what you're doing." As a film mostly set in one location, with one man standing still, with no one to talk to, it's not obviously the most dynamic cinematic experience. But Boyle has a plan in place.

"We've got this idea that because there are so few characters in it, we'll use two cinematographers: Anthony Dod Mantle, who did "28 Days Later", and Enrique Chediak, who did "28 Weeks Later." One is from Northern Europe and the other is South American. They'll bring different things to it. Like in a conventional film you'd have a comic character and a villain." It's a fascinating idea, and one we can't wait to see realized.

And the question of dialogue? The film features Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara in its supporting cast, so it's clear that at some point, other characters will appear (likely in the very beginning), but how will Boyle cope with his lone protagonist, short of giving him a volleyball to talk to? At one point he said he the first half of the film would have no dialogue (which some people took as an hour and half of no dialogue at all for some reason). But that seems to be slightly overstated. But what Boyle meant is dialogue literally, a back and forth. What seems very clear is that there will be monologue too.


"There is dialogue at the beginning, and at the end, obviously, but for most of the film he doesn't have anyone to talk to," Boyle said, but explained the first-person POV dialogue that will appear. "But what came to light is that he had a video camera with him, and he recorded six or seven messages, for those he thinks are going to grieve for him, basically saying goodbye. We've seen the messages, he doesn't tend to show them... So if you like, that is the dialogue, with a future he thinks he is not going to have."
Considering the fact that main character has to cut off his own arm, it's apparently a pretty gruesome film in parts and the idea of the self-mutilation made Fox Searchlight fairly squeamish at first Boyle said. But there's a lot less blood then you'd expect.

"Listen, it took him 44 minutes to cut his arm off. The blood loss would have been phenomenal... [however] that's one of the weird things: he had deteriorated by then, the blood had thickened, the arm was effectively dead. This is one of the reasons he survived (because the blood had congealed, the arm had clotted and therefore the loss was minor)."

It's a bold, challenging project and not something most directors would follow-up an Best Picture winner with (but a similar one-man show idea apparently worked at Sundance for "Buried"). In fact after his Oscar domination, Boyle had his pick of the litter when it came to projects. "Yeah, big stuff," he says hinting at all the offers he was given, but gentlemanly enough not to name any of them.

Empire has much more from Boyle, so as ever, pick up the latest issue for more. The project's already one of our most anticipated of the year, and between the director's smart approach to the subject matter, and what we imagine is a sure-fire Oscar lock for the overdue Franco (how did Josh Brolin get a nod for "Milk" above Franco's performance in that film?), we're only going to get more excited as the release gets closer.


Posted by Oli Lyttelton at 10:31 AM   

Labels: Anthony Dod Mantle, Aron Ralston, Danny Boyle

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Dueling 'Three Musketeers' projects sharpen their blades
February 24, 2010 |  6:27 pm
The Devil Wears Tunics? Mr. and Mrs. Milady ?

A pair of "Three Musketeers" projects are picking up momentum in Hollywood -- and attracting some rather unlikely elements.

With "Sherlock Holmes" fast turning into one of the most important properties in its stable, Warner Bros. is forging ahead on its adaptation of another pop-minded work of classic literature, "The Three Musketeers."

After confirming earlier this month that it was developing a new version with "Holmes" producer Lionel Wigram, the studio is making headway in hiring a director. It has compiled a wish list of those who it wants to get behind the camera to tell the swashbuckling story. But the names aren't necessarily the ones you'd expect. 

One filmmaker whom producers and studio executives are talking to: David Frankel, the director of "Marley & Me" and "The Devil Wears Prada." While the latter tells the story of a ruler colder and more villainous than Cardinal Richelieu, that pedigree may not be the kind one associates with high-stakes swordplay in period France.

But Frankel does have some genre experience -- and at Warners no less -- which last summer signed him to develop and potentially direct the adaptation of the children's series "Septimus Heap: Magyk." Not coincidentally, the series has been compared to Harry Potter, on which Wigram is also a driving force.

The second director in a top position to get the gig is Doug Liman, best known for "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" as well as the first movie in the Jason Bourne franchise. Liman's action pedigree gives him more credentials for "Musketeers" (though how he handled his last action film, "Jumper," may hurt those credentials).

Meanwhile, an independently-financed 3D project, based on the classic trilogy, from "Resident Evil" filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson has over the last week stirred the talk that producers had wanted Taylor Lautner for a lead role, likely of D'Artagnan. But those with knowledge of the young actor's career said he would not star in the project.

Both scripts are being developed with an urgency -- "The Men Who Stare at Goats" writer Peter Straughan is a co-writer on the Warners one, while Anderson is co-writing the script with "The Tailor of Panama" screenwriter Andrew Davies.

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There is no more perfect a pairing than the visually stimulating duo Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) to take on the bizarre combination of Abraham Lincoln and vampires. The two filmmakers, who previously came together to produce the animated feature 9, will re-team to make the big-screen adaptation of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, the newly released novel by Seth Grahame-Smith. Grahame-Smith, who also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, will adapt the screenplay. Jim Lemley will also produce.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter turns history on its head, telling the story of the 16th president's secret battle with the undead–a battle that began during Lincoln's childhood as a way to avenge his mother's murder. With a Lincoln story this cool on the development track, will Steven Spielberg finally lay to rest his long-gestating plans for a Lincoln biopic? Hmmm.

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Oscar-winning scribe Dustin Lance Black ("Milk") is set to pen "Hoover", a biopic on the life of J. Edgar Hoover for Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment reports Pajiba.

The story will follow the career of Hoover from his founding of the F.B.I. in 1935 where he remained as director until his death in 1972. It's expected to be a warts-and-all look at the man from his success efforts in the gangland wars of the 30's, his paranoid concern about "subversives", his links with the Mafia and Freemasons, rumors of him being a deeply repressed gay man, and the often dirty and illegal methods he sanctioned to bring down people and organisations he considered threats.

Black is currently in post-production on the Jennifer Connelly and Ed Harris drama "What's Wrong with Virginia" which he wrote and directed.

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Benecio Del Toro has signed on to star in "Making Jack Falcone" reports Deadline Hollywood Daily.

The project is based on the true story of retired Cuban-born FBI agent Jack Garcia who infiltrated the New York mafia with such success that they were about to make him a "made man." His work led to the arrest of 39 members of the New York mafia.

The project marks a reunion of sorts with three key personnel behind 2008's "Che" - del Toro, director Steven Soderbergh and writer Peter Buchman. Buchman will pen the script but unlike "Che", Soderbergh is only expected to produce rather than direct.