New Line no more
It seems New Line is about to fall victim to the new economy of movies. Not even the Hobbits could save it.
 |
|
 |
It seems New Line is about to fall victim to the new economy of movies. Not even the Hobbits could save it.
This morning, the Today show aired a little clip from the Sex and the City movie, one that revealed a couple of new plot points. The biggest news seems to be that Charlotte is pregnant in the movie (or has somehow ingested a couple of basketballs). Also, the clip gives Mr. Big's full name (yippie). The footage made its way to YouTube and, of course, was promptly taken down, but if i see it anywhere on the Web in a more official capacity today, i'll get a link up.
One of the interesting things about the Harry Potter films has been the way the series has grown and evolved through its direction by several different directors: Alfonso Cuaron in Prisoner of Azkaban, Mike Newell in Goblet of Fire, and David Yates in last summer's Order of the Phoenix. (Chris Columbus did a workmanlike but less inspired job when he directed the first two Potter films, Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets.)
Producer David Heyman and the Potter cast and crew seemed to have really hit it off with Mr. Yates, because he was also asked to direct the sixth film, Half-Blood Prince, now in production. HBP also marks the return of screenwriter Steve Kloves, a native Texan, to the Potter series. (He skipped writing OoP in order to work on his own film project, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.)
There has been much speculation about who would direct the film of author J.K. Rowling's seventh and final Potter book, Deathly Hallows. Rumors flew: Would Mr. Cuaron come back? Would superstar director Steven Spielberg perhaps take the helm?
Mr. Heyman and Warner Bros. aren't talking. Yet. But a nugget of news arrived from a most unlikely source: the blog of Lois Lowry, another well-known children's author.
Ms. Lowry wrote The Giver, a Newbery Award-winning book that is expected to become a movie. But, as she posted on her blog a couple of days ago:
Bad news from The Giver Movie front. David Yates, the director currently working on the next Harry Potter film, was supposed to begin The Giver film next. But he has just decided he wants to do the final Harry Potter first, thereby postponing The Giver by several years.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Roy Scheider, a two-time Oscar nominee best known for his role as a police chief in the blockbuster movie Jaws, died Sunday. He was 75.Roy Scheider died at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock, hospital spokesman David Robinson said. The hospital did not release a cause of death.
Tell us: What's your favorite Roy Scheider movie?
From the Associated Press:
NEW YORK — Heath Ledger died of an accidental overdose of painkillers, sleeping pills, anti-anxiety medication and other prescription drugs, the New York City medical examiner said Wednesday.The cause of death was "acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine," spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said in a statement.
Accoring to msnbc.com:
The radical Baptist church known for picketing the funerals of American soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq has announced that they intend to protest Heath Ledger’s stateside memorial service because he played a gay character in Brokeback Mountain.
IVER HEATH, England — Quantum of Solace is the title of the
new James Bond film, the 22nd Bond adventure.
Also, have you gotten used to Daniel Craig as Agent 007?
Chuck Palahniuk fans rejoice. Fox Searchlight has scooped up the film adaptation of Choke, a popular novel by the Fight Club author. Searchlight, which has a hit (and Oscar player) on its hands with Juno, paid a reported $5 million for the film at the Sundance Film Festival. For the New York Times' piece on the latest flurry of Sundance acquisitions, click here. For a plot summary of Choke, keep reading.
Continue reading "Sundance: Fox Searchlight goes for 'Choke'" »
There's going to be shock anytime someone 28 dies unexpectedly, and when it's someone famous and talented that reaction is magnified in the media. But it will be interesting to see what the results of today's autospy on Heath Ledger and the findings of the toxicology report (whenever they are released) tell us, not just about the cause of Heath Ledger's death, but the caws around his death.
Brad Loper / DMN
Slideshow: Heath Ledger 1979-2008
From the New York Times: Actor Heath Ledger Is Found Dead
Read reviews of Heath Ledger's recent films:
Lords of Dogtown (2005)
The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Casanova (2005)
Candy (2006)
I'm Not There (2007)
The good folks at Variety report that Charlize Theron will join Viggo Mortensen in The Road, which will be produced by the Cuban/Wagner enterprise 2929 Entertainment. (Read about it here). You may know The Road as The Minimalist and Powerfully Depressing Cormac McCarthy Novel That Oprah Flipped For. Encouraging sign: Aussie John Hillcoat is directing, and his last film, The Proposition, was downright McCarthy-esque.
21, the film adaptation of Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, will open this year's SWSX Film Festival on March 7. The book (and movie by extension) follows the story of a group of students who used card counting to win millions. The film stars Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne and comes out for reals on March 21.
To get you primed on the art of card counting (hey, it's not illegal, but it will get you booted from the casinos), check out this piece in this past Sunday's New York Times Style section.
Ben Stiller as J.R. Ewing? Say it ain't so. But the New York Post's Page Six is saying yup, it might be. Travolta is out, and Mr. Zoolander might be in. Stiller is funny and all, but J.R.? What would Sue Ellen say?
Peter Jackson has signed on to executuve produce the much-hoped-for movie version of The Hobbit, which will serve as a prequel to his Lord of the Rings trilogy. He hasn't, however, signed on to direct, so think of that what you will.
It's a wonder this came together at all as Jackson and New Line had a falling out after the Rings trilogy was complete. But money has a strange way of patching up old wounds.
The plan is for two Hobbit movies to be shot simultaneously (as the Rings films were shot) with planned release dates in 2010 and 2011. So you've got a couple years to get caught up on the book.
HBO Films is planning to turn a best selling book about Barry Bonds' alleged steroid use and the federal government's wide-ranging probe into performance enhancing drug use in sports into a movie, one of the book's authors said Thursday.
HBO Films is planning to turn a best selling book about Barry Bonds' alleged steroid use and the federal government's wide-ranging probe into performance enhancing drug use in sports into a movie, one of the book's authors said Thursday.
Why is this woman smiling? She's got 15-20 million reasons to be. (AP)
Great night at the Texas Theatre Monday night. Robert Stone's documentary Oswald's Ghost is a terrific piece of filmmaking, as much a commentary about the 1960s as it is a look at the Kennedy assassination. But an interesting footnote to the night's events: Gary Mack, curator of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, observed that the last three rows of the renovated theater -- where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested on Nov. 22, 1963 -- have been removed. The third row from the back is where Oswald was sitting moments before Dallas police cornered him during a showing of the Audie Murphy movie War Is Hell. Soon after walking into the Texas Theatre without buying a ticket, Oswald sat in the third row from the back, five seats in from the aisle to his right. When police entered, he moved over two seats to his right and was sitting three seats in from the aisle when the confrontation began. At one time, the seat in which he was sitting during his arrest had stitched into its red upholstery white lettering that documented the moment. Now, of course, that seat is gone. "To be in compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act,” said Mr. Mack, “they had to have enough room for folks with wheelchairs, so they had to take out the last three rows.”
Director Francis Ford Coppola gave Time his top five films:
Missing? The Godfather and The Godfather II, which are widely regarded as cinematic classics.
Sacrilege? You tell me.
Are they coming after Will's cash? (Warner Bros.)
As you may have heard Hollywood writers are on strike. But you may not know about the role of "participation" deals in the whole affair. The long and short of it according to a strong piece from today's New York Times : Megastars like Tom Cruise and Will Smith now get so much dough on top of their regular salaries that the studios could actually be losing money, with or without the cash flowing in from DVD sales. As opposed to the writers, who merely aren't making much. Sounds like a lose-lose situation. And it sounds like it's not going away.
The Hollywood writers strike has officially commenced. The impact won't be felt among moviegoers for a while; studios have been stockpiling movies in anticipation. TV will be harder hit, particularly daily shows (like, well, The Daily Show) that need daily scribbling. Read the NYT's analysis of the issues and account of this morning's picketing here.
Jerry Seinfeld’s Bee Movie opens November 2, the first major project from the man who brought us one of the seminal comedies of the 90s. So what has he been up to in the nine years since Seinfeld left the air, and what made Bee Movie the project to get him off the couch? He stopped through Dallas earlier this month to explain all of that and more.
Joey Bishop, the stone-faced comedian who found success in nightclubs, television and movies but became most famous as a member of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack, has died at 89.
He was the group's last surviving member. Peter Lawford died in 1984, Sammy Davis Jr. in 1990, Dean Martin in 1995, and Sinatra in 1998.
You can also read a terrific 1998 interview that's chock-full of Joeyisms.
Here's a classic Joey Bishop line from the Los Angeles Times' obituary:
While opening for Sinatra at the Copacabana in New York in 1954, Bishop was in the middle of his act when Marilyn Monroe walked in wearing a floor-length, white ermine coat. Bishop waited for her to be seated before saying, “Marilyn, I told you to wait in the truck.”
LONDON — British actress Deborah Kerr, who shared one of cinema's most
famous kisses with Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity, has died, her agent said Thursday. She was 86.
Tell us: What is your favorite Deborah Kerr film? (I'm partial to The King and I.)
Check the New York Daily News item about Brian De Palma crying censorship against Mark Cuban, whose HDNet produced De Palma's new Iraq movie Redacted. Cuban was promptly defended by Eamonn Bowles, president of Cuban and Todd Wagner's Magnolia Pictures.
Cuban and Wagner get a shout-out of a less contentious variety in David Carr's astute piece in today's New York Times (you know, the non-tabloid NY paper) about the glut of pretigious fall films.
Count Oscar-winning Crash writer/director Paul Haggis among those who see a Hollywood work stoppage as inevitable. The Writers Guild of America is considering a strike once its current agreement with the studios expires Oct. 31. (The Screen Actors Guild agreement expires June 30, 2008). The main issue: Residual payments from DVD and TV showings. The studios want to scrap the current residual agreement, claiming widespread budget crisis. This idea doesn't sit well with the writers.
"I assume there’s going to be a strike because the studios are really forcing the issue right now," Haggis told me at the Toronto International Film Festival. "They’re playing brinksmanship instead of dealing with the artists in a fair way. They keep forcing it because they want to keep taking a bigger and bigger piece of the pie in order to serve their corporate interests. If we just had honest accounting in Hollywood and we just gave the artists a fair piece we wouldn't see all this. But they hide so much that we have to fight back to get just a small amount of what they make."
Haggis says the rush is already on to complete projects before the potential doomsday arrives. Haggis' new film, In the Valley of Elah, opens this Friday. He's also writing the script for the next James Bond movie.
If you were looking forward to seeing Across the Universe this weekend, you can go ahead and make other plans. The Beatles-inspired musical has been pushed back a week and will now (supposedly) open Sept. 28.
Jennifer Hudson (Associated Press)
So why no entries on the ol' Movies Blog yet today? Let's just say we're saving our ammo for our live chat today at 2 p.m. If you have any advance questions about the fall movies season or the Toronto International Film Festival, send 'em along to chat@dallasnews.com
Since the Toronto Film Festival is a few days away, let's talk some SXSW. The conference announced today that Moby and documentary maker Stanley Nelson will take part in discussions during the 2008 festival. Moby's will focus on the electronic musician's contributions to film scores while Mr. Nelson's will look at his distiguished career, which includes docs like Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple and The Murder of Emmett Till.
The 2008 edition of the conference will take place from March 7-15.
Lee (AP)
Headed out to a screening of Leonardo DiCaprio's environmental doc The 11th Hour last night, and, as much as it pains my environmentalist heart to say it, it was boring. Which sounds sort of strange to say: making a boring movie about the end of civilization is quite an accomplishment, but it seems that Leo, et. al. have done it. Which is not to say that there are not some important lessons in there. It's just that it covers so much of the same ground that An Inconvenient Truth covered: Global warming is a real problem, the only way to fix it is to find cleaner energy sources, and the only way to do that is to elect officials who aren't in bed with the auto and energy industries.
That's all good information for those who go into The 11th Hour without having seen An Inconvenient Truth. But my Spidey sense tells me that the vast majority of those seeing the new movie have already seen the original. So this isn't the great unwashed here -- these are people who already know what's what and are interested in taking the conversation further. Toward the end of the 95 min. movie, it seemed like just that was going to happen. But what resulted was really a tease of what The 11th Hour should have been -- there were lightening quick references to a new Bank of America building in New York that is now the most energy efficient building in the world, a building in San Francisco that uses a ventilation system instead of air conditioning and a dance club that powers itself through the movement of people on the dance floor. Those are all things that sound cutting edge and exciting and would actually get environmentalists excited about the possibilities out there.
Instead, 11th Hour spends most of its time convincing viewers of what they already know -- the Earth is in trouble and we need to fix it now. It's a good message, but unfortunately it's one we've already paid once to hear.
Justin Timberlake returns to the big screen with Mike Meyers, who he starred with in Shrek the Third. (AP)
Movie fans, it is with great sadness that I welcome you to the cruddiest part of the movie year. The last of the summer blockbusters has been released. The post-Toronto International Film Festival goodies that mark the beginning of Oscar season are still a month away. And so the next few weeks rival February as the leanest time for moviegoers. The reason I think February has some merit is that that month has become the time when everyone catches up on those last few Oscar-nominated films that they haven't seen yet, while some of the best foreign film nominees are just being released. But there are no such pleasures during this time period. Which is not to say that there isn't ANYTHING to see -- Tom Maurstad has provoked my interest in The Invasion, a movie I couldn't have cared less about before reading his review. And there are some smaller gems to be taken in, such as Manufactured Landscapes, which Chris Vognar raved about today.
But just looking at the schedule for the next few weeks, it seems to be that we're going to be in kind of a lull until Sept. 14 or so. 3:10 to Yuma, the remake of the 1957 Western now starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, looks promising on Sept. 7. But Sept. 14 seems to be the real kick off to fall, with David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises and The Brave One, starring Jodi Foster, both debuting.
Until then, enjoy your Mr. Bean's Holiday on Aug. 24, your Balls of Fury on Aug. 29 and your Rob Zombie-directed Halloween on Aug. 31 (Halloween? Really?). I'll be catching up on some DVDs and waiting for the temps to cool down.
With Russell Crowe reportedly onboard and Heroes star Zachary Quinto
signed up to play Mr. Spock, the upcoming J.J. Abrams-directed Star Trek movie is beginning to take shape. But one crucial role remains uncast: Capt. Kirk. So I'll throw it out there -- who should fill William Shatner's shoes? Keep in mind: this is a role with a long tradition of overacting, so don't go suggesting an actor who's ever been accused of subtlety.
Slowly but surely, the Toronto International Film Festival is announcing bits of its lineup, including today's annoncement of its Midnight Madness films. (For the list, head over here. Or just take my word for it that it's stuff that mostly no one has heard of.)
The big announcement of the full schedule will come Aug. 21, but the cat's out of the bag on some of the showpiece films. The Screening Room will be double represented at the fest this year with Chris Vognar (making I believe his 9th or 10th trip up there) and your's truly, making my maiden voyage.
Of the films that I've heard about so far, here's the ones that have perked my ears up:
T-Bone steak, cheese eggs and Welch's Grape: Biggie (file photo)
According to the Associated Press, the studio will look at actors and non-actors to fill the ample shoes of Christopher Wallace, the enormous and enormously gifted rapper who was gunned down in Los Angeles in 1997. Peep the specs here. Who would you cast? And don't forget: he still loves it when you call him Big Poppa.
According to this data I'm quite profitable (Universal Pictures)
Who comes up with this stuff? Forbes.com, of course. They also report that "Damon earned the top spot mainly through his work playing an amnesiac spy in the Bourne trilogy." Which is funny, because his last three roles, according to our calculations, were The Good Shepherd, Ocean's 13 and The Bourne Ultimatum. Which would make the $26 million he pocketed for Bourne Supremacy a tad irrelevant.
And yet, at the end of the day, it's still pretty good to be Matt Damon.
Can't get enough of Once stars Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová? Yeah, me, neither. And luckily for us, an avid Screening Room reader pointed out that they'll be performing tonight on CBS' The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, which oddly enough starts at 12:37 a.m.
Not 12:36 or 12:38. But 12:37.
So set your TiVo. Or your alarm clock. And if you're not lucky enough to have seen Once yet, you can still catch it tonight, and be home in time for the live performance.
Antonioni with Jack Nicholson on the set of 1975's The Passenger (Sony Pictures Classics)
Antonioni was best known in the States for 1975's The Passenger (at left), starring Jack Nicholson as a journalist who assumes the identity of a dead man. It was re-released by Sony Pictures Classics in 2005; check out our review here. He also gained a degree of fame for Blowup (1966), about a hedonistic photographer searching for the truth - and meaning - behind a dead body in the background of a photo. Read our DVD review here.
Antonioni suffered a stroke in 1985, but he contributed a chapter to the trilogy Eros, also featuring the work of Steven Soderbergh and Wong Kar Wai, in 2004. He received a lifetime achievement Oscar in 1995.
Perhaps he saw Bergman go and decided it was time. In any case, we've lost another giant.
Movie Critic Chris Vognar reflects: Bergman was often copied and parodied, but rarely matched
Slideshow: View photos of the legendary Swedish filmmaker
Survey: What's your favorite Ingmar Bergman film?
Obituary: Film Icon Ingmar Bergman dies at 89
Bergman in action, 1957 (AP)
Bergman is too often seen as passe in today's hyper-ironic movie environment, a product of the bygone Euro art house days of the '50s and '60s. Don't believe the hype. As a college student in the early '90s, I walked into a repertory house to see Persona, Bergman's 1966 film about a self-assured nurse caring for a mute actress. I left the theater with my wig peeled back, in a trance and transported to a place only cinema can bring you. I've seen just about all of his films since, and I've rarely been less than amazed at his command of the medium and his ability to penetrate the human soul.
As luck would have it, The Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art will present a pair of opportunities to see Bergman classics on the big screen in August. The Magnolia at the Modern series Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films will show The Seventh Seal 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 14; and a rare Bergman comedy, Smiles of a Summer Night 2 p.m. Sun., Aug. 19.
And now we play the waiting game... (Warner Bros.)
If you've been to the multiplex lately, you've probably seen the Get Smart trailer that's currently running with Harry Potter, among others. You may or not be excited depending on your tolerance level for TV adaptations and Steve Carell. Either way, it doesn't come out for an entire year. Does that make any kind of sense? It's the same with
this trailer for Vantage Point. According to IMDb, the movie's not coming out until next February. I'm thinking there should be a rule: No Trailers for Movies Coming Out More than Six Months from Now. Anyone agree?
In other movie news...
Michel Gondry, the man behind the awe-inspiring Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the eh-inspiring Science of Sleep is up to his lo-fi tricks again. His latest is Be Kind Rewind, which will be released just in time for Oscar consideration. It stars Jack Black as a man who accidentally erases a bunch of videos and sets out to recreate them all, including The Lion King and RoboCop. If nothing else, it's bound to be interesting and dazzling. Look for it at your Angelikas and Inwood this winter.
Will Scott B. Smith's upcoming movie net him another Oscar nod? (Paramount)
Anyone remember A Simple Plan, the brilliant adaptation of Scott B. Smith's novel? It was a bleak little gem of a movie, directed (with surprising restraint) by Sam Raimi and starring Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, and Bridget Fonda. It scored two Oscar nods (for Thornton and Smith). Well, Smith didn't publish anything until last year, a terrific little scarer called The Ruins that I'm currently reading. Only a writer as sharp as Smith could keep the premise (deadly foliage!) from being hokey. And a movie would only work if he was adapting it. Luckily, he is. Short film director and Sundance fave Carter Smith is helming and Darius Khondji ("Se7en," "The Beach," "Panic Room") will shoot it. Filming is taking place in Australia. Expect to have the bejeesus scared out of you in March. If nothing else, it will put all these "torture porn" schlock-meisters to shame.
Will the critics hammer Homer? (photo courtesy of Fox)
But - we just found out the Dallas press screening of The Simpsons has been moved up to Tuesday, which, though it may not seem like it, makes a big difference. Every day helps when it comes to crafting our pristine pearls of wisdom. (Yes, it's all about us). Stay tuned for further Simpsonia.
It was reported last week that all the chips seem to have fallen into place for a Sex and the City movie, with the show's four principle ladies signed on. So who's the holdout? Chris Noth, a.k.a. Mr. Big. The New Your Daily News is reporting that he's yet to ink a deal to appear in the movie, and that those who have seen Michael Patrick King's script for the film say that Big is definitely a big part of the movie. Noth just re-signed with his day job on Law and Order: Criminal Intent, but I would imagine that this is just a formality. What actor wouldn't take a big pay day to play a character he could do in his sleep? If you want to read the whole Daily News story, click here.
New Line
Merriam-Webster announced its usual slew of new words that it is adding to its dictionary, and among them are a couple with movie ties. The most obvious is "Bollywood," the catch-all reference to the prolific Indian movie industry. But my favorite is "ginormous." The dictionary company was able to track the word back to 1948, but I know I first came in contact with it through Elf, when Buddy the Elf exclaims, "Have you seen these toilets. They're ginormous!" And thus, my go-to word for hyberbole was born.
Springfield, Vt. was chosen as the official home of The Simpsons in an online poll on USA Today's Web site. Fourteen Springfield's from around the country submitted videos to the competition. You can watch 'em here.
In other news, we now know that Capital City is really Montpelier.
Warner Bros.
TVGuide.com is reporting that the long-rumored Sex and the City movie is finally a go. According to the site, the four main characters have all agreed and shooting will begin in September. Kim Cattrall is rumored to have been the last domino to finally fall.
By my math, it's been three years since the show went off the air, and if shooting is to being this fall, we're looking at a 2008 release. If The Sopranos follows that same formula, we can all look forward to The Sopranos: The Movie sometime in 2011.
I got an interesting letter from an angry parent today. He's upset about the double-talk that is coming out of the Transformers promotional machine, namely that the movie is being marketed to kids through toy stores, fast food chains, etc. and yet it's PG-13. His point is a lot of the little ones are getting excited for the movie only to learn they aren't old enough. It's kind of like taking a kid to Six Flags and showing him how cool the Shockwave is, only to tell him he's not tall enough to climb aboard.
I think he's got a pretty good point here. And I think the larger point is: the PG-13 rating has really turned into a sort of "soft rating," more of a suggestion to those who are inclined to pay attention to ratings in the first place. But for a large number of parents, I would imagine when they see the "PG," they don't care much about the "13." They're content to know that their kiddos won't be seeing anything R-rated, though what they may not realize is that the line between PG-13 and R has become mighty blurry over the past few years.
My suggestion: If you are a parent, read all you can about the movie before deciding if it's OK for your kid to see. Most reviews and stories about the movies give a pretty clear picture of what's in store. And you can always check out what the MPAA has to say here.
The AP is reporting that Ocean's 13 stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle and Matt Damon have joined producer Jerry Weintraub in raising $9.3 million in humanitarian aid for Darfur. The war-torn area of Sudan has become a major cause for Cheadle, who starred in the Rwanda genocide film Hotel Rwanda. "There are only a few things we can do - protect them where we can, and provide food, water, health care and counseling," Clooney told the AP. "We’re just trying to get them to live long enough to get to the next step." (photo credit: Warner Bros.)
One film we didn't get to review last week - that's right, we can't hit 'em all - is Paprika, the mind-bending anime showing at the Dallas and Plano Angelikas. One look at the poster art tells you this is one eye-tickling ride. Directed by Satoshi Kon, the manga mastermind behind Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika uses the age-old theme of blurring dreams and reality to conjure the kinds of images - a marching band of frogs, china dolls run amok - that you find only in, well, anime. Free associative and endlessly creative, it's well worth a look.