Tag Archives: behind-the-cold

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel To Cash In Again With 2nd Installment

Retirement can be so lucrative, it is worth a re-do. The surprise box office smash The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel will likely get another whirl. Raking in $130 million worldwide with a budget of only $10 million – those are golden box office numbers. The John Madden-directed film starred Judi Dench , Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith and Billy Nighy as English retirees in India. Screenwriter Ol Parker will write the script for Marigold 2, which does not have an official title. Dench, Nighy, and Smith are apparently willing to head back into a charmed retirement once again, according to Moviescope. It is not known if John Madden will be making a return to the director’s chair for the second installment. Based on author Deborah Moggach’s novel The Foolish Things , the box office triumphant was seen by some as evidence that a gap exists in the market for films serving an older demographic. Maggie Smith recently criticized Hollywood for youth obsession, saying that films that portray older people have historically performed well at the box office. “It seems to me there is a change in what audiences want to see,” she said. “I can only hope that’s correct, because there’s an awful lot of people of my age around now and we outnumber the others,” she said. “I don’t think films about elderly people have been made very much. But I think of [films like] Cocoon and Driving Miss Daisy and they always seem to be fairly successful, so it’s a bit baffling as to why everybody has to be treated as if they were five years old.” Smith is currently starring in the third season of the hit British television series Downton Abbey , which will be released in the U.S. in January. Dench is starring as 007’s boss M in the latest Bond pic Skyfall , which opens in the U.S. next month. [ Moviescope , The Guardian ]

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The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel To Cash In Again With 2nd Installment

Oliver Stone Touts New Miniseries, Calls Sandy ‘Punishment’

It is no surprise that Oliver Stone is an Obama supporter, but he is giving out equal criticism to both candidates for not discussing climate change in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which lashed the Northeast this week. Stone is promoting his documentary series The Untold History of the United States and a new book. “I was a little disappointed at the third debate when neither of them talked about climate control and the nature of the situation on Earth,” Stone said during an interview with the Huffington Post . “I think there’s kind of a weird statement coming right after … this is a punishment … Mother Nature cannot be ignored. That’s all I thought about.” Stone said that his Showtime documentary miniseries – which tracks the reasons behind the Cold War, President Harry Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan and changes in America’s role since the fall of Communism – has been one of the most arduous projects he’s undertaken, calling it “love work.” The series is accompanied by a book of the same title, co-written by Peter Kuznick, a history professor at American University. Stone spent $1 million of his own money on the $5 million project, which will be shown in ten episodes. “There’s this attitude that we ‘deserve’ to be in charge,” Stone said. “I don’t believe in that … We act as if we have this right of kingship — we act as tyrants.” “We learn the history of the victors,” added Kuznick. “We learn this triumphant version of history, that the United States is the shining city on the hill.” Stone said that The History of the United States may have once aired on PBS, but the public television network has become too scared to take it on. “They’re so politicized they can’t say anything – they’re scared of their own shadow,” he said adding, “”this Pro-American experience type stuff, where it has to be about America and America has to be the point of making the movie.” [ Source: Huffington Post ]

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Oliver Stone Touts New Miniseries, Calls Sandy ‘Punishment’