Jake Gyllenhaal has played along the edge of creepy ( Donnie Darko ) before, but he hasn’t gone full psycho — until now. After the jump, watch Jakey-poo put that dead-eyed visage to great use as a troubled, tightly coiled young man who kills his hipster pals and strangers alike until he finds just the right… dance club. Eh, it’s a music video for a band called The Shoes. I’ll allow it. The video, directed by Daniel Wolfe for the Shoes single “Time to Dance,” reminds me a lot of this year’s Sundance thriller Simon Killer ; both follow charismatic sociopaths as they stalk their prey, using stylistic flashes and tricks to evoke their character’s mental state. Warning: Some startling violence within. What do you think — who’s ready to see Gyllenhaal tackle characters like this in the movies? (*Raises hand*)
Today in horrifying reboot news comes the stuff of past and future nightmares: “Michael Eisner’s The Tornante Company will finance and produce the development of a feature film based on Garbage Pail Kids , the trading card line published by Topps.” Viral video/shorts helmer PES will direct based on the terrifying 1985 trading cards, which were previously adapted into one of the worst feature films of all time featuring the most disgusting child characters ever created who scared an entire generation of youngsters into not judging their freaky looking but well-meaning peers by their looks alone. Or something. So… yay? [ Deadline ]
Get ready for some twee twinkling on the Croisette — Wes Anderson ‘s Moonrise Kingdom is set to open the 2012 Cannes Film Festival! Last year’s opener, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris , went on to enjoy a rousingly successful theatrical run on its way to a Best Picture nomination; Anderson’s comedy, about a pair of pre-teen lovebirds on the lam in 1960s New England, will open stateside just over a week after its May 16 Cannes debut and marks his return to live-action film after his most recent film, the Oscar-nominated Fantastic Mr. Fox . In a statement announcing the premiere, Cannes head Thierry Frémaux referenced Fellini and Renoir while calling Anderson a ‘ brilliant and inventive filmmaker ‘; not too shabby for a guy who most recently followed in the footsteps of some of cinema’s brightest directors by helming a pair of car commercials for Hyundai ! (Said ads are classic Anderson, though, through and through — can’t quite say the same for this week’s other ad director-for-hire, Darren Aronofsky .) Moonrise Kingdom stars youngsters Jared Gilman as Sam and Kara Hayward as his best gal Suzy, along with Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton, Ed Norton, Frances McDormand, Jason Schwartzman, Bob Balaban, and Harvey Keitel. [ Deadline ]
“‘Metallica has always been a huge part of my life, and it’s an incredible opportunity when we get to work with our heroes,’ said Antal. ‘We are going to harness the powerful and almighty energy of Metallica’s live shows, inject a narrative into it, and shoot it in 3-D to elevate the entire experience.'” Of course they are. Whatever, it can’t be any worse than Lulu . [Press release]
While the latest chapter in the rapidly expanding mythology of Harvey Weinstein involves the mogul shooting down a pitch from President Obama (“I sent him an e-mail back saying he was the most overqualified book scout I’ve ever had”), I remain preoccupied with the saga surrounding Bully , the Weinstein Company doc still embroiled in a battle with the MPAA ratings board to overturn its R for strong language. The publicity clamor continued Wednesday with a young bully victim dropping off a petition with a reported 200,000 signatures to MPAA HQ and Ellen Degeneres discussing the “controversy” on her show. But it’s what quietly came the day before that seems the most intriguing. In an interview published Tuesday, Harvey confided to his LAT pal Patrick Goldstein that Bully ‘s ratings appeal — which the Weinsteins say they lost by one vote — was itself the victim of a mystery MPAA study on language in films. And what a study! These idiots make Harvey look like Clarence Darrow: “After the language in King’s Speech became a big issue, we did a survey to see if parents wanted us to overlook the language,” [MPAA ratings board chair Joan] Graves told me. “And what we discovered was that, overwhelmingly, parents said they wanted to know what kind of language there was in the film. We asked specifically about the F-word, which clearly bothers a large number of people. That’s just how they feel. Language matters.” According to Weinstein, Graves brought up the still-unreleased survey as an argument against “Bully” in his appeal hearing. “It was like a scene out of ‘Perry Mason,’” Weinstein recalled. “The news of the survey came out of nowhere. Joan summarized it in our hearing and it really hurt us. We lost our appeal by one vote and I think the survey cost us that vote.” Graves told me she would eventually make the survey public but wouldn’t commit to a specific timetable. Weinstein argues that there’s no time like the present. “If it says what Joan says it does, she should release it,” he said. “If it makes a strong point, maybe we could learn from it. But I’d like to see the scientific evidence myself.” I love it — this idea of the MPAA drawing up some Middle American focus group of parents and asking what alarms them most about contemporary movies. And that all these parents yelped, “It’s the language! All those F-words in the King’s Speech ! What about the children?” before sobbing into the survey-taker’s cardigan. Because “that’s just how they feel.” No wonder Graves won’t release the study: It’s trapped in her lower intestine with the rest of her shit. Anyway, if giving it a PG-13 means that none of us ever have to hear about Bully ‘s ratings imbroglio again, then fine. Do it. Who cares? Harvey’s 60th birthday is coming up in a couple weeks. I want Joan Graves to jump out of a huge cake clutching a big PG-13. Maybe those 200,000 kids can sign a card next. And Obama can clasp a Medal of Freedom around his neck to go with the French Legion of Honor designation , commemorating everything Harvey has done for those ravaged by the tsunami of caprice and illegitimacy known as the MPAA ratings process. Or whatever. Let’s put this tragedy behind us. We’ve got a P.T. Anderson movie to get to. [ LAT ]
This is real: Paramount is in talks with Magical Elves to direct their Katy Perry 3-D concert documentary — as in Magical Elves, the producing duo comprised of Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz, who previously produced the Paramount smash Justin Bieber: Never Say Never in addition to creating reality TV “classics” like Project Runway and Top Chef . The film will follow the singer on and off-stage, with Footloose director Craig Brewer also onboard to executive produce. The question is, can Perry bring the star power and fan adulation that drove predecessors Never Say Never and Michael Jackson’s This Is It to huge box office returns — or will it take some fairy-esque magic to translate Perry’s candy-colored pop persona into movie gold? [ THR ]
James Cameron broke a world record on Wednesday, plunging five miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean and eclipsing the earlier four-mile mark held by a Japanese crew. But the filmmaker is not done: Later this month, in a 43-inch wide submersible christened Deepsea Challenger, Cameron will attempt to be only the third man to reach the deepest point on the planet — and the first to do it alone. Seems like a long way to go to promote Titanic 3D , but hey. Of course, previous Cameron expeditions have taken the Oscar-winner to shallower sea depths, but this time he means it : He built his miniature submarine secretly in Australia, and already it has outdone all other watercraft in its ability to ferry people through the deep’s crushing pressures. As with the birth of the private space rocket industry, where commercial companies are building ships to take astronauts aloft, the debut of Mr. Cameron’s submarine signals the rising importance of entrepreneurs in the global race to advance science and technology. He said the vehicle over all had many cameras but only one thick porthole, its inner diameter three inches. He described the craft as a “vertical torpedo,” meant to fall and rise quickly so as to maximize time for exploring the seabed. “You’d be an idiot not to be apprehensive, but I trust the design,” Mr. Cameron said as he contemplated his impending dive. “You’re going into one of the most unforgiving places on earth.” But as Brian Lam adds , it’s OK! If only because, ahem: “James’s breath vapor and sweat will condense on a metal surface where it is collected into a bag; he can drink it in an emergency.” Right . And then what souvenirs would we be left with? Xenophyophores, the bottom-dwelling “mysterious life forms [that] consist of a single cell and appear able to grow to the size of a fist”? EBay does not approve. Anyway, here’s video: [ NYT , The Scuttlefish via The Awl ]
Movieline’s New York-based readers had a chance over the last few days to review their favorite Shakespeare screen adaptation in exactly 10 words for a chance to win tickets to tomorrow’s opening-night screening of the documentary Shakespeare High . After browsing the entries left both here and on Twitter, we have settled on a winner! Congratulations to Chris Connolly , who summed up the epic 1996 Hamlet thusly: “Hamlet and Ophelia finally get busy in Branagh’s perfect adaptation.” Bam . Congratulations, Chris! We’ll be in touch with info about Friday’s screening. And thank you all for playing! Shakespeare High opens this weekend at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center.
In February, a federal court threw out a suit filed by Stan Lee Media Inc. against Paradox Entertainment — a failed attempt for the plaintiff to regain the intellectual-property rights of the Conan comic character. It might seem odd enough that a company sues for a claim to the proceeds of a film that lost tens of millions of dollars last summer, but odder still is that Stan Lee himself — the comic-book mastermind responsible for The Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man, and hundreds of other iconic characters — was neither the plaintiff nor the defendant in that suit. As has been the case for over a decade, the legal wrangling surrounding Lee has been as convoluted and nonsensical as the script to Elektra , and it will only get more confounding on Thursday, when a new federal case comes to trial pitting SLMI against its namesake himself. That’s right: Stan Lee Media is suing Stan Lee over characters created by Stan Lee. Figuring out how an individual becomes a defendant in a case filed by the company bearing his name is an effort nearly as heroic as his own characters’ feats. It involves Lee bouncing between companies during repeated bankruptcies and determining where he was when activities took place. It also involves a company refusing to back down despite losing numerous judgments, and despite the exodus of the eponymous leader. Much of the acrimony dates back to the 1990s, when Lee was still the figurehead at the then-struggling Marvel. Throughout that decade the comic company over-leveraged acquisitions and hemorrhaged enough money to land in bankruptcy. By 1998, the company used that proceeding to end Lee’s contract of $1 million annual salary for life. Stan Lee left Marvel and started a new company , Stan Lee Entertainment (soon becoming SLMI) as a way to maintain control over his intellectual property. The company was started by Lee with a close friend, Peter F. Paul — a man with a checkered history of federal drug and conspiracy convictions for crimes including, but not limited to, selling $8.7 million worth of ” nonexistent coffee ” to Fidel Castro. Paul was to have an equally troubled future that would soon ensnare his new partner Lee. Initially the company made an impact with online animated comics, developing new characters on Web sites with the expectation of spinning them off into various media. The company enjoyed initial success. The creation known as The 7th Portal, for starters, had been acquired by Fox television for foreign broadcast, and was featured as a 3-D attraction for Paramount Theme Parks. Like so many digitally-based companies of the era, SLMI foundered with the bursting tech bubble. Then, after Peter Paul secured a bridge loan to prop up the struggling enterprise, he and numerous board members dumped large amounts of holdings ahead of the ultimate stock collapse. The Securities and Exchange Commission feared insider trading, and Paul feared the SEC — so he fled for Brazil. The company’s stock price plunged to $.13 per share by the end of 2000, and it filed for bankruptcy in February 2001. Two key events occurred during this time. Sensing both SLMI’s downfall and encroaching legal troubles, Lee founded POW! Entertainment — a new company that was strictly his own. He transferred the rights of his properties to POW! during bankruptcy and then departed SLMI. Additionally, in November of 2000, SLMI had negotiated for ownership of the Conan franchise. This came from purchasing all outstanding shares of rights-holder Conan Properties in exchange for SLMI stock, with a minimum price attached. It didn’t take long for this deal to become compromised: The next month, following the stock dump by Paul and other officers, SLMI was delisted from trading by NASDAQ . Sitting in possession of worthless holdings, Conan Properties sued for a reversal of the sale, and in 2002 a bankruptcy court returned the rights to the company. (It eventually sold those rights to Paradox, a Swedish entertainment entity which shepherded the latest Conan film to the screen with Lionsgate.) The latter events coincided with Marvel’s incredible comeback. Led by Vice Chairman (and longtime Marvel power broker) Isaac Perlmutter, the company had climbed out of bankruptcy by licensing the film rights for several of its highest-profile characters including Spider-Man (which Sony would soon develop into a box-office behemoth), X-Men and the Fantastic Four (both successfully adapted by Fox). In light of this swift, lucrative reversal of misfortune, Lee brought suit against Marvel for terminating his contract and demanding payment on the promise of 10 percent of profits earned by characters of his creation. Yet even while he pursued this lawsuit, Lee — and his intellectual property — returned to Marvel. Here is where the dispute regarding rights to Lee’s characters, and whether they ever actually left Marvel, is focused — a dispute SLMI has been trying to win for years and which this week’s trial will attempt to settle once and for all. In 2005, Marvel and Lee settled their case before going to jury; the court records were sealed, although Marvel later reported a $10 million write-down with regard to Lee. Meanwhile, that same year, Peter F. Paul was extradited from Brazil, earning four years of house arrest and 10 years imprisonment after separate plea deals in his SLMI stock-manipulation case. Once he returned to the States, a new group of his acolytes organized as board of directors for SLMI. Since then the company has been rather adept at filing — if not quite winning — lawsuits. Routinely, its legal attempts at securing the rights to comic characters have been denied or dismissed entirely in courts from New York to Los Angeles to Colorado. One suit sought to unseal the 2005 Lee/Marvel settlement in search of proof that Lee left Marvel in 1998 with the rights to his characters. Such a discovery would seemingly prove that Lee brought those rights to SLMI after Marvel spiked his contract and before fleeing SLMI with them illegally. Ultimately SLMI wants to prove that Lee was colluding with Marvel to cover the rights transfer in their 2005 settlement, thus entitling Marvel to full rights while Lee shared in huge profits. In dismissing that case in February 2011, U.S District Judge Robert Sweet summarized the lack of standing SLMI held as the intervening party, writing, “Their alleged mutual misrepresentations regarding the action’s real party in interest, and their mutual mischaracterization of the nature and effect of the Marvel/Lee Employment Agreement have not been established.” Lack of standing has done little to stop SLMI in its legal lurches. It took nine years following the bankruptcy ruling before the board decided to spring up suddenly with its claim to the rights of Conan; it cannily filed that lawsuit the very day Conan debuted in theaters last August. The judge in that case last month rejected the company’s claims, stating that SLMI could not demonstrate proper standing and harm. That makes sense: The company dissolved one month following the Conan rights deal and had no funds to create any product; hard to show harm when you have nothing to show at all. Rather than a formidable archenemy from Lee’s imagination, Stan Lee Media Inc. instead resurfaces with all the predictability and impotency of a villain defeated repeatedly in a serialized superhero saga. Nevertheless, SLMI forges ahead undeterred with its legal process — largely because the company has nothing to lose; it has not produced anything in over a decade. It doesn’t even have a functioning Web site . Making a play for some of the most lucrative properties in Hollywood is all Stan Lee Media Inc. has in its arsenal, and the potential windfall is enough to motivate continuous torts. In a bit of understatement, Judge Sweet alluded to this possible perpetuity when he wrote, “Because of the success of the characters and the conflicting claims concerning their rights, it has been difficult to achieve finality.” Should a loss in this week’s case send SLMI away for good, it still won’t be the end of the lawsuits regarding these properties. The estate of Jack Kirby, a former collaborator of Lee, has also taken to the courts regarding copyrights of characters he also had a hand in creating. Expect Marvel and its corporate parents at Disney to be gathering an Avengers team of lawyers in their defense for years to come. Brad Slager has written about movies and entertainment for Film Threat, Mediaite, and is a columnist at CHUD.com . His less insightful impressions on entertainment can be found on Twitter . [Photos via Shutterstock ; Illustration: Movieline]
You’ve been hearing about it for years , and at last, the fabled Hugh Hefner biopic that will never get made has moved from Universal to Warner Bros. The one and only Jerry Weintraub will produce, at least until he won’t. “While Universal had filmmakers like Brett Ratner attached at one time or another and actors like Robert Downey Jr. and Hugh Jackman mentioned as possibles to play Hef, the project languished,” Mike Fleming writes at ML’s sister site Deadline. “Wentraub would not disclose what part of Hefner’s life he will cover, and he denied that Harry Potter scribe Steve Kloves is being talked to as a potential screenwriter.” Finally! We’re getting somewhere. [ Deadline ]
