Daniel Craig may be on he heels of one of the most anticipated films of the Fall, but he’s already looking ahead of 007 for his next gig. Craig said he’s hoping to be a part of a follow-up installment to the English-language version of Stieg Larsson’s trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo , though at the moment there seems to be little movement for the second installment, The Girl Who Played with Fire . Craig starred along with Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard and Robin Wright in the English version of the film, which grossed over $232 million worldwide last year. “Of course I’ll embrace [the movie], especially if [David] Fincher does it,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I’m definitely going to work on him.” Fincher has a lot on his directing plate and has kept mum about a second round of the crime mystery. Danish-born director Niels Arden Oplev directed the original in 2009. “I’m definitely going to work on him,” said Craig. Skyfall is destined to be a worldwide blockbuster, but Craig said taking on indies can be a great change. “Sometimes shooting on a smaller scale, as long as things don’t blow out of proportion, is very liberating…But I wouldn’t like to self-consciously go out and look for some nice small project just to get a chance to prove my acting chops. It’s like, I think I’ve … done enough of that.” [ Source: Los Angeles Times ]
Tuesday night, the New York Film Festival hosted something that is likely a rarified event in the usually hallowed theater venues at Lincoln Center – a boisterous and rowdy crowd. But the event probably landed itself to the culture shift. The occasion was the 25th anniversary of The Princess Bride and a good chunk of the living cast showed up, including Robin Wright , Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Wallace Shawn and Billy Crystal in addition to director Rob Reiner as well as author William Goldman. Random shouts of “meathead” could be heard from the audience – all loving of course – when Reiner was introduced on stage as first coming to prominence as Michael Stivic in 1970s television show All in the Family . The Princess Bride was also likened to The Wizard of Oz (1939) – something Reiner fully embraced. Reiner recalled that when Princess Bride first went into release, a trailer had not been made a week before its roll out, nor had a one-sheet been created to describe the film. “Like ‘The Wizard of Oz’ at the time, the studios weren’t sure how to market this kind of a film,” said Reiner. “And similar to [that movie] it didn’t do [very well] when it first came out.” Released in September, 1987, the film had a strong showing in nine theaters in its initial run, but its overall theatrical run (nearly $31 million) apparently disappointed, but it has lived on as a cult favorite and the audience at Lincoln Center talked back to the screen in something akin to watching The Little Shop of Horrors (which incidentally also played at NYFF last weekend). Reiner’s father met William Goldman in 1968 while working on a book about Broadway that year. Reiner’s father had coincidentally just created a play running in New York. While still in his 20s, his dad gave him the novel The Princess Bride to read and, as might be expected, fell in love with it. “I was monster fan of everything [Goldman] had written,” he said. “My dad gave me the book and I couldn’t believe how incredible this book was. What a high degree of difficulty to do an adventure, romance, satire and make it all work. I thought it was the most incredible thing I’d read in my whole life.” Years later, after getting his lauded This is Spinal Tap and Stand by Me under his belt, Reiner thought about The Princess Bride . “So, many years go by and I had made some movies and I thought naively, ‘well they make movies out of books and my favorite book is The Princess Bride .’ So as a totally naive person, I thought I’ll see if someone has tried to do this. I found out the Truffaut had tried.” Eventually, he decided to go for it and ask the two-time Oscar winning writer if he could take on The Princess Bride . “I went to meet with him at his place in [New York] and he opened the door and said, ‘ The Princess Bride is my favorite thing I’ve ever written in my life – I want it on my tombstone. What are you going to do with it?'” Goldman did give his blessing that night. Newcomer at the time Robin Wright was cast the title character (aka Buttercup) opposite Cary Elwes, the man of her dreams (who she does some of that kissing with). The fairy tale aspect of the story came as a bit of a surprise for Wright who had not read the book by the time she departed for the set in England, but was taken aback by the fantasy element that rides through the story. When I read the script, I noticed all the stage direction which had things like lightning, sand, thunder, giant rodents and fire. I thought, ‘Oh we’re just going to do the dialog, I didn’t believe all that other stuff,” Wright said at Lincoln Center. “I went to England and had never read the book, thinking all that stage direction B.S. was just that. And then I had to put on my accent and there were attacking eels and all this stuff. It was just insane.”
Academy Award-winner Cliff Robertson passed away on Saturday just a day after his 88th birthday, but the dependable actor (and underrated, in terms of ’60s Oscar winners — right up there with my girl Sandy Dennis !) enjoyed roles in more than 100 films. As we say goodbye to his great talent, here’s an exciting quintet of films to help you admire his versatile appeal.
The buzz circulating around Rampart at the Toronto Film Festival has it either right on the fringe of the Oscar crop (with a few judicious cuts ) or simply a curio with a ferocious turn by Woody Harrelson . And now viewers at home can finally get a look at what may or may not materialize as one of the season’s awards candidates — a bundle of NSFW clips have arrived online for your viewing pleasure.
L.A. Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant appeared to use a homophobic slur while cursing out an NBA ref last night, and a gay rights group is justifiably livid. In the third quarter of L.A.’s matchup with the Spurs, Kobe got a technical foul. Clearly upset, he appeared to call Bennie Adams a “F**king f**got.” The Lakers say they can’t confirm what was said, but it looks obvious. An announcer even said, “You might wanna take the cameras off of him” … Kobe Bryant Curses at Ref In the wake of this incident, the Human Rights Campaign called it “a disgrace for Kobe Bryant to use such horribly offensive and distasteful language.” Even worse, the group said in condemning Kobe – “a person with such fame and influence” – was that he did this with millions of people watching: “Such language not only offends millions of LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] people around the world, but also perpetuates a culture of discrimination and hate that all of us, most notably Mr. Bryant, should be working to eradicate.”
Just three months into their surprising romance, is Scarlett Johansson already moving into the Malibu home of actor beau Sean Penn? Us says yes . Relocating from temporary digs at a West Hollywood hotel, the recently separated 26-year-old “has essentially moved in over the last few weeks.” Scarlett and Sean Penn , 50, now share the same roof after months of furtive sightings in Hollywood, Mexico and beyond. Sources say it’s serious … The pair “just stay home” whenever they can, says a source. That means eating in and hanging with Penn’s kids with ex-wife Robin Wright, who aren’t much younger than she: daughter Dylan, 20, and son Hopper, 17. While it was surprising enough that Johansson rebounded from her December split from Ryan Reynolds with Penn, no one expected it to move this fast. That being said, whatever makes the new couple happy. Maybe she needed a more mature guy and a dramatic change in her life? Is that so wrong? [Photos: WENN.com]
Scarlett Johansson#39;s rep told us at the time that they the two were not dating. Neither of their reps have commented on the pair#39;s most recent sightings. Johansson and Ryan Reynolds, 34, split in December after two years of marriage. In August of 2009, Robin Wright, 44, filed for divorce from Penn. The couple had been married 13 years. It was a short getaway, but Sean Penn and Scarlett Johansson made the most of it. The pair left on a private jet from Van Nuys airport Tuesday morning,
Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to get the necessary caffeine boost before seeing Robert Redford’s The Conspirator in theaters. Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions have announced that they’ve purchased the Redford’s historical drama about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln with an eye toward releasing it next spring, outside of this year’s already-crowded awards season. [ NYT /ArtsBeat ]
Behold the paradox of Robert Redford: Lauded as one of the most innovative, influential filmmaking advocates around, as a filmmaker he has acquired a reputation as a snooze and a scold. In turn, over the last decade especially, I have acquired a reciprocal Redford Reflex: When I heard that his as-yet-unacquired historical drama The Conspirator was screening at TIFF, I felt my eyelids droop ever so slightly, and my throat begin to dry. An independent project with a rich vein of history running through it could be double trouble or a revelation. Either way the Redford Reflex was in full effect; I knew my morning screening would require something large and violently caffeinated.
Robin Wright, 44, who is currently filming Moneyball with Brad Pitt, is in talks to play Erika Berger, the editor of leading finance magazine, Millennium – and lover of Craig#39;s character, Mikael Blomkvist, reports Deadline.com. And the casting mystery continues: Robin Wright is negotiating to play opposite Daniel Craig in the upcoming film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The film, which is based off the novel by Stieg Larsson, is still in need of a leading lady to play Lisbet
