A vintage photo of famed director Steven Spielberg on the set of Jurassic Park went hugely viral this week, leaving many Internet users up in arms. Because they believed Spielberg killed the creature for sport, obviously. Jurassic Park , based on the Michael Crichton book of the same name, tells the story of a man who utilizes ancient dinosaur DNA to bring them back as a tourist attraction. Needless to say: That was a bad idea in the book/movie, as those fools ran amok No actual triceratops has been sighted in 65 million years You wouldn’t know the latter if you read people’s Facebook feeds this week, though, after humorist Jay Branscomb posted the photo with the caption: “Disgraceful photo of recreational hunter happily posing next to a Triceratops he just slaughtered. Please share so the world can name and shame this despicable man.” Cue the online furor from people not realizing he’s kidding, or that dinosaurs went extinct a while back. Maybe Kendall Jones is still fresh in their minds? The rant pasted onto the photo above says it all. As do these people: “Steven Spielberg, I’m disappointed in you. I’m not watching any of your movies again ANIMAL KILLER.” “Disgraceful. No wonder dinosaurs became extinct. Sickos like this kill every last one of them as soon as they are discovered.” “He should be in prison.” “He should be killed instead.” “Beautiful creature innocently living millions of years ago then this monster comes along.” Soon enough, it took on a life of its own, spawning all manner of jokes, Spielberg references and vitriol … from haters and haters of those who believed this was real. Where will this rank among the Great Facebook Fails of All Time? That’s for you to decide after scrolling through so many gems we’ve compiled here: 33 Most Epic Facebook Fails of All Time 1. Weird-Looking Parrot! Who chose that bird to put over an American flag pic, honestly? And why?
While Lincoln campaigns hard for Oscar gold (and still racks up box office cash), Steven Spielberg has decided not to shoot his sci-fi blockbuster Robopocalypse in the spring as planned, multiple outlets report. The question is, will Spielberg — who notoriously told 60 Minutes he could direct another action movie in his sleep, as evidenced by Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , zing! — stay onboard in the director’s chair or take up another project in the meantime? Robopocalypse , based on Daniel H. Wilson’s 2011 bestseller about an artificial intelligence-sparked apocalypse, was set to star Anne Hathaway and Chris Hemsworth , with a script by Cabin in the Woods ‘ Drew Goddard. Fox and DreamWorks had already set a release date of April 15, 2014 for the $100 million-plus tentpole. It’s not great news for the adaptation, but is this the end for Robopocalypse ? Here’s Deadline ‘s Mike Fleming as the voice of reason: “All I’m told is that there was no reason to rush Robopocalypse , and if Spielberg waited 12 years to get Lincoln right, this one can wait a big longer.” The robot game’s kind of a crowded field right now, anyway; Guillermo del Toro’s kaiju vs. mecha Pacific Rim is heading for theaters this July 13, and Michael Bay just hired this guy to star opposite Mark Wahlberg in his secondary trilogy-starter Transformers 4 . [via Deadline ] Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Fans of Jared Leto’s band Thirty Seconds to Mars like to refer to themselves as family, but ‘apostles’ might be a better term. Thanks to their fervent support, Artifact , the Leto-directed (under the pseudonym Bartholomew Cubbins) film about the band’s lengthy legal battle with its record label EMI, is making some noise on the indie circuit. In September, Artifact won the Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice Documentary Award in September, and earlier this month it was nominated for an IFP Gotham Audience Award even though the film didn’t premiere in the U.S. until Thursday night at the DOC NYC festival in New York City. The Echelon — the name that Leto has bestowed upon his band’s fan base — were out in force there, too, braving frigid temperatures and a Nor’Easter-snarled New York to gather by the dozens at the School of Visual Arts in Chelsea for the screening and a glimpse of their idol. A spokeswoman for DOC NYC says that more than 500 people attended the two screenings of the documentary that were held on Thursday. Instead of the screaming hordes you might battle at a Justin Bieber appearance, however, the mostly female and surprisingly middle-aged crowd that gathered at the 6 p.m. screening of Artifact was well behaved and fairly quiet when it came to their reverence. (Somehow, they’d even organized a canned-food drive with local charity City Harvest to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy.) Photographer Jolene McMeans had traveled from Eugene, Ore. to see the film. “I barely made it last night,” she told Movieline. Johana Ruano, who sat next to her and carried a bouquet of flowers, said that she had made it in from Miami despite having her first flight canceled Wednesday night due to the storm. DOC NYC Artistic Director Thom Powers told the crowd that Leto’s initial flight to New York had been canceled, too, but he had also found a way to the city and the Echelon gave him an enthusiastic welcome as he walked to the front of the theater dressed in black and wearing a hipster trapper’s hat. “I know half the people in this room,” he said, after which a male voice in the crowd shouted, “I love you.” “I love you, too!” Leto replied. The Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman was in the process of explaining that Artifact was a “really personal” film and a “labor of love” when he was interrupted by a mewling sound from the audience. “Is that a cat?” he asked. (Actually, it was a young child that one of the audience members had brought with her.) The actor and musical artist returned to describing Artifact : “It’s a film about a battle. It’s a film about an album. It’s a film about our lives,” Leto said. Artifact is also a film in need of an editor, but it does shine a sobering light on the vagaries of the major-label music business, which, the film’s participants point out, for instance, continues to charge bands de-rigeur breakage fees for records that are digitally downloaded. And that’s just one of the minor details. Although the band decided to stay with EMI after the lawsuit was dropped and the band was given a more favorable contract, the film claims that, despite selling millions of albums, Thirty Seconds to Mars has not made any money on the sale of those recordings. And what did the Echelon think? Though Leto did not return at the end of the screening, they stood to give the movie an extended standing ovation. On my way out of the theater, I asked Johana and Jolene why they were so loyal to Leto and Thirty Seconds to Mars. “He involves you. He answers your tweets,” said McMeans. “He makes us part of the band as well,” said Ruano. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Actor Daniel Day-Lewis was reticent playing U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in the now much anticipated film that opens this weekend beginning in limited release and heads out wide the following week. But after a long build-up before actually taking on the 16th U.S. leader, he reflected that he now feels “nourished” by the role and hopes Lincoln will “stay with him forever.” Both Day-Lewis and director Steven Spielberg made their only joint television appearance on ABC, which airs Friday evening on World News with Diane Sawyer and Nightline . “This seemed like such an important thing,” said U.K.-born Day-Lewis. “The last thing I wanted to do was to desiccate the memory of the most dearly loved president of this country.” Day-Lewis said that he became familiar with Lincoln while studying up on the Civil War and Spielberg recalled going to Washington, D.C. as a youth. “I think it might have been from the cards that you got with bubble gum,” Day-Lewis said. “That was a huge currency at the school where I was and there was a big series on the Civil War. … We were constantly swapping cards back and forth to try to get the completed set.” Added Spielberg: “All I saw was a giant. I never forgot that experience. … I felt he was looking directly at me.” Spielberg added that the found the idea of making Lincoln daunting, but said that Doris Kerns-Goodwin’s Team of Rivals shed light on a part of the President he had hoped to discover. “He was awkward to look at. His voice didn’t fit his stature, and he would just disarm a room with just a crazy story that had no relevance to the issue of why they were in the room to begin with,” he said. “There were so many odd, strange things about Abraham Lincoln that I think nobody knew how to pigeonhole him.” Spielberg said he had considered fully chronicling Lincoln’s life, but decided to narrow this portrait of him to the period when he struggled to pass the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which formally abolished slavery. “We didn’t have the real estate to really give an accurate Lincoln portrait,” he told ABC News. “It would have been like a greatest-hits album. You know, all those moments you read about in class — two minutes for that, five minutes for the Gettysburg Address, let’s do a little montage of the debates. I realized we had to take a position, our position, and get on with it. … I will certainly carry this with me.” Tommy Lee Jones Clip in Lincoln follows: Official Log-line: Steven Spielberg directs two-time Academy Award® winner Daniel Day-Lewis in “Lincoln,” a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come. Watch the video on YouTube [Source: ABC News ]
“This has been a journey for me that’s unlike nothing I’ve done before. It’s been a real ride and it’s still unfinished.” So said Steven Spielberg Monday night as he introduced the New York Film Festival ‘s “Surprise Screening,” Lincoln , though most everyone in the jammed unruly line(s) getting into the Alice Tully Hall all but knew the film starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, would be the ‘surprise.’ The general consensus about the film is that it is a serious contender for Oscar glory, though with the likes of Day-Lewis and a stunning performance by Tommy Lee Jones as radical Republican Congressional leader Thaddeus Stevens, as well as a script by Tony Kushner and director Spielberg, how could it not be? The powers that be at DreamWorks and Touchstone were careful that no footage or anything of a digital nature would escape the 1000-plus seat theater. Everyone had to check anything that so much had an on/off button (through a quick scan through the crowd, one could see a few cameras/iPhones at the end of the screening). The film’s official world premiere will take place as the closing night gala of the upcoming AFI Fest in Los Angeles. The movie opens with a rain-soaked hand-to-hand battle between north and south. The gruesome scene is reminiscent of Spielberg’s past war battles in all its tragic detail. But that is the only war scene in the two-hour-plus pic (there was confusion at the screening exactly how long it was in its current state). “I already did Saving Private Ryan ,” joked Spielberg following the screening. The bulk of the film centers on the period after Lincoln’s re-election in 1864 in the months leading up to his death in April of the following year, when he struggled to get the 13th Amendment passed by the House of Representatives. The Amendment abolished slavery once and for all in the United States. Though he had ordered the Emancipation Proclamation earlier, Lincoln feared the provision would only be held up as a “war power” and would become redundant after the war’s end — meaning, those legally freed would be immediately sent back into servitude. “When Steven [Spielberg] and I started talking about doing this, we knew we’d only do part of [Lincoln’s] administration — not all of it,” said Oscar-nominated screenwriter Tony Kushner. “The whole thing got delayed during the writers’ strike, so I didn’t do anything with it — but I did think about it.” Kushner initially wrote a 500-page screenplay but then whittled it down to 100 pages after suggesting that Spielberg particularly look at the political drama that lead up to the passage of the 13th Amendment, which plays out like a 19th century political drama. Day-Lewis channels the steely determined sage of a still young country on the brink of disintegrating. Spielberg and Day-Lewis relied on historical documents to pattern the 16th President’s voice which goes against stereotype for a national patriarch who is known to have been a great orator. “Research talks about his high shrill voice,” said Spielberg. “I think we’d be criticized if we did it the way he’s heard by Disney’s Epcot Center with a low-tenored voice.” Tommy Lee Jones will undoubtedly get an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for portraying the sharp-tongued Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, who spearheaded equal rights against a venomous opposition in the House. He argues spectacularly against a pack of Democrats who vehemently oppose the 13th Amendment, fearing its passage would portend future implications — namely the vote and equal rights. Spielberg pointed out the historical fact that the Republicans were considered the “progressive” party of the day while the Democrats were generally in favor of the status quo, though some did cross party lines in a case of political brinksmanship — which is at the center of this film argues to pass the 13th. Authenticity played a central role in crafting Lincoln , and the looks of the day as portrayed in the film sometimes came off as comical. The costumes are something phenomenal, especially those worn by David Strathairn, who plays Secretary of State William Seward, and Sally Fields as Mrs. Lincoln, who argues at moments to chuckles from the audience (but yes, Mrs. Lincoln did wear those massive poofy dresses). “We used Lincoln’s own watch in the movie,” said Spielberg. “The watch ticking in the movie is Lincoln’s own watch. It was wound for the first time in 50 years. There was a high bar to reach and we brought that to Richmond where we shot the movie.” “This was one of the most pleasant experiences [filming] I’ve ever had,” he added. “Daniel Day-Lewis is a consummate artist and that marriage with Tony [Kushner’s] words was momentous.” [ Photo by Godlis/Film Society of Lincoln Center ] Follow Brian Brooks on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis will take part in a live question-and-answer session on Yahoo! in New York following an early special multi-city screening of Lincoln on Oct. 10. Dreamworks Pictures, which will release Lincoln on Nov. 16, announced on Monday that the discussion with the director and star of the hightly anticipated film will take place in New York after a 7 p.m. screening at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13 on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The movie will also simultaneously screen in nine other cities: Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Boston, Washington DC, Seattle, Miami, Atlanta and Houston. The Q&A will stream live on Yahoo! Movies and audiences at the screenings will view it live via satellite after the film. Questions can be submitted via Twitter using the hashtag: #Lincolnmovie. Let’s hope this goes more smoothly than t he glitchy Google Hangout session with Spielberg and Joseph Gordon-Levitt that took place Sept. 4.
The theatrical trailer for Steven Spielberg’s highly anticipated Lincoln will debut at 7 p.m. Eastern Time on Sept. 13 during a Google + Hangout with the director and actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt , who plays Robert Todd Lincoln. Dreamworks Pictures and Google Play announced today that the trailer for the film, which stars Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th President of the United States, will be the first to launch during a Google + Hangout, which will be broadcast live on the ABC SuperSign in New York City’s Times Square. The event, which allows people to connect face-to-face-to-face via group video chat, will also feature a live conversation with Spielberg and Gordon-Levitt. The film is slated for a Nov. 16 release. Fans interested in participating are asked to upload a short video to their own YouTube channel with the #LincolnHangout tag explaining who they are, why they are interested in Lincoln and what they would like to ask Spielberg and Gordon-Levitt about the film. (The link above explains more about submissions.) Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
A pensive Daniel Day-Lewis turned Abraham Lincoln appears in this black and white poster of DreamWorks’ Lincoln due to hit U.S. theaters in November – actually only days after the 44th POTUS or the 45th POTUS wins the U.S. election. Directed by Steven Spielberg , Lincoln spotlights the 16th President of the United States during his final months in office. On set, Spielberg revealed that he’d refer to Day-Lewis as “Mr. President” along with referring to all the film’s actors by their character names, ML noted via a report by EW when the first color images of Lincoln appeared two weeks ago. If the sneak looks are any indication, an Oscar-nomination for Make Up and even Costume Design cannot be far off the mark. A quick look at Lincoln’s actual beard in an actual photo of the President shows his beard to appear less whiskery in the mid-jaw area. And voila, such is the facial hair as it manifests in the Lincoln version of Lincoln. Though obviously some time before audiences will first see Lincoln , with two-time Academy Award-winner Daniel Day-Lewis as the Civil War leader, more Oscar nominations will likely be in the offing come January. And who knows what Joseph Gordon-Levitt will do as Robert Todd Lincoln (the First Son) and Sally Field as the sometimes maligned wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. Dreamworks revealed its official log-line for the feature: Steven Spielberg directs two-time Academy Award® winner Daniel Day-Lewis in “Lincoln,” a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook and Tommy Lee Jones, “Lincoln” is produced by Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, with a screenplay by Tony Kushner, based in part on the book “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The DreamWorks Pictures/Twentieth Century Fox film, in association with Participant Media, releases in U.S. theaters exclusive on November 9, 2012, with expansion on November 16, 2012.
Steven Spielberg was signing autographs for fans in New York. We asked the director-extraordinaire for his thoughts on Whitney’s Death. We couldn’t agree more with what Steven had to say!
Never one to let inhibitions stand in the way of a great creative opportunity, Emily Watson put aside her equinophobia for a while to join up with Steven Spielberg’s new War Horse . Along the way, she also got to know the film’s irrepressible goose, its neophyte leading man and its legendary filmmaker’s one-of-a-kind facility with epic storytelling. Watson explained more recently in a chat with Movieline. I don’t know about you, but I am War Horse -d out, Can we talk about something else? What else is going on? What else is going on? I was interested in a comment you made in the press conference about how everyone on a set should have a T-shirt that says, “It’s not about you.” Can you elaborate on that? I just mean that as a storyteller, when you get out of the way, that’s when the magic starts. If you’re paranoid about your performance or your status or how you look, or if there’s something stopping you from giving yourself over to a story? Actors, directors, cameramen — if everybody’s just there to tell the story, then you can get some great work. And so it’s not about Spielberg on the set? No, it’s not. He is one of those rare creatures who is compelled to tell stories. He’d be like a fish with no water — he’d be deprived of air if he wasn’t telling stories. Robert Altman was the same. Paul Thomas Anderson was the same. It’s like a muscle that has to be exercised. Everything he’s saying and everything he’s about is, “How can we best deliver this moment in time?” Now, everybody has a different way of doing that, but it’s all from the utter urgency of being a storyteller. What about a guy like Lars von Trier, who’s perceived as almost inseparable from his films? [Long pause] Yeah, I’d say. I think the stories that he’s compelled to tell are quite… You know, in a way, all storytellers are philosophers. They’re searching for meaning in everything. He’s quite close to the edge and extreme, but in the same way, he’s really searching for meaning somehow. Are you really afraid of horses? Mm-hmm. [Laughs] But I didn’t let on. Yes, I am. I’m not good around animals, generally. Oh — at all? I don’t mind dogs and cats and all that, but… What is it about horses? They might kick me! They’re big, powerful creatures? I think it’s my own ignorance. I don’t know what to do, and I don’t know how to read the signs of a horse. But if I’d been on it… I love the sound of the boys’ training camp. To be able to learn to do something like that? It sounds amazing. And I love the whole cavalry charge. It’s stupendous! I love it. Have you ever had to learn a skill for a role? I had to learn the cello for Hilary and Jackie , which was a big deal. It was a difficult thing to learn. How long did it take? Well, I say I learned the cello. I was miming to playback in the film. But I did learn pretty accurate fingering and the right bowing and the sense of expression. If you actually heard what I was playing, it would be excruciating. How long did it take? Two months? Two or three months? I think I had about 20 different pieces of music that I had to play, and I sat down and meticulously learned the tune for each one. And then I learned the fingering for each piece, and then I learned the bowing. Then I put them together. It was very scientific! Back to the animals: Was the goose in this movie as bad-ass as it looked? [Laughs] Yeah, it was. You were totally afraid of the goose, right? No, not really. I did sort of a photo op with the geese at one point, and they were really sweet. I just kind of held them. They had brilliant handlers as well, the geese. They could run and hit marks. It was mindblowing what these animals could do. But the goose is from the play. Have you seen the play? I haven’t. There’s a fabulous goose puppet. It’s great. I mean, War Horse is great and everything, but I’m really holding out for War Goose . “A miraculous goose.” Right! Anyway, this is Jeremy Irvine’s first screen role . What kind of relationship did you have behind the scenes? I felt very protective towards him. Just being a proper grown-up; he’s say, “I’m fine, I’m fine,” but you could see how terrified he was — how much he was having to absorb and learn every second. But he had a great attitude. He had a great sense of humility and a great sense of wanting to learn and be as good as he could be, which is lovely to watch. Do you remember the first Spielberg film you saw? I think it was E.T. I loved it. I wept. What your relationship with Spielberg films as a viewer? Are they must-see theater viewing? Not always, but yeah — it’s an event, isn’t it? What else is out that you like? I liked Warrior very much. Have you seen that? I thought the fight sequences were absolutely brilliant — so committed, so real. You always tend to go, “Yeah, yeah — they’re faking it.” And that didn’t look like faking it. I love Tom Hardy. I think he’s wonderful. I loved Beginners . I loved it. I found it very affecting and real. When you know somebody like I know Ewan [McGregor], whom I’ve known for a while, it’s quite difficult to forget and be transported by them. And I really was. I thought he was wonderful. What else have I seen? I liked Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy . It’s classy. It’s classy . Oldman’s amazing in that. Have you worked with him before? No. It’s interesting you say that about McGregor versus someone like Oldman. Does that always tend take you out of the experience? Absolutely. You know their ways of doing things; you know them as a person. Like Phil[ip Seymour] Hoffman: I’ve worked with him several times, and he’s in so many things and I just… [Pauses] Now, having said that, he’s brilliant. He’s absolutely brilliant. But it does make it harder to suspend your disbelief when you know somebody. What are you up to next? I just wrapped on a film called Little Boy , which is directed by Alejandro Monteverde; it’s about a little boy in California during the second World War who thinks he can bring his dad home from a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp using his magic powers. And I play his mom. It’s kind of a grown-up fairy tale. And I’m doing a few days on Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina . I’m playing Countess Lydia — a nasty piece of work. Ohhhh. Are you looking forward to it? I am. I’ve already done one day. Oh, yeah. You sound like a fan of the book. I am. I’ve read it a few times in my life. It’s a very interesting book, because you see it very differently when you’re young. As your age changes, you read it very differently. I was shocked when I read it the last time. What was different? Well, when I was young, I think I really identified with Anna and wanting to be that in love and the terrible tragedy of it all. I don’t know if I wanted to kill myself at the end of it. Then you read it now, and you realize the decisions she makes about her children– to leave her children — for the sake of this affair is… [Winces] I have children of my own, so… Anyway, it changes. Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
