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 .
Any Day Now writer-director Travis Fine came across the story that would be his next film from a script that sat on the desk of original writer George Arthur Bloom and adapted it and tapped Alan Cumming to star in the story about a gay couple in the late ’70s who fight a discriminatory legal system to formally adopt a special needs teen who has been in their care. The feature, which opens Friday through Music Box Films, has won audience prizes at festivals throughout the year, including Tribeca where it debuted last Spring, to Provincetown, Chicago, Woodstock, Seattle and Outfest. Inspired by a true story and touching on legal and social issues that are more relevant now than ever, Any Day Now tells a story of love, acceptance, and creating your own family. In the late 1970s, when Marco (Isaac Leyva), a teenager with down syndrome who’s been abandoned by his mother, is taken in by committed couple Rudy (Alan Cumming) and Paul (Garret Dillahunt), he finds in them the family he’s never had. However, when their unconventional living arrangement is discovered by the authorities, Rudy and Paul must fight a biased legal system to adopt the child they have come to love as their own. Co-starring Frances Fisher, Gregg Henry and Chris Mulkey, Music Box Films will open the film in select theaters across the country on December 14.
Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg will switch roles in the follow-up to last year’s Tintin . Also in Friday’s round-up of news, Lincoln crossed the $100 million mark in the U.S.; The Who is heading to the big screen; Dylan McDermott is headed to a Stephen King pic; and a look at some of the weekend’s new Specialty Release newcomers. Peter Jackson Plans Tintin 2 for 2015 Jackson will begin work on a sequel to last year’s feature version of Tintin before he completes his current Hobbit trilogy. Jackson told reporters in Belgium that he would work on the follow up to The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn next year. The first Tintin film was directed by Steven Spielberg with Jackson as producer; Spielberg revealed in February that the Oscar-winning pair would swap roles for its sequel, The Guardian reports . Lincoln Crosses $100 Million Domestically Thirty-four days after its initial limited release in 11 theaters, Steve Spielberg’s Lincoln crossed the $100 million mark. The feature, starring Daniel Day-Lewis received seven Golden Globe nominations Thursday. The Who Pic Heads to the Big Screen Actor Cary Elwes will direct the story of the life and death of Kit Lambert, the rock impresario and manager of The Who, with production set for late spring 2013. Lambert discovered The Who, ironically, when he was trying to make a film about a band, THR reports . Dylan McDermott Boards Mercy McDermott has joined the fantasy horror project based on a Stephen King story from the author’s Skeleton Crew series. Frances O’Connor, Chandler Riggs and Joel Courtney are also starring with Peter Cornwell directing, Deadline reports . Weekend Specialty Preview: Any Day Now , Yelling to the Sky , Save the Date , Let Fury Have the Hour A slew of indie actors have movies opening in the specialty arena this weekend.Alan Cumming has won festival raves for his role in Any Day Now . Zoë Kravitz and Gabourey Sidibe star in Yelling to the Sky , Deadline reports .
It’s hard to imagine Steven Spielberg getting a ‘No,’ but that’s just what happened back in the day when he went sniffing around taking on James Bond . But this was back in the late ’70s and he had yet to make some of his biggest pics. The lure of 007 prompted the Jaws director to ask Bond producers if he could direct an installment. “I went to Cubby Broccoli and I asked if I could do one and he said: ‘No,'” Spielberg told the U.K.’s Daily Mail . But, as legions of audiences know, Spielberg didn’t let the disappointment keep him from bigger and better things. He took on some franchises of his own and is of course in line for an Oscar nomination or two for his latest feature. “I never asked again,” he recalled. “Instead, I made the Indiana Jones series.” Still, he’s a 007 fan and heaped praise on the latest Bond, giving kudos to Sam Mendes’ Skyfall , which has cumed over $790 million worldwide since it first hit release in late October, followed by early November in the U.S. The Oscar-winning director said he will likely even see the latest one starring Daniel Craig as the British operative “again.” Since its initial limited release November 9th, Spielberg’s Lincoln has grossed over $62 million. Over the holiday weekend it played just over 2,000 theaters, grossing over $25 million. The film continues to generate Oscar buzz for the director and its star Daniel Day-Lewis. [ Source: Huffington Post , Daily Mail ]
You’re done gorging on turkey, which means only one thing: ‘Tis the season to be stuffed with Oscar punditry. Movieline ‘s Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics has awoken from its L-Tryptophan slumber to provide you with our latest Oscar Index , which evaluates the contenders for Best Director. The latest Index on Best Picture can be found here , and over the course of the long weekend, we’ll be weighing in on the Best Actor, Actress and Support Actor and Actress races. How The Oscar Index Works With each award category that we track, we’ll present four different rankings. Movieline Executive Editor Jen Yamato , Managing Editor Brian Brooks and myself will each provide our personal weekly rankings of the movies and actors in the running, and then those results will be weighted and averaged to determine an official Movieline ranking for each category. Let’s begin: Best Director In terms of perception, the Best Director category has been fairly static for a while now, but that should change next week as Les Misérables and Zero Dark Thirty screen for critics and reaction to them begins to flow through the blogosphere. Up to this point, the strong standings of the directors of those films, respectively, Tom Hooper and Kathryn Bigelow , has been almost pure buzz, so their positions could rise or fall sharply once actual scenes and performances can be scrutinized. Until then, Steven Spielberg remains the auteur to beat despite Lincoln ‘s at-times sloggy pace, and Ben Affleck is holding strong as his Argo continues to do well at the box office and on the word-of-mouth exchange. The Master director Paul Thomas Anderson could use a Harvey Weinstein-style reheating, and Ang Lee may need a different kind of PR campaign after he annoyed critics, including Movieline’s Alison Willmore and the New York Times’ A.O. Scott ,, by undercutting the often-breathtaking visual narrative of Life of Pi with a cliched journalist-interviews-story-subject framing device. That could result in Lee falling in favor harder than the zebra hits the lifeboat in his film. Frank DiGiacomo’s Picks Jen Yamato’s Picks Brian Brooks’ Picks 1. Steven Spielberg 1. Tom Hooper 1. Steven Spielberg 2. David O. Russell 2. Steven Spielberg 2. Ben Affleck 3. Kathryn Bigelow 3. Ben Affleck 3. Ang Lee 4. Ben Affleck 4. Kathryn Bigelow 4. Michael Hanecke 5. Tom Hooper 5. David O. Russell 5. Benh Zeitlin And the leaders are… Movieline’s Top 5 Best Director Contenders: 1. Steven Spielberg ( Lincoln ) 2. Ben Affleck ( Argo ) 3. Tom Hooper ( Les Misérables) 4. Ang Lee ( Life of Pi ) 5. David O. Russell ( Silver Linings Playbook ) Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
It’s not hard to imagine the big-screen version of scenes like this week’s epic takedown on the Australian Parliament floor, in which Prime Minister Julia Gillard eviscerated her opposition party rival Tony Abbott with a 15-minute speech on sexism and misogyny. (Watch it below and revel in the glorious wrath of Gillard’s pointed and passionate tirade.) Somewhere out there a hundred screenwriters are furiously turning Gillard’s sermon into Oscar gold, so why don’t we go ahead and predict the five Academy Award-caliber actresses at the top of the casting list when Hollywood comes calling with the inevitable Iron Lady -esque Gillard biopic? Tilda Swinton The British Oscar-winner certainly has Gillard’s steeliness down, but she tends to go for more morally complex and ambiguous characters with hidden frailties bubbling beneath the surface. Perfect for politics! Plus, she can make even the most mundane things — say, parachute pants or a pair of socks or whatever — into High Art . (See pic at left.) Tilda’s would be the most fascinating Gillard, that’s for sure, but there’s also… Cate Blanchett She’s done Mamet, played Queen Elizabeth and earned the adulation of LOTR fans for all of time — Cate Blanchett is a sharp-tongued woman of the people, an ethereally regal figure with a presence that can command a room. Or a Parliament floor. Bonus: She’s Australian and a convincingly bad-ass Oscar-winner — and she’s already tangled publicly with Australian opposition leader/watch-checker Abbott before. Toni Collette The Aussie actress (who earned a Best Supporting nod for The Sixth Sense ) has more of a seriocomic bent than her drama-pedigreed peers, but who wouldn’t love to see the erstwhile Muriel Heslop come full circle as the most powerful lady in Australian politics? Rachel Griffiths Speaking of Muriel’s Wedding : Collette’s co-star Rachel Griffiths bears a resemblance to the honourable PM, no? (If you squint. Kinda.) Her work on TV’s Brothers and Sisters and Six Feet Under brought her attention stateside, but a role like Gillard would be a career-maker for the Oscar nominee who earned a nod for 1998’s Hilary and Jackie . Jodie Foster It’s easy to see a bit of Jodie Foster in Gillard. Foster, who’s become choosy with her acting gigs of late (she next appears in 2013’s Elysium ), would slay in the now-famous Australian Parliament court room scene; she might even direct the thing herself. Can’t you just picture her pointing a finger at the smirking Abbott (played by Hugo Weaving, my only choice) delivering lines like ” He’s capable of double standards — but not capable of change! ”? What say you, Movieliners? Dream cast away. [via Jezebel ]
“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 .
MTV News strolls to the HBO show’s Brooklyn set, where we learn about boardwalks, midways and our favorite character. By Kevin P. Sullivan Steve Buscemi on “Boardwalk Empire” Photo: HBO
Daniel Day-Lewis embodies the iconic president in nearly two-minute preview of Steven Spielberg’s film. By Kara Warner Daniel Day-Lewis in “Lincoln” Photo: Touchstone Pictures
Ahead of Thursday’s trailer premiere, Steven Spielberg and Co. have released a first-look teaser for Lincoln , starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th President of the United States. Get a taste of what Spielberg has in store with this somber (but stirring!) bit of footage from the film. Gettysburg Address, y’all! I like the conceit of Lincoln hearing his own inspirational words recited back to him, feeling his impact on his fellow man even in the sparest of moments in what looks to be a quiet Union encampment. Synopsis: 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. Lincoln hits theaters on November 9 and stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn, Lee Pace, Jackie Earle Haley, John Hawkes, and more. [ DreamWorks ] Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
