Healthcare is grabbing the headlines and the Chattersphere today, but one thing appears to be certain: It’s curtains for film. OK, maybe a stretch of a segue, but here’s the thing. Sure, there are some high profile holdouts and even digital-converts will attest to the quality and feel of film. But when Martin Scorsese is ready to make the perma-switch, then the slow inevitable demise may have just been given an extra boost. Scorsese will go digital for his next film and appears resigned to the format going forward. Speaking with Empire at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the director’s longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker said, “It would appear that we’ve lost the battle,” confirming his next film, The Wolf of Wall Street would be shot digitally. “I think Marty just feels it’s unfortunately over, and there’s been no bigger champion of film than him.” Of course Scorsese’s last film Hugo won an Oscar for Best Cinematography. It is also a de facto call for film preservation, something near and dear to the filmmaker’s heart. “It’s a very bittersweet thing to be watching films with him now that are on film,” said Schoonmaker. “We’re cherishing every moment of it. The number of prints that are now being made for release has just gone down, and it would appear that the theaters have converted so quickly to digital.” Scorsese and Schoonmaker get to work on The Wolf of Wall Street starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill and Jean Dujardin the second week of August. And what do you think about the switch to digital? [Source: Empire ]
James Cameron recently said he is Avatar -bound and Sigourney Weaver said she will appear in what will be Avatar 2, 3, 4, confirming that the Titanic director is still on track with the franchise, which made over $2 billion worldwide in its first mammoth installment, which debuted back in December, 2009. Production will apparently begin on the back to back installments this fall, Weaver told Showbiz 411 . The actress has stints in USA Networks’ Political Animals followed by a short-run play at New York’s Lincoln Center and then dives in on Avatar 2 – 4 with Cameron. Weaver noted that she does not know the time frame for the sequels to the 3-D behemoth, “I just show up.” James Cameron made headlines in March for reaching the furthest depth of the ocean, the Mariana Trench, which is nearly seven miles below the surface of the Pacific near Guam. “I’ve divided my time over the last 16 years over deep ocean exploration and filmmaking. I’ve made two movies in 16 years, and I’ve done eight expeditions,” he told The New York Times in May. He also noted that he had closed his production company and is devoting the movie-side of his career to Avatar exclusively. “I’m not interested in developing anything. I’m in the “Avatar” business. Period. That’s it. I’m making Avatar 2, Avatar 3 , maybe Avatar 4 , and I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them. I’m not interested in taking scripts.” He did note, however, he will also do documentaries about his deep-sea exploration, the first of which should be out next year.
The Magic Mike director gave insight into his future endeavors once his hard stop to movie making begins in six months. He told Reuters that a book and even television work may occupy his interests, following in the footsteps of a number of filmmakers who are crossing over to the small screen in the past several years. “I’ve been planning this for five years … I gave myself an out date and I’m right on schedule. I turn into a pumpkin in January,” Steven Soderbergh told Reuters . He also noted that he’s over making what he dubbed as “important movies,” adding that Che satisfied that desire. Following his latest, Soderbergh will finish off the thriller The Bitter Pill starring Channing Tatum, who also stars in Magic as well as Rooney Mara. And he also has the Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra with Michael Douglas and Matt Damon shooting this summer. Candelabra may be a window, in fact, into the Oscar winning director’s future since it’s an HBO production. “After I take my self-imposed sabbatical, if I’m going to come back and do something, I think it’s more likely that it would be on television than it would be a movie,” he said.” What do you think of Soderbergh’s move to TV? [Source: Reuters ]
The Magic Mike director gave insight into his future endeavors once his hard stop to movie making begins in six months. He told Reuters that a book and even television work may occupy his interests, following in the footsteps of a number of filmmakers who are crossing over to the small screen in the past several years. “I’ve been planning this for five years … I gave myself an out date and I’m right on schedule. I turn into a pumpkin in January,” Steven Soderbergh told Reuters . He also noted that he’s over making what he dubbed as “important movies,” adding that Che satisfied that desire. Following his latest, Soderbergh will finish off the thriller The Bitter Pill starring Channing Tatum, who also stars in Magic as well as Rooney Mara. And he also has the Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra with Michael Douglas and Matt Damon shooting this summer. Candelabra may be a window, in fact, into the Oscar winning director’s future since it’s an HBO production. “After I take my self-imposed sabbatical, if I’m going to come back and do something, I think it’s more likely that it would be on television than it would be a movie,” he said.” What do you think of Soderbergh’s move to TV? [Source: Reuters ]
Bad news, Charlie Kaufman fans: While some cast members had been hopeful in recent months that Frank or Francis would move ahead, Elizabeth Banks (doing the press rounds for People Like Us ) spilled news to the contrary. “I honestly don’t know where that film is at,” she told AICN. “We were supposed to make it sooner, but it’s been pushed. I think they’re waiting for everybody’s lives to come back together…I don’t really know anything about it.” Speaking with Moviefone, she elaborated that things “fell apart” before the Hollywood satire/musical could move forward into production: “We didn’t get to shoot that movie. It was ready to go, and, as many movies do, it fell apart at the last minute.” UPDATE: Over at The Playlist , the filmmaker’s reps say that the project’s not completely dead — it has just been “postponed.” [ AICN , Moviefone ]
Bad news, Charlie Kaufman fans: While some cast members had been hopeful in recent months that Frank or Francis would move ahead, Elizabeth Banks (doing the press rounds for People Like Us ) spilled news to the contrary. “I honestly don’t know where that film is at,” she told AICN. “We were supposed to make it sooner, but it’s been pushed. I think they’re waiting for everybody’s lives to come back together…I don’t really know anything about it.” Speaking with Moviefone, she elaborated that things “fell apart” before the Hollywood satire/musical could move forward into production: “We didn’t get to shoot that movie. It was ready to go, and, as many movies do, it fell apart at the last minute.” UPDATE: Over at The Playlist , the filmmaker’s reps say that the project’s not completely dead — it has just been “postponed.” [ AICN , Moviefone ]
While official confirmation has yet to be reported, columnist Liz Smith eulogizes friend and filmmaker Nora Ephron , writer and director of films including Sleepless in Seattle , You’ve Got Mail , and 2009’s Julie & Julia . “People who never dreamed she was ill, are crestfallen. Amazed. Stunned,” Smith writes. “I won’t say, “Rest in peace, Nora” – I will just ask “What the hell will we do without you?” UPDATE: Sources clarify that Ephron is alive, but “gravely ill.” Meanwhile, advice columnist Margo Howard, who also writes for the online publication The Women on the Web , where Smith’s remembrance appeared today, Tweeted the news citing Smith as her source: Well, to those of you who can't find the news of Nora Ephron's death, the funeral is Thursday – and maybe that's the way she wanted it.— Margo Howard (@Margoandhow) June 26, 2012 Contradicting the odd announcements, the New York Times contacted Ephron’s publisher, Knopf, who said she has not died : Nora Ephron's publisher, Knopf, tells the NYT that she is still alive.— Julie Bosman (@juliebosman) June 26, 2012 UPDATE: Newsweek/Daily Beast reporter MariaElena Fernandez chimed in through the confusion, adding that Ephron, who is battling cancer, is alive but near death. Nora Ephron news is not a hoax but she has not passed away. She is not expected to make it through tonight. This is the truth.— MariaElena Fernandez (@writerchica) June 26, 2012 UPDATE: TMZ cites family members who say Ephron is “gravely ill,” while Roger Friedman has been told that she’s in a New York hospital suffering from “a rare form of leukemia.” Developing… [ WOW ]
A flurry of online reports today revealed that filmmaker Nora Ephron was battling illness in a New York hospital and not expected to survive the night. The Washington Post now reports that Ephron has died six years after being diagnosed with the blood disorder myelodysplasia. Ephron was nominated for an Oscar three times for writing Silkwood , When Harry Met Sally… , and Sleepless in Seattle . As a director she helmed eight features, including popular romantic comedies Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail . Ephron had also earned acclaim as a journalist, essayist, and blogger, and most recently directed the foodie biographical drama Julie & Julia . Remember Ephron with a spirited clip from the 2007 documentary Dreams on Spec , in which she vividly compares screenwriting and filmmaking to making a pizza. [ Washington Post ]
In Tuesday evening’s round up of news briefs, Emily Blunt teased she would consider the second Devil Wears Prada under one condition. Also, the Austin Film Festival added details on its October event while Outfest rounds out its upcoming edition next month. The Avengers passes a domestic high water mark and Catherine Keener is set for role opposite Mark Ruffalo. Austin Film Festival Unveils First Round of Panels D.C. vs. Marvel, Hollywood Horror Stories, Crowd Funding Your Indie Film and Writing for Video games are among the topics that will be discussed at the 19th Austin Film Festival taking place October 18 – 25. Among this year’s participants so far are Shane Black ( Iron Man 3), Paul Feig ( Bridesmaids ), Saca Gervasi ( Anvil: The Story of Anvil ), Michael Green ( The Green Lantern ), and Damon Lindelof ( Prometheus ). For more details, visit the festival’s website . Outfest 2012 Adds to its 30th Edititon Outfest, the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival will screen a never before seen episode of ABC’s comedy Happy Endings with cast members and creators present. Also added to the festival’s line up is Eytan Fox’s acclaimed Israeli film, Yossi , the sequel to the director’s hit Yossi and Jagger . Around the ‘net… Avengers Passes $600M in U.S. The mega-hit crossed the $600 million mark in the domestic box office. It is currently number three in the world in the box office and it has yet to open in Japan, Deadline reports . Catherine Keener Joins Mark Ruffalo in Can a song Save Your Life? Keener will play Mark Ruffalo’s estranged wife in the drama directed by Once filmmaker John Carney. She joins Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, Hailee Steinfeld and Adam Levine on board the project, THR reports . Emily Blunt May Be In for Another Devil Wears Prada She said she “might be interested” in another go around playing Miranda Priestly’s spirited assistant Emily Charlton in the sequel to the comes-drama. She noted that Meryl Streep said she’d do it if she didn’t have to lose the “f***king weight,” and agreed. Huff Post reports . Prometheus and The Hunger Games Stars Set for Indie Son of the South Rafe Spall ( Prometheus ) and Jacqueline Emerson ( The Hunger Games ) will star in the new indie drama by Barry Alexander Brown with Spike Lee on board to executive produce. Based on Bob Zellner’s autobiography chronicling the author’s life in Alabama where he grew up as a son of a minister and a grandson of a KKK member before joining the Civil Rights movement, Variety reports .
From the time it detonated public consciousness at Sundance last January, Benh Zeitlin’s dazzling magic realist feature debut Beasts of the Southern Wild has occasioned its own peculiar brand awe and wonder. After winning the grand jury prize and an award for best cinematography in Park City, the movie continues to conquer the world. Last month at Cannes, it captured the prestigious Camera d’Or for best first feature. Fox Searchlight acquired the movie during Sundance and is preparing the movie’s national rollout with platform opening runs in New York and Los Angeles on June 27th. It has been very heady times for the 29-year-old Zeitlin, the New York-born, New Orleans-based filmmaker who made the (reportedly less than $1 million film) under the auspices of his film collective, Court 13. Zeitlin developed the script at the Sundance Lab with the playwright Lucy Alibar, inspired by her play, Juicy and Delicious . He also collaborated on the evocative, bluegrass score with Dan Romer. Most impressively, Zeitlin does marvelous work with the nonprofessional ensemble, the most electrifying is the movie’s remarkable six-year-old protagonist Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), who also narrates the movie. Set in the southern coast of Louisiana in a fictional dispossessed community known colloquially as “the Bathtub,” named for its pervasive, ramshackle clutter and populated by sharecroppers, bootleggers and itinerant musicians, the movie follows the tough-minded, industrious young girl and her father, Wink (Dwight Henry), as they desperately try to hold on to their threadbare existence despite warnings of impending storms and government orders to evacuate. Her mother having “floated away,“ Hushpuppy exists in a state of perpetual motion. The story is more anecdotal than linear, shaped by a succession of incidents and discursive moments related through the girl’s fevered consciousness. During an interview, Zeitlin talked about the movie’s creation, his influences, and his work with the nontraditional actors. More than 3,500 young girls auditioned for the lead role. Quvenzhané Wallis is expressive and dynamic, but you couldn’t have know that beforehand. What was it about her that made you cast her? I met her on the first call back. We had eight different casting teams. When she first walked in, she was defiant towards me. Most of the times you figure you can easily puppeteer a kid, but she was not like that at all. She was refusing to do this thing that I asked her to, because she didn’t it was right. I wanted her to throw something at somebody, and she said, ‘No, that’s not right to throw something at somebody you don’t know.’ She was the youngest person we looked at. She snuck into the audition. She was five-years-old and six was our cutoff. I just thought, she’s going to bring her own morality, her own worldview, to the part. What was your collaboration like? I worked with her like an actor. Movie sets are sometimes very stressful, high-pressure environments. Children don’t respond if it doesn’t feel like a game, if it doesn’t feel fun, it makes them uncomfortable. A lot of work was done to play during the shoots, and once we set up everything about the shot, we‘d come and throw water bottles back and forth, or she‘d mess up my hair. She stayed a kid. The material originated as a play, and you developed the script at the Sundance Lab. How did the script change? We came to the Sundance Lab with a raw first draft. It was something I wrote in two weeks, more a pack of ideas. It was at the lab that we found what the film was about. You had to discipline your choices and find the core. I had great imagery, a cow flies through someone’s roof, but I couldn’t find a connection to the heart of the story. The film became this emotional experience of how do you survive losing the things that made you. What about literary or other film influences. I was reminded of the escaped convict story in William Faulkner’s Wild Palms , or the tenant farmers in Jean Renoir’s The Southerner. I haven’t read or seen those. I tried not to watch a ton of fiction films. I was largely inspired by documentaries and people writing about the South. I’m extrapolating tons of things from the world and creating a pastiche. Interestingly enough, the further away the film plays from Louisiana, it’s seen in the context, as something magical or realistically a portrait of their life. What about your own early experiences in New Orleans? I went there a couple of times when I was a kid, the first time when I was about 13, and I was very haunted by it. There’s conflict, a heightened reality. Everything felt connected. In New Orleans, something there just resonates, both a joyousness and a darkness. When I came back, I felt, as though, this is where I come from in some very abstract way. You come back and you recognize certain aspects, like people who comes from the outside walking into a book that you love. When I was making an earlier, live-action short [ Glory at Sea ], a local guy named Jimmy Lee auditioned for a part and then he came back four hours later, carrying a bunch of stuff, like Greek columns. He said, ‘I heard you were making a boat out of junk, and I figured you could use this.’ That’s what the film is about, manifesting itself in our lives. A guy starts building and it transforms the thing, this crazy mission, and the story was reflecting that. You shot the movie in super-16mm, and the image is definitely more stable and the colors more vibrant. I’m a sentimental bastard. My first [live-action] short, I shot in 16mm and cut it on a flatbed. I realize for most people, the [differences] are totally imperceptible, but there is something magical about a series of still pictures linked, and a little bit of magic that is lost when digital turns it into something else. The grittiness of the [super-16mm] image fits ‘The Bathtub.’ One of the ideas [of the community] was there’s no technology. Hushpuppy had never seen a keyboard, for instance. Also, film is organic, and in order to get good photography in the location, it’s the easiest and cheapest way. To get digital to look right, you have to light it like crazy, and where we were shooting, on the backend of boats, 15 miles off the coast, there was no data managing. You can’t get power, and you can’t control scrims or bounce boards. You can still point and shoot [super-16] on location, and the image really holds together. The movie has been a sensation. You’re about to go into a very brutal marketplace, are you concerned about a backlash at all? I never really worry about what people are going to think. Obviously I care about what people think. I’m very proud of it and I’m very happy with it. Once I feel good about it along with the rest of the crew, that the movie expressed what we’re trying to express, I’m not worried about it. I believe in the film. It’s honest and says what I want it to say. We all know it’s an amazing ride we’re on, and it could explode. Beasts of the Southern Wild opens in limited release this week. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
