Tony Scott’s dramatic and still-mysterious leap to his death in August has grounded the Top Gun sequel . The New York Times reported that the film, which was being planned by the filmmaker, the star of the original, Tom Cruise, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, has “fallen apart” in the wake of Scott’s suicide . If there is a silver lining to the story, it’s that a 3D version of the original Top Gun may be released in February 2013. Earlier this year, Legend3D, which specializes in converting two-dimensional films into the more eye-popping format, completed a conversion of the film, which, the Times notes, “as a way to whet the world’s appetite for a sequel.” Since Scott leapt to his death from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles on Aug. 19, however, Paramount, the studio behind both the original Top Gun and its sequel, is “considering a release in February, perhaps beginning with a one-week exclusive showing on domestic Imax screens.” [New York Times] The paper also reports that the studio is treading carefully because it does not want to seem insensitive or exploitative. Although the Los Angeles coroner officially ruled Scott’s death a suicide, questions remain about his reasons for taking his own life. According to the Times , the filmmaker’s brother, Prometheus director Ridley Scott has asked a number of people who knew and worked with his sibling not to discuss his “life or demise.” Tony Scott’s last work appears to be the below Diet Mountain Dew commercial featuring Dallas Mavericks and HDNet owner, billionaire Mark Cuban . Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Skyfall is ready to get its L.A. close-up at AFI Fest Wednesday night. The latest James Bond film will have a “Secret Screening” tonight at the festival where free tickets are now available. The film, which has been a box office triumph in the U.K. where it opened in late October, has garnered critical acclaim and the title is even getting some early Oscar buzz – a feat that has alluded 007 over its 50 years. Directed by Sam Mendes the latest James Bond the latest installment has earned a record-breaking £53.44m ($85.36 million) in just 10 days. This is the first time a film has surpassed the £50m in 10 days in the U.K. And three-time Academy Award-nominated screenwriter John Logan thinks the pic, which opens Friday in the U.S., deserves attention from Oscar. “I think we made a proper movie, which was our goal,” Logan said via BBC. Asked if he thought Skyfall could get an Oscar win, Logan replied, “Yes.” Logan, who is rumored to be writing the next two Bond films that will again star Daniel Craig as the dashing British operative, received noms for Gladiator , The Aviator and most recently Hugo . Judi Dench, who is reprising her role as 007’s boss M has been named a potential nominee though she has kept a distance from the awards rumor mill. “Don’t talk about that yet, that’s a long way off,” she said. Craig, meanwhile passively acknowledged Oscar at the film’s world premiere, saying reluctantly that “of course” he’d be happy to see Skyfall get Academy Award recognition. “I mean certainly Roger Deakins who did the camera work on this; it would be fantastic if he were to be recognized because he’s done such a wonderful job,” he said. Of the 23 Bond pics over five decades, only two have picked up Oscars and both were in technical categories. Goldfinger won best sound effects in 1964, while Thunderball took best visual effects in 1965. “I think we’ve established, and as have Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace , we’ve established a tone that is the base line reality of Bond now,” said Logan. “So it can’t become camp, it can’t become grandiose in a bad way at this point, it simply has to be honest to the tone that we’ve worked so hard to create in Skyfall .” Wednesday night’s screening at AFI Fest may be an Awards consideration beginning for the pic, which will likely see huge box office returns if the film’s U.K. momentum is any indication. Tickets are available to tonight’s screening on the second floor of the Hollywood & Highland complex at the AFI Fest Box Office. Tonight’s screening takes place at 9:15 PT at Grauman’s Chinese Theater next to the venue where the annual Oscar ceremony takes place. [ Source: BBC ]
Mark Basseley Youssef , the California man behind Innocence of Muslims , is going to prison, although not for the Islam-goading movie he made. The Associated Press (via the New York Daily News ) is reporting that U.S. District Court Judge, Christina Snyder, sentenced Youssef — who’s also been identified in media reports as Nakoula Basseley — to one year in the big house after he admitted to four of eight alleged probation violations stemming from a 2010 bank fraud conviction, including obtaining a fraudulent California drivers license. None of the violations had to do with the content of “Innocence of Muslims,” a film that depicts Mohammad as a religious fraud, pedophile and a womanizer. The movie sparked violence in Libya and other parts of the Middle East, killing dozens. Although a film as amateurishly made as Innocence of Muslims should be a crime, Youssef’s inflammatory film is protected under the First Amendment. As George Clooney told Movieline , the film excerpt that appeared on YouTube “made me mad and I’m not Muslim,” adding: “The simple truth is that in order to make [democracy] work, the idiots get to have their say, too. Read more of Movieline’s coverage on Innocence of Muslims : After Innocence Of Muslims, 2 Possible Muhammad Pics On The Way Innocence of Muslims Filmmaker Nakoula Basseley Unmasked By New York Tabloids Was Inflammatory Innocence Of Muslims Film Directed By Karate Cop, Happy Hooker Schlock Veteran? Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Yes, Mara Jade, it’s possible for Harrison Ford to be “open to the idea” of reprising his role as Han Solo in Disney’s Star Wars Episode VII and still hate the character, as Movieline noted back in 2010 . The key here is that the actor may finally get the opportunity to kill off the character that has bedeviled him throughout his auspicious career, which is something he wanted back in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. A “highly placed source” told EW.com that “Harrison is open to the idea of doing the movie and he’s upbeat about it,” but the story also notes, “don’t be surprised if his contract includes a mandatory death scene for the sly old space smuggler.” Now, there’s a reason to be upbeat! Ford gets to chew some scenery in a death scene and cut his ties — symbolically, psychically, joyously — to the role he can’t seem to shake, or love. Even though, two of the video clips seemed to have suddenly been pulled from Movieline’s 2010 post, Ford’s not-so-fond feelings for the space cowboy character that made him a box-office boss have been pretty apparent over the years. As EW also reported, Ford said in a 2010 ABC interview that Han Solo “was not so interesting to me” and that “I thought he should have died in [Episode VI] to give it some bottom.” I also would have much preferred a Solo death scene instead of watching Ewoks dance. So, I hope Ford gets his wish. Then, the next time a talk-show host asks him about his iconic role, he can finally say: “Han Solo — he’s dead.” Related Stories: Harrison Ford’s Long History of Hating Star Wars Luke Skywalker & Princess Leia Knew Of More Star Wars Stories; Surprised By LucasFilm Sale Disney Buying LucasFilm For $4.05 Billion, Promises New Star Wars in 2015 (UPDATED) Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Also in Tuesday morning’s news round-up: Osama Bin Laden raid pic Seal Team Six is a big Nat Geo hit; Cate Blanchett heads to Middle East jury duty; And Imodgen Poots eyes a Zac Efron romantic comedy. Stars Campaign For Barack Obama at Election Finale Jay-Z, Natalie Portman, Anne Hathaway, Eva Longoria, Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal, Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt, Chris Rock, Samuel L. Jackson and many other stars have been lending their support to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, Yahoo and US report . Anheuser-Busch Not So Thrilled By Flight “Anheuser-Busch InBev, maker of Budweiser, has asked Paramount to remove the beer from its hit film Flight , which centers on an alcoholic pilot who guzzles alcohol and takes drugs both before and after he prevents a malfunctioning jetliner from crashing,” THR reports . Seal Team Six Lures 2.7M to Nat Geo The number gave the National Geographic Channel its top broadcast of the year. The Weinstein Company backed project recalls the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, Deadline reports . Cate Blanchett To Head Dubai Film Festival Jury She will head the jury that will pick the winner of the Dubai International Film Festival’s IWC Schaffhausen Filmmaker script award, which carries a $100K cash prize. The award, which began earlier this year, is intended to help the winning filmmaker transfer their vision to the screen. IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss watchmaker, THR reports . Imogen Poots Eyes Are We Officially Dating? She will star opposite Zac Efron in the romantic comedy about three male friends in New York who make a pact to stay single as each of them begin to fall in love. The project is being sold at the American Film Market, currently underway, Deadline reports .
, Indiana Jones , what do you do when going from being raised on a walnut ranch to launching some of the biggest movie franchises of all time spanning decades and then selling your film company for billions to Disney? Well, one might try making “little personal films” for one. George Lucas ratcheted up headlines and a bit of shock and awe last week when the announcement came in he sold his Lucasfilm to Disney for $4.05 billion. He said that a recent film he executive produced had a tough time getting on the big screen and that his next pursuits will be even tougher. “I barely got Red Tails into theaters,” he is quoted saying on BBC while speaking to reporters in NYC. “The ones I’m working on now will never get into theaters.” Lucas will continue at the company he founded as a creative consultant, but overall control is going to Kathleen Kennedy who produced Jurassic Park and War Horse . “I’ve turned it over to a wonderful producer, Kathy Kennedy, and I’ve known her for years,” he said. “She’s more than capable of taking it and making it better than I did.” He added, “It’s very sad. It’s 40 years of work and it’s been my life, but I’m ready to move on to bigger and better things.” [ Source: BBC ]
The Martha Marcy May Marlene camp notches another chilling character study in the AFI Fest selection Simon Killer , an unsettling look at a young American’s dark descent in Paris directed by Borderline Films ‘ Antonio Campos ( Afterschool ). Glimpse what lies in store with the film’s hauntingly gorgeous, Kubrickian poster design, exclusively on Movieline. Brady Corbet stars as Simon, a college grad traveling abroad who meets a Parisian prostitute (Mati Diop) and takes up with her, entrenching himself in her life in the shadowy streets of the Pigalle. Entrancing and provocative, Simon Killer constructs a sensory cinematic study around Simon’s psyche as he’s revealed to be more complex, and more dangerous, than what he seems. The visual parallel to 2001: A Space Odyssey ‘s famous “eye” poster is an intriguing comparison point to draw; Simon Killer is quite a trip in itself, a portrait of an affable twentysomething’s innocuous-enough wanderings through Paris that takes unexpected turns, forcing the audience to re-examine their perceptions of, and sympathy to, its protagonist. (The poster design is by Brandon Schaefer of Seek & Speak.) Simon Killer is set for release via IFC in April of 2013; it screens today, November 5 and again on November 7 at AFI Fest , which is a great opportunity to see one of the boldest and most provocative films we’ll see in the coming year. Read more on Simon Killer here . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
To cast Sergeant Calhoun, the no-nonsense video game heroine with a heart in Wreck-It Ralph , director Rich Moore looked no further than Hollywood’s favorite ball-busting dynamite gal: Jane Lynch . Alongside John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer and a cast of fellow character actors and comic veterans, Lynch brings Calhoun to life with pathos and dimension, not to mention a burning passion for blasting evil space bugs into pixelated oblivion. Movieline sat down with Lynch to talk Wreck-It Ralph , the fun of bringing Calhoun to life, and how the film’s deeper themes of self-determination and destiny resonated with the once-aspiring actress who left home to pursue her dreams. But first, the whip-smart Glee fave spitballed an impromptu back story for her space warrior alter ego, known in the film only as Sergeant Calhoun… Only after watching the movie did I learn that your character’s full name is Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun. How much of a life before the game within the movie did you imagine for her? Tamora Jean. Tammy Jean! Get out of town. I’m going to write a whole story about her right now: She grew up as Tammy Jean in Alabama, and when she joined the military right after high school she said, “I’m no longer Tammy Jean – I’m not even Tamora Jean. I’m just Calhoun !” You know, there was a back story for my character that is revealed in the film; she was in love, and her husband-to-be was killed by the Cy-Bugs. Cy-Bugs! Her mortal enemy ! I wasn’t sure if anyone involved had seen MacGruber , but MacGruber shared a similar fate. With Will Forte? I love him. I wonder if we ripped it off from him… Did it mean a lot to you to be a part of a Disney film like this? How did you get the call to voice Calhoun? It was huge working with Disney – I mean, to be in a Disney animated film was so preposterous it wasn’t even on my bucket list. So that was a huge thing. Then John Lasseter, who heads up Disney Animation these days, invited me and Jack [McBrayer] and Sarah [Silverman] and a bunch of other great character actors to fly up to San Francisco about two and a half years ago to do a table read. It was like a field trip, we all met at the airport and jumped on a plane, then jumped on a bus… We spent the day with John and within six months we were recording here in L.A. They showed us a rough rendering of our characters and everything involved; Richard, our director, has been working on this for four years. He’s been in a little cave literally for four years and is just now seeing the light of day. Researching arcade games must have been more fun than your average movie prep work. I learned a lot about this world because I’m not a gamer, and am still not a gamer. But the whole world of the arcade, that resonates with a lot of kids. It’s geared toward children of today who know games like Call of Duty, which Hero’s Duty is based on, but there’s a lot more for the now-grown adults who played 8-bit games as children decades ago. Were those games in your life at all when you were a kid? Not a lot. I think I played Pac-Man a couple of times and I played Asteroids in college, but not obsessively or anything. Just at the bar. Your character is, interestingly enough, one of the only representations in Wreck-It Ralph of modern gaming – she’s the heroine of a first-person shooter called Hero’s Duty , and one of the sole female characters in this male-dominated world. But she’s also got a soft core inside that Jack’s character, Fix-It Felix, is able to find . He fixes my heart! And he doesn’t even need to use his magic hammer. No, just by looking at me with the honey glow. “Well, I’m getting the honey glow!” You two have so many great lines; were they all written beforehand or did you slide in some improvisation? They were all written, so I can’t take credit for them. We did improvise a little bit because I got to work with Jack in the sessions, but not a lot, but that always brings the chemistry element into it. Rich really loved that and the stuff we did in those sessions, he used it all. My favorite Calhoun line is “Flattery doesn’t charge these batteries.” I might try to use that in real life, maybe in a bar situation. Go for it! [Laughs] The big theme in this film for Ralph is that he’s turning 30 years old, facing a life crisis. He’s turning 30! I’d never looked at it that way – I’ve been going into adulthood, have been doing the same thing for 30 years and now I’ve got to shake it up. Wondering if you’re on the right path in life, or if that’s even something you can change – is that something you feel you can relate to? Oh, yeah. More about when you’re 20 and stuff like that, but when you’re going into 30 there’s a certain set of expectations that you should be into your adult life now, you should be into your purpose, and a lot of people aren’t. And, you know – should’ve, would’ve. Who knows when the right time is for that? But I think Ralph is at a point where he’s been doing the same thing over and over for years, how many times a day, countless times a day, and he’s not getting any appreciation for it. He’s not enjoying it. He’s not getting invited to any of the parties; he sleeps in the garbage dump. It’s awful. So he says, “You know what? I’m not going to do this anymore.” He thinks being a hero is about getting a medal, but he finds out that being a hero is all about his relationships. He meets Vanellope and cares about her and champions her, and he comes back to where he started, like Tennyson says, and it’s like he’s seeing it for the very first time. Everybody appreciates him now because when he left the game fell apart; he’s like the prodigal son. He takes pride in his work and he knows it’s not about a medal. I love the end of the movie; I burst into tears at that moment. Have you had any Ralph-like moments of revelation in your own life? Getting out of my hometown; going to college was what everybody did, but when I went to graduate school I didn’t have any support for that. Wanting to be an actress, it was like, find something you can do and learn to type. I got offered a scholarship to Cornell to go to graduate school and although my parents were like, “Wow! That’s really great,” they were like, “Theater? Theater ?” I was like, I’m going to do it anyway. I hopped on a train and went to Ithaca, New York. I worked to make money and was given a fellowship, and I taught a class in order to make money, but I did it on my own. What did you teach? Acting. It was part of my fellowship. I think we made $120 a week or something, but it was enough. It was enough in those days, anyway, to pay my rent and keep me in beer and coffee. The essentials! So I think we all have those things where we go, you know what – I’m not getting a lot of support here for this, but I just have to go. I have to go do what I need to do, and I have to take the chance. I can’t take one more day of being in the doldrums because that hurts too much. That’s what I love about this film; these are games, but they’re such metaphors for life. You’re playing your game, but you can “jump” your game. Wreck-It Ralph is in theaters; read along as Movieline gets way existential with star John C. Reilly here . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
If you weren’t around for the premiere of Late Night with David Letterman in 1982, then chances are you’re not aware how much he — and the team of writers, producers and comic talent that put on the show five nights a week — changed the face of late-night TV. Dave challenged and, in some cases, blew up the conventions of the talk-show genre and rewrote the playbook that Conan O’Brien , Craig Ferguson and the Jimmys — Kimmel and Fallon — are using today. Now on CBS, Letterman is still going strong, and, in 1991, his success begat Worldwide Pants Inc, which has produced the television series Everybody Loves Raymond and Ed. The company’s CEO Rob Burnett began as an intern on Late Night in 1985 and rose to become executive producer of the current CBS incarnation of Letterman’s show as well as the co-creator, with Jon Beckerman, of Ed and Knights of Prosperity . Although Worldwide Pants made its first foray into film production with the 2005 indie feature Strangers with Candy , Burnett has expanded the company’s presence in the medium with two projects that also involve him personally. In September, he made his directorial debut with We Made This Movie , a funny, unsentimental coming-of-age comedy that he co-wrote with Beckerman. Worldwide Pants is a producer of that film as well as Burnett’s next picture, which was announced in mid-October: an adaptation of Jonathan Evison’s novel, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving . Movieline spoke to Burnett about his move into film, which, as you might expect from someone who cut his show-business teeth on Dave’s groundbreaking NBC show, has been anything but conventional. Working with a miniscule budget and determined to remain true to the film’s do-it-yourself plot, Burnett and Beckerman worked with a cast of unknowns and crowd-sourced the music through Red Bull Soundstage. They also orchestrated an online premiere via an alliance with SnagFilms , which Burnett talks about in the interview. There’s also the plot of We Made This Movie. Available via iTunes and other digital formats, it is not your mother’s coming-of-age movie. The film follows the exploits of Eric “LeBron” James and his crew of high-school friends in fictional Buckstown, NY, who plan to escape the drudgery of working in their local chicken-processing plant by making a Jackass -meets- Sacha Baron Cohen -style movie that will make them famous. LeBron’s hare-brained plan involves getting the movie into the hands of hometown hero Bill Pullman , who makes a memorable cameo in the movie, but even before that happens, there’s a little catch. Like so many teens looking for fame in the age of YouTube, they have cameras but no talent, and their attempts to film comedy skits that, for instance, involve one character performing celebrity impressions while sitting on a toilet, and LeBron donning a chicken suit and walking through town with what looks like a massive erection end up being funny for all of the wrong reasons. But as you watch the teens’ screen dreams bite the dust, another accidental — and realistic — movie emerges about friendship and coming of age in a small town. Movieline: Tell me about your next project first. I read that you just bought the rights to an interesting book. Rob Burnett: It’s this lovely little book called The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving that I’m hoping to adapt into a film. It’s by Jonathan Evison, and I just fell in love with it. It’s a beautiful little story about this guy who has suffered a great tragedy in his life. He gets a job as a caregiver and starts taking care of this kid with Muscular Dystrophy. The guy is emotionally paralyzed, and the kid is actually paralyzed. It’s very touching, but what I responded to is it’s not maudlin at all. It’s a kind of a buddy movie where they go on the road to find this kid’s father. If I can find a way to do it justice in writing a good script, it could be a nice little movie. I’m really excited about it. That’s what I really like about We Made This Movie . In the way that good comedy tells the truth, this movie is unsentimental about dreams. It absolutely is about dreams. There’s this adolescent energy about LeBron. He doesn’t want to go work at that chicken plant. He’s got big dreams. We’re living in a world right now where, in terms of making a movie, anyone can do it. But just because you can doesn’t necessarily mean you can. [Laughs]. You know? LeBron and his friends are very naïve. Even their plan is naïve: they’re going to get their movie in the hands of Bill Pullman, who’s from their hometown. And that alone is going to make them famous. I’m not sure Bill Pullman himself can get a movie made. What we love about the movie is that they try and they persevere. Jon Beckerman and I wrote this together, and there’s a lot of similarity between this and Ed , the show we did on NBC for four years. There’s a real bittersweet quality to the movie. What these characters don’t realize is the thing they really have is each other. They have friendship. They have these high school bonds with each other. And in the end, that’s largely what their movie becomes about. They don’t realize that. They don’t set out to do that. Jon and I have always been very interested in doing a coming of age movie. I love that time of life. Those memories you have; the bonding that goes on there. Your life is still wet cement. But we never quite found an access point until we got the idea: what about a group of kids who are trying to make a comedy film but accidentally make a coming-of-age movie? Some of the early scenes of the movie, where, for instance, the kids film the ‘Chicken with a Boner’ man-on-the-street segment and put up all those index cards with dubious ideas on them, seem to be inspired by ‘Late Show’ segments. That could have been Chris Elliott in a chicken suit instead of LeBron. We actually shot some of the stuff Letterman remote style. We were out on the street shooting with real people. So, yeah, a lot of it was influenced structurally by the way we do Letterman. But what we thought was interesting was that, unlike Dave or Chris Elliott or Sacha Baron Cohen, our kids aren’t good at what they’re doing. If Chris Elliott were ever to do Chicken with a Boner, he would do it ironically because he’d be making fun of it. These guys are doing Chicken with a Boner as if it’s the funniest thing in the world. In that scene where LeBron is suggesting that they shit into a taco and eat it, it’s so misguided. The thing is, it’s not that far away from the guys at Jackass might do, but whatever you think of the guys at Jackass , they’re really, really good at doing Jackass. LeBron and his friends aren’t even good at that. They’re not fearless, and they’re really not funny. I really liked the scenes where LeBron and some of the other guys show up at their friend Smitty’s house and find him with his sick mother. To me, Smitty is the stand-up comic of the group and those scenes show that comedy often does not come from a pretty place. The interesting thing and the challenging thing about the movie is we’re telling an accidental story. The kids are making a movie that they don’t know they’re making. So, in a different movie, if you’re telling the story of a character who’s taking care of a sick mother, at some point, you just cut to him with his sick mother. We couldn’t do that in this movie. Smitty, in some ways, sums that up. He’s kind of a bastard. He’s screwing up the movie and not taking it seriously from the very first scene. But then we see that not only is this kid taking care of his sick mother, he’s taking care of his brothers, too. Clearly, the father is gone, and he’s holding this all together without a word. You start to see where all of this deep cynicism comes from. That’s kind of the trick of this whole movie. And I think to some extent Smitty’s character sums it up better than any of the other characters. Where did you find such a funny cast of unknowns? The cast is phenomenal. They’re all brand new, really. Arjay Smith, who played LeBron had done some television here and there. And Michael Charles Roman, who played Smitty, had done a lot of commercials as a kid. But the rest of them literally had to join SAG to be in the movie. We auditioned hundreds of kids for these roles. I had open casting calls at NYU. I auditioned 300 kids in one day. We did have casting directors in a traditional way. Barbara McNamara on the East coast, and Bonnie Zane , who cast Ed for us, found Arjay on the West coast. We wanted kids that were funny and could think on their feet, but who could also be a fresh brand that no one had seen before. Given the idea of the movie, we didn’t want to have famous people in the cast. And that was kind of a guiding thought for everything we did. If you look at the direction, I didn’t use any dollies or cranes. The camera is always justified by being held by one of the characters. The movie is intended to have the look and feel of something the kids in the cast would have done themselves. And I think by and large, this is what it would have looked like had they done it themselves. They’re convincing as friends. How did you get them to bond? We shot this movie in 21 days. Holy shit. Seriously? Yes, that’s the appropriate reaction. And when you’re going to shoot for 21 days, you don’t have the luxury of time. If it takes four days to bond on the set, that’s 25 percent of your movie. So, I literally took all of these kids, and I had them live at my house for a week before we shot the movie. Translation: My wife is a saint. They all came to my house in Connecticut, and we also spent some time out at the beach in Long Island. And these kids, as only kids in their early 20s can do, became the best of friends very quickly. In fact, I distinctly remember the first morning of the first day of shooting. We were living in a Holiday Inn Express in Shelton, Conn. God bless the people of Shelton. That’s all I’ll say. We had all moved to this Holiday Inn Express, and we were going to be there for 21 days. The first morning before we went to set, I looked over and I saw one of the kids fart in front of the other kids and not care. The other kids were cracking up about it, and I’m like, we’ve done our job. They’re bonded. Let’s go to work.
You think navigating a press junket after a personal controversy goes public is potentially awkward? Try braving throngs of journalists clamoring for an answer to The Twilight Saga ‘s curious “imprinting” storyline , as Taylor Lautner did today when the franchise-ending Breaking Dawn Part II press tour kicked off. For the record, both parties in the reportedly reunited Robsten supercouple acquitted themselves ably and congenially in back-to-back press conferences as they discussed their four-year journey with the vampire franchise. [ Mild spoilers follow, if you haven’t read the books .] But Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson aren’t the only Twilight kids who’ve matured in the interim as the worldwide phenomenon has turned them and their cast mates into global megastars. Twenty-year-old Lautner came off with charisma even as he broached the subject of his character’s eyebrow-raising onscreen soul mate attachment to a child in Breaking Dawn . “It’s a fine line, and I was worried about it,” Lautner admitted of Jacob Black’s supernatural, (platonic — for now) love at first sight connection to the half-human, half-vampire offspring of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. (By comparison, Edward’s a century older than Bella, so in the grand scheme of things it’s not that bad…) Played by 9-year-old Mackenzie Foy, Renesmee grows from infant to school-age girl in a superhuman span of time — and as in the books, Jacob is compelled by his Quileute legacy to instantly “imprint,” or attach, himself to her side in a manner that eventually will take on romantic undertones. Understandably he had concerns, so he went to the source for advice: Stephenie Meyer. “There was nobody better to ask about it than her,” Lautner said. “And she basically told me, ‘Stop overcomplicating it. Think here and now, that’s all you really have to focus on.’” “It’s simple — she said it’s a lifelong bond between two people and that’s it,” he continued. “At this point the girl’s like, what, ten years old? So it’s more of a protective thing, like a brother-sister. That’s really all it is. I couldn’t allow myself to think ahead and go beyond that, so that’s kind of the zone I had to stay in.” The weirdness of the Jacob-Renesmee bond is not lost on Jacob in the film, who encounters a furious Bella when she awakens from human death to find her best friend has imprinted on her newborn baby. But Lautner’s Jacob finds himself in a more than few awkward situations in Breaking Dawn . Another scene found Lautner stripping down in front of Billy Burke’s Charlie in one of the surprisingly comical moments sprinkled throughout the film. “It actually was pretty funny in person,” Lautner laughed. “I love Billy Burke to death and he’s one of the coolest people alive, so it was a little uncomfortable for me — it’s always uncomfortable when I have to take my shirt off or something because I’m always the only one doing it!” “The weather conditions we film in, and everybody’s bundled up in like seven layers and I’m the only one in jean shorts… that was a new one,” he said. “I think the pants came off in that one too. But it was a funny, funny scene. I was so nervous to film it because it was written so hilariously and I wanted it to come across that way and I hope it does, but it was a blast to shoot.” Stay tuned for more on The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Pt. II , which hits theaters November 16. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
