The recently announced project set to feature Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs has revealed its first reported look at the actor in character as the late Apple co-founder — or at least wearing the standard black mock turtleneck, blue jeans and sneakers (Ascis, not Jobs’s preferred New Balance, but whatever) so closely identified with the late Apple co-founder. As for the rest, I can’t really see it. You? Paparazzi shots are what they are, however, so perhaps we should all withhold judgment until he’s standing in front of some massive screen introducing whatever device changed your life 10 or 15 years ago. “I give you… the Puck Mouse! ” Etc. etc. [ TMZ via /film ]
If you were a movie-watching child of the ’90s (or, shall we say, an adolescent girl with a pulse) you knew Devon Sawa as a teen idol golden boy of the decade. But after a little more than a dozen years as an actor — during which time he graduated from kiddie fare ( Little Giants , Casper , Now & Then ) to Tiger Beat bait ( Wild America ) to what he calls his “edgy” phase ( SLC Punk , Idle Hands , Final Destination , Slackers , and Eminem’s “Stan” video), Sawa departed Hollywood to reassess his career, not knowing if he’d return to acting. During his self-imposed exile from the spotlight — and the party culture and poor career choices that he admits marked his mid-aughts — Sawa spent time in Southeast Asia. He trained in muy thai. He restored a heritage building in his hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia. By the time a script serendipitously found its way to his mailbox, enticing him back into the acting game after his years-long absence, Sawa was ready to start fresh. A celebrated guest turn as reformed assassin Owen Elliot on The CW’s sleeper hit Nikita followed, along with turns in the Toronto Film Festival thriller 388 Arletta Avenue , the indie horror pic The Sibling , and this week’s After Dark Action slate offering, The Philly Kid . Movieline met with Sawa to discuss (OK, obsess over) his beloved ’90s films and the disparate fan followings they inspired, the unexpected similarities between directors Steven Spielberg and Dr. Dre, how he spent his four years away from acting, and why it’s always OK to give your phone number to the Coen brothers . What brought you to The Philly Kid in the first place? You aren’t playing the hero here, but rather a more vulnerable character, which I thought was a more interesting choice. First of all, when I read the script the lead was already cast with Wes [Chatham] and he couldn’t have done a better job, but this was appealing to me because he’s kind of the guy who doesn’t care anymore; he’s got the slouch, and he drinks, and he’s got a gambling problem. It’s a character I’ve never played before and I wanted to be that character that doesn’t worry so much about the way he looks, you know what I mean? You play the friend who sucks Wes’s Dillon back into fighting, part Paulie from Rocky and part Worm from Rounders … The thing about Jake is that he’s a likeable guy, he’s a loveable guy, and that’s what makes Dillon want to help him out. He doesn’t ever mean to do anything wrong, he’s just got no filter and he makes the wrong decisions… a lot. But he means well. Given your sports training, have you considered taking the action hero route? Or do you have a different path in mind? Acting first. I want to do action, but I don’t want to be the guy who does just action. I’ve been working a lot on character, and I want to be able to do what Pacino and Hoffman do. But I still love doing action, so I’m trying to do both. You’ve done a number of indie movies as well as Nikita in the last few years — where did this project fit in? It came at the right time. It was the end of season one of Nikita so I knew for sure I wasn’t working on that. My agent called and said there was this MMA script, and I was like, “Oh, let me read it!” Baton Rouge was a big part of it because I love the South, and being from Canada it’s like the polar opposite — the food, the feel… I just love it down there. So it just fell in place. Obviously many of us have been watching your career from the start, but audiences really caught up with you in recent years thanks to your recurring role on Nikita . I took a break at the age of 25 just to step away from the business and figure things out — figure out if I wanted to do this anymore because I’d been working straight from the age of 11. And when I came back after four or five years, it was kind of like starting fresh again. People hadn’t seen me in a while, the last things they saw me in were some indie horror movies that I’m not really proud of, and the Nikita people were the first to step up and take a shot at me — “OK, let’s see him.” I went in and read with them and it went great, and that opened up a whole bunch of new doors. That’s why I love them so much. A lot of people were like, “Eh, Devon, we haven’t seen him in a while — what’s he been doing?” And Nikita was like, “Sure, this could work.” It was supposed to be for two episodes, but I got on there and it’s still going. It must be curious to have the experience of being famous as a child actor, and getting all the way to age 25 then stepping away and coming back. Between your early work, your Nikita work, and your newfound Twitter fame, what do you think has helped you most get back in the game? Nikita , for sure. I love Twitter. [Laughs] I don’t know if it’s really helped, but it’s a lot of fun. I have friends that are on The Vampire Diaries now that I met through Twitter. It’s a great thing, but I don’t know whether it’s helped or not. In ways you’re more candid on Twitter than most actors, which is part of why I think folks like to follow you. It’s not doing anything wrong, that’s for sure. No one’s told me to stop. I dread the call from my manager saying, ‘Did you really say this on Twitter?’ But you never know. Let’s go back to the beginning. You began acting at a young age, which is when you first made a name for yourself. Tell me about your childhood… I had a great childhood! I started doing Nerf commercials — I was the national Nerf spokeskid, which was my first kind of big thing. Did you know then that you wanted to act for a living? Yeah, I was a very energetic kid in grade 5 and started doing theater, traveling with this group doing all the elementary schools. I just loved it, I loved being on stage. Then I auditioned for the Nerf thing and got that, loved that — I ran around shooting Nerf guns. How can any kid complain about that? Exactly. And at the end of every commercial they’d give me a big box of these Nerf guns that the prop guy would put different springs in to make them shoot farther! So it was great. And then Casper came along. As a kid I was doing school with Christina Ricci and then Jonathan Taylor Thomas, going to Savannah, so it was all great. Then after Wild America when I was 17 I stepped away for two years, and came back, and I was going through that phase where I didn’t want to be in those teen magazines anymore. I was really against those things. That seems like the toughest transition for a child actor to make, out of adolescence and teen years into young adulthood. It really was. I wanted to do edgy, weird stuff, like SLC Punk and Idle Hands and the “Stan” video. That’s when I was in my weird phase. I guess it worked out. I admit I was enamored of Little Giants and Now & Then , but I have a friend who’s obsessed with Slackers . Like a number of your films, it has quite the cult following. There were a certain couple of years in college when I think that was a big movie! My agent’s assistant was like, “I love Slackers !” And he started reciting a scene that I don’t even remember. I’m like, “OK, dude!” I guess people like that. And I was really, really proud that Idle Hands made it to the New Beverly Cinema last year. That’s when you know you’re in a cult hit. Did you go? I didn’t. But the next one… How often do you go to the New Beverly? Because I swear I saw you there once, which is when I became aware that you were a fan of the theater and a huge movie nerd. You did. I am. I used to go all the time, but now I’m in Woodland Hills. I go to the Aero theater more, but I love them both. I really am a movie nerd. I love going to see the old films on the big screen. I just saw a new print of West Side Story at the Aero theater and that was great, I went to see back to back Indiana Jones es, back to back Godfather s… it’s the only way to see them. So, back to this edgy phase. Slackers , Idle Hands — those films came right before your self-imposed break from Hollywood. What prompted that? That was the point when the fame, or whatever — what club or what party I was going to — became more important. Then I started doing some movies that I wasn’t so proud of. They were kind of straight-to-DVD horror movies and whatnot. Why do you think you were doing those movies? They threw a little money at you, and you want to work, and you think they’re going to do better — it sounds good on paper — and then it comes out and somewhere down the line, something didn’t work out. And I wasn’t really proud of them, so I stepped away.
Also in this week-ending, Friday afternoon edition of Biz Break: MGM gets into the Ray Bradbury business, how Obama lost Hollywood, and more… Alec Baldwin to Rejoin Woody Allen and Russell Brand — Separately The busy actor, who will reportedly play himself in a film shooting next week at Cannes, is in line to re-team with both his To Rome, With Love director Woody Allen and his Rock of Ages co-star Russell Brand — on separate projects, alas, including Allen’s upcoming, untitled San Francisco-set film and the New Line comedy Man That Rocks The Cradle , respectively. Deadline reports . Catherine Zeta-Jones Signs on to RED 2 The Oscar-winner joins Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Mary-Louise Parker, all of whom appeared in the original 2010 action-comedy about a group of middle-aged contract killers reunited for a mission. Dean Parisot takes over directing duties for Robert Schwentke. THR reports . Dark Shadows Starts Soft at Midnight The poorly reviewed Tim Burton/Johnny Depp collaboration earned a very light $550,000 from midnight screenings early Friday and expects to end the weekend with a disappointing $30 million (or less) haul. Deadline reports . MGM bites the Dust The studio has picked up the rights to Ray Bradbury’s 2002 story collection From the Dust Returned , about “a mortal boy named Timothy who is adopted into a family of benevolent ghouls.” Deadline reports . Sam Claflin gets Quiet for Hammer The hot young actor, soon to be seen in Snow White and the Hunstsman , is set to join the Hammer Films production The Quiet Ones , co-starring Jared Harris. THR reports . Despite Starmegeddon , has Barack Obama lost the Hollywood left? A new report from Buzzfeed underscores the problems facing the president as he lobbies for reelection among a constituency that helped push him to victory in 2008.
This weekend sees the release of Dark Shadows , marking the eighth time director Tim Burton has teamed with Johnny Depp , his second-favorite performer on screen. (He no doubt frequently has to tell Helena Bonham Carter as much.) So natural is their pairing that we have come to expect a certain level of quality and/or box-office performance from their combined efforts, and an announcement of a new Burton title has generally come to carry the expectation of a Depp appearance. Although Hollywood has long brought us such fruitful and lucrative actor/director relationships — from both Cary Grant and James Stewart’s collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock to Robert De Niro’s legendary work with Martin Scorsese — consider nine other long-term pairings packing a little (or a lot) less luster. Héctor Elizondo / Gary Marshall After Marshall cast character actor Elizondo in his feature directing debut, soap-opera spoof Young Doctors In Love , the two became friends to such an extent that the actor has now appeared in every one of Marshall’s 17 movies. Be it the modern fairy tale Pretty Woman , to the retro fairy tales of The Princess Diaries , or Marshall’s latest unwatchableholiday pictures, Elizondo always manages to steer things a bit closer to the side of classy. Matt Walsh / Todd Phillips As Phillips rose up the Hollywood ladder with his frat-boy-centric films he has done two things: struck box office gold, and taken actor-comedian Matt Walsh with him. Walsh has the kind of face you note, if not outright recognize, thanks to a long career of comedic appearances. But this co-founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater is arguably best known as the doctor to whom the Vegas revelers turn for information in The Hangover , and Walsh worked with Phillips for a sixth time in the follow-up, Due Date . Many of those roles found him playing a character by the name of Walsh. Michael Par
Ponder that burning question as you watch the trailer for SyFy Channel’s forthcoming creature feature Piranhaconda , about — you guessed it — a piranha-anaconda hybrid monster people-eater hunting down nubile hotties, a film crew, a gang of mercenaries and Michael Madsen as a scientist. The tagline: “Part Snake! Part Fish! All Killer!” Everybody wins! No one moreso than Madsen, who appears to have a writing credit on the creature feature as well, according to the trailer’s credits. Let the awful CG and worse acting roll via the Piranhaconda trailer: Even after enjoying a career resurgence following Sin City and the Kill Bill movies, Madsen’s resorted to more and more low budget indie work; it’s therefore not terribly shocking to see him pop up in a movie like this, but still . And yet: Hardcore exploitation fans may find added reason to check out the telefilm on account of director Jim Wynorski ( Chopping Mall ), who’s behind the camera for producer Roger Corman. A release/airdate has yet to be set. [ TwitchFilm ]
Among Wednesday morning’s Biz Break: Rebecca Hall chases Iron Man 3 , Clifford the Big Red Dog is headed for the big silver screen, and word of a possible “Hollywood studio” for Queens. Rebecca Hall In Line for Iron Man 3 Role Hall would take over the role in the Marvel franchise recently declined by Jessica Chastain via her Facebook page . Gwyneth Paltrow, who was in the previous two Iron Man movies, will return as Pepper Potts, Deadline reports . Illumination and Universal Team for Clifford the Big Red Dog Matt Lopez has been set to write the script for the project, which will be a live-action and animated hybrid. Clifford follows the adventures of a 25-foot-tall red dog and his owner, a child named Emily Elizabeth, THR reports . Susan Sarandon Joins Mother’s Day The actress and her daughter Eva Amurri Martino are set to star in the indie drama which follows 12 sets of mothers and daughters over the course of a Mother’s Day, Deadline reports . NY Senator Schumer Pushing for Hollywood-style Studio in Queens New York Sen. Chuck Schumer is asking the feds to make it easier for New York City to build a movie studio that would compete with Hollywood. The federal government is holding up the final approval for Kaufman Astoria Studios to build an architecturally flashy movie lot gate at 36th Street and 35th Avenue in Astoria, Queens, CBS New York reports . Clark Gregg Joins Jason Reitman’s Labor Day Reitman is adapting the script from the novel by Joyce Maynard. The story follows a boy, played by Gattlin Griffith and his divorced mother (Kate Winslet) who offer a stranger (Josh Brolin) a ride during Labor Day weekend. The man is an escaped convict who teaches the boy life lessons, THR reports .
Ben Affleck , director, makes his most ambitious movie yet in this fall’s Argo , the crazy true (and until recently, secret) story of how the CIA attempted to rescue six American diplomats during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis by disguising them as a film crew working on a science fiction movie. The first trailer for Argo ranks up there with the best we’ve seen all year, setting up the stranger-than-fiction premise with juicy moments from veteran thesps (John Goodman! Alan Arkin!) and up-and-comers (ladies and gentlemen, Scoot McNairy) alike as Affleck serves up a bizarre slice of history. Affleck directs from a script by Chris Terrio (based on Joshuah Bearman’s engrossing 2007 Wired article “How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran”), casting himself as CIA officer Tony Mendez, the orchestrator of the so-called “Canadian Caper.” He’s joined by Goodman as Planet of the Apes Oscar-winner John Chambers, the Hollywood make-up artist who helped Mendez set up the operation, and Arkin as a producer delivering choice zingers (“If I’m doing a fake movie, it’s going to be a fake hit!”). In addition to folks like Goodman, Arkin, Victor Garber, Bryan Cranston, Michael Parks, Zeljko Ivanek, Affleck tapped a few rising actors to fill out his cast: Scoot McNairy ( Monsters ), Christopher Denham ( Sound of My Voice ), and Kerry Bishe ( Red State ) join Tate Donovan, Clea Duvall, and Rory Cochrane as the six imperiled diplomats. Add in the muted ’70s palette and sense of humor tempered by life-and-death stakes and you’ve got what promises to be an intriguingly layered ride, if Affleck the director can pull it off. Argo is slated for release on October 12, gunning for awards season. Verdict: If it measures up to the true story and the article it inspired, this could be great. Thrill me, Affleck.
A slew of new projects for various directors and stars were unveiled today, including new work for Nicolas Cage, Juno Temple and Nick Cassavetes. Meanwhile, Brad Pitt is apparently signing on to push a high-end women’s perfume. Read on for more in Tuesday afternoon’s Biz Break. Focus Features Accepting Entries for 5th Africa First Program The initiative, with funds earmarked exclusively for emerging filmmakers of African nationality and residence, is for the fifth consecutive year offering eligible and participating filmmakers the chance to be awarded $10,000 in financing for pre-production, production, and/or post-production on their narrative short film made in continental Africa and tapping into the resources of the film industry there. Entries accepted May 14 – August 20. Around the ‘net… Brad Pitt is the New Face of Chanel No. 5 Go figure, but Brad Pitt is now hawking women’s perfume. But as E! Online points out , “If ever there was a man pretty enough to render that particular point moot, it’s Brad Pitt.” A source tells the site he will be shooting his ads for the perfume soon in London. Nicolas Cage, Juno Temple & Johnny Knoxville Walk to Wild Side The road trip drama will be directed by Jesse Baget from a script he co-wrote with Stefania Moscato, Deadline reports . Avengers Breathes Life into John Carter John Carter zoomed up the domestic box office office chart from No. 38 the week before to No. 12 – thanks to being paired with The Avengers at more than 150 drive-ins across the country, THR reports . Career Watch: Scarlett Johansson, Beyond the Black Bodysuit Thanks to The Avengers , attention is back on Johansson the kick-ass action babe rather than Johansson the nude-photo-hacking-scandal babe . But is Black Widow the best Johansson can do? Thompson on Hollywood looks at the star’s trajectory. Nick Cassavetes to Direct Kristen Stewart’s Cali Voltage Prods. and New School Media are producing the gritty action pic from a script by Michael Diliberti. The story revolves around a San Fernando Valley couple who sell a “fake snuff film and ride off with a bundle of cash.” Years later, the girl (Stewart) must “return from the dead” to save the younger sister she left behind, Variety reports . Richard Regen to Adapt A Matter of Honor for Kennedy/Marshall Richard Regen has been set by Kennedy/Marshall and New Franchise Media to adapt A Matter Of Honor , the bestselling novel by Jeffrey Archer. The story revolves around a disgraced army colonel who gives a mysterious letter to his only son. After the envelope is opened, a deadly chain of events unfold that have global implications. Deadline reports .
Between Johnny Depp , Tim Burton , and the reliably bizarro fashion statements of Helena Bonham Carter , the Dark Shadows premiere promised a veritable feast of eccentricities. But guess what? The best and weirdest photo ops from last night’s to-do came not from the aforementioned mavens of macabre (granted, HBC was M.I.A.), but from the bizarre antics of an unlikely duo whose red carpet shenanigans made Burton and his cast of lovable weirdos look downright… mundane. Unexpected smooches, yoga poses, the good ol’ bunny ears photo bomb — if it was slightly awkward or distracting, premiere guests Cloris Leachman and Steven Tyler were involved. Who knew they’d make such an electrifying couple? To quote the film’s tagline, “Strange is relative.” Indeed . But don’t take my word for it. Browse Movieline’s gallery from the Dark Shadows premiere to see Depp, Burton, co-stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, Jackie Earle Haley, Bella Heathcote, Chloe Moretz, and composer Danny Elfman smile for the photogs as Hurricane ClorVen (Stevris? Leachler?) steals the spotlight. Even Alice Cooper didn’t seem to know what to make of it, and that’s saying something. Click for images from the Dark Shadows premiere.
The extended Q&A transcript from James Cameron ‘s China-focused chat with the New York Times and The Economist reveals the extent of Cameron’s Avatar -tunnel vision. “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. Last year I basically completely disbanded my production company’s development arm. So 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.” Looks like it’ll be all Avatar , all the time from here on out, which is… good news? [ NYT ]
