Also in Thursday evening’s round-up of news briefs, Bennett Miller’s Channing Tatum – Steve Carrell drama heads to theaters; Stellan Skarsgård joins a comedy/drama; And Wreck-It-Ralph is on track to dominating the weekend’s box office. Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher Heads to U.S. Theaters The film starring Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller, Vanessa Redgrave and Anthony Michael Hall has been picked up by Columbia Pictures which took U.S. rights. The deal reunites Miller with Columbia, having previously collaborated with the studio on last fall’s release of the Academy Award-nominated picture, Moneyball . The film revolves around John du Pont, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and killed Olympic wrestler David Schultz. Sheryl Crow Contributes Original Song to Brooke Shields & Darly Hannah’s The Hot Flashes The song is titled Leaning in a New Direction and will be the closing track to the film. The comedy, written by Brad Hennig and directed by Oscar-nominated Susan Seidelman centers on five middle-aged Texas women who decide to start an unlikely basketball team and go to comic extremes to prove themselves on the court. The film will make its world premiere at the American Film Market in Santa Monica on November 3rd. Stellan Skarsgård Joins Hector and the Search for Happiness Skarsgård joins Simon Pegg ( Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol ), Rosamund Pike ( Jack Reacher ) and Oscar-winner Christopher Plummer ( Beginners ) in the comedy/drama by Peter Chelsom. The film revolves around Hector (Pegg), an eccentric yet irresistible London psychiatrist in crisis: he’s going nowhere and his patients are just not getting any happier! Until one day, armed with buckets of courage and child-like curiosity, Hector breaks out of his sheltered vacuum of a life into a global quest to find out if happiness exists. More importantly, if it exists for Hector. And so begins an exotic, dangerous and hysterical journey. Oma and Bella Heads to U.S. Theaters Alexa Karolinski’s documentary revolves around two older Jewish women who are best friends living together in Berlin. Having survived the Holocaust and then stayed in Germany after the war, Oma and Bella spend their days telling stories, cracking jokes, dispensing advice, and devoting the majority of their time to their greatest love of all – cooking. Through their cooking and their conversation, an intimate portrait emerges of two incredibly strong, funny, endearing women who look candidly at their lives as they both wrestle with the past and engage with the present. Oscilloscope Laboratories picked up North American rights to the film, which will have its New York premiere at the upcoming DocNYC on November 10th. It will be available beginning today via VOD. Around the ‘net… Colin Firth and Michael Fassbender Set for Genius The story revolves around the relationship between author Thomas Wolfe and renowned editor Max Perkins, the film will be directed by Michael Grandage. John Logan will adapt the script from A. Scott Berg’s award winning biography Max Perkins: Editor Of Genius , Deadline reports . Box Office Preview: Wreck-It-Ralph Set for $45M at Weekend Most of the 300 theaters closed earlier in the week have re-opened. If Wreck-It-Ralph reaches the figure in its 3,600 screen debut, it could score the top non-holiday opening for a Disney animated title, minus Pixar movies, THR reports .
Your worst Halloween nightmare has come true. You’ve been invited last-minute to a costume party by your boss, who just loves letting his freak flag fly for the occasion. It’s a command performance, and your year-end bonus could damn well depend on what you throw together in the next hour. The thing is, you hate costume parties. Well, wipe that flop sweat off your brow, fire up your color printer and follow me to the next page. If your boss likes Halloween, then chances are he loved The Hunger Games and may even be channeling Katniss for the night. You can join him in rebelling against the Capitol with Movieline’s very own Mockingjay pun costume. 1.) Print this baby out, and 2.) pin or tape it to your shirt. For extra credit, do something weird with your hair and you, my friend, will be dressed to impress. Happy Halloween! Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Also in Wednesday evening’s round-up of news briefs: MoMA unveils its Awards-centered Contenders series; Under the Bridge heads to U.S. theaters; Ridley Scott teams with Focus on a series of low-budget thrillers; And New York may have cancelled its Halloween Parade in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, but the Film Society of Lincoln Center is up and running with Halloween and other events this week. Hey New Yorkers, Halloween Going On at Lincoln Center! The city cancelled the annual Halloween Parade, but if you’re itching to get out of your apartment and leave this Sandy business behind for a few minutes, check out the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Scary Movies” including Maniac with Elijah Wood (director Franck Khalfoun will be there for a Q&A Wed. night) and the North American premiere of Stitches , just perfect for all who are scared of clowns. The Film Society will also be hosting more events this week including a screening of Anna Karenina and a post-screening discussion with director Joe Wright. The group is also screening Brooklyn Castle and The Revisionaries in its first-runs at the Film Center. MoMA Presents its Annual Contenders Series NYC’s Museum of Modern Art will host a series of screenings of titles from the past 12 months that will figure in the Awards Season race. The series opens October 31st with the U.S. premiere of the 3-D animated feature A Liar’s Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman which will be released theatrically November 2nd. Last year’s Contenders at MoMA garnered 64 Oscar nominations. The series continues through January 14. For more information, visit their website . Under the Bed Heads to U.S. Theaters Starring Jonny Weston ( Chasing Mavericks ) and Gattlin Griffith ( Green Lantern the the thriller tells the story of two brothers who team up to battle the monster living under their bed. XLrator Media, which picked up U.S. rights to the film ahead of the American Film Market, which gets underway in Santa Monica, will release the film in theaters next summer. The deal was negotiated by Ehud Bleiberg and Giulia Prenna on behalf of Bleiberg Entertainment and by Gordon on behalf of XLrator Media. Around the ‘net… Sarah Jessica Parker Joins Mixtape The film chronicles a girl who accidentally destroys a mix tape that once belonged to her deceased mother. Tom Vaughn will direct the music-based comedy, Deadline reports . Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer to Star in Elsa & Fred Remake MacLaine and Plummer have signed on to star in the romantic comedy, which Il Postino filmmaker Michael Radford will direct. MacLaine plays a lively retirees in New Orleans who gets an unwanted straight-laced widower as a new neighbor in her apartment, THR reports . Ridley Scott Partners with Focus Features on Low-Budget Genre Pics The Oscar-nominated director and producer will work with Orchard Media and Focus Features International on a slate of six genre low-budget feature films over three years, Deadline reports .
Emma Watson captured the situation succinctly. On Sunday, the actress, who stars opposite Russell Crowe in Darren Aronofsky’s post-apocalyptic adaptation of Noah , tweeted, “I take it that the irony of a massive storm holding up the production of Noah is not lost.” T he Los Angeles Times reported that shooting on the movie, which is currently taking place in the New York metropolitan area, was postponed on Monday due to the arrival of Hurricane Sandy. Even more ironic: one of the un-seaworthy replicas of the ark that the film’s production crew had built was in danger of getting smashed to hell by the storm. Two massive arks have been built for filming. Presumably the one constructed inside a Brooklyn soundstage is safe, but a second, that, the Times reported, is in Oyster Bay, NY was in the path of Sandy. (Aronofsky tweeted the picture of one of the arks above.) The Black Swan director’s spokeswoman had yet to get back to us on the fate of the Oyster Bay ark at post time — I’ll update if an answer is forthcoming — and the filmmaker’s Twitter feed gives no clue either. Aronofsky’s last tweet was on Oct. 30 when he sent a picture illustrating the survival tactics of New Yorkers who were left without power because of the storm. “at chase bank squatting electricity,” Aronofsky tweeted , along with a photo of a laptop, possibly his, charging in the lobby of a bank. On Oct. 29, when Sandy was ravaging New York, Aronofsky also tweeted: “just lost my chimney, really”. I don’t have a chimney, Darren, but now that I’m on my second day of living in NYC without any power, I feel your pain. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
” I consider myself the Bo Jackson of entertainment .” Martial arts cinema and actual mixed martial arts collide in the form of pro fighter/actor Cung Le, who continues his rising Hollywood action career with a furious turn as Bronze Lion in RZA ‘s The Man With The Iron Fists . But his wild-maned, lethal work as the Lion clan henchman (who finds his toughest opponent in Lucy Liu’s Madam Blossom) is just Le’s “part time” job, of course; on November 10, a week after Iron Fists debuts in theaters, Le will face off against UFC fighter Rich Franklin in one of the biggest fights of his career. The kickboxing and sanshou champion, now fighting in the UFC, built up his Hollywood resume in recent years with supporting appearances in Fighting , Pandorum , Bodyguards and Assassins , Tekken , and True Legend . He’s also increasingly in-demand as an actor who can ably, and believably, fight; while filming RZA’s Iron Fists on location in China, Le was simultaneously filming Wong Kar-Wai’s Yip Man biopic under the tutelage of legendary choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping and shooting Dragon Eyes with Jean-Claude Van Damme, which he also choreographed. Le stopped by the Movieline/ENTV studio for a new recurring Movieline video series to discuss RZA’s martial arts epic, his childhood Bruce Lee obsession (and the unfortunate homemade nunchucks mishap that set him on the course to non-weapons based fighting), and his burgeoning second career as a martial arts action star and fight choreographer. As for his Franklin fight, broadcast by Fuel TV 6 on Nov. 10 from Macau, Le hints that his Iron Fists persona may make it into the octagon, and vice versa: “You will see a Bronze Lion with a Cung Le flair in action. Watch the Movieline interview on YouTube! You had multiple choreographies in your head at the same time while shooting Iron Fists , Dragon Eyes , and Grandmasters pretty much at the same time – how hard was that to keep straight? And does your fight training help somehow? Because I’m a professional fighter and I train all year round, I was probably the most in-shape on set, endurance-wise. The only thing that was tough was the weather, it was so cold. But I was excited to come to set and I was ready to put in extra hours – I did whatever it took. But martial arts, fight-wise, going from one movie to another didn’t really bother me. I felt like the transition was so natural and it came so easy to me, so everything was smooth, from one character to another, from one style to another – no problem. I think it’s so easy because my real job is stepping inside the octagon, looking up at my opponent pacing back and forth, who’s looking to take me out. That’s probably more nerve-wracking and more dangerous than what I’m doing in the movies part time. When I’m on a movie set it’s like, let’s do this ! When I’m inside the octagon, oh, man – he’s got the look and he wants to kill me . Doing both actual fighting and movie fighting, does it ever get confusing? Do your fight instincts ever take over during a fake fight, or do blows accidentally land here and there as you’re performing rather than fighting? Of course my natural instinct is to connect with my punch or my kick or my knee, but I’ve been doing martial arts so long that it’s natural for me. I can pull the punch at the last minute, I can make it look big or small, I can shorten my punch – it’s just years of training. So that part, I don’t need to think about it. On The Man With The Iron Fists , when Corey Yuen broke down a fight scene I could almost see what was going to come next. With Dragon Eyes I choreographed all the fight scenes, and I knew working with Van Damme was going to be a bit limiting because he wants to do so many of his own kicks and punches. So I let him do all his stuff, but of course he didn’t want to take any punches or kicks – but in the movie we came real close, and sometimes we did connect, just to make it more realistic. We wrapped Jean-Claude and brought in my trainer and Jean-Claude’s stunt double and I unleashed on him, so it looks like a great fight inside the jail cell, but before then it was all him trying to throw hook kicks and he was really trying to knock me out. For some reason I see the whole fight scene, then I write it on paper. Most people will write it on paper then try to piece it together, but I see not just fight scenes but action, how it plays out, before I can write it. Bronze Lion, like all the characters in Iron Fists , has a distinct martial arts style – what sort of discussions did you and RZA have about his form and how much additional research did you have to do? Bronze Lion’s is not as popular as the Tiger Style, so we were open to using things like the claw from Tiger to Lion, but there were also the weapons. They didn’t just want Bronze Lion to use Lion technique because my specialties are my kicks and scissor kicks. Corey Yuen wanted to incorporate all my strengths into the movie so he let me do a lot of kicks – I did the jumping side kick back kick without landing, the spin-around wheel kick, the running up the wall and grabbing someone by the head, scissor kicking the other guy’s neck and flipping him… so I got to do not just the Lion technique, I also got to put the Cung Le flair in there. So Bronze Lion got a chance to use Cung Le’s technique! Working with Corey Yuen and acting as Bronze Lion, did you pick up anything you think will help you in your actual fighting career? Working with high level martial artists, you see how they work and put things together, how things are planned out and how things come naturally. It gives me my own flavor and variety and the more variety I have, the more I can pull from. When I’m in a fight and I need to use a different technique, the transition is much quicker. But I can’t say that it does or it doesn’t, I can just say that with the years of being a student and a teacher and a fan I feel I can adapt to any situation with the training that I’ve had. Who’s your favorite martial artist of all time, the one you grew up watching? I grew up watching Bruce Lee. Enter the Dragon , Game of Death , Chinese Connection . I think hands down now, since I got a chance to work with Donnie Yen he’s one of my favorites now because he’s so open to doing different things. Not just the same kung fu, but he’s open to doing MMA in his movies and a lot of other things. I kind of look at what he does to mold my own style. Were you one of those kids growing up doing Bruce Lee moves in the mirror? When I was growing up I was really into nun chucks, and since my mom didn’t buy me any, this old broom that broke, I cut it in half and cut that half piece in half and drilled a hole through it with one of those hand drills. I tied it with some rope and I was working and doing pretty good, but I must have not tied it good enough so when I flipped it, it came around and hit me in the head. I had this big knot – and after that I just figured I’d do things with my hands and legs. [Laughs] Continued on next page…
May the farce be with you! In the wake of news that Disney will be producing more Star Wars movies as a result of its acquisition of George Lucas’ LucasFilm on Tuesday, the geniuses at Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco have posted some very funny parody posters of what the interstellar franchise will look like under the influence of the House of Mouse. I’m partial to the Boba Fett-meets-Buzz-Lightyear hybrid, but the image of the Jawas taking over for the Seven Dwarfs and spiriting off a comatose Snow White is a keeper, too. The full Boba poster and a third featuring the characters from Peter Pan silhouetted against the Death Star can be found at the Team Coco website . There’s such great material for satire here that I have a feeling that this is just the beginning. Walt Disney as Darth Sidious, anyone? Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Here’s something to add to the pile of things in life that’ll make you feel old: Green Day ‘s new music video for “The Forgotten,” their single from the Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 soundtrack. You read that right: The punk rockers, who once repped a generation of slackers with songs about masturbating and smoking weed, are now in bed with Twilight . Not that Green Day’s mainstream streak is anything new; they’ve played to the masses since making it big on MTV in the mid-90s, they have their own Broadway musical, and frontman Billie Joe Armstrong ( who recently checked into rehab ) just guest-starred on The Voice , any of which would be reasons alone for a revocation of that punk card. Suffice to say the Green Day that got their start at Berkeley, CA’s gloriously dingy 924 Gilman decades ago isn’t quite the same Green Day singing about Bella Swan’s undead transformation into a vampire as faux-home movies of Edward Cullen playing the piano for his monster baby play in the background. Because that’s basically what the music video for “The Forgotten” is. Sample lyric: “Don’t look away from the arms of love.” On the contrary — look away! Look away! Get More: Green Day , The Forgotten , Music , More Music Videos The Twilight films have historically nabbed pretty great and surprising artists for their soundtracks, so this isn’t a stretch for the franchise. It’s just, y’know, WHAT HAPPENED TO GREEN DAY? Sigh. Joining Green Day on the Breaking Dawn Part 2 soundtrack are indie faves Passion Pit, St. Vincent, and POP ETC. Full track listing: Passion Pit, “Where I Come From” Ellie Goulding, “Bittersweet” Green Day, “The Forgotten” Feist, “Fire in the Water” The Boom Circuits, “Everything and Nothing” St. Vincent, “The Antidote” POP ETC, “Speak Up” Iko, “Heart of Stone” A Boy and His Kite, “Cover Your Tracks” James Vincent McMorrow, “Ghosts” Paul McDonald and Nikki Reed, “All I’ve Ever Needed” Reeve Carney, “New for You” Christina Perri, “A Thousand Years (Part Two)” Carter Burwell, “Plus Que Ma Prope Vie” If anyone needs me I’ll be in my room listening to Kerplunk on repeat, longing desperately for the ’90s of my youth. [via MTV ] Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Now that the scariest parts of Silent Hill: Revelation 3D are proving to be the grisly reviews and box-office results, it’ s a good time to look at a handful of choice video games that have much greater potential than the Konami franchise to be blockbuster horror movies. In at least two of the examples I cite below, along with the pros and cons of adapting them, the film industry apparently agrees — or did at one point — that the game titles would translate well to the big screen. Actually making the movies adaptations of the games has not worked so well. 5. BioShock In 2009, BioShock looked like it was destined to be a movie. Pirates of the Caribbean franchise master Gore Verbinski was slated to direct the visually stunning game in which a plane-crash survivor in 1960 finds himself in the underwater Art Deco-style city of Rapture and its mutated inhabitants to survive. When the project ran into budget issues, Verbinski turned over the director’s reins to 28 Weeks Later filmmaker Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and agreed to serve as a producer. Last May, however, Fresnadillo told Playlist he was no longer involved and that the project was on hold because Universal Studios and the game’s creator couldn’t agree on a budget or whether the project should have an R rating or a PG-13, which would attract a broader audience. With the much-delayed third game of the franchise, BioShock Infinite due out in February 2013, and set, this time, in a floating sky-city called Columbia, it’s time to revive this project. Pros: BioShock is beautiful. Simply seeing the steampunk city of Rapture on the big screen would be worth the ticket. With more than 4 million copies of the game sold and a plot that a) is better than most fantasy/horror movies and b) has actually driven the argument of videogames as art, it’s remarkable that it’s not already a movie. Cons: Video games inevitably lose their interactive components when they’re adapted into feature films, but these elements are so integral to the telling of the story that removing them could prove problematic. Videogame tropes such as highlighted objectives and extended cut-scenes aren’t optional extras in this case: they’re built into the plot the same way your heart is built in to you. 4. Left 4 Dead Pros: Valve’s multiplayer masterpiece — and its sequel, Left 4 Dead 2 — are the most viciously fun co-operative games ever made. Four very different characters must team up to survive the zombie apocalypse, or at least make it a little bit further. In addition to the teamwork element, which would translate well to the big screen, Left 4 Dead has some of the best incidental writing in games. Valve understands that writing dialogue is just as important as writing code, because nobody cares if a character’s hair is beautifully rendered when they can’t stand to spend the time with him. Added bonus: the game treats each level as a movie, complete with loading screen posters. Cons: Since there isn’t exactly a shortage of zombie projects out there in movie land, the writing and direction have got to be exceptional. Done properly, the combination of white-knuckle action and well-developed characters could make zombie movies exciting again. Maybe Hollywood should give Valve a lot of money and ask it to produce a script.
Skateboarder Danny Way takes the starring moment in Samuel Goldwyn Films’ Waiting for Lightning . Featuring interviews with Travis Pastrana, Laird Hamilton, Rodney Mullen, Mat Hoffman, Ken Block, Rob Dyrdek and Tony Hawk, the story focuses on “how much abuse the body can sustain, how deep you have to dig to survive the challenges life presents, and how high and far dreams can fly.” Official log line: Waiting for Lightning is the inspirational story of visionary skateboarder Danny Way. The film follows the journey of a young boy from a broken home in Vista, CA, whose passion for skateboarding would one day bring him fame and a lifetime of accomplishments. Way’s drive has no limits as exemplified by his creation captured on screen, a ramp of prodigious and dangerous proportions, across many cultural and ideological boundaries to attempt the impossible: jump China’s Great Wall on a skateboard. It’s a film about how much abuse the body can sustain, how deep you have to dig to survive the challenges life presents, and how high and far dreams can fly. Danny Way has not only proven himself to be an incredibly talented skateboarder but also the sport’s greatest innovator. In his quest for greatness, Way continues to shape the very sport which helped save his own life. From the producers of Act of Valor , Step Into Liquid and Dust to Glory comes Waiting for Lightning , a Bandito Brothers production in association with DC Shoes, directed by Jacob Rosenberg, written by Bret Anthony Johnston, edited by Carol Martori and produced by Max Leitman, Darryl Franklin, Jacob Rosenberg and Hana Ripperger-Suhler. The film features interviews with Travis Pastrana, Laird Hamilton, Rodney Mullen, Mat Hoffman, Ken Block, Rob Dyrdek and Tony Hawk. Waiting For Lightning heads to theaters and is available for download December 7th.
Disney’s 2011 family adventure Mars Needs Moms wasn’t just a box office disappointment; it was a box office disaster , one of the worst in movie history . Mars producer Robert Zemeckis , appearing at the Philadelphia Film Fest with his latest Oscar-hopeful, Flight , prefers to remember Mars Needs Moms another way: “It’s the best 3-D movie since Avatar .” Zemeckis’s bold answer matched the bold question that prompted his trip down memory lane during Flight ‘s post-screening Q&A session on Saturday night. Following a string of massive career hits ranging from the Back to the Future franchise to Oscar juggernaut Forrest Gump , the Zemeckis-produced Mars Needs Moms opened last year as the filmmaker’s most high profile critical and commercial failure. ImageMovers Digital, the Zemeckis-founded CG house that produced Mars as well as his own films The Polar Express , Beowulf , and A Christmas Carol , was shut down after completing Mars , while plans to embark on a Yellow Submarine pic with Disney were also scrapped; needless to say, it’s probably not Zemeckis’s favorite topic of conversation. (For what it’s worth, Flight , Zemeckis’s Denzel Washington -starring return to live-action film, played well with the Philly crowd.) But one Philadelphia Film Fest attendee was eager for answers. Film critic Martin Schneider penned a reasonably questioning if snarky review of Mars Needs Moms at the time of release, criticizing the film for a slew of offenses ranging from its animation to character development, with particular scrutiny of the film’s “anti-gay,” anti-progressive gender messaging. He seized the opportunity during the Philadelphia Film Fest closing night film event to share how offended he was by the film, asking Zemeckis to explain: What happened ? For his part, Zemeckis didn’t flinch. Prior to the film’s screening, Philadelphia Film Society Executive Director J. Andrew Greenblatt told the audience that the director would be taking questions, and that they could “ask him anything.” It’s tough to say whether or not Zemeckis expected the subject of his history-making bomb to pop up, but when faced by his accuser he kept his cool under pressure, like Denzel’s alcoholic hero Whip Whitaker. And then Zemeckis flew the airplane upside down, so to speak. “It was not marketed properly,” he said of the 3-D CG sci-fi flop, which cost a reported $150 million to make and made back just $38.9 million upon release, becoming the worst Disney performer of all time and one of the most miserable wide release 3-D openings in history. Zemeckis said Mars Needs Moms had been lost in the studio shuffle. He called it “breathtaking.” “It’s the best 3-D movie since Avatar ,” he continued. “It’s the way 3-D should be presented.” Meanwhile, in a career built on crowd-pleasers and after a decade spent attempting to bridge the uncanny valley with CG children’s films, Flight marks only the second film Zemeckis has directed to earn an R-rating. (His first? 1980s’s Used Cars .) Rated R “for drug and alcohol abuse, language, sexuality/nudity, and an intense action sequence,” Flight wasn’t gunning for anything less, given its full-tilt dive into the depths of addiction. “There was no way an adult drama was ever going to be anything other than R-rated,” said Zemeckis. Still, he earned applause with a parting shot at the MPAA: “I hate the ratings system. I think it’s horrible and despicable, and we should get rid of it.” Flight opens nationwide November 2. For more info on the Philadelphia Film Fest, head here . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
