Also in Friday morning’s round-up of news briefs: Ridley Scott gives the low-down on a Blade Runner sequel. Michelle Williams is eyeing a role in a WWII-era drama and a run-down on the weekend’s new specialty release offerings. Richard Gere Considering Counter Islamophobia Pic After Innocence of Muslims Controversy Promoting Arbitrage at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, Gere said he was “talking to a couple of people…about the possibility of shooting part of a movie that I’m working on here.” He said he was open to shooting a movie that would present Muslims in a more positive light after the damage caused by the anti-Islam video, THR reports . Ewan McGregor Set for Australian Crime Thriller Son of a Gun McGregor is currently shooting August: Osage County with Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. He will shoot the crime pic Son of a Gun in Australia early next year. The film revolves around McGregor’s criminal character and his young protégé, Deadline reports . Ridley Scott: ‘ Blade Runner Sequel is ‘No Rumor’ Producer/director Scott confirmed that a re-make of the sci-fi classic is in the works. Scott was not sure if Harrison Ford will be on board the possible re-make of the 1982 pic, Metro reports . Michelle Williams Eyes Suite Francaise Williams is set to star in the leading role of the forthcoming film adaptation of Irène Némirovsky’s celebrated second world war novel Suite Française . A Ukrainian-born Jew, the writer died in Auschwitz in 1942 after completing only two of the novels, which were then lost in her personal papers until 1998, The Guardian reports . Specialty Box Office Preview: Middle of Nowhere , Smashed , Excuse Me for Living , Simon and the Oaks , Gayby This weekend’s new specialty release offerings get a preview including the Octavia Spencer/Mary Elizabeth Winstead starrer Smashed and other newcomers that will be opening in theaters, Deadline reports .
Ridley Scott’s latest alien franchise could have looked more like a direct prequel to his last one, according to the original screenwriter for Prometheus Jon Spaihts. In a surprise-laden interview with Empire , Spaihts says he had written facehuggers and chestbursters into early versions of the storyline before Scott and script doctor Damon Lindelof decided to move in a more original direction. Spaihts explained that he originally envisioned facehuggers being used to implant the alien seed in both Holloway and Shaw. “David, as he began to get fascinated by the science of the Engineers, doesn’t deliberately contaminate Holloway with a drop of black liquid. Instead, Holloway hubristically removes his helmet in the chamber” — a version of which happens in the finished Prometheus — is knocked unconscious, facehugged and wakes up not knowing what had been done to him, and stumbles back into the ship,” Spaihts told Empire . Enter the chestburster. In what Spaihts described as a “messy” scene, Holloway returns to his cabin and is “embraced by Shaw, who is delighted to see him having feared that he had died, and the two of them make love,” he goes on to say. “And it’s while they’re making love that he bursts and dies.” Nice. Spaihts says that his idea was originally to have Shaw impregnated by a facehugger, courtesy of David. In what sounds like an extremely creepy sequence, he says an early script called for David to tie up Shaw and deliberately expose her to the spidery egg sack. “He caresses an egg open and out comes a facehugger,” Spaihts explains, but since David doesn’t smell like a living being, “he can handle the the thing like a kitten.” And he does. “He toys with her for a bit and then lets it take her. That, in my draft, was how Shaw was implanted with the parasite that she had to remove with the medpod sequence.” He also notes in Empire that in his version of the script, the baby alien is ejected from the medpod while a dazed Shaw remains inside as she’s stitched up and watches the creature grow and dispatch other members of the crew. Shaw would have remained in the medpod for eight hours in Spaihts telling of the story, which would have made her post-Caesarean scenes avoiding the crashing Engineer’s spaceship and escaping the grown tentacled alien slightly more plausible. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
I’ll give Liam Neeson this much. He’s even braver in real life than the hard asses he plays in the movies. The New York Daily News reports that Neeson, 60, raised $20,000 for breast cancer research on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Monday by stripping down to a pair of pink bikini briefs and entering a dunk tank on the talk show. “If I take this off, does the $10,000 become $20,000?” Neeson asked DeGeneres as he doffed the pink robe he was wearing to reveal the similarly hued Speedo. “We get fined if you take those off,” the talk-show host said pointing to his briefs. After taking the hot seat, he was promptly doused with with a huge tub of water when an audience nailed the tank target. Kudos to Neeson for sucking it up for charity, but, at the risk of sounding like a real a-hole, I’m going to suggest that he didn’t suck it up enough. Judging from the rolls of belly fat visible in the video, I think that Neeson should either adopt a high-protein diet and Hugh Jackman’s personal trainer or begin employing what I am calling “The Willis Technique” since seeing Looper . Watching Rian Johnson’s impressive but depressing time-travel film, I noticed that Willis, who looks more fat and happy than John McLean in the film — that’s a Die Hard joke — tended to be well-covered in his bedroom cuddle scenes with Qing Xu. I’m sure there’s a very good reason that Willis favored chaste white t-shirts and other cover-ups while spooning with the love of his life, but I have to wonder if some bright person on that set, maybe Bruce himself, realized that the simple undergarment would hide a multitude of fleshy sins that could very well have made Johnson’s plausible dystopian future unbearable. Check out the video below and tell me you don’t think the Willis Technique should not become de rigueur among actors of a certain age. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
This week’s DVD releases include “lesser” but no less entertaining movies by two American mavericks working in their favorite genres: Robert Altman satirizing an American institution with an ensemble cast so large it practically needs the old Cinerama process to get everyone on the screen, and Joe Dante mixing laughs, jolts and teens in peril. HIGH: A Wedding (Anchor Bay; $9.98 DVD) WHO’S RESPONSIBLE: Written by John Considine, Patricia Resnick, Allan Nichols and Robert Altman; directed by Altman; starring Carol Burnett, Lillian Gish, Vittorio Gassman, Mia Farrow, Paul Dooley, Dina Merrill and Lauren Hutton. WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT: It’s the wedding day for Dino Corelli (Desi Arnaz, Jr.) and Muffin Brenner (Amy Stryker), but the happy couple don’t steal focus in Altman’s hilarious 1978 follow-up to Nashville . The class divide between the two families — Dino’s related on his mother’s side to the wealthy, snobbish Sloan clan while the nouveau-riche Brenners own a truck stop — provides the crux of the comedy, though all sorts of intriguing subplots, tropical storms, sexual secrets and all-around inappropriate behavior pop up throughout the happy day. With this many farcical goings-on in one huge mansion, it’s no surprise that Altman later turned this script into an opera. WHY IT’S SCHMANCY: While critics often dismiss A Wedding , given that it comes on the heels of the director’s masterpiece, it’s a biting, bracing comedy that ranks among the great screen satires of the 1970s. If you’ve ever been to a big wedding, you know the phenomenon of not knowing who everyone is, and this film requires at least a few viewings before you can nail down all the relationships among the 48 — twice as many as Nashville ’s 24 — characters. You’ll find those viewings to be rewarding, since there are so many hilarious performances and oddball supporting characters that you might miss the first time you watch. WHY YOU SHOULD BUY IT (AGAIN): This title was mostly lost in the shuffle for years. It was originally available on DVD only in a 2006 Altman box set with three other titles before becoming a solo release with little fanfare the following year. Now that Anchor Bay is giving A Wedding another go, movie fans who missed this gem in the Altman oeuvre have a chance to check it out. (Extras-wise, there’s but one featurette, and someone needs to release that opera on DVD, too.) LOW: The Hole (Big Air Studios; $14.99 DVD, $20.99 Blu-Ray) WHO’S RESPONSIBLE: Written by Mark L. Smith, directed by Joe Dante; starring Chris Massoglia, Haley Bennett, Nathan Gamble, Teri Polo, Bruce Dern, Dick Miller. WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT: After moving into a new house, brothers Dane (Massoglia) and Lucas (Gamble) discover a trapdoor held shut with a half-dozen padlocks. Consumed by curiosity, they open it, only to find a seemingly bottomless cavern on the other side. They soon realize that the hole knows what you fear most, and with the help of next-door neighbor Julie (Bennett), they fight to overcome their deepest terrors. WHY IT’S FUN: The Hole has that overly-bright look you’ll recognize from cable movies and low-budget direct-to-DVD flicks, but nobody juggles comedy and horror like Dante, the man behind both Gremlins films, The Howling , Piranha and Matinee . Even if he’s working on the cheap, he’s still inventive and funny, and the film offers some effective frights and charming performances (particularly from Bennett and Gamble), all wrapped up in a moral not unlike the one currently being offered up by ParaNorman . WHY YOU SHOULD BUY IT (AGAIN): Minimally released in U.S. theaters, it’s more than likely that you missed this one during its all-too-brief run on the big screen. So, this DVD is your only chance to see the movie at all, even if the handful of extras offered here are pretty thin gruel. Alonso Duralde has written about film for The Wrap , Salon and MSNBC.com. He also co-hosts the Linoleum Knife podcast and regularly appears on What The Flick?! (The Young Turks Network) . He is a senior programmer for the Outfest Film Festival in Los Angeles and a pre-screener for the Sundance Film Festival. He also the author of two books: Have Yourself A Movie Little Christmas (Limelight Editions) and 101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men (Advocate Books). Follow Alonso Duralde on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
I’ll give Ridley Scott this much: Despite leaving us all with a thousand unanswered questions at the end of Prometheus , he’s seemingly packed a multitude of answers into the upcoming Blu-ray, DVD, and 3D Blu home video release. Count down the days — mere days ! — until October 8, when the secrets of Prometheus are yours to devour, with a tantalizing look at the spoilery Blu-ray/DVD trailer. Not even counting spoiler-filled images and between-the-line conclusions hardcore fans can probably draw from this promo video, here are at least five spoilers dropped in the Blu-ray/DVD trailer alone. Let’s start with, oh, a HUGE SPOILER 30 seconds in that help connect the dots for those of you playing along at home who didn’t spend your entire life poring over message boards and spoiler threads to figure out WTF was going on in Prometheus : 1. “In my mind the Engineer sacrificed himself with this virus and created this horrific creature,” says an unidentified person, who presumably has knowledge of the film’s secrets even though duh , we know this already. 2. Production designer Arthur Max answers at least one burning question, kinda, which connects Prometheus directly to Alien : “In the original draft it was LV-426.” Undetermined: At what point that connective tissue was rewritten for the final film, or not, to confuse everyone. [Side note: Concept art of the alien penis snakes! Not a spoiler, but fun.] 3. Scott with the sequel plug: “If we do a sequel to this prequel we’ll find out who this race [The Engineers] was.” We’d better . 4. A glimpse of the alternate beginning, which suggests that the sacrificial Engineer who drank the goo and plummeted to his life-spawning fate was part of a larger organized ritual of some sort. That does make a bit more sense. Also: Ain’t no party like an Engineer party ’cause an Engineer party leads to ultimate destruction for all of humankind! Yeaaah! 5. And hey, an alternate ending! The Engineers came from “paradise,” eh? Fingers crossed for an entire reel of deleted severed-head David nuggets of wisdom. Watch the Blu-ray/DVD tease now and stock up on the essentials because seven hours of special features?? You know where I’ll be on October 9. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Break open the bubbly! Alfred Hitchock’s newly restored silent comedy, Champagne will get be streamed live and exclusively on the visual arts website The Space on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time (or 3:30 p.m. Eastern time). Champagne (1928) was Hitch’s eighth film as director and tells the story of a playgirl (Betty Balfour) living off the profits of her father’s champagne business, and her father’s plan to get rid of her fiance, who he suspects is a gold-digger. Father knows best! The restoration premiere of Champagne will be accompanied by a specially commissioned new score performed live by British Composers Award winner Mira Calix. and, according to The Space, the film will only be available to watch during the Sept. 27 live stream. In preparation for the premiere, Hitchcock fans can also watch four documentaries about the filmmaker that are available on demand at the site, including Hitchcock at the Picture Palace and Hitchcock’s Pleasure Garden, which is about his directorial debut. The Champagne is being offered as part of The Space’s BFI Beginnings showcase of first or early films by key British filmmakers including Ridley Scott and Ken Russell. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Tragic news: British filmmaker Tony Scott , who directed films including Top Gun , Crimson Tide , Man On Fire , The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 and 2010’s Unstoppable , died today after jumping from the Vincent Thomas Bridge between San Pedro and Terminal Island, multiple sources confirm. “Scott, 68, climbed a fence on the south side of the bridge’s apex and leapt off ‘without hesitation’ around 12:30 p.m., according to the Coroner’s Department and port police… A suicide note was found inside Scott’s black Toyota Prius, which was parked on one of the eastbound lanes of the bridge,” reported The Daily Breeze . Earlier in the day reports of a man jumping from the Vincent Thomas Bridge hit the web, although Scott’s identity was not confirmed until later Sunday evening. Scott, who had recently produced brother Ridley Scott ‘s Prometheus , had a number of upcoming films in production including Chan-wook Park’s Stoker , Scott Cooper’s Out of the Furnace , and Ridley’s Prometheus 2 . The Scott brothers also produced the TV series Coma , which is set to debut September 4. Scott made his directorial debut with 1983’s The Hunger; Top Gun 2 was one of his next projects in development. More info to come… [ Daily Breeze ]
Also in Thursday morning’s round-up of news briefs: Warner Bros passes the domestic $1 billion mark again. A Prometheus sequel is moving forward, Christopher Eccleston is a Marvel villain and Broadway to honor Gore Vidal. Nicole Kidman to Join Lars von Trier’s The Nymphomaniac Kidman revealed she’ll work a “few days” on Danish director Lars von Trier’s two-part The Nymphomaniac , which is set to star Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard and Willem Dafoe. She starred in the director’s Dogville , The Playlist reports via AlloCine . Warner Bros Passes $1 Billion at Domestic Box Office The milestone has been reached 12 years in a row, which makes Warner Bros. the only studio to have accomplished the feat. The Dark Knight Rises lead this year’s pack with $304M in its first 12 days. Also scoring well is Magic Mike ($108.5M), Deadline reports . Prometheus Sequel Planned by Ridley Scott Scott is moving ahead with plans for a sequel, his return to the Alien universe. His return to the genre after three decades grossed over $300 million worldwide from a budget of $130 million, The Guardian reports . Paz Vega Joins Grace of Monaco as Maria Callas Vega will play the haughty opera singer in the film, which stars Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly. The director of Edith Piaf biopic La vie en rose , Olivier Dahan, will direct Grace of Monaco from a script by Arash Amel. The story centers on a six-month period in 1962 when Monaco had a dispute with France and Princess Grace worked behind the scenes to prevent a coup. THR reports . Christopher Eccleston to Play Thor 2 Villain Eccleston will star opposite Chris Hemsworth in the told of Malekith The Accursed in Marvel Studios’ Thor: The Dark World . Malekith is a “super-villain in the Marvel Universe, the ruler of the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim, Deadline reports . Broadway to Dim Lights in Memory of Gore Vidal Broadway theaters will dim their lights August 3rd in memory of Gore Vidal who died this week . His play The Best Man is currently playing at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater. The cast is dedicating its performances next tweak to his memory, The Guardian reports .
Prometheus held the box office throne in the United Kingdom last weekend. Madagascar 3 won’t have its British theatrical roll out until the fall of all things, so Prometheus had no big newcomers to contend with in the United Kingdom last weekend. The Ridley Scott directed feature took in £3.14M ($4.87M) in its second weekend, a 50 per cent drop. Still, its ten day total is £15.47M ($23.99M), just behind the complete cumulative for Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood which totaled £15.65M, according to figures by The Guardian. Men in Black 3 has had a bit of a rough go in the States, but it’s holding steady among the Brits, dropping a mild 16% in its third weekend, grossing £2.53M ($3.92M). Snow White and the Huntsman , meanwhile dropped only 15%, adding £5.96m ($8.68M) over the past seven days
I went to see Prometheus over the weekend, and like many of you, I was disappointed (to put it lightly). Although a technical achievement in every way, the narrative and characters left much to be desired. The mystery I wanted solved was not the black goo or the Engineers — it was how the creative team of Ridley Scott , Damon Lindelof , and Jon Spaihts could produce a movie with such rudimentary mistakes . There have been casts of Scream movies with more intelligence than this lineup of characters. The connective tissue between the film’s big set pieces felt as if plucked from a Random Idea Generator program online; even the mythology was mucked up as the film dissolved into a by-the-book sci-fi thriller by the end. Baffled, I thought about the simple brilliance of 1979’s Alien . The 1970s were a fertile time for Hollywood. What we consider to be some of the greatest movies ever came from the “New Hollywood” era, including Scott’s Alien and works by the likes of Coppola, Kubrick, Altman, and more; these were directors who were the first wave of “film buffs” who emerged from university film programs having studied and loved the medium for years. They were awed and inspired by cinema, and introduced fresh technologies and darker and more subversive subject matter to wider audiences for the first time under a creative freedom Hollywood hasn’t allowed since. But all eras come to an end, and not every great director has a perfect score (except maybe Scorsese and Hitchcock). Even if Prometheus didn’t disappoint you, chances are one of these movies from nine New Hollywood filmmakers did. 9. Ridley Scott’s Hannibal (2001), Robin Hood (2010), and Prometheus (2012) There are two kinds of Ridley Scott camps: Those who think Scott is a middlebrow director with mediocre titles that appeal to AMPAS voters only, and those who believe Alien and Blade Runner constitute a lifetime pass. That’s not to say Scott isn’t an accomplished and respectable director even today. Prometheus is his most technically beautiful film in ages, and Matchstick Men and Kingdom of Heaven are underrated achievements. But let’s face it: Prometheus is a narrative mess, his Robin Hood was a bafflingly bland Russell Crowe vehicle that famously massacred a fabulous spec script that was intended to tell the Sheriff of Nottingham’s story, and… well, just watch Scott talk up Hannibal in this commentary track clip. — 8. Robert Altman’s Dr. T. and the Women (2000) Not inherently a bad movie, Altman’s Dr. T. and the Women is often delightful, but a bit too broad and soapy for the man behind MASH and Nashville . As an unconventional rom-com, Altman’s film retains much of the director’s trademark style, with charm and emphasis on character relationships over plot — obviously, since a magical tornado comes out of nowhere at the end to wipe slates clean. — 7. Roman Polanski’s The Ninth Gate (1999) From the director who brought you Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown comes The Ninth Gate , starring a subdued Johnny Depp, who seems perpetually in danger of getting hit by cars, and Emmanuelle Seigner, delivering roundhouse kicks to baddies and floating down staircases. Like Altman’s Dr. T. , this isn’t Polanski hitting an extreme low — he’s just not hitting any highs, either. The film’s production values go a long way to delivering an elegant yet creepy atmosphere, but the business of the horror-fantasy plot falls deeper and deeper into absurdity with generic thriller frights. — 6. Brian De Palma’s Mission to Mars (2000) and The Black Dahlia (2006) You could also probably slide 1998’s Snake Eyes into this lineup to prove a point that, like Prometheus , no matter how technically capable you are as a visual director, sometimes the narratives just don’t measure up. Black Dahlia also carried the negative weight of bizarre miscasting (Hilary Swank, I’m looking at you), while Mission to Mars succumbs to shallow writing and absence of thrills. Snake Eyes , for what it’s worth, tries to cover up mediocrity and frustratingly silly webs of intrigue under an abundance of style and visual prowess. Movies are a sensory experience, and if what you’re hearing doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter if what you’re seeing is the most beautiful image ever shot. — 5. John Schlesinger’s The Next Best Thing (2000) This is the man who directed Midnight Cowboy , Sunday Bloody Sunday , and Marathon Man . Obviously we can chalk this one up to the Madonna poison she obviously secretes onto every set she steps foot on. Right? — Continued on page 2…
