The Twilight series’ concept of imprinting ? Still a little weird. But interspecies love never looked so sweet as it does in this special effects reference photo of the real-life Jacob Black getting friendly with a human, the perfect shot of furry adorbs to counteract today’s gruesome Hobbit pony-killing revelations . Effects guru Phil Tippett Tweeted the pic of the affectionate reference wolf used to create Twilight ‘s CG wolf pack today during a VFX Q&A session. Technically I’m not sure which smoldering, shirtless Quileute werewolf this fella was played by onscreen, but if Taylor Lautner was a wolf I’m pretty sure he’d look like this. (I’ll also admit it’s unclear whether or not this is a Christian the Lion -style wolfy kiss or the prelude to a grisly VFX research visit gone very wrong.) Tippett Studios worked on the last four Twilight films, specializing in the wolf CG effects; for Breaking Dawn Part II they also created the scene in which Bella wrestles and devours a cougar. I’d like to see the reference photos they snapped for that . [via @PhilTippett ]
Young women bullied by their peers into committing suicide has become a staple of today’s news cycle, but as Anna Karenina demonstrates, it’s hardly a new phenomenon. Whether you’re talking about 19th-century Russian aristocrats or Midwestern teens in the age of Facebook, as Keira Knightley tells me, “The rules of society change, but the way that society works does not.” I sat down with Knightley and director Joe Wright to talk about their bold adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s novel and its continued relevance in our contemporary digital world. Their passion for the material is as palpable as the film’s lush production design. Check out the videos below to get the behind-the-scenes scoop on the most daring movie this Oscar season: Anna Karenina is now playing in limited release. Follow Movieline on Twitter . Follow Grace Randolph on Twitter .
Now it’s Courtney Love ‘s turn to tell her story about her husband Kurt Cobain and she’s turning to a medium she knows well, even if it has at times not been to her liking. The Hole musician has approached filmmaker Brett Morgan to do a Cobain documentary, a project that has been under discussion since 2007. “Courtney is the one that brought me into this,” said Morgan, whose Rolling Stones doc Crossfire Hurricane premiered at the BFI London Film Festival last month. “We’ve been trying to find the right time to put tho film together and the time is now.” Morgan, who spoke to the New York Post said they’re eyeing a 2014 release. Rumors swirled that a Broadway musical based on the Nirvana catalogue recently when once close Britney Spears protégé Sam Lufti testified under oath that he and Love were working on a possible stage or motion picture project based on the grunge artist who died of a self-inflicted gunshot in 1994. “There will be no musical,” Love later told The Observer. “Sometimes it’s best just to leave things alone.” Nevertheless, a doc is underway at least for now, and it will take the form of a “third-person autobiography,” Morgan said. “[As] if Kurt was around and making a film about his life…Kurt was not only an amazing songwriter and musician, he was an incredible artist and film-maker.” Kurt Cobain left behind a wealth of recordings even beyond his music, some of which played out in a 2006 documentary, Kurt Cobain About a Son by AJ Schnack, which Love did not sanction. Cobain and Love were both the subjects in the 1998 doc Kurt & Courtney by Nick Broomfield, which Love allegedly tried to axe from the Sundance Film Festival ahead of its premiere. Never-before seen footage of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love in their private life turned up in the 2011 doc Hit So Hard by P. David Ebersole, which followed the story of Hole drummer Patty Schemel, which Love cooperated with. On the non-doc side, Gus van Sant fictionalized a parallel Kurt Cobain story in his 2005 feature Last Days , which starred Michael Pitt as the would-be Nirvana frontman. [ Source: The Guardian ]
He makes one helluva pretty boy, but the consensus may be a bit muddled as to his female manifestation. Images surfaced of Jared Leto dolled up as a drag queen prostitute. No, it is not a career change, he’s playing the character in Québécois filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée ‘s drama The Dallas Buyers Club . Sporting a shaggy retro hairdo, a hint of some red Victoria’s Secret undies knock-offs and a faux fur of some sort, Leto is barely recognizable, but a peek at his toned torso gives some tease of his sexy self. This is not the first image from the film to hit the internet in the last week to cause at least some stirs. Fans and mere observers alike were shocked to see pictures of Matthew McConaughey surface, which showed the actor’s new gaunt/sickly frame. The former Sexiest Man Alive lost 38 pounds, tipping the 6-foot actor on the scale at a slight 143 pounds. Based on a true story, McConaughey plays Ron Woodroof, a drug-taking womanizing homophobe who was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in 1986. He nearly died when he started taking AZT, the only FDA approved drug at the time, but returned from the brink after he smuggled in non-toxic anti-viral drugs from around the world. Other AIDS patients sought out his medications, forgoing the U.S. approved AIDS regimen. With the help of his doctor and a fallow patient – played by Leto – he unintentionally created the Dallas Buyers Club, the first of dozens that formed around the country. McConaughey told Larry King: “I should not look healthy by the time I’m doing (the role)…I just kinda dared myself. I haven’t been this light since I was in the ninth grade. I’m kind of looking at it as sort of a cleanse, it’s a bit of a spiritual cleanse, mental cleanse.” Also starring Jennifer Garner, this is Jared Leto’s first time behind the camera in three years. The Requiem for a Dream actor has spent time as the frontman for his band 30 Seconds to Mars. [ Source: The Insider ]
The Wachowskis are about to shoot their first film in 3D, which, after the complexity of Cloud Atlas , almost sounds like a comedown. FilmStage.com reports that the cinema siblings will utilize 3D for the first time to make their next science-fiction film, Jupiter Ascending , which begins shooting early next year. The news is part of a Warner Bros . deal in which it plans to release up to 20 upcoming films, including Jupiter Ascending , in IMAX over the next three years. Last May, Vulture reported that Jupiter Ascending is set in a universe where humans are quite low in the evolutionary hierarchy. There, Mila Kunis plays an immigrant cleaning lady who is targeted for assassination by the Queen of the Universe because she possesses the same genetic make-up and therefore poses a threat to the Queen’s rule. Sounds like a very specific variation on the Engineers hatred of the human race in Prometheus , no? Word is Channing Tatum plays a bounty hunter sent to eliminate Kunis’ character, who instead falls in love with her. Just guessing here, but I bet that means more bounty hunters are dispatched to track down the lovebirds. [ FilmStage.com, Vulture ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
After a five-year absence from the movie business, comic Chris Tucker makes his return to the big screen this weekend in a quasi-dramatic role in David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook . But he’s not leaving comedy behind. At the New York premiere party for the film on Monday night, Tucker told me that he’s producing a film of his stand-up act. At the party, which took place in the lobby of the Royalton hotel and its restaurant Forty Four and drew Silver Linings cast members Robert De Niro , Bradley Cooper , Jacki Weaver, Julia Stiles and Russell, Tucker told me that one of the reasons he hasn’t been in a movie for so long is that “I wanted to go back and do stand-up.” When I asked if a TV special would result, he explained that he’d just shot a “stand-up movie” over the weekend in Atlanta, Ga. “We don’t have a name for it yet, but it’s a movie like Eddie Murphy’s Raw and Delirious ,” he said. The Rush Hour 3 actor said that he was producing the picture himself and that it’s “coming out early next year.” In Silver Linings Playbook , Tucker plays Danny, a friend of Bradley Cooper’s character, and a former mental institution patient. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Class warfare never looked so chic. The new issue of Vogue magazine, which depicts Les Miserables star and recent Saturday Night Live host Anne Hathaway on the cover, features a lush Annie Leibovitz photo feature spotlighting the actress, Hugh Jackman , Amanda Seyfried , Sacha Baron Cohen , Russell Crowe and other cast members. Check them out after the jump. [Vogue]
The 23rd James Bond film lived up to its lofty hopes at the box office, continuing its stellar run Stateside after scoring hundreds of millions overseas including the U.K. where it opened theatrically late last month. The third 007 feature starring Daniel Craig grossed $87.8 million plus $2.2 million from Thursday night IMAX screenings. Skyfall ‘s total pushed the box office’s top 10 to over $159.1 million. Wreck-It Ralph placed second after debuting atop the box office last weekend. Steven Spielberg ‘s anticipated Lincoln , meanwhile opened in limited release at just 11 theaters with a stunning $81,800 per screen average. It should easily be in the upper echelon if not the top grossing film next week when it goes wide. 1. Skyfall Gross: $87.8 million (Cume: $90 million) Screens: 3,505 (PSA: $25,050) Week: 1 Skyfall stole the box office over the weekend with the highest grossing Bond opening in the franchise’s fifty year history. Quantam of Solace opened with $67.5 million which was the previous record. The latest film’s was also double Casino Royale ‘s $40.8 million debut which was the current 007, Daniel Craig’s, first turn as the dashing British operative. In addition to this weekend’s $90 million take, it has grossed $428.6 million worldwide. 2. Wreck-It Ralph Gross: $33,056,000 (Cume: $93,690,000) Screens: 3,752 (PSA: $8,810) Week: 2 (Change: – 32.6%) The pic dropped one spot in its second weekend, remaining in the same number of theaters in its second round. Last weekend it debuted with a $13,070 screen average. With momentum going its way, a $200 million gross is not out of the question. 3. Flight Gross: 15.1 million (Cume: $47,770,299) Screens: 2,047 (PSA: $7,377) Week: 2 (Change: – 39.4%) The film, which debuted at the New York Film Festival last month dropped almost 40% added 163 theaters in its second weekend and remained third in the overall box office chart. Flight ‘s total compares to star Denzel Washington’s $41.9 million total for the 2010 thriller Unstoppable at this point in its release. That film ended up at $81 million. 4. Argo Gross: $6,745,000 (Cume: $85,710,958) Screens: 2,763 (PSA: $2,441) Week: 5 (Change: – 33.9%) The Ben Affleck-directed film held solid in its first month with only incremental declines week to week. This time, it had its most sizable drop. Still, it has held on and in 11 less theaters than last week and it dropped one spot. 5. Taken 2 Gross: $4 million (Cume: $131.2 million) Screens: 2,487 (PSA: $1,608) Week: 6 (Change: – 32.4%) The feature topped the box office in its early October debut, but then skidded heavily in its second weekend. Since then it dropped less severely though its sixth weekend drop at nearly 33% compares to the previous weekend’s 23% decline. Still, the film placed fifth as did last week with 152 less locations. 6. Here Comes the Boom Gross: $2.55 million (Cume: $39,061,095) Screens: 2,044 (PSA: $1,248) Week: 5 (Change: – 27.7%) The pic dropped 270 screens from the previous weekend, though its nearly 28% drop shows the movie is holding solidly going into its second month in release. 7. Cloud Atlas Gross: $2,525,000 (Cume: $22,711,706) Screens: 2,023 (PSA: $1,248) Week: 3 (Change: – 53.1%) The film debuted with a $9.6 million gross, but fell 44% in its second weekend and a much steeper 53% drop in the third. Its reported $100 million production budget will be a huge loss for sources that invested in this ‘independently produced’ feature, which will struggle to top out at $30 million. 8. Pitch Perfect Gross: $2,503,800 (Cume: $59,030,443) Screens: 1,391 (PSA: $1,800) Week: 7 (Change: – 18.3%) The film’s $17 million budget has been more than tripled in the box office. Pitch Perfect dropped only 18.3% after dropping 111 locations from the previous weekend. 9. The Man With The Iron Fists Gross: $2,489,760 (Cume: $12,718,085) Screens: 1,872 (PSA: $1,330) Week: 2 (Change: – 68.5%) Ouch, the title added four locations but dropped a stunning 68.5% and dropped five spots from its opening. Still the pic’s $15 million budget should handily be made up, minus P&A. 10 Hotel Transylvania Gross: $2,350,000 (Cume: $140.9 million) Screens: 2,566 (PSA: $916) Week: 7 (Change: – 46.7%) The animated pic lost 356 theaters vs last weekend. Worldwide, the feature has grossed over $270.4 million. Not bad for an $85 million budget. It has been losing momentum, but it may cross $150 million before all is said and done. [ Sources: Rentrak, Box Office Mojo ]
Well, maybe Brad Pitt won’t save all of us. As you can see in the first full trailer for Marc Forster’s big-budget action pic World War Z (via Apple), a few billion Earthlings will kick the bucket (but will probably reanimate, so there’s that) when the undead rise against us. Watch the trailer to get a look at Pitt’s shaggy-maned family man hero, who must to leave his wife (Mireille Enos) and their kids to go fight the zombie apocalypse for the sake of humanity in next summer’s World War Z . Head to Apple for the trailer debut. The full trailer has me breathing a sigh of relief after this week’s rather underwhelming trailer tease ; I can get used to World War Z ‘s superfast undead swarms, pouring through streets and leaping like lemmings off of buildings chasing desperately after Pitt’s delicious, delicious body. I mean brain. Or whatever these zombies eat. It must be high in protein to keep this kind of zombie metabolism going. Despite the departures from the book that will have lit fans up in arms, and the vaguely I Am Legend / War of the Worlds vibe this gives off, World War Z has me excited to see Pitt as an action hero. And how great is it that he’s doing a rare action turn while looking like a long-haired crunchy hippie dad? World War Z hits theaters June 21, 2013. How’s it look to you, Movieliners? Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Mark Wahlberg : The new Shia LaBeouf ? Michael Bay and Paramount announced Thursday that Wahlberg, who stars in Bay’s real life crime pic Pain & Gain , will lead the franchise sequel Transformers 4 . “An actor of his caliber is the perfect guy to re-invigorate the franchise and carry on the Transformers ’ legacy,” said Bay in a statement. LaBeouf’s run as the squirrelly-scrappy lead of the Transformers franchise ended with Transformers: Dark of The Moon (he’s moving onward to more artsy fare, anyway — Von Trier ahoy !), but casting someone like Wahlberg changes the game considerably. He’s got the star power of Shia LaBeouf and Josh Duhamel in one. He was nominated twice for the Oscar. He is Mark Wahlberg . I imagine this deal going down one day on the Pain & Gain set over beers, Wahlberg in his Pain & Gain tracksuit ( or maybe this short shorts outfit ) and Bay in a smoking jacket, because for some reason I always picture Michael Bay in a smoking jacket. Feel the vibration! Full press release follows; weigh in on the casting move below. Does it change your feelings on Bay’s mega-blockbuster robot franchise at all? Can we now conceivably picture Transformers and Pain & Gain as connected worlds in the Michael Bay multiverse? HOLLYWOOD, CA (November 8, 2012) – After an exceptionally successful collaboration on the upcoming “Pain and Gain,” Michael Bay has cast Academy Award®-nominee Mark Wahlberg in the highly anticipated “TRANSFORMERS 4.” The film will hit theaters June 27th, 2014. “Mark is awesome. We had a blast working on “Pain and Gain” and I’m so fired up to be back working with him. An actor of his caliber is the perfect guy to re-invigorate the franchise and carry on the Transformers’ legacy,” said Bay. Bay will direct the next installment in the “TRANSFORMERS” series, which begins shooting next spring. From Paramount Pictures, a division of Viacom, Inc., in association with Hasbro, the film will be produced by Don Murphy & Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Ian Bryce, and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, Bay, Brian Goldner and Mark Vahradian. Bay’s first “TRANSFORMERS” film was a box office sensation in 2007, opening at #1 and earning more than $700 million worldwide. His second installment “TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN” in 2009 grossed more than $830 million worldwide. In 2011, “TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON” was an even bigger hit worldwide, grossing more than a billion dollars to become the 5th highest grossing film of all time. To date, the franchise has earned more than $2.6 billion worldwide. From acclaimed director Michael Bay comes “Pain and Gain,” a new action comedy starring Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson and Anthony Mackie. Based on the unbelievable true story of three personal trainers in 1990s Miami who, in pursuit of the American Dream, get caught up in a criminal enterprise that goes horribly wrong. Ed Harris, Tony Shalhoub, Rob Corddry, Rebel Wilson, and Bar Paly also star. The film is based on magazine articles by Pete Collins, with a screenplay by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely and produced by Donald DeLine, Michael Bay and Ian Bryce. “PAIN AND GAIN” opens in theaters everywhere April 26th, 2013.
