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Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: November 15, 2009

Niall Browne — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:33:02 +0000

This week:

Disaster at the box office with 2012; Harvey Keitel and Robert DeNiro re-team for Fockers; Brad Pitt’s Moneyball may finally roll; Belgian actress de France plays French alongside Matt Damon in Eastwood’s Hereafter and Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, and Barbara Hershey dance with Portman and Kunis in Black Swan.

Box Office

Say what you will about Roland Emmerich and his films, the director knows how to destroy the world on screen and make shed loads of money. His most recent disaster epic 2012 destroyed all competition and banked an impressive $65 million over the weekend to capture the number one position. The film has so far grossed an amazing $225million worldwide from a $200 million budget.

Disney’s A Christmas Carol is showing legs like a supermodel. The film dropped only 23% from last weekend for a $23 million take. It should play well in the run-up to Christmas and then have a decent life on DVD and with re-releases.

Precious was third with a highly impressive $6.2 million from just 174 locations. Never under-estimate the power of Oprah!

George Clooney’s The Men Who Stare At Goats was fourth with just a smidgen over $6 million.

Michael Jackson’s This Is It banked $5.1 million. The film has now made over $67 million in the US and huge $200 million worldwide. Not bad for a film that is essentially a DVD special feature.

Meanwhile Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox grossed a mighty $250, 000 from just four screens!

Movie News

1. Harvey Keitel has joined the ever growing cast of Little Fockers.

Keitel will play a contractor employed by Stiller’s character in the Paul Weitz directed comedy.

The film also stars Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Teri Polo, Blythe Danner and Owen Wilson, Jessica Alba, Laura Dern and possibly Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand.

I still can’t believe the amount of talent that this film is attracting. The first two are entertaining enough films and they made enough money to warrant a third return to the well, but the budget must be pretty high unless everyone is looking for a huge backend on the gross.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

2. It looks like Brad Pitt’s troubled Moneyball may be inching closer to making it on to the big screen.

Since Steven Soderbergh’s departure from the film no director has been attached but now it looks like two interesting candidates have emerged as the front-runners to tackle the Sony picture.

Capote director Bennett Miller and (500) Days of Summer helmer Marc Webb have set their sights on the baseball film.

With Pitt still attached, the film is obviously still a high priority for Sony and I’d imagine that they want to snag a director soon before his interest wanes. Both Miller and Webb are interesting candidates but they aren’t Soderbergh so my interest in the film (unlike Pitt’s) has died.

It’ll be interesting to see if this film makes it to the screens. We’ll keep you posted.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

3. Belgian actress Cecile de France will join Matt Damon in Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter.

De France will play French journalist who has a near-death experience in the supernatural drama.

According to Variety:

“Hereafter tells the story of three people who are touched by death in different ways.”

The film which started shooting last month will take in global locations including Paris, London, Hawaii and San Francisco.

Damon will next be seen alongside Morgan Freeman in Clint Eastwood’s Invictus which opens next month.

Hereafter opens on December 10, 2010.

Source: Variety

4. Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, and Barbara Hershey have joined the cast of Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. The supernatural drama stars Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis as warring ballerinas – one of whom may or may not exist.

SlashFilm has the character breakdowns for these new addiations to the cast:

“Ryder will play Beth, Nina’s (Portman) “sorta friend” who has been the school’s running lead in all the productions, but who is nearing the end of her career. All the dancers are aiming to take her place as Odette, the Swan Queen, in the next big ballet: Swan Lake. Cassel will be playing the ”handsome but sinister Yevna,” the director of the new stage production. And Hershey will play Nina’s mother.”

While the film doesn’t seem to fit into any sort of commercial box, I’m always interested in seeing what Aronofsky will do and I’m sure that at the very least, the film will have an interesting visual appeal.

Source: SlashFilm

That’s it for now. See you at the movies!

Eastwood And Damon Re-Teaming For ‘Hereafter’ [Updated]

Ross Miller — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:06:28 +0000

We first heard word of a project called Hereafter late last year, with Clint Eastwood possibly directing and Steven Spielberg also being involved. Fast forward about 10 months and we learn, by way of The Hollywood Reporter, that Eastwood will, indeed, direct the film, and stepping into the lead role is Matt Damon. The project will reunite the two after they just worked together on the not-yet-released Nelson Mandela pic, Invictus.

Eastwood will direct the supernatural thriller from an original script by Frost/Nixon writer, Peter Morgan. DreamWorks first acquired the script from Morgan last year, and very early on it piqued the interest of Eastwood. [See UPDATE below for details on plot] I imagine Eastwood is a filmmaker who takes subject matter very seriously when he’s considering directing a film, and so his interest being caught early on must mean Morgan’s script is well worth making a fuss over.

[UPDATE] Thanks to Movie Line, via The Playlist, we get some details on what the plot of Hereafter may be:

“Damon plays a character named George, a factory worker with the ability to commune with the dead, not a talent he’s so thrilled about. There are two other plotlines involving a French journalist coping with the aftermath of a near-death experience during the 2004 tsunami, and a 12-year old British boy searching for a way to contact his dead twin.”

With the blessing of DreamWorks founder, Spielberg, Eastwood is moving Hereafter to his home base at Warners. Eastwood himself will produce, along with Robert Lorenz (his producing partner) and Kathleen Kennedy. Spielberg will still serve as an exec producer, as well as Frank Marshall, Tim Moore and screenwriter Morgan.

Clint Eastwood directing Matt Damon on the set of 'Invictus'

I don’t think there’s any film fan who isn’t at least interested in seeing The Man with No Name (a.k.a. Eastwood) and Jason Bourne (a.k.a. Damon) work together in any capacity, let alone as director and star. We’ll get to see their first directing-acting collaboration before year’s end with Invictus (which stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela – talk about perfect casting), but after that we’ll get to see them work together on Hereafter. I just wonder what it the film be about: I’m going to guess something to do with ghosts of some sort (I had a team of monkeys work that one out, FYI ).

What do you think of Eastwood and Damon re-teaming after just working together on Invictus? What do you think of the reported plot (given above) of Hereafter?

Hereafter doesn’t have a release date yet, but is set to start filming this fall.

Source: THR, MovieLine and ThePlaylist

Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: November 16, 2008

Niall Browne — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 17:33:34 +0000

This week:

Spielberg and Eastwood visit the Hereafter; Len Wiseman drives a Motorcade; Guillermo del Toro plays with Pinocchio; George Miller has Happy Feet again and Matthew McConaughey and David O. Russell fight with The Grackle.

Box Office

James Bond captured the top spot of the US box office with an amazing $71 million. The weekend take of Quantum of Solace was higher than any previous Bond entry in the series, and it highlights Daniel Craig’s popularity in the iconic role.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa took the runner up position with another $32 million giving the animated animal film an amazing $100 million. Role Models continues to impress with another $11.5 million in the bank, High School Musical 3: Senior Year grossed another $5.5 million bringing its total to $84million. While this is far from a bad gross (considering its low budget) it must be slightly disappointing for Disney.

Clint Eastwood’s Changeling eeked out another $4 million bringing its total to $27 million. If the Angelina Jolie film is going to make any sort of profit it absolutely needs some award nominations in its future. It looks like Clint’s fans are holding out for Gran Torino.

Movie News

1. Speaking of Clint Eastwood, it looks like he might be helming a supernatural thriller “in the vein of The Sixth Sense.”

Steven Spielberg approached the actor/director with the script Hereafter, which was written by Frost/Nixon writer Peter Morgan. Whilst he’s not attached yet, don’t be too surprised if Eastwood hops onto the project soon, as he worked with Spielberg previously on Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima.

That’ll make somebody’s day.

Source: Variety

2. Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard) will direct the high-concept thriller Motorcade.

According to Variety Bill Ray’s script is:

“about terrorists attacking the president’s motorcade as it traverses through Los Angeles.”

Could be good, it could be bad and I’m pretty sure that it’ll be mindless. At least it should give some ageing actor the chance to play President.

Source: Variety

3. Guillermo del Toro will produce a new stop-motion adaptation of Pinocchio. According to The Hollywood Reporter:

“In the retelling, when Pinocchio comes to life, he turns out not to be that nice of a boy, creating mischief and playing mean tricks. He eventually learns a few lessons.”

There’s a good joke about Keanu Reeves’ wooden acting skills in this somewhere.

Guillermo del Toro is making a little art film called The Hobbit in the near future. Bet you didn’t know that!

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

4. When George Miller couldn’t get Justice League made he must have sought solace in Happy Feet, as a sequel is already in production.

The animated pic will be made in Australia and employ 438 people over three years.

Hey George! What about Mad Max?

Source: The Age

5. David O. Russell will direct Matthew McConaughey in The Grackle.

According to Variety in the R-rated comedy:

“McConaughey will play a barroom fighter in New Orleans who hires himself out for $250 to settle disputes for people who can’t afford to hire a lawyer. Harsh language and quick fists are his weapons of choice.”

Mike Arnold and Chris Poole’s script is supposed to have the same vibe as The Wedding Crashers.

Could be interesting.

Source: Variety

That’s it for this week. See you at the movies.