Screen Rant » prisoners

Antoine Fuqua Set To Take ‘Prisoners’

Ross Miller — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:27:16 +0000

Risky Biz Blog is reporting that Training Day director, Antoine Fuqua, is in negotiations to helm Prisoners, (no longer “The Prisoners”) a film taken from a “hot spec script” written by Aaron Guzikowski. The script was said to have created a stir when it first appeared earlier this year, with high-profile actors Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg once attached to star, X-Men helmer Bryan Singer eyeing the director’s chair and a number of different studios looking to pick up the project.

However, soon after the producers of Prisoners sold the film to Alcon, reconfigured the project to have a lower budget (around the $30-40 million mark) and went forward without a cast for the time being, so that they could get things in motion faster. And it appears that the approach is working; the film is on the fast-track, and may go into pre-production shortly, with a “likely” January or February shooting start next year.

From Risky Biz Blog, we learn that Prisoners is a, “dark tale [that] centers on a small-town man who, after his daughter and her friend are kidnapped and the cops fail to solve the crime, takes matters into his own hands, holding hostage the person he suspects committed the crime. He also comes into conflict with the big-city detective assigned to the case.”

Risky Biz Blog says that the project has drawn comparisons to other “hit thrillers” that involve distraught and grieving parents, such as the Liam Neeson thriller Taken, and Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River. Like those mentioned two movies, I wouldn’t be surprised if Prisoners ends up getting at least a couple of well known, high-profile actors to replace Bale and Wahlberg (at least we still have those two together in The Fighter…).

Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke in Fuqua's award-winning Traning Day

I’ve enjoyed a few of Fuqua’s previous films, particularly Training Day, which featured a fantastic, Oscar-winning performance from Denzel Washington, and a well played, Oscar-nominated supporting performance from Ethan Hawke. Fuqua’s other films include the mildly entertaining but completely forgettable Shooter (isn’t it ironic that Fuqua is coming on-board after Wahlberg, the star of Shooter, has left?) and the underrated Tears of the Sun, starring Bruce Willis.

Fuqua certainly wouldn’t be my first choice of director to replace Singer, but I’m just glad the project seems to be heading into production fairly soon. It sounds like a good idea for a revenge film – I particularly like the aspect where the father/main character takes the suspected kidnapper hostage (I’m going to guess right now that he takes the wrong man hostage. Just a guess…). I just hope it delivers on the potential of its premise and doesn’t descend into cliched fare as a lot of these revenge thrillers often do.

What do you think about Training Day director Antoine Fuqua being in talks to direct Prisoners? We’ve already known for a few months that Bale and Wahlberg aren’t going to be starring in it, but who would you like to see play the parts instead?

As stated, Prisoners is aimed to start pre-production soon and will likely start shooting in January or February, 2010. It is supposed to be released sometime next October.

Source: THR’s Risky Biz Blog

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Bale & Wahlberg Take No “Prisoners”

Niall Browne — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:35:29 +0000

Several months ago we told you about The Prisoners (the “The” is new), a thriller with Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale attached to star, while X-Men director Bryan Singer was eyeing the directors chair. Well, the film has now been put on the fast-track for a fall 2010 release.

There’s just one problem – Wahlberg, Bale and Singer are no longer attached to the film.

So what does this mean?

With Wahlberg and Bale out of the picture the field is now wide open for casting. The irony being that Wahlberg and Bale are now starring together in David O. Russell’s The Fighter. Maybe the duo didn’t want to re-team (maybe Wahlberg walked into Bale’s eyeline while they were shooting?) or this new fast-tracking didn’t align with their respective schedules (might Bale have Batman 3 on the way?).

Producers Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson said:

“This project has created considerable interest in town and we’re moving forward with it quickly. It’s a terrifically exciting project with compelling commercial appeal. We’re seeking top talent for the lead roles and hope to announce a start date soon.”

It’ll be interesting to see who gets cast in The Prisoners because Wahlberg and Bale are big enough names to secure a decent budget and distribution, and their dropping out must have been a blow to all involved with the film.

Producers Alcon Entertainment, who will distribute the film through Warner Bros., paid “mid-six-figures against low-seven figures” for the script from writer Aaron Guzikowski.

“The thriller is about a small-town carpenter whose young daughter and friend are kidnapped. The man starts his own investigation but has to contend with the big-city detective on the case.”

When we have more details on Taken 2 The Prisoners we will let you know.

Source: Screen Daily

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Movie News Wrap Up: April 6, 2009

Niall Browne — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:10:00 +0000

This week:

The box office is Furious; Jack Bauer leaves 24 for Joel Schumacher’s Twelve; Paul Weitz looks at Little Fockers; Rosemarie DeWitt and Chris Cooper are Company Men; Aaron Eckhart and Nicole Kidman stare into the Rabbit Hole; we make a date for Sex and The City 2 and Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg are Prisoners.

Box office
Vin Diesel and Paul Walker raced into the number one position with Fast and Furious. The action sequel banked a massive $72 million over the weekend – showing that there is plenty of gas left in the Fast and Furious franchise. Maybe Vin Diesel will get those Riddick movies made after all.

Monster vs. Aliens dropped to second place but it still managed to gross $33 million giving the animated film a gross of over $100 million.

The Haunting in Connecticut took another $9.6 million bringing the total gross to a pretty decent $37 million.

Nicolas Cage’s hair banked another $8 million, giving Knowing a total gross of $58 million.

I Love You, Man brought its total up to $49 million while fellow comedy film Adventureland had a disappointing opening of $6 million.

Julia Roberts and Clive Owen saw Duplicity bank an additional $4 million giving the star driven thriller a $32 million total.

Movie News

1. Joel Schumacher will direct an adaptation of Nick McDonell’S novel Twelve. According to Variety:

“Story follows a high school dropout-turned-drug dealer. His lucrative life sours when the dealer’s cousin is brutally murdered on an East Harlem playground and his best friend is arrested for the crime.”

The cast of the film includes Chace Crawford, Emma Roberts, Rory Culkin, Curtis Jackson (or 50 Cent), Ellen Barkin and Kiefer Sutherland.

Sutherland and Schumacher have made numerous films together over the years – A Time To Kill, Lost Boys, Phone Booth and Flatliners. Schumacher also directed Emma Roberts’ aunt Julia in Flatliners and Dying Young.

Did I mention that Schumacher also directed a little film called Batman and Robin?

Source: Variety

2. Paul Weitz is in talks to direct Universal Pictures Little Fockers, the second sequel to Meet The Parents.

The director has previously helmed the first American Pie film, About A Boy and In Good Company.

The Focker flick is expected to start shooting in July.

Source: Variety

3. Rosemarie DeWitt has joined the cast of Company Men and Chris Cooper is in negotiations to sign on to the film. The corporate downsizing drama will star Kevin Costner, Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones.

How many Oscar winners can you fit into one film?

Rosemarie DeWitt will play Affleck’s wife while Cooper would play a white collar worker losing his job.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

4. Aaron Eckhart will join Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole.

“[The film is a] story of a happily married couple whose lives are disrupted after their 4-year-old son is killed in a traffic accident and the redemptive journey they must undertake to regain happiness.”

Sounds like a bundle of laughs. It’ll be interesting to see if Kidman can emote.

Source: Variety

5. Warner Bros. have set a date for Sex and the City 2. Be prepared to be carried away (again) on May 28, 2010.

The first film made a mind boggling $412.6 million worldwide.

That’s an awful lot of shoes for Sarah Jessica Parker.

Source: Variety

6. Batman and Terminator Salvation star Christian Bale may join Mark Wahlberg in Prisoners.

The plot is as follows:

“After his 6-year-old daughter and her friend are kidnapped, a small-town carpenter butts heads with a young, brash detective in charge of the investigation. The father is a Bible-reading, deer-hunting survivalist. The cop, meanwhile, can’t wait to get to the city. Feeling failed by the law, the father captures the man he believes responsible and begins to torture him in a desperate attempt to find out what he did with the girls, whom he’s convinced are still alive.”

Bryan Singer is pondering directing the film.

Nothing is set in stone yet but if Bale, Wahlberg and Singer io sign then expect a studio to snap the project up.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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

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Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: March 22, 2009

Niall Browne — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:18:54 +0000

It’s Sunday and therefore it’s Wrap Up time. This week:

We Know who is top of the box office; Cage and Bruckheimer make a date; Beatty fights over Dick Tracy; George Lucas’s Red Tails gets Wild(s); get ready for Demonkeeper; Segal meets Little Fockers and Universal knows the Rites of Men.

Box Office
Nicolas Cage is king of the box office with Knowing. The Alex Proyas (I Robot) directed film should manage about $24-25 million over the weekend. Put it this way, Knowing made more on Friday than Bangkok Dangerous made on it’s opening weekend.

The Paul Rudd- Jason Segal comedy I love You, Man should cash in $18 million over the weekend. The R-rated comedy was similar to the weekend starts of the stars previous film like Role Models and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Julia Roberts re-teams with Clive Owen for Duplicity. The comedy-caper film should steal $14.5 million from audiences over the weekend.

The Rock’s (or Dwayne Johnson‘s) Race To Witch Mountain should gather another $14 million bringing the Disney film to just under the $50 million mark.

Watchmen should bank another $6-7 million bringing the epic comic book movie to the $100 million mark. Not a bad gross, but it’s quite disappointing.

Last House on the Left dropped $65% to $6.5 million.

Liam Neeson’s Taken managed another $4.5 million bringing the total of the film to over $130 with a world wide take surpassing $200 million.

Movie News

1. Nicolas Cage’s forthcoming Disney film The Scorcerer’s Apprentice has a release date set for July 16, 2010. The Jerry Bruickheimer produced film which co-stasr Jay Baruchel, directed by Jon Turtletaub, is a modern retelling of the Disney classic.

It should make a killing at the box office.

Source: Variety

2. Warren Beatty is being sued by Tribune Media Services so that they can regain the rights to Dick Tracy. The action states that the character of Tracy should revert back to the company as Beatty hasn’t made “productive use” of the rights in a decade.

Beatty has however begun work on a Dick Tracy television special, but Tribune Media Services say that the show is only being produced so that Beatty can retain the rights to the character which he purchased in 1985.

Beatty starred in and directed a Dick Tracy movie that was released in 1990. The film grossed over $100 million at the US box office and co-starred Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman and Madonna.
It’s not a bad little film. Visually it’s very impressive with a pre-digital Sin City style vibe.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

3. 90210 star Tristan Wilds has been cast in George Lucas‘ Red Tails.

According to The Hollywood Reporter:

“Wilds will play Ray “Ray Gun” Knight, a flyboy nearly blinded over Nazi-occupied Italy who becomes the wingman of his friend and cohort, Marty. The two face the prejudice of the U.S. military as much as the overseas enemy but end up establishing an unprecedented record.”

The film was written by John Ridley and it will be directed by Anthony Hemingway.

Lucas has talked about this film for years, and I honestly believed that it would never see the light of day.

Now just get behind a camera again George and direct something like THX 1138 or American Graffiti.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

4. The Tale of Despereaux and Flushed Away director Sam Fell will direct a liva-action adaptation of Royce Buckingham’s Demonkeeper.

According to Variety:

“Story follows a Seattle teen who inherits responsibility for a house filled with demons. When the youth finally breaks free of his charges to go on a date, he returns to discover that kids have broken into the house, unleashing its most vicious demon, the Beast, Killer of Lost Children.”

Sounds like an interesting premise.

Source: Variety

5. Peter Segal is in the frame to direct the third Meet the Parents movie which is currently titled Little Fockers.

Segal had been expected to direct Get Smart 2, but Steve Carrell signed on to the comedy Date Night with Tina Fey. With Segal at the helm this will be the first Focker movie to to be directed by Jay Roach.

The Robert DeNiro produced film was written by John Hamburg. Ben Stiller, DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Barbara Streisand and Owen Wilson are all expected to return.

Source: Variety

6. Jonathan Herman’s new script Rites of Men has been bought by Universal Pictures. The script is being compared to the sleeper hit Taken.

The Hollywood Reporter said:

“Herman’s script centers on a working-class single dad whose only son is murdered and must then set out on a quest to solve the killing.”

The “dad on revenge” movie seems to be a popular new sub genre. Mark Wahlberg is attached to a similar film called Prisoners while Mel Gibson has the forthcoming Edge of Darkness.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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

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Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: March 8, 2009

Niall Browne — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:01:46 +0000

In this weeks Wrap Up:

Watchmen watches the top of the box office; Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan are A Couple of Dicks; we may not get Three Stories About Joan but we will get a lot of suing; Wahlberg takes Prisoners; Steve Carrell brings us the worlds first “Testosterone comedy” in Hi-T; Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck knows The 28^th Amendment (and breaks my spell check).

Box Office

As predicted Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen captured the top spot at the box office with an estimated $55 million opening weekend. A pretty substantial sum considering the near three hour running time and the R rating. Time will tell if the film has legs and the mainstream crossover appeal to the general public.

Madea Goes to Jail banked another $8.5 million to keep acquire the runner-up spot. So far the Tyler Perry film has netted $76 million.

Liam Neeson’s sleeper hit Taken has earned another $7.5 million on its sixth week in release! The film has now almost taken $120 million. I haven’t seen the film but I can only imagine that someone, somewhere is talking about a sequel.

Slumdog Millionaire has made another $6.5 million over the weekend bringing total gross of the Oscar winning film to $125 million.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop and He’s Just Not That Into You both managed another $4 million apiece while Confessions of a Shopaholic, Coraline and Jonas Brothers: 3D all made around $3 million each.

Movie News:

1. Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan will star in detective comedy A Couple of Dicks.

According to Variety:

“The scripting team of Robb and Marc Cullen penned the screenplay, centered on a pair of cops who track down a stolen baseball card, rescue a Mexican beauty and must deal with gangsters and laundered drug money.”

The film will be directed by Kevin Smith – the first time he hasn’t penned his own work.

Variety is also saying that the Warner Bros. film is Smith’s “first major studio pic” – this is untrue as Mallrats was a Universal production.

The studio also thought about calling the film A Couple of Cops but I’m sure that they realized that Dicks had more comedic mileage.

A Couple of Dicks will be released on January 29^th 2010.

Now get your mind out of the gutter (although that was obviously Kevin Smith’s intent – again)!

Source: Variety

2. Speaking of… Bruce Willis – the star and his production company is being sued by producers for breach of contact over his (ill-fated) directorial debut Three Stories About Joan. They claim that Willis quit the film without notice and are looking for $4 million in damages. However, these guys obviously haven’t seen Die Hard because Brucie is fighting back with a counter suit for $8.7 million. Willis’s lawyer Marty Singer said:

“In over three decades of practice, I have rarely seen such an absurd lawsuit. The production companies admitted they did not have the financing in place for the film, failed to pay members of the cast and crew, and failed to deposit Bruce Willis’ compensation in escrow, which resulted in the film not going forward. After Mr. Willis threatened to sue the production companies for their breach of contract, they responded with this baseless lawsuit.

Mr. Willis and other individual producers will proceed with their multi-million-dollar affirmative claims against the production companies this week, and are confident that they will prevail.”

Source: NY Daily News

3. Mark Wahlberg will star in Prisoners – a kidnap thriller written by Aaron Guzikowski.

According to Variety:

“The story centers on a Boston man who turns vigilante after his daughter and her best friend are kidnapped. Madhouse Entertainment , which manages Guzikowski, is producing.”

No director is attached yet.

I’m guessing that Wahlberg saw the grosses of Liam Neeson’s Taken and figured that he wanted a piece of the action. Either that or he really likes Ransom.

Source: Variety

4. Steve Carrell will star in and produce “testosterone comedy” Hi-T.

According to Variety:

“Hi-T revolves around a man dealing with uncontrollable mood swings after an injury forces him to take testosterone injections.”

“Testosterone comedy” is that a genre that I missed?

Source: Variety

5. We’ve been light on Tom Cruise news of late but that’s about to change!

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives Of Others) is in negotiations to direct The 28^th Amendment for Warner Bros. The thriller may/may not star Cruise as a US president who discovers that a secret organization within the government wants him dead.

Basil Iwanyk and Richard Donner will produce the film.

Source: Variety

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

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