Fox Searchlight has released the first full length trailer for the Biggie Smalls biopic Notorious, which I think you’ll agree - is a lot better than the teaser trailer that was released in September. The trailer does a great job at getting you interested in learning about the man behind the music. And I generally don’t care about music biopics. Tell me what you think in the comments below.
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Official Plot Synopsis: Notorious tells the story of the life of rapper Christopher Wallace [...]

Jared Hess broke onto the scene with a small indie comedy at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Napoleon Dynamite quickly took over the world, becoming one of the biggest cult blockbusters of all time. Jess followed the film up with Nacho Libre, which sounded like a sure thing - Jack Black as a masked Mexican wrestler. I know the film is popular amongst kids, but it registered as a huge disappointment to most of the high school and college crowd.
Hess’ new film, Gentlemen Broncos, tells the story of a high school outcast who’s an aspiring fantasy author, who attends a fantasy convention and discovers that his supposed masterpiece “Yeast Lords” [...]

Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire is the type of film that will have everyone leaving the theater with both tears and a smile. It’s a beautiful film about first love, fate and destiny, and growing up in the slums of India. When I saw the film at the Telluride Film Festival last month, Alex from FirstShowing commented to me that the reason why there is no blood shown in a critical scene that involved a gun (not a spoiler, don’t worry), is because the film will be released PG-13. And that reasoning made complete sense to me. There were a couple instances throughout the film when the camera cuts away before [...]

John N Hart Jr, Jeffrey Sine and Frederick Zollo have acquired the worldwide rights to produce a stage adaptation of John Carney’s 2007 Irish musical Once. When I interviewed Carney in 2007, he talked briefly about the possibility of a Broadway musical adaptation.
“Haven’t thought of it at all. I don’t think it would play at all on a stage,” admitted Carney, before quickly adding: “I don’t know, it would be great if someone were to ask for the rights or something. They don’t mess around. When those guys buy the rights for those things, they give you millions!”
Well looks like Carney’s wishes have come true. The trio hope to have [...]

A couple weeks ago, we posted the first trailer for Sunshine Cleaning, an wonderful indie dramedy which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
The film has been compared to Little Miss Sunshine, probably because it was produced by the same guys, features a couple of the same cast members, including Academy Award winner Alan Arkin, and even has “Sunshine” in the title. I think this led to some disappointment at Sundance, as the film is a darker and much different film than Little Miss. If you know that going in, you’ll probably enjoy the film a lot more. The second trailer is more traditional, and will give you a better [...]

/Film reader Nick O. forwarded me these clips from Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler. The first clip shows a scene between Mickey Rourke and Evan Rachel Wood, who play’s Randy’s estranged daughter. Rourke has been getting Best Actor Award Nomination buzz since the film premiered in Venice.
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The second clip gives you a little taste of the wrestling action. Randy “The Ram” Robinson takes on The Ayatollah (Ernest “The Cat” Miller) in a 20th anniversary rematch of their “epic” match at WrestleSalm IV in [...]

Fox Searchlight has released five videos from The Wrestler press conference at the New York Film Festival. A lot of it was covered in our extensive three-part interview with Aronofksy last month (you can read there here, here, and here) but there are some juicy bits that make these worth watching. Plus, its fun to hear Mickey talk about his preparation for the film. Check the videos out after the jump.

Fox Searchlight has decided to move Danny Boyle’s film festival sensation Slumdog Millionaire up another week. The film will now open on Wednesday, November 12th 2008, instead of the announced November 19th release date. The film was originally set to bow on November 28th. No official reason was given, but I’m going to assume that the changes were made to give Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, Searchlight’s December release more breathing room.

Fox Searchlight is letting fans pick the theatrical movie poster for the upcoming Biggie biopic Notorious. Which one would you pick? 1, 2 or 3? I like the concept of the third poster, but like the overall style of the first poster better.

Fox Searchlight has decided to move the release of Danny Boyle’s film festival sensation Slumdog Millionaire up to Wednesday, November 19th. The film was originally set to bow on Friday, November 28th, a few days after Gus Van Sant’s Milk and The Road. Slumdog will now open a couple days before The Soloist and The Time Traveler’s Wife. This move could have also been made to give Slumdog more breathing room from Searchlight’s December platform release of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler.

Fox Searchlight isn’t wasting any time. Earlier this week they purchased the North American rights to Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, and not even a week later, a release date has been solidified:
December 19th 2008
As expected, the film is being released by the end of the year so that the film can qualify for Award consideration. I don’t think I’ve read a review yet that didn’t mention both Mickey Rourke and Academy Award nomination in the same sentence. I wouldn’t be surprised if the film didn’t get a few more nominations as well. From what I understand, part of the decision that went into the acquisition earlier this week, was which [...]

Anne Thompson is reporting that Fox Searchlight acquired U.S. rights to Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler for about $4 million. Lionsgate, Overture, Weinstein Co. and Sony were also said to be in the running. I’m just extremely happy that Sony Pictures Classics or TWC didn’t win the bid. The deal was finally closed at about 11 a.m. Monday. Searchlight is the best possible company to market this film for sure.
Apparently a huge oscar campaign for Mickey Rourke is part of the package. I’m guessing this probably means the film will hit theaters in late December to qualify, although an official announcement is forthcoming.

Fox Searchlight has sent us three new photos from Danny Boyle’s (28 Days Later, Trainspotting) latest film - Slumdog Millionaire. The film tells the story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the [...]

The following quote is attributed to Variety’s Pam McClintock: “The worst thing that ever happened to indie film was that the studios decided it was a good business.” And while I agree with that statement, I’m not sure I agree that Independent Movies are on the “endangered species list” as Variety editor Peter Bart writes in his latest blog entry. Bart claims that studio expectations for their art house divisions were too high. “Their production budgets were too lofty and their marketing budgets too ambitious,” Bart writes, pointing towards the downward box office trend for specialty films in 2008. Here are the Variety numbers: 2006: $416 [...]

Fox Searchlight has released a couple clips from Clark Gregg’s big screen adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Choke. Sex addict and colonial theme park worker, Victor Mancini, has devised a complicated scam to pay for his mom’s hospital bills while she suffers from an Alzheimer’s disease that hides the truth about his childhood. He pretends to choke on food in a restaurant and the person who “saves” him will feel responsible for Victor for the rest of their lives. The first clip comes from Moviefone, and involves Victor and his best friend Denny raiding the mail for donations.

The second clip comes from ChuckPalahniuk.net. This flashback sequence takes us back to [...]