Posted on Monday, February 13th, 2012 by Russ Fischer
Disney’s Maleficent may have lost Tim Burton as director last year but Angelina Jolie, long attached to star as the wicked witch introduced in Snow White, isn’t going anywhere. In fact, the actress says the film is next after her promo run ends for her directorial debut In the Land of Blood and Honey. Read More »
Posted on Friday, January 6th, 2012 by Angie Han
Over the past two years, Disney’s Sleeping Beauty retelling Maleficent has attracted the attention of several high-profile directors. Tim Burton was the first one attached to the project, back when it was first announced, and Darren Aronofsky, David O. Russell, and Guillermo del Toro are among the other names who’ve been rumored or who have expressed interest in the film.
The man who’s actually landed the job, however, is somewhat lesser known. Disney has tapped visual effects supervisor and production designer Robert Stromberg to helm the film, which will mark his directorial debut. Previously announced star Angelina Jolie is still set to play the lead. More details after the jump.
Posted on Monday, December 19th, 2011 by Russ Fischer
With David Fincher doing a lot of interviews for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo over the past few days, there is a good amount of talk out there about the possible second and third films that could follow Dragon Tattoo. David Fincher doesn’t yet know if he’ll direct those films — or he isn’t yet saying, at least. That’s something that likely won’t be announced until after the film has its first opening weekend, which is coming up in a couple days.
Whether or not those films happen, there are quite a few other projects in Fincher’s queue. Some are movies he might direct, like the Cleopatra film that would star Angelina Jolie, and the pilot for the Netflix series House of Cards. He’s also got 20,0000 Leagues Under the Sea on the docket, and he’s still working as a producer on films like Black Hole (based on the Charles Burns graphic novel, not the Disney sci-fi film) and The Goon. He has offered slight updates on all those projects in the past couple days, and we’ve rounded up his quotes below. Read More »
Posted on Monday, December 12th, 2011 by Russ Fischer
Briefly: We heard very recently that Luc Besson might make new live-action thriller, possibly with some sci-fi aspect, and that Angelina Jolie is in talks to star. We still don’t know many details about the movie, and in fact Jolie isn’t even 100% locked. But now Universal has picked up a controlling distribution interest in the project, which should give it a lot more momentum.
Deadline reports that while Luc Besson’s company EuropaCorp will co-finance the movie (it also developed the story that Besson wrote) it will be Universal that releases the film in the US and many other territories. EuropaCorp plans to shoot the still-untitled movie in April 2012. Plotwise, all we know is that the film has been called “a dramatic thriller that is rooted in true scientific elements.”
And while the details aren’t all ironed out, Deadline suggests that things are pretty close to being sorted, and that this will be Jolie’s next starring role before she does Ridley Scott’s Gertrude Bell biopic, Disney’s Maleficent, or the film version of Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta mysteries.
Posted on Tuesday, December 6th, 2011 by Russ Fischer
Luc Besson was never really very far from the director’s chair, but it has felt that way for some time, because it has been a while since he made a movie with the massive American mainstream recognizance of The Professional or The Fifth Element. Besson’s longest absence from the director’s chair was from ’99 to ’05, but in the past decade he has really become as well known for writing and producing mid-budget action films like The Transporter and Taken as he is for his own directorial efforts.
Things might be swinging back to the old days. The Lady, the film in which Besson directed Michelle Yeoh as Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi, is getting a lot of attention as it moves from festivals to a regular engagement near you. And now Besson has Angelina Jolie in talks to star in a ‘dramatic thriller’ that Besson wrote and will direct next year. Read More »
Posted on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011 by Russ Fischer
In the Land of Blood and Honey is the directorial debut of Angelina Jolie, who also wrote the script about a pair of lovers, a Muslim and a Serb, whose relationship forms during the Bosnian War.
The poster has just been released, and it is an eye-catching image that bucks the trend of using headshots and/or overly composed, dry imagery to sell the war-torn romance. This was probably the only approach to take in order to sell the film in the US, given that the leads, Zana Marjanovi? and Goran Kostic, aren’t recognizable faces here. Bonus for us that we get a pretty good poster out of the deal. Check it out in full below. Read More »
Posted on Thursday, November 17th, 2011 by Angie Han
Angelina Jolie‘s last live-action acting job was the disappointing The Tourist, but the actress-filmmaker is now poised to star in a new project that sounds much more intriguing. Titled Gertrude Bell, the biopic centers around the woman who’s been described as “the female Lawrence of Arabia” for her role in helping to establish the modern states of Jordan and Iraq in the early 20th century. Ridley Scott‘s Scott Free Productions is developing the picture, announced in March, with Scott himself still eyeing the director’s chair. More details after the jump.
Posted on Friday, October 21st, 2011 by Angie Han
Actors are forever jumping behind the camera to try their hands at directing, with extremely mixed results. Sometimes it’s Ben Affleck making a career comeback as the acclaimed helmer of Gone Baby Gone and The Town; other times it’s Dermot Mulroney attaining that elusive 0% on Rotten Tomatoes with Love Wedding Marriage.
If the new trailer for Angelina Jolie‘s In the Land of Blood and Honey is any indication, it seems she happily falls into the former category. The Bosnian war drama follows two lovers on opposite sides of the conflict — a Christian Serb played by Goran Kostic and a Bosniak woman played by Zana Marjanovic — who find their relationship doomed by the civil war. Watch the trailer after the jump.
Update: A full-quality trailer has been released via Yahoo and is embedded below.
