The first trailer for Steven Soderbergh‘s Liberace biography Behind the Candelabra, airing on HBO later this month, didn’t show us much of the work Michael Douglas did to bring the late entertainer back to life. This long featurette on the making of the film gives us a lot more to look at, while also introducing quite a few other elements of the film.
You’ll see some of Dan Aykroyd‘s work — he looks great — and there are some shots of other actors such as Rob Lowe and Debbie Reynolds. There’s a puff piece aspect to this featurette, which is pretty common for promo pieces like this, but for those curious about Soderbergh’s film there’s some good info. For those who don’t know much about Liberace there’s a brief encapsulation of the pianist’s life and an explanation of his place in entertainment and popular culture. One person who doesn’t have any real voice here is Soderbergh, who is seen working, but doesn’t give an interview. Read More »
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Posted on Monday, April 8th, 2013 by Angie Han
Steven Soderbergh‘s retirement has turned out to be more of a transition. While he’s done with theatrical features for now, he’s as active as ever on the small screen. Just last week, he was talking up his plans to adapt John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor into a 12-hour miniseries.
Perfectly positioned to mark that switch from the big screen to the small one is Behind the Candelabra, an HBO film about the rather bizarre romance between the famed pianist (played with flirty, flamboyant charm by Michael Douglas) and his much younger lover Scott Thorson (a wide-eyed Matt Damon). The first full-length trailer has finally hit the web, and you can check it out after the jump.
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The last film Steven Soderbergh made before his self-imposed retirement/hiatus was Behind the Candelabra, based on Scott Thorson‘s memoir about his secret romance with the entertainer Liberace. Michael Douglas plays Liberace and Matt Damon plays Thorson in Soderbergh’s film, which premieres in late May on HBO. We’ve seen one teaser that was free of actual footage, but now there is a second teaser clip that shows the two lead actors in all their glory.
Perhaps better than the teaser, however, is info about Soderbergh’s next project — indeed, he plans to continue working, if not in the realm of theatrical features. (For now.) In the past, the writer/director has spoken of adapting John Barth’s 1960 novel The Sot-Weed Factor, a savage satire set in the 1600s about ”an English poet who moves to Maryland to take over his father’s tobacco farm.” Now he is developing a 12-hour miniseries based on the novel.
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Posted on Friday, March 8th, 2013 by Angie Han
It’s been a few days since our last TV Bits (sorry!), so we have a ton of stuff to catch up on. After the jump:
- Alexis Bledel, Kyle McLachlan, Hope Davis, and more get pilots
- Downton Abbey loses one character but gains six more
- Jeffrey Wright will be a series regular on Boardwalk Empire
- A bunch of Fox shows including The Following get early renewals
- The Zero Hour has gets cancelled by ABC after just three episodes
- Will Jimmy Fallon take over for Jay Leno on The Tonight Show?
- The X-Files finally gets a tenth season… as a comic book
- Steven Soderbergh‘s Behind the Candelabra gets EW cover
- Hannibal and Mad Men offer up not very revealing teasers
- See character posters and an extended trailer for Game of Thrones
- Peek behind the scenes of Breaking Bad‘s final season
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Is Steven Soderbergh really retiring from directing movies, or is he merely taking a nice vacation/hiatus, or spending some time thinking more about making TV projects rather than theatrical films?
Hard to say for sure at this point, as his statements on the subject have ranged through all those possibilities over the past year. We do know that the last thing he shot was the Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra, starring Michael Douglas as the famed entertainer and Matt Damon as his lover Scott Thorson. While Soderbergh may well make another movie or TV project in the future, this is the last thing he has planned for release as far as we know.
We’ve seen a few photos from the film, such as the one above, and now HBO has released a teaser. Sadly, it doesn’t feature the actors, but you can take a look at the animated swirl of piano keys, just as a reminder that this one is coming up in a couple months. Read More »
After what seems like a very long time talking about his impending retirement, Steven Soderbergh is nearly there. He’s shooting his final film now: the made-for-HBO film Behind the Candelabra, which looks at the life of musician/entertainer Liberace. Playing the beringed pianist is Michael Douglas, with Matt Damon on board as Scott Thorson, Liberace’s long-time lover whose book Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace provided the raw material for screenwriter Richard LaGravenese (Water for Elephants, The Fisher King).
The first image of Douglas and Damon in character has shown up, via E!, and it is almost as ’70s spectacular as one might hope. We know there will be some much more outrageous costuming coming up for Douglas, but this is a good start. Dan Aykroyd, Debbie Reynolds, Scott Bakula, Rob Lowe, Cheyenne Jackson, Boyd Holbrook, and Nicky Katt are all in the film as well, which we’ll see on HBO in 2013.
After the break, see an set images of Brad Pitt in Ridley Scott‘s new film The Counselor, scripted by The Road and No Country For Old Men writer Cormac McCarthy.
Ridley Scott is putting together The Counselor as he can for the time being, grabbing actors when and where they’re available. Despite a presumed setting in the American Southwest, Scott is currently shooting scenes with Brad Pitt in London. Pitt plays Westray, who advises the film’s title character (played by Michael Fassbender, still shooting Twelve Years a Slave) as the counselor gets into a drug deal.
The pics above show Pitt in a getup that seems so very suited to a McCarthy story. Also in the cast are Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, and the just-added John Leguizamo. [JustJared and Yahoo]
Posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2012 by Angie Han
With shooting already underway, Joshua Michael Stern‘s Steve Jobs biopic is filling in some key supporting roles. (For clarification, this is a distinct project from the Aaron Sorkin-penned Jobs movie set up at Sony, which has yet to begin casting.) The latest addition to the cast is Matthew Modine, who’s slated to play former Apple CEO John Sculley. He was hired by Jobs (Ashton Kutcher) for the post in 1983, but the two men famously struggled to get along. Two years later, Sculley removed Jobs from from his managerial duties, leading Jobs to resign from the company shortly afterward.
In addition to Modine and Kutcher, the picture also stars Josh Gad as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Ahna O’Reilly as Jobs’ girlfriend Chris-Ann Brennan. Stern’s film is due to hit later this year, but first Modine will be seen grappling with another eccentric visionary — Batman (Christian Bale) — in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. [THR]
After the jump, Dan Aykroyd goes Behind the Candelabra.
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E! workhorse and acclaimed journalist Jules Asner was the guest on the current episode of the Adam Carolla podcast. Amongst discussion of her work, the mysteries of the modeling industry, the unpleasantness of Brooke Burke and lots of other non-/Film business, conversation does eventually come to Steven Soderbergh, Jules’ husband.
If you drop in at 19 minutes and 30 seconds or so, you can hear the talk on Soderbergh begin with Carolla’s attack on Ocean’s 13 and Asner’s brief defense. Asner then describes The Informant! as one of her favourite pictures Soderbergh has made alongside Ocean’s 11 and 12 and The Limey. After Carolla agrees that The Limey was a corker, conversation turns to the potential sequel.
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