If you’d like to see Ben Affleck with a stunning Seventies beard, Chris Hemsworth and Martin Freeman each surrounded by a bunch of dwarves or the first image from Ben Wheatley‘s follow-up to Kill List, this post is for you. After the jump, see new images from Ben Affleck’s Argo, Rupert Sanders‘ Snow White and the Huntsman, Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers. Read More »
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Briefly: Warner Bros. has spent a lot of time developing big-budget adaptations of two classic Stephen King tomes, It and The Stand. The latter has seen a lot more activity of late, with Harry Potter team David Yates and Steve Kloves briefly attached to make the film before they decided one or two feature films wouldn’t do justice to the material. Ben Affleck stepped in as director, and now that he’s done shooting the true-life thriller Argo, he seems to be moving forward with The Stand.
But this one isn’t going to shoot super-fast. Vulture reports that David Kajganich has been hired to rewrite write The Stand. Kajganich also did the latest draft of It, as well as being one of the writers on the Pet Sematary remake. (He’s the new Mick Garris!) He’s also credited with writing the barely-seen Joel Schumacher movie Blood Creek and Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake The Invasion.
Vulture says Kajganich “wowed” Warners with his It script, so we’ll see how this goes. The Stand is material that either needs a sprawling structure or a hell of a trim, if not both. Not the easiest adaptation.
Enough about 2011; let’s look ahead to 2012. This past year was good about offering a diverse set of films that catered to many tastes, especially crowds that wanted something out of the range of standard multiplex fare. But 2012 looks like a much stronger year. We can almost always look ahead to a new year and say that there is a great batch of new films from established favorite filmmakers, movies with wonderful casts, giant event movies and promising indies. But 2012 looks like it has more of those than usual. It’s going to be a good year for movie watchers.
After some deliberation (which no doubt has still allowed me to overlook something for which I’ll facepalm later) here is a list of ten films that I’m very excited to see in 2012, followed by a full page of discussion about a whole bunch of other movies that didn’t make my personal cut but are still bright spots on the 2012 calendar for various reasons. This list could change a lot in the next couple weeks, as Sundance (and then Cannes in May) could reveal a good many new films that will be bright spots on the calendar in ’12.
I’ve also exercised a certain hopefulness here, as there are a few films that don’t yet have official 2012 release dates. Let’s hope they don’t slip. Read More »
Germain’s prepping his ’10 most anticipated movies for 2012′ list right now and I’ll probably put one together as well just as soon as I get back from Texas. One movie I’m pretty sure will be on his list and I know would be on mine is Argo, the third film directed by Ben Affleck.
As we’ve mentioned a few times in the past while covering the casting for the film, this movie is based on a real situation in which a handful of CIA operatives posed as key members of a movie crew in order to extract diplomats who had been taken hostage in 1979 Tehran. They’re not posing as just any film crew, but as guys scouting locations for a sci-fi film called, naturally, Argo.
Above, that’s part of the first official image of Affleck as one of the primary members of that crew; see the whole thing below. Read More »
Terrence Malick news has been plentiful of late. I’d almost feel uneasy about this — a flurry of activity from a guy known for completing an average of one film every decade — if it wasn’t so pleasant. Yesterday we got the announcement of two new films from the director, Lawless and Knight of Cups. Those both feature Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett, as well as a handful of other actors.
Those are two of Malick’s four upcoming potential films. Another one is the IMAX doc Voyage of Time, of which we’ve heard rumblings for a few years and is supposedly still going to be finished. And then there’s a movie that is already shot: the Untitled Terrence Malick Project, which has also been referred to as The Burial. That one features Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Javier Bardem, Olga Kurylenko and Rachel Weisz. It was shot last year, with some reshoots taking place this past spring, and is in post-production. In true Malick form, reliable details on that movie have been hard to come by. In the wake of yesterday’s bombshell announcement, some new info did come to light, however, and it is after the break. Read More »
Posted on Thursday, October 27th, 2011 by Angie Han
It was announced earlier this week that Ben Affleck and longtime pal Matt Damon would reunite for a biopic about Whitey Bulger, with Casey Affleck set to co-star. We now have a more information about the younger Affleck’s part. He’ll be playing Bill Bugler, little brother of Whitey Bugler (Damon’s role). Unlike notorious gangster Whitey, Billy was an upstanding member of society — Korean war vet, lawyer, politician, and educator. He lost his post as the president of the University of Massachusetts in 2003 when he was found to have spoken with his fugitive brother in secret.
In addition to starring, Damon will also script the film; Affleck the Elder will direct and co-star. It’s unclear when exactly the picture will get off the ground, as both brothers and Damon have plenty of other projects on their plates. But they’ll have to get moving if they want to beat the two other Whitey Bulger movies in the works — there’s one in development with producer Graham King, who produced The Departed, and another titled Black Mass, which was scripted by Russell Gerwitz. [Showbiz 411 via The Playlist]
After the jump, new jobs for Dylan McDermott, Rufus Sewell, Gabriel Byrne, and Toby Stephens.
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Matt Damon and Ben Affleck earned worldwide fame and screenwriting Oscars thanks to the film Good Will Hunting. While each has developed his own career in the years since, the possibility of another collaboration between Affleck and Damon has always been a subject of inquiry. Now, only days after Damon announced his intent to direct his first film (an as-yet untitled legal drama he co-wrote with John Krasinski) and Affleck was said to be the chosen director for The Stand, we’ve got word that the two are going to re-team for a new Boston-set picture.
The subject of the film, which Affleck will direct, is recently captured gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger. Whitey Bulger was a prominent member of Boston’s notorious Winter Hill Gang (named for a Somerville, MA neighborhood) starting in the early ’70s, and took control of the gang in ’79. He fled Boston in the mid-’90s and was on the run until this past summer, when he was arrested in Santa Monica. Other producers are putting together their own Whitey Bulger films, so will Affleck and Damon be able to beat them to the screen? Read More »
Who saw this one coming? Maybe only the Walkin’ Dude. Warner Bros. has moved away from Harry Potter director David Yates to direct their big screen version of Stephen King‘s The Stand and onto Ben Affleck. The screenwriter/ actor turned acclaimed director is currently making Argo but is now reportedly the studio’s top choice to helm King’s massive tome about a virus that annihilates the entire world save for a few choice survivors who begin to share the same apocalyptic dreams. Read More »
