Public Enemies - What Did You Think?
Spike Jonze-Directed Softbank Commercial Starring Brad Pitt
Posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
Spike Jonze has directed a new commercial for the Japanese company Softbank, starring Brad Pitt as the personal assistant of a Sumo wrestler. From what I recall, the spot was shot in the Sirius/XM building in New York City. The tv advertisement won’t be airing in America, but you can watch the international television spot embedded after the jump.
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Maybe The Last Moneyball Update For A While: Soderbergh Is Off The Project, MLB Approval Still Pending
Posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 by Russ Fischer
Time to back away from Moneyball for a while: the New York Times reports that Steven Soderbergh is totally off the project, only hours after the LA Times published an interview with Sony head Amy Pascal, who reiterated the studio’s reasons for bailing on the project. And both the Times and Movieline talked to Major League Baseball (MLB), which has been in the process of negotiating with Sony to approve the use of official logos and team names. The whole convoluted story is after the jump. Read More »
Warner Brothers, Paramount Pass On Soderbergh’s Moneyball
Posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 by Russ Fischer
Over the weekend, the biggest news in Hollywood was that Sony chief Amy Pascal had put the brakes on Steven Soderbergh’s baseball stats movie Moneyball, which had been set to begin shooting yesterday with Brad Pitt in the lead. Soderbergh was given the option to shop the movie to other studios over the weekend — ‘limited turnaround’ was the phrase used — and now thanks to the LA Times, we know that Warner Brothers and Paramount both passed. What it means for the movie, after the jump. Read More »
Update From Editor Peter Sciretta: The full second movie trailer for Inglourious Basterds has been released, and is included after the jump.
Entertainment Tonight has premiered some new footage from Inglourious Basterds - seemingly from an upcoming, full length trailer - and in their typical style, spouted banalities all over half of it. On the upside, they didn’t talk all over the other half. You can see the clip embedded after the break where I will also be stepping into something a little like spoiler territory beneath the video. That’s your warning.
Sony Trashcans Moneyball Three Days Before Filming
Posted on Sunday, June 21st, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
Steven Soderbegh has been given the weekend to find a new home for his Brad Pitt baseball picture Moneyball. If another studio doesn’t step up by Monday, Columbia have the option to either fire Soderbergh and replace him or to stall the project indefinitely. The problem, according to Variety, is dispute over the shooting script. This latest draft by Soderbergh and Steve Zaillian has displeased Sony head honcho Amy Pascal so much that she’s taken the drastic measure of ditching what sounds like, to me, a golden opportunity. At the very least, this is a Brad Pitt vehicle from an Acadmey Award winning director and an equally Oscared screenwriter.
So, what doesn’t she like? Apparently that the script is innovative, that Soderbergh has some ambitious ideas and that the basic sport movie paradigm (yawn) simply doesn’t apply to this picture.
Is Harvey Weinstein Asking Tarantino To Cut 40 Minutes From Inglourious Basterds?
Posted on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 by Russ Fischer
Forcing a filmmaker to submit to editorial oversight can be a good thing, but when the Big Brother hanging over your Avid is Harvey Weinstein? Things can get ugly. We knew that Quentin Tarantino was making some cuts and changes to Inglourious Basterds in the wake of the film’s Cannes Premiere, tightening that 2 hour 27 minute cut and even adding a scene or two. But Sharon Waxman at The Wrap claims that The Weinstein Company wants Tarantino to cut a massive 40 minutes. Is this an artistic move to strengthen the film or a desperate bid to squeeze more cash out of the film in August by keeping the running time down? With The Weinstein Company having massive cash problems, what do you think? Read More »
Quentin Tarantino And Brad Pitt To Adapt Swedish Book Trilogy?
Posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 by Russ Fischer
Now that Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt have Inglourious Basterds more or less behind them (Tarantino has test-screened the film in the US and is making additional edits now) will the pair work together again? Anne Thompson suggests that they might. She’s perpetuating a report found in the Times of London that Tarantino and Pitt are interested in the Millennium Trilogy, three hugely popular books by Swedish author Stieg Larsson.
Stories like this make me fall in love with Steven Soderbergh all over again. He’s making Moneyball, a film based on Michael Lewis’ book of the same name about how Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane used an unusual statistics system to build the best and cheapest team in baseball. Brad Pitt is in the lead as Beane, Demetri Martin is in the cast and the script is by Steve Zaillian (Schindler’s List, American Gangster). This week, the LA Times reported that the budget is amazingly high for what sounds like a total niche movie: $57 million. Even with Pitt on board, that is remarkable. Where’s all that money going to go? Read More »
Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds premieres tonight at the Cannes Film Festival, and three clips from the film have shown up online. Watch them now after the jump.
Eli Roth Joins Brad Pitt As An Inglourious Basterds Character Poster
Posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
The first wave of Inglourious Basterds promotional posters featured weapons, the second is featuring characters. After the break you’ll be able to see full versions of the first two sheets - one featuring Brad Pitt and the second, courtesy of The Quentin Tarantino Archives, featuring Eli Roth.
The friendship and collaborations between Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth have drawn a lot of fire - heck, I thought they got enough flack individually - but absolutely nothing so far has dampened the enthusiasm I’ve had for Inglourious Basterds since I first read the screenplay. Indeed, quite the opposite is true. What with Gilliam, Tarantino and Chan Wook Park films screening at Cannes this month, I must admit that if I actually had a grandmother I might right now be researching her market value.
David O Russell To Direct Christian Bale in The Fighter
Posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
The Fighter has been struggling to make it to the big screen for the last two years, and is finally back on track with David O Russell at the helm. Christian Bale is now signed to play Dicky Eklund, a real life boxer-turned-trainer who rebounded after a run of drugs and crime. Dicky shepherded his half-brother “Irish” Micky Ward in a Rocky-like rise to world lightweight champion. Ward fought throughout the mid-’80s and ’90s, but he’s best remembered for three battles with Arturo Gotti, two of which went down as the greatest in the history of the sport. Ward lost each one.
Inglourious Basterds Photo: Eli Roth and Brad Pitt
Posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
A new photo has surfaced showing Eli Roth and Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. Roth plays Sgt. Donny Donowitz AKA “The Bear Jew”, a character The Nazis believe is an avenging golem (a mystical monster) created by a Jewish rabbi. He kills his enemies with a baseball bat. Pitt plays Lt. Aldo Raine, AKA “Aldo The Apache”, the non-Jewish leader of a Jewish-American/German soldier unit called “The Basterds.” The film is expected to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May. The domestic release is scheduled for August 21st 2009. Thanks to Christopher M for the tip.
