Posted on Thursday, August 23rd, 2012 by Russ Fischer
Stephen Gaghan, who wrote Traffic and directed Syriana, is now set to direct the thriller Candy Store for LionsGate. The film is a crime thriller for which we have few details, but the names might be all you need to know: Brad Pitt and Denzel Washington have started to circle the two lead roles. Read More »
Posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2012 by Russ Fischer
Here’s the trailer for Andrew Dominik‘s new film, Killing Them Softly. We’ve been waiting to see more footage from this one, especially after the tease provided by the one previously released clip. The trailer shows two dumbasses (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn) robbing a mob card game run by Ray Liotta, and how Richard Jenkins calls in a quiet enforcer, played by Brad Pitt, to track them down.
This footage looks fantastic, and I think anyone who’s been hungry to see Dominik’s long-awaited return to directing will be even more ready for the film after watching. There’s not much more to say; check it out below. Read More »
Posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2012 by Russ Fischer
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 Tuesday, June 26th, 2012 by Angie Han
I’m starting to suspect Steve McQueen watches the same TV we do. The British director of Hunger and Shame has already cast Sherlock‘s Benedict Cumberbatch, Saturday Night Live‘s Taran Killam, and Raising Hope‘s Garret Dillahunt in his upcoming Twelve Years a Slave, and he’s now added another small-screen favorite. Michael K. Williams, a.k.a. Omar Little on The Wire, has just boarded the cast, which also includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, and Brad Pitt. More details after the jump.
UPDATE: A few hours after this post went up, it was announced that Beasts of the Southern Wild star Dwight Henry had also joined Twelve Years a Slave.
At this point, it’s no secret that Paramount’s World War Z is in deep trouble. The zombie drama was moved from its December 2012 date to June 2013 to allow for significant reshoots, and Prometheus screenwriter Damon Lindelof was brought on board to rework the script. And all this after an already rocky production history that saw the studio trying and failing for years to get the project off the ground, throwing quite a bit of money at it along the way.
So what, exactly, went wrong? A new report points at a few different factors, and suggests that the movie was plagued with issues from the get-go. Read all about it after the jump.
Posted on Monday, June 4th, 2012 by Angie Han
World War Z had one rough development period, getting caught up for years in rewrites, almost-expired options, and budget troubles before finally making it in front of cameras last summer. But even though principal photography wrapped months ago, it seems the project’s troubles aren’t over.
A new report indicates that the Marc Forster-directed zombie epic is now headed for seven weeks of reshoots — a troublingly long schedule that hints at major problems with the film. More details after the jump.
Posted on Friday, June 1st, 2012 by Russ Fischer
Before making the movie that became Killing Them Softly, The Assassination of Jesse James director Andrew Dominik was developing a biopic of Marilyn Monroe. Actually, Blonde is not quite a biopic — it is an account of the screen icon’s life, but one based on a Joyce Carol Oates novel that imagined Monroe’s thoughts. So not quite non-fiction; or even less non-fiction than biopics often attempt.
Now, on Marilyn’s birthday, Dominik and the star of his last two films, Brad Pitt, have announced that Pitt’s company Plan B will product the film. “We’re going to get this one done,” Pitt says. Read More »
Posted on Wednesday, May 30th, 2012 by Russ Fischer
Based on the strength of his two films Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, we’ve eagerly anticipated Andrew Dominik‘s new film Killing Them Softly. The movie is an adaptation of a novel by George V. Higgins and shot last year under the title Cogan’s Trade. It features Brad Pitt as a mob enforcer on the trail of two guys (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn) who robbed a big-ticket poker game. While the plot is pretty minimal, it sounds like there’s more to the movie than just that.
We’ve seen a couple clips, and word out of Cannes was intriguing. There’s even a controversial angle, as Dominik seems to have positioned the film specifically as a rebuttal of modern capitalism. Reviews out of Cannes were slightly mixed, but the positive ones tended to be very positive (as with Jesse James) and now a sleek website has been launched, filled with new images from the thriller, to put the movie out to the masses. Read More »
