According to the latest twitter actions of Production Weekly, it’s been all change both behind and in front of the camera with action drama Protection. Luckily for us, they’re both changes for the better with original director Simon West out in favour of B:13 Ultimatum’s Patrick Alessandrin and Paul Walker traded in for Clive Owen (the old line-up’s details were published by Screen Daily around the time of Cannes last year).
The new team are still working from Brandon Noonan’s script, about which I know very little. Screen say that the lead character is “a disgraced former Special Forces soldier who takes on Mexican gangs in an attempt to rescue a judge’s daughter.”
It’s just the talent that makes this interesting for me so far. Will Alessandrin follow in the sure footsteps of his B:13 predecessor Pierre Morel? And how will Clive Owen do as an action man in something presumably less cartoony than Shoot ‘Em Up? Expect to see this marketed as a kind of Taken Too.
It appears that David Schwimmer is leaving the comedy genre for his latest directorial project, Trust, a dark drama starring Clive Owen and Catherine Keener. (And yes, typing out that last sentence did seem a bit trippy.) Owen and Keener will play parents who are shocked to learn that their teenage daughter (played by Liana Liberato) has been victimized by a sexual predator who she met in an online chat room. The film will explore the impact of that event on their family life.
In D.T. Max’s fantastic New Yorker profile on writer/director Tony Gilroy (which you should read only after you’ve seen Duplicity), Max describes how Gilroy is obsessed with the “reversal.” According to Gilroy, “A reversal is just anything that’s a surprise. It’s a way of keeping the audience interested.” As moviegoers, we’ve seen reversals plenty of times; often we’re shown something on screen, then shown the same thing again later in a completely different context, where each of element carries a drastically different significance. Movies like Memento, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Confidence, Ocean’s 11, and even Gilroy’s own Michael Claytontraffic heavily in these moments, and I see them as somewhat of a blessing and a curse. While reversals can make a second-viewing of the film equally enjoyable as the first, I quickly encounter the law of diminishing returns upon subsequent viewings, since by the fifth or sixth time I’ve seen the film, I already understand most of its mysteries. Movies with major reversals are structured in order to maximize the impact of the reversal, so they inevitably lose some of their effectiveness after that element has been revealed.
That being said, those first viewings are an absolute delight. Just as the characters in the film are trying to stay one step ahead of each other, you, the moviegoer, are constantly trying to figure out exactly what each character’s motivations are and whether or not you can really trust the depiction of events on screen. Gilroy’s latest film, Duplicity, is positioned as a corporate espionage thriller with a few double and triple-crosses sprinkled in for good measure, and it thoroughly delivers on this promise. It’s an absolute blast and shows Gilroy at the top of his form, deceiving the audience just as often as the characters in the film are deceiving each other. Read More »
Posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 by Kevin Kelly
I can still remember the first time I saw Clive Owen in a movie. It was around 2000 and the film was called Croupier, and Owen starred as a struggling writer trying to write a soccer novel, and ends up turning back to his old life as a “croupier,” or dealer, in a casino in London. It was a British film with a modest budget that was about one of my favorite things: gambling. I’m a sucker for movies about gambling and con men. The plot was fairly standard stuff, but Owen really made this movie stand out as suave actor who bordered on looking bored sometimes, which isn’t meant to be a criticism of the guy. He’s just able to pull off that cool demeanor and really seem like he’s nonplussed by what’s going on around him.
Shortly after that, I received a DVD full of the BMW short films that Owen had starred in as “The Driver,” and not long after that he was in Gosford Park and The Bourne Identity, and his career was off and running. However, not many people know much about his history, because he was literally one of those “blink and he’s there” actors. He’s starring in the The International with Naomi Watts, which opens this weekend, and even though he hasn’t been on the American film radar for ten years yet, he’s already made quite an impact. We’ll check out his backstory and talk about some of his memorable film roles in today’s GeekBomb. The fuse is already lit, seek cover after the break.
Ever since the fairly spectacular Michael Clayton, I’ve been eagerly awaiting Tony Gilroy’s next directorial project, Duplicity. Honestly, how could you not get excited about a film that reunites Closer stars Clive Owen and Julia Roberts, and includes Tom Wilkinson (who should seriously consider hitching his wagon to every Gilroy script), and Paul Giamatti? Clayton proved that Gilroy had the directing chops to match his screenwriting prowess—which is saying something given that he’s written all the Bourne films thus far.
Owen and Roberts play a pair of corporate spys who’ve fallen into a steamy relationship and devise the ultimate plan to rip off their respective employers—competing pharmeceutical companies run by Wilkinson and Giamatti. I love the energy from this trailer, and I’m glad to see that Universal has figured out the perfect way to sell this film. It’s unabashadly Oceans-esque, but that makes sense for something that seems to be a heist film at its core. Owen looks less broody than usual, Roberts less annoying, and Giamatti and Wilkinson just seem like they’re having a lot of fun hamming up their roles as the competing CEOs.
Posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 by Peter Sciretta
Columbia Pictures has released the trailer for The International. Clive Owen stars as Interpol Agent Louis Salinger, who with the help of Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) are on a mission to “bring to justice one of the world’s most powerful banks.”
“Uncovering myriad and reprehensible illegal activities, Salinger and Whitman follow the money from Berlin to Milan to New York to Istanbul. Finding themselves in a high-stakes chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk as their targets will stop at nothing – even murder – to continue financing terror and war.
The trailer is pretty unimpressive, especially considering the film is directed by Tom Tykwer, the filmmaker behind Run Lola Run, The Princess and the Warrior and Perfume: A Story of a Murderer. Pieries saw an advanced screening and called the movie “brilliant”, “the definition a GREAT script. Quality film making.” But warns that “it is NOT for everyone.” … “The movie is 80% MICHAEL CLAYTON (much better though) and 20% BOURNE! ”
However, the casting does sensically play into the title, with Thornton and Wilkinson in the roles of rivaling CEOs for massive drug companies and Owen and Roberts the opposing spies they set in motion in a race to obtain an invaluable “innovation.” Like Clayton, the film was written by Gilroy, and it’s good to see Wilkinson and the director working together again so soon after the former’s deserved Best Supporting Actor nom.
No word on whether Duplicity’s characters will stealthily cruise around in 2009 Mercedes-Benzs, but I’d count on it; returning cinematographer Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood) can shoot a luxury automobile like it’s the second coming, and even make light reflect off the hood like existential drizzle.
Update: This story has now been confirmed as False.
Shoot ‘Em Up was one of the many of a few great Hollywood films that somehow failed to find an audience this year (Grindhouse, anyone?). A couple months ago we told you that writer/director Michael Davis had already completed a screenplay which could function as a sequel or a completely unrelated action film. We lost hope for the sequel when the first film failed to make more than $12 million at the box office.
But our friends at FirstShowing are reporting that “the script was turned in and approved and it is in pre-production and the leading actors have signed on for the second film.” The film is being fast tracked for a pre-strike production, which means Shoot ‘Em Up 2 is likely to hit theaters late next year. But the question is: Is it a Shoot ‘Em Up sequel, or has it been edited into an entirely unrelated action film.
Clive Owen just began production on The International, which isn’t likely to wrap by year’s end. And Owen is currently scheduled to start filming The Boys Are Back in Town early next year. So I think it’s safe to assume that Owen is not part of this “sequel”.
Shoot ‘Em Up hasn’t even been released and yet they’re already talking about a potential sequel. Not only are they talking about it, but ComingSoon found out that writer/director Michael Davis has already written the script.
“I’ve written another crazy wild funny action script that could be ‘Shoot ‘Em Up’ if I made a few alterations,” admits director Davis. “You’re not going to see me be the guy that genre hops because my favorite genre is the action movie. The greatest goal for me would be to continue on as a writer/director that people identify your signature and doing a ‘Shoot ‘Em Up’ sequel to me would just be validation to me that ‘Hey, I created something that people want to see.’”
“He’s been very clever,” said producer Susan Montford. “He’s written a brilliant script and it could be adapted to be a sequel or it could stand alone.”
When asked about characters that might be unable to return, Murphy explained “This film is very much in the tradition of Sergio Leone, and if you watch that trilogy, they’re not really sequels. The same characters come back and the same actors come back, and then they have another story, so there’s no reason we can’t have all three of these people back in a different story and still call it ‘Shoot ‘Em Up 2.’” Murphy also admits that the baby won’t coming back for more: “In the script we’ve read, there’s no baby.”
I was able to catch a sneak peak of Shoot ‘Em Up last week in San Diego, and can’t say enough good things about the film. Shoot’em up is like Crank but with guns. It’s non-stop action, no questions asked, no plot needed, and no apologies offered. It knows what it wants to be and goes for it. It’s intense, insane and improbable. Clive Owen eats Carrots while kicking ass, in an attempt to save the life of a little orphaned baby. Paul Giamatti is the evil bad guy from every comic book I read as a kid.
I was able to catch a sneak peak of Shoot ‘Em Up last week in San Diego, and can’t say enough good things about the film. Shoot’em up is like Crank but with guns. It’s non-stop action, no questions asked, no plot needed, and no apologies offered. It knows what it wants to be and goes for it. It’s intense, insane and improbable. Clive Owen eats Carrots while kicking ass, in an attempt to save the life of a little orphaned baby. Paul Giamatti is the evil bad guy from every comic book I read as a kid.
And now New Line has released a red band trailer for the film on the official website. The new trailer gives you a much better example of the intense action sequences featured in this fun flick. Check it out now at ShootEmUpMovie.com.
Note: For those of you who don’t know, most movie trailers begin with a green band. That is the all-green graphic that you see at the beginning of movie trailers. This signifies that the trailer adheres to the standards for motion picture advertising outlined by the MPAA, which includes limitations on foul language and violent, sexual, or otherwise objectionable imagery. Trailers that do not adhere to these guidelines may be issued a red band, and may only be shown before an R-rated, NC-17-rated, or an unrated movie. But most movie theaters won’t even run them.
So studios sometimes release these trailers online with an age verification system. Unfortunately these age verification systems are very flawed. For instance, I’m well over the age of 21, yet if I enter my information, it does not allow me access to the clip. So a little while ago I wrote an article which tells you how to access a Red Band Movie Trailer. Check it out if you’re having trouble.
