Colin Firth is edging closer to genuine leading man status, thanks in part to big awards season recognition for films like A Single Man and The King’s Speech. It’s a transformation that will take another big step if he takes the lead role in Gambit, a heist thriller remake scripted by Joel and Ethan Coen. We’ve reported on the film in the past, most recently when The Last Station director Michael Hoffman came on to direct.
Now Deadline says Colin Firth is in talks for the lead role of a cat burglar who wants to rob a billionaire. He enlists the help of a waitress who is a dead ringer for the rich guy’s late wife. (Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine played the roles in the ’66 original.) Sounds like a perfectly good choice for me. As anything that puts an actor who is very versatile with dialogue into a Coen-scripted project is to be applauded.
After the break, more casting for Cameron Crowe‘s We Bought A Zoo, and Safe House, which is already set to star Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds. Read More »
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This week Universal Pictures got the urge to fill out the company’s calendar for the next couple of years. Yesterday we heard that the studio has dated Judd Apatow’s as-yet-untitled new film for summer 2012. Now there is a flood of new release dates for the studio, for a diverse array of films. Hit the jump for release info for Safe House, The Dark Tower and more. Read More »
Briefly: It’s Ryan Reynolds day! There was just talk of Green Lantern sequels, Deadpool and R.I.P.D., and now there’s word that Reynolds is the ‘top choice’ to work opposite Denzel Washington in the thriller Safe House. Deadline says that Reynolds is the frontrunner in a giant pack of young actors that want the role. Shia LaBeouf, Taylor Kitsch, Chris Pine, Sam Worthington, Garrett Hedlund, Zac Efron, Channing Tatum, Chris Hemsworth and Jake Gyllenhaal are all said to be in contention for the part. Note that there’s no offer yet, so this is just talk for now.
Reynolds (or whoever gets the gig) would play a young CIA agent tasked with transporting a criminal (Denzel Washington) to safety. As we reported before, David Guggenheim’s story was snagged by Universal in a bidding war, and has Snabba Cash director Daniel Espinosa set to helm. The basic setup for the script goes as follows:
Set in South America, Safe House follows a young U.S. intelligence agent who must go on the run with a newly arrived prisoner (Denzel’s potential role) after his titular safe house comes under attack — think of a mix between Collateral and Three Days of the Condor.
Denzel Washington can make a hell of a bad guy, and he’s now negotiating a new role where he’d play the antagonist — a lethal prisoner, in fact — in a buzzed-about script called Safe House. Read More »
Last week it was reported that 20th Century Fox was in talks with Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn to direct the X-Men series prequel/reboot X-Men: First Class. Deadlinequickly responded claiming that “Vaughn’s negotiations have been touch and go, and sources close to the director said he’s passing. ” Cinematical posted a list of eight directors Fox was in talks to take the helm: Louis Leterrier, Jonathan Mostow, Daniel Espinosa, Rupert Sanders, Timur Bekmambetov, David Slade, and Carl Erick Rinsch.
Well it appears Vaughn has returned to the table, and according to Flemming, the “studio is working with his WME reps to close the deal.”
I love Vaughn, and was a big fan of Kick-Ass, but I really would have loved to see what commercial directors turned first time feature directors Carl Erick Rinsch or Rupert Sanders could have done with the comic book property.
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Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers?
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