Posted on Sunday, May 16th, 2010 by Peter Sciretta
A bunch of new casting bits hit over the weekend, and can be found after the jump including an update on who Cameron Crowe is in talks with a new star to play Marvin Gaye, Marilyn Manson and Evan Rachel Wood sign on for “a sexploitation-serial-killer-slasher-road-movie circa 1989″, Dustin Hoffman to star in a new adaptation of an Irwin Shaw novel and much more.
Posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 by Russ Fischer
I can’t stop chuckling about Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. That’s the Broadway musical version of the character that has gone way over budget ($50m+) and features music from Bono and The Edge. Granted, I have a great love for the show’s director, Julie Taymor, and perhaps she can pull this one out of the fire, but the whole enterprise seems like a fatally flawed attempt to shoehorn a character into the wrong environment.
Now, just as the musical is set to begin a preview period that has been delayed multiple times, it has lost a lead actress. Evan Rachel Wood is gone, leaving Turn Off the Dark in need of a new Mary Jane. Read More »
Posted on Friday, February 26th, 2010 by Russ Fischer
I’m excited about the upcoming version of Mildred Pierce to be directed by Todd Haynes. Already set to star Kate Winslet in the title role, the HBO mini-series has just added a couple more good names: Guy Pearce and Evan Rachel Wood. Sure, Wood’s career has been spotty, but there’s something that suggests she can do a lot more than what we’ve seen her manage recently. I really liked her in Woody Allen’s Whatever Works, for example.
The obvious guess is that Pearce will play the husband from whom Mildred Pierce splits and that Wood will play their daughter. But that’s unconfirmed for now. [Production Weekly]
After the break, it’s buddy comedy time again, and the Hugh Laurie/Catherine Keener indie gets another cast member. Read More »
Posted on Friday, October 16th, 2009 by Russ Fischer
It didn’t take long at all for Robert Redford‘s The Conspirator to get off the ground. The film, which hinges on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, was announced only months ago and is already shooting in Savannah, GA. We knew some of the cast prior to the shoot’s start, but now we’ve got a host of good names to throw your way, in addition to some pics and video. Read More »
Sony Pictures Classics has released the official movie trailer for Woody Allen‘s latest comedy Whatever Works. The film stars Larry David as an eccentric New Yorker who abandons his upper class life to lead a more bohemian existence. He meets a young girl from the south, played by Evan Rachel Wood, and her family and no two people seem to get along in the entanglements that follow.
I had a chance to see this film at ShoWest, and while it wasn’t as good as Vicky or Match Point, it was a thrill to see Allen’s cinematic return to New York City. David is great at playing the typical Allen neurotic cynical male protagonist, and Wood is perfect as the impressionable southern belle. I’m surprised that the trailer gives away the “punchline” of the movie, even out of context it seems a bit odd. Check out the trailer after the jump, and leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Evan Rachel Wood (The Wrestler) has signed on to guest star in two episodes of HBO’s True Blood. According to the report, Wood would play a pivotal role of Sophie-Anne, the 500-year-old vampire Queen of Louisiana. Described as “charming, wily, ruthless and wise” the character has had relationships with many famous people in the last few centuries. The episodes will air towards the end of the upcoming second season, but the character’s arc extends even further (read: If the series is renewed for a third season, Sophia-Anne will be back for more).
Wood employs a very realistic southern accent in Woody Allen’s new film Whatever Works, which I was lucky to see at ShoWest. It sounds like this role will be a reversal personality-wise. This also comes a couple days after it was announced that Wood dropped out of Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch due to “scheduling conflicts”. Looks like Wood has some extra time to fill and this show seems like a perfect fit for Wood.
Posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
Zack Snyder has lost two more Sucker Punch cast members: Evan Rachel Wood and Emma Stone have both dropped out due to “scheduling conflicts”. This comes one month after it was announced that the film’s lead Amanda Seyfried was forced to leave the project, also due to “scheduling conflicts”. Am I the only person that finds it strange that half of the announced cast have been forced to drop out due the scheduling issues? The cast was announced before Watchmen‘s underperformed at the box office. And while I have absolutely no proof what-so-ever that the events are connected, my gut is telling me that they are.
Seyfried, star of Big Love, Mamma Mia, and Mean Girls was replaced with Emily Browning, whose credits top out with a bunch of crappy horror flicks (The Uninvited, Standed, Darkness Falls, Ghost Ship). And tonight Stone and Wood’s replacements were announced: Jamie Chung (Dragonball Evolution) and Jenna Malone (Into The Wild, Donnie Darko). Malone is a great catch. She’s definitely a talented and underused actress but it’s hard not to see a pattern: Warner Bros is trading down, casting considerably lesser known actresses which most likely will save them considerable cash on the budget side. Could it be that Warner Bros is concerned about the profitability of Snyder’s R-Rated $100 million fantasy film?
Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Amanda Seyfried (Jennifer’s Body, Mama Mia), Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical), Abbie Cornish (Stop-Loss), Evan Rachel Wood (The Wrestler, Across The Universe), and Emma Stone (Superbad) are in talks to join the all-female cast of Zack Snyder‘s Sucker Punch.
Snyder has called the film “Alice in Wonderland with machine guns”, an R-Rated $100 million budgeted 1950′s-period action movie which tells the story of a girl named Baby Doll (Seyfried) who is confined to a mental institution by her evil stepfather, who intends to have her lobotomized in five days. While imprisoned, she imagines an alternative reality to hide her from the pain. In this fantasy world, where she needs to steal five objects to help her out before she is deflowered by a vile man. Hudgens (“Blondie”), Cornish (“Sweet Pea”), Wood (“Rocket”), and Stone would play Seyfried’s fellow inmates who also travel into the alternate reality.
The film is gearing up to begin principal photography in Fall 2009, with an October 8th 2010 release date already announced by Warner Bros.
