Posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 by Peter Sciretta
Walt Disney Pictures has premiered the final movie poster for the big screen adaptation of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time on UGO. The poster features Jake Gyllenhaal as the rogue Prince Dastan, Gemma Arterton as the mysterious princess Tamina and Ben Kingsley as Nizam. Click the link to see the poster in larger resolution.
Posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 by Peter Sciretta
Walt Disney Pictures has released a new movie trailer for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time on IGN. The new trailer incorporates some of the new special effects footage from the Superbowl spot and new “Creating of an Epic” featurette, as well as a lot of never before seen sequences.
I’m still not digging the over-the-top voice over from Gemma Arterton, and am a bit worried about the story. But the action sequences are looking bigger, more elaborate, and more epic with every new spot. I’m also really loving the rewinding time effect. I’ll have a chance to see this film in a couple weeks, and I promise to report back with my thoughts afterwards. You can watch it now, embedded after the jump. As always, leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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Posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 by Peter Sciretta
I always love learning which actors were offered and turned down roles in films. Did you know that Sean Connery was originally offered the role of Morpheus in The Matrix? He supposedly turned down the role saying he couldn’t understand the script.
Posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 by David Chen
When I look at director Mike Newell’s filmography, I’m impressed by its breadth, depth, and quality. It’s difficult for me to imagine that the same man who made Donnie Brasco also made Four Weddings and a Funeral, and also made Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Yet despite (or perhaps because of) his eclectic choices, Newell has been able to craft films that always seem able to bring out a certain sense of authenticity in their characters and in the relationships between them. In a couple of months, Newell will tackle another big-budget adaptation, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. In the past, videogame adaptations have had a pretty spotty record in terms of quality, but I’m holding out hope that Sands of Time will be one of the best videogame-to-film adaptations we’ve seen yet.
I had the opportunity recently to chat with Mr. Newell for a lengthy conversation/interview. Our discussion spanned topics far and wide; we discussed the early days of Mike’s career, why he enjoyed working in film over TV, the tax benefits of working with George Lucas, the “English-ness” he tried to bring to the Harry Potter series, how he chooses his diverse projects, and why he cast Jake Gyllenhaal in The Prince of Persia. You can read the interview below, and/or listen to the audio via the /Filmcast.
Posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 by Russ Fischer
Nine may have crapped out at the box office last year, but the movie musical isn’t dead by a long shot. There has been news this week that Russell Crowe may be the comically unlikely leading man to appear opposite Beyonce in a new version of A Star is Born, for one. (That may end up being a romantic drama with musical overtones, rather than a full-on musical.) And now a report says that New Line is tapping Bandslam director Todd Graf to oversee the new film version of Damn Yankees, which has long had Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaal attached. Read More »
Posted on Monday, December 28th, 2009 by Russ Fischer
Disney’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, based on the UbiSoft reinvention of Jordan Mechner’s classic video game, doesn’t hit until May 28 2010. But Disney is apparently not so confident that the video game basis will translate to a large audience, so the studio has been pumping out images and footage since the first trailer debut last month. There’s a new featurette out now which explains the movie’s subtitle and gives some context for some of the trailer’s swirling, sandy shots. Check it out below. Read More »
Posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
Jake Gyllenhaal was on hand at the Spike TV 2009 Video Game Awards to present a “first look” sneak preview of Disney’s upcoming big screen adaptation Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Watch the 1-minute teaser trailer after the jump.
Posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
While on the set of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, we had a chance to talk to some of the cast. Below you will find our roundtable interviews with Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton:
You’ve done big movies like The Day After Tomorrow and you’ve had some opportunities to do a franchise movie, so what was it about this particular franchise that made you want to be involved in it?
Jake Gyllenhaal: I think just on a personal front, it was just so unlikely and so unlike anything I’d ever played really, and any type of movie that I think anyone would expect, that I just kind of wanted to do it. (laughs) It felt like that personally, but also, more than anything, when I talked with Mike Newell about it, it wasn’t just like your normal video game adaptation. It was an actual massive epic that they had in the works. They had a real classic story that was emotional and real and filled with just ridiculous turns and twists, I mean, all over the place. Every day, when we work, is filled with keeping in mind where you were and how you got there and what’s happening here and who fooled whom. It’s like The Usual Suspects every single day, and that makes it intriguing to me, just on a story point. Also just the fact that these movies, if they’re going to get done, they should be done by the best and I think that Jerry Bruckheimer in particular is the one to make them.
Had you ever played the game before and do you feel any sort of responsibility playing such an iconic character?
Gyllenhaal: I feel a responsibility because I think the prince in the video games, he has a personality and you know his story, but I think a lot of video games as an actor, just putting that kind of expression onto a character. You get to make a new path for what the character is as opposed to being nervous you’re going to screw up that’s already there. That to me I like and I think is fun. I’ve played a lot of real people in my life… Actually, there’s equal pressure in real people than video game characters, which is sort of strange. Yeah, I’ve played the game a lot more when I was really young, and I know the game in its Atari-like version. I went online when I first started researching stuff for the role. What was really important was for me personally to bring some sort of realism into this world that is not always fully based on reality. So often you can hide in all that stuff so easily, and to look at what say a real Persian prince would look like and then who the Prince of Persia is in the video game and then a whole slew of inspiration in between there.
Posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
Set for production in the first quarter of next year is sci-fi thriller Source Code with Duncan Jones (Moon) set to direct and Jake Gyllenhaal in the starring role. This puts Mute and Escape From The Deep to one side, at least for a while but it at definitely seems like a fascinating story and well worth Jones’ attentions as well as being in-step with his noted inspirations.
The Source Code script has had some revisions done by Billy Ray but was originally written by Ben Ripley. Having read Ripley’s draft, I can give you some information on the film’s clever premise.
Lionsgate has released a new trailer for the family drama Brothers, which is directed by six-time Oscar nominee Jim Sheridan (In America, In The Name of the Father), from a screenplay by David Benioff (The Kite Runner, 25th Hour), and stars Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Sam Shepard, Clifton Collins, Jr., Carey Mulligan, and Ethan Suplee.
The film tells the story of a black-sheep younger brother who cares for the wife and children of a decorated Marine who goes missing overseas, “with consequences that will shake the foundation of the entire family.” The list of names involved with this film is very impressive. The trailer has a really over-the-top, on-the-noise, voiceover, which gives the feel of a made-for-television movie, rather than an Awards hopeful. Watch the trailer embedded after the jump. As always, leave your thoughts in the comments below.
