If you believe all the recent reports about The First Avenger: Captain America, it appears that Marvel Studios and director Joe Johnston are very undecided when it comes to which actor will wear the red, white and blue tights. At the Wolf Man junket last month Johnson said that casting needed to be complete by March 1st 2010 (a date that has now passed) as filming is set to begin at the end of June in the UK.
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After last week’s flurry of great big casting stories, we’re going to start small today. Paul Dano will appear in For Ellen, from director So Young Kim, who last made In Between Days. Dano will be “a struggling indie rocker who, after nearly wrecking his car during an overnight long-distance drive, arrives in a small Midwestern town to deal with his impending divorce.” I’m OK with all that, despite a logline that sounds like it covers such familiar and self-conscious indie ground, but less so with the word that Jon Heder will co-star. [Variety]
After the break, new stuff for Gerard Butler and a possible replacement for Keira Knightley in My Fair Lady. Read More »
Stories like this make me want to bellow like the Kool-Aid Man. At the beginning of November there was a tiny mention in an otherwise unrelated Variety article that suggested David Cronenberg was still developing The Talking Cure, a film based on Christopher Hampton’s 2002 play about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Announced in 2007, this had been quickly sidelined by films like The Matarese Circle and Cosmopolis. Or so we thought. Now it appears that the film is very much happening, and will be the next project for Cronenberg. And that cast? Oh, yeah! Read More »
Keira Knightley has been informally linked to a remake of My Fair Lady for some time now. It was always something of a no brainer to see her as the most likely candidate, and I suspect some of the previous stories were nothing more than guess work based more upon her cheekbones than any inside information. Now, however, she’s been more concretely linked to the project once again and Joe Wright has been named as the director. You’ll likely recall that he collaborated with Knightley previously on Pride and Prejudice and Atonement before tarnishing his Adademy cred a little with The Soloist.
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Mark Romanek is currently on location in the UK town of Clevedon, North Somerset, filming his melancholy sci-fi mystery Never Let Me Go with Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and just about every other great British actor currently in their 20s. In case you do not yet know, it was adapted by Alex Garland - who previously scripted 28 Days Later and a draft of the proposed Halo film - from a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.
As well as a video clip snooping on a scene being shot (which you can see hosted on a BBC website but was not designed so that it might be embedded elsewhere) several paparazzi-style pictures have appeared here and there, showing the filming taking place and, as ever, the actors standing about between takes. I’ve put some after the break as well as some every basic, and not very spoilery, information to help you contextualise them.
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Shooting has this week started on Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go, an eerie but tender science fiction drama adapted from the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. Already announced as starring were Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield and Carey Mulligan, with Sally Hawkins, Nathalie Richard, Andrea Riseborough and Charlotte Rampling now named as members of the supporting cast by ScreenDaily.
Staggering stuff - Garfield, Mulligan, Hawkins and Riseborough are amongst the very best of this new generation of UK actors. To see them all lined up to contribute, and collaborate with Romanek, teases me cruelly with an almost absurd anticipation for the finished work.
More details, and images, after the break.
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There’s been a whole lot of Danny Boyle in the news these last couple of weeks and now, I’m afraid to say, here comes another lump. Open up.
Rumors bubbling up at the EW Hollywood Insider blog suggest that Danny Boyle is closing in on a remake of My Fair Lady. This rehash already has a script, penned by Emma Thompson, and will once again be a musical. I suspect a lot of /Film readers will be disappointed to read that Boyle’s desire to net the Lady gig will see him shelving Hanna, a more readily geek-appealing story of a teenage assassin.
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You already know that Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield are very talented and excited actors, but did you realize Keira Knightley was too? Me either. According to the casting news in Variety this morning, Mark Romanek seems to have cottoned on to something in her woody ways, however, and he’s set the wisp-waif to star in his upcoming sci-fi thriller Never Let Me Go. I’m hoping she’s not the loaded gun in a budget hijack.
Never Let Me Go is adapted from a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro by Alex Garland, previously guilty of The Beach, Sunshine and 28 Days Later. Essentially, it tells the story of Kathy and her friends Ruth and Tommy at boarding school and then, later, a kind of mysterious R&R hang out known as The Cottages where they lead fairly relaxed and pleasant, if closely-watched lives. Where does the sci-fi come in? The main characters each have a very specific reason to exist - and you might consider this a spoiler, so skip ahead to the next paragraph if you’re feeling wussy. They’ve been bred to serve as organ donors. These “clones” (not really, I don’t think) are used to provide bits of bodygubbins to others after they “complete” - which is the novel’s euphemism for dying - and unfortunately they are expected to “complete” at a young and healthy age. Another sci-fi component worth noting is that outside of the comfy harbouring locales, the world is apparently rather dystopic.
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Poor chap. Despite also having written Kingdom of Heaven and Body of Lies, not to mention the upcoming big-screen fit up of Edge of Darkness, he is always referred to as William ‘The Departed‘ Monahan. I don’t quite get it because, well, it strikes me that Kingdom of Heaven and Body of Lies are the better films.
Perhaps now he’s segueing to a directorial career, he’ll be be able to get a name change: William ‘London Boulevard‘ Monahan.
Variety tells us today that Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley have been cast in the lead roles: Mr. Farrell as “a South London criminal who, after release from prison, tries to give up the gangster life by becoming a handyman”, this character being called Mitchell in the novel; and Ms. Knightley most likely not as the “reclusive actress” who hires him, but some other female character called Aisling who sounds rather like a love interest. Variety initially told us when Monahan first started circling the project last spring and this seems to be the first proper update since then.
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Not that anyone really cares, but the Teen Choice Awards apparently took place tonight. I mean how can you take any award show seriously that has a category like “Choice Bromantic Comedy” and where Step Up 2: The Streets can win Best Dramatic Film of the year?! The show will air on Monday at 8:00pm et/pt on FOX, but we have the list of movie related winners below.
Action Adventure: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Drama: Step Up 2: The Streets
Chick Flick: 27 Dresses
Bromantic Comedy: What Happens in Vegas
Comedy: Juno
Horror/Thriller: I Am Legend
Action Adventure: Hancock
Summer Movie Comedy: Get Smart
Actor - Drama: Channing Tatum, Stop-Loss
Actress - Drama: Keira Knightley, Atonement
Actress - Action Adventure: Rachel Bilson, Jumper
Actor - Comedy: Ashton Kutcher, What Happens in Vegas
Actress - Comedy: Ellen Page, Juno
Actor - Horror/Thriller: Will Smith, I Am Legend
Actress - Horror/Thriller: Jessica Alba, The Eye
Villain: Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Breakout Female: Ellen Page, Juno
Breakout Male: Drake Bell, Superhero Movie
