Arriving by boat at her family's Louisiana lake island cabin, Sara and her friends quickly strip down to their swimsuits for a weekend of fun in the sun. But when star football player Malik stumbles from the salt-water lake with his arm torn off, the party mood quickly evaporates. Assuming the injury was caused by a freak wake-boarding accident, the group realizes they have to get Malik to a hospital on the other side of the lake, and fast. But as they set out in a tiny speedboat, the college friends discover the lake has been stocked with hundreds of massive, flesh-eating sharks! As they face one grisly death after another, Sara and the others struggle desperately to fend off the sharks, get help and stay alive long enough to reach the safety of dry land.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Saving Private Perez opens September 2nd, 2011 (limited)
A Mexican crime lord is forced by his mother to plan a suicidal rescue mission to find his lost brother in the most unexpected place on Earth. Action/Adventure, Art/Foreign and ComedyPG-13 for violence and brief strong language.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Wilde Salome opens September 4th, 2011 (Venice Film Festival)
Referred to by actor/director Al Pacino as his most personal project ever, the unconventional feature documentary "Wilde Salome" invites audiences into Pacino's private world, as he explores the complexities of Oscar Wilde's acclaimed play "Salome," Wilde himself and the birth of a rising star in actress Jessica Chastain. Comedy, Documentary, Drama and AdaptationSeptember 4th, 2011 (Venice Film Festival)
Seven Days in Utopia opens September 2nd, 2011 (limited)
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Apollo 18 opens September 2nd, 2011 (wide)
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Good Old Fashioned Orgy opens September 2nd, 2011 (limited)
A 30-year-old man, forced to grow up when his parents decide to sell the family vacation home, enlists his friends to throw one final party--an orgy. R for pervasive strong sexual content, graphic nudity and language.Samuel Goldwyn Films, Stage 6 Films
Shark Night 3D opens September 2nd, 2011 (wide)
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I'm Glad My Mother is Alive opens September 2nd, 2011 (limited)
Thomas has spent the years between the ages of seven and twenty looking for Julie, his biological mother. Without telling his adoptive parents, he finds the woman who abandoned him when he was four and starts to lead a "double life" with her. Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life opens August 31st, 2011 (limited)
Based on the life of singer Lucien Ginsburg. Born to to Russian-Jewish parents in Nazi-occupied Paris. Follows Ginsburg as he transitions from painter to jazz musician to pop superstar, and through his relationships with the many women in his life including Brigitte Bardot, Juliette Greco, and Jane Birkin. Gainsbourg was as famous for his decadent life, fin-de-siecle aesthetic, and cynical wit as for... See Full Description
Art/Foreign, Drama, Musical/Performing Arts and Biopic
Art/Foreign, Drama, Musical/Performing Arts and Biopic
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Debt opens August 31st, 2011 (wide)
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Horror films hit dead zone at summer box office
By Joshua L. Weinstein
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - This summer has been a dead zone for horror movies.
"Fright Night," DreamWorks' remake of a 1985 comedy/horror cult hit, has done a shabby $14 million since it was released August 19.
"Final Destination 5," New Line's most recent installment to its decade-old franchise, has not come close to matching the huge performance of 2009's fourth movie, grossing just $66.4 million worldwide after three weekends of release.
"Don't Be Afraid of the Dark," FilmDistrict's remake of a 1973 TV movie, written by Guillermo del Toro, was a dud, opening to just $8.52 million over the weekend.
What's behind the rotten box office? Analysts say a lack of originality, bad timing and poor budgeting are the source of horror-ific numbers.
"It was a rough summer," Jeffrey Reddick, who wrote the original "Final Destination," told TheWrap. "People are wanting something new and original, and I think if you look at the films that have come out -- strong as they were -- they were remakes and sequels."
"Final Destination 5" was the latest in a seemingly endless series of stories about young people stalked by death. "Fright Night" and "Don't Be Afraid" were reboots of films first made 26 and 38 years ago, respectively.
"For the younger horror audience, there's been a lot of studio comic book movies and action movies," said Bob Berney, FilmDistrict's president of theatrical distribution. "It could be just be ... that these films didn't grab people."
Meanwhile, well-known stars -- like Colin Farrell in "Fright Night" -- might actually have hurt the cause rather than helped.
Beau Flynn, who produced the Anthony Hopkins exorcism-themed film, "The Rite," said movie stars can be distractions in horror movies.
"If a movie star is going to take the audience out of the movie, let's not spend the money," he said.
"What could be scarier than what's happening to your house, and to people you know and to your neighbors?" Flynn asked.
Summer is not traditionally the time when Hollywood unlocks its horror chest, with Halloween making October a better release time for the genre.
But the genre's forays into August in recent years -- which included not only the $186.2 million global performance of "The Final Destination" in 2009, but also the breakout $67.7 million haul by Lionsgate's micro-budgeted "The Last Exorcism" in 2010 -- have moved up the timeline.
Perhaps not surprisingly audiences were looking for light-hearted fun this summer, embracing comedies like "Bridesmaids" and "Horrible Bosses," which became unexpected hits.
This is not to say the year has been bereft of horror success.
FilmDistrict's "Insidious," produced by micro-budget horror pioneer Oren Peli himself ('Paranormal Activity'), grossed $92 million on a $1.5 million production budget.
"Every time something original comes out and does really well, we kind of hope and pray the industry will say, 'There is a huge audience for something original. Let's make more originals,'" said Reddick.
He added that a sequel with a creative twist could get a better reception, such as Peli's "Paranormal Activity 3," which opens October 21.
"They've done something clever with that franchise, where each sequel is a prequel to the one before," Roddick said. "So you get the sense that the third one is the last one -- a trilogy rather than a never-ending franchise."
Flynn told TheWrap that super low-budget horror films could be where genre's future lies.
Due out Friday, for example, Weinstein/Dimension's "Apollo 18" comes with a modest negative spend of only around $5 million.
So "Fright Night," which had a budget of $30 million, "Final Destination 5," which cost $40 million and "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark," which cost an estimated $28 million and starred Katie Holmes, may have been tough bets from the start.
"That doesn't mean there aren't exceptions to the rule," Flynn said. "Studios will spend the money -- they'll spend $35 million if they think it's a good piece of business."
But we're not quite done with summer horror yet. In addition to "Apollo 18," this Labor Day weekend, Relativity Media will release "Shark Night 3D," with hopes that its movie is different enough from the others to attract audiences.
Further down the release calendar come more sequels and remakes -- not only the third "Paranormal," but also Universal's remake of John Carpenter's 1981 remake of "The Thing" (October 14), as well as Weinstein/Dimension's sequel to 2010's 3D re-do of "Piranha" (November 23).
Reddick said he's looking forward to them -- even "The Thing."
"They've almost run out of things to remake," he said. "I said that two years ago, and apparently they hadn't."
Aronofsky praises 'exciting' Venice lineup
A mother is lecturing her 23-year-old daughter about her love life, flailing a kitchen knife above her head for emphasis.
Nick Nolte joins Sean Penn in "Gangster Squad"
A mother is lecturing her 23-year-old daughter about her love life, flailing a kitchen knife above her head for emphasis.
Gibson to pay ex-girlfriend $750,000 in settlement
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mel Gibson will pay $750,000 to his ex-girlfriend and continue to provide housing and financial support for their young daughter to resolve a bitter legal fight that followed sexist, racist rants attributed to the actor.
The settlement disclosed Wednesday is intended to end the bickering and accusations that have permeated the case handled in mostly secret proceedings for more than a year, Superior Court Judge Peter Lichtman said.
Gibson's payments to Russian musician Oksana Grigorieva are dependent on a lasting truce.
As part of the agreement, their daughter will receive support equal to what the actor-director provides for his other seven children. The former couple will split custody of the girl, who turns 2 in late October.
In addition, Gibson will keep paying for a multimillion house he purchased for Grigorieva and their daughter. The house will be sold when the girl turns 18 and she will receive the proceeds.
As a result of the settlement, Grigorieva cannot pursue a civil case against the Oscar winner, and both sides were ordered not to speak or write about their relationship or allegations of domestic abuse.
Lichtman specifically said neither side could release any audio recordings, an apparent reference to the series of rants that were leaked to the celebrity website RadarOnline.com.
"You look like a (expletive) bitch in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of (N-word), it will be your fault," the voice is heard telling Grigorieva in one tape. "You provoked it. You are provocatively dressed."
In another snippet released by the website, Grigorieva is heard describing how Gibson hit her in the face, and she questions his manhood. The response: "You know what, you ... (expletive) deserved it!"
Gibson has never publicly discussed the recordings and his attorneys did not refute they were the actor during a May court hearing in which Grigorieva agreed not to introduce them as evidence in the custody case.
Grigorieva's payments were divided into thirds, with the final payment occurring in 2016 if the agreement is not breached.
Her attorney, Daniel Horowitz, disputed reports that the settlement was a bad deal for his client. He told The Associated Press that he estimated the actual value of the deal to be worth about $5 million when rights to Grigorieva's music and her ability to live in her current home rent-free are factored in.
Celebrity website TMZ and the Los Angeles Times reported that the musician walked away from a deal worth at least $15 million last year. Horowitz said that agreement would have been subject to taxes, a longer payout period and other offsets that would have reduced its value.
The $750,000 that Grigorieva receives under the current agreement will not be taxed.
Gibson spoke a handful of times during the hearing, mainly to acknowledge he understood terms of the settlement.
"I'd like to say thanks your honor for bringing this matter to a reasonable conclusion," the "Braveheart" star said.
Grigorieva also thanked the judge and said she hoped the resolution meant Gibson's career could resume.
She previously accused Gibson of striking her during a fight in January 2010, and the actor-director pleaded no contest to one count of misdemeanor domestic battery earlier this year.
Sheriff's detectives also investigated Gibson's claims that Grigorieva attempted to extort him, but prosecutors declined to file charges.
Gibson's attorneys are still working to finalize his divorce from his wife of nearly 28 years.
Laura Wasser, who represents Gibson's wife Robyn, told a judge Tuesday that they were putting the finishing touches on the divorce judgment and it should be completed in a few weeks.
___
Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/celebritydocket
Mel Gibson to pay ex $750K to settle custody case
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mel Gibson will pay $750,000 to his ex-girlfriend and continue to provide housing and financial support for their young daughter to resolve a bitter, long-running legal fight, a judge said Wednesday.
The settlement is intended to end the bickering and accusations that have permeated the case handled in mostly secret proceedings for more than a year, Superior Court Judge Peter Lichtman said.
Gibson's payments to Russian musician Oksana Grigorieva are dependent on a lasting truce.
As part of the agreement, their daughter will receive support equal to what the actor-director provides his other seven children. The former couple will split custody of the girl, who turns 2 in late October.
In addition, Gibson will keep paying for a multimillion house he purchased for Grigorieva and their daughter. The house will be sold when the girl turns 18 and she will receive the proceeds.
As a result of the settlement, Grigorieva cannot pursue a civil case against the Oscar winner, and both sides were ordered not to speak or write about their relationship.
Lichtman specifically said neither side could release any audio recordings, an apparent reference to a series of racist and sexist rants by Gibson that were leaked to the celebrity website RadarOnline.com.
Grigorieva's payments were divided into thirds, with the final payment occurring in 2016 if the agreement is not breached.
Gibson spoke a handful of times during the hearing, mainly to acknowledge he understood terms of the settlement.
"I'd like to say thanks your honor for bringing this matter to a reasonable conclusion," the "Braveheart" star said.
Grigorieva also thanked the judge and said she hoped the resolution meant Gibson's career could resume.
___
Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/celebritydocket
Director Gary Ross: 'The Hunger Games' Puts You Inside Katniss' Shoes
"The Hunger Games" teaser trailer, which debuted during the 2011 MTV VMAs on Sunday, left many fans craving more, and now, director Gary Ross has revealed new details on how the story will be told on the big screen.
MTV News chatted with the director about the perspectives used in the upcoming film adaptation of Suzanne Collins' dystopia novels.
PLAY IT NOW: Sneak Peek: ‘The Hunger Games’ Teaser Trailer!
"That's one of the fun things about it," he said. "There are times when you're viscerally inside [Jennifer Lawrence's] shoes, and that's the main experience."
Gary also said audiences will watch the terrifying events of the movie like the residents of Panem would.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: ‘The Hunger Games’: Who’s Who?
"And there are other times when you're witnessing her the way they're witnessing her in the Game," he continued. "And she's constantly being watched, which is one of the things that makes the book so compelling. But it's mainly an intense first-person experience, inside Katniss' shoes."
"The Hunger Games," which also features Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Woody Harrelson and Lenny Kravitz, is slated for theatrical release on March 23, 2012.
AH Nation Poll: What did you think of 'movie's teaser trailer? VOTE HERE!
VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Sexy Ladies Of Sci-Fi
Copyright 2011 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Monday, September 5, 2011
"Brother" proves to be a disappointment for Weinstein
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The weekend's biggest flop, and one that had the highest hopes for success, was the Paul Rudd comedy "Our Idiot Brother," which took in a measly $6.588 million in its opening weekend.
Despite aggressive marketing by The Weinstein Co., the movie was buffetted by hurricane reports, negative reviews and unenthusiastic exit scores in a summer where other R-rated comedies are generally performing well.
Weinstein acknowledged the bummer weekend. "We thought we were going to hit it out of the park, and it's a single," said Erik Lomis, the Weinstein Co.'s president of theatrical and home distribution, told TheWrap. "What we're disappointed most about is just a missed opportunity."
The flop is a black eye for The Weinstein Co., which was shooting for an opening of at least $10 million and had high hopes given the stellar comedy cast of Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Emily Mortimer and Zooey Deschanel.
Weinstein bought the movie for a pricey $6 million out of the Sundance festival in tandem with Ron Burkle's YUK Films. The film was significantly recut since its Sundance premiere (critics at the January festival were very mixed on the movie) and aggressively marketed.
The studio said most of the costs were offset by foreign sales.
Nonetheless, it's no good news that the film opened at fifth place and garnered an unfavorable C+ Cinemascore and 66 percent on film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Lomis said the movie showed its strongest numbers in New York, so it was hit especially hard because of the storm.
"The exit polls we did in New York were great," he said. "Way above the norms. And the business just shut down."
On top of that, the comedy appealed to the above-25 crowd, which also made it vulnerable to the storm.
"We played older," Lomis said. "We're much more susceptible to the market conditions and the weather conditions than youth films."
Noting that there's no new comedy being released next weekend, he said he hopes the film will rebound.
Hurricane Irene forces cinemas, theaters to close
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Hurricane Irene has yet to make landfall, but barring a weather miracle, it will put a serious crimp in movie, concert and play-going.
A handful of exhibitors have already announced plans to close multiplexes across the East Coast.
Most theaters are taking a wait-and-see approach, but AMC has started announcing plans to shutter theaters in Norfolk, Virginia; Baltimore, Maryland; and Washington, D.C. on Saturday. It will monitor the situation before deciding whether to close locations in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
In addition, Clearview Cinemas announced Friday that all their theaters would be closed on Saturday and Sunday. The chain has over 30 locations spread out over New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Larger theater chains with a heavy East Coast presence such as Regal, and National Amusements have yet to make a public decision about any closure.
Of course, it isn't just a matter of what theaters will be closed. Further clouding the ticket sales forecast: A state of emergency has been declared across the East Coast in states such as Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and North Carolina.
It's safe to say that people will be more interested in stockpiling batteries and bottled water than in what's playing at the local IMAX.
On Broadway, all theaters will go dark on Saturday and Sunday. The Broadway League had insisted earlier in the day that theaters would stay open, but with evacuations taking place in lower Manhattan, that became untenable.
Music fans face category 2 style devastation to their weekend plans. A large number of concerts that were set to take place throughout the Eastern seaboard are being canceled or rescheduled. Among the acts impacted are Styx, Dave Matthews Band, Kenny Chesney and Pat Benatar, according to a report on Rolling Stone.
George Clooney rules out political bid in US
VENICE, Italy (AP) — Idealism loses out to cynicism in George Clooney's political drama "The Ides of March," which opens the Venice Film Festival.
Clooney directs and acts in the political drama that features Ryan Gosling as a gung-ho press secretary swept into a sex scandal in the final days of a Democratic presidential primary in Ohio. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti are rival campaign managers who use loyalty as a weapon in their epic battle for victory.
Marisa Tomei plays a Times reporter angling for scoops on the campaign trail. And Evan Rachel Wood, a pretty campaign volunteer eager to play in the big leagues, is yet another figure giving female political interns a bad rap.
Clooney's idealistic presidential candidate, Pennsylvania Gov. Mike Morris, has a straightforward platform: He's nonreligious but defends the freedom of religion. He also opposes the death penalty and wants to phase out internal combustion engines to reduce American dependence on foreign oil.
Clooney plays the presidential candidate, but told reporters at the festival Wednesday he is not looking to be one in real life.
"As for running for president, look, there's a guy in office right now who is smarter than almost anyone you know, who's nicer and who has more compassion than almost anyone you know. And he's having an almost impossible time governing. Why would anybody volunteer for that job?" Clooney told a news conference.
"I have a really good job. I get to hang out with very seductive people. So I have no interest," Clooney said.
For Clooney, the film wasn't so much a political movie as a morality tale, exploring the question of whether the ends justify the means. The political arena "raised the stakes," a relaxed and jocular Clooney said, but the questions the film poses reside in many areas of life.
"You could literally put this in Wall Street, or you could put it pretty much anywhere. It's all the same sort of issues. It's issues of morality. It's issues of whether or not you are willing to trade your soul for an outcome," Clooney said.
In the film, many characters use seduction to get what they want: to get closer to power, to undermine the other campaign, to win political backing.
Giamatti called his character "an unabashedly seductive guy." His play to recruit Gosling's character to the rival campaign opens the film's exploration of loyalty and friendship in politics.
"My character is all about seduction ... the whole game of politics is a kind of sexy game in America, and I think (the movie) portrays it really well," Giamatti said.
And while Clooney and his fellow actors are willing to concede that Washington and Hollywood may share seduction and power as common currency, that doesn't mean the stakes are the same. Hollywood, they suggested, commands a disproportionate amount of popular attention.
"I do think there is a huge difference between Hollywood and Washington, you know, and what we are responsible for and what influence we wield. I think sometimes it gets forgotten, that the people who are governing us have a much more important position," Hoffman said.
The film's title — "The Ides of March" — highlights its undercurrent of betrayal. In Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, a soothsayer warns the leader of imminent betrayal with the line "beware the ides of March."
"We thought that some of these themes seemed to be somewhat Shakespearean," Clooney said. "We will leave it up to people to decide who is Cassius and who's Brutus and who's Julius Caesar. Everyone has different points of view."
It is hard to shake off the film's ultimate cynicism, which seems to reflect the current mood and gridlock in U.S. politics. But perhaps such a movie requires a cynical moment. Clooney said he shelved the movie in the face of brimming optimism following the 2008 election of President Barack Obama.
"It took about a year, and that was over," he said, with irony.
Still, he expressed hope that this, too, will pass.
"Cynicism seems to be winning over idealism right now. I think it will change. I hope it will change. Soon," Clooney said.
Clooney, who has a villa in northern Italy on Lake Como, is a familiar face at the Lido. He's directed or acted in six films that have been shown in Venice since 2003, including "Good Night and Good Luck," ''Burn After Reading" and "Michael Clayton."
"The Ides of March" is Clooney's first directorial effort to headline the festival. It is vying for the Golden Lion, which will be awarded Sept. 10.
Taylor Lautner Torn On Which 'Snow White' Is The Fairest In Hollywood
Which upcoming Snow White - Kristen Stewart or Lily Collins - is the fairest in the eyes of Taylor Lautner?
The actor weighed in on which of his co-stars, Kristen in "Snow White and the Huntsman" or Lily in "The Brothers Grimm: Snow White," will most capture the heart of the kingdom of Hollywood.
PLAY IT NOW: Exclusive Behind The Scenes: Taylor Lautner In ‘Abduction’
"It's tough," he told The Hollywood Reporter at the 2011 MTV VMAs on Sunday. "I mean, my excuse is they're so different. I can root for them both."
"Kristen's going to be cool and edgy and dark," he said of his "The Twilight Saga" co-star, who is seen wearing a suit of armor and wielding a sword in a promo shot for the movie. "It's gonna be something new for her and I think that's really exciting."
VIEW THE PHOTOS: See The Men Of ‘Twilight’ - Shirtless!
But Lily's version of the iconic fairytale character, where she is seen portrayed as a traditional princess, will also impress, according to Taylor.
"Lily's gonna be great too," Taylor said of his "Abduction" co-star. "And a completely different feel."
"The Brothers Grimm: Snow White," with Julia Roberts as The Evil Queen, will hit theaters on March 16, 2012 and "Snow White and the Huntsman," with Charlize Theron as The Evil Queen, makes its debut on June 1, 2012.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: ‘Twilight’ Heartthrob: Taylor Lautner
First up, catch Taylor in "Abduction," directed by John Singleton, on September 23.
Copyright 2011 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: ‘Twilight’s’ Leading Lady Kristen Stewart
RealD to outfit 100 Chinese theaters with 3D technology
A mother is lecturing her 23-year-old daughter about her love life, flailing a kitchen knife above her head for emphasis.
Top 10 star-studded indie films this fall
After creating a buzz at film fests, this year's independent films offer small but worthwhile stories with performances that could break out to capture audiences, critics and awards.
The following highlight some of the star-studded stand-outs that could be this year's Black Swan or The Fighter.
My Week with Marilyn
Release dates: November 4 in North America, followed by the UK and Scandinavia
Starring Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe, Kenneth Branagh as Laurence Olivier, Eddie Redmayne, Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi and Julia Ormond. An adaptation of Colin Clark's memoir about his time with Monroe on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl. Premieres at the New York Film Festival.
Website: http://myweekwithmarilynmovie.com
A Dangerous Method
Release dates: November 10 in Germany, 23 in North America and 30 in France
Starring Viggo Mortensen (The Road) as Sigmund Freud, Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class) as Carl Jung, Keira Knightley as the psychoanalysts' patient, and Victor Cassel. Director David Cronenberg (A History of Violence) adapts Christopher Hampton's play, A Talking Cure. Screens at Venice, Toronto and New York film fests.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsSP82TV3Bo
Website: http://adangerousmethod-themovie.com/
The Artist
Release dates: October 12 in France, November 23 in the US, followed by other markets
A black-and-white crowd-pleaser about a Hollywood silent movie star concerned about talkies when a scandal rocks his career. Stars Jean Dujardin (OSS 117), James Cromwell (Babe), John Goodman (Monsters Inc.) and Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange). Screened at Cannes and will play the Toronto Film Festival.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8K9AZcSQJE
Website: http://theartistmovie.net
W.E.
Release dates: December 9 in North America
Madonna's sophomore directorial effort, a romantic drama that focuses on the affair between King Edward VIII and American divorcée Wallis Simpson juxtaposed with the story of a contemporary couple -- a married woman and Russian security guard. Starring Andrea Riseborough (Made in Dagenham) and Abbie Cornish (Sucker Punch) and playing the Venice and Toronto film festivals.
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Release dates: October 21 in the US, then opens in Sweden, Germany, the UK and France
This psychological thriller features newcomer Elizabeth Olsen, the sister of twins Mary-Kate and Ashley, playing a haunted young woman who escapes a sinister cult and struggles to adjust. Also stars John Hawkes of Winter's Bone.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERREgOobLOs
Website: http://marthamarcymaymarlenemovie.com
Take Shelter
Release dates: September 30 in the US, followed by the UK, France and more
Starring Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road) and Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life, The Help), about a family coping with the father's mental illness and apocalyptic visions. First-time director Jeff Nichols was the winner at Cannes.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvlObjJWfpg
Website: http://www.takeshelterfilm.com
Coriolanus
Release dates: December 1-2 in Russia and the US, followed by the UK and others
Starring Ralph Fiennes in his directorial debut. This adaptation of Shakespeare's war drama is given a contemporary Balkan War setting. The revenge story of a banished former hero who allies with a sworn enemy, played by Gerard Butler (300, RocknRolla). Played at the Berlinale and will screen at the Toronto Film Festival.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsYrGIQnmxo
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Release dates: September 28 in France, October in the UK in October and December in the US
Stars Tilda Swinton (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) as the mother of a teenage mass murderer trying to face her son's crime. Based on Lionel Shriver's book and costarring John C. Reilly (Chicago). Played Cannes and screens at Toronto's film fest.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmf42pkfgZw
Melancholia
Release dates: September 30 in the UK, November in the US
Controversial director Lars von Trier delivers his best-reviewed film starring Kirsten Dunst (Best Actress at Cannes) and Charlotte Gainsbourg in a dystopian tale about a wedding on the eve of the end of the world. The ensemble cast includes Kiefer Sutherland (24), Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt, Alexander Skarsgård and his son Stellan Skarsgård (True Blood). Plays Toronto and New York film festivals.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J72-86JPd0E
Website: http://www.melancholiathemovie.com
The Rum Dairy
Release dates: October 28 in the US, followed by November in the UK and France
Starring Johnny Depp, who produced this film adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's novel about an American journalist on a booze-driven adventure in 1950s Puerto Rico. Directed by Bruce Robinson (Withnail & I) with Aaron Eckhart (Rabbit Hole) and Amber Heard (Pineapple Express).
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m0yqS3jodU
Among the other contenders vying for attention: Young Adult by director Jason Reitman (Up in the Air) with Charlize Theron, Albert Nobbs starring Glenn Close as a woman disguised as a man, and Like Crazy featuring Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones in the Grand Jury winner from Sundance.
RC
Sunday, September 4, 2011
David Bergstein sues former lawyer for $50 million
By Brent Lang
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Film financier David Bergstein is suing his former attorney Teri Zimon for $50 million, alleging that she helped encourage his creditors to drive him into involuntary bankruptcy.
Dozens of creditors have sued Bergstein in bankruptcy court, claiming that he engaged in a complicated shell game to cover up millions of dollars of losses and pay off gambling debts.
Throughout the over a year-long legal struggle, Bergstein has claimed that his former attorney Susan Tregub waged a campaign against him after he refused to pay her money she claimed he owed her and that her efforts helped lead to his financial difficulties.
Now Bergstein is painting a picture of a more complex sabotage plot, one that involved Zimon providing Tregub with confidential financial information and a creditors list while she was working for the film financier.
In a suit filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court, Bergstein and his company Graybox charge Zimon with breach of fiduciary duty, professional negligence and aiding a breach of fiduciary duty.
After Tregub's relationship with Bergstein soured in 2009, the suit claims Zimon helped the attorney get back at her old boss by furnishing her with a list of people that the film financier owed money to and might be willing to sue him in bankruptcy court.
"Zimon, along with her friend and her partner-in-crime Tregub, has engaged in an orchestrated campaign that violates the core ethical obligations of the legal profession and then lied and manipulated evidence to cover her transgressions," the suit reads. "Zimon has made every effort to avoid the day or reckoning but cannot hide any longer."
Neither Zimon nor an attorney for Bergstein immediately responded to requests for comment.
The suit claims that Zimon engaged in all of these efforts to subvert Bergstein while she was still his counsel. It alleges that Zimon had a friendship with Tregub that pre-dated her work for Bergstein, and claims that Tregub urged him to hire the attorney.
Bergstein also claims that Zimon has gone to great lengths to cover up her efforts on behalf of Tregub, ducking a subpoena and refusing to produce emails and other documents.
Bergstein sued Tregub in March 2010, alleging that she violated her fiduciary duties and breached his confidentiality.
Last spring a federal bankruptcy court judge pushed five of Bergstein controlled companies into Chapter 11.
(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)
DreamWorks Animation teams with Chinese internet company
A mother is lecturing her 23-year-old daughter about her love life, flailing a kitchen knife above her head for emphasis.
Clooney kicks off star-powered Venice film fest
VENICE, Italy (Reuters) - George Clooney kicks off the 2011 Venice film festival on Wednesday with the world premiere of his political drama "The Ides of March," setting the tone for a star-studded 11 days on the Lido waterfront.
The 50-year-old Hollywood heavyweight acts in and directs the movie based on Beau Willimon's play "Farragut North," and appearing alongside him is Ryan Gosling as an idealistic young press secretary to Clooney's governor Mike Morris.
The evening red carpet screening marks the opening of the August 31-September 10 event, which promises eagerly awaited movies and A-list stars who will hope the high-profile launch puts them in the frame for awards next year.
Thousands of journalists and fans are descending on the Lido island across the water from Venice to catch a glimpse of their idols and bring the glamour of the world's oldest film festival to a global audience.
The roll call of celebrities expected this year includes Clooney, Colin Firth, Keira Knightley, Matthew McConaughey, Kate Winslet, Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and pop superstar Madonna.
It marks a significant turnaround for director Marco Mueller, who was criticized last year for a low-key festival and faces growing competition from the annual rival event in Toronto which overlaps with Venice.
"It is a program that tells you how much support we get from the artists, the film makers ... and it proves that Venice really stands as a major platform to create a special kind of visibility," Mueller told Reuters.
Among the most hotly anticipated titles is "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," an adaptation of John Le Carre's spy novel starring recent Oscar winner Colin Firth and Gary Oldman.
Other standout titles in competition include Briton Andrea Arnold's take on the Emily Bronte novel "Wuthering Heights," U.S. director Ami Canaan Mann's "Texas Killing Fields" and William Friedkin's "Killer Joe."
In "A Dangerous Method," Canadian David Cronenberg explores the rivalry between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud as a young woman (Knightley) comes between them.
Roman Polanski worked on the screenplay for his latest movie "Carnage," featuring Winslet, Jodie Foster and Christoph Waltz, while under house arrest in Switzerland last year.
The 78-year-old was eventually freed after the Swiss authorities decided not to extradite him to the United States, where he is still wanted for sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 in Los Angeles.
Acclaimed Russian director Alexander Sokurov brings "Faust" and Hong Kong's Johnnie To presents "Life Without Principle," a story touching on the economic crisis and its effect on ordinary people.
Outside the main lineup, Madonna makes her second foray into feature films with "W.E.," a drama loosely based on divorcee Wallis Simpson whose relationship with Britain's King Edward VIII led to his abdication in 1936.
Egyptian documentary "Tahrir 2011" covers the revolution and overthrow of the old regime, Philippe Faucon explores radical Islam in "La Desintegration" and Al Pacino plays himself and King Herod in "Wilde Salome."
Steven Soderbergh promises an all-star cast including Damon, Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Law and Paltrow in "Contagion," about a lethal airborne virus that spreads panic.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White)
MoviePass tries unlimited plan again, this time with help
NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - MoviePass, the controversial unlimited movie ticket plan whose June launch was aborted when theaters refused to participate, has sidestepped reluctant exhibitors and announced plans to launch again in early 2012.
Under the Netflix-style program, moviegoers will be able to pay a monthly fee and receive unlimited tickets. The price for the service, according to a Tuesday press release announcing the relaunch, will vary depending on the average ticket price in each locale.
The initial test of the service was to have taken place in San Francisco, where moviegoers would have paid $50 a month for unlimited admission.
The relaunch was made possible by a partnership between MoviePass and the Hollywood Movie Money system, which has 36,000 participating theaters in its network. MoviePass subscribers will be able to print out Movie Money vouchers and redeem them at theaters, which will receive the full price of admission.
MoviePass will make money on the program if subscribers end up underusing the service.
MoviePass had originally planned to launch in late June in San Francisco, but exhibitors were angered when it turned out that the service had not consulted with theaters before announcing the program.
At the time, Landmark Theatres CEO Ted Mundorff told TheWrap that he was "stunned" that the announcement was made, and added, "We are not interested in outside entities setting ticket prices for us." The AMC chain issued a press release decrying a program that it said "does not integrate well into our programs and could create significant guest experience issues."
When virtually all the theater chains involved refused to honor MoviePass vouchers, the company pulled the program and promised to relaunch after educating exhibitors about the plan.
But MoviePass instead appears to have done an end run around theaters by partnering with Hollywood Movie Money, which has preexisting contracts with many exhibitors. (AMC, which refused to honor MoviePass vouchers in June, is part of the Movie Money network; Landmark Theatres is not.)
Users will be able to subscribe to the monthly service at www.moviepass.com, and a full mobile version of MoviePass is to launch in early 2012.
The beta service will first be available by invitation only. Charter subscribers will be able to share invitations with friends and family.
MoviePass did not reveal details about the service. In the original June test, subscribers were limited to one movie per day and one ticket per film.
"Because MoviePass will be paying theaters the full price of admission using the Hollywood Movie Money system, the theater industry benefits as well as the fans," Ron Randolph-Wall, CEO of Quantum Rewards, which operates Hollywood Movie Money, said in the press release.
"With theater attendance down we believe that any opportunity to drive moviegoers back to theaters benefits exhibitors, studios and the creative community alike."
MoviePass co-founder Stacy Spikes added: "Great movies are meant to be seen on the big screen, and we are passionate about delivering an innovative service that will give fans more reasons to go to the movies."
Mel Gibson to pay $750,000 to settle custody case
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mel Gibson will pay $750,000 to his ex-girlfriend and continue to provide housing and financial support for their young daughter to resolve a bitter, long-running legal fight, a judge said Wednesday.
The settlement is intended to end the bickering and accusations that have permeated the case handled in mostly secret proceedings for more than a year, Superior Court Judge Peter Lichtman said.
Gibson's payments to Russian musician Oksana Grigorieva are dependent on a lasting truce.
As part of the agreement, their daughter will receive support equal to what the actor-director provides his other seven children. The former couple will split custody of the girl, who turns 2 in late October.
In addition, Gibson will keep paying for a multimillion house he purchased for Grigorieva and their daughter. The house will be sold when the girl turns 18 and she will receive the proceeds.
As a result of the settlement, Grigorieva cannot pursue a civil case against the Oscar winner, and both sides were ordered not to speak or write about their relationship.
Lichtman specifically said neither side could release any audio recordings, an apparent reference to a series of racist and sexist rants by Gibson that were leaked to the celebrity website RadarOnline.com.
Grigorieva's payments were divided into thirds, with the final payment occurring in 2016 if the agreement is not breached.
Gibson spoke a handful of times during the hearing, mainly to acknowledge he understood terms of the settlement.
"I'd like to say thanks your honor for bringing this matter to a reasonable conclusion," the "Braveheart" star said.
Grigorieva also thanked the judge and said she hoped the resolution meant Gibson's career could resume.
___
Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/celebritydocket
Alyssa Milano Gives Birth To Baby Boy
Alyssa Milano was spotted looking very pregnant earlier this week leaving a gym, but now, she's tucked up, enjoying life as a new mom - the former "Who's The Boss?" actress has given birth.
Alyssa and her husband, David Bugliari, welcomed their son on Wednesday morning at 9:27 AM, the couple confirmed in a statement to Access Hollywood.
PLAY IT NOW: On The Set: 'My Name Is Earl' - Alyssa Milano
"Alyssa Milano and her husband, agent David Bugliari proudly announce the birth of their son, Milo Thomas Bugliari," the statement to Access read.
Milo weighed 7 pounds at birth and was 19 inches long.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Hollywood Dads & Their Adorable Little Ones!
Alyssa first revealed that she was having a boy back in March, via her personal website.
The actress, a star of the concluded television series "Charmed," married David in 2009 at the Bugliari family estate in New Jersey.
The couple first met in 2006.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Former Child Stars
Copyright 2011 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Rebuilding lives and Ground Zero post-9/11 in "Rebirth"
Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
"Midnight in Paris" actor mans up for Hemingway role
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Corey Stoll, though not a household name, was a major player in "Midnight in Paris," a movie that remained in picture houses all summer long and made more money than any other movie from the director Woody Allen.
Stoll spoke to TheWrap about acting, the motion picture business and how he played Ernest Hemingway in "Midnight in Paris."
Did you have any sense of the kind of phenomenon this movie was going to be?
No. I expected it to get the attention that Woody Allen movies have been getting over the last decade or so. I knew it was going to get out there, and I knew that even if it ended up being a minor Woody Allen film, it's still going to last. But you never know how many people are going to see it.
But it's funny, because my girlfriend knew. We were shooting it in Paris, and she saw the people and the costumes and everything and said, "People are really going to react to this. This is going to be a big hit." I think I had lower expectations, but I'm glad that she was right.
Do people recognize you as Hemingway now, or does the fact that you wear a wig in the movie and have a shaved head in real life prevent that?
It's only happened a couple of times in New York and L.A. What happens is that people recognize me from my time as Detective Jaruszalski on "Law & Order: Los Angeles," and if they're business savvy they may know that I also did this movie.
Are you getting more scripts now, and different kinds of scripts?
All of the above. In theater, people have been putting wigs on me for years, and within that community the idea that I have more visual range was a given. And now it's opened things up a bit in Hollywood, too.
You got the call from Woody Allen after he saw you in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge." Do you know if he'd seen you in anything else?
I think it was just that. Luckily, in the play I had a wig, I had a mustache, I was in period clothes and I was playing the manliest man you can imagine.
Your character, in a way, is an idealized and romanticized version of Hemingway. Did you try to make him look and sound like the real person?
No. I listened to the only voice recording I could find, which was him accepting the Nobel Prize. And it's just not your image of Hemingway at all. His voice was actually kind of high and reedy, with a little bit of a lisp. It doesn't fit at all with what we see in the film, which is Hemingway as the model of a purposely-led life.
I was more concerned with reading his material and seeing what he said about himself, because that's the image that Owen Wilson's character would have, and that's what the movie is about. It's a time-travel movie, but I don't really know the realities of what is supposed to be happening. My assumption is, I'm playing the iconic writer, the idea that is instilled in all of our minds of Hemingway, not the real person.
It's really a license to chew the scenery.
Well, there are some people who think it's totally cartoony, but I was sensitive to the fact that he's such a beloved writer. There are a lot of American men who see him as the ideal man, and I didn't want to mock him. But when I got to the set, there were certain times that Woody was encouraging me to go in directions that were sort of comedic. I was preparing as if I was going to play him in a biopic, and I'd forgotten that it was a comedy.
Typically, he gives his actors only the script pages on which they appear.
Yeah. Only Owen Wilson got the whole script.
Did you ever see the rest of the script, or learn the entire story?
On the first day I asked Owen what's happening, and he sort of gave me the rundown. So I had a basic idea, with a lot of holes. But I don't think for my character it was really important. I think sometimes actors having a holistic view of what they're in can be overrated. Especially when you're playing somebody as narcissistic and self-involved as Ernest Hemingway, it doesn't really matter what else is in the script. Whenever my character's on the screen, it's all about him.
So are you getting a lot of scripts to play manly men now?
Yes, a few. (laughs) Which is fun. And that was a fun little trick to play on myself when I was doing this movie. There were a lot of things that were pretty intimidating: working with a legendary director and Academy Award-winning actors, playing this literary god. So there were times when I sort of had to will myself to be as confident as the character. It was fun, to pretend that I am the cockiest guy on earth.
Gibson to pay ex $750K to settle nasty legal fight
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mel Gibson will pay $750,000 to his ex-girlfriend and continue to provide housing and financial support for their young daughter to resolve a bitter legal fight that followed sexist, racist rants attributed to the actor.
The settlement disclosed Wednesday is intended to end the bickering and accusations that have permeated the case handled in mostly secret proceedings for more than a year, Judge Peter Lichtman said.
Gibson's payments to Russian musician Oksana Grigorieva are dependent on a lasting truce.
As part of the agreement, their daughter will receive support equal to what the actor-director provides for his other seven children. The former couple will split custody of the girl, who turns 2 in late October.
In addition, Gibson will keep paying for a multimillion house he purchased for Grigorieva and their daughter. The house will be sold when the girl turns 18 and she will receive the proceeds.
As a result of the settlement, Grigorieva cannot pursue a civil case against the Oscar winner, and both sides were ordered not to speak or write about their relationship or allegations of domestic abuse.
Lichtman specifically said neither side could release any audio recordings, an apparent reference to the series of rants that were leaked to the celebrity website RadarOnline.com.
"You look like a (expletive) bitch in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of (N-word), it will be your fault," the voice is heard telling Grigorieva in one tape. "You provoked it. You are provocatively dressed."
In another snippet released by the website, Grigorieva is heard describing how Gibson hit her in the face, and she questions his manhood. The response: "You know what, you ... (expletive) deserved it!"
Gibson has never publicly discussed the recordings and his attorneys did not refute they were the actor during a May court hearing in which Grigorieva agreed not to introduce them as evidence in the custody case.
Grigorieva's payments were divided into thirds, with the final payment occurring in 2016 if the agreement is not breached.
Gibson spoke a handful of times during the hearing, mainly to acknowledge he understood terms of the settlement.
"I'd like to say thanks your honor for bringing this matter to a reasonable conclusion," the "Braveheart" star said.
Grigorieva also thanked the judge and said she hoped the resolution meant Gibson's career could resume.
She previously accused Gibson of striking her during a fight in January 2010, and the actor-director pleaded no contest to one count of misdemeanor domestic battery earlier this year.
Sheriff's detectives also investigated Gibson's claims that Grigorieva attempted to extort him, but prosecutors declined to file charges.
Gibson's attorneys are still working to finalize his divorce from his wife of nearly 28 years.
Laura Wasser, who represents Gibson's wife Robyn, told a judge Tuesday that they were putting the finishing touches on the divorce judgment and it should be completed in a few weeks.
___
Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/celebritydocket
"The Help" holds on at top of storm-hit box office
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The hard-working maids of "The Help" hung on to the top of a storm-battered box office over the weekend and beat a trio of new releases with $14.3 million in domestic ticket sales, studio estimates released on Sunday showed.
Hurricane Irene forced the closure of theaters in big markets such as New York and kept moviegoers home along a broad stretch of the East Coast. Domestic ticket sales came in 23 percent lower than the same weekend a year earlier, according to figures from Hollywood.com.
"The Help," a drama about black housekeepers in Civil Rights-era Mississippi, took the top spot in the North American (U.S. and Canadian) market for the second straight weekend. The DreamWorks-produced film adaptation of a best-selling novel by Kathryn Stockett has grossed $96.6 million since it opened three weeks ago, distributor Walt Disney Co said.
The bad weather did not help new releases on a late summer weekend that was expected to be slow even without a major storm.
Action movie "Colombiana" debuted in second place with an estimated $10.3 million, ahead of studio forecasts of around $8 million. The film features actress Zoe Saldana as a woman who witnesses her parents' murder as a child in Bogota and grows up to be an assassin seeking revenge.
"The picture is off to a good start, storm or no storm," said Rory Bruer, president of worldwide distribution for Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp that released the film.
Horror movie "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark," starring Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce, finished third with domestic sales of $8.7 million.
"Our key large urban East Coast markets were really killed" by the hurricane, said Bob Berney, president of theatrical distribution for FilmDistrict. For example, the movie took in nearly $21,000 at one Manhattan theater on Friday and zero on Saturday, Berney said.
"APES" STILL STRONG
Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst with Hollywood.com, said there was "no question" the hurricane had a "significant negative impact" on ticket sales.
"That said, this was never preordained to be a blockbuster kind of weekend and late August is typically a slowdown period for the summer movie season," he said.
Sci-fi movie "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" finished fourth with $8.7 million, bringing its domestic total to $148.5 million over four weeks. Internationally, the film about rampaging, genetically enhanced chimps has grossed $158.5 million.
Combining domestic and international markets, "Apes" has climbed to a strong $307 million to date. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.
A new comedy, "Our Idiot Brother," landed in fifth place for the weekend with $6.6 million domestically. The movie stars Paul Rudd as an underachieving but big-hearted sibling who disrupts the lives of his three sisters.
The film likely felt the brunt of Irene's box-office punch as the movie had been expected to perform well in New York, said Erik Lomis, president of distribution for The Weinstein Co, which released the movie. "We got hit hardest in our best area. It's an East Coast comedy," Lomis said.
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Bill Trott and Sandra Maler)
This story corrects the spelling of “Colombiana” in paragraph 5.
Hollywood films take on serious edge for fall
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After a summer filled with superheroes, apes running amok and trash-talking comedians, Hollywood's upcoming fall movies focus less on effects-filled blockbusters and more on performance-driven films.
With kids back at school, summer's youth-oriented comic book flicks give way to more serious dramas as some of the world's top filmmakers jockey for position in the annual awards season that culminates with February's Oscars.
"Fall is the time where popcorn movie stars get to stretch their muscles a little bit and do things that are creatively rewarding," said Dave Karger of Entertainment Weekly magazine.
Starting September 9, director Steven Soderbergh explores panic in "Contagion," a thriller about a virus outbreak that kills millions -- some of whom may be among his all-star cast including Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Laurence Fishburne.
"The virus doesn't speak and it doesn't have a brain, but this thing is alive and it wants to stay alive and propagate," Soderbergh told Reuters of the plague -- which is arguably the real star -- in "Contagion."
On September 30, box office comedy star Seth Rogen headlines independently-made cancer film "50/50," while Daniel "James Bond" Craig dons the role of a married father who unknowingly moves his family into a home that was once the scene of grisly murders in director Jim Sheridan's thriller "Dream House."
Not to be outdone, "Captain America" star Chris Evans plays a heroin addicted attorney in "Puncture" (September 23) and Johnny Depp takes a break from his "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies to star as a down and out newspaperman in Puerto Rico in "The Rum Diary," based on the Hunter S. Thompson novel (October 28).
SPORTS, HORROR AND OSCARS
Sports-related films also figure prominently in the fall lineup. On September 9, mixed martial arts -- a sport which is rapidly gaining mainstream popularity -- sees its traditional cage fighting taken to a new level in "Warrior" as two estranged brothers (Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton) are pitted against the other.
Brad Pitt stars as the Oakland A's general manager who revives his baseball team by using computer-generated math analysis in "Moneyball" (September 23).
Hugh Jackman portrays a father who, with his son, restores a robot and enters the world of remote-controlled boxing in "Real Steel" (October 7). And if auto racing is your thing, Ryan Gosling plays a Hollywood stuntdriver who moonlights as getaway driver in "Drive" (September 16).
With Halloween nearing, October is ripe with horror, from edge-of-your seat thrillers to campy fright films. Antonio Banderas is a demented plastic surgeon in Pedro Almodovar's "The Skin I Live In" (October 14), two cops probe a series of murders in "Texas Killing Fields" (October 7), John Carpenter's "The Thing" gets a prequel (October 14), and ghostly footage is again captured in "Paranormal Activity 3" (October 21).
While the late fall traditionally features a glut of Oscar contenders, some films are getting an early jump on the competition. On October 7, Academy Award winner George Clooney stars in, directs and produces the political drama "The Ides of March," co-staring perennial Oscar favorites Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti.
On November 4, two-time nominee Michelle Williams stars as Marilyn Monroe in "My Week With Marilyn" and on November 9, four-time Oscar winner Clint Eastwood's directs "J. Edgar," which carries a strong Hollywood pedigree -- Oscar winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black ("Milk") and three-time nominee Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role.
COMEDIES AND CROWDS
But Hollywood is not only focused on awards. It also needs big sales at box offices, and the industry's major studios can always count on comedies to lure audiences.
Funny girl Anna Faris revisits all her past relationships in "What's Your Number?" (September 30). Jack Black, Owen Wilson and Steve Martin are three competitive bird watchers in "The Big Year" (October 14), and Adam Sandler plays both a family man and the character's abrasive twin sister who refuses to leave his home after Thanksgiving in "Jack & Jill" (November 11).
November 4 becomes a triple-threat action-packed comedy weekend: Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy star in director Brett Ratner's "Tower Heist." "Shrek's" favorite sword-wielding kitty cat gets his own spin-off film in the animated "Puss in Boots," and those two stoners, Harold and Kumar (along with Neil Patrick Harris) are back for another inappropriate adventure in "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas."
But those won't be the only three choices over that crowded November 4 weekend. "Another Happy Day" with Demi Moore and "The Son of No One" starring Channing Tatum and Al Pacino are also in the mix.
The October 14 weekend is jam-packed, too. Joining the bird watchers in "The Good Year" and Almodovar's "The Skin I Live In" are a remake of the 1984 classic "Footloose" starring "Dancing with Stars" alumnus Julianne Hough. And the indie drama "Fireflies in the Garden," with Julia Roberts and Ryan Reynolds, also hits theaters that weekend.
"There are many movies per week to be found this fall," said Entertainment Weekly's Karger. "In the summer, studios get spooked. Once a 'Pirates' or a 'Hangover' claims a weekend, nobody wants to be against it. In the fall, with less tentpole movies around, the weekends don't feel as sacred. Any week seems viable."
But there is no need to feel overwhelmed, said EW's chief film writer, because there are simply "more hidden treasures."
"Fall is when you can find movies that are a little bit off the beaten path that still have interesting people in them," he said. "It's unpredictable."
(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
Mel Gibson settles for $750,000 with Grigorieva
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor Mel Gibson will pay the mother of his 22 month-old daughter $750,000 and get joint custody of the child, ending a bitter custody and financial dispute that badly damaged his Hollywood career.
The "Braveheart" director and his former musician girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva agreed to a settlement detailed in a Los Angeles Superior Court hearing on Wednesday following a more than year-long war of words.
Judge Peter Lichtman banned both Gibson and Grigorieva from writing books about their relationship, which unraveled in early 2010 amid accusations of violence and extortion.
"I would like to thank your honor for bringing this matter to a reasonable conclusion," Gibson told Lichtman at Wednesday's hearing.
Grigorieva, who had been seeking millions of dollars from the Oscar-winning actor, thanked Lichtman for "the tremendous help to resolve this situation."
The acrimony between the couple became public a year ago when taped phone calls were leaked online in which Gibson was heard ranting, cursing and insulting Grigorieva.
The leak appeared to have been aimed at putting pressure on the actor to increase an initial settlement offer to Grigorieva that was reported to be around $15 million. Los Angeles prosecutors later decided against charging Grigorieva with extortion.
In March, Gibson admitted slapping Grigorieva during an argument and was sentenced to three years probation.
The widely-heard tapes further tarnished a reputation damaged by Gibson's 2006 anti-Semitic tirade following a drunk driving arrest in Malibu.
His manager quit, he lost a cameo role in "The Hangover: Part Two" because other people refused to work with him, and the release of his movie "The Beaver" was delayed and ultimately flopped at box offices in May.
Gibson, who was once estimated to be worth $900 million after a string of hit movies like "Lethal Weapon" and "The passion of the Christ", reached a private settlement with his wife Robyn in June that wrapped up their divorce after 28 years of marriage.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
Former unknown model now a rising star
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - A few months ago, she was unknown. Now she's ubiquitous.
Jessica Chastain isn't yet a household name, but the 30-year-old California native and Julliard graduate has turned 2011 into a remarkable cinematic coming-out party.
It started with Terrence Malick's adventurous "The Tree of Life," in which she played Brad Pitt's wife and the ultimate nurturing mother figure.
She's currently on screens in the hit "The Help," as the ditzy but open-minded black sheep of a racist Mississippi town.
Still to come: Jeff Nichols' festival favorite "Take Shelter," in which she plays a long-suffering wife whose husband (played by Michael Shannon) has disturbing visions of ecological catastrophe. And "Coriolanus," director/star Ralph Fiennes visceral Shakespeare adaptation, in which she's the title character's wife. And Al Pacino's daring documentary "Wilde Salome," the unconventional chronicle of a Pacino staging of Oscar Wilde's "Salome," in which Chastain plays the title character.
More? There's "Texas Killing Fields," a murder drama from Ami Canaan Mann, the daughter of director Michael Mann. And "The Wettest County in the World," a Depression-era crime drama bought by the Weinstein Co. at Cannes.
Before those last five movies hit theaters, though, Chastain will show up in "Shakespeare in Love" director John Madden's "The Debt" which opens on Wednesday.
The story follows a trio of Israeli Mossad agents, including Chastain, who track down and capture a Nazi war criminal; it flashes back and forth between the agents' original assignment in the 1960s, and its haunting aftermath 30 years later.
"She's got a whole bunch of movies coming out, which she's quite nervous about," said Madden of Chastain. "She's not nervous about the movies themselves, but the fact that she's suddenly going to be everywhere. The commodification of young actresses is such a desperately difficult thing to negotiate, really, because the female move star is still the biggest and best way to sell publications and other things, I'm afraid."
Chastain spoke to TheWrap about her new movies and career.
Q: You've got this deluge of movies on the way. Regardless of when you shot them, you've got to talk about them all at once.
A: "Yeah. I have two films in every festival: two in Deauville, two in Venice and two in Toronto. Plus an international press tour for "The Debt," plus "Take Shelter" press.
"And I'd already done a lot of press for "Tree of Life," because of course Terrence Malick doesn't do press. And then I had "The Help" -- I did press for that and then went to the premiere the day before I started doing press for "The Debt." It's a good thing I like these movies."
Q: In a way, this whole stretch began at Cannes, which must have been surreal for you. "Take Shelter" won the grand prize in the Critics Week sidebar, and then three days later "The Tree of Life" won the Palme d'Or.
A: "And there was a bidding war for "The Wettest County in the World," which Harvey Weinstein bought! I just can't get my mind around it. It was really my first festival like that, and I had these great characters in these really interesting movies. Of course there's Terrence Malick and Brad Pitt, but there's also this very small film I made for like $100 a day.
"So the fact that we take both films and we win the grand prize and the screenwriter's prize at Critics Week for "Take Shelter," and then the Palme d'Or for "Tree of Life," and then there's a crazy bidding war for "Wettest County," I don't think there could ever have been a better introduction.
"I'm smart enough to know it will never happen again. For some reason all the stars were aligned for that festival for me. But don't expect this again, Jessica, because then you're going to go crazy.
Q: As an unknown, how did you sell yourself to Madden?
A: "I knew I really had to fight for it, but I loved the script. I said, 'I know you don't know who I am, but I went to Julliard, I love doing accents, I'll train in martial arts and take a German course, I'll study the Holocaust...'
"And I had heard that it was probably going to be Helen Mirren, so I said, "...and I know it's probably going to be Helen Mirren. She's 5-foot-4 and I'm 5-foot-4. And you don't want a really famous face, because you've got to buy that it's a young Helen Mirren. I was really aggressive in that meeting, and a month later I had a screen test."
Q: Is that a "be careful what you wish for" moment, when you find that you and Helen Mirren are playing the same person?
A: "Oh, I was incredibly fearful. She's a goddess. How am I ever going to have .08 percent of the power and the force that she has?
"Having said that, she was incredibly generous with me, even though we didn't have any scenes together.
"We worked on the accent together to make sure we had the same voice, and talked about the back story, what happened with Rachel's family, where is she coming from, why she joined Mossad.
"And then some physical gestures. For example, there are sections where the younger Rachel and the older Rachel both answer the question, "What were you thinking at the time?" And her response both times was, "I was thinking of my mother, it helped me get through it."
"We decided that when she says it, we would both put our hand over our heart when she says the word mother. It was Helen's idea. She said, "It's like a fake answer that you say over and over again. It's kind of like when people ask you the same question during press, and you get to the point where it becomes routine, like you stop thinking of it." And because it's a lie, it's absolutely Rachel playing a part.
"When you first see it you might think of it as Rachel being spontaneous, but no, this is Rachel playing a role. I don't know if an audience will even pick up on that, but we tried to pepper the role with little things like that.
Q: Madden was talking about the commodification of young actresses, and how hard it is to avoid it. Are you worried?
A: "Yeah. I always try to stretch myself and do things that I've never done before. I hope I'm going to be the actor that people won't know what to do with. Maybe that means I'll be really bad in some films. And I'm willing to be bad in some films, because the actors that I truly love do things like that."
Q: In June I went to the Palm Springs Shorts Festival, where I saw a short film, "The Westerner," that starred your 12-year-old brother Daniel. You Chastains are inescapable this year.
A: "Oh, I thought he was so good in that film. He breaks my heart. I asked him afterward, 'Do you think this is something you might want to do?' 'Nope.' 'You don't want to make any more films?' 'No, I'm good.'"
Stunt double sues warner claiming brain damage
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - A stunt double who worked on the set of "The Hangover Part 2" is suing Warner Brothers, claiming that he incurred brain damage while filming the comedy -- and no, it wasn't incurred from drinking massive amounts of booze.
In a lawsuit filed in California's Central District Court, Scott McLean, who served as Ed Helms' stunt double in the hit Todd Phillips-directed sequel, claims that he was seriously injured while performing a stunt for the film in December 2010 in Thailand.
McLean, who was riding as a passenger in a car during the stunt, claims that, while the stunt was in progress, the timing sequence was abruptly changed, and the speed of McLean's vehicle was increased "significantly to a speed unsafe for the stunt, thus resulting in a major collision" with an oncoming vehicle.
As a result of the crash, the suit claims, McLean "suffered serious brain and other physical injuries, and was in a medically induced coma for almost two months."
According to the suit, the stunt man, who was airlifted from Thailand to an Australian rehab facility where she still resides, sustained injuries that include "likely permanent brain and physical injuries."
The suit also seeks relief for McLean's caretaker, Raelene Chapman, who has been "unable to work" and "suffered emotional distress" due to the experience.
McLean and Chapman are seeking unspecified damages, plus court costs.
In a statement obtained by TheWrap, Warner said, "We were shocked and saddened by this accident and have been working closely with Scott and his family throughout his treatment and recovery. We have offered continual support since the accident occurred and we are working together to try and resolve any outstanding issues."
This isn't the first legal entanglement that the hit comedy has had to contend with; before the movie even hit theaters, the artist who designed Mike Tyson's face tattoo attempted to block its release because Helms sported a similar design in the movie. A judge denied the request.
Friday, September 2, 2011
"The Debt" is a taut thriller worth watching
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Usually when a movie's release is delayed by nearly a year, warning signals go off that it may be turkey time.
That's not the case with "The Debt," an intriguing thriller that was slated to open in late 2010 but got lost in the corporate shuffle when Disney sold Miramax. It's finally showing up in multiplexes now, and was worth the wait.
"The Debt" is a taut spy thriller that's an English-language remake by director John Madden ("Shakespeare in Love") of "Ha-Hove," a 2007 Israeli film. It tells the fictional story of a trio of Mossad agents tasked to capture a sadistic former Nazi (Danish actor Jesper Christensen) in East Berlin in 1965. Now practicing under an assumed name as a obstetrician-gynecologist, he was once known as Surgeon of Birkenau.
The three agents are Rachel (Jessica Chastain), a newly-minted agent who will pose as a patient to trap the doctor, David (Sam Worthington), and team leader Stephen (Marton Csokas). During the course of the mission, both men will find themselves attracted to Rachel.
The movie keeps shifting between these three undertaking their mission and 1997, when the former comrades are asked to reunite in Israel to mark the publication of a book depicting their exploits. Now in late middle age, the trio's members -- Helen Mirren is the older Rebecca, Ciaran Hinds is David, and Tom Wilkinson is Stephen -- have clearly long harbored a secret related to what happened in East Berlin that is causing them varying degrees of distress.
The film is most effective in its '60s sequences, as it shows in riveting detail how the team, despite conflicts and squabbles, plans and carries out its high-risk mission. When "The Debt" shifts to scenes featuring the older versions of the characters, the relationships and motivations become fuzzier. Part of that is due to the fact that the older characters, as well as the movie, are keeping secrets until pretty far along.
Chastain, this summer and fall's It Girl (with "Tree of Life" and "The Help" having already opened and "Texas Killing Fields" and the next Terrence Malick movie still to come), gives a vivid performance as the young Rachel. She and the always-fascinating Mirren are a seamless match, with both displaying a tense physicality.
Worthington shows a greater range and vulnerability here than he did in either "Avatar" or "Clash of the Titans," where he mostly just flexed his pecs. He may be a genuine movie star yet.
Opening in the final days of summer, "The Debt" is a sharp harbinger of fall, signaling that the grown-up movie season is just around the bend.
Eisner's next film to be released next month
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Michael Eisner's Vuguru will release its next film, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," on September 20 -- the day the military's policy on gay people in the armed services is set to expire -- the company said Wednesday.
Marc Wolf wrote and stars in the movie, which tells the stories of 18 people who were affected by the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rule.
It's based on his Obie-winning Off Broadway play, "Another American: Asking and Telling."
The characters include Army Staff Sgt. Miriam Ben Shalom, who was dishonorably discharged after the Army learned she is gay, Navy officer Al Portes, who testified before a Congressional committee that he "will refuse to serve with gays in the military," a mother whose son was killed by his squad because he was gay and others.
Under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which Congress repealed this year, gay people could be members of the armed services as long as they weren't openly gay and didn't acknowledge their sexual orientation. Other members of the military were prohibited from asking them their sexual orientation. But they could be forced out of the service for disclosing their sexual orientation -- or if someone else did.
John C. Walsh directed the film. Daryl Roth produced.
Larry Tanz, president of Vuguru, said that the company will unveil a multi-platform distribution plan in the next few days.
Santa Barbara film fest launches acquisitions program
A mother is lecturing her 23-year-old daughter about her love life, flailing a kitchen knife above her head for emphasis.
Watch out Oscar! Here come the film festivals
By Steve Pond LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The awards picture is now a muddle, but in a month it'll be a lot clearer. The reason: film festivals.
The Venice International Film Festival begins on Wednesday, and continues through September 10. The Telluride Film Festival starts on Friday and runs through Sunday.
And the Toronto Film Festival kicks off on Thursday, September 8 and runs through September 18.
These three festivals (plus a slightly smaller player, the Deauville Festival du Cinema Americain) paves the way for the New York Film Festival (September 30-October 16), the Aspen Film Festival (September 21-25), the AFI Fest (November 3-10) and the other festivals that litter the fall movie season.
But we won't have to wait for those other festivals to have some answers about this year's contenders. By the time the smoke clears in mid-September, we should have a sense of the following pressing questions:
>> Which of the two George Clooney movies, "The Ides of March" and "The Descendants," stands the best chance of impressing the Academy?
>> Can "Moneyball" appeal to an audience of more than just baseball fans?
>> Do directors as diverse as David Cronenberg Steven Soderbergh, Fernando Meirelles and even Madonna (!) have what it takes this year?
More than 250 films will screen in Toronto, 50 in Venice and another 30 to 40 in Telluride. A festival rundown:
Venice Film Festival
The oldest of the three film festivals is also the most old world, both in its setting and in the fact that its jury clearly isn't exactly representative of Academy voters. Last year's winner, for example, was Sofia Coppola's austere and European-style "Somewhere," which was completely overlooked by the Academy.
Toronto, on the other hand, has an audience award rather than a jury, and last year the top prize went to "The King's Speech."
Venice has booked a few films that aren't making it to Toronto, most notably Roman Polanski's "Carnage," Tomas Alfredson's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and Soderbergh's "Contagion," plus a lot that will screen in Italy and then immediately head for Canada (perhaps with a detour through Telluride along the way): "The Ides of March," "A Dangerous Method," "Coriolanus" and Madonna's take on the Wallis Simpson story, "W.E."
Most of those Venice films are scheduled for the first half of the festival, conveniently giving filmmakers and media a chance to get to Toronto. Darren Aronofsky, whose "Black Swan" premiered in Venice last year, heads the jury.
Telluride
The Colorado festival is the smallest and quirkiest: it doesn't announce its lineup ahead of time and doesn't give media or professional passes. Most everybody pays $780 for three days of movie going, and the money's due before they tell you what you'll be seeing.
Telluride's advantages: The small-town atmosphere makes it easygoing; the steep prices ensure committed filmgoers; and it can book films that might otherwise be withheld if announcing them meant that Toronto would lose its ability to advertise world premieres.
For example, Toronto is billing Alexander Payne's "The Descendants" as a world premiere -- and if the film makes a quick stop in Telluride on its way to Toronto, everybody in Canada will look the other way and pretend it never happened.
"The Descendants" is one of the films deemed likely to show up in Colorado this weekend; David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method," Steve McQueen's "Shame" and Michel Hazavanicus' "The Artist" are among the others.
The lineup will be announced on Friday.
Toronto
For the industry, and for Oscar-watchers, Toronto is by far the biggest and brashest of the festivals. It's an 11-day overload of films, the unofficial kickoff to awards season and the crucial showcase for many Academy hopefuls anxious for the kind of launch that "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The King's Speech" got in years past.
And for 250 other films, the huge contingent of TIFF buyers and media provides an irresistible target as well.
To take advantage of that media, TIFF also serves as a massive press junket, most of it centered in the Yorkville section of town; you won't find this many notables in one spot until Golden Globes weekend at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills.
This year's key Toronto films include Sony's Friday night gala double bill of "The Ides of March" and "Moneyball," along with "The Descendants," "The Artist," Nicolas Winding Refn's "Drive," Drake Doremus' "Like Crazy," Jeff Nichols' "Take Shelter," Oren Moverman's "Rampart," Fernando Meirelles' "360" and Andrea Arnold's "Wuthering Heights."
Even Lars von Trier will be back with "Melancholia," presumably not to cause as much of a fuss as he did at Cannes four months ago.
And while the festival reception afforded all of those films will be enlightening, a good number of questions will still be left unanswered at the end of this blitz of fall festivals.
That's because a good number of potentially major players are skipping the festivals. Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar Hoover's biopic "J. Edgar," Steven Spielberg's "War Horse," Jason Reitman's "Young Adult," Cameron Crowe's "We Bought a Zoo" and Phyllida Lloyd's "The Iron Lady," with Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher, will all be MIA over the next three weeks.
Until those movies are finally unveiled, this first blast of fall festivals will give us plenty to chew on.
Anne Hathaway to star in film version of "Miserables"
A mother is lecturing her 23-year-old daughter about her love life, flailing a kitchen knife above her head for emphasis.
Porn film shoots voluntarily halted after HIV case
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pornography film shoots across the United States have been largely shut down after an industry trade group called for a moratorium because an adult-film performer tested positive for HIV, officials with the organization said on Tuesday.
The temporary moratorium recommended by the Los Angeles-based Free Speech Coalition comes as public health advocates escalated calls for greater enforcement of laws requiring porn stars to wear condoms on the set.
The Free Speech Coalition said it learned on Saturday that a porn film performer who has not been publicly identified had initially tested positive for HIV. It called for an industrywide moratorium on Sunday.
The performer received a preliminary positive result for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, at a health facility outside of California. The San Fernando Valley suburb of Los Angeles has long been a leading hub of the porn industry.
Further diagnostic testing was needed to confirm the performer was HIV positive, the trade group said.
Diane Duke, executive director of the trade group, said she believed porn productions had largely been shut down nationally as a result of the moratorium, and that she was unaware of any companies that were refusing to comply.
"The industry has had a successful system of health and safety self-regulation since 1998, despite any misinformation being spread by our opponents," the Free Speech Coalition said in a statement.
In 2010, another porn performer, Derrick Burts, tested positive for HIV, which also prompted a temporary shutdown of porn productions.
A number of other porn stars have been infected with HIV over the years, said Brian Chase, assistant general counsel for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which was organizing a petition drive for a Los Angeles municipal ballot initiative to require porn performers in the city to wear condoms on set.
Supporters said local authorities were best suited to enforce such a measure.
California law and federal workplace safety rules require the use of condoms for porn stars exchanging bodily fluids through sex, but the industry has largely ignored those mandates, Chase said.
Porn companies have resisted efforts to compel condom usage by arguing it would force productions to go underground or outside the United States, increasing health risks.
The porn industry continues to operate in a legal gray zone, Chase said. "When you've got a situation like that, you've got a lot of industry participants who feel they don't need to follow the law," he said.
Until recently, many porn performers had been regularly tested for HIV at a private clinic in Los Angeles run by a private outfit called AIM Medical Associates. But the clinic closed in May as it filed for bankruptcy and dealt with lawsuits against it.
Since the closure, the Free Speech Coalition has developed a health and safety program to take its place, and it was in the process of signing up performers, producers and agents to participate, the trade group said.
(Editing by Steve Gorman and Cynthia Johnston)
$50k grant given to Telluride fest director program
A mother is lecturing her 23-year-old daughter about her love life, flailing a kitchen knife above her head for emphasis.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Fox wants "Moore" for "Die Hard 5"
A mother is lecturing her 23-year-old daughter about her love life, flailing a kitchen knife above her head for emphasis.
Lionsgate builds word-of-mouth for "Warrior"
A mother is lecturing her 23-year-old daughter about her love life, flailing a kitchen knife above her head for emphasis.
Madonna, Polanski films vie for Venice limelight
VENICE, Italy (Reuters) - The Venice film festival promises a pop superstar and a whiff of scandal Thursday, with Madonna presenting her second feature and Roman Polanski notable by his absence at the world premiere of his new picture.
Madonna, 53, is in the canal city for "W.E.," a film loosely based on the relationship between American divorcee Wallis Simpson and Britain's King Edward VIII, which eventually led him to abdicate the throne in 1936.
Starring Abbie Cornish and James Fox, it is the singer's second outing behind the camera after the 2008 comedy drama "Filth and Wisdom," which was generally poorly received by critics.
W.E. appears outside the main competition lineup of 22 films confirmed so far for Venice, but is set to dominate the second day of the 2011 festival on the Lido waterfront nonetheless.
George Clooney opened the 11-day cinema showcase with his political drama "The Ides of March," which was generally well received by critics Wednesday and seen as a solid launch of this year's star-studded event.
Madonna's track record in front of the camera has been patchy, with her performance as Eva Peron in "Evita" lauded but that in erotic thriller "Body of Evidence" broadly derided.
Competing for the attention of the thousands of journalists and fans who line the red carpet each evening for a glimpse of their idols will be Polanski's "Carnage" starring Oscar winners Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and Jodie Foster.
The Franco-Polish director worked on the script of the in-competition Carnage, an adaptation of Yasmina Reza's comedy play "God of Carnage," while under house arrest in Switzerland in 2010.
The 78-year-old behind the classic "Chinatown" was freed after Swiss authorities decided not to extradite him to the United States, where he was wanted for sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 in Los Angeles.
Unsurprisingly, Polanski will not leave France for Italy to attend the world premiere, although some members of his cast, including Winslet, are expected.
"I think he can only travel, if he leaves France ... to Switzerland and Poland, so of course ... it is sad that he is not here but three out of his four lead cast will be here and that will create a sensation because it's really a sensational film," Venice director Marco Mueller told Reuters.
The movie centers around two couples whose children are involved in a playground brawl.
According to production notes, it promises to "shine a spotlight on the risible contradictions and grotesque prejudices of four well-heeled American parents."
Also premiering Thursday is "Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale," based on the true story of an uprising by indigenous people in Taiwan against Japanese rulers in the 1930s.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
Robert Downey, Jr. and wife expecting first child
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar-nominated Actor Robert Downey, Jr., star of the "Iron Man" movies, and his wife Susan are expecting their first child together, his spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday.
The 46 year-old actor and his second wife met on the set of "Gothika" in 2003, and married in New York in 2005.
"Robert and Susan could not be more excited over this news. They can't wait to welcome this new baby into their wonderful family," Downey's spokesman said in People magazine.
The baby is due early 2012.
Early in his career, Downey was plagued by problems with alcohol and drug use, and he even spent time in jail. He went through rehab and managed a career comeback in the 2000s, and he has credited Susan with helping him recover.
The actor has a 17 year-old son, Indio Falconer Downey, from his previous marriage to actress Deborah Falconer, to whom he was married for 11 years. They divorced in 2004.
Downey has previously received Oscar nominations for his roles in "Chaplin" and "Tropic Thunder" and is currently reprising his "Iron Man" role for the upcoming 2012 film "The Avengers."
(Reporting and Writing by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
Paul Dano to play Karl Rove in "College Republicans"
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Paul Dano is officially attached to play a young Karl Rove in "College Republicans" -- and Richard Linklater will direct, TheWrap has learned.
The movie begins shooting in Austin, Texas, in late November.
Producer Maya Browne told TheWrap on Tuesday that she is financing the movie through her Bratt Entertainment. Ginger Sledge also is producing.
Shia LaBeouf had expressed interest in the role of Rove, the political operative considered "the architect" of President George W. Bush's election. Browne declined to comment on whether the actor will appear in the movie in another role.
She said the film "is about when Karl Rove and Lee Atwater first met, which is when Karl Rove ran for president of the College Republicans, and that's when they sort of discovered dirty tricks. It's interesting to see them take that journey together."
Atwater went on to become chairman of the Republican National Committee and campaign manager for President George Herbert Walker Bush.
Rove worked on Richard Nixon's 1972 presidential campaign, before advising George W. Bush, who nicknamed him "Turd Blossom."
Rove's other nickname: "Bush's Brain."
Dano is best known for his roles in "Little Miss Sunshine" and "There Will Be Blood." Linklater, a Texas native, has directed "Slacker," "Dazed and Confused" and "A Scanner Darkly."
Wes Jones wrote the script, which was on the 1010 Black List of best unproduced screenplays.
There's no distribution deal in place yet.
"The Help" continues to dominate box office
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - DreamWorks' "The Help" helped itself to the $100 million mark at the domestic box office Wednesday.
The $25 million period drama starring Emma Stone has been one of the summer's surprise breakout hits, winning the domestic box office during its second and third weekends of release.
"We went from opening not No. 1 to being No. 1, which is unusual in itself," Dave Hollis, Disney's executive VP of distribution, told TheWrap. Disney handles distribution for DreamWorks.
Three weeks into its run, "The Help" is actually adding locations: It opened with 2,534 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, expanded by 156 in its second week, by another 88 in its third and is going up by some 65 more this weekend, Hollis said.
And as time goes on, the demographics of its audience are changing.
Hollis said that during the first weekend, the movie played well in urban, heartland and upscale theaters, but skewed older and female.
In the weeks since, it has expanded its reach and is now drawing old and young, male and female, Hollis said.
"We hope that what we've seen to date is something that can continue into the end of summer and into fall," he said. "We've been fortunate to have what I can only describe as the movie to see in recent weeks."
The movie opens in its first international territory, Australia, this weekend.
"The Help" is the story of friendship among African American maids in 1963, and offers an unsparing look at the way their employers treat them.
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