First the bad news: that untitled 1930’s Hollywood noir that Michael Mann was shopping last May? It’s kinda dead. Last I heard, every studio in town had balked at the $120 million price tag, with only New Line offering a reduced-rate greenlight (they asked Mann to knock the budget down to $90 million; that’s $30 … Continue reading
When I was visiting the set of The Golden Compass, I sat down for lunch with producer Mark Ordesky and talked about the His Dark Materials series as a trilogy (Compass is the first book in the series by Philip Pullman). The first and third books would obviously work as movies, I said, but the … Continue reading
There’s a lot of cool stuff that happens in LA: premieres, parties, random celeb sightings (I saw you at Morton’s Steakhouse last night, Jessica Simpson!). But this Saturday one of the coolest things I could possibly imagine is taking place in Hollywood: a 3D screening of Friday the 13th Part 3 3D. It’s part of … Continue reading
When I graduated from college in 1997, I wanted to be Beau Willimon. Never mind that Willimon was then a sophomore at Columbia University and completely unknown to me; it’s what he’s now accomplishing with an MFA in Abject Poverty Playwriting that closely mirrors my own youthful (and now sadly erstwhile) ambitions. Over the coming … Continue reading
Be careful what you wish for. Many of us fervently hoped Warner Brothers would bring The Assassination of Jesse James into a wide release through October. And now… Yesterday afternoon I got an email from our Atlanta WB rep saying that Warner Brothers would be releasing the film in Atlanta…this Friday. Such a short lead … Continue reading
Remember the I Am Legend teaser poster, with Will Smith walking away from a whole bunch of GIANT WORDS? Some time has passed. The words are smaller, and now he has a gun and a dog. And now he’s on the one sheet, not just the teaser. As far as I can tell, someone at … Continue reading
Quick quiz: When is President’s Day? Yeah, I don’t know either. February or something, right? But the marketing team behind Doug Liman’s new film, Jumper, have decided to brand the movie as "Coming President’s Day Weekend!" Best of luck with that. The trailer is… interesting. I’ve heard tales of a troubled shoot on this one, … Continue reading
The lineage of parent-child cinema collaborations is as variable as my commitment to the rent payment each month. Sometimes you get Ladd and Dern in Wild At Heart; other times you get Coppola and Coppola on The Godfather III, or for that matter on Dracula. Which one will it be when Michel Gondry co-directs an … Continue reading
There’s an interesting debate being waged over Brian De Palma’s Redacted, but it’s in danger of being reduced to a art vs. commerce scuffle. At issue is the decision made by 2929 Entertainment’s Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner (Redacted‘s financiers) to censor a series of heart-wrenching war photographs (of slain Iraqi civilians) which are intended … Continue reading
Coming Soon has gotten their hands on a list of films that the studios are making their pre-strike priorities. These are the movies they want in the can before the actors and directors potentially strike at the end of June 2008; I’m not sure if this list is reflecting current thoughts that the writers will … Continue reading