Tom Cruise is one of my favorite actors. Waiting for one of his films to be released puts me on pins and needles. So, I get excited, to say the least, when the trades start reporting Cruise’s next film. The excitement is getting the best of me because there are several films Cruise has been working on with script doctors.
Here are the standings as I write this piece. Keep in mind I am bucking for The Matarese Circle because I truly feel that Denzel Washington, David Cronenberg and Tom Cruise formula makes a great film. I’d love to see Cronenberg take on a topliner. His career is ready for this opportunity. Yet, I’d like to see Cruise star in a comedy.
This is what Variety says are the top choices for Cruise: DreamWorks drama Motorcade, to be directed by Len Wiseman, followed by Spyglass remake The Tourist (with Charlize Theron), to be helmed by Bharat Nalluri, and Fox action comedy Wichita (with Cameron Diaz), which James Mangold will direct. Also still in the mix is MGM’s The Matarese Circle which potentially matches Cruise with Denzel Washington and helmer David Cronenberg.
Please note: Taking a screenplay to a script doctor is common practice in Hollywood. Script doctors get paid a pretty dollar for their talent.
The original True Grit is a classic in every sense of the word. The cast alone (Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, and of course, the great John Wayne) puts it in everyone’s library.
Now, it’s in remake mode. Yikes! None other than Joel and Ethan Coen will put their spin on True Grit, the iconic Western that won John Wayne an Oscar.
But Variety is reporting that it’s not a traditional remake, the Paramount film promises to be more devoted to the Charles Portis book than the 1969 movie.
Then I ask, why call it a remake?
Anyhow, Portis’ novel is about a 14-year-old girl who, in company with an aging U.S. marshal and another lawman, hunts down her father’s killer in hostile Indian Territory.
But while the original film was a showcase for Wayne, the Coens’ version will tell the tale from the girl’s perspective. Of course, the Coens wrote the screenplay.
Chances are with the Coens’ power we’ll see the movie in production, but let’s not call it a remake.
Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke is negotiating with Sony’s Columbia Pictures to develop and direct an adaptation of another young-adult fantasy series called Maximum Ride.
The five-volume series by James Patterson follows six teens, recognized as the Flock, genetically altered as part human and part bird. They learn to fly and escape the laboratory where they were housed and are pursued by a pack of creatures called the Erasers that are part human and part wolf.
Don Payne (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) is writing a screenplay.
Again, no surprise here as Watchmen holds position at the top of the box office. Interestingly, Taken is still up there in the ranks with Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail while Slumdog Millionaire hangs on at number four. This weekend will change because the younger audience crowd will fill the movie houses to see Disney’s Race to Witch Mountain.
It looks like Mickey Rourke finally closed a deal to play the Russian villain in Iron Man 2.
Apparently the negotiating was a bit strained when Marvel Entertainment offered The Wrestler star only $250,000 for his first major studio film in years.
My guess is that Rourke’s salary is much better than that now.
According to Variety, Rourke’s encounters with Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. on the awards circuit sealed his participation in the film. Rourke won the Golden Globe and was Oscar nominated for The Wrestler and Downey got Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Tropic Thunder, so Downey used each occasion to recruit Rourke.
As the story goes, when Downey, Rourke as well as actors including Frank Langella and Anne Hathaway took part in a roundtable discussion with Newsweek’s David Ansen, Downey interrupted the proceedings, reached across the table and flat out asked Rourke to do Iron Man 2.
And then, Rourke met with Jon Favreau and scribe Justin Theroux and got to be part of the development of his character. He’ll play Whiplash, a character that includes elements from that comic book villain and Crimson Dynamo, another Russian baddie.
The Coen brothers tell us like it should be told, sarcastic and witty with a strong punch. Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen poke fun at the coal industry’s attempt to tell the public that coal is clean.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the commercial started airing Thursday, February 26 because coal industry is trying to persuade Americans that coal is part of the solution, not part of the problem. It has formed a trade group known as the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, spending $18 million so far on television spots touting coal’s abundance and the efforts being made to clean up this fuel, a major emitter of the greenhouse gases that are changing the Earth’s climate.
I read the article from the LA Times and had to chuckle at the coalition’s attempt to convince us that coal is a “cleaner energy option” because the coal industry has installed pollution-control equipment while working on the next innovation: carbon sequestration to capture carbon dioxide, so it doesn’t release out into the environment.
Check out the website This is Reality.
Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail stays at the top of the box office while second, third and fourth shuffle around with Taken, Coraline and Slumdog Millionaire respectively hold those positions. Slumdog took a good jump from number six last week after winning the bulk of the Oscars.
Get your calendar out and start filling in the dates for the major studios release dates in 2009 as they finalize openings for the year.
Sony has pushed back the release of Roland Emmerich’s blockbuster 2012 from July 10 to November 13.
Guy Ritchie’s Robert Downey Jr.-Jude Law highly-anticipated Sherlock Holmes has been pushed back about a month from November 13 to December 25.
Twilight sequel New Moon is set for November 20. on that date.
Sony moved up the release of Hugh Grant-Sarah Jessica Parker romantic comedy Did You Hear About the Morgans? is set for December 18.
Nancy Meyers’ untitled comedy is set to open December 25.
Other movies planted for Christmas Day are The Princess and the Frog and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel.
James Cameron’s action-adventure Avatar opens one week before Sherlock Holmes on December 18.
Universal moved the release of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno from May 15 to July 10.
The Hangover will open June 5, one week earlier than its original release date of June 12.
Universal announced Wednesday that it is taking Emma Roberts movie Wild Child out of its May 8 release date this year. No new release date was mentioned.
Of course, this is subject to change and not all the movies set to open in 2009 have been listed.
I have a handful of actors whom I know if I go to the movie theaters to see their movies, I will be entertained. I never feel cheated. Tom Cruise is one of those actors and for good reason. He puts integrity into his work. It shows through the way he promotes his films. Even in his interviews with talk show hosts he’s there 200%, making sure the interviewer is engaged in the interview just as much as Cruise is. One example is Oprah’s interview at Cruise’s home in Colorado. He was genuine and very honest and open.
It is no wonder that at least five producers are vying to get Cruise to say yes to their projects.
The trades are reporting a strong courtship of Cruise comes at a time when studios are thinking long and hard about which actors deserve to be paid superstar gross deals. I agree, Cruise deserves it like Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Will Smith and Ben Stiller.
There are those who might say otherwise but producers are enthusiastic for the actor after the success of Valkyrie. The Bryan Singer film did better than expected around the world, and that no major star except Will Smith works to promote a movie as hard as Cruise.
Variety reports the top three candidates for Cruise’s next opportunity:
Matarese, which also has Denzel Washington attached, and will soon get a rewrite by Cronenberg.
The Tourist, the Spyglass remake that would co-star Charlize Theron. A rewrite was turned in this week by Christopher McQuarrie, who co-wrote and produced “Valkyrie” with Cruise, and whose script work was informed by long talks with Cruise as they barnstormed publicity on the UA WWII film.
Motorcade, the Len Wiseman-directed DreamWorks thriller that pits the U.S. president against terrorists who commandeer his motorcade on the streets of Los Angeles. Billy Ray is racing to complete a rewrite of the script, with Cruise’s input.
Personally, I hope it’s with David Cronenberg and Denzel Washington in Matarese. I’d love to see these three work together.
Wired.com put together a wonderful piece on Terminator 4 with plenty of images. McG is interviewed throughout the article and, there’s no doubt, the man has mastered Terminator.
I agree with McG point of view on using real robots instead of CGI:
“A lot of people make CG movies where actors are emoting to poles with tennis balls on top of them,” said McG. “That’s the last thing I wanted to do. I don’t like dealing with cartoons, so to speak. I wanted real robots for the actors to interface with so you could get that grittiness and realism. There’s an archetype shape to the T-800. We needed body types to suggest the robot that would combat John Connor, and Roland Kickinger is a good body type. His shoulders are huge, his waist is narrow. The [Industrial Light & Magic] guys used their calipers to measure shoulder spatial differences and said he’d make a good body double. Roland as an individual is not in the movie.”
y, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, and of course, the great John Wayne) puts it in everyone’s library.
nother lawman, hunts down her father’s killer in hostile Indian Territory.
openings for the year.
