Given a cast of Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill, and the guiding hand of director and writer Judd Apatow (”Knocked Up” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”), perhaps there is no more appropriate title than simply “Funny People.”
Which is saying something, since “Funny People” frequently treads into the darker realms of comedy.
Sandler leads the cast as George Simmons, an A-list Hollywood comedian whose fame and fortune has brought him a beautiful mansion on the beach, lots of luck with the ladies and, as the audience soon discovers, a life of loneliness.
Sandler is quick to point out that he and his character have little in common.
“I can’t really say this guy is me; he’s not living my life,” says Sandler, who is married with two children. “The movie star thing we have in common; we have a few mood swings in common. … But the lifestyle and the attitude is not really me.”
George’s biggest problem isn’t his desolation, however. He’s been diagnosed with a leukemia-like terminal disease, prompting him to get back to his roots and do more stand-up comedy.
Along the way, he hires struggling comedian Ira Wright, played by Rogen, to pen jokes for him and act as his personal assistant. Despite hurling an occasional insult at Ira, George learns to trust his new, eager-to-please sidekick.
The feeling isn’t always mutual. Ira is forced to adapt to his boss’ constant mood swings, erratic behavior as he deals with the fear of dying and deep regret at losing Laura (Leslie Mann), the only woman he ever loved. However, Ira does earn a steady paycheck — and gets a taste of show business.
Rogen, who says he wouldn’t be in comedy if he never saw Sandler’s movies while he was growing up, says “Funny People” paints an accurate picture of the ups and downs of comedians who are just starting out.
“It’s an incredibly realistic representation,” Rogen says. “Those scenes where you’re backstage at the comedy club and you’re all sitting around pitching jokes to each other. It’s exactly like that.”
Apatow, who performed stand-up comedy earlier in his career, says, “It is an ode to stand-up. I’ve always been a crazy fan of stand-up comedians. Jonathan Winters … Don Rickles, things like that.”
Apatow, who knows he’s taking a risk with “Funny People’s” mix of light and darkness, made a wisecrack about his hopes for the film at the Los Angeles premiere.
“Well, I think there’s 10 movies that are going to be up for best picture this year, and we definitely are shooting for No. 16,” he says.
The cast also took some risks, performing stand-up in front of live audiences for the film — and, occasionally, watching their jokes fall flat.
Hill says he had never done stand-up before and calls the experience “terrifying.”
“It can be brutal out there,” Rogen adds.
Sandler, the most seasoned comedian by far, remembers his first days onstage and can relate.
“It’s all about your last set,” he recalls. “If I did good Wednesday … all day Thursday, I was in a good mood.
“Then Thursday night comes around and I go onstage and if I did bad, Friday was a miserable time for everyone.”
Adam Richard Sandler (born September 9, 1966) is an American comedian, actor, musician, screenwriter and film producer. After becoming a Saturday Night Live cast member, he went on to star in several Hollywood feature films that grossed over US$100 million at the box office.[1] Though he is best known for his comedic roles, such as in the films Billy Madison (1995), Happy Gilmore (1996), Big Daddy (1999) and Mr. Deeds (2002), he has also had success in romantic and dramatic roles, such as in the films The Wedding Singer (1998), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), Spanglish (2004), Reign Over Me (2007), and Funny People (2009).
Seth Rogen (born April 15, 1982) is a Canadian actor, comedian, writer and film producer. Rogen began his career doing stand-up comedy for four years during his teens, coming in second place in the Vancouver Amateur Comedy Contest when he was 16. While still living in his native Canada, he auditioned for (and ultimately landed) a supporting role in Freaks and Geeks. After he moved to Los Angeles for the role, Freaks and Geeks was canceled after one season. He then got a part on the equally short-lived Undeclared, which also hired him as a staff writer.
Given a cast of Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill, and the guiding hand of director and writer Judd Apatow (”Knocked Up” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”), perhaps there is no more appropriate title than simply “Funny People.”
Which is saying something, since “Funny People” frequently treads into the darker realms of comedy.
Sandler leads the cast as George Simmons, an A-list Hollywood comedian whose fame and fortune has brought him a beautiful mansion on the beach, lots of luck with the ladies and, as the audience soon discovers, a life of loneliness.
Sandler is quick to point out that he and his character have little in common.
“I can’t really say this guy is me; he’s not living my life,” says Sandler, who is married with two children. “The movie star thing we have in common; we have a few mood swings in common. … But the lifestyle and the attitude is not really me.”
George’s biggest problem isn’t his desolation, however. He’s been diagnosed with a leukemia-like terminal disease, prompting him to get back to his roots and do more stand-up comedy.
Along the way, he hires struggling comedian Ira Wright, played by Rogen, to pen jokes for him and act as his personal assistant. Despite hurling an occasional insult at Ira, George learns to trust his new, eager-to-please sidekick.
The feeling isn’t always mutual. Ira is forced to adapt to his boss’ constant mood swings, erratic behavior as he deals with the fear of dying and deep regret at losing Laura (Leslie Mann), the only woman he ever loved. However, Ira does earn a steady paycheck — and gets a taste of show business.
Rogen, who says he wouldn’t be in comedy if he never saw Sandler’s movies while he was growing up, says “Funny People” paints an accurate picture of the ups and downs of comedians who are just starting out.
“It’s an incredibly realistic representation,” Rogen says. “Those scenes where you’re backstage at the comedy club and you’re all sitting around pitching jokes to each other. It’s exactly like that.”
Apatow, who performed stand-up comedy earlier in his career, says, “It is an ode to stand-up. I’ve always been a crazy fan of stand-up comedians. Jonathan Winters … Don Rickles, things like that.”
Apatow, who knows he’s taking a risk with “Funny People’s” mix of light and darkness, made a wisecrack about his hopes for the film at the Los Angeles premiere.
“Well, I think there’s 10 movies that are going to be up for best picture this year, and we definitely are shooting for No. 16,” he says.
The cast also took some risks, performing stand-up in front of live audiences for the film — and, occasionally, watching their jokes fall flat.
Hill says he had never done stand-up before and calls the experience “terrifying.”
“It can be brutal out there,” Rogen adds.
Sandler, the most seasoned comedian by far, remembers his first days onstage and can relate.
“It’s all about your last set,” he recalls. “If I did good Wednesday … all day Thursday, I was in a good mood.
“Then Thursday night comes around and I go onstage and if I did bad, Friday was a miserable time for everyone.”
Adam Richard Sandler (born September 9, 1966) is an American comedian, actor, musician, screenwriter and film producer. After becoming a Saturday Night Live cast member, he went on to star in several Hollywood feature films that grossed over US$100 million at the box office.[1] Though he is best known for his comedic roles, such as in the films Billy Madison (1995), Happy Gilmore (1996), Big Daddy (1999) and Mr. Deeds (2002), he has also had success in romantic and dramatic roles, such as in the films The Wedding Singer (1998), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), Spanglish (2004), Reign Over Me (2007), and Funny People (2009).
Seth Rogen (born April 15, 1982) is a Canadian actor, comedian, writer and film producer. Rogen began his career doing stand-up comedy for four years during his teens, coming in second place in the Vancouver Amateur Comedy Contest when he was 16. While still living in his native Canada, he auditioned for (and ultimately landed) a supporting role in Freaks and Geeks. After he moved to Los Angeles for the role, Freaks and Geeks was canceled after one season. He then got a part on the equally short-lived Undeclared, which also hired him as a staff writer.
Terminator 4 to open May 2009
The fourth TERMINATOR movie, entitled TERMINATOR SALVATION: THE FUTURE BEGINS will open in May 2009, according to Variety.
Warner Brothers announced the news to the trade. The actual date penciled in for the McG starrer is May 22, 2009, the start of Memorial Day weekend. Christian Bale will star in the new movie as hero John Connor.
The trade says that he plot of the latest movie is being kept under tight wraps, but the film is the first part of a planned three-picture arc that begins after Skynet has destroyed much of humanity in a nuclear holocaust.
Shooting kicks off in New Mexico on May 5th of this year. Bale will next be seen in another Warner Brothers franchise, the highly anticipated BATMAN BEGINS sequel THE DARK KNIGHT.
via thehollywoodnews
T4 Gets Release Date
So much for Judgment Day. The Terminator has been assigned a new target: May 22, 2009.
That’s the date Warner Bros. has scheduled to unspool its heavily anticipated Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, per the trades.
The sequel, which will also serve as the first installment of another planned trilogy in the fabled man vs. machine sci-fi tale, picks up shortly after the first Terminator trilogy left off. Christian Bale plays the adult John Connor, leading a rebellion against the sentient computer network known as Skynet that seeks to wipe out all of humanity.
The studio will distribute Terminator Salvation in North America after securing a pact with Halcyon Co., which owns the franchise rights. Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group will control international distribution.
Warner Bros.’ summer tent pole will bow the same day Twentieth Century Fox plans to roll out Night at the Museum II: Escape from the Smithsonian, the follow-up to its 2006 comedy hit Night at the Museum, in which Ben Stiller will reprise his part as the hapless security guard of a museum whose exhibits come to life after dark.
The original fantasy grossed $250 million in domestic ticket sales and the second Night is sure to give Bale and company a run for their money at the box office.
Despite its overwhelming popularity with the ComiCon crowd, the billion-dollar Terminator series has seen its blockbuster status slip in recent years. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger back in the indestructible robot role that made him famous, grossed $150 million domestically when it opened in 2003, but cost an estimated $200 million to make. However, the film more than made up for it internationally, raking in $283 million in foreign ticket sales to bring its global haul to $433 million.
By contrast, 1984’s The Terminator cost $6 million and tallied $38 million in the U.S., and eventually finished with $78 million worldwide. The biggest of them all was 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which generated a whopping $204 million in U.S. ticket sales before going on to earn $516 million internationally.
The first two films were written and directed by James Cameron and the third by Jonathan Mostow.
Taking the reigns on the fourth chapter will be McG, a Hollywood director who started out in music videos but found big-screen success helming the feature film version of Charlie’s Angels and its subsequent sequel.
But whether or not the director, whose real name is Joseph McGinty Nichol, has the chops to deliver the high-octane action goods of his predecessors remains to be seen.
The filmmakers have been tight-lipped about T4’s plot, but one thing’s for sure: it will not feature Schwarzenegger, who’s busy finishing out his term as California’s governor.
The story, penned by T3 writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris, is said to be set in the postapocalyptic nightmare briefly alluded to in the first three movies after Skynet fomented a nuclear holocaust hoping to destroy its human makers.
Aside from Bale—who’s pulling double hero duty as the Caped Crusader in this summer’s Batman sequel, Dark Knight—actor Sam Worthington is also in talks to come aboard. As it happens, Worthington is in the midst of wrapping a key role in Cameron’s sci-fi action-adventure epic Avatar, the self-anointed king of the world’s first Hollywood film since 1997’s Oscar-winning Titanic.
Shooting on Terminator Salvation is scheduled to kick off in New Mexico on May 5 and continue there for two months before moving on to other locales.
via eonline
Reference: The Terminator is a 1984 science fiction/action film directed and co-written by James Cameron. It features Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn.
The film takes place in 1984, introducing the concept of a “terminator”, specifically the titular character (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a seemingly unstoppable cyborg assassin who has been sent back from the year 2029 by a race of artificially intelligent computer-controlled machines bent on the extermination of mankind. The Terminator’s mission is to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) whose future son founds a resistance against the machines. A human, Kyle Reese, is also sent back from the future to protect her.
Toy Story 1 & 2 Returning to Theaters in 3D
It was announced today that the first two films in Pixar’s sole and signature franchise, Toy Story and Toy Story 2, are headed back to movie screens October 2nd, 2009 and February 12th, 2010, respectively, with a complete digital 3D makeover, called Disney Digital 3D to be exact. The films will be an audience primer for Disney-Pixar’s digital 3D Toy Story 3, which hits screens on June 18th, 2010. John Lasseter, director of the first two Toy films and a Pixar poobah, is supervising the 3D process on both, while director Lee Unkrick continues his work on the second sequel.
In 1995, Toy Story was probably the most eye-popping thing I’d ever seen at that young age, in a theater or otherwise. Well, it ranked with my first concert, Beck, but I remember looking at the screen and my brain couldn’t comprehend the smoothness of the characters on screen. It was like the future in Back to the Future 2 had finally arrived. That feeling came surprisingly close again last year watching Beowulf at midnight at IMAX, but not totally. And I guess kids will feel the same way (self-fitting sneaks and attacking 3D movie ads still on the way…) with Toy Story 3 in 3D.
But while the new movie is a whole ‘nother animal, I’m not sure if I’d like to see the original film again in theaters in 3D. It might be like putting two types of syrup on your pancakes. Maybe that’s the goofy, tie-dyed cousin of death, nostalgia, talking. I’m sure it will look amazing, and Pixar revolutionized filmmaking, so they deserve the long theatrical celebration and audience refresher. What do you think?
by slashfilm
Reference: Toy Story is a 1995 CGI animated feature film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution It grossed $191,773,049 in the United States and it took in a grand total of $354,300,000 worldwide. It is the first film in the Pixar canon.
The primary characters are toys in the room of a nine year-old boy, Andy, and the film is mostly told from the toys’ point of view. Andy, his baby sister Molly and his mother have smaller roles, along with the neighbor boy Sid, his dog named Scud, and his sister Hannah.
In 2003, the Online Film Critics Society ranked the film as the greatest animated film of all time. In 2005 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In 2007, the film was ranked #99 on the American Film Institute’s 10th Anniversary Edition of the 100 greatest American films of all time, one of only two animated films on the list, the other being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
New Bond film title is confirmed
The next James Bond film is to be called Quantum of Solace, producers have confirmed.
The title is taken from one of a collection of short stories published by 007 creator Ian Fleming in 1960.
Producer Michael Wilson said the film would have “twice as much action” as 2006’s Casino Royale, which saw Daniel Craig debut as the iconic secret agent.
The next outing, previously known as Bond 22, is partly being shot at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire.
At a press conference at the facility, reporters were shown a minute of footage from the new film, including Bond swinging on a rope after an explosion at an art gallery in Siena, Italy.
Another scene showed him meeting M - played by Dame Judi Dench - outside in the snow.
Filming on the movie has been taking place at Pinewood since November.
Craig said the cryptic title referenced how Bond’s heart had been broken at the end of Casino Royale.
“Ian Fleming had written about relationships,” he explained.
“When they go wrong, when there’s nothing left, when the spark has gone, when the fire’s gone out, there’s no quantum of solace.
“And at the end of the last movie, Bond has the love of his life taken away from him and he never got that quantum of solace.”
Craig said the new film would follow 007 as he goes out “to find the guy who’s responsible”.
“So he’s looking for revenge, you know, to make himself happy with the world again.
“But the title also alludes to something else in the film,” he added.
‘Driven by revenge’
Olga Kurylenko, who plays Bond girl Camille in the film, said that she has yet to film any scenes, but was working hard preparing for her role.
“I’m doing weapons training and body flight training for aerial scenes and stunt work for fighting,” she said.
“This girl is going to kick ass. She’s on her own mission and she’s driven by revenge.”
But it is not clear whether Camille is a secret agent.
French actor Mathieu Amalric, who plays the villainous Dominic Greene, told reporters his character had “the smile of Tony Blair and the crazy eyes of Nicholas Sarkozy”.
Actress Gemma Arterton plays an MI6 agent in the film and has already shot her love scenes with 007.
She said: “I felt like a giggly girl, and I felt so young and inexperienced - but I kissed James Bond!”
The 21-year-old, who recently starred in the St Trinian’s film, said her Bond role is “not so frolicksome” and her character “fresh and young, not sultry and a femme fatale”.
‘Pretty prickly’
Dame Judi Dench, who returns for her sixth Bond film, said: “I get to do more in this one, which is brilliant.”
She hinted that her character’s relationship with Bond would be “pretty prickly”.
Rumours about the name had grown after fans noticed that film studio Sony had bought the domain name quantumofsolace.com.
But co-producer Michael Wilson said the name had only been decided “a few days ago”, adding the story’s start point would be “literally an hour after the last film left off”.
Asked if Casino Royale star Eva Green would appear in Quantum of Solace, co-producer Barbara Broccoli said: “There are no flashbacks in the film, but she’s certainly on Bond’s mind.”
Director Marc Forster is in charge of work on the movie, which is due for release on 7 November.
by BBC
Reference: “Quantum of Solace” is not a spy story and Bond appears only in the background. Told in the style of W Somerset Maugham, the tale has Bond attending a boring dinner party at the Government House in Nassau with a group of socialites he can’t stand.
Bond makes an offensive remark after dinner when the other guests have left in order to stimulate conversation. This solicits a careful reply from the elderly Governor of The Bahamas who tells 007 a sad tale about a relationship between former civil servant Philip Masters stationed in Bermuda and air hostess Rhoda Llewellyn. After meeting aboard a flight to London the two eventually married but after a time Rhoda became unhappy with her life as a housewife. She then began a long open affair with the eldest son of a rich Bermudan family. As a result Masters’ work deteriorated and he suffered a nervous breakdown. After recovering he was given a break from Bermuda by the governor and sent on an assignment to Washington to negotiate fishing rights with the US. At the same time the governor’s wife had a talk with Rhoda just as her affair ended. Masters returned a few months later and decided to end his marriage, although he and Rhoda continued to appear as a happy couple in public. Masters returned alone to the UK, leaving a penniless Rhoda stranded in Bermuda, an act which he’d been incapable of carrying out merely months earlier. But Masters never recovered emotionally, his vital spark never relit. The governor goes on to tell Bond how after a time Rhoda married a rich Canadian and seems to be happy, telling Bond that his dull dinner companions whom he found so boring were Rhoda and her new husband.
While the story does not include action elements, as other Fleming tales do, it attempts to posit that Bond’s adventures pale in comparison with real life drama. Bond reflects that the lives of the people he passes somewhat superficial judgments upon can in fact hide poignant episodes.
Quantum of Solace has been announced as the name of the 22nd Bond movie, although it remains to be seen if any elements of the story will be retained.
The Bucket List
Directed by Rob Reiner
Release Date: January 11th 2008
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes, Rob Morrow, Beverly Todd, Alfonso Freeman, Rowena King.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OltHNarHA9A
Two elderly men, auto mechanic Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman) and hospital-corporation head Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson), discover they are both terminally ill with cancer. Sharing a hospital room, they become friends and decide to fulfill their personal desires through “The Bucket List” before they “kick the bucket”. Bankrolled by the wealthy Cole, they sky dive, race each other in classic cars, and take Cole’s private jet around the world.
Cloverfield /1-18-08
Release Date: January 18th 2008
Director: Matt Reeves
Cast: Mike Vogel, Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller, and Michael Stahl-David.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufYF0f-zMgY
Five young New Yorkers throw their friend a going-away party the night that a monster the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city. Told from the point of view of their video camera, the film is a document of their attempt to survive the most surreal, horrifying event of their lives.
Rambo
Release Date: January 25th 2008
Director: Sylvester Stallone
Cast: Sylvester Stallone
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNvg-SKiUjg
More Info: http://www.trustedlog.com/2007/09/08/john-rambo-attacking-soon-new-rambo-movie-trailer-and-rambo-photos/
When a group of missionary aid workers in Myanmar disappear into the vast green inferno, vigilante Vietnam War veteran John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) leaves his job as a Salween River boatman behind to accompany a group of mercenaries on a daring rescue mission. It’s been twenty years since Rambo helped mujahedeen rebels fend off Soviet invaders in Afghanistan, and these days the former soldier lives a simple life in northern Thailand. Yet despite the fact that Rambo has long since traded his guns for a fishing reel, the world’s longest running civil war rages into its sixtieth year on the nearby Thai-Burma border. It seems like every day more rebels, mercenaries, medics, and peace workers cross through the remote village where Rambo lives, most of them never to be seen again. One day, human rights missionaries Sarah (Julie Benz) and Michael Bennett (Paul Schulze) show up asking Rambo to guide them up the Salween so they can get some much needed food and medical supplies to the desperate Karen tribe. According to Sarah and Michael the Burmese military has planted landmines all along the roads leading into the tribe’s village, making it virtually impossible to reach the tribe via land. At first Rambo flatly refuses to cross into Burma, but these refugees will most certainly die without aid and he eventually relents. Two weeks after Rambo drops the group off in dangerous territory, pastor Arthur Marsh (Ken Howard) arrives with a chilling message: the aid workers never returned from their mission into the jungle, and the embassies refuse to help Marsh and his fellow missionaries find their missing friends. Pastor Marsh knows that Sarah, Michael, and the rest of the missing missionaries are being held hostage by the Burmese army, and in order to hire the mercenaries needed for a rescue mission he has mortgaged his house and taken up a special collection from his congregation. Now, despite the fact that Rambo has long since sworn off all forms of violence, the knowledge that innocent missionaries are being used as pawns in a brutal war leaves him with no other choice than to venture behind enemy lines on his most dangerous mission to date.
Jumper
Release Date: February 15th 2008
Director: Doug Liman
Cast: Hayden Christensen, Samuel L Jackson, Diane Lane, Jamie Bell, Rachel Bilson.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS8u4MDq7Ow
A genetic abnormality allows a young man to teleport himself anywhere. He discovers this gift has existed for centuries and finds himself in a war that has been raging for thousands of years between ‘Jumpers’ and those who have sworn to kill them.
Iron Man
Release Date: May 2nd 2008
Director: Jon Favreau
Cast: Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Terrance Howard, Leslie Bibb, Shaun Toub.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhgzIM-9lfA
Weapons designer Tony Stark is in Afghanistan to introduce his new missile design to the Air Force until the unit he is traveling with is attacked and Stark is taken hostage. Injured by shrapnel embedded near his heart, his captors order him to assemble a missile for them, giving him access to a workshop. He puts his creativity to use by assembling a bulletproof set of power armor, complete with pacemaker and flamethrowers, and uses it to free himself. Back at home, he becomes Iron Man, developing a flying suit with the red and gold scheme and advanced weapon capabilities. Stark faces the Iron Monger.
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Release Date: May 16th 2008
Director: Andrew Adamson
Cast: Liam Neeson (voice), Ben Barnes, Warwick Davis, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Peter Dinklage.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk-D7SuwICU
One year has passed in our world since the first adventure ended, but in Narnia, almost 1,300 years have passed, and now it is time for the Pevensie children to return and make history. The villainous King Miraz prevents the rightful king, his young nephew Prince Caspian, from ruling the land of Narnia. Caspian uses Susan’s magic horn that was left in Narnia to summon the four Pevensies to help him and a small army of Old Narnians reclaim his rightful throne.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Release Date: May 22nd 2008
Director: Steven Spielberg
Teaser 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SrwBZtt00g
Teaser 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug2vcXWczKg
More Info: http://www.trustedlog.com/2007/11/28/indiana-jones-and-the-kingdom-of-the-crystal-skull/
Producer Frank Marshall has confirmed that the film is set in 1957, making it nineteen years since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, thus acknowledging the real-life passing of years between films. Indiana Jones is having a quiet life teaching before being thrust back into his old adventuring. He races against agents of the Soviet Union for the crystal skull. “The theory is they are shaped by higher powers or alien powers or came from another world, or an ancient Mayan civilization had the powers,” Marshall explained. Indy’s journey takes him across New Mexico, Connecticut, Mexico City, and the jungles of Peru. There will be some humor regarding Indiana’s age.
The Incredible Hulk
Release Date: June 13th 2008
Director: Louis Leterrier
Cast: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, William Hurt, Tim Blake Nelson.
Bruce Banner is on the run from the United States Army and General “Thunderbolt” Ross, trying to avoid capture long enough to cure the condition that turns him into the Hulk. Meanwhile, a soldier named Emil Blonsky repeats the accident that gave Banner his powers, but as he is unable to change back to human form, he blames Banner and seeks his revenge.
Louis Leterrier said that he planned to show Bruce Banner’s struggle with the monster within him. Producer Avi Arad has also said that the Hulk would be more strongly portrayed as a hero than in the previous film, while producer Kevin Feige added the film would explore “that element of wish fulfillment, of overcoming an injustice or a bully and tapping into a strength that you didn’t quite realize you had in yourself.” Arad also said the film would be “a lot more of a love story between Bruce Banner and Betty Ross.”
Get Smart
Release Date: June 20th 2008
Cast: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, The Rock, Alan Arkin, Terence Stamp, Masi Oka.
Get Smart is an upcoming film adaptation of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry’s hit 1960’s spy parody television show Get Smart. The film will star Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99 . Alan Arkin will play the Chief. Masi Oka, Terence Stamp, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Dalip “The Great Khali” Singh will also star. Bill Murray and Patrick Warburton make cameos in the film, as does Bernie Kopell, who played Siegfried in the original series.
Shooting began February 2007, and was continuing as of June 2007. Some scenes were shot in Montreal, Quebec, Canada between June 11 and June 13, 2007 at 1507 Docteur-Penfield Avenue and at McGill University. It is rated PG-13 by the MPAA.
Wall-E
Release Date: June 27th 2008
Director: Andrew Stanton
WALL-E is the story of the last little robot on Earth. He is a robot and his programming was to help clean up. You see, it’s set way in the future. Through consumerism, rampant, unchecked consumerism, the Earth was covered with trash. And to clean up, everyone had to leave Earth and set in place millions of these little robots that went around to clean up the trash and make Earth habitable again.
Well, the cleanup program failed with the exception of this one little robot and he’s left on Earth doing his duty all alone. But it’s not a story about science fiction. It’s a love story, because, you see, WALL·E falls in love with EVE, a robot from a probe that comes down to check on Earth, and she’s left there to check on and see how things are going and he absolutely falls in love with her.
Hellboy II
Release Date: July 11th 2008
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Ron Pearlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Jeffrey Tambor, Luke Goss.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMWnUGMPtns
It’s not Nazis, machines and mad scientists but the old gods and characters who have been kind of shoved out of our world. I kind of equate it to the whole American Indian situation. The Indians were shoved onto reservations. You had your old, wise Indians who said, “You know, this is the way it is. We can’t fight anymore. We just have to accept our fate.” You then have your Geronimo character saying, “Or we could just kill the White Man.” That’s kind of the situation we have in the film. We have our elf characters resigning to the way things are and then there’s one saying, “Or we could take the world back.” The main difference is - what if the Indians had a nuclear warhead? The elves have their equivalent of the weapon that is too terrible to use. What if this guy decided to use it?
The Dark Knight
Release Date: July 18th 2008
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Michael Caine, Anthony Michael Hall, Aaron Eckhart.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaIR9dAZRR0
In 1998, Lee Shapiro and Stephen Wise pitched the idea for a fifth Batman movie to Warner Bros. Vice President Tom Lassally. It was to be called Batman: DarKnight (not to be confused with The Dark Knight starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger) and included the Scarecrow and Man-Bat as the new villains, with the studio being most impressed with the characterization of Man-Bat. Fear was to be the initial theme (much like the main one for Batman Begins) and according to Shapiro, with Scarecrow being true to the source material. Within three months, Lee Shapiro and Stephen Wise sent their first draft to Warner Bros.. Joel Schumacher was still signed to direct but dropped out for unknown reasons only weeks after the first draft was completed. The story went as:
Bruce Wayne is in self-imposed seclusion from life, because he feels he has lost his greatest weapons in the fight against crime: his mystique and his enemies’ fear. Dick Grayson attends Gotham University, trying to discover who he is apart from his guardian and unwilling to return as Robin without him. Meanwhile, Dr. Jonathan Crane uses his position as professor of psychology at Gotham University and as resident psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum to conduct his experiments in fear. During a vengeful confrontation with a colleague, Dr. Kirk Langstrom, Crane unknowingly initiates Kirk’s transformation into the creature known as Man-Bat. The unsuspecting denizens of Gotham scream for Batman’s head, believing the Man-Bat’s nightly hunts to be the Dark Knight’s bloodthirsty return to action. Bruce dons cape and cowl once more to clear his name and solve the mystery behind these attacks. Eventually, Dick ends up in Arkham Asylum under Crane’s unsympathetic watch, and Kirk struggles with his “man vs. monster” syndrome as he longs to both reunite with his wife and get revenge on Crane.
The script for Batman: DarKnight sat at Warner Bros. and languished in development hell up until late 2000. Shapiro stated that DarKnight was in the running the longest as the next Batman movie compared to the other Batman projects in development.
City of Ember
Release Date: October 10th 2008
Director: Gil Kenan
Cast: Bill Murray, Tim Robbins, Martin Landau.
The story follows two teenagers as the power source begins to fail and the lamps start to flicker, who search for clues that will unlock ancient mysteries about the city.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Release Date: November 21st 2008
Director: David Yates
Cast: Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe, Jim Broadbent, Rupert Grint, Tom Felton.
Sneak Peek 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXypjllE3BU
Sneak Peek 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ezp-p1r7fM
Sneak Peek 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3e-P8lJXqc
Fan Trailer 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWPXJzSXTg8
Fan Trailer 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adc2Ak3bgm8
Voldemort is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that dangers may even lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. Together they work to find the key to unlock Voldemort’s defenses and, to this end, Dumbledore recruits his old friend and colleague, the well-connected and unsuspecting bon vivant Professor Horace Slughorn, whom he believes holds crucial information. Meanwhile, the students are under attack from a very different adversary as teenage hormones rage across the ramparts. Harry finds himself more and more drawn to Ginny, but so is Dean Thomas. And Lavender Brown has decided that Ron is the one for her, only she hadn’t counted on Romilda Vane’s chocolates! And then there’s Hermione, simpering (sic) with jealousy but determined not to show her feelings. As romance blossoms, one student remains aloof. He is determined to make his mark, albeit a dark one. Love is in the air, but tragedy lies ahead and Hogwarts may never be the same again.
Star Trek
Release Date: December 25th 2008
Director: JJ Abrams
The story will focus on the earliest adventures of James T. Kirk and Spock, and will also feature appearances by the main characters from the original series.
thanks to cineuruguay
Olga Kurylenko is New Bond Girl, Filming Begins on Bond 22
Production begins today in London on Bond 22, with Daniel Craig reprising the role of Agent 007 and Olga Kurylenko as his leading lady, according to a press release issued today by the film studios.
Previous reports were that Gemma Arterton would be the new Bond girl, but it turns out that she’s actually playing the role of MI6 Agent Fields. It’s Ukranian actress Kurylenko (Hitman) that’s the new Bond girl — the dangerously alluring Camille, who challenges Bond and helps him come to terms with the emotional consequences of Vesper’s betrayal.
French actor Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Munich) will star as the film’s sinister villain Dominic Greene, a leading member of the villainous organization introduced in Casino Royale, who will be a powerful counterpart to Craig’s portrayal of Bond.
Also returning for Bond 22 (the film’s working title) from Royale (the first to star Craig as James Bond) are Judi Dench as M, Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter, and Giancarlo Giannini as Mathis.
MGM and Sony Pictures will share distribution rights worldwide with Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Releasing International distributing the film to theaters worldwide on November 7, 2008. Marc Forster directs the screenplay by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade and Paul Haggis. The unit includes Production Designer Dennis Gassner, Director of Photography Roberto Schaefer, Editors Matt Chesse and Rick Pearson, and 2nd Unit Director Dan Bradley.
by geeksofdoom
Reference: Olga Kurylenko born November 14, 1979 is a Ukrainian model and actress.
She was born in Berdyansk and discovered by a female model scout while on vacation in Moscow at the age of fifteen.[1] She began her film career in France in 2005. She received the certificate of excellence award at the 2006 Brooklyn International Film Festival for her performance in L’Annulaire, and also starred in the Paris, je t’aime segment Quartier de la Madeleine opposite Elijah Wood. In 2007, Kurylenko starred in Hitman alongside Timothy Olyphant. She will also star as Bond girl Camille in the newest 007 film, provisionally titled Bond 22.
Bale to segue from “Dark Knight” to “Terminator”
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Christian Bale is in negotiations to star in “Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins,” the fourth installment of the hit science fiction series.
McG (”Charlie’s Angels,” “We Are Marshall”) is directing the movie, which will be distributed by Warner Bros.
The series, which originated with filmmaker James Cameron and made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star, centered on a robot from the future, when machines wage war against humanity, whose goal was to kill Sarah Connor, the mother of the future leader of the human resistance. As the movies progressed, the son, played by Edward Furlong in “T2″ and Nick Stahl in “T3,” took a more prominent role.
“T4’s” story, by David Campbell Wilson, John Brancato and Michael Ferris, focuses on John Connor, now in his 30s, as he leads what is left of the human race against the machines.
Bale, who appeared this year in “3:10 to Yuma,” “Rescue Dawn” and “I’m Not There,” is currently filming Warner’s “Batman Begins” sequel, “The Dark Knight.”
Christian Charles Philip Bale (also known professionally as Christian Morgan Bale; born 30 January 1974) is a British actor who is known for his roles in the films Newsies, American Psycho, Shaft, Equilibrium, The Machinist, Batman Begins, and The Prestige, among others. Bale is also known for his versatility as an actor, including mimicking nearly any English-language-based accent, harsh regimens of shedding and gaining weight (particularly for The Machinist, Batman Begins and, most recently, Rescue Dawn), and generally inhabiting the characters he plays. Before he found success in playing Batman, he was heavily involved in independent films.
Bale first caught the public eye when he was cast in the starring role of Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun at the age of 13, playing a British boy who becomes separated from his parents and subsequently finds himself in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. Since then, he has portrayed a wide range of characters. Bale is especially noted for his cult following. The tenth anniversary issue of Entertainment Weekly hailed him as one of the “Top 8 Most Powerful Cult Figures of the Past Decade,” citing his impressive cult status on the Internet. In a 2007 poll of IMDb users, he was voted their favorite actor who is under 40. Entertainment Weekly also called Bale one of the “Most Creative People in Entertainment,” after his dynamic performance in American Psycho.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a 2008 adventure film. It is the fourth Indiana Jones film and the twenty-sixth chronologically in the character’s film and television appearances. It is directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by George Lucas and stars Harrison Ford in the title role. It also stars Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, John Hurt and Karen Allen. Set in 1957, the film centers around the mysterious crystal skulls, and pits Indiana Jones against agents of the Soviet Union.
The film was in development hell since the 1989 release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, because Spielberg, Lucas and Ford wanted the best script possible. Screenwriters Jeb Stuart, Jeffrey Boam, M. Night Shyamalan, Frank Darabont and Jeff Nathanson wrote drafts, before a script by David Koepp satisfied all three men in 2006. Shooting finally commenced on June 18, 2007, and took place at locations in New Mexico, New Haven, Connecticut, Hawaii and soundstages in Los Angeles. In order to keep aesthetic continuity with the previous films, there will be minimal use of computer generated imagery and more of a reliance on traditional stuntwork, with Ford performing many of his own stunts. The film is due for release on May 22, 2008.
During the late 1970s, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg made a deal with Paramount Pictures for five films about archaeologist Indiana Jones. Following the theatrical release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989, Lucas let the series end as he felt he could not think of a good plot device to drive the next installment. Lucas stated that he became fascinated with crystal skulls while producing The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in 1992. He feels that as a plot device, the skulls are as strong as the Ark of the Covenant. Spielberg and Harrison Ford balked as they found the concept of the crystal skulls was too similar to the previous films, and two years were spent reworking it into something more acceptable. Spielberg wanted to make the film because it was a chance to reunite with Lucas and Ford, as well as to please his children and the Indiana Jones fan base.
Writing
In 1992, Jeb Stuart was hired to write a screenplay. In 1995, Lucas called Last Crusade writer Jeffrey Boam back to pen another draft. M. Night Shyamalan was hired as Boam’s replacement for an intended 2002 shoot, but he left because of what Ford described as “the failure of George and Steven to attend to him.” Shyamalan was overwhelmed writing a sequel to a film he loved like Raiders of the Lost Ark, and admitted it was difficult to get Ford, Spielberg, and Lucas to focus. Lucas admitted he would not be able to give the project his full attention until he completed the final Star Wars film in 2005. Afterwards, Stephen Gaghan and Tom Stoppard were approached to write a new screenplay.
With a title already planned, Frank Darabont, who wrote several episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, was hired in May 2002 to write. Darabont’s screenplay was set in the 1950s, after the demise of the Nazi regime, and featured cameos from Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw). It did not have Jones’ son. In December 2002, Spielberg said he planned to shoot two films before filming Indiana Jones 4 in 2004 for a 2005 release. He also dismissed the possibility of shooting it digitally. In February 2004, Lucas rejected the draft for reasons unknown, although Spielberg called this version the best screenplay since Raiders of the Lost Ark.
script was handed over to David Koepp. As 2006 began, Harrison Ford declared that if the film was not made by 2008, then the filmmakers should drop the idea altogether. Spielberg confirmed Indiana Jones 4 as his next film, calling it “the sweet dessert I give those who had to chow down on the bitter herbs that I’ve used in Munich”. Koepp tried not to make his work a “fan script”, in that he hoped to avoid any trivial references to the previous films, saying “That’s tempting, because you’ve seen the movie a hundred times and you know all the dialogue, but no human being remembers exactly what they said 25 years ago word for word, much less make reference to it. So you try to put aside the other movies and yet be in the spirit of them.” He also noted the story would have to acknowledge Ford/Indiana’s age.
Filming
On December 29, 2006, Lucas confirmed that he, Spielberg and Koepp finished the script, and that Indiana Jones 4 would commence filming in 2007. Filming began on June 18, 2007 at Deming, New Mexico, for scenes set in Morocco. An extensive chase scene was filmed between June 28-July 7 at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, which doubled as Indiana Jones’ Marshall College. They moved to Hawaii, shooting twenty percent of the film for three weeks on private property, keeping production secretive. Hawaii stands in for a South American rainforest. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the biggest film shot in Hawaii since Waterworld, and will generate $22 million to $45 million in the local economy. Half the film was scheduled to shoot on soundstages at Los Angeles. These included Downey, California. Filming moved to Chandler Field in Fresno, California, substituting for Mexico City International Airport, on October 11, 2007. After shooting aerial shots of Chandler Airport and a DC-3 on the morning of October 12, 2007, filming wrapped.
Effects
Producer Frank Marshall stated in 2003 that the film would not rely on CGI; it would instead use traditional special effects and stuntwork so as to be consistent with the previous films. He reiterated this in 2006. During filming, Spielberg anticipated “30%” of visual effects would be CGI, for elements such as backdrops. With Ford performing many of his stunts, Spielberg stated he could not tell the difference between Ford during the shoots for Last Crusade and Crystal Skull. While shooting War of the Worlds in late 2004, Spielberg met with stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong, who doubled for Ford in the previous films, to discuss three action sequences he had envisioned. However, Armstrong was filming The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor during shooting of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, so Dan Bradley was hired in his stead. Ben Burtt, who served as sound designer for the previous films and was an editor and director on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, will not work on this film, as he left Lucasfilm in 2005.
Music
John Williams stated on the 2003 DVD documentary The Music of Indiana Jones that he hoped to return to write the score for the film, as he did for the previous three. In June 2007, Williams’ company, the Gorfaine-Schwartz Agency, confirmed that Williams would be involved with the film. Williams began scoring the film in October 2007.
Release
Lucas intended to unveil the title with the first teaser trailer, originally scheduled for Thanksgiving 2007, but Shia LaBeouf announced it earlier at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards on September 9, 2007. The trailer was later said to be released “just before Christmas” of 2007. According to Paramount Pictures executive Rob Moore, the film will be released on both the HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats as part of its eventual home video release.
Marketing
Hasbro and Lego will produce toy lines for the film, and LucasArts will release two new Indiana Jones video games. The working title of one is Indiana Jones, and the other is a Lego edition. Burger King and Hallmark Cards will produce tie-ins. Random House, Scholastic, and DK will publish books, and Del Rey Books will publish the novelization, written by James Rollins. Scholastic will release a children’s novelization, alongside adaptations of the previous films. Dark Horse Comics will publish a comic book adaptation of the film, written by John Jackson Miller and drawn by Luke Ross (Samurai: Heaven and Earth). Howard Roffman, President of Lucas Licensing, attributed the massive marketing push to the fact that “It’s been nineteen years since the last film, and we are sensing a huge pent-up demand for everything Indy.”
Leaked plot details and theft
An extra in the film, Tyler Nelson, violated his nondisclosure agreement and gave an interview to the The Edmond Sun on September 17, 2007, which was then picked up by the mainstream media. In the interview, Nelson revealed several plot details from the film. Spielberg has yet to decide if he will cut Nelson’s scene. At Nelson’s request, The Edmond Sun subsequently pulled the story from its website. On October 2, 2007, a Superior Court order was filed finding that Nelson knowingly violated the agreement. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
On October 2, 2007, it was reported that a number of production photos and sensitive documents pertaining to the film’s production budget were stolen from Steven Spielbergs production office. An official with the Indiana Jones production reported the items missing on September 24 to the Sheriff’s Department. Marvin Levy, Steven Spielberg’s spokesman, said the director was concerned that the thieves would try to sell the materials, and on October 2, the people believed to be involved in the burglary sent out e-mails to several entertainment gossip websites offering to sell the images. According to IESB, TMZ.com obtained some of the stolen property and was on the verge of running the story on its TV division until Paramount lawyers stepped in. After Paramount was notified about the emails, they contacted sheriff’s investigators. A member of the online press helped the detectives by posing as a potential buyer and setting up a meeting in West Hollywood. When the seller arrived, he was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen property. On October 4, Roderick Eric Davis, age 37, was charged with one felony count of receiving stolen property. He later pleaded guilty to two felony accounts and will serve two years and four months in jail.
Clive Owen has just delivered a baby in an abandoned warehouse. The newborn sits in his arm, smeared in a coating of blood and vernix, while the mother lies beneath him, legs apart, face lathered in sweat. Owen is satisfied, but one thing remains – the umbilical cord needs to be cut. Not hesitating for a second, he reaches into his coat, pulls out an enormous gun and, much to the protestations of the terrified mother, simply blows the cord in two from point-blank range The scene is from the opening of Owen’s new action movie, Shoot ’Em Up, and is emblematic of much that follows – violent, provocative, risque and, well, violent. In fact the film, which describes the adventures of a weapons expert called Mr Smith (Owen), who spends 90 hyperkinetic minutes planting furious lead into an ever-replenishing army of cockeyed Mafia henchmen (they’re after the baby, but this hardly matters), might well be the most violent movie that Owen has made, and perhaps just a tiny bit offensive because of it.
“I hope not,” says the 42-year-old actor today, a vision of masculinity in suit and open-necked shirt, reclining on a vast couch in a Central London hotel room. “The violence is so heightened and cartoonish that you just can’t relate it to reality. And you can’t deny that a well put-together action sequence, if done with wit and verve, can be entertaining.”
If Owen seems untroubled by the prospect of becoming the sole poster boy for contemporary screen violence it’s possibly because he’s also starring in the upcoming period drama The Golden Age. The film, a sequel to Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth, stars Owen as the swaggering, piratical Sir Walter Raleigh, the sassy foil to Cate Blanchett’s uptight monarch. The role, he says, required a lot of research, including “reading two huge biographies”. It was also, he says modestly, and with a certain resigned finality, a lot of fun.
Owen shot to fame as the gambling guru in the 1998 thriller Croupier, and has more recently aced a string of heavy-hitting roles, some Oscar-nominated, that have included the screen adaptation Closer,the dystopian sci-fi Children of Men, and the impeccable heist movie Inside Man. He does deep soulful stillness to perfection, and is the swoon-inducing first choice for big-money blockbusters seeking credibility – and that includes interballistic headwreckers such as Shoot ’Em Up.
“Look,” he says, grinning slightly, “when I was pitched the film, I have to be honest, I thought, ‘This is not going to be for me.’ But then, after reading the first page, I was chuckling. I was like, ‘This is so wild! So deliberately un-PC. I have to do it.’ ” This, you quickly learn, is a typical Owen moment. He’s a tricky fish, and a conundrum of sorts, but in the nicest possible way. He has a reputation for seriousness and deflecting journalistic inquiry, yet he does so with disarming joviality, and a booming laugh. He won’t talk about his private life, and yet he mentions his wife and two daughters with ease. He has rejected LA in favour of his home in Highgate, North London, even as he reveres the glamour of Hollywood. And, most importantly, he groans at the mention of his place in the postBrosnan James Bond succession debate, despite having made numerous Bond-style commercials for BMW, and a Bond-like cameo in The Pink Panther. Even his Shoot ’Em Up director and producers consistently refer to his part in that movie as a “blue-collar James Bond”.
“The only similarity between the movies, really, is that the main guy is going to deliver during the shoot-outs,” he says, before adding, categorically, that despite the media speculation (one newspaper poll said he was 90 per cent favourite for the role) he was never actually offered Bond, and if he was, he probably wouldn’t have taken it anyway. So, is he saying that not taking the role that he wasn’t offered was a good move? He laughs, three big booms. “What I’m saying is that if you look at my career, I’ve tried to keep it as varied as I can. It’s a healthy thing to do.” Owen’s career began in 1977 at Binley Park Comprehensive, in Coventry, during a school production of Oliver! He was the fourth of five brothers raised by his working-class mother and his stepfather (his biological father, a country singer, left home when Owen was 3). He describes his childhood as “rough”, yet refuses to play the sympathy card and describes acting as a last resort for a troubled soul. Instead he says that playing the Artful Dodger in Oliver! somehow made sense, and so after leaving school he joined a youth theatre, and spent two long years on the dole. “I learnt that life can be f***ing hard,” he says, laughing again. “It was the toughest time. The work had all dried up, and I thought, ‘Is this ever going to happen?’ ”
Thankfully, he won a place at RADA, where his contemporaries included Ralph Fiennes and Jane Horrocks. He met his future wife, Sarah-Jane Fenton, soon after, at the Young Vic, where the two were starring in, appropriately enough, Romeo and Juliet. Both were young firebrands, but when success came calling for Owen, Fenton duly stepped down, and is now the devoted wife and mother who appears on Owen’s arm at premieres and awards. I ask him if they had, back in the old days, a secret Blair-Brown type agreement about which one would step aside if fame came calling? More booming laughter. “No, it was never like that. The only notable thing about it was that the relationship took a bit of time to come together, and we were doing a seven-month tour of Romeo and Juliet all over Europe. And there was an apprehension there about getting involved, because if it went wrong it would have, er, ramifications for the whole production.”
Owen had a famous false start as the smoothie hero of the yuppie-era TV drama Chancer, but then later, after lots of theatre work, seemed to emerge fully formed as an Alist star in Mike Hodges’ Croupier. The film, neglected in the UK, was championed in the States by Stanley Kubrick’s former marketing man Mike Kaplan. Owen thus became the archetypal overnight sensation, cast as the scene-stealing hitman in The Bourne Identity, a Chandler-esque tough guy in Sin City, and a raging dermatologist in Closer. In the latter film his expletive-filled rant at co-star Julia Roberts (“Because I’m a f***ing caveman!”) has already become a modern quotable classic.
Always quick to deconstruct his own image – his other roles have included a bisexual, an incestuous brother and a gay concentration camp victim – Owen can nonetheless flex his Alist screen persona at will, and effortlessly wrestle scenes from the likes of Denzel Washington in Inside Man, despite being obscured by his character’s face mask. “It was strange,” he says. “Because you finally get to act with someone like Denzel, and yet you can’t even look him in the face. But then halfway through the scene he says to me, ‘This is weird, I can’t f***ing see you!’ But, still, it worked.”
As for the future, once the Shoot ’Em Up and Golden Age hoopla has faded, he is to play a widowed dad in The Boys are Back in Town and a financial investigator in the paranoid thriller The International. After that, he’s not sure. He might do some theatre – or maybe not. In any event Owen-watchers should expect the unexpected. “I generally don’t get attracted to the more obvious leading man roles,” he says, “because, really, there’s nothing more boring than a very wholesome, straight, uncomplicated leading man.”
Shoot ’Em Up is released nationwide on Friday
THE CHANCER WHO HIT THE JACKPOT IN CROUPIER – CLIVE OWEN ON SCREEN
CHANCER (1990-91)
That jaw and baritone proclaimed themselves to Britain’s housewives when Owen played a beguiling conman in this ITV series. Beginning in the chirpy confines of a car dealership, Chancer got steadily darker. Owen honed his trademark glower as his character battled prison, death and personal demons.
CROUPIER (1998)
After a few wilderness years following his role in the 1991 incest drama Close My Eyes, Owen’s big-screen break came playing yet another morally dubious type. “He’s not really a good guy or a bad guy,” he said of the writer-turned-casino worker he played in Mike Hodges’s neo-noir. “But people generally aren’t, are they?”
CLOSER (2004)
Owen had already appeared on stage as the wimpy Dan in Patrick Marber’s savage deconstruction of sexual politics. In the film adaptation, Jude Law took that role and Owen played the inscrutable dermatologist Larry. The switch paid off, as he earned an Oscar nomination, a Bafta and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor.
CHILDREN OF MEN (2006)
Having hefted his sword in a period piece (2004’s King Arthur), Owen dipped his toe into sci-fi as a world-weary civil servant in Alfonso Cuaron’s dystopian drama. Who better to brood about a future in which suicide is rife and the human race has become infertile than Britain’s king of photogenic gloom?
(Story by Kevin Maher)
Biography
Early life
Owen was born in Coventry, West Midlands, England, the fourth of five brothers. When Owen was three, his father (a country and western singer) left the family. Owen was raised by his mother and step-father, a railway ticket clerk, and only met his father again at the age of nineteen. While initially opposed to drama school, he changed his mind in 1984, after a long and fruitless period of searching for work. Owen graduated from RADA in 1987 in a class including both Ralph Fiennes and Jane Horrocks. After graduation, he won a position at the Young Vic, performing in several William Shakespeare plays. In an incident he later described as “very schmaltzy,” he met his future wife Sarah Jane Fenton.
Career
Initially, Owen carved out a career in television: in 1988 Owen starred as Gideon Sarn in a BBC television production of Precious Bane and the Channel 4 film Vroom before the 1990s saw him become a regular on stage and television in the UK, notably his lead role in the ITV series Chancer followed by an appearance in the Thames Television production of Lorna Doone.
He won critical acclaim for his performances in a 1991 Stephen Poliakoff film called Close My Eyes, about a brother and sister who embark on an incestuous love affair. Due to personal conflicts with the press, Owen decided not to appear in television programmes for a while. However, he subsequently appeared in The Magician, Class Of ‘61, Century, Nobody’s Children, An Evening With Gary Lineker, Doomsday Gun, Return Of The Native, The Turnaround and then a Carlton production called Sharman, about a private detective. In 1996 he appeared in his first major Hollywood film The Rich Man’s Wife alongside Halle Berry before finding international acclaim in a Channel 4 film directed by Mike Hodges called Croupier in 1998. He played the title role of a struggling writer who takes a job in a London casino as inspiration for his work, only to get caught up in a robbery scheme. In 1999 he appeared as an accident-prone driver called Split Second, his first BBC production for a decade.
He then starred in The Echo, a BBC1 drama. He also starred in a film called Greenfingers about a criminal who goes to work in a garden, before appearing in the BBC1 mystery series Second Sight, in which he played DCI Ross Tanner. In 2001 he provided the voice-over for a BBC2 documentary about popular music through the years called Walk On By, as well as starring in a highly-acclaimed theatre production called The Day In The Death Of Joe Egg, about a couple with a severely handicapped daughter. He then appeared in Robert Altman’s Gosford Park, alongside an all-star cast including Helen Mirren and Ryan Phillippe. He has also appeared in The Bourne Identity, along with American actor Matt Damon. In 2003 he starred in other films including Trevor Preston’s I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead and Beyond Borders before taking on the title role in King Arthur. He took horse-riding lessons for the latter role.
He has since appeared in the comic book thriller Sin City as the noir antihero Dwight McCarthy; as a mysterious bank robber in Inside Man and as Sir Walter Raleigh opposite Cate Blanchett’s Elizabeth I in the film Golden Age.
He also appeared in the West End and Broadway hit play Closer, by Patrick Marber, which again became a film which was released in 2005, before he starred in Derailed alongside Jennifer Aniston. It is interesting to note that he played ” Dan” in the play “Closer” but was “Larry” the dermatologist in the film version of the play. His blistering, darkly comic portrayal of Larry in the film version earned him a lot of recognition as well as the awards mentioned above.
In 2006, Owen starred in the highly acclaimed Children of Men. He received widespread praise for his role as the former political activist-turned-reluctant hero Theo Faron. The film was nominated for various awards including an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay; Owen worked on the screenplay, although he was uncredited. He noted that the expectations of him since the Oscar nomination have not changed the way he approaches film-making.
I try, every film I do, to be as good as I can and that’s all I can do.
He became well known to North American audiences after starring as The Driver in the BMW films. Despite public denials, Owen had long been rumored to be a possible successor to Pierce Brosnan in the role of James Bond. A public opinion poll in the United Kingdom in October 2005 (SkyNews) found that he was the public’s number one choice to star in the next installment of the series. In that same month, however, it was announced that British actor Daniel Craig would become the next James Bond. In 2006 Owen spoofed the Bond connection by making an appearance in the remake of The Pink Panther in which he plays a character named “Nigel Boswell, Agent 006″ (when he introduces himself to Inspector Clouseau he quips that Owen’s character is “one short of the big time”).
In November 2006, he became patron of the Electric Palace Cinema in Harwich, England and launched an appeal for funds to repair deteriorating elements of the fabric.
He was mentioned by Karl Pilkington in a podcast and named him as ‘Clive Warren’ by accident.
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