Paramount Vantage are offering free downloads of five of their scripts - The Kite Runner, A Mighty Heart, Into the Wild, There Will Be Blood and Margot at the Wedding.
Unfortunately, they're keeping the script for Son of Rambow off the table, not least because it isn't getting a release until May next year and these scripts aren't just a free gift - they're being used as an awards-season lobbying device.
- Michael Bay is continuing to take all of the credit for Transformers. Film is a collaborative medium, Michael - stop peddling this egomaniacal auterism and polishing your knuckles on your chest. I'm sure he'll pass the buck when it comes to criticism of the film.
- Is the Cloverfield budget really only $30 million? I'm standing by my theory about the film's title, too. At least we now know some of the film's cast for sure: Michael Stahl-David, Odet Jasmin, Mike Vogel and Lizzy Kaplan. You can (currently) download a version of the trailer, but expect it to get pulled quickly.
- The Sunset Gower studios have been sold for redevelopment.
- The amount of screens hosting A Mighty Heart across the US is about to get slashed in what amounts to 'a retroactive platform release'. Now the genie is out of the bottle, however, I think this one will have pretty much run its course. Hopefully the appropriate egos were pricked.
- The autobiography of a roadie is proving the way in to a Grateful Dead movie. Home Before Daylight is being adapted by Michael Grais and will apparently also feature fictionalised versions of Ken Kesey and Jefferson Airplane. And a lot of drugs.
- Dustin Hoffman will direct and star in and is producing and co-writing an adaptation of Scott Turow's Personal Injuries. Yep - Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut might finally be coming almost 30 years after he fired himself from the chief's position on Straight Time.
- Germany have coughed up 6 and a half million dollars to go in the Valkyrie coffers.
- The Meg movie has been sunk again. That's one more movie New Line won't ever be producing. I don't mind: shark movies don't exactly have a great pedigree. Not like piranha movies.
- Jonah Hill has denied his involvement in Watchmen. Told you I was doubtful about that list. Of course, he could just be 'pulling a Shia'... but, nah. I believe him.
- Is Brad Pitt planning to star in a remake of Bullitt? Probably not.
- According to Ethan Hawke, there was almost another Before Sunrise sequel. Why wasn't there? Apparently because people took the first two to heart too much. Er... okay...
- There seems to be a Speed 3 on the cards. This one will apparently have Dennis Hopper in it again, even though he died in the first one. I'm smelling direct to DVD all over this project.
- Dread Central have a poster and YouTube trailer for [REC].
- Father Henryk Jankowski is courting Mel Gibson with an eye to getting the actor/director to film his life story. Jankowski is infamous for pouring scorn, offering up both anti-communist and (allegedly) anti-Semitic rhetoric. I saw this link at Cinematical.
- The NY Daily News have quoted Danny Boyle speaking out against Eli Roth and his films. Well, I know what side of that argument I'm on and it definitely isn't Danny Boyle's side. He said "His movies aren't even particularly well done. They're not even scary. They're horrible, but that's not scary. It's not suspense. And if you watch my films in detail, there's actually not a lot of violence in them. You get numb with violence very quickly." That's just silly, Mr. Boyle. And I think you know you're wrong too.
- Zak Penn is writing the Dirty Dozen remake.
- Will Shaeffer has died. He was the composer of both The Flintstones and The Jetsons themes.
- Matt Groening has implied that there's no CG in The Simpsons Movie. That's not true: there's loads of CG, and you can see plenty of it in the trailer. The sequence with the bullet hitting Bart's skateboard is massively dependant on CG. Bit, yes, there's plenty of hand drawn stuff too.
- Minnie Driver is the new Lara Croft. Voice only: this is for a cartoon series.
- An EU promotional clip has upset a number of conservative politicians. It features 18 couples in excerpts from big screen love scenes and the main problem, it seems, is that some of these are homosexual couples. My problem, really, is how much of the clip depends on Jean Pierre Jeunet - couldn't they find any other films to include too?
- Haylie Duff is taking a role in The Kentucky Fried Horror Movie that was once earmarked for Jessica Simpson. Joe Bob Briggs and P J Soles are also lined up.
All news outlets looking to cover the A Mighty Heart premiere and attendant promotional interviews have been asked to sign a very stringent contract - which, okay, isn't really too different from the norm. Things were a little tighter than typical this time though: the film's publicists were even asked to ban Fox News from the premiere's red carpet completely.
Of course, this is a film that is at least partly about freedom of press, which makes this all seem very hypocritical indeed. The Fox news piece levels a number of accusations at Jolie and the PR team which seem entirely fair. Trust me: Fox news and I don't generally get on. At all. But they do seem to have a case here.
The contract included the following:
The interview may only be used to promote the Picture. In no event may Interviewer or Media Outlet be entitled to run all or any portion of the interview in connection with any other story. The interview will not be used in a manner that is disparaging, demeaning, or derogatory to Ms. Jolie.
Hopefully this will force Jolie into a no-holds barred interview or two, in an attempt to restore some dignity and stop her developing a reputation as a controlling, censorous manipulator. I would imagine she's too easy a target to risk turning large quarters of the world's press fully against her, but she's certainly in danger of doing so if she continues in this fashion.
I'd be very disappointed to think this was conceived as a liberal-friendly publicty stunt and we were all supposed to blindly side with Jolie and he PR because the targets were Fox news. I wouldn't be entirely surprised, but I would be disappointed.
A series of stills revealing Angelina Jolie's 'blackface' make-up for her portrayal of Marianne Pearl in A Mighty Heart have been released.
Frankly, they pretty much dialled the fuss right down for me. Now I have this one pegged at the level of Memoirs of a Geisha, say, not The Black and White Minstrel Show. Much more shocking is the film's Cannes poster. Ugly, cliched and cheap looking - and complete with courier typeface because we are dealing with a journalist, after all. See it at the bottom of the heap.
Here's the selection of films showing out of competition at Cannes this year. Click on it to make it big enough to read.
