Last Thursday, I had a lengthy, terrific interview with James Cameron in advance of the special edition of Avatar (rereleased to theaters August 27), and all this week, Movieline will bring you pieces of that wide-ranging talk.
"I think it's a short-term problem. 3Ds here, and its got an enormous amount of momentum. Hopefully, the best outcome is that the audience is smarter and they know to be discriminating, and the studios are smarter and they know not to abuse the market. I'd like to think thats the case, going forward."
The moment I heard that David Fincher, the director of the upcoming American remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (scheduled release date: December 2011), had settled on his choice for an unknown actress to play Lisbeth Salander, the morosely punked-out cyber-genius/abuse victim/ delinquent/investigator/ smashmouth heroine, I eagerly looked up her credits to see if I could remember her in any previous roles.
Ive almost done a complete 180 on Matt Reeves Let Me In, which was previously adapted as the terrific Let the Right One In.
After ripping it apart, what Ive now seen of the film and heard about it has me kind of excited to see it. For those unfamiliar with the plot, its about a bullied young boy who befriends a girl who turns out to be a vampire. That is the most simplistic one-sentence synopsis I can give.
The story is a lot deeper than that, but I dont want to give away more than I have to for people who havent seen the original Swedish film or read John Ajvide Linqvists novel.
Do you enjoy complex plotting? Subtle subtexts? Movies in which scantily clad people don't get bitten to pieces by fish? Then you should think twice - actually, make it thrice - before seeing Piranha 3D, which opens this Friday.
Little-known American actress Rooney Mara has landed the lead role opposite Daniel Craig in Hollywoods version of Stieg Larssons best-selling book The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Columbia Pictures said Monday.
Before I get to the trailer for Skyline, I would like to make a small plea to Hollywood: Please stop making alien invasion movies. We get it, theyre coming for us and theres nothing we can do to stop it. Earth is doomed. Humanitys days are numbered. A future existing of mass death and perpetual slavery awaits us all. Its not a matter of if, but when.
So begins what is certainly the movie event of the year in China, and possibly the movie event of all time, commercially speaking, in this country.
Called Aftershock in English, the movie depicts with impressive, extremely realistic special effects the devastating earthquake that hit the city of Tangshan 34 years ago, killing 240,000 people. More important, it then follows the emotional and psychological impact the disaster had on one family over the next three decades.
Based loosely on a novel by the Chinese-Canadian writer Zhang Ling, Aftershock is something of a Chinese version of William Styrons Sophies Choice, in which a mother is forced to choose which of her two children will survive the Holocaust.
"The AVATAR re-release will have 9 extra minutes, not 8 and it will all be CG. No extra footage of live action characters drinking coffee. Rainforest; some at night; a hunt sequence - a lot of flying; high impact action; an emotional scene toward the end has been added back; "the best CG in the film has been added as far as facial performance"; A Na'vi counterattack after the bulldozer attack; more of Grace at the school; adding the Stingbat and Sturmbeast creatures; additional Quaritch final AMP Suit battle shots; more of the glade love scene. It is all on par with the best of the rest of the film. They had lots of footage to choose from and they put back the absolute best scenes and shots they could."
Cameron on how they are technically converting TITANIC. "You just can't cut out edges, you're going to get flat people moving around." He will be using all his knowledge to put things on their right depth planes. They had tests for TITANIC from seven different conversion vendors on the exact same shots and they got back seven different answers as to were they thought things were spatially. "Some of them were not bad guesses and some of them were ridiculous."
Morgan Freeman has been signed to play a starring role in an upcoming 3D movie called Dolphin Tale.
He will play the part of a doctor who develops a prosthetic tail for an injured dolphin so it can swim again. Harry Connick Jr. is also slated to be in the movie, playing the part of a marine biologist who helps a 11-year-old boy rescue the animal.
Two Chesterfield, Missouri, teens gave up their summer vacations for a project dear to their hearts. They had a classmate who is a national champion on the yo-yo and they decided he deserved some recognition for his extraordinary talent.
That led to the world premier of their documentary that premieres Thursday at Plaza Frontenac. The movie is called "Bound" and you'll surely hear more about it since it is, reportedly, the first full-length documentary ever made about the art of Yo-Yo-ing.
In a deal that could transform the landscape for digital movie distribution, start-up pay-TV channel Epix is in serious negotiations to give Netflix exclusive online rights to films from its three equity partners -- Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The five-year arrangement would allow Netflix subscribers to watch movies such as "Iron Man 2," "Dinner for Schmucks" and this week's release "The Expendables" via the company's Internet streaming service, according to several people familiar with the situation.
"Because Slumdog was such a big hit there was a lot of pressure in terms of what I did next. For my second film I wanted a role that would stretch me, but all I was getting offered were stereotypical parts like the goofy Indian sidekick," he said
"Asian actors tend not to be sent Hollywood scripts that are substantial or challenging. I'm likely to be offered the roles of a terrorist, cab driver and smart geek... I want to show that I have versatility."
Patel said he was hoping to overcome prejudice. "I'm buzzing with adrenaline and raring to go, but I have to be realistic. Being an Asian actor, it's never going to be easy. Hopefully the industry is changing and the casting directors will be less focused on colour so that people like myself can get through the door."
We all heard about the untold rivalry between the real tough guys of Hollywood, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
But now, they are working together in the same movie The Expendables, and the director and actor Sylvester Stallone has used this opportunity to reveal a few unknown truths.
The Rocky star stated that he was always jealous of his two contemporaries Arnold and Bruce Willis. Whenever they got a good role or a good script, he used to get envious.
"I was very competitive with them, and very jealous if they got a better movie or script than me. Thats what made us push so hard. Thats what made us push so hard, and its why Arnold was so great."
Even before "Avatar" is proven to be a box office hit, James Cameron has stated that there will be a follow-up.
The filmmaker has now affirmed that the sequel will indeed be made, but it still waits for the deals to be worked out. " 'Avatar 2'... we're still working on deals. We don't start the movie until we get the deals worked out. I'm making notes. I'm not sitting idle," he tells MTV Movies Blog.
The helmer further reveals that two upcoming "Avatar" films which are planned for the trilogy may be shot back to back. "We're actually talking about that. That's not a decision yet," he says, before adding "That is something that makes a lot of sense, given the nature of these productions, because we can bank all the [motion] capture and then go back and do cameras over a period of time."
She was in Los Angeles on July 30 for a rare screening of some of her favorites. She has seen her films re-released on DVD The Kim Novak Collection is the latest for a new generation of fans. And, at 77, she lives a quietly happy life in rural Oregon with her husband and her beloved animals.
She takes pride when reminded of her movies, particularly a special few. But she also takes it as a sign that a house fire destroyed her in-progress memoirs, and she dwells on the past only at occasional events, like the 1996 re-release of Vertigo, or the recent tribute in Los Angeles.
"The Kim Novak Collection" comprises five films on three DVDs - including "Picnic", "Jeanne Eagels" and "Bell, Book and Candle", along with various extra features - and retails for $39.95.
When Walt Disney Co. reports quarterly financial results on Tuesday, all eyes will be on its movie studio.
The April to June period included a sizable chunk of monster box-office take for "Alice in Wonderland" and, thanks to an early home-video release, the first month of DVD and Blu-ray sales. On top of that, "Toy Story 3" took in $258 million domestically in June and went on to become the Pixar unit's second biggest-grossing title ever, behind "Finding Nemo."
Disney's toy and apparel division got a nice boost from Buzz Lightyear and Woody dolls, thanks to "Toy Story." Though Disney Consumer Products also now has the North American merchandising rights to "Iron Man" and other Marvel franchises, it's unclear whether that will translate to Disney's bottom line this quarter, since the toys were largely designed and manufactured before the December takeover of Marvel.
English movies crave action. French cinema survives on mood.
The differences are too fundamental to be a rivalry. France loves theory; we prefer practice. The French adore the abstract; the English like things concrete.
Major North American studios are showing ever greater interest in China, as the countrys fast-paced economic development has created an avid crowd of film lovers for whom no weekend would be complete without a visit to the pictures.
Foreign films secured 60 per cent of box office takings in China in the first quarter of this year, representing 1.8bn yuan
The industry is predicted to release 500 films this year, putting the country in third place for movie-making behind India and the US.
When making the independently financed "Kick-Ass," director Matthew Vaughn constantly mentioned how much he hates working with big studios and that the only way to make a movie is independently.
"I think we've kind of crossed the Rubicon with superhero films," he explained. "It's been mined to death and in some cases the quality control is not what it's supposed to be. People are just going to get bored of it. I think [the opportunity to do one], it's only going to be there two or three more times. Then, the genre is going to be dead for a while because the audience has just been pummeled too much. It is a crowded room. It's too crowded."
The star of the Academy Award-winning documentary is continuing the effort to expose the plight of dolphins who are subjected to a brutal world of captivity and oftentimes wind up slaughtered for their meat.
O'Barry and his filmmaker son, Lincoln, are set to premiere "Blood Dolphins," a three-part miniseries on Animal Planet.
In the series, which premieres Aug. 27, the O'Berrys return to Taiji, Japan (the same setting as "The Cove"), the epicenter of the annual slaughter of approximately 20,000 dolphins. The father-and-son team, along with a crew, go back to see if the critical acclaim for the film had any impact on the six-month hunting season.
It seems only appropriate that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's "Fuller at Fox" film series opens Friday with the most accomplished work Samuel Fuller made for the studio, 1953's "Pickup on South Street."
With a bold, in-your-face directing style, Fuller was a true maverick and an idol to numerous directors, including Jean-Luc Godard, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, who once said, "If you don't like the films of Sam Fuller, then you don't like cinema."
Viewed from the outside, French cinema seems to be populated with effete Parisian intellectuals talking endlessly. But Reno is the anticliche, a throwback to the gruff, populist actors of the postwar era, unafraid to use their brawn to entertain the masses.
The French film industry has traditionally been composed of three main categories: critically lauded prestige pictures, micro-budget art films and silly comedies that only the French find funny. Reno, 62, has dabbled in all three, but for the most part he's been busy carving out a fourth category with films like 22 Bullets.
There are a lot of theories about which gender is drawn more to the movies, and how they make their decisions about going to them. The MPAA has done its own research and reached the conclusion that, at least when it comes to overall attendance, the groups are about even.
It's usually impossible to get a real-world snapshot of men vs. women at the box office -- most movies appeal at least a little bit to both genders -- and there are usually other movies crowding theaters in a given weekend anyway.
Tom Cruises salary is to undergo a complete restructure for Mission: Impossible 4 after disappointing box office takings for his latest film Knight and Day.
Insiders at Paramount have revealed that the studio has lost so much confidence in Cruise they have radically reduced his upfront fee.
This means that Cruise will get nothing up front, and will only get paid after the film recoups its investment, said to be around 44 million.
Sylvester Stallone has revealed that he made no profit from the sixth film in the Rocky franchise.
The 2006 film, Rocky Balboa, earned over 133 million ($200m) in box office ticket sales, but the 53-year-old actor insisted that he has not received a share.
"I haven't seen a dime yet. [It made] nearly $200 million. That's life, eh? That's how it works these days," he told GQ.
China's movie industry is expected to reap US$2 billion in box office profits by 2015. And in three decades, it is projected to overtake Hollywood.
China's movie industry has tremendous scope for growth and expansion. Demand for movies, especially good homemade movies remain strong, and will continue to grow even stronger especially among small and medium sized Chinese cities.
Analysts said market growth will be driven by higher disposable incomes, better purchasing power, and rising ticket prices.
You remember them. People like Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Nicolas Cage - actors who could open a movie by slapping their gleaming mugs on a poster.
No more. Once the safeguard of Hollywood's most profitable movies, A-list celebrities are finding their stock fading at the multiplex, where concept is trumping co-stars and story may actually matter.
Sonic Solutions Inc. rose the most since March after the company said it will introduce technology for retailers and other partners to offer movies and television shows on Apple Inc.'s iPad and other mobile devices.
"You want to give consumers access to as many different devices as possible," Ely said in an interview. "Now you can start to watch a movie on a Samsung television and pick up right where you left off on your iPad or iPhone."
"You want to give consumers access to as many different devices as possible," Ely said in an interview. "Now you can start to watch a movie on a Samsung television and pick up right where you left off on your iPad or iPhone."
Sam Mendes Road to Perdition failed to live up to box office expectations, but is notable for a few reasons: It was Mendes sophomore follow-up to the critically-acclaimed breakout hit American Beauty, babyface star Tom Hanks was playing a bad guy, and it was one of the first comic book adaptations which strayed as far you you can from the capes and superpower realm.
The film was not a huge financial success, although the movie is still regarded by some as a beautiful and criminally underappreciated film.
According to the report, Road to Purgatory would follow the character of Michael Sullivan, Jr., the son of Tom Hanks character in the original film, who returns from World War II with a new determination to avenge his murdered father.
If you just happen to have watched adult film clips on the Internet lately "Teens Love to Experiment," "2 Glamorous Women and One Lucky Guy," perhaps? you might have stumbled across a very unusual advertisement: a trailer for the new movie "Middle Men."
Hollywood has cooked up all sorts of unusual marketing buys in recent years giant billboards that envelop skyscrapers, newspaper ads that look like real stories, logos on taxicab hubcaps and baseball bases. No matter how aggressive or creative the campaigns, though, the major movie studios haven't been spending money on adult-oriented websites. "Middle Men" could change that.
