News on James Bond's potential villain, Kristen Stewart turning down Lois Lane for Superman , Die Hard 5 looking back to the Gruber family for its bad guy, Halle Berry's custody issues and more!
Furious Movie News 02.03.11: The Bardem Bond Baddie Edition
Javier Bardem talks Bond, Die Hard 5 thinks villains, Halle Berry has custody issues and Kristen Stewart will not be Lois Lane. All this, trailers, charts and more!
Just finished watching the final season of The Wire and I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the characters and where they would end up. Its sad to lose a show but I'm pleased they got to tell an entire story. Just sad it had to end. I could quite happily have grown old watching the same characters on that show as they got old and grey. But like all shows it may eventually have burned out. It's a pity it wasn't seen by more people because it had so many important messages. Not just about the streets of Baltimore but also about filmmaking. It never treated its audience like a dummy and made a point of not explaining things, throwing in needless flashbacks and voice overs. Glorious show. Here's one of many memories courtesy of Herc…
NEWS!
The offer is out there…Javier Bardem has an opportunity to star in the next James Bond film as the principle villain. According to Bardem himself, who spoke to the LA Times this week, he's been in touch with Bond director Sam Mendes and the offer is legitimate. While he's yet to accept, based on script approval, here's what Javier had to say;
"I'm a huge fan of the James Bond saga. When I was little, I went watching Mr. Connery doing James Bond with my father. Who in the world would think I'd be in one of those movies?"
So he's a fan and he's upbeat. Of course everything depends on the role for Bardem. He won't do any old shit. Its like not like some actors who get asked to be Bond villains and immediately bring a cackle, a crazy walk or an insane hairstyle to the role in order to get over their villainy to the audience. Bardem insists it won't be like that. While he will be playing the bad guy, if he accepts the role, its "nuanced" and should be more complex than usual. And the last two villains have felt less straight up evil. Just guys with a differing perception of the world to Bond. If there's an actor who can take that to another level its Bardem who won an Oscar in for No Country for Old Men where, as Anton Chigurh, he had a pop at revitalising the bad guy. Hell of a role. If he can bring that level of intensity, friendo, and the script is there I'm sure Bardem will sign up.
…and speaking of villains, John McClane could have some more family issues
Pictured: European terrorism.
There's an unwritten rule in Die Hard mythology; that the villain in an odd numbered Die Hard has the surname Gruber. Hans Gruber was played by Alan Rickman in the original Die Hard and for Die Hard With a Vengeance his brother Simon was played by Jeremy Irons. Now the latest Die Hard film will be an odd numbered one following on from Die Hard 4.0 aka Live Free or Die Hard . At the moment Die Hard 5 is tentatively being called Die Hard 24/7 and they're working with the idea that the bad guy (or girl) would be another member of the Gruber family. My guess is that a patriarch would be too old, another brother would be pushing it (three evil geniuses in one family?) so perhaps Hans Gruber had a son or daughter who's out for revenge?
Yeah, by this point it is getting a bit silly but did you see Die Hard 4.0 ? He was battling a fighter jet with a truck and took down a helicopter with a taxi. This is not a series that requires gritty realism. Since they started making increasingly OTT sequels Die Hard has been going further and further away from the original concept. I suspect this will continue with a 5th film so if they want Son of Gruber to be the bad guy then go for it. Go nuts.
Halle Berry was scheduled to take part in New Line's rom-com ensemble piece New Year's Eve (the follow up to Valentine's Day ) and was due to start filming next week. However she's pulled out of the film in order to concentrate on her family. Halle and her ex-boyfriend Gabriel Aubry are about to enter into a battle for custody of their daughter Nalha. Aubry made the first step last month when he asked for joint custody of the girl through the courts. Berry was trying to deal with this without going to court but seeing as Aubry made a move she's been forced into judicial response. Berry believes that Nalha isn't safe in prolonged care with her father and wants sole custody.
Berry's private life has occasionally become public knowledge. In 1993 she married baseball player David Justice. The two were together for 3 years before separating and she eventually divorced him in 1997. Berry was hit hard by the breakup and the relationship was eroded by both partners fame and success. So she took it a little slower with musician Eric Benet. They began dating in 1997 and had a slow relationship until their 2001 wedding. However two years later the couple separated and the divorce was finalised in 2005. Later in 2005 Halle started her relationship with Aubry, who is a model, and in 2008 she had Nalha. The couple were so close she's actually named Nalha Aubry. They split in April 2010 but were on good terms to begin with.
The split has now begun to effect Halle's work schedule but given their past cooperation they can surely work something out in order for Halle to get back to work and Nalha to get on with her life. Halle Berry remains the only African-American actress to have won the Academy Award for best leading actress. She did so in 2001 for the movie Monster's Ball .
We had a report up yesterday about possible Lois Lane's and the top choice for Zack Snyder and the Superman team appeared to be Twilight actress Kristen Stewart. "A source" for the New York Daily said she had a short meeting with Snyder this week but it can't have gone too well. Kristen's official stance seems to be that she passed on the project wanting instead to shoot some smaller Independent movies having had the headlining role in one of the bigger movie franchises in recent times. Yet another "source" from the paper claims that Stewart wasn't offered the role by Snyder but that he was keen on her playing the part. A spokesperson for Stewart went a different route claiming she hadn't read for the part with no further elaboration. Zack came away miffed from the meet that Kristen wouldn't even consider it. In other words; Kristen Stewart will NOT be playing Lois Lane in the forthcoming Superman film.
So who might be? After the announcement that Henry Cavill will play Supes in the film its become one of the most sought after roles in Hollywood. Jessica Biel, Dianna Agron, Rachel McAdams, Malin Akerman and Mila Kunis appear to be the cast of ladies potentially filling the role. Agron is best known for Glee but the other actresses have played some major Hollywood roles. My pick of those would probably be Mila Kunis. She's likeable, saucy and can play formal and fun. She's also rather sharp tongued. I think its far more likely the studio will go a safe route. Rachel McAdams is on the brink of a big role and did well with Sherlock Holmes . I think she's the frontrunner. Olivia Wilde has also been mentioned in several news outlets.
Normally when Jim Cameron opens his mouth in the news its to criticise someone else and something else. Not today. Today he's hyping Avatar 2/3 . He's hoping that by changing the speed at which the audience receives their images and improving the lighting in cinemas the audiences won't experience the same negative effects that some had during Avatar , which as luck would have it I'm watching as I write this. If there was a flaw in Avatar technology wise its that at times my brain was struggling to process everything it was throwing at me. Cameron thinks he's got the issue licked.
He also went on to talk, in the Wall Street Journal, about Sanctum and how he needed the film to be made so he could iron out some issues regarding underwater 3D filming he intended to use on Avatar 2 . He describes the approach to be used on Sanctum as "cookie cutter" as he figured it didn't need fixing but then realised he needed to make changes for Avatar 2 . He thinks issues in other director's 3D work come from frame rate and lighting rather than the 3D cameras, which are sound. In other words he's trying to fix problems for other people not just himself. Like he's everyone's favourite Uncle who knows how to fix their problems. I don't think he's trying to be condescending and he genuinely seems to be enjoying filmmaking. Because of the success of Avatar he'll be stuck on Pandora until 2015 Battle Angel will have to wait but that's next on his slate when he's finished.
Woody Allen has been handed the opening slot at this year's Cannes Film Festival beginning on May 11th. The movie in question is Midnight in Paris . Its also scheduled to open across France the same night in order for the entire French people to get the feeling of being at the opening night of Cannes. The film stars Owen Wilson, Scarlet Johansson, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates and Marion Cottilard. The Cannes Jury is headed up by Robert De Niro this year and runs from May 11th till May 22nd.
Allen has taken to Europe in recent years mainly due to his films becoming both commercially unviable and badly reviewed in America. This began when he shot Match Point in London back in 2005. I felt he'd merely transplanted an American film into a British city and it didn't work as well as the American critics did. Woody thought differently too and thought it was his best work. He came back to London twice but couldn't quite get his mojo working on Scoop or Cassandra's Dream . The rest of Europe opened up to Woody after Match Point though and he had success with Vicky Cristina Barcelona even if it had a grating V/O.
Zach Galifianakis is likely to be in R.I.P.D. with Ryan Reynolds. It's a supernatural buddy comedy. Reynolds will play a recently deceased cop who joins an afterlife detective agency in order to find his killer. Galifianakis, if he signs up, will play his partner; a gunslinger from the 1800s.
Elektra Luxx ; a vehicle for Carla Gugino about a retiring porn star drawn into a new world of potential evils. But it's a comedy. But it does star Joseph Gordon Levitt, Emmanuelle Chriqui (from Entourage ) and Malin Akerman. I must admit to being curious.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon is due out next summer. Here's the trailer. Seems almost low key for Michael Bay. I think most regular readers know my opinion on Bay and the new Transformers series he's produced but he's promised this will be an apology for the poor sequel he made a few years back. Hey, it can't be any worse!
Kung Fu Panda 2 had something approaching a trailer a while back. You couldn't really even call it a teaser though. This new 30 second trailer shows some footage from the movie. Nothing to get too excited about but DreamWorks must be thrilled with how its going for them post- Shrek . They're getting franchises launched and their movies are getting lasting popularity.
Two newcomers, neither of which got particularly good reviews. But if one movie was panned more than the other it was The Rite , which had the dubious honour of being called "boring" in an age when boring means we've gone more than five minutes in the same scene. It still opened with just about enough clout to score top spot with $15M, which is exactly what I predicted last week (apart from actually calling The Rite over The Mechanic ). The film is budgeted at $37M so that's not a bad start, especially if you consider the poor reviews. But among supernatural thrillers I'm sure they were hoping for closer to Paranormal Activity 2 's $40M opening weekend. For a comparison I went with 13 Ghosts , which also had bad reviews and also opened to $15M. It went on to score $41M in total, which would probably be fine for Warners. The last time Anthony Hopkins had to carry a movie on wide release it was Fracture , which opened worse but still made it over the $37M mark. Director Mikael Hafstrom fared better last time out with 1408 . I liked that movie.
The Mechanic also opened at the weekend. It was primarily a vehicle for The Stath to see how his pictures perform post- Expendables . The result…jury is still undecided. It opened to less than Transporter 3 and Death Race but improved on Crank 2 and with $11M almost has that movie's entire run covered already. Maybe its time for The Stath to start getting a little more ambitious with his movie projects. His only two movies over $100M were group efforts. Perhaps he's better off as a support player. Get the name out there…then try again. Meanwhile director Simon West suffered his worst ever opening. Even When A Stranger Calls made more opening weekend five years back.
In other new releases; From Prada to Nada opened to just over $1M. Not bad for 256 screens. Biutiful , a favourite for best foreign film at the Oscars, opened in 57 locations and scored just under half a million dollars. Which is also a pretty decent theatre average.
The King's Speech again went wider this weekend seeing a jump of 877 screens. With 2500+ locations its now on wide release. It had an $11M weekend to show for it, which takes its total to $72M. Puts Hurt Locker 's $17M in the shade somewhat. While the Academy nominees don't have a huge blockbuster like Avatar in their number they are racking up some serious dollar.
Another push has been mounted to get 127 Hours over. Its gone back into a number of locations and seen business increase to $2M over the weekend. That gives it $13M overall. Of all the Oscar nominees 127 Hours has the weakest box office. I think they're hoping it rectifies that in the coming weeks as it's the one film that hasn't found a big market. Surely people will go and see it now its gotten Oscar approval to go with all the other love recently? I've seen it; it's a good movie.
Indy flick Blue Valentine expanded and now has $6M total. Not a huge amount but a sign people are willing to give it a shot. Michelle Williams & Ryan Gosling are both terrific; only one has an Oscar nomination. The Company Men also saw expansion over the weekend doubling its venues. This film seems to slipped under the radar despite positivity surrounding the release. It has a great cast and everything! Of the other Indy films knocking around on release Inside Job caught the most love from the Oscar nominations and its up for best documentary. That bump sees it into the black and there's a strong chance it'll win at the end of next month.
No Strings Attached continues to benefit from the lack of rom-com's on the January slate. It bossed the charts all week until The Rite came along. $39M so far and it had a paltry $25M budget so its well into the black already. I wonder if the success will be attributed to Ivan Reitman's handling of the project? After all he's not had a big hit since Six Days, Seven Nights back in 1998. Admittedly he's taken a back seat and only shot three movies since but hey, that's still a long time ago. Its far more likely that Natalie Portman will get the plaudits. She's fresh off an Academy Award nomination and awesome performance in Black Swan , which means the studios will surely be looking at her as an actress who can carry a picture. Hopefully she'll choose wisely and not let this newfound mass love bog her down. She has a comedy up next with James Franco and Danny McBride called Your Highness . Could be a big hit.
The Green Hornet has quietly amassed $78M plus another $61M overseas. People just love those superhero types. Even if this guy has no powers and this isn't based on a comic book so much as a radio & TV show. Yeah, there is a comic but Hornet isn't what you'd call a comic book hero. So this showing has surprised me a little. Especially when the movie looked like crap from the trailer, the reviews were bad and the movie itself falls flat on its face courtesy of Seth Rogen's own arrogance. Production budget was a reachable $120M and its getting there (past it if you include foreign money) despite the movies failings.
True Grit continues to ride high in the saddle now defying every law of the box office. A re-make of an existing iconic picture and it's a Western. And yet the Coen's have done such an incredible job on it that people wanted to see it and now even more so thanks to all the Academy love. $148M so far and that is WAY above anything anyone expected. Biggest Coen's movie, ever. One of the biggest Westerns since Technicolor came in. Second highest grossing Western, ever. Now nominated for 10 Academy Awards and has a chance at bringing a few home. Its just a pity it has to contend with The Social Network for a screenplay award.
The Dilemma saw heavy drop-off this week (40%), which is common among non-awards pictures in January. It seems its simply run its course. $40M banked so far. I think Universal is probably regretting the expensive $70M shoot. Its opened overseas and is doing ok but not into the black yet. This must all be a bit of a shock to Vince Vaughn who's used to his pictures just naturally being hits. Hell, the last time he was in a picture that was this slow generating revenue it was 2001 and the movie was Domestic Disturbance co-starring John Travolta back when he'd make any old shit (that rule still applies).
Black Swan seems to be struggling with the competition of another Natalie Portman movie Or perhaps its just run its course too having been out for 9 weeks and grossing $90M. That's a hell of a box office achievement for a movie about a psychotic ballet dancer and that was before it was nominated for a bunch of Oscars including best actress.
The Fighter hasn't seen much of an Academy nominations bump either having grossed just $4M over the weekend. But that was down only a few percent on last week so it is holding. $78M so far and it might still catch Rocky II , which would be something.
Yogi Bear has been fortunate. If a rival film had come out over the past few weeks it would have cut into the bizarre and continuing good will Yogi is receiving. As if people couldn't stand to see the film flop and pushed it up to $92M. That puts it just a million bucks behind Cats and Dogs and into definite success territory.
Two in, two out. Tron Legacy has been coming for some time. It came 10th last week and its been slowing right down. $166M means it might even break even just using US box office figures though, which is something I don't think Disney envisaged when it started out ‘ok'. $362M worldwide ensures the sequel will reach an audience and Disney can now afford to fund it.
The other departure is Little Fockers , which plummeted 42% since last week. If it wasn't for Season of the Witch dropping nearly 70% this weekend it'd be the biggest drop off on the chart. An interesting note is that the movie it opened the same week as, True Grit , is now out-grossing it. It's a marathon not a sprint. Oh, and Little Fockers cost $62M more.
Sanctum the underwater 3D film produced by James Cameron surfaces (pun intended). That should take number one. It has the most hype and name recognition. Also out is The Roommate ; a college dorm movie about the room mate from hell. It stars Leighton Meester (above) who's fresh off Country Strong and looking to make a name for herself. Cam Giganet and Billy Zane co-star. Be warned now; the week after this Justin Bieber's movie comes out. You have been warned.
No major awards handed out this week but let's take a look at what has been going on. Firstly…
Immediately the call that jumps out at you is the best motion picture director; Tom Hooper for The King's Speech . Which bucks a trend of David Fincher winning practically everything during awards season. I guess someone had to go for an alternative sooner or later but the timing of this reflects a growing love of The King's Speech and those involved in that love are numerous among the Academy members. Which means best director is actually tightening up a touch. I certainly think Hooper has a shot at spoiling Fincher's big party at the end of February.
Other big winners were documentary Inside Job , which solidifies its position as an Oscar favourite. Also in TV Modern Family, Temple Grandin and Boardwalk Empire scooped awards. Scorsese's period gangster series has been creating all manner of ripples and could become a long term success like The Sopranos . Here's hoping.
SAG were 4/4 on the Academy Awards for acting last year. They generally are quite accurate with the acting awards. So let's see who won the majors…
Best actor: Colin Firth. As expected. He's pretty much in a field of one for the Oscar.
Best actress: Natalie Portman. She's solidifying her claim on the Oscar with yet another win. Other favourites for the award have won nothing as yet so this looks close to being a lock too.
Best supporting actor: Christian Bale. No shocks from the SAG so far. Bale is again odds on favourite despite competition from an excellent Geoffrey Rush in the now fancied The King's Speech .
Best supporting actress: Melissa Leo. This is the only open category of the four major acting ones and Melissa looks closer and closer every day to being the winner. I think she deserves it. Hailee Steinfeld has to be close given that she's in every scene in True Grit but with every award now going Melissa Leo's way it looks like she's becoming the firm favourite. Of course the firm favourite doesn't always win and some people's Oscar campaigns get them surprise wins. Or lack of interest in the Academy Awards (Julie Christie) costs them the big one.
Big, huge beef with the SAG on the TV awards though. As much as I love Alec Baldwin his victory in best male comedy performance is surely sullied by a lack of nomination for Jim Parsons. The Golden Globe winner wasn't even nominated.
An odd week in the Premier League as the only fixtures were ones cancelled back over the Xmas period when games were called off due to inclement weather. That means there were only three matches outside of the FA Cup. Seeing as ITV provided its usual sloppy coverage of events I actually only saw half of Notts Co-Man City and that was it. I can't stand ITV.
1. Dimitar Berbatov (Man Utd). He's done it again! It seems as if Berba pops up whenever this Utd team need some goals. At Blackpool in midweek he did it twice. I know he has this reputation as a flat track bully and that he only scores against smaller clubs but Berbatov's form is one of the main reasons that Utd are where they are right now; top of the league. True; their defence has a lot to do with that but despite defences winning championships its goals that win games and Berbatov is the league's leading scorer with a staggering 19 goals. Tevez is second with 14.
2. Raul Meirelles (Liverpool). Its strange that Raul waited for the boss who signed him (Hodgson) to leave before hitting his best form for his club. Meirelles has been quite excellent of late. Against Fulham he ran the midfield and out-performed a sluggish post-suspension Stevie Gerrard. With all the talk of players coming and going at ‘Pool its interesting that Meirelles, a Hodgson signing, has been left well alone. He's playing some terrific football and Liverpool need him to carry on like that if they're to record a decent finish this season.
3. James Collins (Aston Villa). Has been a rock of late. Now Gerard Houllier has gotten over his beef with Richard Dunne its helped to solidify the back line and Collins is playing as well as I can remember him playing. Having Dunne back has taken the pressure off him to succeed but because he's been playing all season he's got confidence that money can't buy. He's been one of the better central defenders anywhere this season and if Villa had been performing better as a team he'd be mentioned more often as such.
That's all from a quiet week. I could easily have voted in more Man Utd players but felt that they needed to rely heavily on two substitutes to get going against Blackpool and only played well for 45 minutes. Anyway, here's the current standings…
Berbatov's win takes him 10 points clear. Not really fair on the others seeing as the majority of them didn't play. Anyway, the Premier League is back in force next weekend. Big games include Arsenal-Everton, Man U-Villa, Newcastle-Arsenal and Chelsea-Liverpool. The fixture list is packed with winning games and I'll be spoiled for choice.
I was quite enjoying this as a combination of no-brainer action film and nostalgia trip...until the last 20 minutes. The end of the film is a horrible mess with woeful CGI. It looks like it cost a lot of money to make everything explode. But not enough to make it look good. Which is the biggest flaw of Joe Carnahan's piece; he just doesn't believe the characters are good enough to carry the film without elaborate tagged on action sequences during which they scurry from explosions like added SFX. Which is a shame because the characters are pretty damn good. Sharlto Copley especially gets a nice handle on Howlin' Mad Murdock. If Carnahan believed in his characters and followed through on his intentions then the Mission: Impossible sequences down the outside of building and the ridiculous but entertaining tank sequence would have been enough action to carry the characters across into the world of the action junkie. Stallone made the same mistake in the Expendables ; although those characters weren't as good as this. A year ago if you told me I'd like the A-Team remake better than the Expendables I'd have called you a crazy man but that statement is now fact. ***
On paper this was a fantastic idea but the reality of the Other Guys is that they didn't have a solid concept going in, they then had to shoehorn jokes into that weak premise and the finished article feels like nothing of the sort. Its like a rough cut of what might some day become a good movie. There are certainly worthwhile bits. The Rock & Sam Jackson are great as the supercops that Will Ferrell wants to be like. Some of the comedy works just fine. But for someone as funny as Will Ferrell (You're Welcome America is 90 minutes of hilarity) "some" is tant amount to a failure. It doesn't help that he's saddled with Mark Wahlberg who isn't sure just how much of a parody the finished film is going to be so switches between playing it fairly straight to OTT nonsense; sometimes in the same scene. Adam McKay just didn't get a strong hold on this film and it lacks a singularity of vision. While it doesn't completely fall flat its disjointed at best. **1/2.
One for the road. Do we need any oranges Gary Busey?
He sure loves Calvin & Hobbes.
Until next time I'm Arnold Furious and you're not.
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