Exclusive: In what is lining up to be one of hotter packages at this year’s Cannes market, we can reveal that Oscar winner Natalie Portman is set to star in Photograph 51 for The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper.
Oscar winner Hooper is directing the pic which is inspired by the true story of Rosalind Franklin, the groundbreaking British scientist who first unveiled the hidden structure of DNA but whose legacy has been overshadowed. Anna Ziegler is adapting the script, which is based on her play of the same title.
Photograph 51 will uncover the story behind the brilliant scientist whose pioneering work in x-ray crystallography captured the image that revealed DNA’s double-helix structure, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for all known life. The movie poses the question how could Watson and Crick, scientists working on the same conundrum in a competing lab, have been awarded the Nobel...
Oscar winner Hooper is directing the pic which is inspired by the true story of Rosalind Franklin, the groundbreaking British scientist who first unveiled the hidden structure of DNA but whose legacy has been overshadowed. Anna Ziegler is adapting the script, which is based on her play of the same title.
Photograph 51 will uncover the story behind the brilliant scientist whose pioneering work in x-ray crystallography captured the image that revealed DNA’s double-helix structure, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for all known life. The movie poses the question how could Watson and Crick, scientists working on the same conundrum in a competing lab, have been awarded the Nobel...
- 5/8/2025
- by Justin Kroll and Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Leviathan Productions has enlisted Avi Issacharoff and Lior Raz, creators of the hit Israeli series Fauda, to script October 7th, a narrative feature telling the harrowing true story of Noam Tibon.
A grandfather and retired Israeli general, Tibon garnered international attention when he rescued his family from the hands of Hamas terrorists who had invaded their kibbutz — with his story, capturing the Israeli spirit of resilience in the face of adversity.
Noam Tibon, the subject of Leviathan’s October 7th
Ben Cosgrove will produce the film telling that story for Leviathan Productions, with Jessica Kasmer-Jacobs and Talia Harris Ram exec producing. Noam Tibon and his son, Amir Tibon, will serve as consultants on the project.
October 7, 2023 was of course the shocking and tragic day when Hamas launched a coordinated land, sea, and air assault on Israel from the Gaza Strip, resulting in nearly 1,200 deaths, primarily of Israeli citizens. Marking...
A grandfather and retired Israeli general, Tibon garnered international attention when he rescued his family from the hands of Hamas terrorists who had invaded their kibbutz — with his story, capturing the Israeli spirit of resilience in the face of adversity.
Noam Tibon, the subject of Leviathan’s October 7th
Ben Cosgrove will produce the film telling that story for Leviathan Productions, with Jessica Kasmer-Jacobs and Talia Harris Ram exec producing. Noam Tibon and his son, Amir Tibon, will serve as consultants on the project.
October 7, 2023 was of course the shocking and tragic day when Hamas launched a coordinated land, sea, and air assault on Israel from the Gaza Strip, resulting in nearly 1,200 deaths, primarily of Israeli citizens. Marking...
- 6/4/2024
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Leviathan Productions has acquired the remake rights to L’Homme de la Cave (The Man in the Basement), the French psychological thriller from director Philippe Le Guay, which was released just last year.
Inspired by a true story, the film is about a Jewish couple who sell their basement to a history professor, only to discover his secret life as an antisemitic conspiracy theorist. As the couple struggles to unwind the sale, the professor starts to indoctrinate their impressionable teenaged daughter.
Marc Weitzmann, Le Guay and Gilles Taurand wrote the script for the original film, with Anne Dominique Toussaint producing. Rights were acquired from Tournellovision and the remake will be produced by Ben Cosgrove, Frederic Golchan and Neal Israel.
Founded by veteran film producer Cosgrove and bestselling author Josh Foer, Leviathan Productions is an independent production company focused on acquiring and developing mass-market films and television content based on Jewish history,...
Inspired by a true story, the film is about a Jewish couple who sell their basement to a history professor, only to discover his secret life as an antisemitic conspiracy theorist. As the couple struggles to unwind the sale, the professor starts to indoctrinate their impressionable teenaged daughter.
Marc Weitzmann, Le Guay and Gilles Taurand wrote the script for the original film, with Anne Dominique Toussaint producing. Rights were acquired from Tournellovision and the remake will be produced by Ben Cosgrove, Frederic Golchan and Neal Israel.
Founded by veteran film producer Cosgrove and bestselling author Josh Foer, Leviathan Productions is an independent production company focused on acquiring and developing mass-market films and television content based on Jewish history,...
- 5/13/2024
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Updated with more signatories: Reaction continues to The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer’s acceptance speech after his film won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film this month.
Some 1,215 Jewish show business professionals now have signed a letter denouncing the filmmaker’s speech, in which he decried the “dehumanization” of the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. See the updated full list below.
“We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination,” the letter states (read it in full in full below).
This list includes among its signatories Eli Roth and Amy Sherman-Palladino, Amy Pascal, Debra Messing, Gail Berman, Hawk Koch, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gary Barber, Lawrence Bender, Tovah Feldshuh and Rod Lurie.
You can watch Glazer’s speech here,...
Some 1,215 Jewish show business professionals now have signed a letter denouncing the filmmaker’s speech, in which he decried the “dehumanization” of the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. See the updated full list below.
“We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination,” the letter states (read it in full in full below).
This list includes among its signatories Eli Roth and Amy Sherman-Palladino, Amy Pascal, Debra Messing, Gail Berman, Hawk Koch, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gary Barber, Lawrence Bender, Tovah Feldshuh and Rod Lurie.
You can watch Glazer’s speech here,...
- 3/20/2024
- by Erik Pedersen
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Leviathan Productions has hired Jared Sleisenger as Vice President of Production, Deadline has learned. In his new role, focused on Leviathan’s TV slate, Sleisenger will work across development and production.
The entertainment veteran joins from CrossCheck Studios, a Gen Z focused production company with a development deal at Prime Video. During his time at that company, he led film and TV development efforts across their scripted and unscripted slates, working with distribution partners including Amazon, Paramount, Peacock, and STXFilms. Prior to that, he worked as a development executive at Paramount Television Studios.
Most recently, Sleisenger served as a co-producer on Alex Edelman’s acclaimed one-man show Just For Us during its Broadway run at the Hudson Theatre.
“I’m incredibly excited to welcome Jared to our team here Leviathan,” said CEO Ben Cosgrove. “His deep knowledge about the TV industry, thoughtful creative instincts, and tireless work ethic have...
The entertainment veteran joins from CrossCheck Studios, a Gen Z focused production company with a development deal at Prime Video. During his time at that company, he led film and TV development efforts across their scripted and unscripted slates, working with distribution partners including Amazon, Paramount, Peacock, and STXFilms. Prior to that, he worked as a development executive at Paramount Television Studios.
Most recently, Sleisenger served as a co-producer on Alex Edelman’s acclaimed one-man show Just For Us during its Broadway run at the Hudson Theatre.
“I’m incredibly excited to welcome Jared to our team here Leviathan,” said CEO Ben Cosgrove. “His deep knowledge about the TV industry, thoughtful creative instincts, and tireless work ethic have...
- 12/7/2023
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Amidst the continuing tragedy of the Israel-Hamas war, Leviathan Production has entered development on a feature adaptation of Henry Ford’s War on Jews and the Legal Battles Against Hate Speech, a historical work penned by Victoria Saker Woeste.
The film will tell the story of the campaign of antisemitism waged by automotive pioneer Henry Ford throughout the 1920s. It was in 1925 that Aaron Sapiro, a self-made lawyer and activist, sued Ford for libel. After a dramatic court case that gripped the nation, Sapiro forced Ford to shut down his antisemitic newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, and apologize publicly to the Jewish people.
Stanford University Press published Henry Ford’s War on Jews in 2012. Jackie Krentzman brought the project to Leviathan and will be involved as a producer.
A titan of industry who made automobiles accessible to the middle-class American through his Ford Motor Company, Ford purchased his hometown paper,...
The film will tell the story of the campaign of antisemitism waged by automotive pioneer Henry Ford throughout the 1920s. It was in 1925 that Aaron Sapiro, a self-made lawyer and activist, sued Ford for libel. After a dramatic court case that gripped the nation, Sapiro forced Ford to shut down his antisemitic newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, and apologize publicly to the Jewish people.
Stanford University Press published Henry Ford’s War on Jews in 2012. Jackie Krentzman brought the project to Leviathan and will be involved as a producer.
A titan of industry who made automobiles accessible to the middle-class American through his Ford Motor Company, Ford purchased his hometown paper,...
- 11/17/2023
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Ben Cosgrove and Josh Foer’s Leviathan Productions has tapped Daniel Handler, the visionary behind the hit children’s book series A Series of Unfortunate Events, to pen a contemporary horror film based on the Golem legend from Jewish folklore, which Cosgrove will produce.
Considered the Jewish Frankenstein, the Golem’s story is one of the most enduring legends from Jewish tradition, and has been the subject of numerous books and plays. The film updates the story, which first appeared in 15th century Prague, to the present day, where a young woman on a college campus finds herself terrorized by a creature with a mysterious past.
Handler wrote the A Series of Unfortunate Events books under the pen name Lemony Snicket, seeing them be adapted into both a hit movie from Paramount, as well as a Peabody Award-winning Netflix series. He’s also written books including The Basic Eight,...
Considered the Jewish Frankenstein, the Golem’s story is one of the most enduring legends from Jewish tradition, and has been the subject of numerous books and plays. The film updates the story, which first appeared in 15th century Prague, to the present day, where a young woman on a college campus finds herself terrorized by a creature with a mysterious past.
Handler wrote the A Series of Unfortunate Events books under the pen name Lemony Snicket, seeing them be adapted into both a hit movie from Paramount, as well as a Peabody Award-winning Netflix series. He’s also written books including The Basic Eight,...
- 4/20/2023
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Isaac Katz has been appointed as Vice President of Production at Leviathan Productions, the independent production company launched last fall that focuses on creating premium film and TV content based on Jewish stories.
Katz joins from Provenance Media, where he’d been since 2018, spearheading the development of film and TV projects with such partners as HBO, Anonymous Content and Tribeca Productions, among others. Prior to that, he worked as Creative Executive at Tribeca Productions, and in his new role, will oversee all content production activities for Leviathan.
“Isaac is an incredibly bright, passionate and resourceful executive,” said Leviathan’s co-founder Ben Cosgrove, “and we could not be more excited to have him join our team to help us bring the most engaging Jewish stories to life through film and television.”
Founded by veteran film producer Cosgrove and bestselling author Josh Foer, Leviathan has several projects in development for both film and TV.
Katz joins from Provenance Media, where he’d been since 2018, spearheading the development of film and TV projects with such partners as HBO, Anonymous Content and Tribeca Productions, among others. Prior to that, he worked as Creative Executive at Tribeca Productions, and in his new role, will oversee all content production activities for Leviathan.
“Isaac is an incredibly bright, passionate and resourceful executive,” said Leviathan’s co-founder Ben Cosgrove, “and we could not be more excited to have him join our team to help us bring the most engaging Jewish stories to life through film and television.”
Founded by veteran film producer Cosgrove and bestselling author Josh Foer, Leviathan has several projects in development for both film and TV.
- 1/9/2023
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Mila Kunis, Debra Messing and other entertainment industry figures are among those who have sent an open letter to Amazon and Barnes & Noble, asking that the controversial book and documentary Hebrews to Negroes: Wake up Black America be removed from their platforms.
The nonprofit organization Creative Community for Peace was behind the letter, claiming both Amazon and B&n allegedly “refused to remove the title and continue to profit from its bigotry.”
Kunis, Messing, Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik and songwriter Diane Warren were among 200 signatories to the letter. It was addressed to “Jeff Bezos, James Daunt, and the leaders at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.”
The protest comes in the wake of NBA star Kyrie Irving promoting the film with a tweet, then refusing to give an adequate apology. He was then suspended by the Brooklyn Nets and was ordered by the Brooklyn Nets to meet with various groups to make things right.
The nonprofit organization Creative Community for Peace was behind the letter, claiming both Amazon and B&n allegedly “refused to remove the title and continue to profit from its bigotry.”
Kunis, Messing, Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik and songwriter Diane Warren were among 200 signatories to the letter. It was addressed to “Jeff Bezos, James Daunt, and the leaders at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.”
The protest comes in the wake of NBA star Kyrie Irving promoting the film with a tweet, then refusing to give an adequate apology. He was then suspended by the Brooklyn Nets and was ordered by the Brooklyn Nets to meet with various groups to make things right.
- 11/11/2022
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Veteran film producer Ben Cosgrove and bestselling author Josh Foer have founded independent production company Leviathan Productions which will focus on creating premium film and television content based on Jewish stories.
Back by private funding, Leviathan has a plan to acquire and develop mass-market films and TV content based on Jewish history, folklore, and literature, as well as stories about Israel.
Already Leviathan has acquired a number of projects including the Leonard Slater book The Pledge, which centers around the true story of the men and women who led the underground effort in the United States to acquire and transport planes to Israel in advance of the War of Independence.
There’s also The Secret Chord, a novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks about the rise and reign of King David.
Playwright Anna Ziegler will also adapt her award-winning play Photograph 51 which starred Nicole Kidman during its run in the West End,...
Back by private funding, Leviathan has a plan to acquire and develop mass-market films and TV content based on Jewish history, folklore, and literature, as well as stories about Israel.
Already Leviathan has acquired a number of projects including the Leonard Slater book The Pledge, which centers around the true story of the men and women who led the underground effort in the United States to acquire and transport planes to Israel in advance of the War of Independence.
There’s also The Secret Chord, a novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks about the rise and reign of King David.
Playwright Anna Ziegler will also adapt her award-winning play Photograph 51 which starred Nicole Kidman during its run in the West End,...
- 9/21/2022
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
Jason Blum is finally putting his money where his mouth is. After an unfortunate gaffe about the dearth of women horror directors landed him in hot water late last year, the producer backed actress-turned-filmmaker Sophia Takal’s third feature, a remake of Bob Clark’s 1974 horror classic “Black Christmas.” The recently released trailer teases a pro-sisterhood take on the original, which starred Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, and John Saxon and has long been hailed as one of the earliest examples of a slasher film. Takal’s version features Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Brittany O’Grady, Lily Donoghue, and Caleb Eberhardt.
For those unfamiliar with the story, here’s the official Blumhouse synopsis: “Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. But as Riley Stone (Poots) and her Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters… prepare to deck the halls with a series of seasonal parties, a black-masked stalker begins killing sorority women one by one.
For those unfamiliar with the story, here’s the official Blumhouse synopsis: “Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. But as Riley Stone (Poots) and her Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters… prepare to deck the halls with a series of seasonal parties, a black-masked stalker begins killing sorority women one by one.
- 9/5/2019
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
Blumhouse and Universal Pictures have dropped the first trailer for their upcoming Black Christmas remake. The first version of the horror movie hit theaters in 1974 and was remade again in 2006. However, the 2006 version of the movie took some liberties with the source material and horror fans weren't too impressed with it at the time. It's unclear which direction Blumhouse has decided to take their adaptation, but if one wants to avoid spoilers, stay away from looking at anything having to do with the 1974 original or the 2006 remake.
Black Christmas takes place as Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. But as Riley Stone (Imogen Poots) and her Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters-athlete Marty (Lily Donoghue), rebel Kris (Aleyse Shannon), and foodie Jesse (Brittany O'Grady)-prepare to deck the halls with a series of seasonal parties, a black-masked stalker begins killing sorority women one by one. The trailer provides some clues...
Black Christmas takes place as Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. But as Riley Stone (Imogen Poots) and her Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters-athlete Marty (Lily Donoghue), rebel Kris (Aleyse Shannon), and foodie Jesse (Brittany O'Grady)-prepare to deck the halls with a series of seasonal parties, a black-masked stalker begins killing sorority women one by one. The trailer provides some clues...
- 9/5/2019
- by Kevin Burwick
- MovieWeb
Sisters never stand down.
From Blumhouse, the producer of Get Out and Halloween check out the brand new trailer for Black Christmas.
Just in time for the holidays comes a timely take on a cult horror classic as a campus killer comes to face a formidable group of friends in sisterhood.
Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. But as Riley Stone and her Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters—athlete Marty, rebel Kris, and foodie Jesse—prepare to deck the halls with a series of seasonal parties, a black-masked stalker begins killing sorority women one by one.
As the body count rises, Riley and her squad start to question whether they can trust any man, including Marty’s beta-male boyfriend, Nate, Riley’s new crush Landon or even esteemed classics instructor Professor Gelson (Cary Elwes).
Whoever the killer is, he’s about to discover that this generation’s young women...
From Blumhouse, the producer of Get Out and Halloween check out the brand new trailer for Black Christmas.
Just in time for the holidays comes a timely take on a cult horror classic as a campus killer comes to face a formidable group of friends in sisterhood.
Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. But as Riley Stone and her Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters—athlete Marty, rebel Kris, and foodie Jesse—prepare to deck the halls with a series of seasonal parties, a black-masked stalker begins killing sorority women one by one.
As the body count rises, Riley and her squad start to question whether they can trust any man, including Marty’s beta-male boyfriend, Nate, Riley’s new crush Landon or even esteemed classics instructor Professor Gelson (Cary Elwes).
Whoever the killer is, he’s about to discover that this generation’s young women...
- 9/5/2019
- by Melissa Thompson
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
This past summer, Blumhouse and Universal brought season's greetings to horror fans in June with the announcement of a new remake (the first reimagining was released in 2006) of Bob Clark's Black Christmas, and ahead of its release on Friday the 13th of December, horror fans can unwrap the official trailer for the new Black Christmas that shows sorority sisters standing strong together against a masked slasher and the disconcertingly unconcerned attitude on their college campus.
"Just in time for the holidays comes a timely take on a cult horror classic as a campus killer comes to face a formidable group of friends in sisterhood.
Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. But as Riley Stone and her Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters—athlete Marty, rebel Kris, and foodie Jesse—prepare to deck the halls with a series of seasonal parties, a black-masked stalker begins killing sorority women one by one.
"Just in time for the holidays comes a timely take on a cult horror classic as a campus killer comes to face a formidable group of friends in sisterhood.
Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. But as Riley Stone and her Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters—athlete Marty, rebel Kris, and foodie Jesse—prepare to deck the halls with a series of seasonal parties, a black-masked stalker begins killing sorority women one by one.
- 9/5/2019
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
Saw and The Princess Bride star Cary Elwes has just nabbed his next movie role, as he's just been cast in the new Black Christmas movie. While it's been reported Elwes will be starring in a lead role, details on his character have not yet been revealed. The movie itself was just unveiled recently by Blumhouse Productions with a teaser poster showing a bloody candy cane. A release date for Dec. 13 of this year - a Friday the 13th - was also revealed on the poster. Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions is producing, along with Ben Cosgrove and Adam Hendricks of Divide/Conquer. Zac Locked, also of Divide/Conque, will be executive producing.
Serving as a reboot of the 1974 slasher movie, the new Black Christmas will have a similar premise set in the modern day. It will follow the sorority girls of Hawthorne College prepping for the holiday season. An...
Serving as a reboot of the 1974 slasher movie, the new Black Christmas will have a similar premise set in the modern day. It will follow the sorority girls of Hawthorne College prepping for the holiday season. An...
- 6/19/2019
- by Jeremy Dick
- MovieWeb
Exclusive:
Cary Elwes has joined the cast of Black Christmas, the Blumhouse Productions remake of the 1974 slasher cult classic for Universal Pictures. Elwes will play a main part in the film but details of the role were not disclosed.
Elwes joins a cast led by Imogen Poots and featuring Aleyse Shannon, Brittany O’Grady, Lily Donoghue, and Caleb Eberhardt. Sophia Takal is set to direct working off a script she wrote with April Wolfe. Filming begins soon in New Zealand. Black Christmas will be released Dec 13, a week shy of the 45th anniversary of the original film’s U.S. release.
Elwes, who may be best known for The Princess Bride, is featured in the upcoming third season of the Netflix series Stranger Things. Elwes has become a specialist in the horror sector, too, after roles in Saw, Saw 3D: The Final Chapter, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Bride, and...
Cary Elwes has joined the cast of Black Christmas, the Blumhouse Productions remake of the 1974 slasher cult classic for Universal Pictures. Elwes will play a main part in the film but details of the role were not disclosed.
Elwes joins a cast led by Imogen Poots and featuring Aleyse Shannon, Brittany O’Grady, Lily Donoghue, and Caleb Eberhardt. Sophia Takal is set to direct working off a script she wrote with April Wolfe. Filming begins soon in New Zealand. Black Christmas will be released Dec 13, a week shy of the 45th anniversary of the original film’s U.S. release.
Elwes, who may be best known for The Princess Bride, is featured in the upcoming third season of the Netflix series Stranger Things. Elwes has become a specialist in the horror sector, too, after roles in Saw, Saw 3D: The Final Chapter, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Bride, and...
- 6/19/2019
- by Geoff Boucher
- Deadline Film + TV
Blumhouse, the leading brand in horror, recently took Halloween to that franchise’s highest performance and now returns to another genre classic with an upgrade engineered for today – Black Christmas.
Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. One by one, sorority girls on campus are being killed by an unknown stalker. But the killer is about to discover that this generation’s young women aren’t willing to become hapless victims as they mount a fight to the finish.
From director Sophia Takal (Always Shine) from the script she wrote with April Wolfe (Widower), comes a bold new take on the 1974 horror classic starring Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon (Charmed), Brittany O’Grady (Star), Lily Donoghue, and Caleb Eberhardt (Broadway’s Choir Boy).
Black Christmas is produced by Jason Blum for his Blumhouse Productions, by Ben Cosgrove and by Adam Hendricks for Divide/Conquer. Hendricks’ partners in Divide/Conquer, Greg Gilreath and Zac Locke,...
Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. One by one, sorority girls on campus are being killed by an unknown stalker. But the killer is about to discover that this generation’s young women aren’t willing to become hapless victims as they mount a fight to the finish.
From director Sophia Takal (Always Shine) from the script she wrote with April Wolfe (Widower), comes a bold new take on the 1974 horror classic starring Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon (Charmed), Brittany O’Grady (Star), Lily Donoghue, and Caleb Eberhardt (Broadway’s Choir Boy).
Black Christmas is produced by Jason Blum for his Blumhouse Productions, by Ben Cosgrove and by Adam Hendricks for Divide/Conquer. Hendricks’ partners in Divide/Conquer, Greg Gilreath and Zac Locke,...
- 6/14/2019
- by Mike Tyrkus
- CinemaNerdz
Blumhouse Productions has set Sophia Takal to direct a remake of the 1974 slasher film Black Christmas with a script written by Takal & April Wolfe (Widower) wrote the script. Blumhouse is producing for Universal and shooting soon in New Zealand.
Imogen Poots (Green Room), Aleyse Shannon (Charmed), Brittany O’Grady (Star), Lily Donoghue (The Goldbergs) and Caleb Eberhardt (Broadway’s Choir Boy) are set to star.
The project re-teams Takal with Blumhouse after their collaboration on New Year, New You, a film in Hulu’s Into the Dark anthology series that starred Suki Waterhouse and Carly Chaikin.
Takal directed Always Shine, which starred Mackenzie Davis and Caitlin FitzGerald and played at the Venice Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival. Takal also wrote, directed, and starred in Green, which premiered at SXSW and earned her the festival’s Emerging Female Director Award. Takal’s other acting credits include God’s Pocket,...
Imogen Poots (Green Room), Aleyse Shannon (Charmed), Brittany O’Grady (Star), Lily Donoghue (The Goldbergs) and Caleb Eberhardt (Broadway’s Choir Boy) are set to star.
The project re-teams Takal with Blumhouse after their collaboration on New Year, New You, a film in Hulu’s Into the Dark anthology series that starred Suki Waterhouse and Carly Chaikin.
Takal directed Always Shine, which starred Mackenzie Davis and Caitlin FitzGerald and played at the Venice Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival. Takal also wrote, directed, and starred in Green, which premiered at SXSW and earned her the festival’s Emerging Female Director Award. Takal’s other acting credits include God’s Pocket,...
- 6/13/2019
- by Geoff Boucher
- Deadline Film + TV
Blumhouse recently took Halloween to that franchise’s highest performance and now returns to another genre classic with an upgrade engineered for today: Black Christmas.
Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. One by one, sorority girls on campus are being killed by an unknown stalker. But the killer is about to discover that this generation’s young women aren’t willing to become hapless victims as they mount a fight to the finish.
This December, on Friday the 13th, ring in the holidays by dreaming of a Black Christmas.
From director Sophia Takal (Always Shine) from the script she wrote with April Wolfe (Widower), comes a bold new take on the 1974 horror classic starring Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon (Charmed), Brittany O’Grady (Star), Lily Donoghue and Caleb Eberhardt (Broadway’s Choir Boy).
Black Christmas is produced by Jason Blum for his Blumhouse Productions.
Blum is a three-time Academy...
Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. One by one, sorority girls on campus are being killed by an unknown stalker. But the killer is about to discover that this generation’s young women aren’t willing to become hapless victims as they mount a fight to the finish.
This December, on Friday the 13th, ring in the holidays by dreaming of a Black Christmas.
From director Sophia Takal (Always Shine) from the script she wrote with April Wolfe (Widower), comes a bold new take on the 1974 horror classic starring Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon (Charmed), Brittany O’Grady (Star), Lily Donoghue and Caleb Eberhardt (Broadway’s Choir Boy).
Black Christmas is produced by Jason Blum for his Blumhouse Productions.
Blum is a three-time Academy...
- 6/13/2019
- by Michelle Hannett
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Christmas came a bit early this year, as it's been revealed that Blumhouse Productions is bringing us a remake of the cult horror classic Black Christmas this December. This comes as something of a surprise, but this is right in Blumhouse's wheelhouse, as this is the studio behind hits such as Get Out, The Purge and last year's Halloween, amongst many others. The studio has already shared a first poster for the remake, which will, appropriately, hit theaters on Friday, December 13.
The studio also revealed the creative team tackling the Black Christmas remake both in front of and behind the camera. Sophia Takal (Always Shine) is in the director's chair, working from a script she wrote alongside April Wolfe (Widower). The cast includes Imogen Poots (Green Room), Aleyse Shannon (Charmed), Brittany O'Grady (Star), Lily Donoghue (The Goldbergs) and Caleb Eberhardt (Choir Boy). Blumhouse head Jason Blum is producing, alongside Ben Cosgrove...
The studio also revealed the creative team tackling the Black Christmas remake both in front of and behind the camera. Sophia Takal (Always Shine) is in the director's chair, working from a script she wrote alongside April Wolfe (Widower). The cast includes Imogen Poots (Green Room), Aleyse Shannon (Charmed), Brittany O'Grady (Star), Lily Donoghue (The Goldbergs) and Caleb Eberhardt (Choir Boy). Blumhouse head Jason Blum is producing, alongside Ben Cosgrove...
- 6/13/2019
- by Ryan Scott
- MovieWeb
Joseph Baxter Jun 13, 2019
1974 holiday slasher Black Christmas is getting a modernized remake from horror auteurs Blumhouse, with Imogen Poots set to star.
Black Christmas, the 1974 killer cult classic and monstrously macabre holiday-themed precursor from the eventual director of A Christmas Story, Bob Clark, is getting a remake from the horror hub of Blumhouse Productions.
Universal Pictures is teaming with Blumhouse for a full-on remake of Black Christmas, and the creative coalition has already announced the headlining actress who’ll be playing the film’s (presumed) final girl, Imogen Poots. While this reimagining of the 1974 film is being described as “a bold new take,” putting the classic slasher through the lens of modern stylistic sensibilities, the project also sounds like it’s sticking to the premise of the original. Indeed, like that film, this project utilizes the old urban legend of “The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs,” with the added element...
1974 holiday slasher Black Christmas is getting a modernized remake from horror auteurs Blumhouse, with Imogen Poots set to star.
Black Christmas, the 1974 killer cult classic and monstrously macabre holiday-themed precursor from the eventual director of A Christmas Story, Bob Clark, is getting a remake from the horror hub of Blumhouse Productions.
Universal Pictures is teaming with Blumhouse for a full-on remake of Black Christmas, and the creative coalition has already announced the headlining actress who’ll be playing the film’s (presumed) final girl, Imogen Poots. While this reimagining of the 1974 film is being described as “a bold new take,” putting the classic slasher through the lens of modern stylistic sensibilities, the project also sounds like it’s sticking to the premise of the original. Indeed, like that film, this project utilizes the old urban legend of “The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs,” with the added element...
- 6/13/2019
- Den of Geek
Back in 2006, a remake of Bob Clark's Black Christmas was released in theaters, and now Blumhouse and Universal are moving forward with a new reimagining of the holiday horror classic, with a new Black Christmas movie set to be unwrapped in cinemas this December.
Multiple outlets, including The Hollywood Reporter, reveal that Blumhouse and Universal are teaming up for a remake of Black Christmas, which is slated for a theatrical release this year on Friday the 13th of December.
Written by April Wolfe and Sophia Takal, the Black Christmas remake will star Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Brittany O’Grady, Lily Donoghue and Caleb Eberhardt, with Takal directing. Blumhouse's Jason Blum will produce alongside Ben Cosgrove and Adam Hendricks of Divide/Conquer, with Divide/Conquer's Greg Gilreath and Zac Locke on board as executive producers. Filming will take place in New Zealand.
The remake "centers on a group of sorority sisters at Hawthorne College,...
Multiple outlets, including The Hollywood Reporter, reveal that Blumhouse and Universal are teaming up for a remake of Black Christmas, which is slated for a theatrical release this year on Friday the 13th of December.
Written by April Wolfe and Sophia Takal, the Black Christmas remake will star Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Brittany O’Grady, Lily Donoghue and Caleb Eberhardt, with Takal directing. Blumhouse's Jason Blum will produce alongside Ben Cosgrove and Adam Hendricks of Divide/Conquer, with Divide/Conquer's Greg Gilreath and Zac Locke on board as executive producers. Filming will take place in New Zealand.
The remake "centers on a group of sorority sisters at Hawthorne College,...
- 6/13/2019
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
Blumhouse Productions is remaking a classic, and they’ve picked a hell of an intriguing director to bring fresh blood to a bonafide horror standout. The Wrap reports the horror house has tapped director Sophia Takal to helm a new take on “Black Christmas,” as inspired by Bob Clark’s 1974 original, which starred Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, and John Saxon and has long been hailed as one of the earliest examples of a slasher film.
Takal, best known for directing psychologically taut dramas like “Green” and “Always Shine,” wrote the script alongside April Wolfe. The feature will shoot in New Zealand. Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions, and Ben Cosgrove and Adam Hendricks of Divide/Conquer are producing. Greg Gilreath and Zac Locke of Divide/Conquer will executive produce.
Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Brittany O’Grady, Lily Donoghue, and Caleb Eberhardt will star in the film.
Late last year,...
Takal, best known for directing psychologically taut dramas like “Green” and “Always Shine,” wrote the script alongside April Wolfe. The feature will shoot in New Zealand. Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions, and Ben Cosgrove and Adam Hendricks of Divide/Conquer are producing. Greg Gilreath and Zac Locke of Divide/Conquer will executive produce.
Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Brittany O’Grady, Lily Donoghue, and Caleb Eberhardt will star in the film.
Late last year,...
- 6/13/2019
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions are remaking the cult horror pic “Black Christmas” with Imogen Poots starring. The studio will release the film on Dec. 13.
Aleyse Shannon, Brittany O’Grady, Lily Donoghue and Caleb Eberhardt are also set to star with Sophia Takal directing. Takal and April Wolfe penned the script.
Blum will produce for Blumhouse Productions with Ben Cosgrove and Adam Hendricks producing for Divide/Conquer. Greg Gilreath and Zac Locke of Divide/Conquer will executive produce.
The 1974 original, considered a cult classic, followed a group of sorority girls who are stalked by a stranger on Christmas break. Blumhouse and Universal saw huge success after last fall’s “Halloween” reboot, which was a huge success with a sequel in the works.
Takal reteams with Blumhouse after working with the company’s television arm earlier this year on the film “New Year, New You,” which starred Suki Waterhouse and Carly Chaikin,...
Aleyse Shannon, Brittany O’Grady, Lily Donoghue and Caleb Eberhardt are also set to star with Sophia Takal directing. Takal and April Wolfe penned the script.
Blum will produce for Blumhouse Productions with Ben Cosgrove and Adam Hendricks producing for Divide/Conquer. Greg Gilreath and Zac Locke of Divide/Conquer will executive produce.
The 1974 original, considered a cult classic, followed a group of sorority girls who are stalked by a stranger on Christmas break. Blumhouse and Universal saw huge success after last fall’s “Halloween” reboot, which was a huge success with a sequel in the works.
Takal reteams with Blumhouse after working with the company’s television arm earlier this year on the film “New Year, New You,” which starred Suki Waterhouse and Carly Chaikin,...
- 6/13/2019
- by Justin Kroll
- Variety Film + TV
Imogen Poots will star in the remake of “Black Christmas” for Blumhouse Productions and Universal Pictures, with the film set for release on Dec. 13.
Aleyse Shannon, Brittany O’Grady, Lily Donoghue and Caleb Eberhardt will also star in the horror film that takes the release date of a previously untitled Blumhouse movie.
Sophia Takal is directing the remake of the 1974 film. Takal and April Wolfe wrote the script, and the film will shoot in New Zealand.
Also Read: Blumhouse's 'The Invisible Man' Sets March 2020 Release Date
Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions, and Ben Cosgrove and Adam Hendricks of Divide/Conquer are producing. Greg Gilreath and Zac Locke of Divide/Conquer will executive produce.
Takal worked with Blumhouse’s television arm earlier this year on the film “New Year, New You,” which starred Suki Waterhouse and Carly Chaikin for Hulu’s “Into the Dark” anthology series. There’s synergy...
Aleyse Shannon, Brittany O’Grady, Lily Donoghue and Caleb Eberhardt will also star in the horror film that takes the release date of a previously untitled Blumhouse movie.
Sophia Takal is directing the remake of the 1974 film. Takal and April Wolfe wrote the script, and the film will shoot in New Zealand.
Also Read: Blumhouse's 'The Invisible Man' Sets March 2020 Release Date
Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions, and Ben Cosgrove and Adam Hendricks of Divide/Conquer are producing. Greg Gilreath and Zac Locke of Divide/Conquer will executive produce.
Takal worked with Blumhouse’s television arm earlier this year on the film “New Year, New You,” which starred Suki Waterhouse and Carly Chaikin for Hulu’s “Into the Dark” anthology series. There’s synergy...
- 6/13/2019
- by Beatrice Verhoeven
- The Wrap
'2.22'..
Director Paul Currie.s 2.22, a romantic thriller starring Teresa Palmer, Game of Thrones. Michiel Huisman and Sam Reid, launches in Italy, the Middle East and a bunch of Asian markets on Thursday, followed by the Us on Friday.
Italy will be the widest release as distributor Notorious Pictures has booked 600 screens for the saga of Huisman.s Dylan, an air traffic controller in New York who nearly causes a fatal mid- air collision at the stroke of 2:22.
In the Us the film will get a limited theatrical release combined with premium VOD via Magnolia Pictures. The UK and France are the only major territories as yet unsold.
After arranging test screenings in Los Angeles Currie, who co-wrote the screenplay with American Todd Stein, told If, .We know the film plays well with date audiences. It is a commercial romantic thriller with a recurring theme of love through time.
Director Paul Currie.s 2.22, a romantic thriller starring Teresa Palmer, Game of Thrones. Michiel Huisman and Sam Reid, launches in Italy, the Middle East and a bunch of Asian markets on Thursday, followed by the Us on Friday.
Italy will be the widest release as distributor Notorious Pictures has booked 600 screens for the saga of Huisman.s Dylan, an air traffic controller in New York who nearly causes a fatal mid- air collision at the stroke of 2:22.
In the Us the film will get a limited theatrical release combined with premium VOD via Magnolia Pictures. The UK and France are the only major territories as yet unsold.
After arranging test screenings in Los Angeles Currie, who co-wrote the screenplay with American Todd Stein, told If, .We know the film plays well with date audiences. It is a commercial romantic thriller with a recurring theme of love through time.
- 6/28/2017
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
Exclusive: Company plans Us release later this year.
Magnolia Pictures will launch international sales in Cannes on the comedy Permanent starring Patricia Arquette and Rainn Wilson.
Colette Burson wrote and directed the 1980’s-set coming-of-age story about a young teenager who desperately wants a perm to make a fashion statement at school.
When her clueless parents take her to a hairdressing academy to save money, things go wrong. Newcomer Kira McLean rounds out the key cast.
Magnolia head of worldwide sales Scott Veltri and director of international sales Lorna Lee Sagebiel-Torres will introduce Permanent on the Croisette.
Magnolia plans a Us release later this year for the 2929 production in partnership with Park Pictures and Washington Square Films.
Mary Ann Marino, Haroula Rose, Sam Bisbee, and Joshua Blum produced the film.
Executive producers are Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban, Ben Cosgrove, Jackie Kelman Bisbee, Lance Acord, and Danielle Renfrew Behrens.
Magnolia Pictures will launch international sales in Cannes on the comedy Permanent starring Patricia Arquette and Rainn Wilson.
Colette Burson wrote and directed the 1980’s-set coming-of-age story about a young teenager who desperately wants a perm to make a fashion statement at school.
When her clueless parents take her to a hairdressing academy to save money, things go wrong. Newcomer Kira McLean rounds out the key cast.
Magnolia head of worldwide sales Scott Veltri and director of international sales Lorna Lee Sagebiel-Torres will introduce Permanent on the Croisette.
Magnolia plans a Us release later this year for the 2929 production in partnership with Park Pictures and Washington Square Films.
Mary Ann Marino, Haroula Rose, Sam Bisbee, and Joshua Blum produced the film.
Executive producers are Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban, Ben Cosgrove, Jackie Kelman Bisbee, Lance Acord, and Danielle Renfrew Behrens.
- 5/11/2017
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Jennifer Lawrence, out promoting the final installment of The Hunger Games, that disclosed she wants to make her directing debut on a picture called Project Delirium. What exactly is going on with this? It’s set up to be financed by 2929, with Lawrence and her partner Justine Ciarrocchi producing along with Todd Wagner and Ben Cosgrove. Lawrence doesn’t plan to act in it. Although the pickup the trades gave the story after Lawrence made comments in EW has her defining the…...
- 11/27/2015
- Deadline
Exclusive: Aussie up-and-comer Sam Reid has joined the Paul Currie-directed 2:22 alongside Michiel Huisman (Game Of Thrones, Wild) and Teresa Palmer (Knight Of Cups, Point Break, ). Good Universe is selling in Berlin. The romantic thriller has gone through some casting changes, but now looks set with principal photography beginning on February 2 in Sydney.
Reid, whose feature credits include Belle and ’71, also had a role in TV mini Hatfields & McCoys and plays John Glen in ABC’s upcoming drama Astronaut Wives Club.
In 2:22, Huisman plays Dylan Branson, a man whose life is permanently derailed when an ominous pattern of events repeats itself in exactly the same manner every day, ending at precisely 2:22 Pm. When he falls for Sarah (Palmer), a beautiful woman whose life is threatened by these strange events, Dylan must solve the mystery to preserve a love whose second chance has finally come. Reid is Jonas,...
Reid, whose feature credits include Belle and ’71, also had a role in TV mini Hatfields & McCoys and plays John Glen in ABC’s upcoming drama Astronaut Wives Club.
In 2:22, Huisman plays Dylan Branson, a man whose life is permanently derailed when an ominous pattern of events repeats itself in exactly the same manner every day, ending at precisely 2:22 Pm. When he falls for Sarah (Palmer), a beautiful woman whose life is threatened by these strange events, Dylan must solve the mystery to preserve a love whose second chance has finally come. Reid is Jonas,...
- 1/30/2015
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline
Teresa Palmer, Game of Thrones. Michiel Huisman and The Railway Man.s Sam Reid head the cast of 2.22, director Paul Currie.s romantic thriller which starts shooting in Sydney on Monday.
The Dutch-born Huisman plays Dylan, an air traffic controller in New York who nearly causes a fatal mid- air collision at the strike of 2:22.
Forced to go on leave, he meets and falls in love with Palmer.s character Sarah, who coincidentally was one of the passengers on the plane. To his horror Dyan realizes the same patterns in his life are happening every day.
Reid plays Jonas, a high profile New York-based artist who is an ex-boyfriend of Sarah.s. The cast includes Richard Davies as a fellow air traffic controller, John Waters as Dylan.s boss, Maeve Dermody as his ex-girlfriend, Kerry Armstrong and Remy Hii.
.We.re creating a smart, stylized romantic thriller,. Currie tells If.
The Dutch-born Huisman plays Dylan, an air traffic controller in New York who nearly causes a fatal mid- air collision at the strike of 2:22.
Forced to go on leave, he meets and falls in love with Palmer.s character Sarah, who coincidentally was one of the passengers on the plane. To his horror Dyan realizes the same patterns in his life are happening every day.
Reid plays Jonas, a high profile New York-based artist who is an ex-boyfriend of Sarah.s. The cast includes Richard Davies as a fellow air traffic controller, John Waters as Dylan.s boss, Maeve Dermody as his ex-girlfriend, Kerry Armstrong and Remy Hii.
.We.re creating a smart, stylized romantic thriller,. Currie tells If.
- 1/28/2015
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
Serena
Director: Susanne Bier
Writer: Christopher Kyle
Producers: 2929 Productions’ Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, Ben Cosgrove, Chockstone Pictures’ Paula Mae and Steve Schwartz, Nick Wechsler
U.S. Distributor: Rights available
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Tony Jones, Rhys Ifans
While we were expecting Susanne Bier’s latest, a return to English language filmmaking after her 2007 Halle Berry starring Things We Lost In the Fire, to bow in 2013, it looks like this will be pushed into this year due to the oversaturated Jennifer Lawrence/Bradley Cooper market. This was meant their first project together post Silver Linings, but it looks like we’ll have to be happy with American Hustle instead, this season. Meanwhile, Bier has been on a roll herself since winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film with In a Better World. She’s several other irons in the fire currently, but look for this to be her next release.
Director: Susanne Bier
Writer: Christopher Kyle
Producers: 2929 Productions’ Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, Ben Cosgrove, Chockstone Pictures’ Paula Mae and Steve Schwartz, Nick Wechsler
U.S. Distributor: Rights available
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Tony Jones, Rhys Ifans
While we were expecting Susanne Bier’s latest, a return to English language filmmaking after her 2007 Halle Berry starring Things We Lost In the Fire, to bow in 2013, it looks like this will be pushed into this year due to the oversaturated Jennifer Lawrence/Bradley Cooper market. This was meant their first project together post Silver Linings, but it looks like we’ll have to be happy with American Hustle instead, this season. Meanwhile, Bier has been on a roll herself since winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film with In a Better World. She’s several other irons in the fire currently, but look for this to be her next release.
- 2/4/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
The public fascination with Marilyn Monroe will likely never die.
At the height of her fame she was impossibly larger than life, but before Some Like It Hot and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes she was just another 21-year-old hopeful ingenue looking to make it big in Hollywood. In honor of the anniversary of her death this week, Life.com has published a slideshow of never-before-published outtake images from the Life digital archives that show the woman before she was an icon.
The photos, from the 1948 set of Sitting Pretty, which Monroe did not appear in, show a happy Monroe next to...
At the height of her fame she was impossibly larger than life, but before Some Like It Hot and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes she was just another 21-year-old hopeful ingenue looking to make it big in Hollywood. In honor of the anniversary of her death this week, Life.com has published a slideshow of never-before-published outtake images from the Life digital archives that show the woman before she was an icon.
The photos, from the 1948 set of Sitting Pretty, which Monroe did not appear in, show a happy Monroe next to...
- 8/9/2013
- by Erin Strecker
- EW - Inside Movies
Say what you will about Disney’s The Lone Ranger, Armie Hammer certainly looks the role of a heroic Western icon. In other words, he’s no Earle Graser. Graser was one of the early voices of the Lone Ranger when the character became a popular fixture in the 1930s. Now, I’m not saying that Graser had a face for radio… but his bosses decided to use another actor — the taller, more athletic Brace Beemer — for the Ranger’s public appearances. (We call this Reverse Klinton Spilsbury Syndrome.)
To his credit, Graser was committed to the role, wearing the...
To his credit, Graser was committed to the role, wearing the...
- 7/6/2013
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW - Inside Movies
Serena
Director: Susanne Bier
Writer(s): Christopher Kyle
Producer(s): 2929 Productions’ Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, Ben Cosgrove, Chockstone Pictures’ Paula Mae and Steve Schwartz, Nick Wechsler
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Toby Jones, Rhys Ifans, Sean Harris
Almost at the three decade mark in filmmaking, Susanne Bier’s fourth film in the English language will start receiving buzz at this year’s Oscars red carpet run – Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper who topline Depression-era book adaptation will be there for Silver Linings Playbook. Perhaps this pic needs the wattage, but I’m expecting this to be a premium quality drama-like item (perhaps nothing close to her best to date with 2004′s Brothers) but Appalachia and a strong female heroine could prove alluring as a backdrop and forefront.
Gist: Based on Ron Rash’s novel, this is set in Depression-era North Carolina, the...
Director: Susanne Bier
Writer(s): Christopher Kyle
Producer(s): 2929 Productions’ Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, Ben Cosgrove, Chockstone Pictures’ Paula Mae and Steve Schwartz, Nick Wechsler
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Toby Jones, Rhys Ifans, Sean Harris
Almost at the three decade mark in filmmaking, Susanne Bier’s fourth film in the English language will start receiving buzz at this year’s Oscars red carpet run – Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper who topline Depression-era book adaptation will be there for Silver Linings Playbook. Perhaps this pic needs the wattage, but I’m expecting this to be a premium quality drama-like item (perhaps nothing close to her best to date with 2004′s Brothers) but Appalachia and a strong female heroine could prove alluring as a backdrop and forefront.
Gist: Based on Ron Rash’s novel, this is set in Depression-era North Carolina, the...
- 1/10/2013
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Production has commenced in Prague on Susanne Bier's "Serena" from 2929 and Studiocanal Productions.
An adaptation of Ron Rash’s acclaimed novel of the same name, the film follows newlyweds George (Bradley Cooper) and Serena Pemberton (Jennifer Lawrence) who travel from Boston to the mountains of North Carolina where they begin to build a timber empire in 1929.
Serena soon shows herself to be the equal of any man: overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving a man’s life in the wilderness. Together, this king and queen rule their dominion, killing or vanquishing all who stand in the way of their ambitions.
But when Serena learns that she can never bear a child, she sets out to murder the woman who bore George a son before his marriage. And when she starts to suspect that George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons’ intense, passionate marriage begins to unravel as the...
An adaptation of Ron Rash’s acclaimed novel of the same name, the film follows newlyweds George (Bradley Cooper) and Serena Pemberton (Jennifer Lawrence) who travel from Boston to the mountains of North Carolina where they begin to build a timber empire in 1929.
Serena soon shows herself to be the equal of any man: overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving a man’s life in the wilderness. Together, this king and queen rule their dominion, killing or vanquishing all who stand in the way of their ambitions.
But when Serena learns that she can never bear a child, she sets out to murder the woman who bore George a son before his marriage. And when she starts to suspect that George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons’ intense, passionate marriage begins to unravel as the...
- 4/12/2012
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
After we see them on screen together in David O. Russell’s The Silver Linings Playbook this year, Bradley Cooper (The Hangover, Limitless) and Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone, The Hunger Games) will re-team again for In a Better World Oscar-winner Susanne Bier‘s Serena. An adaptation of Ron Rash‘s period novel, the thriller also stars The Amazing Spider-Man villain Rhys Ifans and Toby Jones (last seen in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy).
We’ve got the first still today thanks to Collider, which also brings the news that production has begun this week in Prague. Set in 1929, we can see Lawrence and Cooper above in their period outfits, which makes the pairing somewhat odd considering they play newlyweds. But as we’ve seen, there are fewer young actresses that can play mature better than Lawrence. Check out that still above and the full press release below, which gives us an official synopsis.
We’ve got the first still today thanks to Collider, which also brings the news that production has begun this week in Prague. Set in 1929, we can see Lawrence and Cooper above in their period outfits, which makes the pairing somewhat odd considering they play newlyweds. But as we’ve seen, there are fewer young actresses that can play mature better than Lawrence. Check out that still above and the full press release below, which gives us an official synopsis.
- 4/11/2012
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
Rhys Ifans is in negotiations and Toby Jones is set to join "In a Better World" helmer Susanne Bier's $25-30 million adaptation of Ron Rash's novel "Serena" for 2929 Entertainment and Studiocanal says Variety.
Set in the mountains of 1920's North Carolina, Bradley Cooper plays a married timber baron while Jennifer Lawrence plays his wife. Said wife battles the government to save their lands and engineers the murder of her husband's illegitimate son.
Ifans is in talks to play Galloway, a vicious Appalachian guide who becomes Serena's muscle after she saves him. Jones is set to play Sheriff McDowell who pursues Cooper's character.
Nick Wechsler , Todd Wagner and Ben Cosgrove are producing. Shooting kicks off in Prague on March 26th.
Set in the mountains of 1920's North Carolina, Bradley Cooper plays a married timber baron while Jennifer Lawrence plays his wife. Said wife battles the government to save their lands and engineers the murder of her husband's illegitimate son.
Ifans is in talks to play Galloway, a vicious Appalachian guide who becomes Serena's muscle after she saves him. Jones is set to play Sheriff McDowell who pursues Cooper's character.
Nick Wechsler , Todd Wagner and Ben Cosgrove are producing. Shooting kicks off in Prague on March 26th.
- 3/9/2012
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
#68. Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie - Eric Wareheim and Tim Heidecker A different kind of Diy model that I'm sure fest programmers appreciate, after building their presence via TV and online sketches the comedic duo of Eric Wareheim and Tim Heidecker landed a feature filmmaking gig not so contrarian to the budgets of films presented at the fest with the aptly titled, Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie. Featuring tons of the Funny or Die crew, Magnolia Pictures have pegged a release date of March 3rd and might want to feature it at the festival in the Premieres section. Gist: Two guys get a billion dollars to make a movie, only to watch their dream run off course. Producers: Heidecker, Wareheim, Jon Mugar, Ben Cosgrove, Dave Kneebone, Adam McKay, Kevin J. Messick and Todd Wagner(Ioncinema.com Preview Page // IMDb Link) ...
- 11/13/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
Paramount Pictures convulsed with more staff reductions Tuesday. The studio disbanded its New York literary department, including head Aimee Shieh, as it eliminated 31 positions among studio production departments.
Among those affected by the restructuring are head of physical production Georgia Kacandes, casting head Gail Levin, senior vps of production Ben Cosgrove and Dan Levine and Paramount Vantage executive vp production and acquisitions, Guy Stodel.
Newly installed Film Group president Adam Goodman notified employees of the changes Tuesday morning.
Layoffs, job eliminations and reorganization account for the total reduction in positions in the creative, casting and physical production departments, as well as at the Vantage label. The rest of the studio's New York office remains intact, including its publicity and marketing departments and a few distribution personnel.
A decision is forthcoming about whether the studio will revive a lit presence in New York or Los Angeles.
These most recent cost-cutting moves...
Among those affected by the restructuring are head of physical production Georgia Kacandes, casting head Gail Levin, senior vps of production Ben Cosgrove and Dan Levine and Paramount Vantage executive vp production and acquisitions, Guy Stodel.
Newly installed Film Group president Adam Goodman notified employees of the changes Tuesday morning.
Layoffs, job eliminations and reorganization account for the total reduction in positions in the creative, casting and physical production departments, as well as at the Vantage label. The rest of the studio's New York office remains intact, including its publicity and marketing departments and a few distribution personnel.
A decision is forthcoming about whether the studio will revive a lit presence in New York or Los Angeles.
These most recent cost-cutting moves...
- 6/30/2009
- by By Jay A. Fernandez and Steven Zeitchik
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Cameron Diaz is looking for a date.
She is in negotiations to topline "Swingles," a romantic comedy being produced by Kevin Misher for Paramount. The search for a suitable onscreen mate is ongoing.
"Swingles" focuses on a man and woman whose respective best friends meet and fall in love, leaving them without a wingman/woman for the first time in their adult lives. Despite their antagonism, the two remaining singles decide to join forces to help each other find romantic partners.
The comedy, with its 21st century "When Harry Met Sally ..." vibe, was written by Duncan Birmingham, with additional work by Jeff Roda. Ben Cosgrove is overseeing the project for the studio.
Misher has "Fighting" hitting theaters April 24 and the Michael Mann-directed "Public Enemies" releasing July 1.
Diaz most recently starred opposite Ashton Kutcher in the Fox comedy "What Happens in Vegas," which grossed $218 million worldwide. She has "Shrek Goes Fourth,...
She is in negotiations to topline "Swingles," a romantic comedy being produced by Kevin Misher for Paramount. The search for a suitable onscreen mate is ongoing.
"Swingles" focuses on a man and woman whose respective best friends meet and fall in love, leaving them without a wingman/woman for the first time in their adult lives. Despite their antagonism, the two remaining singles decide to join forces to help each other find romantic partners.
The comedy, with its 21st century "When Harry Met Sally ..." vibe, was written by Duncan Birmingham, with additional work by Jeff Roda. Ben Cosgrove is overseeing the project for the studio.
Misher has "Fighting" hitting theaters April 24 and the Michael Mann-directed "Public Enemies" releasing July 1.
Diaz most recently starred opposite Ashton Kutcher in the Fox comedy "What Happens in Vegas," which grossed $218 million worldwide. She has "Shrek Goes Fourth,...
- 3/23/2009
- by By Jay A. Fernandez and Borys Kit
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Church set to join Par Murphy pic
Thomas Haden Church is in final negotiations to star opposite Eddie Murphy in the Paramount Pictures comedy NowhereLand.
Karey Kirkpatrick will helm the film, which was penned by Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson. The story centers on a struggling businessman who solves his troubles at work by consulting his 6-year-old daughter and the imaginary world she has created. Church will play Whitefeather, Murphy's ruthlessly ambitious rival at work.
Lorenzo di Bonaventura is producing through his Paramount-based shingle alongside Solomon.
Ben Cosgrove is shepherding the project for the studio, which has set a Sept. 26, 2008, release date.
Shooting is scheduled to begin next month in Los Angeles.
Church, whose recent credits include the supervillain Flint Marko/Sandman in Spider-Man 3, is shooting the Sandra Bullock starrer All About Steve for Fox 2000.
He is repped by WMA and attorney Michael Gendler.
Karey Kirkpatrick will helm the film, which was penned by Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson. The story centers on a struggling businessman who solves his troubles at work by consulting his 6-year-old daughter and the imaginary world she has created. Church will play Whitefeather, Murphy's ruthlessly ambitious rival at work.
Lorenzo di Bonaventura is producing through his Paramount-based shingle alongside Solomon.
Ben Cosgrove is shepherding the project for the studio, which has set a Sept. 26, 2008, release date.
Shooting is scheduled to begin next month in Los Angeles.
Church, whose recent credits include the supervillain Flint Marko/Sandman in Spider-Man 3, is shooting the Sandra Bullock starrer All About Steve for Fox 2000.
He is repped by WMA and attorney Michael Gendler.
- 8/8/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Wind Chill
This review was written for the theatrical release of "Wind Chill".
It's easy to see why this horror effort is not receiving a wider release despite numbering George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh among its executive producers. There is relatively little gore, brutality or degradation, hence it apparently has little appeal to younger audiences now accustomed to a steady supply of torture porn.
That's a shame, because "Wind Chill", for all its flaws, is an often spooky and imaginative ghost story that contains a genuine creepiness. As with most horror films these days, it was released without being screened for the press.
The red-hot Emily Blunt ("The Devil Wears Prada") and Ashton Holmes play, in what is practically a two-character movie, a pair of unnamed college students driving home on a particularly wintry night at the beginning of the Christmas holidays. They make the unfortunate mistake (one that should be avoided by horror film protagonists at all costs, as also evidenced by the recent "Vacancy") of leaving the highway in pursuit of, as the guy puts it, a "scenic detour."
Crashing with a another vehicle that unaccountably comes straight toward them, the pair find themselves stranded and alone in the middle of a freezing night, their only company being a procession of mysterious, dark-hooded strangers and a highway patrolman (Martin Donovan) who is not only more menacing than helpful but who may or may not even be real.
To give away more would spoil the surprises of the film, which plays like an extended version of the sort of creepy ghost tales spun around a late-night campfire. Joe Gangemi and Steven Katz's screenplay well conveys the evolving relationship between the initially haughty girl and the young man who is not quite as innocent as he first seems, and while the eerie events and revelations that ensue aren't exactly original, they well satisfy the genre's conventions.
Director Gregory Jacobs does an excellent job of delivering suitably creepy atmospherics, and the young stars (Blunt using an effective American accent) suffer their repeated scares in appealing fashion.
WIND CHILL
Sony Pictures Entertainment
A TriStar Pictures presentation of a Blueprint Pictures/Section Eight production
Credits:
Director: Gregory Jacobs
Screenwriters: Joe Gangemi, Steven Katz
Producers: Peter Czernin, Graham Broadbent
Executive producers: George Clooney, Ben Cosgrove, Steven Soderbergh
Director of photography: Dan Laustsen
Production designer: Howard Cummings
Music: Clint Mansell
Co-producer: Peter Lhotka
Costume designer: Trish Keating
Editor: Lee Percy
Cast:
Girl: Emily Blunt
Guy: Ashton Holmes: Highway Patrolman: Martin Donovan
Running time -- 91 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
It's easy to see why this horror effort is not receiving a wider release despite numbering George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh among its executive producers. There is relatively little gore, brutality or degradation, hence it apparently has little appeal to younger audiences now accustomed to a steady supply of torture porn.
That's a shame, because "Wind Chill", for all its flaws, is an often spooky and imaginative ghost story that contains a genuine creepiness. As with most horror films these days, it was released without being screened for the press.
The red-hot Emily Blunt ("The Devil Wears Prada") and Ashton Holmes play, in what is practically a two-character movie, a pair of unnamed college students driving home on a particularly wintry night at the beginning of the Christmas holidays. They make the unfortunate mistake (one that should be avoided by horror film protagonists at all costs, as also evidenced by the recent "Vacancy") of leaving the highway in pursuit of, as the guy puts it, a "scenic detour."
Crashing with a another vehicle that unaccountably comes straight toward them, the pair find themselves stranded and alone in the middle of a freezing night, their only company being a procession of mysterious, dark-hooded strangers and a highway patrolman (Martin Donovan) who is not only more menacing than helpful but who may or may not even be real.
To give away more would spoil the surprises of the film, which plays like an extended version of the sort of creepy ghost tales spun around a late-night campfire. Joe Gangemi and Steven Katz's screenplay well conveys the evolving relationship between the initially haughty girl and the young man who is not quite as innocent as he first seems, and while the eerie events and revelations that ensue aren't exactly original, they well satisfy the genre's conventions.
Director Gregory Jacobs does an excellent job of delivering suitably creepy atmospherics, and the young stars (Blunt using an effective American accent) suffer their repeated scares in appealing fashion.
WIND CHILL
Sony Pictures Entertainment
A TriStar Pictures presentation of a Blueprint Pictures/Section Eight production
Credits:
Director: Gregory Jacobs
Screenwriters: Joe Gangemi, Steven Katz
Producers: Peter Czernin, Graham Broadbent
Executive producers: George Clooney, Ben Cosgrove, Steven Soderbergh
Director of photography: Dan Laustsen
Production designer: Howard Cummings
Music: Clint Mansell
Co-producer: Peter Lhotka
Costume designer: Trish Keating
Editor: Lee Percy
Cast:
Girl: Emily Blunt
Guy: Ashton Holmes: Highway Patrolman: Martin Donovan
Running time -- 91 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 5/1/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A Scanner Darkly
CANNES -- This film involved a painstaking animation process that required up to 500 hours to create one minute of screen time. And, with each minute of screen time, it has delivered back all that pain to the viewer; in multiples, since the indie-heaven cast and the hand of Richard Linklater promises so much.
Audiences compelled by professional obligation will be this film's most likely outreach, with those sitting in the middle of the aisles most likely to last through the duration. Commercially, "A Scanner Darkly" should be quickly remaindered to video, although on the upside, it may rejuvenate attention to Philip K. Dick's original novel to see exactly what inspired all these talented people to perpetrate this.
Throughout his creative life, Philip K. Dick battled his own demons of drug addiction, and the work upon which this trippy film is based, "A Scanner Darkly", is one of the author's bestsellers. Characteristically set in the Dick universe of the near future, "A Scanner Darkly" centers on the institutional fight against drug addiction, as an undercover cop is assigned to spy on his friends, and, in the complex convolutions of the plot, to eventually spy on himself.
The story itself is a mind-bender of big issues: addiction, surveillance, paranoia and personal rights. Unfortunately, filmmaker Richard Linklater gets swamped by the book's grand philosophical pinions and resorts to verbal explication rather than dramatization.
Indeed, movement-wise, there is nothing animated about this animated feature. It is static. Scene after scene of verbose fiddle-faddle: Characters orate at each other, while sitting in cars, sitting at dining tables, sitting in living rooms, sitting at office desks. The film might be better titled "The Big Sit".
What is going on? Well, a lot of verbiage about the ravages a drug dubbed Substance D is perpetrating on beautiful downtown Anaheim. Unfortunately, filmmaker Linklater further fuddles the works by allowing the actors histrionic excess. Not surprisingly, the most entertaining is Robert J. Downey's hyper-active performance as a fey and haughty friend of the undercover cop. Popped way-over-the top, Downey delivers what William F. Buckley, Jr. might seem like if plied with uppers. Fortunately, other performances are more subdued, namely, Keanu Reeve's myopic turn as the undercover cop. Remarkably, Reeves seems to be doing an imitation of Clint Eastwood, mumbling in the soft cadence of early Dirty Harry. In short, audiences will have to seek out their own peculiar diversions in order to last the whole course of this demi-dud.
Visually, this "Scanner" is no phantasmagoria, unlikely to inspire comparison to great animated head-trips of the ‘60s past. The film's muted pallet of pastels, while immensely suited to bath soaps, is less dynamic as a filmic eye-grabber. While acknowledging the craftsmanship and creativity of the animation team, "A Scanner Darkly"'s colorings and shadings make the real-life characters look like wood carvings.
A SCANNER DARKLY
Warner Independent Pictures Presents
In Association with Thousand Words
A Section Eight/Detour Filmproduction/3 Arts Entertainment Production
Screenwriter/director: Richard Linklater; Based on the novel by Philip K. Dick. Producers: Anne Walker-McBay, Tommy Pallotta, Palmer West, Jonah Smith, Erwin Stoff. Executive producers: George Clooney, Steven Soderbergh, Jennifer Fox, Ben Cosgrove, John Sloss; Director of photography: Shane F. Kelly; Production designer: Bruce Curtis; Music: Graham Reynolds; Editor: Sandra Adair; Animators: Sterling Allen, Evan Cagle, Nick Derington, Christopher Jennings, Lance Myers. Cast. Bob Arctor: Keanu Reeves; James Barris: Robert Downey, Jr.; Ernie Luckman: Woody Harrelson; Donna Hawthorne: Winona Ryder; Charles Freck: Rory Cochrane.
MPAA Rating: R, running time 100 minutes.
Audiences compelled by professional obligation will be this film's most likely outreach, with those sitting in the middle of the aisles most likely to last through the duration. Commercially, "A Scanner Darkly" should be quickly remaindered to video, although on the upside, it may rejuvenate attention to Philip K. Dick's original novel to see exactly what inspired all these talented people to perpetrate this.
Throughout his creative life, Philip K. Dick battled his own demons of drug addiction, and the work upon which this trippy film is based, "A Scanner Darkly", is one of the author's bestsellers. Characteristically set in the Dick universe of the near future, "A Scanner Darkly" centers on the institutional fight against drug addiction, as an undercover cop is assigned to spy on his friends, and, in the complex convolutions of the plot, to eventually spy on himself.
The story itself is a mind-bender of big issues: addiction, surveillance, paranoia and personal rights. Unfortunately, filmmaker Richard Linklater gets swamped by the book's grand philosophical pinions and resorts to verbal explication rather than dramatization.
Indeed, movement-wise, there is nothing animated about this animated feature. It is static. Scene after scene of verbose fiddle-faddle: Characters orate at each other, while sitting in cars, sitting at dining tables, sitting in living rooms, sitting at office desks. The film might be better titled "The Big Sit".
What is going on? Well, a lot of verbiage about the ravages a drug dubbed Substance D is perpetrating on beautiful downtown Anaheim. Unfortunately, filmmaker Linklater further fuddles the works by allowing the actors histrionic excess. Not surprisingly, the most entertaining is Robert J. Downey's hyper-active performance as a fey and haughty friend of the undercover cop. Popped way-over-the top, Downey delivers what William F. Buckley, Jr. might seem like if plied with uppers. Fortunately, other performances are more subdued, namely, Keanu Reeve's myopic turn as the undercover cop. Remarkably, Reeves seems to be doing an imitation of Clint Eastwood, mumbling in the soft cadence of early Dirty Harry. In short, audiences will have to seek out their own peculiar diversions in order to last the whole course of this demi-dud.
Visually, this "Scanner" is no phantasmagoria, unlikely to inspire comparison to great animated head-trips of the ‘60s past. The film's muted pallet of pastels, while immensely suited to bath soaps, is less dynamic as a filmic eye-grabber. While acknowledging the craftsmanship and creativity of the animation team, "A Scanner Darkly"'s colorings and shadings make the real-life characters look like wood carvings.
A SCANNER DARKLY
Warner Independent Pictures Presents
In Association with Thousand Words
A Section Eight/Detour Filmproduction/3 Arts Entertainment Production
Screenwriter/director: Richard Linklater; Based on the novel by Philip K. Dick. Producers: Anne Walker-McBay, Tommy Pallotta, Palmer West, Jonah Smith, Erwin Stoff. Executive producers: George Clooney, Steven Soderbergh, Jennifer Fox, Ben Cosgrove, John Sloss; Director of photography: Shane F. Kelly; Production designer: Bruce Curtis; Music: Graham Reynolds; Editor: Sandra Adair; Animators: Sterling Allen, Evan Cagle, Nick Derington, Christopher Jennings, Lance Myers. Cast. Bob Arctor: Keanu Reeves; James Barris: Robert Downey, Jr.; Ernie Luckman: Woody Harrelson; Donna Hawthorne: Winona Ryder; Charles Freck: Rory Cochrane.
MPAA Rating: R, running time 100 minutes.
- 5/26/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Good Night, and Good Luck
This review was written for the festival screening of "Good Night, and Good Luck".
VENICE, Italy -- George Clooney's deeply felt docudrama "Good Night, and Good Luck" provides a snapshot of the moment in history in which a major American television personality named Edward R. Murrow took on the malevolent power of a muckraking U.S. senator named Joseph McCarthy and won.
Shot in black and white in a brisk "you are there" 90 minutes, the film, which screened in competition, lovingly re-creates the studios and backrooms of 1950s New York journalism at the CBS television network, where the men wore white shirts and dark suits, the women fetched the coffee and the morning papers and everybody smoked all the time.
Clooney is the star name (as legendary producer Fred Friendly) in a fine ensemble cast featuring the previously unsung David Strathairn as Murrow, a career-defining role guaranteed to put him in the running for major awards.
Murrow is deservedly the patron saint of broadcast journalism, and it's clear that Clooney and producer and co-writer Grant Heslov share that veneration. Moviegoers who know their American political history will respond to the film's immediacy and forgive the film's tight focus and narrow view. Anyone hoping for an entertaining drama about newsmen and politics along the lines of "All the President's Men" will be disappointed.
The film is framed by an excoriating speech given by Murrow in 1958 when he was saluted by the Radio and Television News Directors Assn. Television, he said, was "fat, comfortable and complacent" and was used to "detract, delude, amuse and insulate us." It's a message Clooney and Heslov obviously wish to reiterate.
Murrow had become a star on radio, broadcasting from Czechoslovakia just before World War II and memorably from London during the Blitz. In the '50s, he and his partner Friendly adapted their radio news program "Hear It Now" to the new medium of television. The result was titled "See It Now", an evenhanded public affairs program that ran from 1951-58.
McCarthy had become notorious in 1950 for a speech in which he falsely claimed to have a list of people working for the State Department who were known to be members of the Communist Party. Later, as chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthy targeted the military in the same witch-hunting manner.
"Good Night" flashes back to the time when McCarthyism -- infamously fomented by the House Un-American Activities Committee -- had put a clamp on freedom of expression and association in the U.S.
When Murrow and Friendly do a story on a military man whose family is falsely accused of being communist sympathizers, McCarthy -- seen entirely in newsreel footage -- attacks in his usual way. Murrow and Friendly respond by creating one of the most esteemed TV news shows in history, an edition of "See It Now" on March 9, 1954, in which McCarthy is allowed to hang himself with his own words.
Clooney and Heslov, with expert help from production designer Jim Bissel, cinematographer Robert Elswit and editor Stephen Mirrione, do a wonderful job of creating the smoky and tense environment in which Murrow and Friendly operated.
If the film fails to resonate entirely it might be that even when Murrow made his insightful speech in 1958, his observant hectoring had become viewed as pedantic. Not long afterward, he left CBS to run the U.S. Information Agency, a poacher who became a game warden.
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
Warner Independent Pictures, 2929 Entertainment, Participant Prods. in association with Davis Films, Redbus Pictures and Tohokushinsha present a Section 8 production
Credits:
Director: George Clooney
Screenwriters: George Clooney, Grant Heslov
Producer: Grant Heslov
Executive producers: Steven Soderbergh, Ben Cosgrove, Jennifer Fox, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban, Marc Butan, Jeff Skoll
Director of photography: Robert Elswit
Production designer: Jim Bissell
Editor: Stephen Mirrione
Cast:
Edward R. Murrow: David Strathairn
Fred Friendly: George Clooney
Joe Wershba: Robert Downey Jr.
Shirley Wershba: Patricia Clarkson
William S. Paley: Frank Langella
Sig Mickelson: Jeff Daniels
Don Hollenbeck: Ray Wise
Jessie Zousmer: Tate Donovan
Palmer Williams: Tom McCarthy
Eddie Scott: Matt Ross
John Aaron: Reed Diamond
Charlie Mack: Robert John Burke
Don Hewitt: Grant Heslov.
MPAA rating PG
Running -- time 90 minutes...
VENICE, Italy -- George Clooney's deeply felt docudrama "Good Night, and Good Luck" provides a snapshot of the moment in history in which a major American television personality named Edward R. Murrow took on the malevolent power of a muckraking U.S. senator named Joseph McCarthy and won.
Shot in black and white in a brisk "you are there" 90 minutes, the film, which screened in competition, lovingly re-creates the studios and backrooms of 1950s New York journalism at the CBS television network, where the men wore white shirts and dark suits, the women fetched the coffee and the morning papers and everybody smoked all the time.
Clooney is the star name (as legendary producer Fred Friendly) in a fine ensemble cast featuring the previously unsung David Strathairn as Murrow, a career-defining role guaranteed to put him in the running for major awards.
Murrow is deservedly the patron saint of broadcast journalism, and it's clear that Clooney and producer and co-writer Grant Heslov share that veneration. Moviegoers who know their American political history will respond to the film's immediacy and forgive the film's tight focus and narrow view. Anyone hoping for an entertaining drama about newsmen and politics along the lines of "All the President's Men" will be disappointed.
The film is framed by an excoriating speech given by Murrow in 1958 when he was saluted by the Radio and Television News Directors Assn. Television, he said, was "fat, comfortable and complacent" and was used to "detract, delude, amuse and insulate us." It's a message Clooney and Heslov obviously wish to reiterate.
Murrow had become a star on radio, broadcasting from Czechoslovakia just before World War II and memorably from London during the Blitz. In the '50s, he and his partner Friendly adapted their radio news program "Hear It Now" to the new medium of television. The result was titled "See It Now", an evenhanded public affairs program that ran from 1951-58.
McCarthy had become notorious in 1950 for a speech in which he falsely claimed to have a list of people working for the State Department who were known to be members of the Communist Party. Later, as chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthy targeted the military in the same witch-hunting manner.
"Good Night" flashes back to the time when McCarthyism -- infamously fomented by the House Un-American Activities Committee -- had put a clamp on freedom of expression and association in the U.S.
When Murrow and Friendly do a story on a military man whose family is falsely accused of being communist sympathizers, McCarthy -- seen entirely in newsreel footage -- attacks in his usual way. Murrow and Friendly respond by creating one of the most esteemed TV news shows in history, an edition of "See It Now" on March 9, 1954, in which McCarthy is allowed to hang himself with his own words.
Clooney and Heslov, with expert help from production designer Jim Bissel, cinematographer Robert Elswit and editor Stephen Mirrione, do a wonderful job of creating the smoky and tense environment in which Murrow and Friendly operated.
If the film fails to resonate entirely it might be that even when Murrow made his insightful speech in 1958, his observant hectoring had become viewed as pedantic. Not long afterward, he left CBS to run the U.S. Information Agency, a poacher who became a game warden.
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
Warner Independent Pictures, 2929 Entertainment, Participant Prods. in association with Davis Films, Redbus Pictures and Tohokushinsha present a Section 8 production
Credits:
Director: George Clooney
Screenwriters: George Clooney, Grant Heslov
Producer: Grant Heslov
Executive producers: Steven Soderbergh, Ben Cosgrove, Jennifer Fox, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban, Marc Butan, Jeff Skoll
Director of photography: Robert Elswit
Production designer: Jim Bissell
Editor: Stephen Mirrione
Cast:
Edward R. Murrow: David Strathairn
Fred Friendly: George Clooney
Joe Wershba: Robert Downey Jr.
Shirley Wershba: Patricia Clarkson
William S. Paley: Frank Langella
Sig Mickelson: Jeff Daniels
Don Hollenbeck: Ray Wise
Jessie Zousmer: Tate Donovan
Palmer Williams: Tom McCarthy
Eddie Scott: Matt Ross
John Aaron: Reed Diamond
Charlie Mack: Robert John Burke
Don Hewitt: Grant Heslov.
MPAA rating PG
Running -- time 90 minutes...
- 10/20/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Good Night, Good Luck
Screened at the Venice International Film Festival
VENICE, Italy -- George Clooney's deeply felt docudrama "Good Night, and Good Luck" provides a snapshot of the moment in history in which a major American television personality named Edward R. Murrow took on the malevolent power of a muckraking U.S. senator named Joseph McCarthy and won.
Shot in black and white in a brisk "you are there" 90 minutes, the film, which screened in competition, lovingly re-creates the studios and backrooms of 1950s New York journalism at the CBS television network, where the men wore white shirts and dark suits, the women fetched the coffee and the morning papers and everybody smoked all the time.
Clooney is the star name (as legendary producer Fred Friendly) in a fine ensemble cast featuring the previously unsung David Strathairn as Murrow, a career-defining role guaranteed to put him in the running for major awards.
Murrow is deservedly the patron saint of broadcast journalism, and it's clear that Clooney and producer and co-writer Grant Heslov share that veneration. Moviegoers who know their American political history will respond to the film's immediacy and forgive the film's tight focus and narrow view. Anyone hoping for an entertaining drama about newsmen and politics along the lines of "All the President's Men" will be disappointed.
The film is framed by an excoriating speech given by Murrow in 1958 when he was saluted by the Radio and Television News Directors Assn. Television, he said, was "fat, comfortable and complacent" and was used to "detract, delude, amuse and insulate us." It's a message Clooney and Heslov obviously wish to reiterate.
Murrow had become a star on radio, broadcasting from Czechoslovakia just before World War II and memorably from London during the Blitz. In the '50s, he and his partner Friendly adapted their radio news program "Hear It Now" to the new medium of television. The result was titled "See It Now", an evenhanded public affairs program that ran from 1951-58.
McCarthy had become notorious in 1950 for a speech in which he falsely claimed to have a list of people working for the State Department who were known to be members of the Communist Party. Later, as chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthy targeted the military in the same witch-hunting manner.
"Good Night" flashes back to the time when McCarthyism -- infamously fomented by the House Un-American Activities Committee -- had put a clamp on freedom of expression and association in the U.S.
When Murrow and Friendly do a story on a military man whose family is falsely accused of being communist sympathizers, McCarthy -- seen entirely in newsreel footage -- attacks in his usual way. Murrow and Friendly respond by creating one of the most esteemed TV news shows in history, an edition of "See It Now" on March 9, 1954, in which McCarthy is allowed to hang himself with his own words.
Clooney and Heslov, with expert help from production designer Jim Bissel, cinematographer Robert Elswit and editor Stephen Mirrione, do a wonderful job of creating the smoky and tense environment in which Murrow and Friendly operated.
If the film fails to resonate entirely it might be that even when Murrow made his insightful speech in 1958, his observant hectoring had become viewed as pedantic. Not long afterward, he left CBS to run the U.S. Information Agency, a poacher who became a game warden.
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
Warner Independent Pictures, 2929 Entertainment, Participant Prods. in association with Davis Films, Redbus Pictures and Tohokushinsha present a Section 8 production
Credits:
Director: George Clooney
Screenwriters: George Clooney, Grant Heslov
Producer: Grant Heslov
Executive producers: Steven Soderbergh, Ben Cosgrove, Jennifer Fox, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban, Marc Butan, Jeff Skoll
Director of photography: Robert Elswit
Production designer: Jim Bissell
Editor: Stephen Mirrione
Cast:
Edward R. Murrow: David Strathairn
Fred Friendly: George Clooney
Joe Wershba: Robert Downey Jr.
Shirley Wershba: Patricia Clarkson
William S. Paley: Frank Langella
Sig Mickelson: Jeff Daniels
Don Hollenbeck: Ray Wise
Jessie Zousmer: Tate Donovan
Palmer Williams: Tom McCarthy
Eddie Scott: Matt Ross
John Aaron: Reed Diamond
Charlie Mack: Robert John Burke
Don Hewitt: Grant Heslov.
MPAA rating PG
Running -- time 90 minutes...
VENICE, Italy -- George Clooney's deeply felt docudrama "Good Night, and Good Luck" provides a snapshot of the moment in history in which a major American television personality named Edward R. Murrow took on the malevolent power of a muckraking U.S. senator named Joseph McCarthy and won.
Shot in black and white in a brisk "you are there" 90 minutes, the film, which screened in competition, lovingly re-creates the studios and backrooms of 1950s New York journalism at the CBS television network, where the men wore white shirts and dark suits, the women fetched the coffee and the morning papers and everybody smoked all the time.
Clooney is the star name (as legendary producer Fred Friendly) in a fine ensemble cast featuring the previously unsung David Strathairn as Murrow, a career-defining role guaranteed to put him in the running for major awards.
Murrow is deservedly the patron saint of broadcast journalism, and it's clear that Clooney and producer and co-writer Grant Heslov share that veneration. Moviegoers who know their American political history will respond to the film's immediacy and forgive the film's tight focus and narrow view. Anyone hoping for an entertaining drama about newsmen and politics along the lines of "All the President's Men" will be disappointed.
The film is framed by an excoriating speech given by Murrow in 1958 when he was saluted by the Radio and Television News Directors Assn. Television, he said, was "fat, comfortable and complacent" and was used to "detract, delude, amuse and insulate us." It's a message Clooney and Heslov obviously wish to reiterate.
Murrow had become a star on radio, broadcasting from Czechoslovakia just before World War II and memorably from London during the Blitz. In the '50s, he and his partner Friendly adapted their radio news program "Hear It Now" to the new medium of television. The result was titled "See It Now", an evenhanded public affairs program that ran from 1951-58.
McCarthy had become notorious in 1950 for a speech in which he falsely claimed to have a list of people working for the State Department who were known to be members of the Communist Party. Later, as chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthy targeted the military in the same witch-hunting manner.
"Good Night" flashes back to the time when McCarthyism -- infamously fomented by the House Un-American Activities Committee -- had put a clamp on freedom of expression and association in the U.S.
When Murrow and Friendly do a story on a military man whose family is falsely accused of being communist sympathizers, McCarthy -- seen entirely in newsreel footage -- attacks in his usual way. Murrow and Friendly respond by creating one of the most esteemed TV news shows in history, an edition of "See It Now" on March 9, 1954, in which McCarthy is allowed to hang himself with his own words.
Clooney and Heslov, with expert help from production designer Jim Bissel, cinematographer Robert Elswit and editor Stephen Mirrione, do a wonderful job of creating the smoky and tense environment in which Murrow and Friendly operated.
If the film fails to resonate entirely it might be that even when Murrow made his insightful speech in 1958, his observant hectoring had become viewed as pedantic. Not long afterward, he left CBS to run the U.S. Information Agency, a poacher who became a game warden.
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
Warner Independent Pictures, 2929 Entertainment, Participant Prods. in association with Davis Films, Redbus Pictures and Tohokushinsha present a Section 8 production
Credits:
Director: George Clooney
Screenwriters: George Clooney, Grant Heslov
Producer: Grant Heslov
Executive producers: Steven Soderbergh, Ben Cosgrove, Jennifer Fox, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban, Marc Butan, Jeff Skoll
Director of photography: Robert Elswit
Production designer: Jim Bissell
Editor: Stephen Mirrione
Cast:
Edward R. Murrow: David Strathairn
Fred Friendly: George Clooney
Joe Wershba: Robert Downey Jr.
Shirley Wershba: Patricia Clarkson
William S. Paley: Frank Langella
Sig Mickelson: Jeff Daniels
Don Hollenbeck: Ray Wise
Jessie Zousmer: Tate Donovan
Palmer Williams: Tom McCarthy
Eddie Scott: Matt Ross
John Aaron: Reed Diamond
Charlie Mack: Robert John Burke
Don Hewitt: Grant Heslov.
MPAA rating PG
Running -- time 90 minutes...
- 9/1/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Criminal
If you believed everything you see in the movies, you would never leave your home for fear of running into the seemingly endless spate of con men attempting to relieve you of your money. The latest example of the cinematic grifter genre, which only last year produced Matchstick Men, is this remake of the acclaimed Argentine drama Nine Queens, with its locale transplanted to Los Angeles. Although Criminal retains its source material's cleverness and intricate plotting, something seems to have been lost in the translation -- as is so often the case with American remakes. It premiered at the Venice International Film Festival.
The story, which takes place over a span of 24 hours, begins in a casino, where we see baby-faced Rodrigo (Diego Luna) attempting to pull a two-bit money-changing scam on a beleaguered waitress. When she gets wise to him and starts screaming bloody murder, a police detective who happens to be nearby intervenes and roughly pulls Rodrigo out of the place.
Of course, the cop is no cop, he's Richard (John C. Reilly), a con artist himself who sees in the amateurish but good-looking Rodrigo the makings of a new partner. The two set off on a spree of low-level cons, with Richard making full use of Rodrigo's innocent demeanor to snare the unwitting marks, even an elderly woman who thinks she's giving her money to her grandson's friend.
It doesn't take long for the new partners to tumble into a possibly highly lucrative scam involving a forged rare-currency certificate to be sold to a rapacious Scottish businessman (Peter Mullan) who's due to leave town the next day. As the pair get involved in a series of complex interactions to further their scheme, they also must cope with the family dispute between Richard and his beautiful but estranged sister, Valerie (Maggie Gyllenhaal). She hates him, quite reasonably, because he tried to screw her and her younger brother out of the family inheritance.
As with every con artist flick, Criminal displays the sort of complex plotting in which the details of the sting as well as the true nature of the participants are never quite what they seem. Depending on the execution, this can be great fun or highly annoying, but the middling Criminal winds up somewhere in between.
First-time director Gregory Jacobs, working from a screenplay he co-authored with Sam Lowry, takes a gritty, low-key approach to the material, concentrating as much on characterization and social and ethnic issues in contemporary Los Angeles as on the details of the con. The result is a more realistic example of the genre than usual, but such subplots as the interpersonal conflict between Richard and his sister don't have the intended impact, and the film never achieves the giddy heights of the best of its predecessors.
Reilly, in a rare leading turn, delivers his usual expertly modulated performance, and his unconventional looks make Richard's need for an appealing partner all the more believable. Luna certainly fits the bill, infusing Rodrigo with an appropriate puppy-dog quality. Although Gyllenhaal never seems entirely convincing conveying the sister's aggressive edge, she ultimately acquits herself, and Mullan, much like Robert Shaw in The Sting, uses his steely charisma to excellent effect as the intended mark.
Criminal
A Warner Independent Pictures presentation in association with 2929 Entertainment
A Section Eight production
Credits:
Director: Gregory Jacobs
Screenwriters: Gregory Jacobs, Sam Lowry
Producers: Gregory Jacobs, George Clooney, Steven Soderbergh
Executive producers: Jennifer Fox, Ben Cosgrove, Georgia Kacandes, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban
Director of photography: Chris Menges
Production design: Philip Messina
Editor: Stephen Mirrione
Costume design: Jeffrey Kurland
Music: Alex Wurman
Cast:
Richard Gaddis: John C. Reilly
Rodrigo: Diego Luna
Valerie: Maggie Gyllenhaal
William Hannigan: Peter Mullan
Ochoa: Zitto Kazann
Michael: Jonathan Tucker
MPAA rating: R
Running time -- 87 minutes...
The story, which takes place over a span of 24 hours, begins in a casino, where we see baby-faced Rodrigo (Diego Luna) attempting to pull a two-bit money-changing scam on a beleaguered waitress. When she gets wise to him and starts screaming bloody murder, a police detective who happens to be nearby intervenes and roughly pulls Rodrigo out of the place.
Of course, the cop is no cop, he's Richard (John C. Reilly), a con artist himself who sees in the amateurish but good-looking Rodrigo the makings of a new partner. The two set off on a spree of low-level cons, with Richard making full use of Rodrigo's innocent demeanor to snare the unwitting marks, even an elderly woman who thinks she's giving her money to her grandson's friend.
It doesn't take long for the new partners to tumble into a possibly highly lucrative scam involving a forged rare-currency certificate to be sold to a rapacious Scottish businessman (Peter Mullan) who's due to leave town the next day. As the pair get involved in a series of complex interactions to further their scheme, they also must cope with the family dispute between Richard and his beautiful but estranged sister, Valerie (Maggie Gyllenhaal). She hates him, quite reasonably, because he tried to screw her and her younger brother out of the family inheritance.
As with every con artist flick, Criminal displays the sort of complex plotting in which the details of the sting as well as the true nature of the participants are never quite what they seem. Depending on the execution, this can be great fun or highly annoying, but the middling Criminal winds up somewhere in between.
First-time director Gregory Jacobs, working from a screenplay he co-authored with Sam Lowry, takes a gritty, low-key approach to the material, concentrating as much on characterization and social and ethnic issues in contemporary Los Angeles as on the details of the con. The result is a more realistic example of the genre than usual, but such subplots as the interpersonal conflict between Richard and his sister don't have the intended impact, and the film never achieves the giddy heights of the best of its predecessors.
Reilly, in a rare leading turn, delivers his usual expertly modulated performance, and his unconventional looks make Richard's need for an appealing partner all the more believable. Luna certainly fits the bill, infusing Rodrigo with an appropriate puppy-dog quality. Although Gyllenhaal never seems entirely convincing conveying the sister's aggressive edge, she ultimately acquits herself, and Mullan, much like Robert Shaw in The Sting, uses his steely charisma to excellent effect as the intended mark.
Criminal
A Warner Independent Pictures presentation in association with 2929 Entertainment
A Section Eight production
Credits:
Director: Gregory Jacobs
Screenwriters: Gregory Jacobs, Sam Lowry
Producers: Gregory Jacobs, George Clooney, Steven Soderbergh
Executive producers: Jennifer Fox, Ben Cosgrove, Georgia Kacandes, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban
Director of photography: Chris Menges
Production design: Philip Messina
Editor: Stephen Mirrione
Costume design: Jeffrey Kurland
Music: Alex Wurman
Cast:
Richard Gaddis: John C. Reilly
Rodrigo: Diego Luna
Valerie: Maggie Gyllenhaal
William Hannigan: Peter Mullan
Ochoa: Zitto Kazann
Michael: Jonathan Tucker
MPAA rating: R
Running time -- 87 minutes...
- 9/24/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Gyllenhaal has 'Criminal' intent for WB thriller
Secretary star Maggie Gyllenhaal is in negotiations to join John C. Reilly and Diego Luna in the Warner Bros. Pictures feature Criminal (aka Nine Queens) for Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney's Section Eight Prods. The project, a remake of an Argentine feature, begins production next month with Gregory Jacobs directing. Criminal is a caper thriller about two men (Reilly and Luna) who team on a scam involving a forged set of extremely valuable stamps, the Nine Queens. Gyllenhaal would play the sister of Reilly's character, whom he swindles out of her inheritance. Jacobs, Soderbergh's longtime first assistant director, co-wrote with Soderbergh the English version of the screenplay. Soderbergh and Clooney will produce, with Section Eight's Jennifer Fox and Ben Cosgrove executive producing. Warners vp production Jessica Goodman will oversee the project on behalf of the studio, which acquired remake rights to Criminal two months ago (HR 2/6). Gyllenhaal, repped by CAA and Benderspink's Courtney Kivowitz, next stars in Revolution Studios' Mona Lisa Smile opposite Julia Roberts and IFC Films' Casa de Los Babys for writer-director John Sayles.
- 5/2/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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