CORIOLANUS

If you read my blog regularly, you’ll know that I’ve sort of aspire to be a casting agent. One of my casting wish is to have my fave actor Gerard Butler to co-star with fellow Scottish actor Brian Cox. The multi-award winning actor is known for his villainous roles in Troy, Bourne Supremacy and X-Men 2, and he’s the first actor to play the role of Hannibal Lecter in Michael Mann’s Manhunter. Well, talk about wish granted! William Hurt’s apparently no longer attached to this project as previously reported, and Cox is his replacement! He joins another esteemed thespian Vanessa Redgrave, who just co-starred with him in the TV project The Day of the Triffid.

To refresh your memory, Coriolanus is Ralph Fiennes’ directing debut in which he’d play the lead role and Butler is playing his arch enemy Tullus Aufidius. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Fiennes cast actors with theater background for this Shakespearean political tale. Coincidentally, Butler’s professional acting debut was playing the title Coriolanus, and his other stage work was Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer with Rachel Weisz.

Empire reports that shooting will start on location in Belgrade starting St. Patrick’s Day next week, and this is the most intriguing part: “… we’re told that the story will take place in a contemporary setting, so don’t expect togas.” Well, as much as I love to see ’em showing off their legs, I’m kinda digging the modern flair of this, a la Baz Luhrmann’s version of Romeo + Juliet.  In any case, we know the cast is impressive, but looks like Fiennes’ rounded up some stellar crews as well. The script is penned by John Logan (Gladiator, The Last Samurai, The Aviator), and he’s also got cinematographer Barry Ackroyd and sound mixer Ray Beckett, who are fresh out of their BAFTA and Oscar win for The Hurt Locker.

I hope this is just one of many more ‘meatier’ roles to come for Gerard, and by that I don’t mean showing off his abs … though if that’s the case here, who am I to complain? 🙂

Nolan speaks on Batman/Superman combo project

Wow, not a week goes by about some kind of news on the two DC comic superheroes, with Christopher Nolan at the center of it all. Last month I blogged about the British auteur’ involvement as a mentor in the next Superman movie. Now the man himself is working every fanboy/girl in a tizzy with a spatter of updates on the two highly-anticipated projects.

As found in the L.A. Times Hero Complex Blog (who sat down with the director over tea in his Hollywood home), these words coming from his mouth is enough to wet my appetite: “It’s very exciting; we have a fantastic story” – referring to the indestructible Man of Steel, the biggest kahuna of all superhero. Interestingly enough, the idea came about during Batman’s relative standstill. Apparently not one to twiddle his thumb, writer David Goyer (chief collaborator on Nolan’s two Batman films) came up with his dream vision of the Kryptonian hero:

“He basically told me, ‘I have this thought about how you would approach Superman,’” Nolan recalled. “I immediately got it, loved it and thought: That is a way of approaching the story I’ve never seen before that makes it incredibly exciting. I wanted to get Emma and I involved in shepherding the project right away and getting it to the studio and getting it going in an exciting way.”

But since a director hasn’t been secured yet, and casting is probably going to take an even more arduous process, this project still seems so far away in our horizon, so I just don’t want to get too fired up. Batman 3 is probably a ‘closer’ prospect, but even that Nolan still won’t confirm his directorial involvement. It is interesting, as the reporter points out, ‘how inspirations originate.’ Notice how Nolan’s Batman films have such a spectacular cast? I mean he’s got the likes of Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman and Tom Wilkinson in supporting roles. Well, that idea came from Donner’s Superman:

“I went to the studio with the analogy of ‘I want to cast the way they did in 1978 with ‘Superman,”’ where they had [Marlon] Brando and Glenn Ford and Ned Beatty and all these fantastic actors in even small parts, which was an exotic idea for a superhero movie at the time. It really paid off too. As a kid watching ‘Superman,’ it seemed enormous and I realized later by looking at it that a lot of that was actually the casting, just having these incredibly talented people and these characterizations. And Marlon Brando is the first guy up playing Superman’s dad. It’s incredible.”

Despite his coy attitude, my hunch is that Nolan will indeed helm this project, so I guess we can expect the same kind of caliber ensemble in the third Batman installment. He did confirmed that his brother Jonathan is writing the script (another reason to think he won’t let someone else direct it): “My brother is writing a script for me and we’ll wait to see how it turns out…. He’s struggling to put it together into the epic story that you want it to be.”

As The Dark Knight ends with the caped crusader being a hunted fugitive, it’d be nice to see the third as a ‘closure’ to Nolan’s Batman franchise, so I really appreciate his answer to the ‘What happens next?’ question: “Without getting into specifics, the key thing that makes the third film a great possibility for us is that we want to finish our story,” he said. “And in viewing it as the finishing of a story rather than infinitely blowing up the balloon and expanding the story.”

I’m not particularly concerned about who’ll be the villains and all that, I think that just comes naturally with a great storyline. Besides, any great director would (or should) know how rudimentary it is to get the villain right in such a franchise, as you can see in casting Heath Ledger as the Joker, arguably the best superhero villain we’ve seen to date. That is why I’m confident that Nolan won’t go the ‘circus freak’ route with the villains as Joel Schumacher did. It might work in the comic book world, but it just comes across very silly to the point of obnoxious in the movie adaptation. One thing for sure though, don’t count on Mr. Freeze making an appearance as long as Nolan’s involved. Bravo!

A ‘darker’ Jane Eyre? Yes, please!

As a huge fan of the Charlotte Brontë’s gothic tale, I was so psyched to hear that Michael Fassbender’s been cast as Rochester, especially since I was rather dismayed to hear the Wuthering Heights’ remake is getting Gossip Girl’s Ed Westwick (ugh!). Alice in Wonderland’s Mia Wasikowska also seems to be a fitting choice as the petite yet indomitable young governess. Both actors are definitely on the rise, and apparently so is the director.

Cary Fukunaga is a 33-year-old director of Japanese/Swedish descent whose highly-acclaimed writing/directing debut Sin Nombre won directing award at Sundance last year, as well as other nods from various film festivals. On top on such credence, Jane Eyre is one of his favorite films. Movieline asked if he’s “.. daunted by remaking one of his favorite films? Not quite, Fukunaga said.”

“The Orson Welles-Joan Fontaine version was of an era. You wouldn’t make a film like that anymore. I’m a stickler for raw authenticity, so I’ve spent a lot of time rereading the book and trying to feel out what Charlotte Brontë was feeling when she was writing it. That sort of spookiness that plagues the entire story…there’s been something like 24 adaptations, and it’s very rare that you see those sorts of darker sides. They treat it like it’s just a period romance, and I think it’s much more than that.”

I really like what I’m hearing here. It’s definitely more than just a period romance. The essence of the Jane Eyre story is gothic and dark, so I’m intrigued by how Fukunaga will tackle that aspect. You probably already know that I love Timothy Dalton’s portrayal as Rochester in BBC’s 1983 version, but the entire production left so much to be desired. It’s got some gothic undercurrents but it’s just lacking something overall that I hope to see in this version. At least they seem to get the casting right. I can see Fassbender bring out that mercurial mood and volatility of the Byronic hero. The rest of the cast is shaping up nicely, too. Here’s some detailed info on who’s playing what (courtesy of Filmstage):

Dame Judi Dench will play Mrs. Fairfax, the housekeeper of Thornfield Manor who hires Jane, and disproves of Jane’s relationship with Rochester. One of my fave young thespian Jamie Bell (Defiance, Billy Elliot) will play St. John, a young clergyman who helps Jane in a time of need, and turns out to be connected to her by blood. Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky, An Education) will play Mrs. Reed, Jane’s terrible aunt, who terrorizes and abuses Jane as a orphaned child.

In any case, not that there’s a correlation, but the last time a director of Asian descent (Ang Lee) tackle a literary classic, the result was the much beloved – and one of my fave movies of all time – Sense & Sensibility. I absolutely can’t wait for this movie, but looks like it won’t be out until 2011.