I haven’t done a miscellaneous flix news post in a while, but this week I want to share a few things from the past few days. It’s a Brits edition in honor of the BAFTA Awards this past Sunday.
First, congratulations to all the BAFTA winners (see the full list here)! The British Academy of Film & Television Arts celebrated the 2011 event on Feb. 13 at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden. Boy, what I would give to be a fly on the wall in that event, what with all my fave British actors in attendance!
Colin Firth won Best Actor award for The King’s Speech yet again. Wow, it’s got to be challenging for him to keep coming up with another thank you speech for one award after another. The real King George VI would have a real predicament having to give such a speech all over the world 🙂 But y’know what, Firth seems genuinely thankful and humbled by it, so really, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow. Also glad to see Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter collecting awards for their supporting performances.
Oh, and congrats to Tom Hardy as well for winning The Orange Wednesdays Rising Star Award! He beat out fellow nominees including Aaron Johnson, Andrew Garfield, Gemma Arterton, and Emma Stone. I’m totally happy for him, though I’d be equally pleased if it had gone to Aaron or Andrew, as all three of those young Brits are in my Five Notable Breakout 2011 Performances list. It’s also interesting that Andrew and Emma are starring together in the Spiderman reboot, which is now called The Amazing Spiderman.
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Now on to some recent casting news!
- On a related Colin Firth news, thanks to Dezzy @ Hollywood Spy, the British thespian has reportedly joined Korean director Park Chan-wook’s English-language debut Stoker. It also escaped me that former Prison Break star Wentworth Miller is actually a screenwriter who’ll be penning the script. Here’s additional plot details per FirstShowing: the film is a family mystery-drama about a moody teenager whose mysterious uncle (Firth) comes back into her family’s lives after the death of her father. Fellow Oscar nominee Nicole Kidman also joined the previously-cast Mia Wasikowska who’ll play Kidman’s daughter.
… - Speaking of BAFTA winners, previous Best Supporting Actor winner Ralph Fiennes was in Berlin yesterday promoting his debut film Coriolanus. Also on hand at Berlinale Film Festival were cast members Vanessa Redgrave, Gerard Butler, Jessica Chastain, and screenwriter John Logan.
Photo courtesy of JustJarred.com Check out the latest stills from the film I posted last week. From what I’ve been reading of late, the film received a standing ovation at Berlinale, and I’m hoping it’d win Berlinale’s The Golden Bear for Best Picture! Some of the screening reviews have trickled in, and Obsessed With Film gave it a full 5 stars, praising Fiennes’ direction and the use of Shakespearean dialog in modern setting, “Treating Shakespeare as if it were normal speech makes it far more accessible than when actors take the more stagey thespian route.” Oh, another great, four-star review from The Guardian has just arrived, saying that Fiennes’ debut is a triumph! Man, I absolutely can’t wait to see the trailer! The release date on IMDb says the release date for the US is November 2011, and it looks like the Weinstein’s already prepping this for his 2012 awards campaign.
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So what’s next for Butler? Well, aside from the two movies he’s got in the can (Machine Gun Preacher, Coriolanus and the Farrelly Brothers’ ensemble comedy Movie 43) he’s recently signed on to star in Mavericks, a surfing movie with director Curtis Hanson. Per Deadline, the film is based on the true story of Santa Cruz surf phenom Jay Moriarity and his quest to ride the treacherous Northern California breaks known as ‘Mavericks.’ Though Moriarity survived those impossible waves, he died at 22 in a diving accident. But he remains an inspiration to surfers, who coined the phrase “Live like Jay.” Butler, who also serves as executive producer) will play Rick “Frosty” Hesson, the mentor who trained Moriarity for over a year and forged a close relationship with the surfer in the process. I really respect Hanson as a filmmaker as L.A. Confidential is one of my favorite films. The role of Jay has not yet been cast. Based on Moriarty’s obituary (via SlashFilm), his life story is certainly worth telling on the big screen.
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Mavericks is the second sports-related movie Butler will be doing back to back. He’s also starring in Gabriele Muccino’s soccer flick that I first talked about here. It has since been titled Playing the Field, which centers on a former professional athlete with a weak past tries to redeem himself by coaching his son’s soccer team, only to find himself unable to resist when in scoring position with his players’ restless and gorgeous moms (plot per IMDb). No other cast member has been announced yet.…
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Looks like Mr. Ridley Scott’s been reading my Hollywood Fantasy Draft 😀 Well you probably know I cast Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender in a romance mystery, but Mr. Scott has now cast both of them in his sci-fi adventure Prometheus, which was originally proposed to be a prequel to the Alien films. Per Filmonic.com, Theron apparently turned down the role in Clint Eastwood’s J Edgar (about the famed FBI director J Edgar Hoover) opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, and opted to take this one instead. Well if I had to choose, I’d rather star alongside Fassbender myself personally 😉
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Last but not least, I’m quite excited of this latest development of The Dark Knight Rises. I’ve been kind of blase about the previous casting news for the movie, I mean I’d still be seeing the film in the theater of course, I just don’t want to get caught up in the endless newsflash coming every week. But I’ve been hoping for Marion to be cast as Catwoman as far back as Sept 2009, alas Nolan offered it to Anne Hathaway.
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But now it looks like Cottilard has indeed signed on. FirstShowing reported that the original French article that broke the news basically said that Cotillard, now pregnant with French actor Guillaume Canet’s baby, was only going to shoot one movie this year and decided that it would be The Dark Knight Rises for Chris Nolan. Rumor has it she could possibly be playing Talia al Ghul, the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul’s who was played by Liam Neeson in Batman Begins. I certainly hope that is true. I think there’s a lot of potential for an intriguing conflict with that storyline, as well as a possible forbidden romance? Oooh, juicy! 😀
Well, any thoughts on any of these newsflash? Or if you have a movie news you’re excited about, please do share in the comments!
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Always love to find out what Gerry is up to next 😉 Sounds quite promising, I would say.
Did you read the Coriolanus’ reviews? I’m so glad it was well-received at Berlinale, hopefully it’ll be a hit w/ the US audience as well.
Yes, been hearing about C at the Berlinale, and to get an audience to clap in the theater is a feat, so to get a standing ovation – wow!
I’m curious to see what Park Chan-Wook will do with his first American film. Hollywood’s been trying to get him to come over to the west since the early 2000s but he kept turning them down. I assume he really like the script of Stoker. For anyone who have seen his films, you know he doesn’t make the conventional type of films.
As for The Dark Knight Rises, I’m not too thrill with all these rumors going around about how many characters Nolan will include in the film. I mean there’s a rumor that Robin might even make an appearance. But I trust Nolan so hopefully his third Batman flick won’t fall into the curse of the third film in a trilogy.
I’m not familiar w/ his work but I know you would 🙂 Well it sounds like a special project indeed then if Chan-Wook finally chose this one after all those years turning stuff down. Doesn’t hurt that now he’s got TWO Oscar winners (well, Colin’s practically got this one in the can) to star in his film.
Y’know, I’m w/ you about TDKR, that’s why I haven’t reported anything about it until now. Not thrilled at all about the Robin rumor but I think (hope) it’s just a rumor. I am curious if Marion will indeed play Thalia though, that whole League of Shadows story is quite intriguing. Ahah, I do hope Nolan can overcome that trilogy ‘curse,’ too. I reckon he will.
Wasn’t the whole robin rumor put to rest when people found out Joseph is playing a villain?
I myself never believed that rumor, mainly because “robin” is only a title a few dc characters went by and there wasn’t a specific character mentioned.
And i suppose i also didn’t want to believe it as i would like to do a “robin” movie myself(Technically it would focus on Dick Grayson breaking away from batman and becoming his own superhero, but you get the idea) =D
yay for Colin, Helena and Tom! We’ve always loved them, haven’t we?
And yay for my beloved Wenty Miller 🙂 I’ve found the old post in which I mentioned STOKER for the first time and some other of Wenty’s projects:
http://hollywood-spy.blogspot.com/2010/11/wentworth-miller-in-historical-drama.html
Thanks for the link Dezzy, now I remember that post since I commented on it. Great for Miller, it’s amazing he’s almost 40 as he looks sooo young!
And yes, I love those trio in The King’s Speech. An absolutely delightful film.
you can’t imagine my surprise when I discovered he was in his late 30s, I was convinced we were about the same age (probably because we have the same master degrees 🙂 so I thought we were same in the age department too 🙂
Dezzy, pardon me if I’ve asked you this before. What was your degree in again? That’s cool that you both have the same master degree.
I am loving all the casting news for The Dark Knight Rises. And I love that some of Nolan’s Inception actors have signed on. There is some serious anticiptation on that one!
BTW eventhough I was also pleased about Tom Hardy winning the BAFTA’s Rising Star Award, there was a major part of me that wished it was Andrew Garfield. Come on, Spidey? Say no more. 🙂
Hi peaches, welcome to FC! Y’know, it’s funny how the reaction to Nolan casting the same actors he’s worked with have been mixed. I do like Marion a lot but I do hope he won’t add anymore ‘familiar’ faces to this film.
Oh yes, Garfield is actually my fave of the three guys I mentioned above. Of course he was great in Social Network but I saw him in the indie Boy A and was blown away by his subtle but intense performance. I’m excited for Spidey because of him.
Ha! I love all the discussion on all of the Dark Knight rumors! Haha. Rumors aside I am glad that Marion is on board. I really enjoyed her performance in inception. Now I am just waiting for CM to sign on for a quick appearance as Scarecrow and then we will have a great reunion of Batman, Inception, and Christopher Nolan worlds combined!
Ha! Novroz would be ever so thrilled if that’s true. As much as I like Cillian though, I’m afraid there’ll be too many villains in this flick. I’m guessing Marion is likely to play a villain/love interest of sort.
Breaking news: Guy Pearce, Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Hall, Katie Holmes are also in discussion to join TDKR. Nolan has also set aside funds to research cloning and dead resurrection so he can have more Christian Bales and Michael Caines as well as Heath Ledger in the movie.
Glad to see Marion Cotillard in the movie but this is almost like nepotism ah 😉
Ha..ha.. I hear ya Castor. I re-watched the first part of Inception last night and it’s all very Batman de-ja-vu-ish w/ Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe and Cillian Murphy.
I do hope his next project post TDKR (apparently he’s interested in another Howard Hughes biopic according to Scarlet’s blog – http://scarletsp1der.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/movie-news-monday-for-february-14-2011/) will have all ‘fresh’ talent he hasn’t worked with before. Surely he CAN’T cast Leo again in that role! 😀
you lost me at ‘So what’s next for Gerard Butler?’
Oh, you mean you’re lost in his gaze as he stares at you from the pool there, Ross? 😀
yes. i mean i am lost in his gaze as he stares at me from the pool there
See, was that so hard to admit?
Rosamund Pike gave me my favourite moment of the BAFTAS – when the autocue stopped working she proved just how much actors need a) a SCRIPT and b) DIRECTION. Her wet-behind-the-ears co-presenter was about as much help as a doctor in a lion’s cage.
Ahah, would love to have seen that. So what did she do, just stand there perplexed or what? Who was her co-presenter?
Dominic Cooper was the co-presenter – they were in An Education together. I bet it’s on YouTube somewhere but she basically stood there looking a bit clueless and said the autocue wasn’t working. She then opened the envelope before reading out the nominees and said “the winner is…” and Jonathan Ross dashed in and stopped her before she gave it away!
Oh dear, that’s terrible! How embarrassing. Ross was probably mortified by that [shakes head]
I’ll see if I can see it on YouTube. I only saw the parts when Colin won and when Gerry Butler presented Best Actress award, now he was confident and funny. I bet he won’t panic if the autocue wasn’t working.
Exactly, Butler had plenty of charisma – did you notice his joke about saying the winner before the nominations had been read out…and then looking over to Jonathan Ross out of shot…that was in reference to Pike’s gaff earlier in the night.
There was another great moment when Christopher Lee won the lifetime achievement award. That was poignant.
Ohhhh now I got the joke, I thought he was just being his prankster self. I wondered why he looked at Ross as he did that, now it made sense.
Glad for Mr. Lee. Well-deserved award surely.
Ruth…there’s now various links to that clip on Youtube…I posted one link on the comments section of my An Education review but there’s a few if you search of “Rosamund Pike Bafta”.
Thanks! I just saw it. Wow, she must still be kicking herself now.
Kudos to you, Ruth, for highlighting the BAFTAS. It seems so many American movie sites just ignore them, which kind of annoys me.
This year even saw Gerard Butler presenting an award. 😉
Oh Rich, you should know I’ve always loved anything Brits 😀 I’d rather be at the BAFTA any day than at the Oscars, I bet it’s a heck of a lot more fun and I’d run into more of my favorite actors. And yes, they’re also smart enough to invite Butler to present, hopefully one day he’ll be up there giving acceptance speech 😀
This is a great post Ruth, all the news in one post 🙂
Gerry looks busy this year.
I am so curious with that movie by Korean director, the actors he collected are awesome.
Congrats to all BAFTA winners 🙂
I am still waiting for King’s Speech. Can you believe 127 hours is soon to released in here? like next week or 2 weeks from now, not sure when KS will be released
Yeah, GB is quite productive, if only they’d release the trailer of his upcoming flicks soon.
I thought that Indo cinema is more current now with new releases?? Or is it because they’re more indie/smaller films that it takes longer to come out? I do hope you get to see TKS on the big screen, Nov.
Yup…it is because those movies (127 hours and TKS) aren’t blockbuster material…the cinema kept on delaying it. Movies like Inception, Harry Potter, etc are always release same with US.
Oh that’s too bad. I mean, the non-blockbuster ones are often better quality movies. Ah well, I guess it’s all about the bottom line everywhere, especially in Indo 😦