While the blogosphere debates the merits and drawbacks of Alcon hiring Ericson Core (Invincible) to direct its remake of Point Break, it’s time to start asking if Kathryn Bigelow’s 1987 neo-noir vampire thriller Near Dark will ever be remade.
UPDATED/ 7:45 P.M. EST: Relativity Media spokeswoman Emmy Chang responds, “We do not have the rights to this title.” Stay tuned.
Let me say up front that Near Dark doesn’t need to be remade. It’s a bloody, balls out thrill ride that pre-figures the endorphin rush of Point Break features a memorable cast that includes the seriously underrated Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton. Henriksen is utterly chilling and Paxton gives an unhinged performance as Severen, the craziest member of a pack of redneck vampires on the loose in the West. (Love their shades and the camper van with the blacked-out windows.)
Is Near Dark Too Much Like Twilight?
Back in 2006, Michael Bay’s Platinum Dune production company was talking about remaking the picture, but in 2008, Bay’s partner, producer Brad Fuller told Empire magazine that the project was on hold because “I’m concerned that, conceptually…Near Dark and Twilight are too similar”. I had to read that statement twice because, while there is a romance between one of the vampire clan (Jenny Wright) and a murder-averse human (Adrian Pasdar), the ferociously over-the-top Near Dark bears precious little resemblance to the PG-13 Twilight franchise. (If anything, Bigelow’s film is a kindred spirit of HBO’s True Blood vamp series.) If Bay & Co. were making a Twilight connection, it’s probably best they shelved the project.
As of the end of 2012, the Internet Movie Database indicated that Relativity Media subsidiary Rogue was developing the picture, but getting the company to confirm that the project is still alive (or undead) is another question. Relativity…
Full Story »Two weeks after carrying home the big prizes from the Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe Awards, Argo firmly established its Oscar front-runner status with another one-two punch in the form of the PGA’s Motion Picture Producer of the Year honor and the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast. And in a season of confusion and contradiction, that front-runner status gives Argo traction that none of its Best-Picture rivals have.
The PGA win was not a surprise, especially after Argo’s strong showing with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Content-wise, it’s the type of film that charms producers, being a taut political thriller 65% of the time and a stack of insider Hollywood jokes the other 35%. Apart from that, you have The Affleck, and the time has come to love and praise The Affleck. Rejuvenated and relevant again, Ben Affleck is this year’s Oscar story. When the nominations came out, who was the “snubbed” director? It wasn’t Kathryn Bigelow, Paul Thomas Anderson, or Wes Anderson, the three directors whose films appeared on the most end-of-year lists. It was The Affleck, and within 72 hours, The Affleck was redeemed with populist awards broadcast live on the CW and NBC, making Argo the People’s Film and Affleck the Oscar story of the year.
For Best Picture prognostication, the PGA Award is a major get. Since it was started in 1989, the Producers Guild has awarded the eventual Best Picture Oscar winner nearly 70 percent of the time, and has been perfect over the past 5 years. Additionally, the PGA uses a preferential ballot just as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts…
Full Story »Is Zero Dark Thirty pro-torture propaganda? Despite fawning praise bestowed last weekend on Kathryn Bigelow’s hunt for Bin Laden thriller, that’s the growing consensus among left, and left-libertarian film commentators who were deeply disturbed by the film’s opening sequence.
The film’s opening act depicts the ‘enhanced’ interrogation of a CIA detainee believed to have information about Al Qaeda operations and possibly the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden. Sexually abused, subjected to horrific confinement, and the controversial “drowning” technique known as water-boarding, the prisoner cracks and gives key details that ultimately lead agents on a series of clues that eventually make the successful Seal Team 6 raid possible. The take away for a lot of people is that the film’s overall message ends up being “torture works.”
Is that a fair assessment of Zero Dark Thirty? That depends on how you view the responsibility of a filmmaker to tell the truth versus their responsibility to tell a great story.
First, it has to be said for the millionth time that we aren’t just talking about the film’s opening scenes in a vacuum. Since 2003, the United States has been locked in a protracted idealogical battle between people who rightly note that torture, including water-boarding, is banned by just about every treaty on human rights to which the US is a signatory nation, and those who believe that nothing should be off the table, no matter how morally deleterious, when it comes to tracking down those who would do us harm. For the bulk of the last decade the latter camp won this argument. The result was a network of secret prisons, a prison complex in Guantanamo Bay whose territorial ambiguity was cited as a reason the law didn’t apply, extraordinary rendition, and a host of other “I never…
Full Story »Welcome back to Movieline’s Oscar Index, where each week we take the pulse of the awards chatter en route to Hollywood’s big day. This week both Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables and Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty surged through the ranks after debuting in their first, successful, awards screenings, though Spielberg’s Lincoln still reigns supreme — but Peter Jackson’s 48fps gamble The Hobbit and Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained are right around the corner, gunning for the spotlight…
The Leading 10
1. Lincoln
2. Les Miserables
3. Zero Dark Thirty
4. Argo
5. Silver Linings Playbook
6. Life of Pi
7. Django Unchained
8. Beasts of the Southern Wild
9. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
10. Anna Karenina
Outsiders: Skyfall, Moonrise Kingdom, Flight, The Dark Knight Rises, The Master
Despite strong guild and critic screening debuts for Les Miserables and Zero Dark Thirty, which absolutely sealed their positions as Best Picture top dogs, Spielberg’s Lincoln is still holding onto its momentum and #1 spot in the race in the hearts and minds of pundits. Meanwhile, David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook searches for a way to keep up, while Fox Searchlight’s Beasts of the Southern Wild is making its surge, trotting out Spirit Award-nominated star (and Best Actress hopeful) Quvenzhané Wallis for awards events this week.
Best Director
1. Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)
2. Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty)
3. David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)
4. Ben Affleck (Argo)
5. Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)
Spielberg still reigns atop the race, but this week’s Zero Dark Thirty splash should boost Bigelow above the ranks of Affleck, whose popular Argo treads similar true history ground but doesn’t match ZDT’s weightiness or relevancy. Russell’s staying…
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Bill Nye (57)
Alison Pill (27)
Jaleel White (36)
Sharlto Copley (39)
Samantha Harris (39)
Twista (39)
Brooke Langton (42)
Michael Vartan (44)
Robin Givens (48)
Fisher Stevens (49)
Caroline Kennedy (55)
William Fichtner (56)
Kathryn Bigelow (61)
You’re done gorging on turkey, which means only one thing: ‘Tis the season to be stuffed with Oscar punditry. Movieline’s Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics has awoken from its L-Tryptophan slumber to provide you with our latest Oscar Index, which evaluates the contenders for Best Director. The latest Index on Best Picture can be found here, and over the course of the long weekend, we’ll be weighing in on the Best Actor, Actress and Support Actor and Actress races.
How The Oscar Index Works
With each award category that we track, we’ll present four different rankings. Movieline Executive Editor Jen Yamato, Managing Editor Brian Brooks and myself will each provide our personal weekly rankings of the movies and actors in the running, and then those results will be weighted and averaged to determine an official Movieline ranking for each category. Let’s begin:
Best Director
In terms of perception, the Best Director category has been fairly static for a while now, but that should change next week as Les Misérables and Zero Dark Thirty screen for critics and reaction to them begins to flow through the blogosphere. Up to this point, the strong standings of the directors of those films, respectively, Tom Hooper and Kathryn Bigelow, has been almost pure buzz, so their positions could rise or fall sharply once actual scenes and performances can be scrutinized.
Until then, Steven Spielberg remains the auteur to beat despite Lincoln’s at-times sloggy pace, and Ben Affleck is holding strong as his Argo continues to do well at the box office and on the word-of-mouth…
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Also in Thursday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs: Christoph Walt is in talks to star in a Muppets sequel; Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty officially gets new nationwide release; And a Brad Anderson thriller finds a U.S. release.
Harrison Ford, Zac Efron Eye You Belong to Me
Directed by Rob Reiner, Ford would play a psychiatrist who faces hard times after one of his female patients commits suicide. But he bonds with her brother James (Efron), but the situation becomes complicated when he lets James into his life and he begins seducing his wife and daughter. Rob Reiner will direct, The Wrap reports.
Jennifer Garner Eyes Drama Dallas Buyers Club
Garner is in talks to star in the drama alongside Matthew McConaughey. The story revolves around a man who was given six months to live after contracting AIDS in 1986, but lived another six years by illegally smuggling medicine into the U.S. and giving drugs to other sufferers too, Deadline reports.
Christoph Waltz Eyes The Muppets Sequel
Waltz would play an Interpol inspector in the Europe-set comedy. James Bobin who directed the 2011 Muppets film is returning to direct the follow-up, THR reports.
Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty Goes Wide in January
The Osama bin Laden pic will do awards season qualifying runs in New York and Los Angeles on December 19th in order to build word of mouth. It will add markets January 4th before going nationwide on January 11th. The title will now avoid the Christmas crush, including five high-profile roll outs, THR reports.
Thriller Eliza Graves Heads to U.S. Theaters
Directed by Brad Anderson (The Machinist), the movie is about a new physician who arrives to apprentice…
Also in Wednesday evening’s round-up of news briefs: Garden State filmmaker Zach Braff is readying a comedy series for ABC. The Academy announces its Screenwriting Nicholl Fellowship winners and a Bin Laden raid film produced by Harvey Weinstein has Republicans in a rage.
Academy Announces Nicholl Fellowships
Five writers have been selected as recipients of the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition. Each writer will receive $35K and will be feted at a November 8th gala in Beverly Hills. The winners are: Nikole Beckwith (Stockholm, Pennsylvania), Sean Robert Daniels (Killers, James DiLapo (Devils at Play), Allan Durand (Willie Francis Must Die Again) and Michael Werwise (Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile). The winners were selected from 7,197 entries.
Around the ‘net…
Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty May Not Open Wide Until January
The possible Oscar contender may only open in NYC and LA on its official opening date December 19 and may only open more slowly across the country, theater owners have been told. It may expand to the top 10 – 12 markets January 4 and then nationwide January 11. The film depicts the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, THR reports.
Johnny Depp Eyes Transcendence
The film will be the directorial debut of cinematographer Wally Pfister (The Dark Knight Rises) The Alcon Entertainment/Warner Bros. project is set for an early 2013 shoot. Details of the plot are being kept under wraps, but the screenplay is written by newcomer Jack Paglen, Deadline reports.
ABC Buys Zach Braff Comedy
Braff will write, direct and executive produce Garage Bar, which will combine a “workplace idea with the heart and humor of Braff’s 2008 feature Garden State. It will center on a group of friends who start to experience the ups…
Look what came out of all that right-wing saber-rattling in January: “According to documents obtained by Judicial Watch, the White House, Defense Department and CIA all offered rare, if not unprecedented, access to Boal and [Kathryn] Bigelow. The access included a guided tour of a secret CIA planning facility called The Vault and linking Boal up with what a Defense Department official described as ‘a planner, SEAL Team 6 operator and commander.’ The only restriction was that Boal not disclose the SEAL’s name.” Meanwhile, America’s “top commando officer” denies everything: “We don’t have a partnership [...] I have no interaction and no one on my staff has any interaction with — what’s her name? Bigelow?” [Danger Room]
Jaleel White (35)
Alison Pill (26)
Sharlto Copley (38)
Samantha Harris (38)
Twista (39)
Brooke Langton (41)
Michael Vartan (43)
Robin Givens (47)
Fisher Stevens (48)
Victoria Gotti (49)
Caroline Kennedy (54)
William Fichtner (55)
Bill Nye (56)
Kathryn Bigelow (60)
Jayne Kennedy (60)
