“You don’t know if a guy like Dwayne [Johnson] is gonna come in and have the same persona as The Rock, or, is he gonna be able to immerse himself,” Barry Pepper told me at the recent Snitch press junket. “He was just so dedicated to the film…I was really impressed.”
I sat down with Dwayne Johnson as well and asked him if he thinks that with racially diverse films like Snitch and the Fast and the Furious franchise, is Hollywood changing?
“When the intention is to create a movie that’s authentic and that’s real world…and the studio gets behind that and sees that vision and pushes all their chips in — well, then you get a movie like this where it IS racially diverse and it is the world that we live in today.”
The Walking Dead’s Jon Bernthal also co-stars, and just wrapped Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. Are there any similarities between blue collar and white collar crime?
“Trying to take the easy way out, desperation, doing what you can to get by…There’s all sorts of motives for people to make bad decisions. I don’t think it matters what room you wake up in,” Bernthal said.
Check out my full interviews with them below: 
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You think navigating a press junket after a personal controversy goes public is potentially awkward? Try braving throngs of journalists clamoring for an answer to The Twilight Saga’s curious “imprinting” storyline, as Taylor Lautner did today when the franchise-ending Breaking Dawn Part II press tour kicked off.
For the record, both parties in the reportedly reunited Robsten supercouple acquitted themselves ably and congenially in back-to-back press conferences as they discussed their four-year journey with the vampire franchise. [Mild spoilers follow, if you haven't read the books.]
But Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson aren’t the only Twilight kids who’ve matured as the worldwide phenomenon has turned them and their cast mates into global megastars. Twenty-year-old Lautner turned in a charismatic performance for the media horde, even as he broached the subject of his character’s eyebrow-raising attachment to a child in Breaking Dawn.
“It’s a fine line, and I was worried about it,” Lautner admitted of Jacob Black’s supernatural, (platonic — for now) love-at-first-sight connection to Renesmee, the half-human, half-vampire offspring of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. (By comparison, Edward’s a century older than Bella, so in the grand scheme of things it’s not that bad….)
Played by 9-year-old Mackenzie Foy, Renesmee grows from infant to school-age girl in a superhuman span of time — and, in keeping with the story arc of the novels, Jacob is compelled by his Quileute legacy to instantly “imprint,” or attach, himself to her side in a manner that eventually will take on romantic undertones.
Lautner said he went to the source for advice about his concerns: Stephenie Meyer. “There was nobody better to ask about it than her,” he explained. “And she basically told me, ‘Stop overcomplicating it. Think here…
Full Story »So there’s good news and bad news regarding Scary Movie 5. The bad news is… well, there is a Scary Movie 5. The good news? Anna Faris has reportedly exercised her option and/or good judgment to step away from the ever-deteriorating franchise. And then there’s this, which could go either way depending on your taste: The new installment reportedly intends to spoof Black Swan. Like, the whole thing.
Know the Artist tweeted a referral to this casting call, which disclosed the basic plot as such:
The story in Scary Movie 5 involves the dance world, with a snooty, aloof, imperious, and oversexed French director of a dance company named Pierre putting on a huge production. Jody, a Caucasian late-20’s mother of two and her late-20’s African American friend Kendra are both vying for the lead in the production. Jody’s extremely controlling former dancer mother is determined that Jody will have the brilliant career that eluded her. The highly skilled mid-30’s Diva veteran dancer with the company, Heather Daltry, gets cut from the production and goes berserk. [...]
The studio had been very interested in bringing back some of the series’ original cast members, but there’s no word on where that plan stands now. Insiders have said that the film has been completely retooled and will hire a brand new cast. That would not be a surprise considering the casting directors are “seeking a comedic leading lady with the ability to play comedy in a grounded dramatic style”.
Faris is more than capable of that last part, though the actress disclosed at this week’s Dictator press junket that it won’t be her: “I don’t think I’m going to do it. I don’t think I’m part of that. I don’t…
Full Story »Will Ferrell movies can usually be summed up as “Will Ferrell as a…” and you get it. Will Ferrell as a reporter? That’s funny. Will Ferrell as a NASCAR driver? Also funny. But Will Ferrell as a Spanish soap opera action hero? Casa de mi Padre is a Spanish language film starring Ferrell as a rancher’s son who goes to war with drug dealers to protect his brother’s girl (Genesis Rodriguez). Where, exactly, did he come up with this idea?
At the film’s press junket today, Ferrell said he’d had this idea for five to seven years. The inspiration struck him, as such ideas do, during a 2:00 a.m. channel surfing session. “I’m probably like so many people, turning on the television going through the channels at two in the morning and landing on a telenovela going, ‘What is this? Why are they so over the top? This is amazing,’” Ferrell said. “That’s my exposure to them. I’d always had this idea of that’s such a heightened, funny world that it would be really funny to see myself in that world. I thought God, you’ve never seen an American comic in a foreign language film and have them commit to it in a way that’s believable. I thought that’s something if you could pull it off, that would be an original movie.”
The TV dramas that pop up on Univision or Telemundo in the states take the drama pretty seriously. You can tell Ferrell thinks it’s funny by all the intentional mistakes (continuity errors, visible boom mics, stuffed animatronic animals and mannequin stand-ins) intentionally placed in Casa de mi Padre, which is written by Andrew Steele and directed by Matt Piedmont, both alumni of Saturday Night Live and Funny or Die.
“It technically really isn’t an homage…
Full Story »A trade report last month suggested that Disney’s March sci-fi tent pole John Carter was in serious trouble owing to Pixar vet Andrew Stanton’s relative inexperience directing live-action film, citing rumors that production reshoots and late-game rejiggering had bloated the budget from $200 million to as much as $300 million. Speaking with press Thursday, Stanton called the report “a complete and utter lie,” insisting that he stayed on time and on budget – but it’s easy to see how the Pixar way of moviemaking may have made for a bumpy transition for the filmmaker.
John Carter, adapted from Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Barsoom sci-fi/fantasy series (created in 1912), introduces a hero and world that influenced many an iconic property that followed, from Star Wars to Avatar; Stanton, a lifelong fan of the series, makes his live-action directing debut with the pic which combines live-action and CG to create an entirely new world on which its titular hero (Taylor Kitsch) finds himself a stranger in a strange land populated by eight-foot tall, four-armed aliens and fantastical creatures.
The scope and detail of John Carter’s alien world and its inhabitants is ambitious, which is both the draw and the risk. The Hollywood Reporter’s Jan. 19 report cited insiders close to the production and talent in its assessment calling the costly Disney actioner out as being plagued with various problems stemming from Stanton’s inexperience with live-action filmmaking. “Industry sources with links to the project believe it might lead to a staggering write-down,” wrote Kim Masters, portending doom for the ambitious potential trilogy-starter.
At the film’s press junket, Stanton and Co. were eager to refute the rumors. “I want to go completely on record that I literally was on budget…
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Drew Barrymore. Christian Bale. Bruce the Shark. It’s an elite class of young talent that has found launching pads in the films of Steven Spielberg. And while Jeremy Irvine is a little older than those actors who preceded him, you can go ahead and add the 21-year-old to the list thanks to his breakthrough in Spielberg epic Oscar hopeful War Horse.
Irvine plays Albert Narracott, whose bond with a thoroughbred named Joey persists from hard times on his family farm (his parents are played Emily Watson and Peter Mullan) through the devastating conflict of World War I. It’s not only Irvine’s biggest film role to date — it’s his only role, with at least three more to come in 2012. He spoke with Movieline over the weekend in New York, just ahead of War Horse’s world premiere.
Congratulations on surviving your first foray into press-junket madness. How are you feeling?
Shattered. [Laughs] No, no. I was told a lot of stuff about how difficult doing this kind of thing is, but actually it’s all new and it’s all exciting to me. Maybe a few years down the line, it’ll be a terror. But for now, it’s new and exciting. It’s great.
Fantastic. Is there a question you haven’t yet been asked about War Horse that you wish you had? Or something you’ve wanted to note about the experience but haven’t had the opportunity?
[Pauses] God, I don’t know.
I am totally putting you on the spot.
Yeah, you are. But there are a few things. I mean, yes, we were making what was essentially quite a serious piece of work, but we had such a huge amount of fun doing it. There were so many funny moments.
Like what?
You…
“Well yeah, you could see my face. I was choking, because I’m watching a friend having a meltdown. And what he’s saying is horrendous in a roomful of press. He was asked an inappropriate question [about his family] and his response was to make a joke about it. But no one laughed and he just kept unravelling.” Kirsten Dunst told her side of the Lars von Trier Cannes controversy to The Guardian recently, wondering why none of her fellow Melancholia co-stars stepped in to stop their director from shoving his foot squarely into his own mouth.
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Dunst continued to The Guardian. “There were a lot of us sitting there. There was Stellan [Skarsgård], John [Hurt], Charlotte [Gainsbourg]. And no one said something. No one wanted to help. I was the only one to lean in to Lars and get him to stop.”
Granted, the look on Dunst’s face was a comic highlight of the proceedings last May, when von Trier made one of the most poorly-conceived jokes ever spoken at a press junket. (The upside: It yielded months and months of amusing press coverage!)
Before I send you to the full Guardian interview for more of Dunsts’s musings, there’s also this gem of a quote from Dunst on Melancholia co-star Charlotte Gainsbourg and her other von Trier movie Antichrist, which perhaps unintentionally leads to…
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It was a weekend for the gods as Thor had a divine debut at number one, kicking off the summer of super heroes to a solid start. The vroom-vroom-smash of Fast Five took a steep plunge to number two while Jumping the Broom had a surprisingly strong showing at number three. Which meant that the widely-reviled Something Borrowed(more like Something Blew, amirite, dudes??) could only manage fourth place. Your weekend receipts are here.
1. Thor
Gross: $66,000,000 (new)
Screens: 3,955 (PSA: $16,688)
Weeks: 1
Some folks are calling this a soft opening, which I think is a little unfair. This is kind of unprecedented ground for a summer blockbuster—it has to teach audiences about such popcorny terms like bifrost, Jotunheim, Asgard & the like, and get them to care about them. There wasn’t an easy recognition point like fast cars or Nazis for the audience, so I think such a big, well-reviewed opening for Thor speaks well to how much fun it is to watch.
2. Fast Five
Gross: $32,519,000 ($139,853,000)
Screens: 3,662 (PSA: $8,880)
Weeks: 2 (change: -62.3%)
Is there anything I can say about Fast Five that wasn’t said better by its five-year-old screenwriter?
3. Jumping The Broom
Gross: $13,700,000 (new)
Screens: 2,035 (PSA: $6,732)
Weeks: 1
Overheard at the Jumping the Broom press junket: “After so many Tyler Perry movies, I had forgotten that an African-American movie doesn’t have to be crappy!” And it can even beat the pants off a much more expensive romantic…
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These two female celebrities are approximately the same age. Both have starred in multiple films, have been married more than once, and have more than one child. They also share the same religion and some significant business contacts.
You would think that with so much in common, they must get along, right? The truth is that these two absolutely can’t stand each other. They both have big egos and are desperate for attention. At a big post-Oscar party, they were each very careful to stay on their half of the room, each holding court with their fans and refusing to even look at each other. The tension was so thick you could have cut it with a knife (though hopefully not the same one wielded by their respective plastic surgeons). (Blind Gossip)
As much as I’d like to believe that Kelly Preston and Kirstie Alley wrestle in the sauna of the Scientology Center while John Travolta cheers on his wife with pom poms made from shredded audit results, all signs point to Madge and Demi Moore. Both are red string wearers. Both have memorized lines and said them in front of a camera. And both have newly constructed faces made from womb skin.
Why can’t they drop the shade and let the baby ass cheeks on their faces bond with each other during a playdate?
She’s long had a reputation for being
…
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