News in Film

James Cameron Retires to Pandora to Make ‘Avatar’ Sequels

Jeff Leins — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:57:43 +0000

“I’m in the Avatar business. Period. That’s it. I’m making Avatar 2, Avatar 3, maybe Avatar 4, and I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them. I’m not interested in taking scripts.” James Cameron said this at the Beijing International Film Festival in April and in Saturday’s New York Times. Even worse for fans of his 30-year film career, he meant it.

The writer-director-producer continued. “That all sounds I suppose a little bit restricted, but the point is I think within the Avatar landscape I can say everything I need to say that I think needs to be said, in terms of the state of the world and what I think we need to be doing about it. And doing it in an entertaining way.”

Cameron declaring himself wholly committed to Avatar isn’t particularly new. It was implicitly understood in early 2010 when Cameron, 20th Century Fox executives, and News Corps’ Rupert Murdoch were swimming in Avatar millions like Scrooge McDuck and his pantsless nephews. (Someone did the math on this, by the way.) Avatar 2 and 3 were negotiated and agreed upon in the months after, linking him to the world of Pandora for 6-7 years at least.

The natural progression for big-named directors these days is to get into producing too, a role that Cameron has shirked until recently. The only features he has produced since the start have been his own, 2002′s Solaris, and those of his then-wife Kathryn Bigelow. (The divorced couple faced off at the Oscars in 2010, when Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker topped Avatar for “Best Picture.”) After Avatar, Cameron started producing for others again. He approached Guillermo del Toro about making At the Mountains of Madness, a film that even del Toro has declared dead. He spoke to a few different directors about updating Fantastic Voyage in 3D, before settling with Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum). It’s being rewritten as a love story, based on Cameron’s idea. Now, he will not “produce other people’s movies for them.”

The rest of his producing work has been making documentaries that interest him, which he acknowledges in the Q&A. “Anything I can’t say in [the Avatar sequels], I want to say through documentaries, which I’m continuing. I’ve done five documentaries in the last 10 years, and I’ll hopefully do a lot more. In fact, I’m doing one right now, which is on this, the Deep Sea Challenge project that we just completed the first expedition.” Cameron is referring to his record-setting 35,576-foot dive into the Mariana Trench at the end of March. Many of these documentaries are about his other passions — deep sea diving and the Titanic — but in 2006-2007 he executive produced two documentaries about Biblical discoveries including the infamous “Jesus bones” movie The Lost Tomb of Jesus.

The comments came as part of Cameron’s trip to China, where the global market for movies is rapidly expanding. In February, Hollywood studios secured a deal with Xi Jinping, the country’s vice-president and heir apparent, that allows more foreign (e.g. United States) imports and lucrative percentages for studios. (Side note: the SEC made inquiries into this deal.) China has expanded to 6,000 movie screens from 1,500 in just three years and projects to reach 20,000 screens by 2015, on par with North America. Avatar 2 is tentatively scheduled for release in 2015. Naturally, Cameron is there to talk up his sci-fi series for this inevitably massive market. In other words, Cameron was literally concerning himself with the business of Avatar. Period.

Consider Cameron’s perspective, though. At 57 years old, Cameron has amassed a personal fortune, including a record $350 million from Avatar alone. His time is primarily spent diving, filming himself diving, traveling, filming himself traveling, advocating for ecological responsibility — a topic of Avatar — and discussing the merits of native 3-D (Cameron sits on the board of directors at the 3-D company RealD). The rest of the time, he busies himself making sequels to an idea he first dreamed in 1995, when he was 41, before Titanic made him “king of the world.”

Avatar is much bigger than his movie. It’s an entire history and world built of his own design. From his original 80-page “scriptment,” his team created new flora, fauna, physics, a culture and language, and enough compromise and conflict to allows him to comment on our planet. For the foreseeable future, Cameron is essentially a 57-year-old man being paid hundreds of millions of dollars to imagine and realize his very own dream world. Then go SCUBA diving.

I say good for him. But it’s still bittersweet news for fans of his innovations. To see Cameron declare it with certainty. To us, Cameron’s semi-retirement sounds too much like echoes of another world-building geek director, George Lucas, who only surfaces to serve up another iteration of Star Wars. Pour out a little Mountain Dew for Cameron’s long-gestating Battle Angel Alita adaptation, his potential film about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or his return to the worlds of Alien, Terminator, or True Lies. At least, not any time soon.

Photo credit: Concept artist Dylan Cole.

‘Avengers’ Smashes Records, What Could Hollywood Learn?

Jeff Leins — Mon, 07 May 2012 01:24:01 +0000

Marvel Studios’ The Avengers smashed box office records this weekend, collecting an unprecedented $200.3 million domestically. Its three-day figure crushes the previous record set by the final Harry Potter ($169.2 million) by over 18%, though Deathly Hallows: Part 2 still holds the single day record. Avengers set the highest Saturday ($69.7 million) and Sunday ($50.1 million). Here’s the crazy part, from the gurus at Box Office Mojo. Marvel’s superhero team-up movie has grossed more in a single weekend (domestically) than Thor ($181 million), Captain America: The First Avenger ($176.6 million) and The Incredible Hulk ($134.8 million) grossed during each movie’s entire summer release. Synergy is in.

Marvel’s massive blockbuster has been in theaters overseas for a week, and the international total is already an eye-popping $641.8 million worldwide. Pixar’s The Incredibles, now housed with Marvel under the same Disney roof, made $631.4 million globally over its full theatrical run. Look out, chart toppers James Cameron and Tim Burton. It’s… Joss Whedon? What a success story. This is only Whedon’s second-ever feature to direct, but he adds name recognition from several smart television series and a history of embracing and interacting with his fan base.

[Disney's The Avenger's $200M is the same amount Disney's John Carter reportedly lost earlier this year in one of the biggest box office bombs in history.]

It’s a well-deserved career-maker for Whedon, among others, and a neon sign of success in an industry deeply invested in comic books. Marvel has accomplished something extraordinary here and is reaping the rewards for careful planning and pitch-perfect casting.

Of course, each time a blockbuster breaks records or builds a franchise, Hollywood scrambles to copy it. The Dark Knight‘s success suddenly made event movies darker and “grittier,” with varying, often unwieldy results. Alice in Wonderland‘s billion dollars inspired a slew of twisted fairy tales. Harry Potter established a market for young adult book adaptations. Other recent influences include Michael Bay’s Transformers (toys as movies), Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity (found footage, again), and James Cameron’s Avatar (3D). All are influential due to their unequivocal success, just as those that caused a ripple in the industry before them.

So what will Hollywood studios take from The Avengers? What can be learned from how Marvel handled its movie universe, or how writer/director Joss Whedon joined those forces?

For starters, let’s hope the suits are paying attention at DC Entertainment (a Warner Bros. subsidiary). So far, they brilliantly positioned the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises in front of The Avengers. It was a strong reminder to comic book movie fans that Batman is lurking just over two months away, promising “an epic conclusion” to a monstrous series. This trailer strategy mimicks the one WB used in 2008, when Marvel’s shiny new Iron Man hosted a jaw-dropping trailer for The Dark Knight, which set all the records. Will we see a repeat of five years ago where DC one-ups Marvel once again? Marvel fans and analysts say no, citing 3-D surcharges and the post-credits sequence of Iron Man as the early precursor to Avengers‘ huge weekend. Never truly dormant, the age-old Marvel vs. DC Comics debate has been reignited on social networks already, drumming up support for both. There were at least four geek battles raging in my Facebook and Twitter timelines alone on Sunday — I may have contributed. Can’t we all just agree Catwoman and Daredevil were terrible movies? It’s the day after “Free Comic Book Day,” people.

Perhaps Marvel’s calculated assembly will galvanize DC into forming their own superhero team, the Justice League of America. A big-budget movie was attempted in 2007, a separate entity with younger heroes, but fell apart by the following year. The team-up of Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Flash, Wonder Woman, and more could certainly rival Marvel’s own ensemble, if it’s done properly. Green Lantern was a misstep, not necessarily in the direction of a Justice League movie. A “solid” Flash script exists, according to the LA Times, but hasn’t happened. Wonder Woman has consistently struggled, such as the famous failed pilot at NBC. [Ironically, Whedon was once attached to direct a Wonder Woman movie for WB/DC Comics.]

This does not mean, however, that we’ll see a Superman versus Batman, at least while Christopher Nolan is overseeing/producing the properties at WB. Here’s what Nolan said to Empire Magazine in June 2010 (via SHH):

“Marvel are doing what they are doing and people will either respond to that really well or they won’t,” “It’s not something I ever applied a blanket rule to, but Marvel characters are very different to DC characters… You’ve got to go back to that element of ‘What do I see when I close my eyes and think of Batman/Superman?’ For me a big part of that is their individuality. They are extraordinary beings in an ordinary world… they are two very different characters but there’s an elemental feeling of power in the iconography of those characters. To me that’s originally because they stood alone, I need to hang onto that in my imagining of them.”

Still at Warner Bros, Michael Bay is ushering in a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, another superhero ensemble with aliens thrown in the mix. Battle: Los Angeles director Jonathan Liebesman will shoot the “expanded universe” for the studio. The TMNT started as a comic book, then became a toy. Two money-making trends with one superhero reboot. Synergy!

At 20th Century Fox, Josh Trank (Chronicle) is developing a take on their inevitable Fantastic Four reboot (via Collider). Whether or not that means a found footage version remains to be seen. Again, synergy! Meanwhile, Fox just ordered another script for its Daredevil reboot, while they are sitting on a gold idea with crossover potential: Marvel’s Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds flopped as Green Lantern but perfectly suits the wise-cracking “mercenary with a mouth.” A reportedly great script and eight minutes of test footage already exist. (Bonus synergy points, X-Men member Colossus shows up.) Speaking of X-Men, Fox is still working on an X-Men: First Class sequel and another Wolverine. Will we see more crossover, teamwork, and long-term planning from these sagas? What happened to the idea of “X-Men Origins” being the tag for a slew of stand-alone runs? X-Men Origins: Deadpool! X-Men Origins: Gambit!

Other onlookers speculate Disney/Marvel will move to bring more of its heroes home. Characters like Spider-Man, that have been lent out — in this case to Sony who shows no signs of returning it. The Punisher recently reverted to Marvel after a few abysmal attempts, why not others? We’ll see. Meanwhile, Marvel is forming more partnerships, broadening Marvel into a “multi-platform brand that can live 365 days a year” (Forbes). A fresh Hulk TV series is in development at ABC, with Guillermo del Toro producing, despite the character hearing the sad walking away music several times. Now, Marvel is considering its options on another Incredible Hulk movie by 2015. The green monster certainly has the momentum after stealing the show this weekend and audiences are raving about Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner. Marvel is also plotting another “Avengers” animated TV series for 2013. Iron Man 3, Captain America 2, and Thor 2 are scheduled into 2014, plus potentially a stand-alone Black Widow, Dr. Strange, or that crazy Ant-Man movie written by Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World). Wright tweeted oh-so-cryptically about Ant-Man just yesterday.

Of course, these are just theories days after a release. But The Avengers‘ record-breaking opening will be impossible to ignore in any Hollywood boardroom. Maybe we won’t see a seismic shift in thinking, but a few noticeable copies from the notoriously risk-averse. At the very least, The Avengers proves comic book movies are here to stay.

The Avengers

Jeff Leins — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:00:38 +0000

The Avengers is everything you hoped it would be, if what you hoped The Avengers would be is an hour of “assembling” then an hour of awe-inspiring superhero team-up action.

I apologize if that seems blunt. It is an incredibly fun movie, really, as you’ll inevitably see and judge for yourself. It is the culmination of Marvel’s comic book movie universe you’ve heard so much about. Yes, the Internet has been talking about it for years — four, to be exact — but so have Marvel’s own characters, every time Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) makes an entrance after the credits or drops in mid-movie to chat about S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top secret initiative.

But five sequential blockbusters and their compounding hype have elevated this ensemble pic beyond reasonable expectations. You would be doing yourself a disservice by walking into a theater believing this will be “the greatest comic book movie of all-time,” or some equally hyperbolic geekgasm. Despite being a hell of a lot of fun, Marvel’s flawed Avengers simply does not rank in the pantheon of truly great comic book films. Which is fine, of course, film making is not a competition. Nor should the very best be reduced to a Family Feud-style leader board. “Show me The Avengers!” Not so fast. Again, set reasonable expectations for this.

It should come as no surprise that the merging of Marvel’s moves is also an origin story. Only, this time we witness the origins of the team. Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the horned villain in Thor, warps into S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in the opening minutes and steals the Tesseract (the Cosmic Cube to comic readers) and a handful of mind-controlled good guys. Fury recognizes the apocalyptic threat and puts out the word to the various “Avengers.” One by one.

The beginning, for nearly an hour, goes through the motions of putting together a team and establishing Loki as a pawn in an interstellar scheme to invade Earth. The heavy lifting has been done on establishing the core members of the group, but each is introduced in their own vignette. Robert Downey Jr. continues to prove why casting him as Tony Stark/Iron Man was one of the smartest moves in Marvel Studios’ short history. Stark’s natural swagger injects a sense of playfulness to an otherwise scowling group. Captain America (Chris Evans) is ever the Boy Scout, just one without much to say. Bruce Banner tentatively signs up, except he looks remarkably like Mark Ruffalo now. And Thor (Chris Hemsworth) just abruptly arrives, waving off his ascension to Asgard at the end of his stand-alone movie. In short, the Avengers assemble.

This is where Joss Whedon comes in. Those acquainted with the “Whedonverse” will recognize the writer/director’s signature wit, including some well-timed combos between Iron Man and Thor. The “Buffy” creator certainly puts his ass-kicking-female stamp on Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), who steps up with more to do this time around and a minor subplot shared with Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). Black Widow’s expanded role and the introduction of S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders from “How I Met Your Mother”) balance out this boys club, though naturally they are outfitted with skin-tight catsuits. Whedon deftly handles the team dynamic, too, as the egos jockey for position aboard S.H.I.E.L.D.’s flying aircraft carrier.

With the team fully formed, the second half surges with energy. The movie feels like a moving comic for the first time, or the realization of so many childhood make-believe sessions in which action figures would soar and crash. In this case, the superheroes scramble around the helicarrier. (This will undoubtedly be a hot toy this summer, but can anyone explain why there’s so much glass on a helicarrier?) Later, as seen in all the ads, the Avengers stand back-to-back in the oft-embattled streets of New York City when Loki and his Chitauri invaders strike.

In action, each of the Avengers is allotted equal screen time to basically do what they do best. Iron Man flies and swerves between buildings. Captain America leads and deflects projectiles. Thor attacks with devastating hammer blows. Hawkeye dispatches enemies with precision and impossible accuracy. Black Widow is deadly in close combat. And Hulk? Hulk %#&^@ smashes.

The third time is most definitely the charm for the green monster on the big screen and, despite looming in the background behind the pack, Hulk steals the show. Whedon understands both sides of Banner and the potential of Hulk’s size, but it helps that the character is no longer a fugitive learning to cope with his mutation. Ruffalo’s calm, collected Banner warns of the “other guy” multiple times, until his temper flares and the Hulk returns with a vengeance. Incredible.

Ultimately, the pay off is worth the wait, but palpable studio calculations and a sluggish start prevent The Avengers from being great and worthy of such high expectations.

Lockout

Jeff Leins — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:00:27 +0000

French producer Luc Besson (the Transporter trilogy) has made a name for himself (and others) pumping out high-octane, adrenaline-fueled schlock. Thrillers that only pause to deliver a well-timed one-liner, while a tough-as-nails hero (usually European) blasts away bad guys to save a fragile victim and complete his mission. His movies are made up of mostly standard stuff, red meat for red-blooded males, but at least they move.

Besson’s latest run-and-gun is a high-concept sci-fi noir set in the year 2079. Except the “high” concept is essentially “Escape from New York in space” since the movie lifts the entire plot, in which a wise-cracking antihero must rescue an innocent official stranded in a futuristic prison overtaken by psychotic convicts. James Mather and Stephen St. Leger share directing duties on their first feature and co-writing credits with Besson, but struggle to represent anything especially inventive. As a result, your enjoyment will depend almost entirely on your familiarity with Escape from New York and whether it is better or worse in space. (Spoiler: it’s worse.)

Guy Pearce’s smirking Snow is the tough-guy stand-in for Kurt Russell’s Snake Plisskin and, in this dystopia, the protagonist is tasked with rescuing the President’s daughter, Emilie (Maggie Grace, who was also in Besson’s Taken). And, instead of the isle of Manhattan, this PG-13 homage is set in a sort of outer-space Alcatraz, a super-max facility called M.S. One.

Pearce plays Snow as the typical casual, cool hero, rattling off snappy comebacks and stepping over anyone that gets in his way, and Grace’s Emilie is the standard fiesty babe who resists his help and sly charms, at first. They exchange flirty barbs and obstinate assertions between cuts to two Scottish convicts (Joseph Gilgun and Vincent Regan), who bicker about the plan, and to the government officials surrounding the President, who bicker about the plan.

It’s predictable, by-the-book moviemaking, rendered only marginally unique because there are stars outside the windows. Snow scrambles his way through an obstacle course of spinning rotors, closing airlocks, and the usual dubious physics, chasing goals that switch sporadically from search to rescue to hostages to a suitcase MacGuffin. When the chase grows cold, other “twists” are introduced, such as, oh yeah, “M.S. One is falling out of the sky” and a rushed last-minute wrap-up that is more confusing than revealing. Besson’s latest production really moves, but only along a tame, familiar convicts-run-wild thriller… in space.

The Dark Knight Rises: Final Movie Trailer

Jeff Leins — Tue, 01 May 2012 05:47:59 +0000

Warner Bros has released the third and final trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, the “epic conclusion” of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. The trailer will play in front of Marvel’s The Avengers this weekend, as the summer season officially kicks into gear. It’s the last good look at Bane, whose audio has been tweaked, and Hathaway’s Catwoman, who still purrs things in Bruce Wayne’s ear. Plus a fantastic view of “The Bat,” Batman’s armored tank in the air.

The trailer is characteristically brooding, just darker and more elegiac than usual. The fanfare and thunderous explosions of the first two trailers are gone. Instead, music plays softly as a football field is reduced to a crater and Gotham’s bridges are destroyed one-by-one, evoking the terrors of 9/11. Alfred tells Bruce, “I won’t bury you. I’ve buried enough members of the Wayne family.” Tom Hardy’s Bane stands over Batman, unmasked and beaten. Catwoman insists, “You’ve given them everything” and he responds, “Not everything. Not yet.” Is Batman preparing to make the ultimate sacrifice? Will Christopher Nolan actually kill Bruce Wayne?

It would certainly be a bold ending befitting of Nolan’s trailblazing series. Nolan said to the LA Times this week, “Unlike the comics, these things don’t go on forever in film and viewing it as a story with an end is useful.” Whether he dies or not, Nolan is definitely angling for a finite feel.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s prominent role in the trailer, despite being billed as a nondescript police officer, also hints at a potential changing of the guard. Maybe he steps up in Bruce’s place? That’s the running theory anyway, along with various speculative explanations for the brief appearance of Marion Cotillard as “Miranda Tate.” What else is up Nolan’s sleeve?

We won’t know for sure until July, which is why this is a perfect trailer. It hints at something bigger and better, without revealing too much (cough, Prometheus, cough). The Dark Knight Rises arrives July 20, with more than an hour shot in the IMAX format. Can not wait.

Sound of My Voice

Jeff Leins — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:08:04 +0000

In the opening minutes of Zal Batmanglij’s Sound of My Voice, a couple warily pulls into a nondescript suburban garage and awaits further guidance. They are instructed to bathe (“cleanse”) themselves, change into white hospital gowns, and surrender to blindfolds, zip-tied wrists and a claustrophobic van ride to another home nestled in the San Fernando Valley.

The process, one they somehow grow accustomed to, is part of an initiation into the inner circle of their underground cult (literally, since they congregate in a basement). They have been vetted, chosen, and deemed worthy enough to witness Maggie (Brit Marling), an attractive, blond twentysomething who claims to be from the year 2054. She emerges, with an oxygen tank in tow, and tells a harrowing tale of awakening as a stranger in her own body, lost and alone.

Naturally, Maggie’s initial desperation and subsequent discovery resonates with her followers, a group of rejected misfits searching for meaning. Except the pair from the beginning, Peter (Christopher Denham) and Lorna (Nicole Vicius), doesn’t believe any of it. Their intense curiosity, especially Peter’s, has galvanized this sturdy “team” to become amateur undercover documentarians, to infiltrate the fringe organization, and to expose the truth. Whatever that is.

Batmanglij, who co-wrote with Marling, squeezes tension out of each surreptitious mission into the basement and the murky, potentially dangerous goals of Maggie and her devoted fanatics. Repetition and ritual are key, and the edit emphasizes this by lulling the audience into a rhythm, then tampering with the natural order. Hand-held camerawork and cramped close-ups bring the audience intimately among the believers, scored with only soothing, New Age sounds that draw you in as much as Marling’s warm, inviting voice and your own curiosity to know the truth.

Is Maggie truly from the future, or is she a fraud? Sound of My Voice builds to an answer, though perhaps puts too much emphasis on the hurried reveal rather than the erosion of any one character’s skepticism. This is Batmanglij’s first feature, which excuses some of its indie earmarks, but not its wandering purpose. We know so little about the individuals, any of them, for a movie that seemingly seeks to understand and reflect the sort of followers that succumb to such far-fetched ideas. Peter and Lorna’s history is only provided through expository voice over. Joanne (Kandice Stroh), a middle-aged divorcee, briefly mentions a bout of depression. And creepy Klaus (Richard Warton with Steve Jobs glasses) is the mysterious harbinger.

Marling recently broke out in her other lo-fi, sci-fi indie (Another Earth) and is magnificent here, playing Maggie as equal parts ethereal, impassioned and down-to-earth. The concept of outsiders clearly fascinates her, and she and Batmanglij have since collaborated on The East, a similar story in which Marling infiltrates an anarchist environmental group. Sound of My Voice is a promising first effort from the independent pair, but their examination of a cult following is often too slow-burning and ultimately its questions didn’t resonate much long after, especially when compared to the traumatic deprogramming of Martha Marcy May Marlene.

This is 40: Movie Trailer

Jeff Leins — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:07:17 +0000

Super producer Judd Apatow returns to directing in a “sort of sequel to Knocked Up,” the December 2012 comedy This is 40. Paul Rudd and Apatow’s real-life wife Leslie Mann reprise their roles from the 2007 comedy as Pete and Debbie, a married couple with two daughters (also Apatow’s). It is essentially the writer/director’s mid-life crisis, played out with his usual R-rated humor and featuring some familiar faces from Apatow’s stable of improvisers. The cast also includes Jason Segel, Lena Dunham (“Girls”), Charlyne Yi, Bridesmaids breakout stars Chris O’Dowd and Melissa McCarthy, plus Albert Brooks and Megan Fox.

First Look: Steely-Eyed Stars of Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’

Jeff Leins — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 23:05:00 +0000

The summer season is nearly upon us, loaded with highly-anticipated genre sequels like The Avengers, Nolan’s final Batman and, of course, Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted. However, looking past the blockbusters for a moment, there’s one original film that may be as impossible to ignore as its filmmaker: Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino’s latest.

Tarantino has a penchant for telling bloody revenge stories and trying his hand at a variety of subgenres, and Django is no different. Tarantino’s spaghetti Western is actually a “Southern,” set against the backdrop of the vile Antebellum South. Jamie Foxx, who won an Oscar for Ray, plays the title character, a free man stripped of his freedom, dignity, and lawful wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), until he’s “unchained” by Dr. King Shultz (Christoph Waltz) and sets out for vengeance and his bride. Leonardo DiCaprio, pictured below wielding a hammer like Bill the Butcher, plays a wealthy, despicable plantation owner named Calvin Candie.

The premise alone will likely spark controversy this Christmas. (Just as Harvey Weinstein hopes it will, I’m sure. His other awards-season pick is Paul Thomas Anderson’s dive into Scientology, The Master.) But that menacing hammer and Foxx’s handy six-shooter hint at Tarantino’s reputation for violent resolutions. His last revenge pic, Inglourious Basterds, was unrestrained wish fulfillment. Django Unchained promises to hit much closer to home, exposing the wounds of America’s brutal history with slavery and entrenched racism.

Here are both of the Django Unchained images:

Russell Crowe Officially Starring in Darren Aronofsky’s ‘Noah’

Jeff Leins — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:30:51 +0000

Russell Crowe will officially play the eponymous character in Darren Aronofsky’s Noah.

Aronofsky’s epic-sized follow-up to Black Swan will have a $150 million budget, made possible by a partnership deal between Paramount Pictures and New Regency. The team announced the actor’s deal was in place via a press release on Sunday. Deadline first reported Crowe’s casting as the “biblical boat builder.” (I thought I was too cute with alliteration.)

The biblical story will shoot this July in New York and Iceland for a release on March 28, 2014.

Christian Bale passed on the title role in November, according to Variety. The increasingly-busy Michael Fassbender was also considered, but will be busy doing Ridley Scott’s The Counselor in June. (By the way, that movie bagged a baffling cast of A-listers with an almost unreadable script. Cormac McCarthy wrote it, though. Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem and, recently, Bardem’s wife Penelope Cruz are also on board.)

Liam Neeson has been rumored for another role, though I can’t imagine what’s holding up his signature. Neeson said “yes” to Battleship and Wrath of the Titans. He would presumably play the “villain” part of a dissenter who doesn’t believe in the coming flood like faithful Noah.

Aronofsky has been wanting to tell the Old Testament story of Noah and his ark since at least 1998, though the filmmaker told The Guardian (via /Film) he has been fascinated with him since he was 13. At the time, he won a United Nations contest for his first poem, an apocalyptic story told from the eyes of Noah. Aronofsky returned to the concept circa 2002, when Brad Pitt bailed from The Fountain. He eventually commissioned a graphic novel to illustrate and sell his vision, with writer and college friend Ari Handel and Canadian artist Nico Henrichon. (Aronofksy used a similar tactic for The Fountain.) So far, the graphic novel is only available in French.

‘Runner, Runner’ Is Not a ‘Rounders’ Sequel, But It’s Close Enough

Jeff Leins — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:53:20 +0000

“There was [a script] we wrote that I knew was a movie. It was mind-boggling to me that it wasn’t a movie.” That is how screenwriter Brian Koppelman (Rounders) described an original script he co-wrote with his lifelong best friend David Levien. Comedian Jay Mohr was pressing him to talk about any un-produced scripts that he wished had made it, earlier this month on the conversational comedy podcast “Mohr Stories.” Koppelman said he “couldn’t talk about that one” but it was finally shooting this summer with two stars, restoring his faith in the system.

Koppelman was talking about Runner, Runner, another drama set in the world of high-stakes gambling, and the stars are Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake. Shooting starts in Puerto Rico this June with Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer) at the helm, Variety announced two weeks later.

*Update: Koppelman and Levien began writing it in August 2010 and turned in a first draft by January 2011. 15 months later, Runner, Runner was greenlit. Wow.

Koppelman celebrated the announcement on Twitter and it’s clear in the podcast this is a movie he’s passionate about. His first produced script, with Levien, was Rounders, based on the two years he spent chasing poker stardom in the ’90s. “When all the pros were switching from backgammon,” Koppelman told Mohr, before recalling poker stories that inspired the script.

Runner, Runner, pulled off the proverbial dusty shelf and polished, acknowledges the rise of online gambling and the strict regulations in recent years that have forced those operations off shore. It’s not a sequel or prequel to Rounders in the traditional sense, meaning we won’t see the continued grind of NYC poker “rounder” Mike McDermott (Matt Damon) or witness his early days with his scam-artist friend Worm (Edward Norton). If Rounders is about the players and their “bad beats,” Runner, Runner is about the side that always wins. The House. The rake.

Sources say Affleck will play an online gambling czar named Ivan, a young “Teddy KGB” with a speedboat, reminiscent of Affleck’s fantastic character in 2000′s Boiler Room. Timberlake will play an online gambler putting himself through school who proves himself to Affleck’s character and scores a job in an international gambling racket. There’s still room for a female lead, a sexy love interest who works for Ivan. Let’s hope they don’t cast Timberlake’s fiance, Jessica Biel, and really Gigli this whole thing. Sorry. I know Gigli is a sore subject. For everyone.

Rounders, released in 1998, was a game changer. For me, it’s one of the reasons I write about movies. For the poker world, the movie told the brutal story of underground gambling, broadened the appeal of the World Series of Poker, and galvanized a new interest in the game. Enough interest that when ESPN began broadcasting the World Series of Poker in 2003, with card cams and a “featured table,” millions of people watched the first online poker qualifier, Chris Moneymaker, win the $2.5 million prize. Moneymaker’s win ushered in a new generation of poker “grinders,” only now they were playing multiple games at home on their computers, like Timberlake’s protagonist character at first.

The movie and Moneymaker’s WSOP also motivated a rotating ring of high-stakes games played by Hollywood A-listers, according to Mark Ebner‘s recent in-depth report. Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire frequents the tables, which have a buy-in of $100,000, and he cleared $4 million on a single night recently, Ebner learned. Leonardo DiCaprio, Maguire’s co-star in The Great Gatsby, plays too, as well as Rounders star Damon and Runner, Runner star Affleck, who is described as “a good f*cking player” in the report. It also describes how the seasoned players prey on the friendly amateurs, like house game attendees Michael Bay, Megan Fox, Charlie Sheen, Robert Downey, Jr., and the late Steve Jobs. In poker, the pros target the weak and chop up the pot later, a process called “whip-sawing.” In the Rounders script, Koppelman and Levien wrote, “You don’t see piranhas eating each other, do you?”

Ebner’s report also describes a high-level “organizer” in L.A., known only as Jeremiah. He had a sexy cohort, Molly “The Poker Madam” Bloom, an “event planner” who allegedly arranged house games, including Maguire’s, and accepted tips for services rendered. These are major “players,” like Ivan and his sexy femme fatale sidekick in the movie, except Ivan is plugged in to an international market that spans well beyond poker.

The “Mohr Stories” podcast is definitely worth a listen (link). Koppelman trades witty barbs with Mohr throughout, talks about spending time around gamblers, the four weeks he and Levien spent on Walking Tall, and, presciently, how incredibly old Dick Clark looked and sounded.

*A previous version of this story included incorrect information regarding the script’s age. I apologize for the mistake and thank Brian Koppelman for setting it straight. — Jeff