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BAFTA Rising Stars Shortlist Announced
8 January 2009 3:00 AM, PST
With awards season about to go into hyperdrive, the shortlist for the BAFTA Orange Rising Star Award brought some early cheer for five of movieworld’s top up-and-comers when it was revealed in London today.Like our very own Empire Awards, the BAFTA Rising Star is decided by moviegoers, making the award a particularly cherished accolade. Announced at BAFTA’s Piccadilly HQ, the shortlist includes:Michael Fassbender, who may need to clear more space on his mantlepiece, with the nomination coming hot on the heels of a Best Actor gong for Hunger at the British Independent Film Awards. Success has been hard-earned over the past 12 months though: the Irish/German actor lost 16kg to play the role of Ira hunger-striker Bobby Sands, and found himself chased around Eden Lake by hoodies in another of 2008’s stand-out British films.Rebecca Hall, who made her breakthrough in The Prestige and will soon
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Danny Boyle On His Upcoming Projects
8 January 2009 1:37 AM, PST
Danny Boyle came into the Empire office yesterday for a chat about his much-praised, utterly lovely Slumdog Millionaire, and our keen-eyed readers took the chance to quiz him on a few upcoming projects to which his name has been attached. While the transcript of the webchat is now online here, we've pulled out the highlights for those of you in a hurry.First of all, there's Judge Dredd. While Boyle's name has not been explicitly attached to the second attempt at 2000Ad's flagship character, the fact that his production company DNA got hold of the rights and started movement on a new version last summer had led to a wealth of internet rumours about his involvement. But don't go holding your breath for Danny Boyle's Dredd: "Where has this come from? Someone asked me about Judge Dredd the other day! [Once we remind him that DNA has the rights] Well... ha! I hated the last version of it; I
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Iron Man 2 Baddies Are Rourke & Rockwell
8 January 2009 12:49 AM, PST
Iron Man 2 has its villains and, in keeping with the franchise's approach to date, has lined up some very interesting names for the roles. Mickey Rourke, so hot right now on the buzz from The Wrestler, and Sam Rockwell, always so hot cause he's ace, will play Crimson Dynamo and Justin Hammer respectively, facing off against the might of Robert Downey Jr's returning Shellhead himself.Plot details are still under wraps, but Rockwell is apparently scheduled to play Justin Hammer, a rival industrialist to Tony Stark and something of an evil genius who, in the comics, has done everything from take remote control of Stark's Iron Man suit to stealing its technology to sell to other super-suit-wearing villains, including Crimson Dynamo, starting the first "Armor War".But here's where it gets confusing. Rourke's role is hazier still, and there are conflicting reports about who he's even playing. Variety has it
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Taylor Lautner will be back for New Moon
8 January 2009 12:45 AM, PST
Girls, fear not. Second in the affections of teens everywhere (behind the scream-inducing Robert Pattinson), Taylor Lautner will return to Forks in Twilight sequel New Moon. Unlike the rest of the cast, his return was initially in doubt because his character, Jacob Black, who steps forward as a central figure in the second book, is subject to major physical changes, which had led to rumours that the 16 year-old Lautner would need to be replaced. Golden Compass director Chris Weitz - who has himself replaced original Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke - made the announcement that Lautner would be back and is "emotionally right" for the part. He is now busy at the gym and dinner table, in an attempt to gain 19 pounds of muscle, whilst Pattinson can just sit around looking pretty and making sure he doesn't get a suntan until shooting finishes.New Moon sees Jacob Black become close friends
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WGA Announces Best Script Nominations
8 January 2009 12:43 AM, PST
After the writers’ strike made for a low-key Writers Guild Awards in 2008, the WGA has announced its nominees for the year’s best scripts with rather more fanfare, delivering Woody Allen with a remarkable 19th screenplay nod.Allen, nominated for his Iberian romance Vicky Cristina Barcelona, is joined on the list by the Coen Brothers who picked up their fourth for Burn After Reading. Eric Roth also picked up a fourth nomination, receiving the nod in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, his adaption of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story.The WGA have also brought some richly deserved recognition for Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir, although in the slightly surprising category of Best Documentary Screenplay.Like this week’s Producer’s Guild Awards nominations, history shows that WGA winners stand a strong chance of going on to Oscar glory. In the Original Screenplay category,
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DiCaprio Can Beat The Reaper
8 January 2009 12:33 AM, PST
Leonardo DiCaprio is set to produce and possibly star in a film based on hot-off-the-presses novel Beat The Reaper, by Josh Bazell. The story combines medicine, hitmen and the Witness Protection Program, which has shades of Catch Me If You Can if you ask us.The story focuses on a Manhattan ER doctor, whose life becomes complicated* when a mobster recognises him from his former life as a hitman. This doctor, y'see, retrained to a slightly different line of work after giving up the killing and joining the Witness Protection Program.Since author Bazell was an ER doctor himself, the medical stuff should be pretty solid (there's no information on whether he was also ever a hitman, but we like to think he was), but this is very, very early days. There's no word yet on a screenwriter or director, but this could be an interesting addition to DiCaprio's slate.
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Bedtime Stories To Sorcerer's Apprentice
8 January 2009 12:09 AM, PST
Bedtime Stories star Teresa Palmer is back in the Disney fold, having landed the female lead opposite Nicolas Cage and Knocked Up's Jay Baruchel, in the live action version of The Sorcerer's Apprentice.Inspired by part of Fantasia, the 1940 Disney animation, it will see Cage assume the role of the Sorcerer, with Baruchel stepping into Mickey Mouse's shoes as his apprentice and Palmer as his love interest.Fantasia laced together a series of animated shorts interpreting pieces of classical music, with The Sorcerer's Apprentice based on L'apprenti sorcier, written by Paul Dukas in 1897 and inspired by the ballad Der Zauberlehling written by poet Goethe in 1797 (see? Don't say we never learn you nuthin')The story centres on an apprentice magician left to care for the workshop in his master's absence, who runs into trouble when he enchants a broomstick to do his chores and finds that the magic goes slightly awry.
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Caruso To Direct Jack The Giant Killer
7 January 2009 2:08 AM, PST
Everyone loves a good fairy tale, especially one involving beanstalk-climbing tykes, steepling giants, gold-laying geese, and improbable cash/magic bean exchanges. D.J. Caruso, it seems, is no exception having picked up his quill to sign on the dotted line for Jack The Giant Killer.With a script by Live Free Or Die Hard writer Mark Bomback, Jack The Giant Killer will tell the tale of a young farmer’s quest to rescue a kidnapped princess in a kingdom of giants. By all accounts, it will draw partly on the Jack And The Beanstalk story we know and love, and partly on a less-well known fable in which Cornish lad Jack slays his way around the giants’ kingdom.Putting the brain-bending mess that was Eagle Eye behind him, Caruso has a big year or two ahead of him with post-apocalyptic comic-book adaptation Y: The Last Man also in development.Recreating the
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Exclusive Clip From The Unborn
7 January 2009 1:48 AM, PST
Empire has a brand new, exclusive from David Goyer's latest The Unborn. There is running, there is panting, there is screaming - what more could one look for in a horror movie?The film stars Dracula himself Gary Oldman, Twilight's Cam Gigidy-Gigidy-Gigandet, Watchman's Carla Gugino and Idris "The Wire" Elba, and follows a young woman (played by Cloverfield's Odette Yustman) struggling to fight a spirit which is posessing her. In the clip we see Yustman and Gigandet running for their lives down a dark and run-down corridor from an unseen foe.Click the image above to view the exclusive clipThe film will be in UK cinemas on Feburary 27.
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Defiance European Premiere Report
7 January 2009 1:44 AM, PST
They came in their ones and twos, huddled together against the bitter cold, but the cast of Defiance are a hardy bunch and made light of the frosty journey down the red carpet to greet rugged-up fans and media types at the film’s European premiere in London.Among those in attendance in Leicester Square were Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell, who play a trio of partisan brothers in the film; a true-life tale of Jewish resistance against the Nazis set in the thick forests of Belarus during the Second World War.There are few people hardier than Craig, a man more chiselled than a Black & Decker workstation, and he proved it by sauntering down the red carpet in a suspiciously summery grey suit, as the thermometer hit -5. To remind us that he’s human and not actually the North Face of the Eiger in disguise, Craig
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Tron Sequel Has A Leading Man
7 January 2009 1:30 AM, PST
Even though Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner – the third-coolest Bruce in history, fact fans – have signed on to reprise their roles as Clu and Tron, respectively, in Tron, the sequel to, erm, Tron, we all knew that Disney wouldn’t entrust their $150 million behemoth to two blokes over 50. New blood would be required – and new blood has been found.Garrett Hedlund has been signed to play the lead role in Joseph Kosinski’s sequel to the 1982 original, having beaten out the likes of Chris Pine, Ryan Gosling and Cloverfield’s Michael Stahl-David, all of whom either met for the role or screentested.The 24 year-old Hedlund, perhaps best known for playing Brad Pitt’s doomed pretty-boy cousin, Patroclus, in Troy, will play a man who is sucked into a computer-generated world, following in the footsteps of Jeff Bridges’ Kevin Flynn/Clu, who’s since become CEO of a computer software giant.
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Lena Headey To Direct Drug Kill
7 January 2009 1:08 AM, PST
She’s tackled mad Spartans and killer robots from the future. But now our very own Lena Headey is about to face her biggest challenge: directing.The 35 year-old 300 star will make her directorial debut on Kill Drug, a dark thriller about an underground society dedicated to murdering society’s ingrates, nincompoops and scallywags.The low-budget British thriller follows Sally, the daughter of Sue, a woman who murders her abusive husband in the 70s and then goes on to found a vigilante network in present-day London. When Sally is recruited into the gang, along with two men, she discovers that all is not as it seems, and that absolute power may have corrupted her mother absolutely.“My ambition to direct has been fuelled over the last fifteen years, by working alongside great directors. It has also been my film education,” says Headey, who’s been attached to the project, formerly known as Retribution,
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McG To Direct 20,000 Leagues
7 January 2009 1:07 AM, PST
Although we haven’t yet seen Terminator Salvation, we’ve seen enough mighty impressive footage to make us believe that McG, director of those two awful Charlie's Angels films, may no longer be a godawful hack and may, in fact, have filled James Cameron's shoes with aplomb.But that said, we’re not sure how to greet today’s news that the newly-hot director has signed on to direct a family-friendly reboot of Jules Verne’s classic underwater tale, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Mainly, it has to be said, because of the title: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: Captain Nemo.As you might expect, that indicates that this lavish new adventure will be yet another origin tale, following Nemo as he builds his famous warship/submarine, Nautilus, with the idea of establishing a new cinematic hero in Verne’s dogged and noble adventurer, and a new franchise.Apart from that,
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James Mangold To Direct Juliet
7 January 2009 12:18 AM, PST
You've got to be quick off the mark in Hollywood if you want your choice of the best properties, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the case of Juliet, a book which won't be published until 2010 but which is already headed for the screen with James Mangold.The novel, by Danish author Anne Fortier, is the story of a woman who discovers that she may be descended from Shakespeare's star-cross'd lovers Romeo & Juliet. The action apparently switches between medieval Siena and the modern day, leaving us with just one question: when in hell did R&J find time to have a kid? What about the whole double suicide bit? Because if this modern person is just descended from Mercutio or Tibalt or something, that's just no fun at all. And if they're descended from Romeo and Juliet themselves, that's a big piece of revisionism right there. That said,
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Mickey Rourke Is Expendable
7 January 2009 12:06 AM, PST
Having shown a certain pal-ship with The Stath at The London premiere of The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke has now joined his 13 cast-mate on the roll-call for Sylvester Stallone's new venture The Expendables.He will be just one more bit of rough to add to the greatest action cast ever put together, which includes Hollywood's reigning kung-fu master, Jet Li, unstoppable force Dolph Lungdren, ultimate fighter Randy Couture and other recent recruit Forest 'Ghost Dog' Whittaker (who signed up earlier this week to play their CIA liason ), in addition to Statham and Stallone himself. Plus Sir Ben Kingsley is in talks to join in the action too, which would bring the combined starring-cast age to a mighty 403 years of awsomeness.Rourke has openly admitted a debt of gratitude to Stallone, who gave him his first stab at a return to high-profile acting back in 2000 when he cast him in Get Carter.
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New Watchmen Featurette Online
6 January 2009 3:59 PM, PST
Assuming Fox and Warner manage to work out their differences and the film actually gets released, Watchmen will finally land on our screens this March.It's been a project thirty years in the making but we feel pretty confident in saying that this is one adaptation that will have been well worth the wait.A brand new production featurette from the film has been released with all new footage of the Minutemen - the original forties superhero band and precursor to the Watchmen (or the Crimebusters, if you're a graphic novel purist).So lower your eyes to the video below and check out this little behind-the-scenes glimpse, simply titled 'Minutemen'.Click the image above to view the latest Watchmen production diary
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PGA Announces Best Feature Nominations
6 January 2009 3:02 AM, PST
Not content with making enough money to bail out several national economies, The Dark Knight has scored a significant nomination from the Producers Guild Of America, joining Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Milk on the shortlist for best pic.The PGA award will be a significant barometer for The Dark Knight’s chances at the Oscars: 12 of 19 PGA winners have gone on to win best picture at the Academy Awards, including No Country For Old Men last year.Although overlooked for best film, there’s consolation for the wonderful Wall-e which is nominated for animated feature, alongside Bolt and Kung Fu Panda.The three documentary nominations are Man On Wire, Standard Operating Procedure and Trouble The Water.PGA winners are announced on January 24. Can the Dark Knight win? And will Chris Nolan’s masterpiece walk away with the best picture Oscar on February 22? Post your thoughts below…
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Four Become Law Abiding Citizens
6 January 2009 1:49 AM, PST
With just a couple of weeks to go before the cameras roll on F. Gary Gray’s thriller, Law Abiding Citizen, four more actors have signed on to join the movie’s stars, Gerry Butler and Jamie Foxx.The quartet of hot acting talent are: Sir Michael Gambon, Leslie Bibb (last seen as the cute reporter in Iron Man), Theresa Randle (Martin Lawrence’s wife, Theresa, in the Bad Boys series) and Star Trek vet Colm Meaney.No word yet on the specific roles the foursome will be playing in the thriller, in which Foxx plays a grieving husband and father who mounts a personal vendetta against Butler’s D.A., the man who let the killers of his family go free.Law Abiding Citizen, of course, has been something of a troubled project, with original director Frank Darabont exiting the production late last year, to be replaced by Gray.
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Shankman To Remake Bye Bye Birdie
6 January 2009 1:09 AM, PST
If one of your New Year’s resolutions happens to be getting more flamboyant choreography into your life then we bring good news, as song-and-dance man Adam Shankman is confirmed to produce and direct a remake of ‘50s Broadway favourite Bye Bye Birdie.Fresh from the holiday success of Bedtime Stories, Shankman will join producers Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher in developing Bye Bye Birdie for Columbia. The musical tells the story of Conrad Birdie, an Elvis-alike pop star who agrees to meet his biggest fan as a publicity stunt before being shipped off to join the army.Shankman, whose other credits include Hairspray and Vin Diesel babysitting classic The Pacificer, is shaping up for a busy few years, having recently signed on to direct Hairspray 2, as well as Disney’s Bob: The Musical. He is also in negotiations to direct the long-gestating 8th Voyage of Sinbad, which could see him reunited with Diesel.
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Jimmy Hayward To Direct Jonah Hex
5 January 2009 11:55 PM, PST
When you think of horribly scarred post-American Civil War comic book gunslinger Jonah Hex the thing that immediately springs to mind is...a cartoon elephant in a primary-coloured world? Well, it is now, with the news that Horton Hears A Who director and former Pixar animator Jimmy Hayward is to direct the film, which has Josh Brolin attached to star in the title role.Hayward replaces Crank directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who left the project citing "creative differences" in November. The strange thing is that their script, which mixes the supernatural elements occasionally featured in the comic book with the usual Western gunslinging and bounty hunting for which Hex is known, remains the likely shooting script, so it's hard to see what those creative differences were - perhaps the timetable, perhaps casting matters. That said, the studio do expect Hayward to "put his stamp" on the film, so
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