Toronto Fest Lands World Preem Of Godfrey Reggio’s …
Hot Trailer: ‘Man Of Steel’
Former Digital Domain CEO & Auditors Sued For Fraud By …
Fox Acquires ‘Narc’; Zac Efron Attached To Play …
ABC’s ‘Nashville’ Undergoes Production …
CBS Wins Season & Ties Sweep In Demo; ABC Tops Adults …
Mike Lobell Adds Cast To ‘Eisner,’ Plots …
Sony Shares Rise On Report That It Will Consider …
Alki David Agrees To End Name Games With Aereo And Barry …
Next-Gen Xbox One Unveiled With Content Including …
UPDATE: Apple CEO Challenged For Moving “Crown …
ESPN Layoffs Could Reach 400 As Part Of Latest Disney Cuts
Cannes: Weinstein Co Acquires Keanu-Reese Sci-Fi Pic …
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Dancing With The Stars’ Up …
Hot Trailer: ‘The Wolverine’
Ang Lee Departs FX Pilot ‘Tyrant’
How Many Times Does Seth MacFarlane Have To Say No To The …
Cannes: Stanley Weiser To Script ‘Three Graves …
Cannes: Deadline Crashes Palais Forum With Costa Gavras, …
‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ $164.5M Global: Lower …
‘The Great Gatsby’ Starts With $5.4M …
Here’s the newest trailer for Fox‘s The Wolverine starring Hugh Jackman that will begin showing this weekend in theaters attached to Fast & Furious 6. The James Mangold-directed 3D pic opens wide July 26 and this offers the clearest look yet at the Japan-set plot.
Busy day for Aubrey Plaza: First, her NBC sitcom Parks And Recreation got picked up for a sixth season, then CBS Films set a new domestic release date for her next movie. The To-Do List, a comedy about an awkward overachiever who tries to make up for her sexual underachieving in high school before she heads to college, has been moved up from August 16 to July 26. Instead of going up against Universal’s action-comedy sequel Kick-Ass 2, it now will be counterprogramming to Fox’s tentpole The Wolverine. Writer-director Maggie Carey’s film also stars Johnny Simmons, Bill Hader, Alia Shawkat, Rachel Bilson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Andy Samberg and Connie Britton. It is produced by Jennifer Todd, Brian Robbins and Sharla Sumpter Bridgett, with Mark Gordon, Greg Walter, Tom Lassally, Maggie Carey, Bill Hader and Tracy McGrath aboard as exec producers.
Related: Summer 2013: Sleeper Movie Forecast
UPDATE (ADDS DETAIL): After Earth, The Lone Ranger, R.I.P.D., and World War Z are among the “most notable candidates” to join the ranks of “several high-profile failures” from the major studios that Cowen and Co’s Doug Creutz predicts this morning. He worries Summer 2013 has “the most crowded release slate in recent memory” and could produce at least eight underperformers. Creutz has been making these domestic predictions for five of the past seven years. Here are his latest studio-by-studio prognostications:
Disney is at risk, Creutz says. He agrees Iron Man 3 will be a hit and projects domestic box office of $350M, and Pixar’s Monsters University should do well to the tune of $250M, but if The Lone Ranger bombs it could “sustain the perception that Disney’s film studio has some serious problems away from the Marvel-Pixar axis.” He expects Lone Ranger to generate $120M domestically but says it’s “a strong contender for an early write-down.” Westerns typically don’t play well overseas, he notes, recalling how even Will Smith’s star power couldn’t save 1999′s Wild, Wild West.
The analyst also forecasts that Paramount is “likely to have a one-up-one-down summer” with Star Trek Into Darkness probably making $250M and World War Z nowhere near that. He predicts just $85M for World War Z, which “had a troubled production” forcing a delay from the original December 2012 release date. It’s also up against Man Of Steel, and he says ”buzz has been elusive for the film, as we think … Read More »
Just less than three months before her feature debut in The Wolverine hits the big screen, Rila Fukushima has signed with ICM Partners The agency will rep her in all areas except modeling, where she remains with Japan’s Bon Image Corp. She is managed by Seven Summits. Fukushima will appear as assassin Yukio in Wolverine, Fox’s James Mangold-directed sequel to 2009′s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Hugh Jackman returns as the mutant, and the Japan-based Wolverine is due out Stateside on July 26.
Here’s the heavy on action, light on plot Wolverine trailer Fox unveiled to exhibitors at CinemaCon. Hugh Jackman stars in the X-Men stand-alone directed by James Mangold. Pic opens stateside July 26. Check it out:
20th Century Fox has acquired Capsule, a spec by Ian Shorr that Hutch Parker and John Zaozirny are attached to produce through Parker’s Hutch Parker Entertainment banner. Parker exec Aaron Ensweiler will spearhead the project for the company. Matthias Hoene is attached to direct. It’s a sci-fi script, based on an original story by Hoene. A young man’s life is turned upside down when he mysteriously begins to receive metallic capsules containing messages from his future self. Read More »
The blogosphere is going wild as Marvel chief Kevin Feige does interviews for Iron Man 3 and acknowledges that Daredevil has returned to the Marvel fold at Disney. We told you this was going to happen last August, when a last ditch attempt to shape a movie with Joe Carnahan cratered. Ben Affleck starred in the original film, and he’s doing way more interesting things now as a writer/director/actor/producer. Without him, it was pretty clear that Fox wasn’t confident about bankrolling a superhero-sized movie based on the character and that the brass at the studio wasn’t at all upset about coming out on the losing end of the witching hour of when Marvel and Disney got back those rights. The intrigue will be to see if Marvel vamps the blind lawyer character, and whether he begins showing up in other superhero movies and maybe a sequel to The Avengers. They certainly have made The Hulk viable after he was pretty much thought to be dead as disco. Here’s what we said last August:
Director Joe Carnahan seems to be ready to toss in the towel on the last ditch attempt to reboot the Marvel superhero Daredevil before Fox’s rights to the franchise expire this fall. Carnahan sent out a tweet today saying, “I think my idea for a certain retro, red-suited, Serpico-styled superhero went up in smoke today kids.”
From what I’m hearing, that means that Fox, which made the original … Read More »
20th
Century Fox (“and it is called 20th Century Fox,” as Distribution President Chris Aronson wryly noted in his welcoming remarks) presented to theater owners at CinemaCon today. The highlight was about 12 minutes of selected scenes from the studio’s holiday release The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty as a “special presentation” at the end of Fox’s 2013 preview. Clearly, Fox is hoping to replicate last year’s success with unveiling 15 minutes of footage of The Life Of Pi. The film directed and produced by and starring Ben Stiller is a reinvention of the 1947 Danny Kaye comedy which was based on the short story by James Thurber about a meek writer who lives 
vicariously through his rich fantasy life. Now Stiller is an ordinary photo editor imagining himself in numerous epic situations only to become immersed in a real life global adventure of his own. Like Life Of Pi this comedy-drama is hard to describe but the footage seemed to wow the exhibition crowd. One theater chain head told me it looked “phenomenal - the perfect holiday movie. This could be Ben’s Oscar chance.” Others compared it to the Oscar-winning Forrest Gump. Those will be music to the ears of the studio since this project had been in development through several different iterations and scripts and stars for years until Stiller and writer Steve Conrad cracked the code. Indeed, of all the footage on display this week at CinemaCon, at … Read More »
In the largest inducement it’s ever offered to a Hollywood production, the Australian government has confirmed it will give Disney a one-off payment of $22.5M to shoot 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: Captain Nemo in Oz. Sources tell Deadline the greenlight on the David Fincher film is still contingent on casting, but it is expected that Fox Studios in Sydney and Village Roadshow Studios in Queensland will share hosting of the production. Disney executives had asked the federal, New South Wales and Queensland governments for subsidies which would effectively lift the 16.5% location rebate to 30%, similar to the $12.8M payment by the federal government which persuaded Fox to shoot The Wolverine in Sydney. 20,000 Leagues, which is budgeted at about $150M, could create up to 2,000 jobs, the government said. Last month, the government provided $20M in new funding to attract international productions and said it was committed to raising the location rebate if the Oz dollar remains high, but it did not set a time.
Hugh Jackman returns as The Wolverine in the Fox superhero movie that bows Stateside on July 26. The James Mangold-directed pic is the sequel to 2009′s X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the latest in the X-Men franchise. It finds Wolverine out of his depth in modern day Japan where he faces his ultimate nemesis in a life-or-death battle that will leave him forever changed. Brian Tee, Will Yun Lee and Hiroyuki Sanada also star, with a cameo by Famke Janssen. Oscar-nominee Jackman will also strap on his Adamantium claws for Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days Of Future Past that’s out next year. Here’s the domestic trailer Fox released today, followed by the international one:
Don Groves is a Deadline contributor based in Sydney.
Unveiling the government’s National Cultural Policy on Wednesday, Oz arts minister Simon Crean disappointed the industry with the news that Australia will not be raising its location rebate from 16.5% to 30% for foreign films wanting to shoot locally. However, he did announce one measure which was unexpected: new funding of $A20M ($20.6M), which will be used to attract productions to Australia. Crean said the new money is separate from ongoing negotiations with the Disney to persuade the studio to shoot David Fincher’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: Captain Nemo Down Under. Last month, Crean said the government would give Disney $12.2M as a one-off payment that would boost its rebate to 30%. Disney has signaled it needs the support of the Queensland and New South Wales governments before committing to shoot in Oz. Last year the government gave Fox $12.8M to secure The Wolverine for Sydney’s Fox Studios. Crean said the $20M in new funding is a precursor to raising the location rebate “should the (local) dollar remain high” but did not specify when that would happen, evidently because he hasn’t yet secured the approval of the Treasury. Read More »
Don Groves is a Deadline contributor based in Sydney.
Arts Minister Simon Crean has told Disney executives he hopes to finalize a $12.2 million payment to persuade the studio to shoot David Fincher’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Down Under. At a meeting in Canberra today Crean told Tony To, Disney Exec VP Production, he aimed to make an offer within two weeks after he secures the support of the Queensland and NSW Governments. Disney has said the film is ready to go into pre-production once the incentive is firm. Crean’s spokesman tells Deadline the government is looking at a one-off payment that would bring the 16.5% location offset to 30%, as it did to secure The Wolverine to Sydney. Disney would utilize the Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast and locations in Sydney. Locations marketing agency Ausfilm has been lobbying the government to hike the rebate to 30% permanently to offset the strong Oz dollar versus the greenback and to be competitive with other destinations. Apart from The Wolverine and The Great Gatsby (technically an Australian production), big budget Hollywood fare has bypassed Australia in the past couple of years.
SAG has set its first presenters for the Screen Actors Guild Awards on January 27 including current nominees Bradley Cooper, Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman and Jennifer Lawrence. Also handing out prizes will be previous winner Viola Davis and previous nominees Sigourney Weaver and Justin Timberlake. SAG also said yesterday that Carl Reiner and Alec Baldwin will be on hand to present the Life Achievement Award to Dick Van Dyke. Below is today’s press release:
LOS ANGELES (January 16, 2013) – Bradley Cooper, Viola Davis, Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence, Justin Timberlake and Sigourney Weaver will be presenters at the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, Executive Producer Jeff Margolis announced today.
First-time SAG Awards nominee Bradley Cooper is recognized this year for his lead role in David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook” and as a cast member in the film. In addition to “Playbook,” Cooper had three other films in release in 2012: “The Words,” “Hit and Run,” and “The Place Beyond the Pines.” In May, he’ll be seen in “The Hangover Part III” and later this year will star opposite his “Playbook” co-star Jennifer Lawrence in the suspense drama “Serena.” He’ll also reunite with Russell to work on the director’s film about the Abscam scandal, also starring Christian Bale.
Hugh Jackman has carved out an image as a major movie star who can easily switch gears from action to drama to comedy and all things in between. But until now the man who made Wolverine a household name has never done a movie musical. That’s a bit surprising since Jackman also happens to be a classically trained musical star outside of movies. He’s starred in stage
classics like Oklahoma!, won a Tony on Broadway as Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz, an Emmy for hosting the Tonys, and worldwide recognition for his singing and dancing as host of the Oscars. He recently did a one-man musical show on 
Broadway, and that’s one of the reasons he says he is even in Les Misérables and making his long-overdue debut as star of a musical on the big screen.
AwardsLine: Would you consider this to be one of the toughest screen roles you’ve done?
Jackman: For sure. There is not an element that really wasn’t the toughest. One of the reasons I did the Broadway show was to make sure I was vocally fit to not only sing it, but sing it all day long, wake up the next day, and have another 12 hours of it. I put on 29 pounds from beginning to end. Tom (Hooper) told me, “I want people to worry, I want your friends to think you’re sick.” The physicality, the emotional (aspect) acting-wise, was tough.
AwardsLine: You rarely see musicals of this size anymore.
Jackman: That’s true. It’s a big risk. I’m not surprised it’s taken 27 years to get there. Read More »
The official international Website for The Wolverine has released a motion poster depicting a contemplative Hugh Jackman atop a building, in Japan, in the rain. The James Mangold-directed Wolverine is the sequel to 2009′s X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the latest in the X-Men franchise. It’s due out on July 26, 2013. Click over for the poster, but beware the autoplay: Read More »
Awards strategists for other horses in the ever-tightening race for Best Picture may not want to hear this but Universal Pictures today may have unleashed
the 800-pound-gorilla in the Oscar race. That is, if initial reaction to today’s launch of the much-awaited movie version of the celebrated musical Les Miserables is any indication. Screenings at Alice Tully Hall in New York along with a smaller invite-only unveiling for about 100 people at the 1000-seat Samuel Goldwyn Theatre at The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in Beverly Hills both elicited immediate Oscar talk. Les Mis, one of the few remaining unseen contenders, is now fully in the conversation for real, if not quickly vaunting near or to the top of Best Picture favorites (along with Argo, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook and Life Of Pi).
Related: ‘Life Of Pi’ Sales into Oscar Race; Ang Lee Interview, Featurette
Almost immediately after the Academy screening this afternoon I got on the phone with star Hugh Jackman in Australia. Shortly afterward its Oscar winning director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) called me as the second of the NY screenings was taking place (we could both hear the applause in the background). Both seemed relieved to have the film, which opens Christmas Day, finally in the race. Universal is wasting no time as Hooper heads to Los Angeles on Saturday to participate in six, count ‘em, six screenings for Guild and … Read More »
‘Skyfall’ Brings Windfall To UK’s Odeon Circuit
On Thursday, Skyfall became the UK’s all-time highest grossing 007 movie, taking £57M ($91.2)in just 12 days. Odeon, Britain’s largest cinema chain, is reaping the benefits of the breakout Bond movie scoring the largest 7-day opening ever for a single film with £11.3M ($18.1M) in takings at its theaters. Its flagship cinema, Odeon Leicester Square, also set a new record with more than £530K ($848K) in Skyfall’s first week to overtake Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2, which took £495K ($792K at current exchange rate) in 2011. Odeon had a 30.5% market share of Skyfall’s UK box office in its first week. Read More »
Don Groves is a Deadline contributor based in Sydney
With The Wolverine, The Great Gatsby, Peter Jackson’s Hobbit movies and the Evil Dead remake shooting in the southern hemisphere, it might appear that all is rosy on the location front Down Under. But the reality is that as the Oz dollar has soared since 2010 – it’s currently about even with the greenback – all but two major Hollywood productions have bypassed Australia as a shooting location. With the New Zealand dollar trading at only 83 U.S. cents, the exchange rate there is better. And, after Hobbiton packs up, James Cameron will crank up the two Avatar sequels, filling a potential gap.
But a chorus of execs at major Oz studios, post houses and Ausfilm, the group that markets Australia as a location, warn that Australia won’t attract large-scale international productions unless the location tax credit is lifted to 30%. The Oz government is considering calls to raise the offset from 16.5% as part of a new national cultural policy that’s due to be announced soon. “It’s make-or-break,” says Fox Studios Australia chief exec Nancy Romano, who has two U.S. features potentially lined up for 2013, but only if the incentive is raised. Read More »
EXCLUSIVE: The Cisco Kid is riding back to TV. CBS has put in development The Cisco Kid, a drama series re-imagening the iconic Latino character that is executive produced by Salma Hayek (Ugly Betty) and Lauren Shuler Donner (X-Men).
Written by Diego Gutierrez (The Shield), The Cisco Kid is described as a modern day re-retelling of the classic story of a handsome outlaw and his faithful sidekick in the vein of Lethal Weapon. It follows Cisco as he returns to Los Angeles after serving several tours as a Marine in Afghanistan. After witnessing the murder of his father, Cisco and his best friend/fellow Marine, Sam, team up to solve the case and subsequently find themselves doing what the authorities can’t — defending the city’s oppressed and disenfranchised. Executive producing alongside Gutierrez are Hayek and Jose Tamez through their Ventanarosa production company, as well as Donners’ Co.’s Donner and Jack Leslie. CBS TV Studios is producing.
First introduced in O.
Henry’s 1907 short story The Caballero’s Way, the Cisco Kid became a fixture of 20th century pop culture — a rare feat for a Latino character. He went on to headline more than dozen movies, beginning with the 1914 silent film The Caballero’s Way and most recently the 1994 TV movie starring Jimmy Smits as Cisco and Cheech Marin as his sidekick Pancho. The role won an Oscar for Warner Baxter, who played Cisco in several movies. The Cisco character also spawned radio shows, comic books as well as an oft-covered song by War. On TV, The Cisco Kid syndicated series starring Duncan Renaldo ran from 1950-56. CBS has been looking to do Latino-themed projects in the last few years with such efforts as drama series Cane and comedy Rob. This is the fourth high-profile reboot in the works at the network this season, which also has Beverly Hills Cop, from Shawn Ryan and Eddie Murphy; the Vince Vaughn-produced The Brady Bunch; and Have Gun, Will Travel, from David Mamet. Read More »
Loading ... Loading ...
