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London Olympics: A Tempest Surrounding Danny Boyle’s Opening Ceremony?

By NANCY TARTAGLIONE, International Editor | Wednesday July 18, 2012 @ 11:28pm PDTTags: 2012 London Olympics, Danny Boyle, The Tempest

You have to wonder if London 2012 organizers are whispering to each other, “Be careful what you wish for.” With the weather still a question mark after weeks of inclemency comes a report that Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony has hit a rough patch – along with news that UK border staff are threatening a walk out on the eve of the Games. Rehearsals for Boyle’s £27M July 27 curtain-raiser, titled Isles of Wonder in reference to a speech in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, have been disrupted by strife between Boyle and the Olympic Broadcasting Services, The Guardian reports. Boyle’s own crew is said to be clashing with that of the OBS which is responsible for the pool feed used by international broadcasters. Although organizers told The Guardian that the teams were “working very well together,” a source told the paper that extra security has been placed around Boyle’s trailer due to strained relations. The atmosphere “is miserable” one person told The Guardian. Boyle “is not filming a sporting event. He is a creative and he is trying to create something that is like a drama, which is why he brought in his own people,” the person reportedly said. Independent production company Done and Dusted is providing the creative coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies, but OBS will film the athletes’ entrance. According to The Guardian, Boyle wanted to bring in 30 cameras, but has not been able to place them. An International Olympic Committee spokesperson told The Guardian, “It wouldn’t surprise me if there was creative tension ahead of one of the world’s most watched TV events.” Passing the baton, so to speak, OBS told the newspaper it was doing its best to accommodate Boyle’s team but that the matter was one for the London Olympic organizing committee, which in turn contended, “There are no tensions.” Organizers confirmed a stunt bike sequence had been cut to “make sure the show comes in on time.”

Meanwhile, members of a union representing more than half of the UK Border Force have voted in favor of strike action over jobs and pay, The Telegraph reports. Immigration lines at Heathrow and other ports of entry to the UK are a nightmare at the best of times (I’ve personally had to wait over 2.5 hours on occasion). If staff walks out, it could create a bottle neck for the hundreds of thousands of visitors expected to travel to the UK for the Games. According the The Telegraph, Immigration Minister Damian Green called the proposed action, “vindictive,” saying, “Any action that disrupts the Olympics will be completely unacceptable and the public will not support it.”

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OSCAR MOGULS: Rich Ross Q&A

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Tuesday February 15, 2011 @ 11:19am PSTTags: 83rd Academy Awards, Academy Awards, Alice in Wonderland, Day & Night, Movies, Oscar Campaigning, Oscars, Rich Ross, Rich Ross Walt Disney Studios, Tangled, The Tempest, Toy Story 3, Tron: Legacy 3D

The Deadline Team of Nikki Finke, Pete Hammond, and Mike Fleming have spent recent days interviewing the studio moguls to gauge their perspective on this very close Oscar race:

WALT DISNEY STUDIOS
12 Nominations: 5 Toy Story 3, 3 Alice In Wonderland, 1 Tron: Legacy 3D, 1 The Tempest, 1 Tangled, 1 Day & Night

DEADLINE’s Nikki Finke: You’ve never done an Oscar campaign before. These weren’t even your movies. What was the biggest challenge you were facing?
RICH ROSS: For me to be able to support films that I didn’t greenlight was putting me in the brain of a marketer. I certainly knew I was lucky that I saw Alice In Wonderland before it was complete, and I saw Toy Story 3 way before it was complete. I think what made it very easy for me, in all honesty, was working with Tim Burton on Alice or working with John Lassiter — people who pour their heart and soul into these movies. And seeing how these movies both performed and were talked about and heralded is no less thrilling because I didn’t greenlight them. I see the faces of the people who win and you know they are thrilled. And that makes me happy. I would say that the most challenging situation was coming in and coming up with a strategy of support. At the same time you don’t have relationships which people have had for 20, 30, 40 years with the different organizations who determine the outcome of those races — people in the Directors Guild or people in the Producers Guild or the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, or the National Board of Review. These are many, many organizations aside from the critics who are giving out kudos.

DEADLINE: But you had Oscar consultants.
ROSS: We already had Tony Angelotti on the animation side, and we had Kira Feola on the live action side. They’ve split up the responsibilities. And the late Ronni Chasen was working on Alice In Wonderland, too, because she had worked with the Zanucks for a very long time. So Dick had asked me if it was possible to bring in Ronni to help support the film, and of course to support the filmmaker we said sure.

DEADLINE: It must have been such a blow for everyone at Disney when she died.
ROSS: Well, it was beyond shocking because I saw her the night before and she was very much in the heat of the moment because she was very close with the Zanucks and so when it happened it was very tough.

DEADLINE: You’ve done plenty of Emmy campaigns. What is the difference do you think now?
ROSS: The Emmy campaign is so much more targeted because you’re really going for one group of people who are voting on that series of awards. The Oscar campaign difference is the diversity of the groups. You have to thread the needle. You are going from literally that first National Board of Review list through every critics group that are in Iowa and St. Louis to all the Guild groups til you get to the Oscar nomination and an Oscar win.

DEADLINE: Let’s talk about Alice in Wonderland first. It didn’t get a Best Picture nomination.
ROSS: My feeling on Alice was I knew going into it we had a proverbial issue of timing. Obviously, it made a billion dollars. But that doesn’t help you. It opened in March. So it was about getting people to remember what they saw. Aside from the problem of when they do see it, the No. 2 challenge is commercialism which seems to come up every year. Last year the ultimate was with Avatar vs The Hurt Locker where people felt Avatar already had its success because the box office was there. It’s not that it doesn’t get attention but it’s definitely a challenge in terms of people’s interpretation of the Awards season. And one of the curious things for me was Mia Wasikowska who was doing her first film and held together a $150 million plus film that made a billion dollars. And when people are talking about breakout stars, I would stand around talking about her, and they are like, ‘Really?’ Now she’s getting huge movies and I believe she will be a huge star. But to me that was the most curious.

DEADLINE: And then Tim Burton has been pretty much ignored by Oscar voters.
ROSS: I think he’s clearly at the top of his game. This was a giant year for him and I assume he wanted to be appreciated. I do believe that day will come before it has to be an honorary Oscar. And I don’t believe it will be a small movie, Nikki. I do believe it will be some substantial commercial film where people will say, ‘It’s about time.’ Read More »

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Hot Trailer: ‘The Tempest’

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Tuesday October 5, 2010 @ 12:43pm PDTTags: Movies, The Tempest, Trailers, Video

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Clint Eastwood Sets ‘Hereafter’ For NY Fest

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday August 16, 2010 @ 8:16am PDTTags: Clint Eastwood, Clint Eastwood Hereafter, Hereafter, Matt Damon, New York Film Festival, Peter Morgan, The Social Network, The Tempest
Mike Fleming

Clint Eastwood will unveil his Peter Morgan-scripted Matt Damon-starrer Hereafter as the closing night film of the New York Film Festival. The fest previously set the David Fincher-directed Facebook film The Social Network to open the festival and Julie Taymor’s … Read More »

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‘Tempest’ Gets Venice Invite & Skedded

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday July 26, 2010 @ 10:43am PDTTags: Alfred Molina, Disney Miramax, Djimon Hounsou, Helen Mirren, Julie Taymor, Reeve Carney, Russell Brand, Spider-Man Musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, The Tempest, Touchstone Pictures
Mike Fleming

UPDATE: Disney announced today that the Touchstone pic The Tempest directed by Julie Taymor is now dated for December 10th exclusive and December 17 for limited expansion.

Taymor has her hands full trying to get Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark to Broadway this upcoming season. But she’ll detour to Italy, where her film The Tempest is set as the closing film of the Venice Film Festival. Taymor’s Shakespeare adaptation stars Helen Mirren, Russell Brand, Alfred Molina, Chris Cooper, Djimon Honsou, and Reeve Carney. She set the latter to play Spider-Man in the pricey Broadway musical with music and lyrics by U2′s Bono and The Edge. Venice has bookended its fest with Taymor and the opener Black Swan, the Darren Aronofsky-directed drama.

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British Actor Ben Whishaw Gets The Lead In Alan Ball’s HBO Pilot ‘All Signs Of Death’

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Friday July 23, 2010 @ 11:18am PDTTags: Alan Ball, All Signs of Death, All Signs of Death Casting, All Signs of Death Pilot, Ben Whishaw, Charlie Huston, HBO, HBO Pilots, The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, The Tempest, TV Casting, TV Pilots
Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: Ben Whishaw has been tapped as the lead in Alan Ball’s pilot for HBO All Signs of Death, marking the British actor’s U.S. TV debut. The dark comedic drama, based on Charlie Huston’s 2009 crime noir novel The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, centers on Webster Filmore Goodhue (Whishaw) an inveterate twenty-something slacker who stumbles into a career as a crime scene cleaner, Read More »

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