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‘Star Wars’ Beats ‘Avengers 2′ for Most Anticipated Film of 2015
28 minutes ago
Iron Man is no match for Luke Skywalker.
That’s the takeaway from Fandango’s survey of the most anticipated films of 2015. The online ticketing company found that “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is the film that moviegoers are most jazzed to see next year, while “Avengers: Age of Ultron” has to settle for runner-up status.
No shame there. Next year is expected to be a record-breaker for the movie business with sequels to such Tiffany franchises as James Bond, Jurassic Park and Mission: Impossible all on tap. It’s such a murderer’s row that some of these films were rubbed out from the top five list of most anticipated films.
Moviegoers picked series finale “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2″ as the third most anticipated film, with “Fifty Shades of Grey” and “Jurassic World” nabbing the fourth and fifth slots. “Fifty Shades” is the only film on »
- Brent Lang
Double Oscar Winning Actress Luise Rainer Dies at 104
6 hours ago
Hollywood actress Luise Rainer, who won back-to-back Oscars in the 1930s, has died at the age of 104. Until her death, she was the oldest living Oscar winner. Rainer died of pneumonia Tuesday at her London home, according to daughter Francesca.
Rainer won her twin best actress Oscars for 1936 biopic “The Great Ziegfeld,” drawing the nod despite a fairly small role as impresario Florenz Ziegfeld’s first wife, and 1937’s “The Good Earth,” an adaptation of the novel by Pearl S. Buck in which the heavily, if charmingly, accented Austrian-German actress played a humble Chinese peasant.
The high expectations generated by her Oscar achievements did not, however lead to much further success in Hollywood. Some say the death of her producer at MGM, Irving Thalberg, as well as bad advice from her husband, the playwright Clifford Odets, contributed to the precipitous decline in her career.
Her first movie was “Escapade,” with William Powell. »
- Carmel Dagan
DGA, WGA Extend Foreign Levies Agreements with MPAA
14 hours ago
The Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America have each extended their Foreign Levies Agreements with the MPAA for three years.
The agreements have resulted in distribution of more than $310 million over the past two decades to directors and writers, according to the unions.
Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for the MPAA, confirmed that the agreements have been extended until the end of 2017. The guilds had no immediate comment.
The agreements, which were set to expire on Dec. 31, cover funds collected outside the U.S. to compensate writers and directors. The DGA has paid out $160 million of those funds to to directors, according to its web site; the WGA West said in July in its annual report to members that it had paid out $151.7 million since 1993.
The foreign levies for U.S. creatives began to flow after the U.S. agreement in 1989 to terms of the Berne Convention, »
- Dave McNary
Directors & Their Troops: Rob Marshall on His ‘Into the Woods’ Group
15 hours ago
The goal of director Rob Marshall and his artisan team was to balance reality and fantasy in “Into the Woods.” In talking with Variety about the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine tuner, he pointed out that films have a three-act structure, but the project’s stage origins dictated two distinct parts, which required different looks. He added that a lot of decisions were determined by the budget of $50 million and the schedule, which he said were modest for such an elaborate, complex musical. He gave a lot of credit to the crafts team, many of whom had collaborated on his previous films.
Cinematography, Dion Beebe
“He is a painter of light and motion — an artist of the highest degree. We shot in 55 days, a short schedule for something like this, so we had to come in prepared. He was there all during rehearsals. The first part (of the film) is »
- Tim Gray
Disney’s 2015 Slate: ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar Anchor 12 Movies
15 hours ago
Walt Disney Studios will release 12 movies in 2015, including the first “Star Wars” installment since 2005.
The company’s slate, which it summed up in a preview Monday, doesn’t veer too far from the strategy the studio has been running with over the past several years.
For example, “Monkey Kingdom” will be the next creature feature from the Disneynature banner after “Bears” and “Chimpanzee,” while Niki Caro’s “McFarland” will mark the studio’s next lower-budgeted sports film after this year’s “Million Dollar Arm.”
In March, Cinderella will get the live-action treatment, the way Disney brought fantasy characters like Maleficent and Alice in Wonderland to the bigscreen. “Cinderella” is directed by Kenneth Branagh and features Lily James (“Downton Abbey”) in the lead.
Jon Favreau’s “The Jungle Book” will be a live-action retelling of another literary classic — and Disney toon — when it bows in the fall.
Marvel Studios will kick »
- Marc Graser
Ryan Gosling’s ‘Lost River’ Will Not Get Theatrical Release
16 hours ago
Warner Bros. will do without a U.S. theatrical release for “Lost River,” Ryan Gosling’s much-derided directorial debut.
Instead, the studio will release the fantasy drama via home entertainment in April. “Lost River” premiered to mostly negative notices in May at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section.
Variety’s Justin Chang gave it a pan: “‘Lost’ is indeed the operative word for this violent fairy tale about a fractured family trying to survive among the ruins of a city overrun by thugs, sexual predators and other demons….”
The film stars Christina Hendricks, Eva Mendes, Matt Smith, Saoirse Ronan and Iain De Caestecker. The script, written by Gosling, centers on a single mother swept into a dark fantasy underworld while her teenage son discovers a secret road leading to an underwater town.
Warner Bros. acquired U.S. rights in 2013 during Cannes, where Sierra/Affinity sold international rights to 20 markets. »
- Dave McNary
Relativity, Base FX Back New Film School in China
17 hours ago
Relativity Media and Base FX are the first companies to back a new film school being developed outside Beijing as Hollywood expands its presence in the region.
The companies will help design the curriculum for the Dachang Film and Media Industrial Park that’s under construction 19 miles outside the country’s capital city.
China Fortune Land Development Co. is behind the venture that will focus on talent development, production, post-production, digital and special effects, set design, R&D, and themed experiences.
Relativity and visual effects studio Base FX will help form a strategic committee that will attract a film and media talent pool, as well as a talent development management center.
Relativity is supporting the venture through Relativity Education, which oversees the Relativity School, an accredited branch campus of the Hussian School of Art, offering an array of film, media, performing arts, and graphic arts Bfa programs in addition to summer workshops. »
- Marc Graser
Oscar Hopefuls ‘Selma,’ ‘Imitation Game’ Under Attack as Mudslinging Begins
18 hours ago
Oscar voting began Monday, which means it’s time for an annual awards tradition: mudslinging.
In the last 10 days, Joseph A. Califano Jr. wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post lambasting “Selma,” while Christian Caryl of the Nyr Blog (of the New York Review of Books) blasted “The Imitation Game,” both citing factual inaccuracies.
Califano, who worked with Lyndon Johnson, stresses that his recollections of 1965 are different from some scenes in the Ava DuVernay-directed film. He concludes with the sentence, “The movie should be ruled out this Christmas and during the ensuing awards season.”
It’s not clear what “ruled out” means; does he think all films are like “The Interview,” to be pulled from theaters if there’s a controversy? The reference to awards season is a little more sinister, raising suspicion that a rival studio somehow fueled this outburst.
Under the headline “The movie ‘Selma’ has a glaring flaw, »
- Tim Gray
‘The Interview’ Becomes 2014’s Top Seller on Google Sites
19 hours ago
In six days, Sony’s comedy “The Interview” has become 2014’s bestseller on a pair of Google streaming sites — Google Play and YouTube Movies — according to a Google spokesperson.
The controversial Seth Rogen-James Franco comedy was still listed as the top current download as of Monday on YouTube Movies and the second-highest on Google Play behind “Guardians of the Galaxy.”
The studio began streaming “The Interview” on Christmas Eve through the sites along with Microsoft’s Xbox Video and its own dedicated site, http://www.seetheinterview.com, for $5.99 or $14.99 for an HD version. Apple’s iTunes site came on board on Sunday.
The movie began showing at 331 independent theaters on Christmas Day and grossed $2.8 million its first four days.
Sony announced Sunday that “The Interview” had grossed $15 million online in its first four days and that it was rented or downloaded more than 2 million times. The revenues exceed »
- Dave McNary
Film Review: ‘Kurmanjan Datka Queen of the Mountains’
20 hours ago
Commemorating a rare female leader from a time and place where women were mostly regarded as chattel, the sweeping patriotic epic “Kurmanjan Datka Queen of the Mountains” spans the long life (1811-1907) of a heroine who put the personal good of her people before her private hopes. With its breathtaking landscapes, dazzling cinematography, bloody battles and unique cultural traditions, Sadyk Sher-Niyaz’s directing debut provides a fetching piece of exotica for festival audiences. Still, the paper-thin characterizations and lack of a relatable emotional hook will make it tough for Kyrgyzstan’s foreign-language Oscar submission to score theatrical distribution in the West.
“Kurmanjan” is being touted as both the most expensive film to be made in Kyrgyzstan (with a budget of $1.5 million) and the country’s highest-grossing local production. It premiered there in late August and is still in theaters.
The introductory text under the opening credits aims to provide a context for the narrative, »
- Alissa Simon
Get a Close-Up Look at the Millennium Falcon from ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’
21 hours ago
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” won’t hit our screens until December 2015, but thanks to Fortune, we now have our first close-up look at Han Solo’s (Harrison Ford) iconic Millennium Falcon in its “Episode VII” incarnation.
As part of Fortune’s cover story on Disney CEO Bob Iger, the magazine turned to Yannick Dusseault, the visual effects art director for “The Force Awakens” at Industrial Light & Magic, to create the detailed images of the beloved spacecraft. According to Forbes, the cover shot was a custom build that was “rendered in wireframe form (a skeletal version) as well as a more layered ‘textured render,’ which were combined in Photoshop to create the final image.”
Fans can get a closer look at the Falcon from the side in a composite image that features Iger standing with the ship in the background. Iger was photographed in New York, while the Falcon »
- Variety Staff
‘A Most Violent Year’ Gets New Year’s Eve Debut
22 hours ago
A24’s Awards season contender “A Most Violent Year” is the final film to open this year, launching Wednesday on New Year’s Eve.
It’s also the only film launching that day. Relativity’s “Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death” opens on Friday as the first release of 2015.
Directed by J.C. Chandor and starring Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac, “A Most Violent Year” will open at four theaters — Lincoln Square and Sunshine in New York City and the ArcLight and Landmark in Los Angeles. It will expand to the top 10 markets on Jan. 16, the day after Oscar nominations are announced, and will go nationwide on Jan. 30.
“A Most Violent Year” is set in New York City during the winter of 1981 — one of the most violent years in the city’s history. The film follows the lives of an immigrant family trying to expand their business and capitalize on opportunities amid violence, »
- Dave McNary
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