You may or may not have heard but the biggest story of the week is the Oscar nominations. I don't want to retread my post on Wednesday, but I was thinking about the new voters, the latest inductees to the Academy and how they voted. What do you suppose Brendan Gleeson, Eddie Marsan, Jeffrey Wright, James Franco, Emily Blunt, Emile Hirsch, James McAvoy, Jane Lynch, Michael Cera, Paul Rudd, Hugh Jackman or Seth Rogen had at the top of their voting form? Humourous answers on a postcard to...
Away from that there's hasn't been much in the news, only a couple of small stories to get your teeth into, as well as some potentially interesting international production news.
Zachary Quinto, stardom and the George Gershwin Biopic
First up is the frankly bizarre news from Zachary Quinto that he may be ready to move on from the reinvigorated Star Trek franchise. I'll confess I haven't seen the latest installment, but from what I hear whilst Quinto was best of the best parts in it what Star Trek mostly proved was that this was a character based franchise and not actor based - losing William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelly didn't destroy the ratings, so there won't be much worry about the Heroes star moving on. However, I doubt it's a good idea for him. Does this look like he can't commit to long term projects? Or will it mean he retains more integrity than his Enterprise co-stars?
The project he appears to be moving on to is a Steven Spielberg helmed biopic of George Gershwin. Gershwin was a composer and musician, from Russian emigre heritage, who made a name for himself in the early Hollywood musicals of the 1930's and by sucessfully blending classical and jazz influences and appealing to both markets. His most famous works include "Rhapsody in Blue" and "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess. Both of which has a prominant place in public conciousness. He also died tragically of a brain tumour, aged just 38. It's a baity role with a known director wso perhaps it's the right choice.
This is a famed caricature of George (right) with brother Ira Gershwin. Do you think Quinto could manage that look? And who would you cast as Ira?
Go past the link for the worst news you will read all week, and a pleasant surprise from Sweden.
The Lucky One
The cinematic rush to adapt the works of Nicholas Sparks continues unabated with the revelations that The Lucky One will be the next book to see the inside of cinemas. That in itself is not too bad, Sparks may be unashamedly romantic with The Notebook and A Walk to Remember being classic three hanky films and Dear John, which opened in the US yesterday appears to be getting solid reviews. The bad news is they've managed to find the worst possible person to direct it. Step forward Scott Hicks (The Boys are Back) who will no doubt attempt to wring every ouce of dramatic tension out of this story about a soldier who cheats death thanks to a photo of a beautiful girl he's never met.
Production News
And finally (I told you it was a quiet news week) I thought I'd start a new section on production news, which essentially will be tying up the fantastic rumours that we've covered with imdb's Production status. If a film moves into pre-production then I'll let you know. It's my way of keeping track of hat's coming - "Pre-production" being a much closer step to relaity that "annouced". Of course the film may never materialise. Until we see it opening weekend then there is no guarantee that the film will ever be released, but I like to think that this is a good sign.
Now most of the films which have entered the pre-production phase are pretty obvious big budget behemoths:
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: last got a mention in Runs-like-a-Gay back in August. Avctually they'd better get a move on with this, as it's due to come out in May 2011 and I can't imagine it'll be a simple post-production process...
The Next Batman sequel is also rumbling on, but with no villian casting news I guess it's still a long way away. This was last discussed in July.
As was Yellow Submarine, the Robert Zemeckis motion capture remake of The Beatles' oddball animation.
Bond 23, Hanna, The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Your Cheating Heart have all been in the news during January. (The last is the Ron Howard/Vince Vaughn collaboration.)
On the other hand I found out about Swedish picture Domen över död man purely by accident. I know nothing about it whatsoever - not even a plot description (although Domen means judgement and Dod means dead so taht may be an indication), however it's being directed by Jan Troell, the man behind Maria Larsson's Everlasting Moments (pictured below) and as that was one of my favourite films from 2009 I'm fairly confident in his next project.
The Oscar Shortlists for the 97th Academy Awards
7 hours ago
4 comments:
Quinto's not leaving Star Trek, that was just a misunderstanding. He said something in an interview about not doing any Trek stuff for two years, meaning no conventions and video games and stuff, and people thought he meant the movies too. He didn't, as he clarified later on his blog, twitter, etc. "Obviously, I'll be a part of any upcoming films, reprising my role as Spock." (And given how long he's stuck with the slowly dying Heroes, I wouldn't doubt his ability to stick to long-term projects...)
Ooops, sorry about that.
Glad to hear that he'll be sticking with Trek for a few movies (and I'm probably glad he's going to be taking it steady on the promo stuff, too.)
I'm glad to see a re-emergence of Jan Troell.. Too bad he is no longer being showcased here in the US. It's frustrating to say the least, as he was so popular back in the
'70's!
I suppose the problem is once a director begins to lose their popularity it becomes very difficult to get it back.
Even Woody Allen, surely the most famous director on the planet these days, can't guarantee a UK opening. Hollywood Ending, Scoop and last year's Whatever Works have never seen the inside of a British cinema.
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