Here Boy, fetch. (Film News - 14/05/11)

It's Cannes this week. Admittedly it's unlikely you've had missed it. An odd thing happens during the world's most prestigious film festival - Hollywood effectively shuts up. All news over these ten days must come through the Croisette. This means there's loads of talk but little actual stuff going on. Very few stories getting any traction. That said there are a couple here that may excite.

Human Nature

So Darren Aronofsky won't be directing The Wolverine, although with no movement on that for some time I'm beginning to wonder if the whole venture is looking like it's been given up on, but what will he turn to instead. This point last year he had half a dozen projects all in contention but it appears he's gone leftfield and chosen a 15 year old script that's been sitting in development hell for most of that time.

With George Clooney as a possible star Jeff Welch's spec focuses on a man cryogenically frozen who wakes to find that mankind is longer the dominant species and now exist as pets. This will no doubt raise some fascinating ethical points about the morality of owning animals and what it means to be a human as well as hopefully including some kick-ass action set pieces.

Of all of Aronofsky's options I will confess this one excites me the most. We all wanted him to try something bigger in scope after Black Swan and this a more mind bending sci-fi premise than anything else discussed. Plus I wouldn't mind having George Clooney as a pet!


I doubt if any scenes like this will make the final cut, but I am rather hoping they might...

Read on for thuggish criminals, cinematic experiments and the latest casting rumours from Cannes and elsewhere.



Borderline

My main question with this run of the mill looking thriller, from Justin Marks the writer of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, will be how the family taken by hostages where the FATHER WITH EVERYTHING ON THE LINE must confront the CRIMINAL WITH NOTHING TO LOSE somehow connects to the title. Will it start and end by a National border or will the soundtrack be filled with early Madonna tracks. Keep tuned to find out first.

Five Obstructions, take 2

Intriguing but highly unlikely as it is the rumour that Martin Scorsese and Lars von Trier will be working together on a new project is coming out of Cannes again. Apparently Marty will take a look back at his early works and remake a short five times using certain rules as stipulated by the mad Dane, similar to The Five Obstructions documentary in 2003. Frankly I still doubt it will happen however if it does the combination of a director as willing to experiment as much as Scorsese with the punishing von Trier at his back is irresistible.



A screencap from the 2003 documentary directed by Jørgen Leth, with advice from Lars von Trier.

Casting News

Standby for handbags at dawn over Rachel Weisz as she adds The Bourne Legacy and possibly the now confirmed Johnny Depp starring remake of The Thin Man to her potential slate of forthcoming movies, unfortunately it may clash with Oz, the Great and Powerful so someone's going to miss out. I still think Al Pacino has a couple of great performances in him (even though some others from his heyday are utterly spent) so it's good to see him sign up as an older Mob advisor in Barry Levinson's Gotti: Three Generations, oh I am aware that he may just coast on his form in the genre but I'm still hoping for something special. David O. Russell is convinced he wants to work with his muse Mark Wahlberg again, whatever the project ends up being as he's signed him onto the cast list of The Silver Lining's Playbook although whether that will actually be the next film he makes is still in the air.