The trailer for Woody Allen’s upcoming film “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is out.
The film features several steamy love scenes, including a threesome between it’s stars, Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, as well as a lesbian scene between Johansson and Cruz. “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” opens September 5th, 2008.
Don’t Mess With Uma
Jack Jordan, a University of Chicago graduate and former mental patient who developed an obsession with actress Uma Thurman, was convicted of stalking and aggravated harassment Tuesday morning.
Shia LaBeouf, Orlando Bloom, Ethan Hawke, Julie Christie and John Hurt are set to star in the late Anthony Minghella-scripted segment of short film anthology “New York, I Love You”.
“Love” is being helmed by a who’s-who of directors, including Natalie Portman (in her writing and directing debut), Mira Nair, Wen Jiang, Allen Hughes, Brett Ratner and Scarlett Johansson. The film follows on the heels of “Paris, je t’aime” in what’s called the “Cities of Love” franchise.
Entertainment Weekly reports that “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” writer, Larry David, has been cast as the lead in Woody Allen’s next, as-yet-untitled feature, which is scheduled to shoot in New York City this spring.
Plot details are being kept under wraps, but David, who bares a resemblance to Allen, will star alongside Evan Rachel Wood (”Across the Universe”).
Eva And Scarlett Ride “The Spirit”
Eva Mendes and Scarlett Johansson will be joining Samuel L. Jackson and Gabriel Macht for writer/director Frank Miller’s big screen adaptation of Will Eisner’s 1940s comic strip “The Spirit.”
Mendes will play the role of Sand Saref, “a beauty with dangerous curves,” while Johansson has agreed to play Silken Floss, a temptress and accomplice to the film’s villain, The Octopus. (played by Jackson).
The film’s lead role is portrayed by Gabriel Macht, best known for small supporting turns in “The Good Shepherd” and “Behind Enemy Lines.”
The story centers on a detective who fakes his own death so he can fight crime as “The Spirit,” a masked vigilante in a crime-ridden Gotham known as Central City.
Frank Miller says his film adaptation will be a contemporary tale with a “timeless feel.”
“The Spirit” is expected to begin shooting in October in New Mexico with a theatrical release set for 2009.
“Logan” Runs Again
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Brothers and producer Joel Silver’s remake of “Logan’s Run” seems to be in the “running” once again.
Commercial director Joseph Kosinski will make his directorial debut on the sci-fi thriller, which
which will follow William F. Nolan’s 1967 novel closer than the previous 1976 film which starred Michael York.
Kosinski is said to have come to Warners with a presentation that included graphic art and animated pre-visualization which aims to create realistic environments at a modest budget.
The new screenplay for “Logan’s Run” is being written by Tim Sexton and sees a future society that demands the death of everyone upon reaching a certain age. Anyone who veers from that destiny is dubbed a “runner” and is hunted by operatives known as Sandmen. Logan is a Sandman who is himself forced to go on the run.
Bryan Singer was attached to develop and direct the feature in 2004, but left the project to do “Superman Returns” instead.
Emmerich Goes On Remake “Voyage”
In other remake news, director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) is in talks with 20th Century Fox to remake the 1966 sci-fi action flick “Fantastic Voyage.”
The original “Voyage” was directed by Richard Fleischer and starred Raquel Welch and Donald Pleasence. It tells the story of a scientist who is dying of a blood clot and who’s only chance for survival involves five of his colleagues being miniaturized in a ship and then injected into his bloodstream. Hey, it worked in 1966.
Emmerich recently completed “10,000 B.C.,” which will be released March 7 by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures. He will produce “Voyage” along with James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment.
No start date has been set for the production.
But wait! There’s more…
New York Couldn’t “Escape” A Remake
Director Len Wiseman (Live Free of Die Hard,Underworld) is in final negotiations to helm a remake of the 1981 John Carpenter/Kurt Russell classic, “Escape From New York” for New Line Cinema.
Set in the near future when Manhattan has been turned into a giant maximum-security prison, “Escape” centers on Snake Plissken (played by Gerard Butler), an anti-hero who’s coerced into rescuing the President after Air Force One crashes onto the island. Incarcerated for robbing a federal reserve bank, Plissken is given twenty-four hours to complete his mission before a poison is released into his system.
Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down) wrote the script, which will combine Plissken’s origins, along with the plot of the original movie.
Penelope Cruz Checks Out Javier Bardem’s “Nine”
Variety reports The Weinstein Company is in talks with Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard and Javier Bardem to star in the film adaptation of the musical “Nine”. Director Rob Marshall is to be courting Sophia Loren and Catherine Zeta-Jones to also star in the movie.
Bardem will play director Guido Contini, who experiences a creative and personal crisis as he tries to balance all the women in his life. Cruz is in talks to play Carla, Contini’s mistress, while Cotillard is to play his wife, Louisa. Although they have not yet committed, Zeta-Jones is being courted to play the director’s muse, and Loren his mother, who appears as a ghost.
The musical was a stage adaptation of Federico Fellini’s classic, “8 ½.” Michael Tolkin will be writing the film’s script, with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston.
Young Hitchcock Scares Up “Number 13″
Actor Dan Fogler (Balls of Fury) recently talked to MTV News about his next starring role as that of legendary film director Alfred Hitchcock in the comedy/thriller “Number 13″.
Folger says “You see Hitchcock for two weeks out of his life in [his] early 20s. He just finished his first movie, which is supposed to be a comedy, but it’s not. So he’s freaking out about it and realizes that if he just switches a few things, it can become a thriller. [And] that’s how he finds his niche.”
Hitchcock’s real-life “Number 13″ (or “Mrs. Peabody”) was only partially completed before it was pulled from production in 1922. Despite decades of searching, neither the footage nor the script has ever been found, making it more than likely that everything associated with the film has been entirely lost.
The fictional “Number 13″ takes its inspiration from Hitchcock’s prevalent themes of suspense and mystery, placing the director as a man wrongly accused of murder. Folger says “The lead actor [Ernest Thesiger], who commissioned me to make the film, basically wants to make a comedy, but he’s just not funny. He suddenly disappears, [so] Hitchcock does some interesting editing to make the character look like he got killed [in the film]. And [since] the actual actor has disappeared, everyone starts wondering: Did Hitchcock kill him? They start to suspect me in [a fake] murder.”
Sir Ben Kingsley will portray Thesiger and Ewan McGregor will play the editor who suspects Hitchcock of murdering the actor. No start date has yet been set.
No Romance For Woody In Barcelona
The citizens of Barcelona, Spain aren’t exactly thrilled that director Woody Allen has chosen their city as the location for his upcoming production, “Midnight In Barcelona.”
While scouting locations for the film along the city’s famed artery, Las Ramblas this past June, Allen was enthusiastically welcomed by the city’s adoring fans, the director returned the admiration by promising the movie would be “a love letter to Barcelona.”
Now that production is underway however, the romance between Barcelona and Allen has all but fizzled. Weeks of roadblocks and a dispute over subsidies have made the local residents regret that they ever agreed to let the 70-year-old film director use their city as a movie set.
To accommodate the shoot, the city’s Socialist government shut down part of Las Ramblas, obstructing the locals’ morning stroll and blocking access to many restaurants. With the taxpayers of Barcelona and its region Catalonia, paying for roughly 10% of the film’s budget, opposing political leaders and some of it’s citizens, notably local filmmakers who feel Allen is getting special treatment, are beginning to express their dissatisfaction with production.
For the time being however, Barcelona’s heated relationship with Woody Allen will get a chance to cool off a bit. This past Monday, the cast and crew began shooting in Oviedo, the less cosmopolitan capital of the region of Asturias.
Oviedo’s spokesperson, Pilar Ávila, says she hasn’t received any complaints about Allen’s shoot so far, “Just the opposite” she says, “people are delighted.”
“Perhaps this is because Oviedo, unlike glamorous and popular Barcelona is happy to bask in a little international attention.” Or it could be, as Ávila noted, because Oviedo’s investment in the film so far amounts to “not a single euro.”
“Midnight In Barcelona” stars Scarlett Johansson as an American tourist caught in a love triangle with a local painter (Javier Bardem) and his jealous ex-girlfriend (Penélope Cruz). The film is scheduled for a September 2008 release.
Source: Time Magazine
The Trouble With Prince Harry
While we’re on the subject of Europe, the image above is the cover of the September issue of Radar Magazine.
The “cut-and-paste” Photoshop job shows England’s Prince Harry, sitting on the Royal Thrown wearing boxers and surrounded by beer cans.
Radar claims their cover story offers an inside look at the turbulent life of England’s 22-year-old prince, revealing details of Harry’s rowdy lifestyle and military career.
Source: Radar Online
Zac Efron Gets Rolling
Someone else who’s featured on a magazine cover this week is teen sensation and “High School Musical” star Zac Efron, who’s shown in this image from the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, revealing an impressive set of abs. Looks like Zac wants us to know he’s all grown up and working overtime to get rid of that Disney baby fat.
In the interview, Efron, 19, talks about his newfound fame, how his on-set relationship with “Musical” costar Vanessa Hudgens, turned into a true-life romance and how he handles the critics.
He told Rolling Stone, “I can’t even go on IMDB because I know that so much of it would be negative. It’s just depressing. I know, for instance, at my cousin’s school, there’s a club called the I Hate Zac Efron Club. And I laughed hysterically when I heard that. I laughed because if there are people out there devoted enough to make a club that hates me, I’ve gotta be doing something right.”
Perhaps. Or maybe, just maybe, they really don’t like you Zac.
When it comes to the subject of fame, Efron said, “a lot of problems you see people having in this business is that it becomes about their personal lives and not about their work. Matthew McConaughey has single-handedly funded the tabloid magazines for the past two years now. If he would put on a shirt and just get away from the beach, maybe there would be a few less paparazzi around.”
Actually, if Matthew McConaughey put on a shirt and got away from the beach, his career would cease to exist. I think celebrities like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan have done a far better job of single-handedly keeping the tabloids in business for the past two years than McConaughey ever has.
But who am I to say anything, Zac’s the one with his own Hate Club at his cousin’s school, I’m just a mere celebutante with a blog.
“High School Musical 2″ premiers Friday, August 17th on the Disney Channel, the new issue of Rolling Stone is on news stands now.
Source: Rolling Stone
Is That Matthew McConaughey Or Someone’s Grandfather?
And speaking of my favorite surfer dude, here’s a picture of Matthew McConaughey “hanging” out somewhere only he knows. The fact that Matthew likes to go commando should come as no surprise, considering he barely ever wears anything at all…and that’s just fine with me.
Personally I’ve always liked Matthew’s attitude, I think more people should live life as carefree as he does. I’m adding him to my list of heroes, right next to Bear Grylls of “Man vs Wild.” Love that show.
Scarlett Johansson may be playing Nellie Forbush in a planned 2008 Lincoln Center revival of South Pacific. Johansson and Reese Witherspoon are two of the superstars under consideration for what’s being described as a “sexy revival”. Scarlett has long expressed an interest in starring in a Broadway show and is said to be a big fan of the classic Rogers and Hamerstein musical. Johansson was recently in negotiations to star in the London revival of The Sound of Music and even went as far as to meet with producer Andrew Lloyd Webber, but the deal didn’t go through.
In movie news, Scarlett and director ::imdb(Woody Allen,Woody Allen):: will be teaming up for a third time in Allen’s upcoming Spain-set film project. This marks Scarlett’s third starring role in an Allen film, his most frequent use of one particular actress since Mia Farrow and Diane Keaton.
In the April edition of Vogue magazine, Johansson had nothing but praise for the 71-year-old film director, telling the publication “I’d sew the hems of his pants if he asked me to.” Allen, in turn describes his new muse as “criminally sexy”. He goes on to say “she is unlike anyone who has come before her, and while she is a much stronger actress in every way, there is a tiny bit of Marilyn Monroe in her zaftig humidity.” - got that Soon-Yi?
Scarlett and Woody’s untitled Spain project co-stars Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz and will be shooting for seven weeks in Barcelona and Asturias this July.
Sources: Broadway World, Variety, People
