Peter writes: The BBC recently interviewed Viggo Mortensen about “The Road.” His interview is at the following link between minutes 6:00 and 13:00. More..
Month: January 2010
From MTV Movies Blog: “Titanic”‘s status as the top-grossing film of all time is being threatened by director James Cameron’s follow-up, “Avatar”. Even if the movie’s box office earnings fall short of the “Titanic” numbers — two records, $600 million domestic and $1.8 billion worldwide — there is little doubt at this point that “Avatar” will at least settle in at number two on both of those lists, effectively making Cameron king of Hollywood, if not the world.
A number of factors need to align — a “perfect storm of events,” as Exhibitor Relations box office analyst Jeff Bock described it — for a movie to experience the sort of success that “Avatar” and “Titanic” did. He believes that it all starts with the release date, “a prime release date where you don’t have a lot of competition.”
So with all that in mind, let’s consider what’s hitting theaters in years to come to see if there’s anything that might give James Cameron’s record-holders a run for their money (pun definitely intended)…
“The Hobbit”
There’s a lot going for “The Hobbit,” starting with the previous success of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. All three of those movies were mega-hits, with third entry “Return of the King” even picking up a Best Picture Oscar, a rare occurrence for this sort of fantasy spectacle-fueled blockbuster. Jackson is still involved as a producer, which means that we’re returning to his previously established vision of Middle-earth. “The Hobbit” is also a more family-friendly tale, at least based on how the book is written, and so it could conceivably draw in the valuable under-13 audiences.
From eonline.com Looks like James Cameron is the King of Middle Earth, too. With $1.14 billion worldwide and counting, Avatar has now overtaken the $1.1 billion raked in by 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King to become the second-highest-grossing film in history.
In fact, Avatar is going so strong that what once seemed an out-of-this-world impossibility now seems within the realm of (virtual) reality. If the 20th Century Fox movie, which screens in both 2-D and 3-D formats, keeps up its current pace, it could catch the $1.8 billion in global ticket sales tallied by the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s own Titanic.
If that wasn’t enough (and it never is in Tinseltown), Fox’s FX cable network has reportedly paid upward of $25 million for the TV rights to Avatar, which will premiere in 2012. And that makes Cameron’s blue folk even more green.
Film Weekly gets 2010 off to a blistering start with actor Andy Serkis, who has gone from playing Gollum and King Kong to inhabiting the skin and withered limb of the late Ian Dury in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll. Serkis tells Jason Solomons about channelling the spit and fury of the uncompromising late 70s jazz-punk warrior, and how bringing Dury to life on the big screen forced him to dig deep into his skills as an artist, actor and musician. Serkis also discusses his return to playing Gollum in The Hobbit and why motion-capture technology will never put actors out of work. More..
‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll’ is now playing in select cities in the UK, click here for tickets and showtimes!
When you’ve a well respected actor that everyone thinks is great, there will always be rumors about what you might do next. For James McAvoy, those rumors include playing Bilbo Baggins in Guillermo del Toro’s The Hobbit, and a more recent rumor that he’s going to star as Ian Fleming in a biopic that Animus Films is developing.
But according to McAvoy, it’s all rumors and nothing more. Regarding the Ian Fleming movie, McAvoy says he read the script a long time ago but he never spoke with the producers, so he doesn’t know where the story originates from. He also denies The Hobbit story.
Hollywood is preparing to re-release some past hits, including Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in 3-D following the record-breaking success of Avatar. Studio executives are drawing up schedules of popular films that will be “retro-fitted” with 3-D technology after the science fiction blockbuster, directed by James Cameron, last week became the second highest grossing movie of all time.
A 3-D version of Avatar has driven ticket sales to more than $1.14 billion (£700m) in just three weeks; only Titanic, Cameron’s 1997 epic, has made more money at the box office. Rival studios had been waiting to see if Avatar took the 3-D experience — albeit using special glasses — beyond the popularity of animated tales such Monsters vs Aliens. More..