The Playlist

Sony Pick Up Cannes Hit 'The Past,' Sundance Selects Take The Dardennes' Marion Cotillard-Starring Next Project

By Cain Rodriguez
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May 20, 2013 4:30 PM
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1 Comment

News

With every major festival that arrives there’s more chances for hopeful filmmakers to ink deals that would put their films in front of paying audiences, so of course with the Cannes Film Festival in full swing there’s a whole smorgasbord of distribution news.

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The Surprises & Notable Absences Of The 2013 Cannes Line-Up

By The Playlist Staff
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April 18, 2013 11:28 AM
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10 Comments

Festivals

So the 2013 Cannes lineup has finally been unveiled and as usual, there were a fair few surprise inclusions, a fair few snubby exclusions/category decisions, and some mildly oh!-inducing title changes. The majority of our firm predictions made it in (the Coens, Soderbergh, Farhadi, Sorrentino, Gray, Refn, Denis, Coppola among others) but sometimes into surprising sections, while a couple of films we had down as possibilities or longer shots paid off. So now that we know the lineup from G ('Gatsby' -- opening film) to Z ("Zulu" -- closing film) -- and it's a fairly U.S.-friendly list for Jury President Steven Spielberg to preside over -- lets dive right in and talk about the more eyebrow-raising moments from this morning's announcement.

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Review: 'Lay The Favorite' A Comedy That's An Empty Bet

By John Lichman
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December 5, 2012 4:19 PM
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Reviews

“You can't blame Stephen Frears for trying” seems to be the mantra for "Lay the Favorite," a mild romp through the T&A world of Las Vegas, gambling and literary adaptation. After all, "High Fidelity" is an iconic film to obsessive nerds (Need proof? See: every listicle on the Internet) and Frears is no slouch to crafting strong and/or sexy female characters (Tamara Drew, Cherí, The Queen). But what happens when he tries to mash them up and form the unholy love child of a stat geek and a bubbly idiot savant who used to be a stripper?

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Freddie Mercury Biopic With Sacha Baron Cohen Aiming For Spring 2013 Shoot, 2014 Release

By Charlie Schmidlin
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October 15, 2012 11:21 AM
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4 Comments

News

One of the more immediate recognitions of perfect casting in recent years, the news of Sacha Baron Cohen tackling the role of Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury, has excited fans of both talents since the biopic was announced in 2010. Development has stuttered in the interim though, even as the film's producers reinforced the film's active status, but after a confirmation this past summer -- in the form of director Stephen Frears growing close to helming the project -- a new tidbit from Queen guitarist Brian May himself has reignited the discussion even further.

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Judi Dench & Steve Coogan To Star In Stephen Frears' 'Philomena Lee'

By Kevin Jagernauth
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September 28, 2012 4:46 PM
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1 Comment

News

Stephen Frears is on a goddamn tear right now. He kicked off 2012 by heading to Sundance to premiere "Lay The Favorite," spent the spring shooting "Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight," and now will get another movie in front of cameras this fall. Damn. Who does he think he is, Terrence Malick?

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Watch: U.K. Trailer For Gambling Comedy 'Lay The Favorite' Starring Bruce Willis & Rebecca Hall

By Kevin Jagernauth
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May 29, 2012 5:51 PM
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4 Comments

News

Premiering at Sundance in January to rather dismal reviews -- including our own which called it an "empty comedy" -- and acquired by The Weinstein Company which has yet to give the film a release date, who knows when Stephen Frears' star-studded "Lay The Favorite" will land stateside. But over the in U.K., it hits theaters in just a few weeks so why not roll out a trailer?

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Stephen Frears Frontrunner To Direct Freddie Mercury Biopic Starring Sacha Baron Cohen

By Kevin Jagernauth
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May 9, 2012 2:39 PM
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4 Comments

News

With Sacha Baron Cohen heading back into theaters next week with another loudly accented, outrageous comic character creation, it's easy to forget he has aspirations beyond comedy. For a couple of years now he's been attached to a biopic about late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury boasting a script from "The Queen" scribe Peter Morgan. At one point, the plan was to shoot it last August, but when we spoke to Morgan in the fall, he explained how it all went down. "Projects have great momentum, and then they slow down. I wrote it, they've got it. Maybe they're sneakily rewriting it, I've got no idea. They were in a great hurry to do it, and then Sacha committed to doing 'The Dictator.' So at that moment, all our afterburners were slowed down. 'Cause at one point, we were frantic, but Sacha had been working on the other one for four years. So I think he's up to his eyeballs at the moment," he said. But it looks like Baron Cohen wants to get back to it.

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Stephen Frears To Direct 'Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight' For HBO, Casting Underway

By Kevin Jagernauth
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February 1, 2012 4:31 PM
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News

If there is one thing about Stephen Frears, he doesn't usually let too much time pass before he's on to the next project. And barely a week after his latest film "Lay The Favorite" premiered at Sundance, it looks like he may be on to something new. And now, it's not the developing remake of "The Hit" or "The Bengali Detective." Instead, it's "Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight" and it's gearing up at HBO.

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Sundance: Stephen Frears & Rebecca Hall Talk Bringing The Gambling Tale 'Lay The Favorite' To Life

By Todd Gilchrist
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January 24, 2012 12:03 PM
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1 Comment

News

Over the weekend in Park City, Utah, “Lay the Favorite” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, drawing mixed reactions from audiences and critics with its colorful portrait of an ex-stripper who discovers an unexpected aptitude for legal gambling (you can read our review here). Amazingly, however, the film is based on a true story, using the memoir by Beth Raymer as a jumping off point, and as Rebecca Hall puts it, her performance as Beth gives the character a believability they might not have if they were in a regular, fictional film.

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Sundance: Stephen Frears Confirms He's Considering An American Remake Of 'The Hit,' But It's Not Quite Ready To Roll Just Yet

By Todd Gilchrist
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January 23, 2012 10:04 AM
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0 Comments

News

Stephen Frears, director of the upcoming film “Lay the Favorite,” told The Playlist that one of his next projects may be a remake of his own film, the 1984 underworld thriller “The Hit,” with development of the film first surfacing late last year. “Well, if [the pieces come together,]” he said in an interview Sunday afternoon in Park City, Utah. “I’d like to do a remake of it, yeah. It’s such a good story, and I would happily do it again. I’d be curious to see if I could do it better, or maybe I’d do it worse.”

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