The Playlist

Sundance: Fox Searchlight Lands 'The Way, Way Back' In Big Deal, 'Austenland' Winds Up At Sony

By Ken Guidry
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January 22, 2013 9:29 AM
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0 Comments

News

The economy might be in rough shape, but major spending is taking place at the Sundance Film Festival. Relativity has already promised big bucks to promote Joseph Gordon-Levitt's directorial debut "Don Jon's Addiction" with a $25 million P&A commitment on top of a $4 million price tag. But Fox Searchlight may best them as they're reportedly set to pay $10 million for "The Descendants" writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash's directorial debut, "The Way, Way Back."

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Timur Bekmambetov To Helm 'The Current War,' Sacha Baron Cohen Interested In Thomas Edison Role

By Kevin Jagernauth
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May 3, 2012 3:30 PM
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2 Comments

News

Looks like "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" director Timur Bekmambetov is going from fake history to real history, lining up the decidedly non-action-y "The Current War."

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Steve Zaillian Earns 2 WGA Nominations; Woody Allen, Diablo Cody & Alexander Payne Also In The Race

By Kevin Jagernauth
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January 5, 2012 1:45 PM
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Awards

Scorecards will be adjusted and awards prognosticator types will have to adjust their bets, as the WGA have revealed their nominees for their annual awards. Why do we care? The guilds have traditionally been the best augurs for how the Oscar nominees will take shape, mostly because these are the same folks who will be sending in ballots to the Academy. Let's start with the surprises.

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Steve Zaillian Talks 'Dragon Tattoo,' 'Moneyball' & The Difficulties Of Getting Adult Dramas Made In Hollywood

By The Playlist
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December 27, 2011 9:45 AM
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1 Comment

News

Last week, David Fincher's "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" opened, and with it returns something that's been missing from the big cineplexes for a while: a big, expensive movie that is made for adults. It doesn't dumb anything down and it wears its R-rating like a badge of pride and not a scarlet letter. We got to talk to screenwriter Steve Zaillian, who as a screenwriter, director and producer, has somehow managed to land many of the grade-A assignments that don't involve robots that transform into cars and then transform into another type of car.

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David Fincher Talks His Approach For The Opening Credit Sequence For 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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December 22, 2011 12:02 PM
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7 Comments

Features

It feels like only yesterday we were talking about the back-and-forths on casting, but at long last, David Fincher's take on best-selling Swedish crime novel "The GIrl With The Dragon Tattoo," the first of Stieg Larsson's "Millennium" trilogy, is in theaters.

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'Dragon Tattoo' Scribe Steve Zaillian Says He's Considering Directing Remake Of Nacho Vigalondo's 'Time Crimes'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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December 19, 2011 3:30 PM
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1 Comment

News

Steve Zaillian has, over the past couple of decades, become Hollywood's go-to-guy for smart, grown-up dramas. From "Awakenings" and "Schindler's List" to "Moneyball," which, with Aaron Sorkin, has a good chance of winning him his second Oscar, and the imminent "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," a credit by Zaillian generally suggests that a film won't be some pandering blockbuster fare, but a thoughtful, adult picture.

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Exclusive: David Fincher On Whether He’ll Direct The ‘Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ Sequel

By The Playlist
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December 17, 2011 5:23 PM
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7 Comments

News

Today I had the opportunity to sit down with filmmaker David Fincher, the director of “Seven,” “Fight Club” and his upcoming effort, “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” which lands in theaters on December 21. Fincher recently cautioned to another journalist that he doesn’t answer questions in sound-bites, “they're sound-meals.” And the director, who talks at length in rolling, circuitous, but thoughtful and considered answers wasn’t kidding.

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Jailed Iranian Filmmaker Jafar Panahi Was Set To Make Hollywood Debut On Steve Zaillian-Scripted 'A Thousand Splendid Suns'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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December 13, 2011 9:45 AM
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3 Comments

News

One of the most depressing events in the film world in the last few years has been the imprisonment of Iranian director Jafar Panahi. The man behind acclaimed films such as "The Circle," "Crimson Gold" and "Offside" among others, was arrested by the country's regime two years ago for "assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic," and sentenced to six years in prison, as well as being banned for making films, or leaving the country, for twenty years. Petitions and protests have been held all over the world, just as Panahi's documentary "This Is Not A Film" was unveiled at festivals, but so far, to no avail. And it has emerged that, just as Panahi's imprisonment took place, he was moving towards making his Hollywood debut with one of the biggest producers in town, and an Oscar-winning screenwriter.

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2011's Potential Oscar Nominees For Acting, Directing & Writing Get Together To Talk At THR's Awards Roundtable

By Ryan Sartor
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December 9, 2011 2:33 PM
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9 Comments

News

One of the necessities for any Oscar candidate is to do a lot of smiling, gladhanding interviews where they answer the same questions over and over again. An antidote to this madness is the annual Hollywood Reporter Roundtable Interviews. They’re awesome. You take six leading Oscar potentials in the categories of writers, directors, actresses and actors, put them in a room for an hour and see how they interact.

'The Artist' Wins Best Film & Best Director, While 'The Tree Of Life' Wins 3 From The New York Film Critics Circle

By Kevin Jagernauth
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November 29, 2011 1:18 PM
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2 Comments

Awards

You know what's a really good idea? Drawing out your award winners on Twitter all day. In what seems like the final act in a disastrous public relations year for the New York Film Critics Circle, they made the ridiculous decision to tweet their winners, one-by-one, as they vote today, turning the simple act of compiling a press release into a drawn-out social media exercise by people who clearly don't understand how to use it (case in point: Roger Friedman tweeted out the Best Director win before NYFCC could). Couple that with new president John Anderson's embarrassing whining that Warner Bros. wouldn't screen "Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close" in order to meet their arbitrary and way too early voting date (so they can be first out, and consequently first forgotten), which they had to move anyway for "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," and you have a 2011 the members are likely glad is over. Politics and infighting aside, the group, having got their Fincher on last night, finally met to pick their winners, and while their standing has certainly been diminished by recent controversies (there goes our invite), the results are always a strong barometer for Oscar.

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