Thompson on Hollywood

Cameron To Direct Avatar 2 & 3; Who Will Direct Cleopatra?

James Cameron has made up his mind. He can't get Avatar out of his head. And he's doing the right thing, shooting two sequels to Avatar (possibly back to back), because he's going to give audiences more of what they want. (Reminder: Avatar grossed $ $2.8 billion worldwide, bolstered by premium 3-D prices, and tops Blu-ray sales records.) And he'll plow some of the huge R & D that went into the cost of Avatar back into the sequels (presumably making them less expensive--although you know he'll want to up the VFX ante). And he will remind us of what top-of-the-line 3-D can be. Immersive. Engrossing. Welcoming us into another world, in this case, Pandora. Don't you want to go back there? Holiday 2014 and 2015 seem very far away. But now Cameron knows what he is going to do next.

By Anne Thompson
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October 27, 2010 4:49 AM
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BAFTA LA's Britannia Awards To Premiere on TV Guide Network, Fry Hosts

I am so pleased that Stephen Fry will host the 19th annual British Academy of Film and Television Arts Los Angeles' (BAFTA LA) Britannia Awards on November 7. I follow him on Twitter and he is hilarious.

By Anne Thompson
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October 25, 2010 8:43 AM
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Casting Watch: Portman vs. Rapace for Scott's Alien Prequel, The Raven Replaces Renner with Evans

Twentieth Century Fox is happy with Damon Lindelof's (Lost co-creator) screenplay for Ridley Scott's Alien prequel, and Vulture has a few tidbits to share.

By Sophia Savage
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October 13, 2010 8:02 AM
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Scott Pilgrim vs. Universal and the Matrix

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World's bottom line comes down to the same problem that has faced a long line of Universal projects. It was an indie movie that cost too much to be successful inside the studio paradigm and should have been produced and released on a smaller less ambitious scale at the studio's specialty division Focus Features, which could have nurtured it and sent it into the world on a more limited basis and built on the film's strong word-of-mouth from its narrow base. To them a $12 million gross would have been fine. To Universal, it's less than the film's marketing budget. (A funny mash-up of Scott Pilgrim vs. The Matrix is below.)

By Anne Thompson
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August 23, 2010 11:37 AM
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Scott's Life in a Day Gets 80,000 Submissions, Final Film To Premiere Sundance 2011

The YouTube/Ridley Scott global film experiment, Life in a Day will result in a feature length film directed by Kevin Macdonald (State of Play, Last King of Scotland). He closed the door for submissions on July 31 for home videos of peoples' lives all recorded on the same day, July 24, 2010. The 80,000 submissions come from 197 different countries in 45 languages. Macdonald has a team of 20 editors to manage the laborious task of weeding through the footage to narrow it down to 100 hours. The final film is set to premiere at Sundance 2011 (and simultaneously on YouTube). Macdonald calls the task "a mountain, but we're eager to climb it.”

By Sophia Savage
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August 5, 2010 6:50 AM
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Post-Cannes Fest Landscape: What's Real?

The Cannes Film Festival unfolds in two parts: what gets seen during the festival itself--and what happens afterwards.

By Anne Thompson
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July 12, 2010 3:30 AM
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Casting News: DiCaprio in Wolf, Washington in Safe House, Lost's Pellegrino Goes SyFy

- Leonardo DiCaprio is teaming with Ridley Scott (not Scorsese, as once planned) for the screen adaptation of Jordon Belfort's memoir The Wolf of Wall Street, according to Deadline. The screenplay by Sopranos (and Boardwalk Empire) writer Terry Winter follows a head stockbroker (DiCaprio) as he leads his team in coaching clients to purchase stocks that fund their extravagant lives--until they get caught. Scott and DiCaprio are both busy: Scott's helming 3-D Alien prequel and DiCaprio is prepping a Hoover biopic, so it's unclear when Wolf will land on their schedules.

By Sophia Savage
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July 8, 2010 5:40 AM
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Casting News: Madsen in Red Riding Hood, Irons in Margin Call, YouTubers in Life In A Day

- Catherine Hardwicke has cast Virginia Madsen (Sideways) as the mother of Amanda Seyfried, who plays the title role in Red Riding Hood, repots Variety. Julie Christie has already been cast as the grandmother, Gary Oldman the werewolf hunter, and Lukas Haas the big bad werewolf that terrorizes Red's village. New to this re-telling of the fairy tale, David Leslie Johnson's script features an orphaned woodcutter (played by Shiloh Fernandez) and a blacksmith's son (Max Irons) - the former the object of Red's love and the latter her foredestined fiance. Love will certainly complicate the story, and the combination of stars and relative unknowns will give this medieval thriller plenty to chew on.

By Sophia Savage
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July 7, 2010 3:39 AM
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Ridley Scott Talks Blade Runner, Alien and Its Prequels, and a McMurtry Western

Sir Ridley Scott blew off the Cannes opening of Robin Hood and the recent Produced By Conference, blaming recent knee surgery, but the filmmaker turned up in a L.A. for a fan-friendly--safe--chat about his two classics Alien and Blade Runner at the LAT's inaugural Hero Complex Film Festival. TOH contributor David Lewis was there.

By Anne Thompson
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June 15, 2010 7:54 AM
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Cannes No-Shows: Scott, Penn, Godard

The Festival d'auteurs was willing to bend over backwards to get Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life--to the point of not forcing him to do any press, which is not their usual practice. But he still said no.