Thompson on Hollywood

Fox Searchlight Pushes Back 'Best Exotic Marigold Hotel'

News

Fox Searchlight keeps pushing back "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," which like "Slumdog Millionaire," stars Dev Patel and is set in India. But that's where the comparisons end. Directed by John Madden ("The Debt"), the romantic ensemble about older Brits who settle in India to stretch out their meager retirement funds will now open in select theaters in the US on May 4, 2012. Based on the Novel "These Foolish Things" by Deborah Moggach and produced by Graham Broadbent and Peter Czernin, the movie stars Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Tom Wilkinson and Maggie Smith.

By Anne Thompson
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January 2, 2012 7:08 PM
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The Challenger to The Artist is The Descendants

Awards

As Academy members get their ballots this week, if one movie can challenge "The Artist" in the race for the Best Picture Oscar, it's "The Descendants." For one thing, with $33 million in the till after the Christmas holidays, where it landed in the top ten, it's a box office hit in a way that "The Artist" is not.

By Anne Thompson
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December 27, 2011 12:05 PM
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Oscar Watch: The Tree of Life's Likely Nominations, EXCLUSIVE Art Direction Video

Awards

Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" sparks polarized love or hate responses. (See the comments on the NYTimes review.) That doesn't help build consensus within critics' groups (the New York Film Critics Circle gave Brad Pitt Best Actor for "Moneyball" as well as "Tree of Life," and Jessica Chastain supporting actress for three of her films, inluding "Tree of Life"), but it will make it easier for the film to land in the Best Picture race. That's because Oscar voters who feel passionately will give it their number one slot.

By Anne Thompson
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December 7, 2011 4:27 PM
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Fox Searchlight Debuts New Shame Website

News

Check out the new Fox Searchlight website for Steve McQueen's Shame. The film's score, also featured on the site, is enough to make your heart ache. Not a gentle film, but certainly worth the ride.

By Sophia Savage
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November 9, 2011 1:36 PM
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Alexander Payne Talks The Descendants, Clooney, Next Black and White Film, New Trailer

Features

Of all the fall movies, the one that hit me in the solar plexus, made me laugh and cry, and struck me as a likely Oscar contender in multiple categories, was heartfelt low-budget comedy The Descendants (November 18), Alexander Payne’s return to the screen, after winning best original screenplay (with Jim Taylor) for 2004’s Sideways. “Alexander should make more movies,” George Clooney told me at Telluride. Of course he should, but this is the one Payne was able to get made. And it was worth the wait. (Here's my Telluride review.)

By Anne Thompson
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October 18, 2011 4:23 AM
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Trailer Watch: Shame, the UK Version, Latest Searchlight Oscar Contender

Fox Searchlight bravely took on the release of Telluride and Toronto Fest sex-addict shocker Shame (December 2), which reunites Brit director Steve McQueen with his Hunger star Michael Fassbender. Hunger was not an easy shoot, nor was Shame, and McQueen may well have directed Fassbender to his first Oscar nomination. And that's in a film likely to be rated NC-17. With Fassbender's overall heat--with four well-reviewed films to his credit this year, from X-Men: First Class and Jane Eyre to the upcoming A Dangerous Method directed by David Cronenberg--contributing momentum for award season consideration, it will be up to Searchlight to present the film just right for Academy voters, many of whom may find the elegant art film's full-frontal content too provocative. Remember, Searchlight turned intense performances by Mickey Rourke and Natalie Portman in Darren Aronofsky's gritty dramas The Wrestler and Black Swan into Academy contenders--and Portman won. Co-star Carey Mulligan is less likely to register with the actors' branch.

By Anne Thompson
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October 14, 2011 6:24 AM
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Sundance May Not Be Big Factor in This Year's Oscar Race

Even with Sony Pictures Classics behind it, Jeff Nichols' Take Shelter, which has earned raves for Michael Shannon, failed to lure audiences this weekend. Hopefully it will build strong word-of-mouth and critics group votes at year's end. But even though Sundance has launched multiple Oscar nominees of late--15 in 2010 alone--will other Sundance fave raves Win Win, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Like Crazy and Another Happy Day meet that same fate?

By Anne Thompson
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October 10, 2011 2:59 AM
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The East: Clarkson Set to Join Scripter-Star Marling, Page, Skarsgard in Batmanglij's Eco-Thriller

Zal Batmanglij's The East, written with his Sound of My Voice collaborator/co-writer/producer Brit Marling (clip below), will star Marling and Alexander Skarsgard, and is inches away from casting Ellen Page. The thriller is about a woman (Marling) who works for a firm that is hired by corporations to protect them from big business haters and environmentalist radicals. She must infiltrate one such anarchist group, 'The East,' which is led by Skarsgard. Page, fresh from Woody Allen's Bop Decameron, will play his one-time lover and a member of the group; according to Variety, Felicity Jones was originally attached. UPDATE: Patricia Clarkson and Toby Kebbell join the cast as Marling's boss and “a doctor who was treated with a tainted drug that caused him to have Parkinson’s-like symptoms,” respectively [FSR].

By Anne Thompson and Sophia Savage
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September 29, 2011 9:12 AM
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Margaret Reviews: A Horrific, Pretentious, Operatic and Remarkable Mess of Movie?

Fox Searchlight finally opens Kenneth Lonergan's six-year-old $12 million Margaret this weekend, but it remains to be seen if it can make it out of the critics' slaughterhouse alive. The Gangs of New York screenwriter's debut as a writer-director, You Can Count on Me, earned two Oscar nominations, for screenplay and actress Laura Linney. But boy did Lonergan hit the sophomore slump, as he became paralyzed trying to cut his second film during an elongated post-production phase that made Terrence Malick look decisive. It's never ideal to take a movie away from a director, but Searchlight and producer Gary Gilbert had to go to court, as Lonergan was literally not cutting it.

By Anne Thompson and Sophia Savage
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September 29, 2011 6:49 AM
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Box Office Scandal: Circuit Dealing Pervades Small Towns, Flagship vs. Century Theatres

In a David vs. Goliath face-off, indie-owned Flagship Theaters recently won an appeal in its crusade against Cinemark’s Century Theatres. Does the age-old practice of circuit dealing — an unethical way for chain exhibitors to muscle studios — still persist? Anthony D’Alessandro digs further into this taboo topic: What is circuit dealing, exactly? It’s a predatory film booking practice whereby multiplex chains strong-arm studios for product in a specific market. If a studio decides to book with the competition in a given community, usually a Mom-and-Pop venue, then the exhibitor will threaten to bar that film (or future films) from playing the entire chain.