Thompson on Hollywood

Freeman To Get AFI Life Achievement Award; Fincher's Rendezvous with Rama in Works

Morgan Freeman, 73, is having quite a year. He started off 2010 with his fifth Oscar nomination, for playing Nelson Mandela in Clint Eastwood's Invictus; his latest movie, the well-reviewed comedy thriller Red opens on Friday; and he may actually land David Fincher as the director of his 15 years-in-development outer-space epic Rendezvous with Rama. (See MTV video below.) The reason this is now close to being possible: Fincher and James Cameron's advances with performance capture and 3-D.

By Anne Thompson
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October 12, 2010 8:53 AM
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Movie Monsters and Screenwriting Perspectives at Academy

Heading toward Halloween, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will celebrate the evolution of creature technology on October 21 at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. "Monsters in the Movies" will include an on-stage discussion with industry technical experts plus film clips tracing technological progress from 1933's King Kong to 1993's Jurassic Park and beyond. A display of monster movie artifacts will welcome guests in the lobby. Click here for tickets and info.

By Sophia Savage
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October 7, 2010 6:04 AM
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Academy Selects Scientific Achievement Short List

The Motion Picture Academy's scientific and technical awards committee has selected 15 achievements for further awards consideration. Now anyone else with similar devices or prior claims can offer their achievements to the committee, by August 31.

By Anne Thompson
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August 20, 2010 5:36 AM
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Mid-Summer Box Office Wrap: Top Ten Chart, Studio Report Card

At mid-summer, the box office is lagging just behind last year's pace and ticket sales are flat, reports Anthony D'Alessandro, who charts the season's winners, losers and studio market shares so far (as of last weekend). Will red-hot Inception take the number one box office crown from Toy Story 3? Stay tuned, as numbers and rankings will change by Labor Day.

By Anthony D'Allessandro
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August 5, 2010 5:37 AM
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Starz Seeks Next Sopranos, Shyamalan Circulates New Script, 3-D Decline, Jonah Hex Misfire

- In a bid to compete with HBO and Showtime, Starz has acquired the U.S. rights to remake the successful and critically acclaimed Aussie drama Underbelly, based on a real life '70s crime family. Former HBO chief Chris Albrecht (who launched The Sopranos) took over as Starz CEO last December. Vulture reports that Underbelly, along with UK show Torchwood and a planned Camelot saga, spearhead Starz's latest programming push. While the crime theme underlines both The Sopranos and Underbelly, it is new for Albrecht to look outside for inspiration. During his twenty-plus years at HBO, he tended to create original programming in-house. Things have changed; old content finds sizable viewership on channels like AMC, and audiences' appeal can be targeted more globally than locally.

By Sophia Savage
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June 22, 2010 3:32 AM
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Sony 3D Promos At-Home 3D: At Expense of Theater Experience?

"I refuse to say the sky is falling," declared Sony chairman Amy Pascal, when I asked her about the grim summer box office so far. She was observing the Sony 3D show-and-tell Wednesday on the Sony lot. Clearly, not only is the studio earmarking a number of 3D features for 2010 and beyond--including Resident Evil Afterlife in 2011 and Spider-Man 4 and Men in Black III for 2012 (Will Smith putting on his shades takes on a new meaning), but the entire corporation is moving aggressively into the 3D space both at home (PS3, 3D games, Bravia HD 3D televisions, Blu-Ray 3D devices) and in theaters (see videos below and Sony News).

By Anne Thompson
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June 10, 2010 2:10 AM
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What Went Wrong with Prince of Persia

I'd rather be watching HBO. That's my new T-shirt mantra. This holiday weekend I'll lay odds, sight unseen, that watching the third installment (HBO Saturday 9 PM) of writer Peter Morgan's Tony Blair trilogy, The Special Relationship, about the British ex-prime minister's relationship with then-president Bill Clinton (Dennis Quaid) will prove more satisfying than the miscast, over-wrought $200-million Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time or the shoddily written and executed Sex and the City 2, which hordes of women will flock to see, nasty reviews be damned.

By Anne Thompson
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May 28, 2010 11:33 AM
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Cannes Day One: Robin Hood Gets Off to a Slow Burn

With Ridley Scott recovering from knee surgery, that left Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett and Imagine's Brian Grazer to field the press conference for the 63rd Cannes opener, Robin Hood.

By Anne Thompson
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May 12, 2010 3:10 AM
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Life of Pi Seeks Fox Green Light with Ang Lee Directing in 3-D

Remember The Life of Pi? It's been seven years since Fox 2000's Elizabeth Gabler acquired the rights to Canadian Yann Martel's Booker prize-winning 2001 global bestseller about a boy adrift in a lifeboat in the Pacific with a Bengal tiger. What's taking so long? Well, this kind of lyrical literary material is tricky to get right. M. Night Shyamalan fell out. So did Alfonso Cuaron and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Finally, it may get made thanks to Ang Lee--and 3-D.

By Anne Thompson
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April 28, 2010 2:42 AM
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3-D Divide: Upfront vs. Retrofit

No one in Hollywood will listen now that Avatar and Alice in Wonderland have scored the mother-lode of grosses as 3-D movies. Could Alice have done as well in 2-D as a perfect match between name director, beloved children's book, and family-friendly studio? No, confirms Disney, because 70% of its grosses came from 3-D screens.