Thompson on Hollywood

Ridley Scott Revisiting Blade Runner, Yes; Tony Scott Remaking Sam Peckinpah's Wild Bunch, No!

It's one thing for Ridley Scott to revisit Blade Runner from the ground up--he hasn't even started a script yet. Even if Scott didn't write the original Philip K. Dick story or the brilliant script by David Peoples (who also wrote Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven), his vision is all over that movie. I can't wait to see what he does with it.

By Anne Thompson
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August 19, 2011 4:57 AM
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TV Watch: Parker Posey on ‘The Good Wife,’ NBC Lands Sarah Silverman Show, Western Wanted

After a bidding war with multiple networks, NBC acquired the pilot for Sarah Silverman’s latest comedic single-camera comedy from Imagine TV and 20th Century Fox Television, according to THR. Silverman, Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, and Francie Calfo have signed on as exec producers. The semi-autobiographical show will star Silverman as a newly single woman emerging from a long-term live-in relationship.

By Maggie Lange
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August 19, 2011 4:24 AM
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Studios Rethink Big-Budget Producers and Their Pricey Tentpoles--and Westerns

Blame Cowboys & Aliens.

By Anne Thompson
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August 19, 2011 3:14 AM
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Bogart: Unconventional Star, Sex Symbol in TCM's Summer Under the Stars Retrospective

Matt Brennan takes a different tack in his “Now and Then” column this week, reviewing not two movies but one star. It just so happens that Turner Classic Movies did the work of combining current and classic for him. On Wednesday, the network’s essential series “Summer Under the Stars” gives us 24 hours of Humphrey Bogart. Swoon. Trailer and clip below: They say sex sells, but it never flew off the shelves quite like it did in the heyday of the studio system. Back then a guy didn’t need a six-pack to get us melting, though it didn’t hurt — just try to resist the swaggering muscularity of Brando, busting out of that white T-shirt in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). What the stars had then was energy, suavity, glamour. Clark Gable drove us mad with the glint in his eye. Errol Flynn swashbuckled his way into our hearts, while Cary Grant smooth-talked his way into our dreams.

By Matt Brennan
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August 15, 2011 2:00 AM
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Johnny Depp and Pirates Crew Reinvent Western Lone Ranger, Tonto

Now that Cowboys & Aliens can be viewed as a too-pricey western tentpole wannabe, how does Disney feel about Jerry Bruckheimer's Lone Ranger going into pre-production? They've ditched "the," and buttressed themselves from criticism by staffing up with their tried-and-true --but pricey-- Pirates gang, now that #4 yielded a satisfactory $1.03 billion worldwide and Johnny Depp is considered a major movie star. Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio penned the script, rewritten by Justin Haythe. Gore Verbinski has worked with Depp four times, including the modestly successful but costly animated western Rango ($242.8 million worldwide to date). And what marquee loyalty does Depp command when he's not Jack Sparrow? Neither Sweeney Todd nor The Tourist was a slamdunk, topping out at $153.3 million and $278.7 million (mostly foreign) worldwide, respectively.

By Anne Thompson
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August 8, 2011 10:15 AM
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Weekend Box Office Showdown: Cowboys & Aliens Edges Out Smurfs; Crazy, Stupid, Love Scores UPDATED

Star-studded sci-fi western Cowboys & Aliens was expected to handily win the weekend box office, but had to scuffle with family-friendly The Smurfs for the top spot. Anthony D'Alessandro reports:In a shootout at the cinema corral, Sony’s The Smurfs ambushed Universal’s co-production Cowboys & Aliens for the No. 1 spot, with both studios splitting their gold nuggets at an estimated $36.2 million apiece. Family films kicking fanboys in the pants is nothing new: back in March, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules pulled the rug out from under Sucker Punch.

By Anthony D'Alessandro
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July 31, 2011 4:47 AM
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Cowboys & Aliens, Crazy, Stupid, Love & Indies The Future, The Guard, Interrupters, Life in a Day

Cowboys & Aliens gets the prize for most literal title, if nothing else. While Andrew O'Hehir writes: "The movie never makes much of a case for its own existence; it's a mediocre western clumsily welded to a mediocre alien shoot-'em-up," and Roger Moore concludes: "A perfectly serviceable B-movie in the modern mold -- lots of money, lots of stars, lots of explosions and lots of credited screenwriters," TOH!'s review was somewhere in the middle, considering both the good (Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig), the bad (Olivia Wilde) and the ugly (the aliens).

By Sophia Savage
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July 28, 2011 4:48 AM
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Cowboys & Aliens Early Review Roundup: Favreau, Writers Talk Genre Clash

In the days leading up to the Cowboys & Aliens world premiere July 23 at Comic-Con in San Diego, director Jon Favreau was anxious. He was telling anyone who would listen just how brave this mash-up of the sci-fi and western genres really is. In his Thursday Q & A with Guillermo Del Toro in Hall H, Favreau said, "Everyone agrees it's either going to be terrible or awesome... This movie was not the safe move. I was in a position to do something different. As movie budgets get higher they all become the same. If you take risks, when it pays off it's wonderful. If you can take failure it's ok." Favreau also refused to make the movie in 3-D, thankfully.

By Anne Thompson
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July 27, 2011 6:29 AM
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EW Cover Sells When Bond Met Indy, Not Cowboys & Aliens

"When Bond Met Indy" is a headline to woo any fan of movies, Hollywood icons, or handsome men. That's what EW's cover story sells with a joint profile of Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig.

By Anne Thompson and Maggie Lange
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July 21, 2011 7:20 AM
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Five Things We Learn from Esquire on Daniel Craig: Dragon Tattoo Violence, Tintin Leotard

Esquire learned many things from Daniel Craig, much more than his favorite word being "fuck" and his blue eyes being money-makers. The British star has several anticipated movies due in theaters and in the works and plenty to talk about: Cowboys & Aliens (trailer below, July 29), Dream House (September 30), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (teaser below, December 21), The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (December 23) and Bond 23 (2012). (At the time of the interview, Craig's Dream House co-star Rachel Weisz was his girlfriend, not yet his wife.)