In most years, January tends to be the most boring month of the year for the box office. This is where Hollywood typically sends the movies in which it has the least faith. This is the dumping ground, the place where movies go to die so the studios can concentrate on their Oscar campaigns. However, thanks to ‘American Sniper,’ this January has bucked every trend. It may technically be a 2014 release, but Clint Eastwood’s war film has made the first chunk of 2015 interesting, shattering expectations and threatening to become the highest grossing film of last year in only a few weeks.
While we didn’t make it over to Park City this year for the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, we’ve definitely been keeping track of the reactions to this year’s lineup from our critics and colleagues. The Sundance awards were announced last night, and as many predicted, the big winner of the evening was ‘Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,’ from director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon.
We all know Martin Scorsese is a busy, busy man, with several projects he’d love to make, from his upcoming ‘Silence’ (which just began production) to biopics about the Ramones and Frank Sinatra, and the long-gestating and long-promised ‘The Irishman.’ Whether Scorsese actually makes some of these projects remains to be seen, but he may have just added another prospective film to his to-do list: a film adaptation of Kenneth Branagh’s version of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth.’
You may not be aware of this, but Warner Bros. has been involved in a lawsuit over the screenplay to Alfonso Cuaron’s ‘Gravity,’ one of the biggest films of 2013. The film, which took home seven Academy Awards including Best Director for Cuaron, was based on a book by Tess Gerritsen, and although the author had a contract with WB subsidiary New Line, she was never given credit for her story. In a recent lawsuit, a judge dismissed her case against WB, but that isn’t the end of Gerritsen’s fight—a fight which serves to highlight a serious issue for screenwriters.
Last we reported, there were a handful of actresses being tested for a role in Gareth Edwards’ upcoming ‘Star Wars’ standalone film, including Tatiana Maslany, Rooney Mara, Felicity Jones, and Kate Mara. According to a new report, the ‘Orphan Black’ star hasn’t just been cast in the film, but she’s landed the leading role—if true, this news is doubly awesome.
You might not have heard of ‘Descender,’ but the upcoming comic book series is apparently causing quite a stir—while the first issue of the new sci-fi series doesn’t hit stands until March, Sony has already secured the rights to bring Jeff Lemire’s story to the big screen. They’re really not wasting any time with this one, are they?
You may recall a horror film from 2007 called ‘Teeth,’ about a teen girl coping with the discovery that she’s been afflicted with the fabled Vagina Dentata. The director of that film, Mitchell Lichtenstein (yes, the son of famous pop artist Roy Lichtenstein) has returned with a new horror film, and this one looks way more atmospheric, but still appears to deal with sexual and gender politics, much like ‘Teeth.’ Bonus: it stars Jena Malone, who most recently appeared in ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay’ and ‘Inherent Vice.’
Nicolas Cage definitely makes some interesting choices, and it's never easy to tell which of his upcoming projects we should take seriously, but 'The Trust' definitely has potential to give us some of that good Cage action. The actor will co-star with Elijah Wood in the new film from newcomers Ben and Alex Brewer, playing crooked cop buddies who get in over their heads. Wood and Cage is not a pairing we'd ever imagine, but now that we think of it, it's pretty intriguing.
We’ve known for a while that Bryan Singer’s ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ will focus more on the young cast, and Patrick Stewart recently confirmed that neither he nor Ian McKellen will be returning for the upcoming installment in the franchise. While we won’t see those old, familiar faces, Singer is bringing back another ‘X-Men’ star for the sequel: Rose Byrne will return to reprise her role as Moira MacTaggert from ‘X-Men: First Class.’
Here’s what you need to know about ‘The Salvation’: it features ‘Hannibal’ star Mads Mikkelsen and Eternal Queen of Darkness Eva Green, and it’s a gritty and bloody revenge-filled Western that takes place in the 19th century…which sounds absolutely amazing. The first U.S. trailer has arrived for the upcoming film, and it definitely promises a whole lot of dusty outlaw violence.