Looks like her brush with the law in Atlanta this month hasn't put any dampeners on Reese Witherspoon's pulling power. The actress in now in negotiations to star opposite Keanu Reeves in sci-fi romance Passengers.
When a completed film is ready for release, you can bet all parties involved are gagging to get it into theatres to reap much needed gratification and financial rewards. For Stephen Sommers' latest, Odd Thomas, the long and winding road has been dotted with lawyers and litigation. The release of the picture, which was shot two years ago, has been held up due to producers engaging in a legal battle. With over $35 million earmarked for production and marketing it's no wonder. However, the war is over and now the producers have opted to whet appetites at Cannes with the first trailer.
Lars Von Trier's upcoming duo of sexually-charged films, Nymphomaniac, continues to tease with this first glimpse at the marketing campaign. For a film with a staggering cast including Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard and Shia LaBeouf, you might expect the artwork to reflect their beautiful visages. Von Trier, ever the iconoclast, has chosen to not entice audiences with the faces of his cast, but with a sparse symbolic image below the tagline "Forget about love." You can check it out below.
You know a character with a badass moniker such as Mazer Rackham is gonna have serious style. Today Entertainment Weekly revealed the first photo of Ben Kingsley in the role of Mr Rackham from the upcoming sci-fi flick, Ender's Game and the matching visuals don't disappoint. You can check out the teaser pic below. Not that a hip aesthetic is more important than character, of course. The tribal tattoo emblazoned across his gleaming bald noggin stems from a genuine Maori design which tells a person's history through their inked visage.
How To Catch A Monster. Ryan Gosling's directorial debut which stars everyone he's ever worked with continues to intrigue us with its bonkers storyline and an ever-expanding cast. So far the roster includes Christina Hendricks (who shared screen time with Gosling in Drive), Eva Mendes and Ben Mendelsohn (In The Place Beyond The Pines), and Matt Smith, star of Doctor Who.
For those of you out of the loop, How To Make A Monster is set against the "surreal dreamscape of a vanishing city", which sounds utterly terrifying to be honest. The synopsis further reveals: Billy (Hendricks), a single mother of two is swept into a macabre and dark fantasy underworld while her teenage son discovers a secret road leading to an underwater town. Both Billy and Bones must dive deep into the mystery, if their family is to survive. Sounds like The Wizard of Oz rewritten by David Lynch. Speaking of...
Genre meisters Dimension Films have amped up the gore, screams and flagrant girly perving in the latest red band trailer for Nicolas Lopez's Aftershock. Produced by and featuring in a deliciously hammy role, Eli Roth, the film shares more than a passing resemblance to his debut feature, Hostel. Co-written by Roth and Guillermo Amoedo, Aftershock takes the tried and tested "gaggle of youngsters in an unknown environment" horror premise and plonks it amidst a Chilean earthquake.
Director Niki Caro has forged a habit out of casting women in starring roles for films which offer Hollywood's finest the chance to sink their teeth into something meatier than a side of venison. Whale Rider made a star of Keisha Castle-Hughes and Silkwood-lite North Country bagged its star Charlize Theron a second Oscar nomination.
Looks like Caro is remaining steadfast to female visibility in Hollywood, as her next film The Zookeeper's Wife now has the almighty Jessica Chastain attached to star. Adapted from Diane Ackerman's novel by screenwriter Angela Workman, The Zookeeper's Wife is the true account of the brave efforts of the Warsaw Zoo zookeepers during the Nazi invasion of World War II.
The next project from Another Earth director Mike Cahill; I Origins has secured the all-of-a-sudden-everywhere Brit Marling and Boardwalk Empire's Michael Pitt to star. There's nothing like a grammatically-challenged film title to bag a bunch of Hollywood's finest. Marling and Cahill worked together previously on 2011's low-key sci-fi winner Another Earth and Marling has followed the film's success by starring in a cluster of smaller flicks. Her latest outing, anarchist-thriller The East with Juno star Ellen Page, is set to land in cinemas in May.
Considering this summer is crammed with apocalyptic fodder primed for the big cinema season ahead, the first footage of Joon Ho Bong's sci-fi actioner, Snowpiercer shows you can still bust out of the armageddon box and brave new climates. A rather wintry one from the looks of it. Bong describes the film as set in a post apocalypse world wherein a few survivors ride aboard a train, separated by economic classes. Dissent begins as the differing classes start to pummel crap out of each other. Did we mention it's on a train too? Brilliant.
As Kick-Ass 2 prepares for release this summer it looks like director Matthew Vaughn is diving straight into his next project with Colin Firth confirmed to star. Taking inspiration from another of Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons' comics, The Secret Service has recently completed its narrative in book form and is ripe for the big screen. Vaughn and Kick-Ass scribe Jane Goldman already have a completed script which is said to follow closely the comic's story.
