In a seven figure deal, IFC Midnight has picked up the U.S. distribution rights to the Irish horror film The Hallow, which recently premiered at Sundance. The flick is directed by Corin Hardy, a protege of Edgar Wright's, who secured directorial duties on The Crow remake - though whether that film will ever see the light of day remains to be seen.
Let's all be honest for a moment: does anyone really want a Pirates of the Caribbean 5? I mean, On Stranger Tides was just OK - I liked Penelope Cruz, but I don't remember much else about it - but it hardly shivered the timbers, now did it? Not that anyone is asking us, though, as producer Jerry Bruckheimer is going to right ahead with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales no matter what we say or do, so we might as well embrace it.
By now you will have the seen the teasers for the upcoming Minions film, a spinoff from the Despicable Me franchise that features those little yellow guys who speak in gibberish, like taking off their overalls, and cause no end of trouble. But you might not be fully aware that Minions also has a few celebrity voices to provide some plotting for a film that's really just an excuse for weird shenanigans.
I do not need to tell you that horror anthologies are popular again. We have had any number over the past few years, some good and some dire, but all relying on often interconnected short stories to tell an overarching history of terror. The nice thing about anthology films is that you can get a lot of stars and directors in to work on them, producing a unique vision from a multitude of styles and approaches to the genre. The latest horror anthology will be Holidays, from XYZ Films, and it has secured a bevy of directors to contribute.
As other networks scramble to get a foothold in the increasingly popular miniseries and limited series arenas, HBO continues to keep on producing some high-minded and star-studded productions. Now, they're hoping to do it again, as the network has just greenlit Lewis and Clark, a new historical miniseries that counts Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt, and Edward Norton among its producers, and Casey Affleck and Matthias Schoenaerts as its stars.
Deepwater Horizon is having a bit of difficulty right now. First, there were production delays as the script went into rewrites. Then, director JC Chandor departed the project, which chronicles the 2010 BP oil spill, citing apparent "creative differences." Now, we are hearing that director Peter Berg might replace Chandor in the director's chair.
There's one thing you can say for Woody Allen: he's consistent. He has made a film a year since 1977, producing some great classics and some not-so-great duds. Some have been good, some have been bad, and some have just been indifferent, but you have to give the guy some space when he's producing so much work for so long. His recent spate of films have been among his finest, from Match Point to Blue Jasmine, with only one or two missteps in between. Now his next film has a title and a distributor in Sony Pictures Classics.
The contemporary taste for corseted melodramas continues to go unsatisfied, as more and more films hit theaters based on classic novels that tell tales of social mores, adultery, and entrapment in whale bone and hoop skirts. Mia Wasikowska looks good in those clothes, just like Nicole Kidman before her, and so continues to be the go-to actress to play waifish young women of a bygone era. Her latest performance is in Madame Bovary, an adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's classic novel.
We already know that the vast majority of the original film cast will be returning for Netflix's Wet Hot American Summer series, now entitled Wet Hot American Summer: The First Day. And today we're hearing that the series has added some pretty hefty names to an already impressive list that includes Bradley Cooper, Elizabeth Banks, and Paul Rudd. The latest additions come in the form of Kristen Wiig, Chris Pine, Jon Hamm, and Jason Schwartzman.
The new trailer for the indie hipster screwball mystery Wild Canaries proclaims it "a love letter to old screwball comedies." To me it looks a lot like Woody Allen's early 90s screwball mystery Manhattan Murder Mystery, only this time with Brooklyn hipsters instead of married Manhattanites. Not that that's a bad thing: Wild Canaries seems to be all that it claims, and more.
