Zod Threatens Fate of Your Planet
The Creative-Cartel will unveil a potentially game-changing new workflow software, Joust, at NAB next week in Las Vegas. Joust streamlines management of the digital workflow by tracking dailies, images, scenes, and meta-data, saving time and money and bringing greater efficiency to production. Read more
Roger Ebert’s passing got to me more than I thought, probably because I took him for granted. I always enjoyed his weekly jousting with Gene Siskel, but never took him seriously enough until I heard him speak eloquently about Psycho at Telluride in ’84 during a Janet Leigh tribute. Then I realized why he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic: TV was just the appetizer and his reviews were the main course (Siskel made snap judgments purely on emotion while Ebert had a more open-minded intellect that was still raring to go after the balcony closed). Still, he was adept at all media and his enthusiasm was infectious; and it wasn’t surprising that he embraced the internet and social media with his passionate discourse. Read more
For Adriano Goldman (Jane Eyre, Sin Nombre), it’s definitely about the company you keep. The Brazilian director of photography has shot Robert Redford as a former ’70s Weather Underground radical on the run in The Company You Keep, as well as Meryl Streep as the dysfunctional Midwestern matriarch in the upcoming adaptation of Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play, August: Osage County (Nov. 8). In both instances, Goldman has adopted what he calls “sophisticated realism” to get the most out of the political thriller, which is Redford’s best movie in years, and the eccentric black comedy that’s already attracting Oscar buzz as part of the Weinstein Company’s slate of contenders. Read more
The latest trailer for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby (May 10) makes it look like a Jazz Age Romeo + Juliet, with the hot sounds of Beyonce, Andre 3000, Lana Del Ray, and Florence + The Machine with lots of help from rapper and exec producer Jay-Z.
After buying Lucasfilm 154 days ago, Disney has closed LucasArts, laying off 150 employees. This is on the heels of cancelling The Clone Wars animated TV series on Cartoon Network and laying off animators at Lucasfilm. This means we will not be seeing the darker and edgier next-gen shooter game, Star Wars 1313, featuring higher quality performance-captured animation from Lucasfilm Animation and VFX from Industrial Light & Magic. Read more
Get a glimpse of the Marvel plan for Phase 2 in a post Avengers world, focusing on Tony Stark’s existential journey in Iron Man 3 (May 3) while also sneaking Thor: The Dark World (Nov. 8), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (April 4, 2014), The Avengers 2, Ant-Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Read more
Tim Burton will next direct Big Eyes, reports Deadline. Amy Adams (Oscar-nominated for The Master) and Christoph Waltz (Oscar winner for Django Unchained) star as Margaret and Walter Keane, whose paintings of large-eyed women and children became mass-produced kitsch art in the ’50s and ’60s. Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (Ed Wood) are scripting and co-producing with Burton and Lynette Howell of Electric City Ent. The Weinstein Co. is closing in on financing and distribution, with production to begin this summer. Read more
Pixar’s Finding Nemo sequel has finally been officially confirmed by Disney as Finding Dory (Nov. 25, 2015), in which the friendly-but-forgetful blue tang fish (voiced again by Ellen DeGeneres, who is more popular than ever with her acclaimed syndicated talk show) becomes the protagonist. Will this be her Memento? Read more
Last week Peter Jackson hosted a live sneak peek of some footage for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Dec. 13) as a treat for fans that bought the Blu-ray or DVD of An Unexpected Journey. Now you can view the six-minute excerpt. Read more
