Angelina Jolie Has a New Leading Man
Angelina Jolie has a new man in her life. No, not that kind of man. A leading man for her next directorial effort, Unbroken. The movie, based on the nonfiction book recounting a tale of survival during WWII, centers on resilient soldier Lou Zamperini, whose plane crashed in the South Pacific, leaving him stranded on the open ocean for 47 days, only to then be taken prisoner of war by the Japanese for two years. So it's a big, tough role, and Jolie did an international search for her man. She eventually settled on one Jack O'Connell, a British actor who is maybe best known for the show Skins. We'll have to assume that he can do a good American accent. So will this movie make him a big star? Just might! Universal announced today that the movie will be released on Christmas Day of 2014, so they're certainly positioning it as a big awards-y, box office-y kind of a thing. So, congrats, kid. Don't f--k it up. Meanwhile, every other young actor in the UK and America is going to go be alone for a while.[The Hollywood Reporter]
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Good news for Jack O'Connell, bad news for Geena Davis. TNT has decided not to proceed any further with the pilot she had with the network, about an eccentric bounty hunter. (Ugh.) Deadline writes a single, haunting sentence about the network's reasoning: "Something to do with its tone." Something to do with tone. Well that won't echo in Geena Davis's head forever or anything, jeez. "Something with its tone. Something with its tone. Something with its tone..." Mysterious and sad. A reason for nothing and a reason for everything. "What didn't they like?" "The tone." "Oh..." Shivers. Anyway, Davis was joined in the pilot by Scott Bakula, Gloria Reuben, Enrico Colatoni, and Marsha Mason if you can believe it. What a cast! But now, nope. Not at TNT, anyway. Oh well. Better luck next time. And work on that tone. [Deadline]
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Oh lord. If your nerdy brother or roommate or whoever just had to excuse himself to go to the bathroom and then you heard a pained sort of muffle/yip sound, it's because Summer Glau, beloved mystery creature from Firefly and tough protector robot from Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, has just joined the cast of The CW's mostly ludicrous superhero thing Arrow. She will play "the enigmatically beautiful and professionally dangerous Isabel Rochev, Vice President of Aquisitions." So that ought to be... Well, I don't know. I was going to say interesting. Is it interesting? I mean, it's interesting to some people, clearly. But on the whole, hard to say. Anyway, just give your nerdy brother or roommate or whoever some time and he'll get himself together and return to the world of the normal soon enough. He just needs a moment. [Entertainment Weekly]
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Here is the first image of Tom Hanks as Walt Disney and Emma Thompson as P.L. Travers, the author of Mary Poppins, in Saving Mr. Banks, a movie about Disney trying to convince Travers to sell him the rights to Poppins. They look good! I mean, that's not exactly what Walt Disney looked like nor is it what Travers looked like, but whatever. It's a movie, not a documentary. The movie comes out on December 13, and given the cast that probably means it's hungry for some Oscars. Which is fine, though isn't there something a little weird/gross about Disney making a big serious movie about the wonder of Walt Disney? I know that everything they do is an advertisement for themselves, but this is a little direct. Oh well. Nothing to be done about Disney at this point.
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Here is the first trailer for Seventh Son, a fantasy adventure movie starring the improbable duo, improbable for a fantasy adventure anyway, of Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore. Bridges is a guy who fights evil spirits, Julianne Moore is a witch who likes evil spirits, and caught in the middle is dreamy Ben Barnes, who has to learn the dark spirit-fighting trade from Jeff Bridges. It's very strange that this movie was made with this cast, but who knows what mysteries lie at the heart of casting directors. The movie was supposed to come out this fall but has now been pushed to January, which usually means the movie's a turkey. Really, should we be surprised about that? Just listen to Jeff Bridges's voice in the trailer. It's... strained, to say the least.
