We have all heard the news when one of our favourite actors suddenly and unexpectedly dies, often due to substance abuse, and we are struck by the tragedy and waste of a great light. This article takes a look at some of these events in the movie business.
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Live From Hollywood...
May22
New 'Man of Steel' Trailer: Watch trailer below
By Kevin P. Sullivan
The newest trailer for Zack Snyder's Superman reboot, "Man of Steel," which just premiered online, leaves beyond the austere and hopeful mood of the previous previews and focuses on the incredibly high stakes of the superhero adventure.
A good portion of the trailer focuses squarely on Michael Shannon's villainous General Zod, who has a message and a warning for the people of Earth and Superman.
The newest trailer for Zack Snyder's Superman reboot, "Man of Steel," which just premiered online, leaves beyond the austere and hopeful mood of the previous previews and focuses on the incredibly high stakes of the superhero adventure.
A good portion of the trailer focuses squarely on Michael Shannon's villainous General Zod, who has a message and a warning for the people of Earth and Superman.
"My name is General Zod. I have journeyed across an ocean of stars to reach you. Your world has sheltered one of my citizens. He will look like you, but he is not one of you," he says. "To those of you who know of his location, the fate of your planet rests in your hands. To Kal-El, I say this, surrender within 24 hours or watch this world suffer the consequences."
For the first time in the months of high anticipation, fans are getting a glimpse of the action, apart from quick looks at an in-flight punch from Superman, which the last trailer featured. The assault from Zod appears to be much larger in scale than we were led to believe before, and the showdowns between the two Kryptonians should be of epic proportions.
Actress Michelle Rodriguez arrives at the premiere of 'Fast & Furious 6' (image courtesy Getty)
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by Chris Woodyard
For sheer fun, it was hard to beat the premiere of Fast and Furious 6 at Universal Studios near Hollywood on Tuesday night.
First there was the outdoor concert, featuring Ludacris and crew. Then there were the various stars of the movie posing with various Dodge muscle cars. Of course, star Vin Diesel appeared on stage.
The movie itself was campy fun and it was easy to see why Chrysler's Dodge unit sponsored the afterparty. A new Challenger -- or was it a Charger? -- plays a starring role in the opening scene of the car-chase movie. Later, a vintage Charger takes over. Of course, many other cars take bows, but Chrysler certainly didn't get short changed when it comes to exposure.
After the movie, the party moved outside where the crowd munched on sliders and tacos, ogled go-go dancers and gathered around a few cars outside the theater. No burn-outs. At least not this time.
Randy Couture: 'Wesley Snipes Is Onboard For The Expendables 3'
Wesley Snipes in 2010 before having to go to the 'big house' for tax evasion (image courtesy Contactmusic)
Newly-freed Wesley Snipes has officially signed up to make his Hollywood return in the third installment of Sylvester Stallone's action epic The Expendables, according to his new co-star Randy Couture.
The Blade star has been on house arrest since his release from prison on 2 April (13) after serving a 27-month stint for tax evasion, and he's already secured his first new project to help relaunch his movie career.
Couture has confirmed the casting news to the New York Daily News and he can't wait to start working with martial arts expert Snipes.
Discussing possible plotlines for The Expendables 3, the retired wrestler-turned-actor says, "I would probably rather be on his side. But if not, I think (my character) Toll Road can handle him."
However, Couture admits he has no idea what kind of role Snipes will play, or if rumours of Mel Gibson joining the cast too are true: "They keep that stuff pretty close to their vests."
Weekend Box Office: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Slightly Underperforms, 'Iron Man 3' Continues To Earn Big
Scene from Star Trek Into Darkness (image courtesy AP / Paramount)
By Matthew Jacobs
"Star Trek Into Darkness" soared to No. 1 at the box office this weekend as expected, but its $84.1 million intake fell slightly short of studio expectations. The four-day tally, as reported by Box Office Mojo, failed to snag the $100 million Paramount Pictures hoped to rack up. It also falls just short of the $86.7 million that 2009's "Star Trek" managed to collect during its four-day overture.
J.J. Abrams' sci-fi sequel, with a reported budget of $190 million, earned an additional $40 million overseas, bringing its international total to $164.6 million. The movie's traditional Friday-to-Sunday weekend revenue came in at $70.6 million.
While nowhere near a commercial disappointment, the slight downturn "Star Trek" saw on its first weekend further underscores what a megahit "Iron Man 3" is. Despite seeing a 51.5 percent hit from its previous week in theaters, the Marvel Studios threequel's added $35.2 million catapults it to No. 25 on the list of the highest-grossing domestic films of all time. Its total gross now sits at $337.1 million domestically and more than $1 billion globally.
"The Great Gatsby," in its second weekend in theaters, nabbed $23.4 million, bringing its collective gross to $90.2 million. Still a decided hit, the Baz Luhrmann-directed rendition of the iconic F. Scott Fitzgerald novel has seen a slightly more tepid reaction than expected, given the massive buzz the movie saw in the weeks leading up to its release. "Iron Man 3" prevented the glitzy "Gatsby" from securing the top spot at the box office during the latter film's first weekend in theaters. Perhaps plagued by mixed reviews, "Gatsby" has yet to earn enough revenue to match its reported $105 million budget.
Cannes Panic: Christoph Waltz Rushed Offstage; Man With Suspicious Device Apprehended
The scene of chaos at Cannes as attendees run. (image courtesy THR)
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by Scott Roxborough, Rebecca Ford
Chaos erupted on the Croisette on Friday when a noise that sounded like gunshots broke out during a crowded evening on Cannes' main thoroughfare.
While security on the scene first told The Hollywood Reporter that fireworks had been set off, witnesses later said it was indeed a man with a gun.
The incident occurred just before the live television broadcast of Le Grand Journal, a nightly news and entertainment program that broadcasts from Martinez beach every day during the Cannes Film Festival. Jury members Christoph Waltz and Daniel Auteuil were being interviewed when the incident occurred. They were rushed offstage.
The broadcast was interrupted until police took the man away. In photos seen by THR, the man appears to be holding a suspicious device of some sort in his hand.
According to an eyewitness, after the small explosion, police told the crowd to run. He said: "I thought I heard them say 'Run, he has a gun.' "
No one was injured, according to security personnel at the scene.
Trailer for Vin Diesel's new 'Riddick' movie unveiled
Action star Vin Diesel (image courtesy NME / Press Association)
The trailer for Vin Diesel's new Riddick movie has been unveiled.
The film, simply titled Riddick, is the third instalment in the dark sci-fi saga. Diesel first played antihero Richard Riddick in 2000's Pitch Black before returning for 2004's The Chronicles Of Riddick. Both films were written and directed by David Twohy.
Twohy has also served as writer-director on the new movie. Karl Urban, who played the villainous Vaako in The Chronicles Of Riddick, has reprised his role, while Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff is a new addition to the cast.
According to the official plot synopsis, the film begins with Riddick fighting for survival on a barren planet occupied by deadly alien predators. His only option is to alert mercenaries by activating an emergency beacon, but in the process he also stirs up one of his old rivals.
James Franco's As I Lay Dying Shares Trailer Ahead Of Cannes
by Sean O'Connell
There's a very good chance this will be remembered as The Year of James Franco. Whether he was stealing scenes in Spring Breakers or challenging Sundance Film Festival audiences with provocatively sexual features or heading $200 million blockbusters like Oz The Great and Powerful, Franco has remained at the forefront of several film conversations this year ... and we're only in May. Now Franco's As I Lay Dying is heading to the Cannes Film Festival, and Yahoo Movies has a preview trailer [see below] to help get audiences ready for the actor/director's vision.
An adaptation of William Faulkner's celebrated novel of the same name, As I Lay Dying documents the death of Addie Bundren, and the subsequent effort of several family members to honor the deceased's wish to be buried in the town of Jefferson. The book is famous for its stream-of-conscious prose, and its sprawling effort to weave in the narratives of 15 different characters. Adapting it seems like a preposterous challenge, but Franco is an adventurous storyteller, and this film could be a masterpiece if he manages to pull it off.
We expect to hear more about As I Lay Dying as Cannes plays out later this month. Franco is putting his fingerprints all over the production, assuming the role of Darl while also directing, writing and co-producing. He has lured several old cast members to the project, which has a folklore-Western vibe to it (based on this early trailer). It could be No Country for Old Men (yay!) It also could be On the Road (not so yay).
'Great Gatsby' box office is Fitzgerald's Hollywood validation
Carey Mulligan and Leonardo DiCaprio in 'The Great Gatsby' (image courtesy Warner Bros.)
By Steven Zeitchik
Literary scholars and film experts will debate whether F. Scott Fitzgerald would have embraced or abhorred a big-budget 3-D version of "The Great Gatsby." (Baz Luhrmann has speculated that the author, a famous showman, might have liked it.) But there's one thing Fitzgerald almost unequivocally would have enjoyed about the new movie: its box-office success.
The new Leonardo DiCaprio-Carey Mulligan version of the film opened to $51.1 million in the U.S. this past weekend, higher than many analysts expected and certainly more than many of the skeptics predicted when the movie was delayed from last holiday season.
And though biographers say Fitzgerald was ambivalent about working in Hollywood, he certainly wanted to find success here. But try as he might, it eluded him.
Moving to Southern California in the late 1930s, the author toiled fruitlessly in a number of Tinseltown jobs. Mainly he worked on scripts from MGM, uncredited work on movies such as 1943's "Madam Curie" and even 1939's "Gone With The Wind." He saw some but hardly a lot of money, and even less recognition. The author came west because he wanted to try a new discipline and, even more so, because he needed the money. Neither quite worked out as planned.
In fact, probably the greatest sum he ever received from a Hollywood film production came from something he did before he arrived here: he sold the rights to "Gatsby" for just over $16,000, or nearly $220,000 in today's dollars (though he had to pay about 20% on that in commissions).
'Star Trek' Fights 'Exhausting And Exhilarating' For Benedict Cumberbatch
Benedict Cumberbatch in the 'Star Trek: Into Darkness' (image courtesy Paramount)
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By Todd Gilchrist, with reporting by Josh Horowitz
In "Star Trek Into Darkness," Benedict Cumberbatch plays a mysterious newcomer who quickly finds himself facing off against the crew of the Enterprise. In an epic fight scene with Mr. Spock himself, Zachary Quinto, Cumberbatch says he wore himself out even before he actually got on set to shoot the sequence.
"It was exhausting but so exhilarating," Cumberbatch told MTV News last week. "These guys had been training a little bit longer than I had, because I was late to the process of being part of the film. But one of the best parts was the fight rehearsals with Zach and our amazing, amazing stunt doubles. I was dragged up to a standard - to his standard - by the most extraordinary experts."
Director J.J. Abrams sat in the director's chair for the franchise for the second time on "Into Darkness," but even he admitted that the sequence turned out more impressively than he had expected. "The fun of it was to shoot it outside with this built piece of this ship with actual wind and smoke and the sun," Abrams explained.
"It ended up looking so crazy real even before we did the visual effects," he observed. "The sun was huge, but we got the camera movement on such a grand scale so you knew you weren't on a stage. I mean, it was a really crazy thing to shoot."
Quinto revealed that they shot the sequence on just one moving platform, but in the film, it looks like he and Cumberbatch square off on two. He admitted that seeing the end result took his breath away. "It's that kind of stuff where you look at the movie that you're in and go, I don't get it," he said.
Star Wars to be filmed in Britain, says Lucasfilm president
Some of the players in the Star Wars universe (image courtesy Reuters)
The producers of the highly anticipated next instalment of Star Wars have confirmed it will be made in Britain.
The official confirmation by Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy prompted the chancellor George Osborne to claim the force is strong with the British film industry.
The seventh episode of the science fantasy saga is due to start production next year and will be screened in 2015. It will be directed by JJ Abrams, who has overseen the reboot of the rival Star Trek franchise.
Kennedy said she was "delighted that Star Wars is coming back to Britain".
Lucasfilm representatives met with Osborne earlier this year to work on a deal to make the film in this country.
All of the six previous Star Wars movies have included UK production.
Osborne revealed the decision on Friday on Twitter: "Just confirmed: the next Star Wars film will be made in UK. Great news for our creative industries. May the force be with us ... ".
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are reunited on the big screen for pub crawl in new trailer for The World's End
The lads trying their hands at the pub crawl again find their hometown has changed somewhat. (image courtesy Focus Features)
By Sarah Fitzmaurice
It's been six years since Simon Pegg and Nick Frost appeared together in Hot Fuzz and the duo are now reunited on the big screen in their latest film The World's End.
Two decades after attempting, but failing to complete, an epic pub crawl five friends reunite with a mission to complete the 12 pub, 12 pint run.
They are convinced to try the pub crawl again by Gary King, played by Pegg, who drags his friends back to their hometown.
In a new trailer for the film, Pegg's character explains: 'Ever had one of those nights that starts out like any other but ends up being the best night of your life? I did.'
'Our goal that night was simple, 12 pubs, 12 pints from The First Post to The World's End but that night we never made it.'
King manages to persuade his pals to return to Newton Haven to see if they can complete the route from The First Post to The World's End.
Hot Docs, North America's largest documentary festival, had record-breaking crowds in Toronto where Audience Award went to Muscle Shoals.
Hot Docs has closed on a pair of high notes: record-breaking attendance and laurels for a crowd-pleasing film, Muscle Shoals, about a musical powerhouse that rose up in a small Alabama town.
The 11-day festival, North America's largest devoted to all things documentary, marked its 20th anniversary with 180,000 people attending 418 public screenings, up from a previous record of 165,000 people last year.
Chosen by filmgoer ballots, the Audience Award winner was Muscle Shoals, Greg "Freddy" Camalier's look at the soul, rock and R&B musical motherlode mined in the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studios.
The runners-up were Blood Brother, directed by Steve Hoover, and Victor Buhler's A Whole Lott More. The three filmmakers will share a cash prize crowd-funded through Hot Docs' 'Doc Ignite' platform. It stands at more than $6,500 and is still growing; the public can contribute until Friday, May 10.
Tom Cruise Returning 'Mission: Impossible 5' But Sequel Still Needs Director
Everyone's favourite 'Impossible' actor Tom Cruise (image courtesy AP)
This one was actually pretty easy. As first reported by Deadline.com and later confirmed by EW.com, Tom Cruise will play Ethan Hunt for a fifth time in an upcoming sequel to "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol." The film does not have an official title or release date just set, but J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot will produce alongside Cruise and Paramount Pictures.
That Cruise will star in "Mission: Impossible 5" is of little surprise to anyone. "Ghost Protocol," the last film in the franchise, was Cruise's biggest global hit ever, earning $694 million in ticket sales. As recently as last month, Cruise told British talk show host Graham Norton that he was working on a story for "Mission: Impossible 5." He also discussed the fifth film in an interview with Total Film back in October of 2012. It seems all that was left to make this reunion official was a Deadline.com news blast.
As for who will direct "Mission: Impossible 5," that remains up in the air. Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote and directed "Jack Reacher" for Paramount and Cruise, has been discussed as a possibility for the job. In February of this year, McQuarrie wrote on Twitter that he was in the midst of "deciding to accept" the "Mission: Impossible 5" job. Nothing came from that missive, however, and McQuarrie's tweet has since been deleted.
The Disney tentpole's North American debut is bested only by Marvel pic "The Avengers"
A long day at work for Iron Man (image courtesy Marvel / Disney)
by Pamela McClintock
The summer spectacle has begun.
Kicking off the season with the pedal to the metal, Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man 3 made the record books as it opened to $175.3 million from 4,253 theaters in North America, the No. 2 debut of all time behind fellow Marvel pic The Avengers ($207.4 million), also starring Downey as Iron Man. Iron Man 3 received a glowing A CinemaScore from audiences, fueling word of mouth.
Overseas, the Disney and Marvel threequel grossed $175.9 million in its second weekend, putting the 3D movie's international total at $504.8 million and early worldwide haul at $680.1 million. Internationally, Iron Man 3 - the first title in the franchise to be released in 3D -- is all but matching Avengers overseas, where 3D remains a big draw. China leads with a whopping $63.5 million, the top opening of all time for a Marvel film.
Iron Man 3 -- directed by franchise newcomer Shane Black -- has a strong shot of joining an elite club of films ultimately grossing $1 billion or more and is another sizeable victory for Marvel and parent company Disney, giving them the top two slots on the list of all-time North American openings as Iron Man 3 beat out the final Harry Potter pic ($169.2 million).
Iron Man 3 & Boston Marathon Bombing: PEOPLE's Critic Weighs In About Violent Similarities
Scene from Iron Man 3 involving a large explosion (image courtesy People / Disney)
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By PEOPLE Movie Critic Alynda Wheat
A megalomaniacal terrorist unleashes a rash of bombings across the United States. Innocent people die. A nation reels in horror. No, these aren't the latest headlines – they're the set-up of the latest Iron Man movie, already igniting controversy.
For some viewers, that plotline about a terrorist known as The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) cuts too closely to the Boston Marathon bombing allegedly carried out by the Tsarnaev brothers earlier this month. It certainly caused a hush to fall over the crowd at the film's glitzy Los Angeles premiere at the El Capitan Theatre last week.
The film's stars addressed the issue at a press conference last week, with Don Cheadle (who plays Col. James Rhodes) stressing that the film was finished well before the bombings earlier this month, and that there is no political agenda.
"The job of this film is to entertain," he said. "That's what we're hoping to do."
Gwyneth Paltrow (who plays Pepper Potts) brought the controversy even closer to home, talking about the effect of cinematic violence on her own children.
"We do live in an unsafe world," she said. "That's the truth, and I'm dealing with this now with my 7-year-old. He's sort of grappling with the fact that the world is unsafe and there are people who do harmful things. And I don't think there's anything wrong with presenting that idea. We can't lie to our children and pretend that the world is perfect."
To my mind, we also can't blame filmmakers when something they've created accidentally brushes up against a real-world act of violence. As long as we keep making movies with violent scenes, those kinds of unfortunate coincidences will keep happening.
Click the Continue Reading at link to read the rest of Alynda's story
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