SEPTEMBER 2006 NEWS:
9.27.06:
Disney
has announced the single and double-disc DVD editions of POTC: DEAD
MAN'S CHEST, which will be released in the US on December 5.
The single-disc will include a commentary with writers Ted Elliot &
Terry Rossio, and a blooper reel. The two-disc collector's edition will
include that along with a Charting the Return pre-production
documentary, an According To Plan: The Harrowing and True Story of Dead
Man’s Chest documentary, a Captain Jack: From Head To Toe featurette, a
Mastering The Blade: Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Jack Davenport
featurette, a Meet Davy Jones: Anatomy Of A Legend featurette, and a
Creating The Kraken featurette. Completing the package will be a Dead
Men Tell New Tales: Re-Imagineering The Attraction feature, Jerry
Bruckheimer: A Producer's Photo Diary, a Fly On The Set: The Bone Cage
featurette, and Pirates on Main Street: The Dead Man’s Chest Premiere.
9.26.06:
Warner
Bros. has now launched their
official
web site in Spain for GOYA'S GHOSTS (Los Fantasmas de
Goya). You can now view the trailer.
The
IMDB is now showing VALHALLA RISING as a 2007 film project for
Stellan. You may remember several months ago the rumor went around and I
personally asked Stellan, who said he had never even heard of it. Well,
he STILL has never heard of it.
09.22.06
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Two more
GOYA'S GHOSTS photos. The one on the left shows
Stellan on the set with co-star Javier Bardem and the film's
cinematographer, Javier Aguirresarobe. If you click on the
right one, you'll view a full-length portrait of our artist
at work, Francisco de Goya. Have you noticed Stellan's eyes?
I believe they've given him brown contacts. |
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Arclight
Films International & Movies Down Under have agreed to distribute
BEOWULF AND GRENDEL in New Zealand. The
film will open in 24 theatres on October 5th. A Region 4 DVD is also
scheduled for release prior to Christmas. In Arizona the film will be
featured at the Scottsdale International Film Festival, which runs from
October 6-10, 2006. And you can purchase the DVD in the USA in just four
days!
In
today's edition of Sweden's newspaper Expressen, Stellan spoke
about cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, who died on Wednesday at 83
years old. "He was a fantastic man to work with." Apparently he talked
to the newspaper from Los Angeles where he's presently filming POTC:
AT WORLD'S END.
09.21.06:
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Here's a new photo of Stellan from
GOYA'S GHOSTS. At first I joked that he looked like he
was wearing a brightly lit hat. Well, I've been corrected!
He indeed has candles on his head in order to have enough
light to paint. Several hi-res images have surfaced on the Internet
including some with Stellan and have now been posted to the
film page. Still no word
on a US distributor... |
There's
a new addition to Stellan's filmography - a road trip comedy called
KILL YOUR DARLINGS (2006), also starring his eldest son
Alexander. I was hesitant to add it but IMDB Pro includes it in their
filmography and who am I to argue? Sometime I'll have to ask Stellan
about his role. The film opened in Sweden in April of this year and also
made its US premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival that month. Here are
some photos taken at the Swedish premiere.
Sven
Nykvist, one of the world’s foremost
cinematographers, whose poetic use of light
illuminated many of Ingmar Berman's greatest
films, died yesterday in Sweden after a long
illness. Stellan and Sven had two
collaborations. In 1987 Nykvist was the
cinematographer for THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS
OF BEING, and then four years later, he
wrote, directed and filmed
THE OX.
Stellan shared some of his memories working with
Sven in the documentary highlighting his life
called Ljuset håller mig sällskap (Light
Keeps me Company). You can
read his comments here.
Last
month at San Jose's ZeroOne Festival, Director
Mike Figgis featured a new interpretation of his
2000 film TIMECODE, starring Stellan,
Selma Hayek, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Saffron
Burrows. For the performance Figgis manipulated
the image and sound to create a new way to
experience the story. Shot simultaneously on
four cameras and presented in four frames,
Timecode tracks the lives of several people
who work at a Hollywood film production company.
Figgis says he's "very much concerned with an
abstracted view of parallel action and
synchronicity. These notions have always been an
obsession for me."
09.10.06:
There
is still no official word on a US distributor for
GOYA'S GHOSTS
though all signs point to a Warner Bros. limited release by year's end.
The film will premiere in Germany on November 23 and in Spain on
November 10. For a film that appears to have Oscar talk buzzing around
it, it's strange that there's barely any promotional effort to
make audiences even aware of the upcoming film.
BEOWULF
AND GRENDEL premiered in Iceland last week. According to the
online newspaper Visir, the film received mixed reviews in
Iceland, some likening it to Lord of the Rings and others to
Highlander 3. The film is the country's most expensive movie
production. Director Sturla Gunnarsson was unable to attend the premiere
due to his work schedule but Gerry Butler was able to represent the
cast. The DVD will be released in the US on September 26th. It is
available for pre-order at
Amazon. As of yet, there is no release date for the UK. Can you
believe the DVD doesn't include subtitles! That will be sorely missed
considering the problem of understanding much of the dialogue. The DVD
does include a commentary track with director Gunnarsson and
screenwriter Berzins with occasional comments from costume designer
Debra Hanson and first assistant director Wendy Ord. There's also a
collection of interviews from various cast and crew members, including
an extended talk with Butler in his trailer during filming. Normally the
"making of the film" is included, but in this case it's actually been
bundled as a separate DVD called "Wrath of Gods." I'm not sure who would
be interested in spending the extra cash. And lastly, there's a
gallery of costume and character sketches, eight minutes of deleted
scenes and three minutes of footage comparing storyboards to the opening
of the film. Thanks to DVD Verdict for this information.
Though the film will be shortly released on DVD, it
will be screened in Austin, Texas, at the Fantastic Fest on September
21, and then at the Alamo Downtown Theatre in AUSTIN from September 30
thru October 2. It will also be shown at the Saratoga Film Forum in
upstate New York on October 7 and this week it will
have its Australian premiere at the Gold Coast Fantastic Film Festival.
For a very humorous review by Joanna Connors, check out Cleveland's
newspaper,
The Plain Dealer.
Continuing
its rampage across the movie box offices of the world,
DEAD MAN'S CHEST entered sacred waters over
the weekend becoming the third film in history to pass the $1 billion
mark in global ticket sales. With Italy the lone remaining major market
left, it is unlikely to surpass the number two film, Lord of the
Rings: The Return of the King at $1.1 billion, and certainly
won't reach Titanic's
$1.8 billion, but taking home the bronze is an astonishing achievement.
09.01.06:
According
to David Poland of Movie City News, GOYA'S
GHOSTS has yet to find a US distributor but he speculates that
they'll obtain one this month. Warner Bros. is distributing it in Spain.
I received a heads up from Sharon Smithline that the
trailer is now being shown in Spain theatres as LOS FANTASMAS DE GOYA.
The trailer is dubbed in Spanish and shows several scenes of Natalie
Portman as well as a few Goya paintings with her actual face in them (as
seen below). She also reports that director Milos Forman will be at The
New Yorker Festival on October 7 and will show part of his film. Nadia
from Mexico also alerted me to the very
first film clips from the movie now being shown on Spanish
television. Thanks so much, ladies!
Sweden's
Expressen newspaper ran a couple articles last weekend regarding
the future casting of the country's most expensive film production.
There will be two films based on novelist
Jan
Guillou's medieval trilogy about a templar knight named
Arn Magnusson. The production, with a budget of nearly $30
million, is preparing to name a director and announce its cast. It's
possible that three Skarsgård family
members may be given roles. Both Gustaf and Alexander are being
considered for the role of the younger Arn with their father playing the
older Arn. According to producer Waldemar Bergendahl, Alexander is
definitely in the picture; however, his role may end up being Arn's
brother or King Knut. Last spring Stellan's eldest son sought fame
in Los Angeles, but a good role would make him stay in Sweden. Alexander
says, " I live a nomad life moving
between different productions. Now I've been in Sweden all summer." And
how does he feel about being in the film? He responds, "It's not as much
fun if a producer only sees profit in having two or three Skarsgårds in
a movie. I want to be hired for having talent rather than being just a
name," though he admits "it would be great to work together." The first
film is scheduled to open in December 2007 with the second film opening
in the fall of 2008. The director has not been named yet through it's
rumored it might be a Danish director, but not Billie August, Lars Von
Trier or Thomas Vinterberg. Decisions on film locations are still
undecided - possibly Jordan or Morocco and
Västergötland.
Many thanks to Robin Solsjö Höglund for his translation of this news
from Sweden!
The
second sequel to PIRATES has now been officially named AT
WORLD'S END. The film makes its US premiere on May 25, 2007. And I'm
finally going to see DEAD MAN'S CHEST
this Sunday afternoon! With being at the beach most of the summer and
then preparing for our son's wedding, there just hasn't been a lot of
free time. Having seen the first PIRATES film, I'm set for 2 1/2 hours
of pure fun watching the antics of Jack Sparrow played so wickedly funny
by the one and only Johnny Depp. Of course, adding Stellan to the cast
only makes it that much more exciting. BTW, here's a
good link to another interview with Stellan discussing his
make-up.
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