May 8, 2012

Arnold Schwarzenegger will star in an action thriller about DEA agents who pay the price for ripping off a drug cartel in Ten.

Deadline reports that the Hollywood icon is once again teaming with QED International on the project. It will be the second Schwarzenegger picture QED has backed since the former Governator has returned to acting following his stint in politics.

Schwarzenegger is currently shooting Black Sands, directed by Act Of Valor’s Scott Waugh and Mike McCoy, in which he stars as a sheriff attempting to stop the leader of a drug cartel from escaping America into Mexico.

Training Day scribe David Ayer will direct Ten, working from a script by Skip Woods, who also wrote Black Sands.

It’s not clear just yet who Schwarzenegger will play in Ten, which tells the tail of an elite DEA unit which robs a drug cartel. The bad cops think they’ve pulled off the perfect crime until members of the task force begin dropping off.

Also, no word on when Ten will begin shooting, but Black Sands is set to land in theatres April 2013.

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May 8, 2012

Hollywood veteran Rob Lowe has signed on to play a prosecutor in a TV movie based on last year’s real life drama surrounding the trial of accused child murderer Casey Anthony.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lowe will star as Jeff Ashton, the Florida attorney who prosecuted Anthony during the trial in which she was accused of having murdered her daughter Caylee.

The drama-filled trial was televised, and captured worldwide attention. In the end, Anthony was acquitted of the killing.

The TV movie, Prosecuting Casey Anthony, will be produced by U.S. cable network Lifetime and based on Ashton’s book about the case: Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony.

Lowe, currently seen every week on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation, is an old hand at Lifetime’s brand of real-life dramas, having previously starred in Drew Peterson: Untouchable.

“We’re thrilled to have Rob returning to our network, after his amazing star turn as Drew Peterson,” says Lifetime exec Rob Sharenow. “He’s one of those rare stars who can do it all, comedy, drama, heroes and villains. There are very few actors in the history of our business who have been able to have such success on such a broad range.”

No word yet on when shooting on Prosecuting Casey Anthony will begin.

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May 8, 2012

Jessica Chastain, star of The Help, has opted not to join the cast of the upcoming Marvel comics sure-to-be-a-blockbuster Iron Man 3.

The tin-pan Superman, who is riding the top of the box office as part of the super-powered supergroup The Avengers, won’t have the Oscar-nominated actress in his corner for his third adventure.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Chastain, who appeared in six different movies in 2011, including The Help, The Tree of Life, The Debt and Take Shelter, was offered the role of a scientist in the next Iron Man flick.

Despite rumours she had taken the part, the actress says she’s just too busy to join the Marvel franchise. Chastain took to her Facebook page to announce her disappointment over her lack of availability.

“Sorry to say that Iron Man 3 isn’t going to work out,” Chastain wrote. “My schedule is jammed packed and I can’t fit anything else in. The press announced my possible attachment far too soon.”

The star says that, though things didn’t work out this time, she hopes to tangle with some comic book superheroes in the future. “I know many of you wanted me to be involved, and I’m so sorry to disappoint you,” she writes. “Hopefully there’ll be another Marvel film in my future.”

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May 8, 2012

Funnyman Jonah Hill first flexed his dramatic acting muscle in last year’s baseball drama Moneyball. Now the star is set to once again put his acting chops to the test, starring in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming The Wolf of Wall Street.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hill will team with Titanic star Leonardo DiCaprio in the picture, an adaptation of former stockbroker Jordan Belfort’s best-selling memoir.

The story of Belfort’s participation in a securities fraud scam back in the 1990s, Wolf will track Belfort’s descent from yacht-owning money man to drug addicted felon.

DiCaprio will play Belfort, while Hill will take the role of Danny Porush, Belfort’s best-friend and partner in the scheme.

Though Hill continues to enjoy his rise as one of Hollywood’s top leading comedians – his last picture, 21 Jump Street was a surprise smash – he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars for his Moneyball role opposite Brad Pitt.

The actor will next be seen opposite Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn in the upcoming sci-fi comedy The Watch.

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May 8, 2012

The Pentagon refused to cooperate with the production of The Avengers over concerns about the ‘reality’ of the superhero blockbuster.

Wired reports that the American Defense Department had been working with Marvel in the early stages of the production, but backed out over concerns about the representation of the quasi-governmental body that appears to direct S.H.I.E.L.D. in the picture.

The American military often helps out Hollywood pictures by supplying jets, battleships and other vehicles and equipment in order to boost the realism of battle scenes.

Though such fantasy flicks as Transformers and even Iron Man have been assisted in the past, the depiction of a presumably international body that dictates S.H.I.E.L.D.’s responses in The Avengers was one Hollywood idea the military couldn’t get behind.

“We couldn’t reconcile the unreality of this international organization and our place in it,” says Phil Strub, the Defense Department’s Hollywood liaison. “To whom did S.H.I.E.L.D. answer? Did we work for S.H.I.E.L.D.? We hit that roadblock and decided we couldn’t do anything.”

Strub says the ambiguity of the agency’s authority was never clear, preventing the Defense Department from getting involved.

“It just got to the point where it didn’t make any sense,” Strub says.

The military did allow for some involvement in the picture. A stand-off towards the end of the film includes National Guard Humvees lent to the production by the department.

A number of Air Force jets that appear in the picture, however, were digital creations of the filmmakers and not actual military planes.

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May 7, 2012

It appears James Bond will be knighted by the Queen in a video to be shown during the opening ceremonies of this summer’s upcoming Summer Olympics.

UK newspaper the Telegraph reports that Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle is the artistic director of the ceremony and has been shooting scenes for the video at Buckingham Palace with Bond stars Daniel Craig and Judi Dench, who plays M.

Word is one such scene involves Bond being knighted by the Queen – who guest-stars as herself.

“Daniel Craig was here in black tie one morning in early April,” an anonymous source tells the Evening Standard. “Judi Dench was also here, and the talk of the Palace was that Bond was going to be knighted that morning.”

A spokesman for the Royals refused to dish on any details surrounding the rumoured knighting of 007.

“Buckingham Palace is involved in a number of filming projects during this special Jubilee year and we would not go into details of a specific project until a nearer the time of transmission.”

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games will kick-off July 27, while Bond’s next adventure, Skyfall, will premier in London on October 26.

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May 7, 2012

Sam Raimi is leading a lawsuit against a production company that claims he abandoned his trademark on his horror movie classic The Evil Dead.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Raimi’s Renaissance Pictures has sued Award Pictures, which has announced plans to produce a fourth film in the series, following Raimi’s Evil Dead 2 and Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness.

Raimi formed Renaissance in 1979 along with producer Robert Tapert and actor-producer Bruce Campbell to make the first Evil Dead. The director is currently producing his own remake of the film for Sony Pictures.

Award Pictures, however, claims that Raimi abandoned the trademark when he wrote in the 2000 book The Evil Dead Companion that he would “never” do a sequel. “This statement is a public declaration by the defendant that the defendant abandoned the alleged ‘mark,’ Evil Dead, decades ago,” Award claims in documents filed with the USPTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

Rami and Renaissance, however, claim they’ve continued to use the trademark despite the comments in the book.

“As a result of… the cult success of the films and related products, the Evil Dead mark has acquired enormous value.”

Raimi is producing the remake of his own classic film, which will be shot by newcomer director Fede Alvarez. Alvarez is set to start shooting soon, working from a script he cowrote with Rodo Sayagues that was later punched up Cody Diablo.

Evil Dead will then rise from the, well, dead, when it hits the big screen once again in April 2013.

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May 7, 2012

James Cameron says he wants to continue making Avatar movies for years, with plans to shoot up to three more films on Pandora.

The Canadian director tells the New York Times he’s committed to telling the ongoing sci-fi tale of the moon world he created in the 2009 blockbuster and isn’t interested in any other stories.

“I’m in the Avatar business. Period. That’s it,” Cameron tells the paper. “I’m making Avatar 2, Avatar 3, maybe Avatar 4, and I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them. I’m not interested in taking scripts.”

Cameron says he believes he can say everything he wants to say as an artist by continuing the Avatar mythology.

“That all sounds I suppose a little bit restricted, but the point is I think within the Avatar landscape I can say everything I need to say that I think needs to be said, in terms of the state of the world and what I think we need to be doing about it,” he says. “And doing it in an entertaining way.”

The filmmaker says anything he can’t express via his Avatar movies can be voiced by the documentaries he continues to produce.

“Anything I can’t say in that area, I want to say through documentaries, which I’m continuing. I’ve done five documentaries in the last 10 years, and I’ll hopefully do a lot more.”

Work has already begun on the forthcoming sequels, Cameron says, with most of the effort thus far spent on designing the computer systems that will bring the fantasy world to life.

“We’ve spent the last year and a half on software development and pipeline development… So we’ve been mostly working on the tool set, the production pipeline, setting up the new stages in Los Angeles… that sort of thing. And, by the way, writing. We haven’t gotten to the design stage yet. That’ll be the next.”

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May 7, 2012

Indian fans of The Avengers have blasted scenes in the superhero blockbuster that depict the slums of Kolkata.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, while the Marvel super-friends flick is doing well at the box office in India, some critics and audience members have criticized two scenes which depict Dr. Bruce Banner – aka The Hulk – living and working in the nation’s slums.

“It is disturbing to see the murky underbelly of India in Hollywood films,” says Bollywood actress Neha Dhupia. “But before pointing it out to the West, we need to make efforts to change their perception about us.”

In the scenes, Banner is seen administering treatment to the poor in a ramshackle village. A newspaper article about the scenes in the Hindustan Times was headlined “Hulk’s Slum Act Miffs Fans.”

“Kolkata has a rich culture and heritage, and a filmmaker should respect that. There are two scenes about India, and they only show slums,” Kolkata actor Rituparna Sengupta is quoted as saying. “It could have been done in better taste.”

The controversial scenes were shot not in India, but in New Mexico. Two Indian professionals quoted in the newspaper article contend that Hollywood has a troubling history of highlighting only the poorest parts of their country.

“There is no reason to be happy about the Indian connection (in The Avengers),” says software professional Nitin Bhatia. “It has become a trend in the West to show Indian slums and a Westerner trying to help the poor here.”

Bank employee Rishabh Bal also questioned the West’s take on India, adding “When will Hollywood stop cashing in on the poverty here?”

While the scenes have proven controversial, the World Bank claims that, according to a 2005 estimate, 41.6 percent of the Indian population falls below the international poverty line of $1.25 (US) a day.

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May 7, 2012

Fears of drawing comparisons to a Florida tragedy from earlier this year have prompted Twentieth Century Fox to change the title of an upcoming Ben Stiller comedy.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the sci-fi chuckler previously titled Neighborhood Watch has had its name changed to The Watch, in order to prevent comparisons to the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin.

Martin was shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer in the city of Sanford, Florida, in February of this year.

“As the subject matter of this alien invasion comedy bears no relation whatsover [sic] to the recent tragic events in Florida, the studio altered the title to avoid any accidental or unintended misimpression [sic] that it might cause,” the studio said in a statement.

Starring Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and Richard Ayoade, The Watch tells the story of a group of neighbourhood watch volunteers who are shocked to discover that the real threat to the community comes from a potential invasion of extra-terrestrials.

The comedy, directed by Lonely Island rapper Akiva Schaffer, lands on theatre screens July 27.

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