08.22.2013 | By Jack Rico |
Filmmaker James Cameron has tapped noted science fiction author Steven Charles Gould (Jumper) to write four stand-alone novels based upon – and expanding — Cameron’s history-making 2009 film Avatar, and Cameron’s stories for his three upcoming Avatar sequels. Read More
03.7.2012 | By Jack Rico |
Dominican actress Zoe Saldaña, known worldwide for her starring role as Neytiri in Avatar, is in negotiations to join Christian Bale (The Dark Knight) in ‘Out of the Furnace ‘. Little is known about the role other than that she will act as the ex-wife of Bale in the film. There is also speculation that her screen time will be plentiful.
The argument will focus on an ex-convict (Bale) trying to integrate back into society in a small town in Indiana, but is haunted by a figure from his past.
In an interesting note, the project, whose original name was Low Dweller, Rupert Sanders was initially attached to direct it, but Sanders retired and Scott Cooper was hired. Also Channing Tatum and Garrett Hedlund were considered to play the brother of Christian Bale. From what we understand, Casey Affleck is the winner of that competition.
Saldaña will join two other Hispanics at heart, Robert Duvall, who is about to confirm his role as Bale’s uncle while Viggo Mortensen could end up being the villain.
The Dominican actress has 4 upcoming films: Avatar 2, Blood Ties, Star Trek 2 and The Words.
The distribution company for ‘Out of the Furnace‘ is Relativity Media with Appian Way as the producer. Leonardo DiCaprio and Ridley Scott will serve as producers of the film. Still no release date.
04.20.2010 | By Jack Rico |
Get ready to get royally screwed – 3 times – by James Cameron. On April 22nd, Earth Day, 20th Century Fox and James Cameron will release Avatar on DVD and Blu-Ray.
Everyone who didn’t see in theaters is anxious to see what all the fuss was about. How great was the 3D experience? Did it revolutionize the way we see films? All those questions will NOT be answered nor seen in the upcoming DVD release.
Why? Because the smart marketing people at Fox will be releasing 3 versions of the film between now and next year.
Here’s the breakdown of what you should expect for all 3 editions:
– On April 22, Best Buy and the rest of the DVD chains will be renting and selling the bare and bones edition, which essentially contains only the 2D movie. No special features, no menus, no trailers, no bonus features at all. According to Cameron, they wanted to use every available bit of information on the disc to preserve the visual and audio quality of the film.
– The second version will be released in November. They’re calling it ‘The Ultimate Edition,’ which will drop after the theatrical re-release of Avatar in 3D with an extra 20 to 40 minutes of deleted footage and extra features.
– And lastly, a third version will drop in 3D for 2011 as a 3 disc set, along with all the bells and whistles your blue Avatar self can imagine. The idea is that by then, more consumers are expected to have 3-D televisions in their homes.
So with all this information we just researched for you, why would you buy the upcoming Avatar blu-ray movie, if you can see the re-release of Avatar, with additional content and in the best possible 3D at theaters, then have the option to also buy the special edition in November?
What we want you to avoid is to have to pay over $100 for the same dvd movie. It makes Cameron richer and you poorer. Doesn’t he already have enough money? Isn’t the movie already the highest grossing in history, destroying Titanic’s record from what was thought to be utterly impossible! Don’t buy into the marketing ploy that some marketer from Fox came up with to exploit you. Just wait a few months and get a much superior release for your hard earned money.
And for those of you that don’t care buying it, but streaming it via Netflix on your big 50 inch LED screen, with your high speed FIOS internet, get ready to wait 28 days to see Avatar, May 20th to be exact, after its April 22nd release. This was part of a deal just signed between Netflix and Fox and Universal Pictures. So why would Netflix succumb to this deal? More inventory at a discounted price and an expanded number of titles it can stream directly to customers. In exchange to have Blockbuster sell first, Netflix, for the first time, will stream shows like 24 under the new pact. The company seems to be calculating that video-on-demand will become a bigger part of its business in the future, making any loss of revenue due to rental delays negligible.
So there you go folks. Be a wise and savvy consumer and don’t let yourself be taken for a ride.
03.6.2010 | By Jack Rico |
With less than 24 hours away from the 2010 Oscars, fans of this big night have their thoughts of who will be the winners of the big awards. I’ll be personally looking at the Foreign Films category because that is where I think the best films of 2009 are! Two Latin American films are nominated. My peeps are putting their share!
Here at ShowBizCafe.com, I decided to predict the winners of all the categories for that big pool you guys are planning on having Sunday night.
Share your ideas and predict the winners along with me on Twitter on Sunday night at 8pm. I’ll be blogging live all 3-4 hours.
Without any more delays, check out my full 2010 Oscar Awards Predictions highlighted in bold:
Best Picture
The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier and Greg Shapiro, producers)
Avatar (James Cameron and Jon Landau, producers)
District 9 (Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, producers)
An Education (Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, producers)
Inglourious Basterds (Lawrence Bender, producer)
Precious (Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, producers)
A Serious Man (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, producers)
Up in the Air (Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, producers)
The Blind Side (Gil Netter, Andrew A Kosove and Broderick Johnson, producers)
Up (Jonas Rivera, producer)
Best Director
The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
Avatar (James Cameron)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
Up in the Air (Jason Reitman)
Precious (Lee Daniels)
Best Actress
Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side
Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia
Helen Mirren in The Last Station
Gabourey Sidibe in Precious
Carey Mulligan in An Education
Best Actor
Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart
Colin Firth in A Single Man
George Clooney in Up in the Air
Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker
Morgan Freeman in Invictus
Best Supporting Actress
Mo’Nique in Precious
Vera Farmiga in Up in the Air
Penélope Cruz in Nine
Anna Kendrick in Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal in Crazy Heart
Best Supporting Actor
Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds
Christopher Plummer in The Last Station
Matt Damon in Invictus
Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones
Woody Harrelson in The Messenger
Animated Feature Film
Up (Pete Docter and Bob Peterson)
The Princess and the Frog (Ron Clements and John Musker)
Coraline (Henry Selick)
Fantastic Mr Fox (Wes Anderson)
The Secret of Kells (Tomm Moore)
Foreign Language Film
The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, Germany)
The Secret of Her Eyes (Juan Jose Campanella, Argentina)
A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, France)
The Milk of Sorrow (Claudia Llosa, Peru)
Ajami (Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani, Israel)
Writing (adapted screenplay)
Precious (Geoffrey Fletcher)
District 9 (Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell)
An Education (Nick Hornby)
Up in the Air (Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner)
In the Loop (Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche)
Writing (original screenplay)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
The Messenger (Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman)
The Hurt Locker (Mark Boal)
A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen)
Up (Pete Docter and Bob Petersen)
Art Direction
Avatar (art direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; set decoration: Kim Sinclair)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (art direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro; set decoration: Caroline Smith)
Nine (art direction: John Myhre; set decoration: Gordon Sim)
Sherlock Holmes (art direction: Sarah Greenwood; set decoration: Katie Spencer)
The Young Victoria (art direction: Patrice Vermette; set decoration: Maggie Gray)
Cinematography
Avatar (Mauro Fiore)
The White Ribbon (Christian Berger)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Bruno Delbonnel)
The Hurt Locker (Barry Ackroyd)
Inglourious Basterds (Robert Richardson)
Costume Design
The Young Victoria (Sandy Powell)
Coco Before Chanel (Catherine Leterrier)
Bright Star (Janet Patterson)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Monique Prudhomme)
Nine (Colleen Atwood)
Documentary (feature)
The Cove (Louie Psihoyos and Fisher Stevens)
Burma VJ (Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller)
Food, Inc (Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein)
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith)
Which Way Home (Rebecca Cammisa)
Documentary (short subject)
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province (Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill)
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner (Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher)
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant (Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert)
Music by Prudence (Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett)
Rabbit à la Berlin (Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra)
Film Editing
Avatar (Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron)
District 9 (Julian Clarke)
The Hurt Locker (Bob Murawski and Chris Innis)
Inglourious Basterds (Sally Menke)
Precious (Joe Klotz)
Makeup
Star Trek (Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow)
Il Divo (Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano)
The Young Victoria (Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore)
Music (original score)
Up (Michael Giacchino)
Avatar (James Horner)
Fantastic Mr Fox (Alexandre Desplat)
The Hurt Locker (Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders)
Sherlock Holmes (Hans Zimmer)
Music (original song)
The Weary Kind, from Crazy Heart, by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett
Almost There, from The Princess and the Frog, by Randy Newman
Down in New Orleans, from The Princess and the Frog, by Randy Newman
Loin de Paname, from Paris 36, by Reinhardt Wagner and Frank Thomas
Take It All, from Nine, by Maury Yeston
Short Film (animated)
Logorama (Nicolas Schmerkin)
A Matter of Loaf and Death (Nick Park)
French Roast (Fabrice O Joubert)
The Lady and the Reaper (Javier Recio Gracia)
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty (Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell)
Short Film (live action)
The Door (Juanita Wilson and James Flynn)
Miracle Fish (Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey)
Instead of Abracadabra (Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström)
Kavi (Gregg Helvey)
The New Tenants (Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson)
Sound Editing
Avatar (Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle)
The Hurt Locker (Paul NJ Ottosson)
Inglourious Basterds (Wylie Stateman)
Star Trek (Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin)
Up (Michael Silvers and Tom Myers)
Sound Mixing
Avatar (Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson)
The Hurt Locker (Paul NJ Ottosson and Ray Beckett)
Inglourious Basterds (Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano)
Star Trek (Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J Devlin)
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Greg P Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson)
Visual Effects
Avatar (Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R Jones)
District 9 (Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken)
Star Trek (Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton)
12.28.2009 | By Pau Brunet |
The estimated $278 million in weekend box-office revenue broke the previous record of roughly $253 million set in July 2008, the weekend “The Dark Knight” was released.
A diverse group of films drew throngs to the multiplexes: James Cameron’s “Avatar” pushed strongly into its second week while “Sherlock Holmes,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” and “It’s Complicated” all opened.
“Avatar,” the 3-D epic, topped them all, earning $75 million for 20th Century Fox, according to studio estimates Sunday. Remarkably, that was only a 3 percent drop from its opening weekend total of $77.4 million. (Blockbusters typically drop 30-50 percent in the second weekend.) In its 10 days of release, “Avatar” has made $212 million domestically — and could be on its way to a worldwide gross of over $1 billion.
“This thing is going to be playing and playing, I can tell you that,” said Bert Livingston, 20th Century Fox distribution executive. “There’s a lot of business out there. Everybody’s got good movies out.”
In second was “Sherlock Holmes,” Guy Ritchie’s reboot of the franchise with Robert Downey Jr. starring as Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective. The Warner Bros. film opened with a weekend total of $65.4 million, including a record Christmas Day debut of $24.9 million.
It was a start that seemed sure to pave the way for sequels. Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., called the result “sensational.”
“Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” which opened Wednesday, took in $50.2 million on the weekend and $77.1 million in its five days of release. The film, also from Fox, earned an impressive $18.8 on Wednesday alone. The strong start suggested that “Squeakquel” was likely to surpass its 2007 original, which made $217 million.
Also opening was Nancy Meyer’s “It’s Complicated,” the romantic comedy from starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. With an audience 72 percent female, the Universal film took in $22.1 million, a solid debut.
The buffo Christmas weekend results spelled good things for all the films in release in the coming week — one of the most lucrative of the year.
“We all know what next week means to the industry. This is a huge,” said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal. “Christmas is past us. No more shopping, no more returning. College kids are home. … I’m so optimistic about what the next weekend holds for us.”
Said Livingston: “Starting this Monday, every day is a Saturday.”
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. “Avatar,” $75 million.
2. “Sherlock Holmes,” $65.4 million.
3. “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” $50.2 million.
4. “It’s Complicated,” $22.1 million.
5. “Up in the Air,” $11.8 million.
6. “The Blind Side,” $11.7 million.
7. “The Princess and the Frog,” $8.7 million.
8. “Nine,” $5.5 million.
9. “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” $5 million.
10. “Invictus,” $4.4 million.
12.17.2009 | By Pau Brunet |
Hace once años, el Titanic de James Cameron zarpó diciendo adiós al gran espectáculo de Hollywood. La epopeya de aquel barco fue como una despedida del cartón y piedra. En unos años, Peter Jackson unió por un momento el cartón de los decorados de antaño con la era digital. Las prótesis se mezclaban con las telas azules. Este universo, ha seguido mezclándose aunque cada vez con menos brillo – Robert Zemeckis ha ido dándose con la misma piedra desde hace seis años-, dejándose seducir más por lo azul que por lo real. Pero once años después de este barco, Cameron da por fin la gran bienvenida a esta era digital y del 3D. Avatar es un avatar del Hollywood de antes con el de ahora. El director le ha dado al cine de los grandes espectáculos pirotécnicos, un traje nuevo, hecho a medida y donde convergen estilos, ideas y nuevas tecnologías, todo ello envuelto en un tono muy cerca de ‘Dances with Wolves‘.
Avatar cuenta una historia clásica de un soldado en tierras extrañas y como por accidente termina involucrándose en la vida de los habitantes de ese lugar. Como en Dances with Wolves o The New World (la historia de Pocahontas contada por Terrence Malick), Avatar es un relato sobre las culturas extranjeras y desconocidas por el mundo occidental. Sabiendo esto, Cameron no trata de dar a la historia ningún matiz novedoso –algo que es criticable, y por el que lo criticará más de uno-, sino que centra su atención en el nuevo mundo que descubre su personaje principal. Es en este punto donde la película funciona a toda máquina, la curiosidad del personaje de Sam Worthington es el motor de la historia, y Cameron logra que sintamos lo que siente él. Los hermosos lugares, los matices de los personajes y la lograda ambientación son todo un triunfo en mayúsculas para su director. Lo que no ha logrado Zemeckis en tres películas, Cameron lo logra en una. Por primera vez, la tecnología 3D se justifica para entender todo lo que sucede a nuestro alrededor.
En estos dos años de intentos tridimensionales, Avatar es la reina absoluta al lograr imprimir imágenes inolvidables, con texturas impresionantes, y llena el vacío que hay entre la pantalla y los ojos del espectador. Cameron construye un nuevo mundo entero y ese es su acierto, sobrepasando los defectos de un film algo largo y pesado en su primer acto, y falto de originalidad. De estos defectos también destaca una música de James Horner que no acaba entrar en el oído como hacia en Titanic o Legends of the Fall, y la canción final es casi un despropósito artístico. Una pecata minuta que se olvida rápido gracias a la presencia de Sigourney Weaver y todos los guiños a Aliens.
A modo personal, Avatar me recuerda a esas películas de antes – y que ahora sólo saben hacer los señores de Pixar – que te invitaban a soñar y entender que Hollywood es la fábrica de sueños.
