City of Ember Tagged Articles at Cinematical

City of Ember
This is the film that our Jette Kernion said is "one of the most gorgeous-looking films I've seen this year" (2008). It's the tale of a city in darkness -- a community that houses the likes of Saoirse Ronan, Tim Robbins, and Martin Landau, and is led by none other than Bill Murray. If thoughts of the future and rousing family fare are your cup of tea: Buy It on DVD. Sadly, there's no Blu-ray at this time.

Repo! The Genetic Opera
Unfortunately, this rock opera didn't live up to some expectations. But nevertheless, we're talking about a flick that had the cojones to cast Paris Hilton, and gave many rabid Buffy fans the opportunity to see Anthony Head belt out lyrics once again. Rent it, on DVD or Blu-ray, if you can handle a little blood and rock beats.

Max Payne
It came, it screened, it died. Max Payne was the action movie without action, the video game adaptation with serious plot changes. Perhaps in the right hands this still could have meant something amazing, but as it is, Payne fizzled. Skip it on DVD and Blu-ray. Elisabeth Rappe has a review of the DVD right here.

There have been a number of moderate- to high-profile box office fizzles in the past few weeks -- 'tis the season, I suppose, though the flop ratio seems higher than average this year -- and this week adds a couple more to the list. First and most surprising is the tepid performance of Body of Lies, which couldn't leverage the presence of Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, or Ridley Scott to open to more than $13 million. I don't really get it: the marketing was action-packed and fairly ubiquitous (though a bit confusing -- people apparently had trouble deciphering the trailer), and I thought the star wattage would do more for the film. (On the other hand, Scott's A Good Year, which also starred Crowe, died an even harder death.) Is anything involving Iraq or the Middle East really that much of a turn-off right now? Or maybe anything perceived as serious? It's really a superb film, and one that benefits from the big screen; you should check it out before it vanishes.

Another addition to the list of big fat flops is Fox's City of Ember, which crashed and burned at number ten (10). I haven't seen it yet, but I'm a big, big fan of Gil Kenan's debut Monster House, and so was rooting for Ember. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone knew that it existed. The football drama The Express doesn't count as a flop, I don't think, since no one expected it to do much better than it did: $4.7 million in sixth place. People just couldn't bring themselves to care about this story again, though the movie isn't bad.

The weekend's hits were exercises in escapist frivolity, which might support one of my hypotheses regarding Body of Lies' failure. Beverly Hills Chihuahua held on to the top spot with $17.5 million, ensuring a sequel. And the low-budget Quarantine took second in a huge victory for Screen Gems -- a $14 million opening for a movie like this is gold.

The full list of estimates after the jump.

City of Ember was the surprise closing-night film at Fantastic Fest, but I found out about the surprise a little early (which is always fun). I was able to see the film earlier in the week so I could interview director Gil Kenan, who showed up in Austin with surprise guest (to me, too!) Bill Murray for the closing-night festivities. Kenan has directed a pair of entertaining and visually stunning family-friendly features, the Oscar-nominated animated film Monster House and now the City of Ember adaptation, which opens in theaters on Friday. Not only that, but Kenan landed both of these projects right after he graduated from UCLA, where his short film The Lark won him a lot of attention. We talked about what he's done to make City of Ember as beautiful a film as it is, and how he found such compelling lead actors. He's currently linked to a new Robert Zemeckis production, Airman, and we took a minute to discuss that too. Check it out after the jump.

One of the most gorgeous-looking films I've seen this year is City of Ember, the Fox/Walden adaptation of Jeanne Duprau's young-adult fantasy novel about a post-apocalyptic underground city. Although the story is aimed at younger audiences, it's still enjoyable for grown-ups. The movie should be viewed on as large a screen as you can find, giving you the sense that you're this close to the fascinating and decaying city where the story is set.

The movie's prologue lays out the premise clearly. In the future, something goes haywire that causes the end of the world, but fortunately top U.S. scientists have created an underground city to keep a portion of mankind safe. The inhabitants will not be told about the Earth's past, so they won't be traumatized and will assume that their underground city is the only civilization. A box with instructions for returning to the Earth's surface will open in 200 years, which should be time enough for the Earth to be inhabitable again. However, over the course of time the box becomes lost, and after more than two centuries have passed, the city is starting to run out of resources and is falling apart.

Despite having six new wide releases last week, only Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist cracked the top five. In its third week of release, Appaloosa expanded into an additional 1,031 theaters, allowing it to take the number five spot. Here's the top five.

1. Beverly Hills Chihuahua: $29.3 million
2. Eagle Eye: $17.7 million
3. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist: $11.3 million
4. Nights in Rodanthe: $7.3 million
5. Appaloosa: $5 million

Body of Lies
What's It All About: In this Ridley Scott film, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a CIA agent tracking terrorist activity in Jordan, with Russell Crowe playing the veteran agent who helps him infiltrate the terrorist underground.
Why It Might Do Well: This film reteams DiCaprio with William Monahan, the screenwriter behind The Departed, and the flick is sporting a 70% fresh rating at rottentomatoes.com.
Why It Might Not Do Well: This being an election year, there are already enough lies kicking around.
Number of Theaters: 2,500
Prediction: $26 million

For this week's Trailer Park we're taking a Rube Goldberg approach, with an intricate series of mechanisms (metaphorically speaking) allowing us to careen from one trailer to the next by one connection or other. Ready? Let's start with:

X-Files: I Want to Believe
Yes, I want to believe too. X-Files became unwatchable for me in its last few years on the air, but prior to that it was one of the best hours of dramatic television ever. I'd love to see the series revived as a successful film franchise, but this trailer isn't doing much for me. We have the reappearance of Fox Muldar (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), as well as the theme from the TV show, but the rest is a muddle of chaotic imagery. This being X-Files, details are being kept to a minimum, but I'm not seeing enough here to get me revved up, which is how I was hoping to feel. Here's Elisabeth's take on it.
And speaking of Gillian Anderson...

The first trailer for City of Ember has just arrived online (watch it above or over on the film's official site). Cinematical premiered the teaser poster for City of Ember not long ago, and it looks like the folks from 20th Century Fox and Walden Media are itching to get the buzz going on this one by debuting a trailer long before the film's October 10th release date. This will also be the same trailer that plays in front of Prince Caspian this weekend. Based on the best-selling novel, City of Ember was produced by Tom Hanks and stars Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan, Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Toby Jones and Harry Treadaway. Directed by Gil Kenan (Monster House), the synopsis for Ember looks like this:

"For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights - underground. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing . . . and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers in a race against time, must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city's existence, and help the citizens escape before the lights go out forever."

What say you? I think it definitely has potential, especially with that cast. (Seems like a cool book, too.)

Cinematical has just received this exclusive teaser poster for City of Ember (click to enlarge), due out this October 10th courtesy of 20th Century Fox and Walden Media. Based on the best-selling novel from Jeanne Duprau, City of Ember was written by Caroline Thompson (Edward Scissorhands) and directed by the very talented Gil Kenan (Monster House). Oh, but the talent doesn't stop there -- check out this cast: Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan, Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Toby Jones and Harry Treadaway. And did I mention it was produced by Tom Hanks?

And here's a synopsis for ya: "For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights - underground. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing . . . and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers in a race against time, must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city's existence, and help the citizens escape before the lights go out forever."

Early buzz tells us the film looks gorgeous, so that's definitely a good sign. We've also been told that the first trailer for City of Ember will debut in front of Prince Caspian this weekend. (Chalk up another reason to hang with those peeps over in Narnia.) Once again, City of Ember arrives in theaters on October 10th.

So who's excited for this one?

Last month, Bill Murray signed on for his first live-action feature in a few years, Fox Walden's adaptation of Jeanne Duprau's City of Ember. The film is being directed by Gil Kenan, the man who brought us the Oscar-nominated Monster House, from an adaptation by Caroline Thompson, who has penned many-a Tim Burton film from Edward Scissorhands to Corpse Bride. With production currently underway in Belfast, we've finally got word on the rest of the cast, which is pretty impressive -- Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Harry Treadaway.

To recap -- the story is about a city called Ember, which is always in the dark of night, and gets all of its light from electric lamps. Two children, Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow, see that the lights are beginning to flicker and are determined to find out why -- thereby unraveling the strange story of the city, and becoming their home's hope for survival before the lights go out for good. Lina is being played by Atonement star Saoirse Ronan, and Doon is Harry Treadaway, whose most recent film is the Ian Curtis biopic -- Control. Bill Murray is, as expected, The Mayor of Ember, who the children go up against, and as for the rest of the new cast -- Robbins is Doon's father and an inventor who holds a secret about the city, Landau is Doon's boss in the Pipeworks and Jean-Baptise is a greenhouse worker. Between the talent behind the production and the story itself, I'm itching to see what they make of the dark, electric-lit world.

Walden Media is an incredibly busy (do a search for "Walden" here and you'll see what I mean), generally successful producer of films aimed at the youth market -- everything they make is rated either G or PG, and most of their films make money. Now that their first-look deal with Disney has expired, Walden has been working with a variety of studios on the distribution and marketing of their films, though the company's Disney connection is still strong, as evidence by the fact that Disney will handle the upcoming Narnia films. Apart from those films and Charlotte's Web (set up with Paramount), however, everything from Walden will now be distributed by Fox, thanks to a new agreement between the studios.

Though no one new will be hired, a joint company in charge of marketing will be developed; all production matters remains under Walden control, and distribution stays at Fox. Among the films affected by this deal are the wonderfully-named Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (Say that out loud and tell me your day didn't get a little bit better.), The Dark Is Rising and City of Ember from Monster House director Gil Kenan.