DakotaFanning Tagged Articles at Cinematical

As much as we might like to poke fun at Twilight now and again, there's no denying it's a multimedia juggernaut. Besides the books, you can read about the stars in their off-hours in celeb gossip mags, listen to Twilight-inspired bands like The Bella Cullen Project, read Twilght fan fiction, peep fan art, buy all the Twilight tchotchkes your heart could desire over at Hot Topic or Amazon (like this jewelry box!) and, yes, get inked with Twilight-inspired tattoos.

But unless Stephenie Meyer starts cranking out some more books about Bella and Edward, the four Twilight tomes are going to be the end of Bella and Edward on the big screen... right?

Not necessarily, according to Twilight's producers, who were caught on video by the folks over at RadarOnline.com at the 36th Annual Vision Awards this past weekend. RadarOnline's intrepid reporter tracked down Wyck Godfrey and Greg Mooradian at one of the awards parties and asked them about the possibility of a spin-off about the Volturi family.

For those not in the know -- myself included -- the Volturi family is the big daddy coven of vamps, the "de facto royal family" according to the extensive Twilight wiki. The cast list for New Moon's Volturi clan stands out because it includes Michael Sheen, star of Frost/Nixon, The Queen and Tim Burton's highly anticipated remake of Alice in Wonderland, and future Runaway Dakota Fanning.

While Greg Mooradian played coy, he left the door open for spin-offs depending on how well the saga does in theaters and "[where] the audience demands us to go from there."

Above: Is this our first good look at The Runaways?

Though neither girl was alive during the 1970s or 1980s (both were born in the '90s), that's not stopping Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning from losing themselves in the time period and doing some serious rocking out for their upcoming flick The Runaways, which is a biopic about the women who breezed in and out of the famous band -- including Joan Jett (Stewart), Cherie Currie (Fanning), Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton) and Sandy West (Stella Maeve), among others.

Just Jared nabbed a few photos from the set that show both Stewart and Fanning clowning around all retro'd out, sporting some pretty spectacular gear. It must've been fun to be in charge of wardrobe for this film because these ladies totally lit it up with style. I'm not entirely sure which girls are featured in the image above; I know Stewart and Fanning are in the back, and I think that's Scout Taylor-Compton in the blue and Stella Maeve up front, though I'm not positive so feel free to correct me. Check out a larger version of the image above down below along with a couple others, and more over at Just Jared.



The Runaways is due in theaters next year.

It looks like things are getting more interesting each day when it comes to the music biopic The Runaways -- and I'm not talking about Joan Jett making Kristen Stewart cry. No, instead, there is news that Alia Shawkat (who will forever be known as Maeby Fünke) is joining the cast as famed bassist and 'Bangle' Micki Steele ... or at the very least an approximation of Steele. Latino Review is reporting that Shawkat has joined the cast as an 18-year-old bass player named Robin (aka Steele), and judging by the photo above, you have to admit that Shawkat would be a great choice to play the sexy bassist. I mean, just look at those lips.

Rather than get into a long and convoluted explanation about the awesomeness that is Steele, here is a little primer: Steele was one of the first members of The Runaways when they were touring the club circuit in L.A. and was considered the 'feminine' one in a group of bad girls. By 1976 she had left the band after the addition of Lita Ford (played in the film by Scout Taylor-Compton) and Cherie Currie (played by Dakota Fanning). Steele would go on to join another famous girl band, The Bangles, and create music history by teaching the world about 'Manic Mondays'.

There has been no word on why Steele isn't going to be named in the film; possibly because the film makers didn't secure the rights to use her image, or maybe her split from The Runaways wasn't an amicable one. My guess is that the character of Robin will be based on Steele, but also be an amalgam of some of the other band members that won't be featured prominently in the film.

The Runaways is still filming on location in L.A., but will arrive in theaters in 2010.

The last fox we've been waiting for is finally here!

MTV reports that the last Cherry Bomb to fill out The Runaways is 22-year-old Alessandra Torresani. An actress who's popped up in a bunch of television shows (most notably: Caprica, the BSG spin-off), Torresani will play the tow-headed vixen Lita Ford. And with that, all the mainstays are accounted for. Rhythm guitarist Joan Jett is Kristen Stewart, drummer Sandy West is Stella Maeve, lead singer Cherie Currie is Dakota Fanning, and Torresani is lead guitarist Ford. There is, of course, the bassist to consider, but since a number of girls filled in (Micki Steele, Peggy Foster, Jackie Fox), it looks like they're keeping her off the main casting roster.

She doesn't have the musical chops yet (she starts learning how to play guitar on Monday), but I can definitely see that face belting out power ballads with Ozzy in a few years; she's got a decent Lita look. Speaking of the heavy-metal icon, Torresani will meet up with Ford soon to get the low-down and hear the stories.

Stewart is the easiest to imagine in this project, since she's already got an edge to her, but I think director Floria Sigismondi will be able to do something with this cast. As Jenni already pointed out, there's a killer group attached behind the scenes, so this can't become an ignorable fluff piece. It's got to be something worthy of the path paved by Girls Rock! ... right?

If not, there will be hell to pay.

Michael Shannon's scene-stealing performances over the years finally earned him a well-deserved Oscar nod for last year's supporting role in Revolutionary Road, Sam Mendes's exhausting ode to suburban ennui. Well, now he's about to kick out the jams in The Runaways, the biopic about the most cherry-bombin' girl group ever, the Runaways.

The cast of The Runaways, as it stands now in any case, is a bit hard to wrap my mind around. Kristen Stewart is playing legendary guitarist Joan Jett, Dakota Fanning will somehow channel proto-riot grrrl lead singer Cherie Currie, and "Gossip Girl" Stella Maeve is rumored to be playing drummer Sandy West. (I'm waiting with bated breath to see who is going to take on Lita Ford and Jackie Fox!) It's not clear yet what Shannon's part in this you-go-girl flick will be, he will probably be acting creepy and/or crazy in an awesome way.

I don't know why, but vampires are back in vogue (I once read it had something to do with bad economies, but that might be stretching it). So even though we all knew this was coming, today it's official: Robert Pattinson (better known as dreamy bloodsucker Edward Cullen) will be returning for the fourth and final Twilight film, Breaking Dawn. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Pattison is "committed to starring in the final outing to date but doesn't know when backers Summit Entertainment will begin production because of the actor's jam-packed shooting schedule." The final book in Meyers series centers on *spoiler alert* Bella and Edward's marriage and her subsequent pregnancy -- and let me tell you, I read the book, and it's pretty out there.

Parts two and three of the series are already in production in Vancouver, and as much as I giggled my way through Twilight (and brother, did I giggle), I have higher expectations for New Moon. But that has a lot to do with the addition of Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning as the kind of vampire I'm a little more familiar with -- you know, the kind that are a little more bad-ass. In New Moon, Bella (Kristen Stewart) is struggling with the loss of her pigment-challenged boyfriend and growing closer to her childhood friend, Jacob. But don't worry girls, Pattinson's role has been beefed up in the second installment, and he told THR it was no easy task to make the role a little more exciting: "You're playing a figment in Bella's imagination so I was trying to do it in a 2-D way. I hope it doesn't translate onscreen as being boring." Pattinson's schedule is filling up, and he will take a break from all that 'glittering' to start work on the romantic drama Remember Me before heading back to Vancouver to start work on Eclipse (the third film in the series) in October.

After the jump; how Pattinson is trying to beat the curse of typecasting...

There are good writers, there are great writers, and then there's Neil Gaiman, who inspires slack-jawed awe. His omnibus Fragile Things contains my all-time favorite short story, "A Study in Emerald"; I don't want to give away too much, because I think you should read it for yourself, but suffice it to say that it begins as very clearly one thing, and slowly, organically turns into something else entirely. Gaiman's ability to tell a fully-formed, absorbing story while moving between genres with confidence and grace is nothing short of astonishing. His brand of fantasy may not be for everyone, but as a writer – in terms of versatility and control of the form – he is second to no one.

In the afterword to one of the more recent editions of Coraline, Gaiman calls the short novel his proudest achievement as an author. He's right to be proud. Some people are stunned to learn that Henry Selick's recent animated adaptation was made using stop-motion: frame-by-frame manipulation of physical objects and sets. I look at the book with a similar sort of amazement bordering on disbelief. It's an remarkably meticulous and effective work, such a stylistic and formal balancing act that it almost seems fragile.

Coraline begins by lulling you into complacency. We know it's a "children's book," and the opening pages are filled with the lovable naiveté, repetition, and short, declarative sentences we usually associate with writing for tykes. And so we settle in for a gentle children's fantasy story. The title heroine will have an adventure – scary, but not too scary – learn some lessons, and give her parents a big hug when it's all over.

Well look who's all grown up. It seems like just yesterday that little Dakota Fanning was winning the world over as precocious little girl, and then horrifying us as a tween rape victim. But now she just might be one of the biggest icons in girl-power history. Variety reports that Fanning is currently in negotiations to star in The Runaways, the story of the all-girl proto-punk band of the same name. Fanning is in talks to play Runaway's lead singer, Cherie Currie, alongside Kristen Stewart (as Joan Jett). But that's not all, because at the bottom of the same notice, Variety also confirmed that the gal is booked for the Twilight sequel, New Moon later this year, with Fanning at her blood-thirsty best.

But back to Runaways, because lord knows there will be plenty of time to dissect New Moon between now and November, 2009. Cherie Currie was a 15-year-old (the same age as Fanning) dynamo who made her musical debut with the Runaways, and despite her young age was known for her rough and ready singing style. After leaving the group, she recorded some solo albums and even tried her hand at acting, but like so many before her, Currie became caught up in drugs and a hard-partying lifestyle -- but luckily for her, she managed to sort herself out before becoming another punk casualty. Her book, Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story, served as the source material for the film and was adapted by The Runaways director, Floria Sigismondi.

The Runaways is scheduled to start production this spring, and New Moon was rumored to start shooting this month. So I hope that Stewart and Fanning get along, because it looks like the two are going to be spending an awful lot of time together in the near future.

This past weekend at the box office brought us the fairly mediocre Push, in which Dakota Fanning (roughly 14 at the time of filming) played a snappy psychic 13-year-old with rebel streaks in her hair, whiny quips at every turn, and an unfortunate penchant for short skirts and shots.

The weekend before that gave us the fairly entertaining Taken, in which Maggie Grace (24 or 25 at the time of filming, by our best guess) played a seemingly psychotic 17-year-old with a U2 fascination, a disturbingly giddy run not unlike the one at the 5:20 mark here, and a fortunate (for us) habit of getting snapped up by European human traffickers and thus not proving to be a distraction while Liam Neeson goes all out of bubble gum on the streets of France.

So, among those of you who saw both films, which teen did you find to be more aggravating with their respective performance: Fanning or Grace? (Or, for the real saints out there, were you irritated by neither?)

I review a fair amount of children's and family movies, and often my eyes hurt from me rolling them so much because too many of these films rely on tiredly predictable plots, stupid animal jokes, morals so blatant that even the youngest audience members must be fed up, and poop jokes. (The same could be said about comedy films supposedly for grown-ups, but we'll argue that another time.) The idea seems to be that if a movie is squeaky clean and suitable for all ages, it doesn't have to be very good.

On the other end of the spectrum, I also watch well-made films like Wall-E and Ratatouille and now Coraline -- films that I enjoy very much. But are these really family films? How many children will like these movies, and what ages? Coraline is a bit scary at times and some kids are going to have trouble with it. But for children and adults who can appreciate the experience of a darker movie, Coraline is gorgeously fantastic, in all senses of the word.