FoxSearchlight Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Roller derby diehards and grrl-power folks will be pleased to know that Drew Barrymore's directorial debut Whip It! has finally gotten a distributor and a release date: Fox Searchlight will be unleashing it in wide release on October 9th, 2009. Drew Barrymore is also an executive producer; her production company Flower Films is behind the release.

Based on the novel Derby Girl by Shauna Cross, Whip It! is the story of a small-town Texas gal named Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) who channels her inner bad-ass with help from a roller derby league in nearby Austin. Cross is also a derby girl from Texas; her not-to-be-messed-with nom de rink is Maggie Mayhem.

Whip It! also stars Drew Barrymore as Smashley Simpson, Juliette Lewis as Dinah Might, Kristen Wiig as Malice in Wonderland, real-life stunt woman Zoe Bell as Bloody Holly, Eve as Rosa Sparks, and many more as derby grrls throwing elbows and jeers on eight wheels. Marcia Gay Harden plays Bliss's prim 'n' proper mom.

Although some people are hard on Ellen Page and her deadpan Juno vibe, I think she will be great as Bliss and frankly, I've missed seeing her face onscreen. I have to admit to skipping Smart People, and I've yet to catch The Tracey Fragments or An American Crime on DVD. (If you've seen either, please chime in! I'm curious about An American Crime, especially given the brutal nature of the story.)

So much girl power! Can audiences handle it? Judging by the screaming hordes of fans I've seen at any roller derby race I've been to, the answer is hell yes.

1. Twiddle thumbs while waiting for bidding wars to break out -- So Senator Entertainment has already landed domestic distribution for Antoine Fuqua's cop drama, Brooklyn's Finest (they'll probably do right by it and sit it on a shelf right next to All the Boys Love Mandy Lane); now, it's just a matter of waiting for Fox Searchlight to snatch up their next sleeper in waiting, and for either Focus or Paramount Vantage to pick up the rights to something they can't quite turn a profit on *cough1* *cough2*. Modest comfort comes in the form of Searchlight already planning a late-summer release for 500 Days of Summer, and of Sony Pictures Classics reportedly calling dibs on Sam Rockwell's sci-fi drama, Moon. Keep those ears and eyes open, folks.

2. Monitor some seriously similar, sometimes simultaneous Twitter action -- For starters, there's our crew: Snider, then Davis, then Rocchi, and (lastly but not least-ly) new convert Weinberg. Then you have the Onion folks, your CHUD, the IFC one-two, the Spout reps, our HitFix homies, not to mention your /Film and your Film School Rejects and your First Showing (these fellas happen to be sharing accommodations, so expect much echo). Daily posts? Facebook status updates? Please. With a minute-by-minute play-by-play, who needs to go outdoors?

After a massive, all-night bidding war, Variety's Anne Thompson reports that Fox Searchlight has snagged The Wrestler for roughly $4 million, marking the first big purchase of the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. Following its Golden Lion win in Venice and a Toronto premiere that left folks buzzing up a storm, Searchlight, along with Overture, Lionsgate, Weinstein Co. and Sony, began bidding on the flick, which some say solidifies a sure-fire Oscar nod for Mickey Rourke. In the end, it would appear that Searchlight won out ... and after a very successful marketing campaign last year for Juno (which landed all sorts of recognition), it should be interesting to see what Searchlight does with this.

So far all the talk has surrounded Mickey Rourke, with folks calling him the comeback kid, what have you -- but not for nothing, I think we have a nice little comeback story for director Darren Aronofsky as well. Great vibes with this one; I look forward to seeing it. Remember when Nic Cage was signed on to this? Heh. Bangkok Dangerous. Double heh. Check out this preview video from Venice, and look for much more on The Wrestler from Cinematical in the next couple of days.

Above: Rainn Wilson lets his hair down for The Rocker.

Fans of Rainn Wilson's offbeat, hilarious and strangely endearing performance as Dwight Schrute on NBC's The Office might expect him to transition into film work with straightforward comedy, and The Rocker confirms that suspicion. However, they might not realize the serious professional motives behind his choice. In the movie, directed by Peter Cattaneo (The Full Grown Monty), Wilson plays a grown-up dolt named Fish with a scary fixation on classic rock. Abandoned by the band Vesuvius in his teens -- before they became a commercial phenomenon -- Fish spends the next twenty years working deadbeat jobs and wishing things happened differently. Naturally, he gets a second chance: When the opportunity rolls around to drum for his nephew's high school, Fish goes for it. Ageism and slapstick humor ensue.

While not exactly a classic, The Rocker proves Wilson has the charisma to carry a movie. The script could use some polishing, but Wilson manages to play a completely dysfunctional human being without ever becoming an annoyance. It's a testament to his skill as an actor with calculated timing. The humor emerges from the naturalism of his performances, which make you believe in the outlandish characters he portrays. In a conversation with Cinematical recently, Wilson elaborated on his particular strategies as his career advances, reminisced about his days as a New York theater actor, and shed some light on a few upcoming projects.

Seems like every week we have news of a new Shawn Levy project, but the director's Night at the Museum follow-up is absolutely, definitely going to be ... a "smaller" comedy for Fox Searchlight called The Way Back. (Probably one of those wistful coming-of-age things that probably has something to do with summer camp or defeating a bully or learning how to properly remove a girl's bra without acting like a dork.) According to The Hollywood Reporter the script (as penned by Jim Rash and Nat Faxon) is about a kid who withstands those growing pains during one fateful summer spent in a beach house during in his fifteenth year.

The cynic in me seems to think Levy snagged this smaller (quicker) project while the wheels start turning on that Tom Cruise / Ben Stiller comedy he's set to direct, but that cynic is just remembering how Shawn Levy subjected me to movies like The Pink Panther, Cheaper By the Dozen and Just Married and is still a little cranky about it. Fox Searchlight production chief Claudia Lewis seems pretty ebullient about the whole thing: "He brings such vim and vigor to his comedies ... And this project really hearkens back to some of his earlier work." So it's a coming-of-age comedy that hearkens back to ... Big Fat Liar? Or are we hearkening back as far as Levy's work on Animorphs?

On the plus side, these Rash and Faxon guys have done a lot of work with the Broken Lizard and Reno 911 folks, so they could definitely be very funny guys. There's something positive to focus on.

Aw, c'mon. Fox Searchlight, you can't do this to me! I've been looking forward to Danny Boyle's Sunshine since the project was still in the screenplay stage, so when you guys finally settled on a March 16 release date, I was elated, thrilled, ecstatic and mega-geek'd to the nth degree. But then I heard a few rumblings from some "insider" friends; Basically I was told "Don't get comfy with that 3/16 release date, man." A few days later, Searchlight pulled Sunshine from March ... and today comes word that the flick won't see the light of day until ... December!! Are you kidding me!?!? That's like walking into a kid's room on 12/15 and saying "Oh, we bumped Christmas back to September. Stop crying!"

No word on why Fox has bumped the title, but considering we're talking about Danny Boyle (Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Millions), I'm guessing it's not because the movie is a big fat stink-bomb. (Oh dear lord I hope not.) Perhaps they're still tightening the special effects or just wanted the flick released at a less congested time. But December is pretty stocked every year, so that doesn't make much sense ... unless Fox is holding it for an Oscar campaign, which doesn't seem all that likely. Argh! Regardless of the reason, I am pretty darn peeved about the whole situation. Perhaps if the trailers weren't so damn juicy I wouldn't be so frustrated right now. [Shakes fist toward the skies and bellows in fury.] What have I done to deserve this, O Mighty Searchlight?? Please explain thyself to me!

The film that had everyone yapping over at Sundance after Fox Searchlight picked it up for a whopping $10 million now has a couple of clips online for all of us outside of Park City to check out. Described as a comedy, Little Miss Sunshine tells of a peculiar family's cross country trek, while determined to land their young daughter in the finals of a beauty pageant.

With Steve Carell as one of its stars, is anyone really surprised this film went for what it did? After the success of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, throw together a trailer full of a few Carell-type moments (even though his role here could be labeled as much more "indie") and you're guaranteed a decent box office drawing. Although both clips (courtesy of Reuters) appear a bit cruddy, they've already revealed enough heart to get me into the theater. Check them out for yourself.

In what seems to be a rather unnecessary move, Fox Filmed Entertainment has created an as-yet unnamed division "for teen and young adult audiences." The division, which will be run by Fox Searchlight president Peter Rice, was reportedly necessary because "young audiences have their own aesthetic," and need "bold" movies, advertising, and movie-related content created just for them.

Bold, huh? So far, the divisions duties include "produc[ing] and acquir[ing] six to eight films a year in genres including action, thriller, comedy and drama" and creating "new-media content for mobile devices, the Web and emerging technologies." Does any of that sound new to you? How is it different from what Fox is already doing? According to FFE chairman Tom Rothman, some of the new, "bold" ideas being considered "include material similar to DVD extras as well as wireless video games based on the movies." Wow! Those new ideas are really going to blow the kids away, huh? Sigh. And people wonder why Hollywood is in trouble.