This news is actually more than a few days old -- and it was so buried within a Jennifer Garner press release that I just missed it. No matter, I'm sure it's new to most of you.
According to Variety, Garner has signed a first look deal with Warner Brothers for her Vandalia Films, and one of the upcoming films on her slate is 3 Days in Europe in which she will co-star and co-produce with Hugh Jackman.
Europe is a romantic adventure about a couple embroiled in danger and excitement on what was supposed to be their perfect Valentine's Day vacation. It's based on the graphic novel by Anthony Johnston and Michael Hawthorne. (And published by Oni Press, who just sold The Damned last week, as reported by Scott Weinberg, as well as Scott Pilgrim. ) No director has been named, and no start date. Given how full both actors' slates are, it could be awhile.
Of course this is based on a graphic novel! Jackman is addicted to them. He's obviously given up his plans to revive the musical (drat!) and is just going to adapt all things comic related. In lieu of this information, I've decided I am going to give up my Cinematical gig and write a graphic novel about a 20-something chick who has a specialty in Anglo-Saxon literature, and ... well, I'm still working out the middle. I'll need someone to do the illustrations, but we'll have a buyer.
Since Ricky Gervais has always been a chatty sort, it should come as no surprise that for his directorial debut, This Side of the Truth, the film would comehand in hand with its very own blog. Gervais is directing alongside Matthew Robinson (they also wrote the film) and the story is set in a future where no one lies -- heck, they don't even know how.
Gervais reportedly plays a history professor who 'invents' the art of deception. At first, he only uses his new found skill to liven up his lectures, but he then turns to the more important task of landing a woman who is way out of his league (as played by Jennifer Garner). Other members of the cast include, Jonah Hill, Rob Lowe and Louis C.K.
Gervais has been massively successful in his previous online adventures, and his blog for Truth will probably be no exception. Even without his usual cohorts on hand, these short clips are still pretty funny. One thing is for sure, Robinson seems to think it's a hoot since you can hear him giggling throughout. There is no promise of how often Gervais will be updating the blog, mainly because production on the film has already started. According to Gervais, casting has almost been finalized and shooting should begin soon on location in Boston. Hopefully he will find the time to keep the updates coming. This Side of the Truth is expected to arrive in theaters later this year.
The other day, Erik asked you for your ideas on new Oscar categories to shake things up a bit. I don't think it's Jon Stewart's fault the Oscar's tanked, but will he be asked back next year? I'm betting not, but who knows? Meanwhile, Cinematical's Chris Campbell, who also writes for Spoutblog.com with former Cine EIC Karina Longworth, has some excellent ideas for ways to boost the Oscar ratings.
My favorite among his suggestions is the Gary Busey Red Carpet. Hell yeah! Get rid of Regis, who's about as boring as watching bread get moldy, and bring on the Busey action. He can show up drunk with his fly open, and attack all the talent as they make their walk up the red carpet. It'll be almost like adding a sporting event to the Oscars -- duck and run from Gary Busey before he attacks your neck!
Poor Jennifer Garner would probably have to bring an entourage of everyone who's f*cking her husband, Ben Affleck, to be her body shield against further Busey attacks. For added fun, Busey can bring along his son Jake, who can also get drunk and talk loudly to everyone within ear range about how he's Gary Busey's son. The two of them could become a regular Oscar team like Melissa and Joan Rivers ... only drunker and with less cleavage and plastic surgery.
For more of Chris's ideas, including what Diablo Cody should have really done on that stage, go read the full piece.
Maybe I'm just indulging with some wishful thinking, but with a cast like this in a story from the mind of Ricky Gervais, what could possibly go wrong? The Hollywood Reporterannounced that Jonah Hill has signed up for a role in Gervais' romantic comedy, This Side of the Truth. Hill will be joining Gervais, Rob Lowe, Jennifer Garner and Louis C.K. in the story of the first man who more or less invents the art of lying.
The official story is described as "a storyteller whose job is to ramble on about the 1300s. Faced with losing his job because his terrain is a boring period in history once he gets beyond the Black Death, he invents lying as a way to save himself." Of course he becomes seduced by this awesome power and uses it to woo a woman who is way out of his league. Garner stars as that woman, Hill will play Gervais' depressed neighbor, and comedian C.K will appear as Hill's loser roommate.
The film is Gervais' first stab at directing a feature film and he will be sharing the duties along with his writing partner Matthew Robinson. Personally I was hoping for someone a little, well, funnier for the part of 'the girl' but maybe this is Jennifer Garner's chance to finally be funny (especially since I like to pretend that the irritating and somewhat sexist comedy 13 Going on 30 never existed). I guess I'll find out just how funny Garner can be when This Side of the Truth arrives in theaters sometime in 2009.
The story centers on "a womanizer (McConaughey) who attends the wedding of his younger brother and bride. There, he's haunted by several old flames, including the bride's best friend. Douglas will play "Uncle Wayne, a '70s playboy, who was his mentor and he wears Bob Evans shades and guides him (McConaughey) around the ghost world". The cast also includes Jennifer Garner as one of McConaughey's exes, Lacy Chabert (Black Christmas) as the bride, as well as Anne Archer and Emma Stone (Superbad).
Originally, the film was set to star Ben Affleck with Betty Thomas directing. The production hit a snag when Disney shut the film down and Affleck walked away from the film. Maybe Affleck just wasn't looking forward to all the conversations at home on the subject of previous girlfriends. McConaughey then rode in to save the day and now the film is back on. Plus, I have to agree with Waters when he says that, "There's something great about Matthew. He has an aspect of him that he can get away with murder with women. He's the kind of guy where women are apologizing to him when he breaks up with them, because he's so charming". Girlfriends Past will start shooting February 19th in Boston and will hit theaters sometime in 2009.
Remember that upcoming movie about the guy who is the first person to lie, and "harnesses its power for personal gain?" That's the Ricky Gervais comedy The Other Side of Truth, which is now called This Side of the Truth. Gervais wrote the script with Matthew Robinson, and the two will share helming duties this spring, when the flick jumps into production. In November, he picked himself a cute love interest in Jennifer Garner, and now Variety reports that Rob Lowe has also jumped into the mix. Uh oh. Could Ricky really compete with Robby?
As it's being described now, the comedy focuses on Gervais, who is "a storyteller whose job is to ramble on about the 1300s. Faced with losing his job because his terrain is a boring period in history once he gets beyond the Black Death, he invents lying as a way to save himself." I'm really loving this latest description of the film, as I can't help but be interested in spastic premises from entertaining comedians. So through lying, Gervais' character becomes a success and woos a looker out of his league (Garner), but I wonder how Lowe fits in. Will he ultimately get the girl when Ricky's lies are revealed? Or, will he have charmed her so much that not even Lowe could rip her away? We'll find out some time in 2009.
The pieces have now fallen into place for the upcoming Mark Waters romcom The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Back in September, Jennifer Garner was circling the long-gestating project, which already had Matthew McConaughey so surprisingly attached as the lead womanizer. (Fun note: Jen's hubby was originally attached to the film, but now she gets to run around with another guy instead.) Now The Hollywood Reporter has laid out the plot and main players. Matt and Jenn will be joined by Breckin Meyer, Lacey Chabert, Anne Archer, Amanda Walsh, and Emma Stone.
So, McConaughey is "Connor, a womanizer who attends the wedding of his younger brother (Meyer) and bride (Chabert). There, he's haunted by several old flames, including the bride's best friend (Garner)." I have to say, it's strange to think of Meyer as an adult and not a Clueless skater, or to think of Chabert getting married. Man, I'm getting old. Anyway, by "womanizer," they're not meaning just a deluge of sexy women who are Connor's age -- Archer, who will play Chabert's mom, is also "a potential Connor conquest," while Walsh will be the one "bridesmaid he hasn't conquered." (Canadian audiences will recognize her as the ex Much Music VJ.) This suggests that Garner is definitely the school sweetheart, since she's Chabert's best friend, but not the one girl who hasn't gotten it on with Connor. (Unless, for some reason, her best friend isn't in her wedding party.)
Stone, finally, will lead Connor through his womanizing wasteland. A move from Superbad paramour to supernatural guide isn't bad at all. Production begins this month in Boston.
While she's no Gary Oldman, Jennifer Garner has made a pretty decent career for herself in polar opposite parts. Most recently, she's yearned for a baby of her own in the hugely raved about Juno, but she's also the international spy lady behind the old television show Alias. That means, of course, that she has close ties to J.J. Abrams, who was the creator of the hit show. He also just so happens to be the man who is putting together the new Star Trek sequel. Now she's hoping that'll help nab her a part in the new movie, according to MTV.
Talking about Abrams, Garner says: "He rocks; I would do anything for him." But before anything, she's hoping for a little favor. "I want to be a Klingon in the movie. I just want to walk through [the frame] as a Klingon." Just when you think you have her pegged, you find out that she's a Trekkie! Or at least, "something of a Trekkie." Now this dream would depend upon there actually being Klingons in the film. However, MTV did point out that there is also the possibility that this is a slipped detail about the production. Whether Abrams told her about the inclusion of Klingons, or Garner is just being hopeful, it would definitely be another impressive morph for the actress.
On the other side: Will the Klingons provide the dramatic struggle for all of the young lads and ladies working their way towards fame on the Enterprise? Sound off below.
Consider this a spoiler warning for the whole post, if you still haven't seen The Kingdom. The people over at RopeofSilicon have found the time amidst all their holiday shopping to sit down and listen to Peter Berg's director's commentary on the upcoming DVD of the film and it contains some interesting reveals. According to Berg, the original script had a fascinating and very dark ending -- too dark for it to make it through to the shooting stage. Remember the character of Haytham, the Saudi policeman who gets beaten by the scary general early in the film, because the general suspects he was involved with the terrorist plot? Well, turns out the general was on to something. The original ending of the film, scrapped by Berg, comes after the death of Abu Hamza and all his goons. We see the team going to the airport and all the Saudi good guys they've met during their trip are there to say goodbye to them, including Haytham. Here's how Berg tells it:
"In the original draft, at this moment, when Jamie went to say goodbye Jamie hugged him and he realized that [Haytham] was carrying a bomb on him and the character of Haytham detonated the bomb and the entire team was killed and it was a very powerful ending. At the end we decided it was just too much." Boo. That would have been a much more powerful ending, and much more evocative of the cultural ambiguity that Berg tries to set up with his current ending. I wish they would have at least shot that ending so that we could see how it plays out in comparison, on the DVD perhaps.
Prepare to suspend disbelief -- Variety is reporting that Ricky Gervais and Jennifer Garner will be romancing each other in an upcoming comedy. Only in the movies (and in Beverly Hills) can people on such opposite ends of the attractive-o-meter find love. The indie flick, currently titled This Side of the Truth, is "set in a world where lying doesn't exist." Gervais wrote the screenplay with Matthew Robinson, and the pair will co-direct as well. The screenplay "centers on an Everyman (Gervais) who figures out how to lie and uses his newfound ability to woo a beautiful woman way out of his league (Garner) and become a success at work."
It sort of sounds like a reverse Liar Liar, and I can pretty much guarantee with Gervais so heavily involved, this will be one funny flick. If you're not familiar with RIcky, by all means check out BBC's The Office, the original (and still best) British version of the hit Steve Carell show. Gervais just won an Emmy for his performance on the very funny sitcom Extras, which will air an hour-long Christmas special Sunday, December 16th on HBO (Yay!). Garner of course is Mrs. Ben Affleck, and might just be in the running for a supporting actress Oscar nomination for her work in the terrific upcoming comedy Juno. I speak the Truth.
A world within a world comes crashing down in the opening sequence of The Kingdom, the new film from director (and uncredited actor) Peter Berg. An American compound inside Saudi Arabia, where ballgames and barbecues are the norm and uncovered female faces mock the law that applies outside the gates, is attacked by men with machine guns and bombs. The details are thoroughly convincing in this scene -- as machine gun fire sends the Americans fleeing in a panic, one of the terrorists, wearing the uniform of a Saudi policeman, falsely beckons some of them his way before setting off a vest of explosives. Later that night, after first-responders have quarantined the crime-scene and set up their own camp, a second-wave attack hits, destroying the entire area and creating a media event that has to be dealt with one way or the other by the American political machinery. This is a decent set-up for a movie, and it's as well-executed as you'd want a set-up to be, but it gives birth to an oddly-schizophrenic film.
You could almost call The Kingdom a double-feature, although it seems blithely unaware of its bifurcated status. To explain: the first half of the film -- actually, closer to two-thirds -- is professorial and serious, going so far as to offer the audience a tedious lecture on Saudi Arabia's history and political situation, balancing Western-style realpolitik with the needs of a population that seems to prefer living by religious teachings. As the aftermath of the compound bombing seeps back to Washington, an FBI team led by steely-eyed Jamie Foxx and comprised of Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper and Jason Bateman, seeks an entry point to the situation; they want to go investigate the bombing, but the State Department prefers to recognize the Saudi government's 'no boots on the ground' mandate, lest they come off as looking like puppets. Much screentime is given over to a scheme by Foxx to blackmail a Saudi diplomat in order to get his team access, and everything up to this point is deliberately structured as a political thriller. That's why the second part of the film is so surprising.
Director Peter Berg is trying for something very different in The Kingdom, and the end result is fascinating to watch on-screen, and well worth thinking about after. Berg's other films have all been spins on familiar genres, some more successful than others. Very Bad Things was a stab at bleak black comedy; The Rundown put fresh energy and effort into the tired buddy film; Friday Night Lights turned standard-issue sports film themes and scenes into a brisk, bracing portrait of small-town America. Now, with The Kingdom, he's taking the suspense and structure of a forensic police procedural and putting it on the world stage. After a terrorist attack on a Western oil-company compound in Saudi Arabia -- perfectly structured by Berg as a cascading series of nightmares that go from bad to worse to awful -- that leaves hundreds dead, FBI agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) is insistent that the FBI be allowed to put boots on the ground in Saudi Arabia, despite the insistence of the Saudi and American governments that any such deployment would be politically untenable for both parties.
These are not the concerns of your standard action-flick, but from the jump The Kingdom makes a different class of ambitions and aspirations strikingly clear: The opening credit sequence covers historical highpoints from 1932 (the founding of modern Saudi Arabia) to 1974 (the OPEC oil embargo) to 2001 (the 9-11 attacks, where 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens). There's a difference between background and backdrop, though, and I was glad to see that The Kingdom's Saudi setting isn't just left as a concern for the production design and costuming teams; it's woven into every moment of the film. It would have been easy to have The Kingdom take place in some fictional nation-state, and Berg and screenwriter Matthew Carnahan deserve credit for guts as opposed to taking the easy way out; when The Kingdom does feel thinly-drawn, perhaps that just confirms that the complex nature of Saudi society and our co-dependent relationship with it can't be fit onto the screen within a two-hour span.
While it's too early to tell if Matthew Carnahan's first script, The Kingdom, will be a hit, you can't help but admire a guy that seemed to come out of nowhere (although he is the brother of director Joe Carnahan). Carnahan has already sold three other scripts that have snagged some of the biggest names in the movie business; George Clooney, Tom Cruise, and Brad Pitt to name a few. Now, in an interview with Ropes of Silicon, the writer is already talking about his next project. Carnahan will be writing a crime thriller based on the infamous Zebra Murders that took place in San Francisco in the early 70's. There have already been a couple of books written on the subject, but I would guess that most people are not that familiar with the crimes that took place between 1973 and 1974.
Over the course of one year, a group of serial killers with connections to the nationalist group, The Nation of Islam, were responsible for the muders of 16 people; they called themselves 'The Death Angels.' It has been reported that the group "believed that they could earn "points" towards Paradise when they died if they killed as many whites as possible". Finally, in 1975, and after one of the longest trials in California history, Larry Green, J.C.X. Simon, Manuel Moore and Jessie Lee Cooks were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Carnahan is working with DreamWorks on Zebra, and told Ropes, "It's just such a little gem of a story. If I can put two sentences together I think hopefully people will want to be involved". Carnahan is planning on focusing the story on the racial tensions in the city at the time. But, it will ultimately revolve around the two African-American policemen who were instrumental in the capture of the Angels. There is no official word on the project yet, but judging by Carnahan's relatively short yet successful track record, I doubt it will take long until we hear something more definite.
After going nowhere with Disney, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past got nabbed by New Line, and it was over a year ago that the company was trying to get Matthew McConaughey to star. At the pace of a snail, the pieces are coming together. In February, The House of Yes and Just Like Heaven helmer Mark Waters had signed on to direct, from a script by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. Now, according to Variety, Jennifer Garner is in talks to co-star in an unspecified role. To recap -- the film will focus on a womanizer who gets haunted by 'ghosts' of his past, present, and future girlfriends while at the wedding of his younger brother. These apparitions lead him to realize that he's in love with his childhood sweetheart.
I imagine that means Garner is the sweetheart, although she could be the new sister-in-law, or a ghostly shepherd that herds the beings in and out of the guy's head. I really hope this flick is worth it, but I don't have much hope. I'm quite sure it will be a fluff success, but it would be really nice if it could be a substantial, fun, and worthy comedy. Or, even a decent one -- 13 Going on 30 wasn't a flawless movie, but it was a welcome change from the usual fare, and it had a killer Thriller recreation. Furthermore, Garner has been involving herself in some solid work lately, like The Kingdom and the hugely-buzzed Juno, so it would be a waste to tarnish those stints with a stinker of a cinema cherry. We'll have to wait a while to find out, however -- production won't get in gear until January.
It's not every day that one gets to see a film that's charming, sweet, intelligent and also happens to be written by an erstwhile stripper/phone sex operator (who, incidentally, owns a cat named Douchepacker). I had that pleasure at the Toronto Film Festival, however, when I took in Juno, penned with surprising astuteness by first-time screenwriter Diablo Cody (the aforementioned former stripper), directed by Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking), and starring Ellen Page (Hard Candy), Michael Cera (Superbad), Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner.
In the film, 16-year-old Juno MacGuff (Page) discovers that she's all knocked up after just one foray into sex with her best bud Paulie Bleeker (Cera), a sweet but clueless orange-Tic-Tac-addicted track star who seems perfectly content to let Juno have an abortion. She doesn't. Instead, she decides to keep the child and let a "perfect" young yuppie couple (Bateman and Garner), who can't have kids of their own, adopt her baby-to-be. The result is a hilarious, endearing and moving picture that explores family and friendship, loyalty and loss, and what it truly means to love someone, all while expertly avoiding turning into a gooey, steaming pile of melodrama.
I sat down with Jason Bateman and Ellen Page to talk about the film, and -- while the full interview won't be posted until the December release date nears -- I thought I'd give you a small yet delicious (some might say orange-Tic-Tac-like) taste of what I learned ...
This news is actually more than a few days old -- and it was so buried within a Jennifer Garner press release that I just missed it. No matter, I'm sure it's new to most of you. 
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