Robert Schwentke Tagged Articles at Cinematical

When Warren Ellis' Red was first optioned, I wasn't particularly excited. As readers have pointed out, Ellis has many books that would be more exciting to see on the big screen. The initial casting of Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman didn't inspire a lot of excitement, either. (I love both, but Willis as an ex-assassin? Hardly inspired.) But as Robert Schwentke has filled out his cast, things have gotten a lot more interesting. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Mary-Louise Parker and John C. Reilly are in talks to join Red alongside Freeman, Willis, and Helen Mirren.

Reilly would play a retired CIA agent who is paranoid that everyone is out to kill him. Willis' predicament will naturally prove him right, and it's the frantic, nervous role that Reilly specializes in. Again, it's not the most inspired casting, but it's exciting to see Reilly finally land a comic book role. I like to see actors drawn into this world, even if it is in a more "standard" storyline.

Parker will play Willis' love interest, an ordinary employee of the federal pension office who becomes embroiled in his struggle to stay alive. As if relationships aren't hard enough, it's "Honey! My former employers are trying to kill me! Get your passport, we have to hide in Bruges." She is a talented actress, so I sincerely hope she gets a little more to do than run around and be frightened. Perhaps she can be trained in the arts of action by Mirren's character.

It's a really good cast so far, and there's undoubtedly more to come as Willis' opponents are lined up. This could be something a little more in the mold of A History of Violence, which would be a refreshing change from the flashy adaptation attempts like Wanted. Red is officially on my radar.

I have a major girl crush on Helen Mirren. I want to be her, and I simultaneously want her to take me under her wing, and turn me posh. Now she's set to make me geek out even more, because Screen Daily and The Hollywood Reporter report that she's just signed on to Red, Summit Entertainment's adaptation of Warren Ellis' bloody miniseries. Robert Schwentke is set to direct.

Mirren joins Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman in this cheerful tale of assassins. Willis plays black ops CIA Agent Paul Moses, who is enjoying the peace and quiet of retirement. But when there's a change of guard at the CIA, it's decided that Moses is too much of a liability. While Ellis' book pitted Moses against a single assassin, the movie will put Moses against a host of younger and more technologically adept opponents. It'll be the old school versus the new school -- and we all know who will probably win. I believe Freeman is playing the new CIA boss who decides Moses has seen and done too much to be anything but a liability, but nothing has been specified.

In her first comic book adaptation, Mirren will be playing an old associate of Willis, who has her own lethal set of skills. (Shades of Taken!) Don't be surprised if they're sexy skills. But you know what? It's Helen Mirren. If she wants to use her looks in order to dispatch a dictator or arms dealer, she can. Filming is set to kick off in January, and I count the days until I can see Mirren actually kick some ass onscreen.

Girlfriends and fools... Now that's a combination! Enjoy:

• Every time I hear about the upcoming Mark Waters flick The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, I think of a run-in I had last year. I hadn't seen someone in a few months, and when I ran into him, he said: "If it isn't the Ghost of Christmas Past!" What on earth do you say to that!? I've no clue, but it did give my friends a lot of laughs later. Anyway, there's not a present ghost added to the Matthew McConaughey mix. Variety reports that Noureen DeWulf has picked herself up a lead playing both Matthew's assistant and the Ghost of Girlfriends Present. It's not a bad jump for the actress, who was "'Nuff Said Expo Girl" last year. (Although she also had a role in The Comebacks as well.)
• One year and one day ago, we found out that Leonard DiCaprio was going to star in the big-screen adaptation of Kurt Eichenwald's Conspiracy of Fools. Since so much time has passed, it's not certain whether Leo will still head the feature, but Variety reports that Robert Schwentke, the man behind Flightplan, is going to helm it. The director is really making a name for himself lately -- he just shot the adaptation of The Time Traveler's Wife as well. If you're not familiar with Fools -- it's a drama that focuses on the Enron scandal, and as Variety describes it, the film will focus on "a tax attorney who joins the Houston-based energy company and peels back the layers of greed and fraudulent accounting to expose a financial scheme.

The first stills from The Time Traveler's Wife have popped up over at JustJared, though the movie still has no release date -- fall 2008, I assume. Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams star as two lovers who are hung up on the problem that Bana's character, a librarian named Henry De Tamble, has some kind of disease that causes him to time travel uncontrollably. It's during one of his time jaunts he happens upon Clare Abshire, the character played by McAdams. The way I understand it is that De Tamble continues to pop in on Clare at various ages and at different intervals, even as she moves forward along an normal, unmolested timeline. So unless I'm wrong, it will play out sort of like as if he was going off to war and leaving her alone for long periods of time, causing a severe form of separation anxiety. But since I haven't read the book, I could be wrong on that. I do remember that this book was initially optioned by Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston as a vehicle for the two of them to star in -- so much for that.

The movie sounds like it's at least worth a look -- sci-fi romance is always a chancy but interesting genre. The one dark cloud hanging over the whole thing, however, is that it's directed by Robert Schwentke, the genius who last graced us with Jodie Foster's Flightplan. You can't really tell anything about the movie from the small batch of stills -- they look like typically publicity shots for a romantic dramedy. No one looks to have been aged significantly and there's nothing special at all about them, really, but here they are -- enjoy.

Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana have inked deals to co-star in The Time Traveler's Wife, a science-fiction love story based on the best-selling novel by Audrey Niffenegger. Bana will play Henry De Tamble, a librarian with a genetic disorder that causes him to shift back and forth through time. During his journeys through time, he meets and falls in love with Clare Abshire, a young heiress. Robert Schwentke, who most recently directed the Jodie Foster disappointment Flightplan, will take the reigns with a script by Jeremy Leven. Variety notes that a rewrite is currently being penned by Bruce Joel Rubin, who successfully combined high-concept and romance once before, with Ghost.

Shooting is scheduled to begin in August, with production duties being handled by Brad Pitt and Nick Wechsler, who is also producing the forthcoming Reservation Road and We Own the Night, and recently came off The Fountain, which Pitt famously backed out of after of a long engagement. The Variety story notes that McAdams has been dancing around this project ever since it was first snapped up by New Line in 2003. She's since starred in New Line hits Wedding Crashers and The Notebook, so the part was probably hers to lose. Next up for McAdams is The Return, a story of soldiers rotating back to the world from Iraq. Bana's next high-profile project is The Other Boleyn Girl, in which he plays King Henry VIII.

Though it's taken a whole lot of time to find a director willing to attach himself to the feature film adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger's popular novel The Time Traveler's Wife, it appears Robert Schwentke (Flightplan) will take on helming duties for New Line... assuming nothing goes wrong during the negotiations process. We recently reported that Schwentke was duking it out with Stephen Frears for the gig, however it now seems the latter dude has dropped off the radar. Bummer, I dig Frears -- not that I have anything against Schwentke or Flightplan -- I just think Frears' ability to tackle relationships with a fantastic eye for detail would have worked so well with this pic. Oh well.

There's still no word on whether Rachel McAdams will star as, well, the time traveler's wife, but I assume we'll have that info sooner rather than later. For those not aware, story revolves around a man who possesses a rare time-traveling gene which he uses to visit his wife at different points in her life. At one time, folks like Steven Spielberg, David Fincher and Gus Van Sant were circling the project (which was written by The Notebook scribe Jeremy Leven and will be produced by Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Nick Wechsler), though each one bailed for whatever reasons. I take it the story was probably a bit too sappy for Fincher, not enough special effects for Spielberg and not controversial enough for Van Sant. Of course, if it were up to me, I'd throw Zemeckis, Lloyd, Fox and a DeLorian in there to change things up a bit. See, but this is why no one lets me make any decisions.