ben barnes Tagged Articles at Cinematical

MTV's Hollywood Crush got the details behind Eliza Dushku's Tweets about filming a new project in Boston directly from the star herself. The Dollhouse lead is currently in Beantown for Valediction, a thriller about a man who finds himself in the middle of a hot freaking mess. He and his wife have a young daughter who is "seemingly in a coma, but [they learn] she's actually alive and fully living out in her brain, but is just in this locked-in state... So he's trying to have his daughter wake up from this traumatic experience," according to Dushku. Also? The car accident is his fault.

Ben Barnes, Prince Caspian himself, plays Josh, the utterly confused lead, and Sarah Roemer is his wife. Dushku is the wild card, Renee, with whom he once had an affair and is just one of the catalysts for Josh's inner turmoil.

"[Josh] sort of meets up with Renee and wonders what would have happened if he went that route. It really is about his struggle both with these women in his life and then with his daughter who's been injured... It turns into a really psychological chaos," Dushku told MTV.

Dushku's TV show Dollhouse was (thankfully!) renewed by Fox, and the multi-talented star is also producing a biopic about Robert Mapplethorpe, The Perfect Moment.

I'm totally psyched West Side Story is heading back to Broadway this year (the show opened this week!) -- so much so that I scooped up tickets for my mom for Mother's Day because I'm good like that (awww) -- but Vanity Fair took things one step further and, for one of their splash-tastic photo spreads, decided to pull together a whole bunch of actors to recreate famous scenes from one of the most beloved musicals of all time, with help from photographer Mark Seliger.

Participants included Jennifer Lopez (Anita), Camilla Belle (Maria), Ben Barnes (Tony), Rodrigo Santoro (Bernardo, leader of the Sharks), Brandon T. Jackson (Sharks gang member), Jay Hernandez (Sharks gang member), Chris Evans (Riff, leader of the Jets), Cam Gigandet (Jets gang member), Drake Bell (Jets gang member) and Robert Pattinson (Jets gang member). Twilight represent! Other folks who pop up (as various group members) include Ashley Tisdale, Brittany Snow, Sean Faris, Shane Lynch, Melonie Diaz, Minka Kelly, Natalie Martinez ... and I think that's everyone. Sometimes I forget how big this ensemble cast is.

I know it's early, and this is simply a photo shoot celebrating the musical's return to Broadway, but if they were to ever stage a remake one imagines the cast (and the film) would look something like this -- a smorgasbord of some of Hollywood's hottest up-and-coming talent. Whaddya think? Is it only a matter of time? Check out a few of the images below, then head over to Vanity Fair for all the fascinating details.

A highbrow festival like Toronto doesn't offer many opportunities to laugh, and I was grateful for this one. Easy Virtue, an adaptation of an early Noël Coward play, is a droll and witty delight, a superb showcase for its cast, and a return to fine form for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert director Stephan Elliott, who last turned in the unsettling but incomprehensible Eye of the Beholder nearly 10 years ago. Where most TIFF films seemed to glower at me from the screen, this one winked and smiled.

Noël Coward may seem a strange choice for Elliott, whose films have favored the bizarre and the obscure. I don't know what attracted the filmmaker to this project, but I'm glad that something did. The material may seem almost purely verbal, all clever turns of phrase and sardonic interjections (what Americans think of as "Britishness"), but Elliott is constantly concerned with how the movie looks and sounds. Fittingly, he manages to give it a curious, otherworldly feel. This is most pronounced in the opening sequence, which marries choppy black-and-white footage, odd angles, and a jazzy soundtrack to introduce us to the characters and transport us to a universe that is ever so slightly off-kilter. It's a welcome recognition that these hyper-literate, impeccably constructed old comedies – Coward, Wilde, etc. – don't take place in a world quite like ours.

While it stars some great names in the world of film, we haven't heard too much about Easy Virtue. But now, as it gears up for that spanky Canadian festival known as TIFF, CinEmpire has published a whole slew of pictures -- a retro Jessica Biel, Colin Firth, Ben Barnes, Kristin Scott Thomas, and more.

The film focuses on an American divorcee (Biel) who has to meet the parents (but hopefully without the cat milking). But unlike Stiller's version, she's already tied the knot with a sexy young Englishman (Barnes), so Mom (Scott Thomas) and Dad (Firth) can't stop the wedding. But I'm sure there'll be lots of dirty looks, and more than one smirk, like the one above.

Virtue is yet another romcom, but at least it heads back in time a little, and originally comes from a Noel Coward play that Alfred Hitchcock adapted years ago as a dramatic silent film. Good or bad, we'll find out soon enough.

[via The Bad and Ugly]

Colin Firth and Ben Barnes alone do not an Oscar Wilde adaptation make -- and with filming on Dorian Gray having already started (more on that in a moment), it's a good thing they filled out the rest of the cast! Variety reports that just about every British actor not working on Harry Potter or The Tudors has signed on.

Rebecca Hall is probably the most notable addition -- IMDB claims she's playing Emily Wooten, a character which doesn't seem to exist in the original book. But she's no stranger to gloomy Victorian stories, as she's probably best known to American audiences as Christian Bale's tormented wife in The Prestige. The key female role appears to have gone to Rachel Hurd-Wood, who will be playing Sibyl Vane, the actress Gray falls in love with. Emilia Fox is playing Lady Victoria Wooten, wife of Firth's character.

Completing the cast are: Ben Chaplin, Fiona Shaw, Maryam D'Abo, Pip Torrens, Douglas Henshall, Caroline Goodall, Michael Culkin, Johnny Harris and newcomer Max Irons, son of Jeremy Irons. This is going to be a real film of young up and comers, isn't it? Barnes, Hall, Hurd-Wood, Irons ... it should be quite interesting to see who might take off from this.

And I wasn't wrong when I said a photo of Firth and Barnes in cravats would be forthcoming. Variety has one accompanying their article -- and it's a nice official still, not a grainy one from the British paparazzi as I was expecting. You can already sense the debauchery, can't you?

At last, there's a delightful cast addition to The Picture of Dorian Gray. In all the excitement of summer, this film undoubtedly dropped off your radar. But back in May, Ben Barnes (otherwise known as Prince Caspian) was cast as the eternally beautiful lead. (I know some of you haven't forgotten, I get comments praising Barnes about once a week. He's got quite a following!)

Now, the god of lushly wet shirts (otherwise known as Colin Firth ) has joined the cast. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he'll be playing the witty Lord Henry Wotton, the aristocrat who corrupts young Gray with his hedonistic pursuits and outlook. And yes, there's a good dash of homoeroticism inherent in their relationship as well. It has the potential to be deliciously dark and twisted onscreen.

Firth is, obviously, no stranger to costume pieces or Oscar Wilde. He co-starred in the delightful The Importance of Being Earnest, which was also directed by Wilde aficionado Oliver Parker. As they're selling this as a "visceral, dark horror story," I'm really excited to see Firth in it. He seems to be the go-to guy for American romantic comedies lately, and it will be fun to see him be villainous again. Filming begins this week, and I bet there will be photos of both men in cravats and poet shirts in London's Metro paper by the end of August.

No more does the "next Orlando Bloom" crown descend than Ben Barnes begins racking up the lead roles. Currently onscreen as the titular Prince Caspian, Barnes is set to tackle a literary classic -- the title role in The Portrait of Dorian Gray.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Gray is actually in really good hands. It's being helmed by director Oliver Parker, and produced by Barnaby Thompson, the team behind An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest. I thought both were splendid, so I'm immediately intrigued. (Others may disagree, but that's what the comments are for.)

Parker plans to "make a visceral, dark horror story" and says the themes of stardom are as relevant as ever. It's set to begin filming at the end of July.

I haven't seen Prince Caspian yet, so I can't judge Barnes' acting ability. Neither Jette nor Jeffery had anything too negative to say about him in their reviews, apart from his accent. My sister, who beats me to nearly every movie, said he was gorgeous but unremarkable. (Actually, what she said was meaner, but I'm not going to repeat it.) So, what say you Caspian watchers -- think this nice looking boy is Wilde material?

Frankly, I think if they're going to tackle Dorian Gray, they ought to have an actor who really must have a portrait rotting in his garret. I'm thinking primarily of Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp. The way they look just isn't right.

One thing I've noticed about most epic sci-fi/fantasy stories is that they're essentially about war, albeit disguised and softened with weird monsters, robots and other creatures with funny names. There's usually a bad guy (with a really sinister sounding name) who wants to take over the world or something similar, and a reluctant hero -- plucked from his comfortable, yet mundane home -- who has to stop him. The trick is to make it all fun. Because let's face it, we humans love war. If we didn't there wouldn't be so many movies and books about war, as well as -- you know -- real wars. (More specifically, I think, we love watching them, rather than fighting in them.) The Lord of the Rings trilogy worked so well because Peter Jackson projected his own twisted glee into every frame; he loved making those movies and it showed. The characters felt an anxious anticipation toward the battle, like a buildup, and the battles themselves were explosive releases. The new film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, the second in an unfortunately ongoing series, treats war as if it were already played out, rather than happening before our eyes. It's a dead dog dull bore of a movie, but that won't stop it from making a fortune. (See also Jette's review.)

It's been two-and-a-half years since we watched the Pevensie children come to life on the big screen in Disney's splashy adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but for the characters, only a year has passed between those adventures and the ones in the new movie, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Well, time is funny like that when you're dealing with the magical land of Narnia, as the storyline of this movie amply illustrates.

The structure of events in the movie is actually an improvement on the C.S. Lewis book, opening with a captivating chase scene as young Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) attempts to escape from his Uncle Miraz (Sergio Castellito). Miraz has been scheming to steal Caspian's throne and now wants him dead. But Caspian's tutor gives him a magical horn, the horn of Queen Susan, to summon help in time of need. When Caspian blows the horn, suddenly Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter are pulled out of a London Tube station (which was the first scene in the book) and into a world of wild, wooded ruins that turns out to be Narnia, thousands of years after they've left. However, Caspian thought he was summoning kings and queens, not British children, and how can these kids help him regain the throne and help Old Narnia? And where is Aslan the Lion in the middle of all this?

Why We Can't Wait to See It: After waiting for years for a quality theatrical adaptation of C.S. Lewis's beloved Narnia series, the first film, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, didn't disappoint. Will the darker, more action-packed tale of Prince Caspian continue to impress fans of the books?

Why It Might Do Well: The best-selling series has a built-in fan base with families, Christians, and fantasy fans. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe grossed over $740,000,000 worldwide off an estimated $180,000,000 budget. This installment also boasts the addition of Ben Barnes as the handsome Prince Caspian, which could draw in the tween and teen market.

Why It Might Not Do Well: Producer Mark Johnson confirmed at the Narnia panel at New York Comic Con that the Mouse House plans to stop the franchise after filming Voyage of the Dawn Treader -- news that might not sit well with hardcore Narnia fans who were hoping to see all of the series brought to life. Also, the kid market has been rather flooded with fantasy films of late; The Spiderwick Chronicles brought in a dismal $70 million domestically off a $90 million budget, and Abigail Breslin starrer Nim's Island just over $32 million off a $34 million budget. Could interest in fantasy films be waning?

Fun Fact: Work on the script for Prince Caspian was started during the shooting of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, so filming on the sequel could begin as soon as possible, before the four children playing the leads visibly aged. Prince Caspian starts just one year in "Earth time" after the end of the first book.

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