bryce dallas howard Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The world of Twilight never seems to end. Lately, we've had everything from Teen Choice Award sweeps and casting drama, and here's a little more for the rabid fiends out there:

First, it looks like joining Eclipse was a chance for Bryce Dallas Howard to reconsider a turned-down role. While Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke couldn't enlighten us more on the Summit kerfuffle, she did tell Just Jared that the series is finally getting their first choice: "I know we originally asked Bryce Dallas Howard to do the first movie, but she thought it was too small a part at the time." I guess a world-wide phenomenon was enough to whet her appetites and pounce like a hungry cat when Rachelle Lefevre got embroiled in schedule drama. Sneaky Opie-offspring.

What started out as a surprising casting twist has quickly turned into an argument. First, Rachelle Lefevre wasn't trying to move on to bigger and better things by leaving vampires behind. Right after news that Bryce Dallas Howard would replace the Lefevre as Victoria in Eclipse comes a rather surprising statement the actress sent to Entertainment Weekly. Much like Terrence Howard in Iron Man 2, the Twilight recast has stunned the actress in question. According to Lefevre, she's out because of a 10-day overlap between Eclipse and Barney's Version. "I turned down several other film opportunities and, in accordance with my contractual rights, accepted only roles that would involve very short shooting schedules."

Going by this alone, the whole mess seems quite fishy. One would assume that Summit would've warned the actress about when she'd be needed, and likewise, that she'd make sure there was no conflict before accepting outside work.

Well, Summit's press release answers those questions. They have expressed their disappointment right back at Lefevre, and paint an entirely different picture. Summit says she was advised in April about August production, that she waited a month after accepting the second role before alerting them, etc, etc. Basically, their position is that she screwed them over. (You can read the release after the jump.)

So there you have it. Will Lefevre fight back? Stay tuned!

Sorry Twihards -- Rachelle Lefevre is moving on before her character can wreak havoc on Forks. An announcement has just been sent out that the actress won't be coming back for Eclipse, and instead, Bryce Dallas Howard will take over the bloody mayhem when production begins on August 17. As The Hollywood Reporter explains, Lefevre found a gig in the indie drama Barney's Version -- the Mordechai Richler adaptation I posted about in April -- and it starts production on the same day. It may be in Canada as well, but there's a whole lot of land between Eclipse's Vancouver and Version's Quebec.

And talk about a crappy time for scheduling conflicts. She was the moody vamp girlfriend in Twilight, gets to haunt around here and there in New Moon, and then really kicks into gear with Eclipse, cooking up one heck of a revenge scenario to kill Bella and avenge the death of her love, James. Basically, Lefevre has bowed out just as things get really interesting for her character.

And what about Howard? Is she a good replacement? She's got a whole different look than Lefevre, so we can surely expect to see a whole different kind of VIctoria. Let's just hope that Eclipse does better than Howard's other recent blockbusters -- Spider-Man 3 and Terminator Salvation. Or, well, a lot of her other work, for that matter.

It looks like a huge Howard family affair could be brewing, where daughter Bryce Dallas Howard pens a feature for dad director Ron Howard. The Hollywood Reporter posts that the actress wrote a script with Dane Charbeneau called The Originals, a drama that would be a potential helming gig for Ron, and one that boasts a scent that's a bit similar to The Big Chill.

Originals is an ensemble project that follows "a group of twentysomethings who reconvene for a weekend in New York after learning that the teacher who shaped their childhoods has fallen into a mysterious coma." So, not as finite (at least in summary) as Chill, which is good. However, the most notable parts of this production are behind the scenes. As if the daughter/dad team wasn't enough, Charbeneau starting dating Bryce's sister while they worked on this script, and the pair are now engaged. Now we just need Rance, Clint, Cheryl, and Paige to jump on board and this will be a family affair like no other.

Ron has some other projects he's focusing on right now, but I can't imagine him saying no to his family. That being said, this project probably won't get off the ground for a while either way, unless they slip it in between Ron's Colossus and Bryce's Spider-Man. Stay tuned!

I feel like I have this long checklist of cast and crew that we're slowly crossing off for this theoretical film. Now, you can put Bryce Dallas Howard on the "would sign tomorrow" list, thanks to MTV. "I would love to be apart of any continuation of the franchise. But, I also really understand that there's so many different story lines that the fans are really excited to see, and the studio, and the producers, and the filmmakers really need to appease everyone," the actress said. "Whether or not Gwen Stacy comes back, I mean, I wish it was up to me, but it's not. But yes, if they'd call me, I'd be there in a heart beat."

I'm not sure how they can really fit Gwen Stacy in -- is there a point in having a romantic rival when Spider-Man is never ever going to leave Mary Jane onscreen? I remember when we all thought (or maybe it was just my corner of the Internet) that they would reverse comic book history, and kill off Mary Jane and hook Mr. Parker up with Gwen. (If House of M is to be believed, and it probably isn't, that's who he really wanted anyway.) Is there even any emotional impact if they kill off Captain George Stacy in a fourth film, as James Cromwell once said they planned on doing? Is the subplot of "I'm really sorry your dad died, my one-time love interest" really worth exploring? I could probably think more clearly if I could get the breakdancing scene out of my head.

Of course, this is all idle speculation when no official announcements have been made. And as for Sam Raimi he's now playing coy with MTV about returning to the director's chair, and says he wants to wear the Spidey suit instead. That's one way to cut the budget.

It's been almost two years since I first wrote about The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond. The forgotten Tennessee Williams screenplay started cooking up in November 2006, with a stellar cast of Ellen Burstyn, David Strathairn, Ann-Margret, Chris Evans, and ... Lindsay Lohan? This was, however, before her personal demons took center stage and made a complete mess of her career. Bryce Dallas Howard starting circling the project in 2007, and now, finally, you can get a peek of her in the film above (courtesy of Rope of Silicon).

Can you imagine Lohan up there? Methinks her struggles will be a blessing for the film, which centers on Fisher Willow (Howard) -- a 1920s debutant who makes waves because of her "distaste for narrow-minded people and a penchant for shocking and insulting those around her." When she falls for a lower-class young man (Evans), she has to trick her family into thinking that he's upper class. But when she loses a diamond (like the title suggests), you can imagine what happens.

The film will finally begin to hit our eager eyes at TIFF next month.

The Hollywood Reporter announced that Terminator 4 has lost Charlotte Gainsbourg from its cast -- a mere two weeks after her surprise casting was announced. Apparently, it's all due to that age old story of a schedule conflict. Terminator director McG has already started production in New Mexico, but if an actor's strike happens, the delay will cause a conflict with Gainsbourg's next film, a French comedy.

But there is already an actress in talks to replace her, and one who has already cut her chops a bit in the action and sci-fi genres. Bryce Dallas Howard is reportedly the one who will play Kate Connor, the First Lady of the Resistance. She's been absent from screens since Spider-Man 3, due to marriage and motherhood, and it will be cool to see her return in a flashy role.

I think she is a better physical fit for the character than Gainsbourg -- Kate Connor/Brewster was played by Claire Danes, and they look reasonably alike. Not that Terminator sequels and spin-offs seem to be very concerned with that sort of thing.

Regardless of who steps into the role, I'm just continually surprised at the caliber of actors this franchise is getting. While the rest of us have been regarding it very skeptically, it's snagged more than one critical favorite. There must be something here we're just not seeing yet. Right?

Leave it to Hollywood to dig up a fact that nearly two centuries of historical research has missed -- that the famous Bronte sisters, Anne, Emily and Charlotte, were all smoking hot. A new biopic of the trio, simply titled Bronte, has just been greenlit for a fall start, and will star Bryce Dallas Howard, Michelle Williams and Evan Rachel Wood. Annoyingly, the Variety article doesn't identify who will be playing which sister, but I think Howard would be the obvious choice to play Anne, the least successful sister whose most accomplished work was The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. She can do the whole constipated-with-disappointment thing pretty well, I imagine. Emily and Charlotte were the real stars of the family, with the former penning Wuthering Heights and the latter topping that with Jane Eyre. The article also declines to give us any kind of outline as to the story, unless its doing so by proxy when it mentions that the sisters, as youngsters, "created epic fantasy worlds to entertain themselves."

The film was written and will be directed by Charles Sturridge, whose last effort was the 2005 film Lassie, which was barely released in U.S. theaters. Before that, he mostly did TV, including a rendering of Gulliver's Travels, so who knows what kind of quality we're looking at here. Interestingly, IMDB has had a Bronte page up for a while, and there are other actresses in all the main parts except for Michelle Williams, who is credited as Charlotte. Nathalie Press is credited as Emily and Emily Barclay is credited as Anne. Guess that was until Gwen Stacy decided to come knocking. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is also credited on IMDB as Bronte brother Branwell -- who knows if that still applies. The film is set to get rolling in September.

I saw Spider-Man 3 Saturday night. It was a total mess, but the visuals were incredible, the fight scenes were thrilling, and I enjoyed enough of the film to make it worth my time. Still, it occurred to me on the way home that with a few simple changes, the film could have been a superhero classic. And

Before we begin, please know that I'm not a die-hard Spidey fan. The first two Spider-Man films were entertaining enough, but I forgot them immediately afterward. I know when you read that heading you probably thought this article would consist of complaints like "Why didn't they do such-and-such with the character of Venom like they did in Issue #231 of blah-blah-bloo?" But that's not me. This article comes from the point of view of an average guy with no knowledge of comic books who went into Spider-Man 3 with no expectations. Here's what I would have changed to make the movie more entertaining to me. SPOILERS AHEAD!

1) Kill Mary Jane in the opening scene

The Uncle stuff is played out, Peter needs something new to be upset about. And I used to love Kirsten Dunst, but now she "acts" her scenes like she can't wait for someone to yell "Cut!" so she can go and make out with one of The Strokes. Are we really supposed to believe that Peter would choose Dunst's dehydrated, negative, miserable Mary Jane over Bryce Dallas Howard's pants-explodingly hot, upbeat, and cheerful Gwen Stacey? Mary Jane is a terrible girlfriend! She spends the entire film whining about her lackluster singing abilities to a guy who spends his time keeping the city free from evil! She's dull, she's pouty, and she participates in elaborate Chubby Checker-scored cooking/dancing/infidelity montages with James Franco! Dump her!

2) Have your villains get upset before the last twenty minutes roll around

A no-brainer. I can't recall seeing a movie where the villains decided "You know, maybe we should kill the hero" so late in the game. The Sandman appeared to be thinking about what to have for dinner for most of the film. Venom doesn't even enter the picture until the last third. It's screenwriting 101, especially in a movie of this kind. By the end of Act One, you better be damn sure your audience knows who the antagonist is, and what your hero is up against. Nobody seems to have clear motives here. All the characters are confused and conflicted and don't really know who they want to kill and why or if they even want to. That's fine for a Scorsese film, but this is Spider-Man, people!

3) More J.K. Simmons and Bruce Campbell

In the few moments of screen time given to each of these fantastic character actors, they charged the movie with an energy that nearly all of the other actors lacked. As a huge Oz fan, it's always a little jarring to see J.K. Simmons in other roles – I kept expecting him to sexually assault Peter Parker. But once I got past that, the guy was hilarious. And Bruce Campbell's champagne back-and-forth in the restaurant was pure gold. Truth be told, Campbell should have played The Sandman. He certainly would have brought more life to it than Thomas Haden Church -- who must have thought he was playing the Sandman who puts kids to sleep.