ireland Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Leonardo DiCaprio and Vinnie Jones Team Up for Irish King Tale?
Filed under: Action », Drama », Casting »
Are you ready for Leonardo DiCaprio doing an Irish accent? He probably should have played Irish in Titanic, but now he'll really have to master the accent for a historical epic called Freedom Within the Heart. Set 1,000 years ago, the film is about Brian Boru, the High King of Ireland who united the country in battle against a Viking threat. Since Boru was at least 60 when he became King, DiCaprio seems a bit young to play the lead, but according to a story from February, the actor was indeed being sought for that very role. At the time, former soccer pro Vinnie Jones was also reportedly cast as Boru's nemesis, Ivor of Limerick. Now, confirming DiCaprio's involvement is a press release from Limerick.com, which states the two actors will be joining Irish filmmaker Mark Mahon in the village of Tuamgraney, in County Clare, provided the Irish Film Board accepts a bid for the production to shoot there. There are hopes that the movie will bring tourism to the area in the same way movies like Braveheart and Rob Roy have brought people to Scottish locales.Despite earning an Oscar nomination for Blood Diamond, a lot of people thought he did a terrible job with the South African accent, so we'll have to see how he does with the Irish. He could be criticized enough for playing such a legendary figure and not actually being Irish, so if he gets the accent wrong, he'll only make things worse. However, plenty of similar epics have been made without great accuracy, and fans of medieval action probably won't mind.
Fox Searchlight Buys American Rights to Once
Filed under: Deals », Sundance », Distribution », Fox Searchlight », Cinematical Indie »
During the recent Sundance Film Festival, Summit Entertainment had bought the worldwide distribution rights to Once, the Irish musical that premiered at the festival. Now Summit has sold the film's North American distribution rights to Fox Searchlight. The price was under $1 million -- not bad for a movie that cost about $100K to make. Fox hasn't publicized a possible release date yet, except to say it will be released in 2007.Once was written and directed by John Carney, and won the World Cinema Audience Award for a dramatic film at Sundance this year. James Rocchi caught the film at Sundance and said it "isn't just the standard-issue struggling artist story it could have been, but, rather, a symbol for moving on, daring to be happy, daring to reach out." Once sounds like a charming love story, and hopefully, since a larger distributor like Fox Searchlight has the film, more of us will get the opportunity to see it later this year. Other movies Fox Searchlight bought at Sundance include the Adrienne Shelly film Waitress, Joshua and La Misma Luna (partnering with The Weinstein Company).
Irish Government To Pour Lots Of Money Into Irish Film
Filed under: Newsstand », Cinematical Indie »
The Irish really love the movies. And now they will be able to love more of their very own movies, as the Irish government announced it will be spending $188 million (EU145 million) on its film industry through 2013. Per year that's only about $27 million, hardly enough to pay the top name stars in Hollywood, let alone finance a typical American movie, but it should be plenty to get more domestic productions off the ground. Think about how many great Irish actors are working today. Add to that the number of talented Irish filmmakers. Now try to name a recent Irish film -- without counting co-productions with the U.K., the States or any other country. It is difficult to do. But it has been fortunate that a lot of Irish storytelling is co-financed outside of Ireland, so we are aware of the talent continuing to come out of the country. And anyway, these days a lot of the cinema of Europe is the product of multinational collaboration.
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