stuart townsend Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The ranks of Asgard are just about full! Marvel Studios reports that the Warriors Three will be joining Thor in all of his frosty battles, and as usual, Kenneth Branagh has done a bang up job with the casting. Stuart Townsend, Tadanobu Asano, and Ray Stevenson have joined the cast as Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg, respectively.

The official announcement comes on the heels of Zachary Levi revealing to USA Weekend that he had been cast as Fandral, but was forced to drop out due to an extended Chuck workload. While I feel for Levi, I'm actually very pleased that Townsend has stepped in, as I find him to be a bit more Errol Flynnish than Levi. (Though pulling up his Google Images reveals a guy who looks a lot more dashing than Chuck Bartowski. Wow. I might have to eat my words on that.) I'm anxious to see the once-and-never Aragorn get another shot at the fantasy genre, and prove himself to be dashing.

I'm not familiar with Asano's work beyond Mongol, but he turned in a very charismatic performance, and I'm always thrilled to see casting directors look to countries other than Northern Europe. But my heart really couldn't beat any faster than it is at Stevenson's casting. He'll be perfect, and it's awesome to see him get another shot at the Marvel Universe since it doesn't look like we'll ever see him return as Frank Castle. Filming begins in January 2010, and from there it'll just be one big geeky countdown.

Mr. Eric D. Snider saw and reviewed Stuart Townsend's Battle in Seattle when it played at the South By Southwest Film Festival last March. As the film is opening tomorrow in limited release, we offer a reprint of that review.

Watching Battle in Seattle is like being jabbed in the belly with a police baton, and not in a good way. Written and directed rather ambitiously by the actor Stuart Townsend, who has never written or directed anything before, it uses fictional characters to tell a true story but gives us no reason to care about the people, their lives, or their political causes. The riots that occurred at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999 may well have been historically significant -- but you wouldn't know it from watching Battle in Seattle, which insists on telling us how important the issues are rather than showing us.

Townsend gives a cursory explanation of what the WTO is and tells us that many oppose it for its lax policies on human rights and labor standards. The details aren't important to him, though. He seems to take it as a given that we already dislike the WTO, even though most viewers' response to WTO is "WTF?" It's a massive, complicated international organization that deals with stodgy, unsexy issues like trade and commerce, and I guarantee the vast majority of the audience isn't nearly as interested in it as Townsend is. And if the point is that we should be interested in it, he fails to explain why.

When most films traverse the seas of melodrama, they balance it with either a thick layer of absurdity or a heavy reliance on the desperation for passion and love. While a film like Meet the Parents will take an ordinary situation and make it extraordinary with a series of over-the-top gags and painful to-watch bad luck, another, like any of Sandra Bullock's romcoms, will infuse its quirky protagonist with the burning need for love and a host of romantic ideals. Chaos Theory, however, leaves all of that aside and explores the territory of melodramatic love by focusing on the way each character lives their life and reacts to big moments. It has its share of over-the-top moments and sentimental scenes that would make cynical viewers cringe, yes, but those are only a small portion of the experience.

Ryan Reynolds stars as Frank Allen, a man who has built his life on a carefully organized timetable of index cards. He is so invested in this way of life, in fact, that he has made a career out of it; he has written a successful book about efficiency, and teaches others how to live his carefully constructed index card existence. It works wonderfully for him until the day that his well-meaning wife, Susan (Emily Mortimer), turns the clock back ten minutes and shatters the intricate structure of his day.

With the news that Battle in Seattle will open the Seattle International Film Festival, and coverage of the recent Olympic protests on every channel, it couldn't be a better time to release the trailer for the protest drama. Movieset is currently hosting the full trailer for the film set during the infamous World Trade Organization riots in Seattle in 1999.

In 1999, the World Trade Organization (WTO) convened in Seattle, Washington for a global trade negotiation conference. Before anyone knew what had happened, over 40,000 protesters had amassed outside the conference buildings and the anti-globalization group, Direct Action Network, had total control over downtown intersections. Unfortunately, the protests erupted into violence and a state of emergency pitted demonstrators against the National Guard and local police.

Stuart Townsend's directorial debut has a huge cast including Ray Liotta, Charlize Theron, Michelle Rodriguez, Martin Henderson, Channing Tatum, André Benjamin, and Woody Harrelson. Judging by Eric's SXSW review it doesn't look like all that star power has helped the film all that much. Battle was originally scheduled to be released in March, but has been moved back to September. It makes much more sense to release this kind of 'earnest' political drama when everyone is finished with summer popcorn flicks and are ready for something with just a little substance, however heavy-handed it might be.

[via Coming Soon]

A couple of weeks ago, SXSW released info on a handful of films that would be screening at the film festival this March, including the opening-night film, 21. Today, the Austin-based festival let a few more titles slip, including one well-known comedy: Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. That might not sound like your typical festival fare, but it'll provide a nice balance with documentaries and low-budget indie dramas.

Although the full SXSW lineup won't be released until Feb. 5, the fest also released details on five other movies that will be screened: Battle in Seattle, a feature about the 1999 WTO demonstrations in Seattle that is actor Stuart Townsend's directorial debut; Mister Lonely, Harmony Korine's movie about a Michael Jackson look-alike meeting a Marilyn Monroe look-alike; The Promotion, a comedy about rival supermarket managers that stars John C. Reilly and Seann William Scott; Crawford, a documentary about how the Texas town has been affected by George W. Bush's home there; and a live-action/animation feature called The Toe Tactic.

Finally, more speakers were announced for a series of "Conversations" panels (the kind where it's generally one famous person and a moderator): Helen Hunt, Michael Eisner, and Harlan Ellison. No word yet on whether any of the Harold and Kumar filmmakers or crew will be at SXSW this March, although writer-directors Hayden Schlossberg and Jon Hurwitz were at Austin Film Festival last fall to talk about their experiences writing both films.

On behalf of fans of vampire movies everywhere, I certainly hope we can chalk this one up to just a silly rumor. Bloody Disgusting is reporting that United Artists is pushing to snap up the rights to the fourth novel in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, The Tale of The Body Thief. According to BD's sources, "here's speculation on my behalf, but UA = Tom Cruise, right? Might we be seeing Tom Cruise back as the Vampire Lestat?" The casting of Tom Cruise as the Vampire Lestat in Neil Jordan's 1994 adaptation of Rice's bestselling novel, Interview with The Vampire, caused an uproar among fans (and the author for that matter). Rice had been quoted as saying that Cruise was, "no more my Vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler".**

The story of Body Thief picks up with Lestat who has made a deal with a "body thief" to get the chance to switch bodies and to live like a mortal again. This would be the third attempt to make an Anne Rice book into a film, the last being the disastrous Queen of the Damned with Aaliyah and Stuart Townsend as Lestat. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Townsend's Lestat wasn't too bad all things considered. He definitely had the Lestat pout down pat, something that Cruise could just never quite pull off in Interview. Not to mention Cruise's avoidance of the obvious homoerotic content to the original story -- although kudos to Antonio Banderas and Brad Pitt for being the only two actors in that film to even hint at a little vampire on vampire action.

As we all know, Cruise's relationship with Paramount ended badly back in '06. Now that Cruise is calling shots at UA, could Tom be planning to "ruin" yet another Anne Rice property? Until we get some kind of official word on the project, lets just keep our fingers crossed that Cruise is going to leave the fangs to someone else this time.

**Rice did eventually back-track and reverse her statements once she actually saw the film and Cruise's performance.

Battle in Seattle has nothing to do with the Rumble in the Jungle or the Thrilla in Manila. It's also not connected to the fictional "siege of Seattle" mentioned in Children of Men. No, Battle in Seattle refers to the real-life riots that occurred in 1999 when protesters sought to stop a meeting of the World Trade Organization. Irish actor Stuart Townsend wrote and directed a dramatization of the events, it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival -- and now Variety reports that ThinkFilm has bought the film for a cool $2 million.

Battle in Seattle stars Charlize Theron (Townsend's girlfriend), Woody Harrelson, and Ray Liotta, among quite a few others, and takes a documentary-style approach, with multiple points of view from multiple characters. We've been following the film for some time: Here are some details from a year ago; here's more casting and plot details.

ThinkFilm proved to be the big spender of this year's TIFF. I told you a few days ago about the distributor's acquisition of Helen Hunt's Then She Found Me for somewhere between $2.5 million and $3 million. Coincidentally, both films are the directorial debuts of well-known actors. Will Hunt or Townsend turn out to be the next Clint Eastwood or Robert Redford? Time will tell.

Now that I know how the Harry Potter franchise ends (I got the scoop off Wikipedia, not the new book), I don't seem to care about the movies. Does anyone else feel the same way? I didn't think so. Anyway, I figure my lack of interest in the next movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, also has something to do with the fact that I stopped reading the books after Order of the Phoenix. As for you guys, I'm sure you are still interested, or else you wouldn't be reading. So, yeah, sorry to disappoint you all, but Naomi Watts is apparently not actually signed on to play Narcissa Malfoy. And Joseph Fiennes will not be playing Tom Riddle, Sr., or anyone else, apparently. Also, Stuart Townsend won't be in the movie either, apparently. This is what reps for the actress and each of the actors, respectively, are saying. According to MTV Movies Blog, all three camps have given a simple statement of "not true."

I guess everyone can now stop debating whether or not Watts is technically British or Australian, as well as whether or not the Potter movies can allow for a non-English or non-British person to join the cast (obviously the commenters didn't read the source article, in which Watts defended her British roots -- in an old, non-Potter-related quote -- and even pointed out that she lived there her first 14 years). Even though I don't care anymore about Harry Potter, I have to admit that I'll always salute the movies' great casting choices. So, I must offer my sympathy for the fans (and MTV) who were excited about Watts playing Mrs. Malfoy. Even though I'm not familiar with the character (even if she was in Order of the Phoenix, which I did read), I see how she would fit in genetically with the other Malfoy Family actors (Jason Isaacs; Tom Felton). I also think the idea of casting Voldemort's brother as his father makes perfect sense. If I was Joseph Fiennes rep and I knew he wasn't cast, I'd at least look into getting him the part rather than quickly shooting the idea down completely. Of course, all the denials could be Warner Bros' doing -- maybe they don't want the info confirmed just yet.

When I reported about this film earlier, it looked like Oscar winner Charlize Theron was a lock to star in it. Soon after, it appeared she was jumping ship to board another film which would be her next project. The question of Theron's participation in Battle in Seattle may or may not be solved at the moment, but that hasn't stopped writer/director Stuart Townsend from continuing to assemble an impressive roster of established and up-and-coming actors for his directorial debut.

According to production weekly, super-hot Michelle Rodriguez, Jennifer Carpenter, Channing Tatum and Tzi Ma have now joined the cast of Battle in Seattle which already includes Woody Harrelson, Martin Henderson, Ray Liotta -- and, most likely, Townsend's fianceé, Charlize Theron. The documentary-style film tells the intertwining stories of dozens of characters who attended the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. During the meeting, protesters marched and campaigned so vehemently that the event eventually had to be halted. Between 40,000 and 60,000 people were involved in the protests. If Theron does end up appearing in the film (and let's face it, she probably will -- she does like the guy after all), Theron is expected to play a pregnant bystander named Lou who gets caught up in the protests and provides some perspective for the participants and the audience.

To be fair,I can't say for sure if I'm that into the storyline of this film, but it does sound at least interesting. It also sounds quite complicated to film and I just hope fledgling director Townsend is up to the task. But with the cast that Townsend is assembling, there might just be something to this film. In the end, much of the success of a film is determined by who's in it. If that holds true for Battle in Seattle, Townsend might just have a hit on his hands right out of the gate. All he has to do is try not to get in the way too much and let his cast do their work. Battle in Seattle is scheduled to start shooting next week in Vancouver -- and, of course, Seattle.

What do you think? Does this film have a chance?

As if she wasn't already busy enough, super-hot Charlize Theron has now signed on to yet another indie project she will apparently try to squeeze in before the end of the year -- the drama Ferris Wheel, written by Zac Stanford of The Chumscrubber and directed by first-time helmer Bill Maher.

By getting on Ferris Wheel, Theron joins a cast that already includes Nick Stahl, Woody Harrelson, Anna Sophia Robb and indie film vet Dennis Hopper. In addition to acting, Theron will also be producing the film, which tells the story of an 11 year-old girl's struggle to come to terms with abandonment, through her Denver and Delilah production company -- along with Film Engine and Infinity Features.

This announcement is a rather unexpected development considering I recently reported Theron was next going to star in fiance Stuart Townsend's writing/directing debut Battle in Seattle. That film was supposed to start filming in November too. Now, with this film, it seems things have changed a bit on the Battle front.

Perhaps Battle in Seattle is being delayed because of those pesky "creative differences" that can sometimes crop up? Or, maybe its simply a case of "being directed by your fiance" - itis? Or, it could just be financial. Whatever the reasons, it would appear Battle is now going to be back-burnered and Ferris Wheel will take its place as Theron's project du jour. Who gets to break the bad news to Stuart Townsend?

Ferris Wheel is expected to begin shooting in November on location in Canada.