**First Look at ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER **International Rights for Quentin Tarantino’s DJANGO UNCHAINED Go to Sony in Effort to Get Will Smith to Star **Rob Marshall to Direct Johnny Depp in Remake of THE THIN MAN **Joaquin Phoenix Joins Paul Thomas Anderson’s Untitled Religious Drama **Trailer for Miranda July’s THE FUTURE

First Look at ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: May 9th, 2011

The first image from Timur Bekmambetov’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter has gone online.  In case you couldn’t get the plot from the title, the movie is about America’s 16th President secret life as a vampire slayer.  Based off the book by Seth Grahame-Smith, the story re-imagines that Lincoln’s mother and grandfather were killed by a vampire and that the president’s resolve to end slavery was due in part to the “fact” that vampires were involved with the slave trade.  However, he also learns that there are good vampires and bad vampires and that he can’t simply just kill them all willy-nilly.
Hit the jump for the image and to learn how the production is devoted to historical accuracy in this incredibly silly story.  The film stars Benjamin Walker, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Anthony Mackie, Dominic Cooper, Alan Tudyk, Jimmi Simpson, and Refus Sewell.  Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter opens in 3D on June 22, 2012.
............. http://collider.com/abraham-lincoln-vampire-hunter-movie-image/89653/

International Rights for Quentin Tarantino’s DJANGO UNCHAINED Go to Sony in Effort to Get Will Smith to Star

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: May 9th, 2011

The Weinstein Company and Quentin Tarantino have selected Sony Pictures to internationally distribute Django Unchained.  While Universal, which handled foreign distribution for Inglourious Basterds, lobbied hard for the film, sources tell Deadline that the movie went to Sony in an effort to sign Will Smith to the lead role.  Smith has a long history with the studio dating back to 1997’s Men in Black, and as we reported on Friday, Tarantino has offered Smith the role of slave-turned-bounty-hunter Django.  The project is being billed as a “Southern”, taking the tropes of a Western and transplanting them to the American south as an attempt to look at the region’s ugly history of racism and slavery.
The role would certainly be a far cry from Smith’s upcoming film, Men in Black III, and a huge risk for the actor, but it would be unlike anything else he’s ever done in his career.  If Smith signs on, he’ll join Christoph Waltz who plays a German bounty hunter that trains Django and assists him in his quest to free his enslaved wife from a plantation owner.
.... http://collider.com/django-unchained-sony-pictures-will-smith/89678/

Rob Marshall to Direct Johnny Depp in Remake of THE THIN MAN; John DeLuca to Produce

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: May 9th, 2011

Last year, we reported that Johnny Depp wanted to reunite with his Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides director Rob Marshall for a new adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man.  We have now received a press release confirming that Marshall is on board to direct and that John DeLuca (Nine) will produce through the duo’s LUCAMAR Productions company.  While I was hoping that Marshall would direct the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Wicked, it’s possible that the project is stuck so far down in development hell that there’s no way anyone can get to it.  And that being said, Marshall is a talented director and I think Depp is a great fit for detective-turned-socialite Nick Charles.
Now the questions become “When will this shoot in relation to The Lone Ranger?” and “Which actress would make a good Nora Charles?”  Hit the jump for the press release.
.... http://collider.com/thin-man-remake-rob-marshall-johnny-depp/89696/

Joaquin Phoenix Joins Paul Thomas Anderson’s Untitled Religious Drama; The Weinstein Company to Distribute Film Worldwide

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: May 9th, 2011

After looking rather dead last September, Paul Thomas Anderson’s untitled religious drama was resurrected this past February when producer Megan Ellison (True Grit) and her Annapurna Productions came on board to finance the picture.  Deadline now reports that Joaquin Phoenix has been confirmed play Freddie Sutton, an alcoholic drifter who becomes right-hand man to Lancaster Dodd, a charismatic intellectual known as The Master (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who’s been attached to the film from the beginning). Earlier drafts of the story were overtly based on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, but that has reportedly changed.   According to Deadline, “[Anderson] has greatly overhauled the script and now, Hoffman stars as a man who returns after witnessing the horrors of WWII and tries to rediscover who he is in post-war America. He creates a belief system, something that catches on with other lost souls.”
Deadline is also reporting that Anderson is now considering actresses Madisen Beaty (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) Amy Adams, Lena Endre (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), and Laura Dern for roles in the film.  Hit the jump for more details on this exciting production.
.... http://collider.com/joaquin-phoenix-untitled-paul-thomas-anderson-religious-movie/89700/

Trailer for Miranda July’s THE FUTURE

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: May 9th, 2011

The trailer for Miranda July’s The Future has gone online.  As I said in my review when I caught the film at Sundance, it’s a strange movie and that’s a large part of its charm.  The trailer does a good job of conveying the oddness of some of the plot’s elements (shelter cat as a narrator, talking moon), the offbeat humor of the main characters (played by July and Hamish Linklater), as well as the honest emotions that prevent the movie from being just a pile of quirk.
Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The Future opens July 29th.
.... http://collider.com/the-future-trailer/89704/