On the heels of today's confirmation that 20-year-old Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence will play Katniss Everdeen, the 16-year-old heroine of Lionsgate's The Hunger Games adaptation, EW caught up with director Gary Ross to get his explanation of the casting move. According to the interview, Lawrence's age and her blonde hair -- details that raised fan eyebrows when the Winter's Bone star first emerged as a front-runner -- are of no matter to Ross, who says the choice was "the easiest casting decision I ever made in my life." And if it makes any difference, Suzanne Collins apparently agrees.
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Stand by Me's surviving cast, including Richard Dreyfuss, Wil Wheaton, Jerry O'Connell, and Corey Feldman, reunited with director Rob Reiner yesterday in commemoration of the iconic coming-of-age movie's 25th anniversary. For such a quaint and somewhat typical kid film, it leaves a devastating impression. What are your favorite Stand by Me moments?
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Hollywood thought ahead this weekend, offering two new films perfect for the national post-St. Patrick's Day hangover sure to ensue on Friday... and a legal thriller for the sturdier-constituted among us eager to avoid the drunken, weaving masses. But let's check out the landscape before giving too many thanks...
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Precious balladeer Taylor Swift landed a voice-acting gig that will test her Seussical mettle -- a lead role in upcoming animated adaptation of The Lorax alongside Danny DeVito, Ed Helms, Rob Riggle, and Betty White. This comes on the heels of Katy Perry's Smurfs contribution, which begs the question: Why don't all pop stars do more voice-acting? Let's help five others out with suggestions for animated roles.
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When Harmony Korine's short film Umshini Wam screened alongside the latest from Korean filmmaker Park Chan-Wook (Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Thirst) at SXSW, both efforts had an unproven element to unveil. For Korine, the wild cards were his stars, the South African hip-hop act Die Antwoord. But for Park, it was something even more groundbreaking: he filmed the mystical, spiritual ghost story Night Fishing entirely using the iPhone 4.
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For some of you, March 17 is just another work day but for the Irish (and the Irish at heart), it's an excuse to wear head-to-toe green, blackout on cheap beer, and down enough Irish car bombs to either get you arrested for disorderly conduct or send you to the E.R. -- just like the patron saint of Ireland would want. With quitting time here and a night of debauchery ahead, let's remember nine film drunks would could liven up St. Patty's.
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Looks like it might be time to re-subscribe to HBO. The network announced on Thursday that Cinema Verite -- the awesome-looking '70s period piece about the dawn of reality television with James Gandolfini, Diane Lane and Tim Robbins in leading roles -- will premiere on Saturday, April 23. It's not TV, etc.
Conventional wisdom likes to assume that Matthew McConaughey has taken his shirt off in every single one of his movies, which would lead us to assume that he does so again in his new film, The Lincoln Lawyer. True, McConaughey is not shy when it comes to going bare chested on-screen and in public, but is he really sans shirt in every one of his movies? Well, we checked each and every one of them.
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Tough times for Katherine Heigl. Not only was she put on full-blast by Mila Kunis in the trailer for summer rom-com Friends With Benefits, but her own summer film has been yanked from the schedule altogether. The Heigl-led adaptation of Janet Evanovich's One of the Money had been set for release on June 3 (opposite X-Men: First Class), but Lionsgate pulled it off the calendar with the hopes of finding a date that felt "right." The studio is apparently still looking; Money is currently scheduled for TBD. [EW]
The psycho-sexual anthology Little Deaths made a minor splash at SXSW as the Serbian Film of this year's fest, leaving many searching for the film most analogous to Ben Wheatley's even better-loved SXFantastic buzz film Kill List. But while parallels to previous SXSW hits like Monsters and Wheatley's own Down Terrace have been drawn, another entry from last year's festival circuit instead comes to mind: Yorgos Lanthimos' crazypants domestic drama Dogtooth.
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· Crack open your finest green beer and bask in the glory of this Funny or Die trailer for the ultimate Boston movie, Boston Movie. All of your favorites are represented -- Good Will Hunting, The Departed, The Town, The Fighter and Fever Pitch -- and they cut together surprisingly well. Like, I'd see this thing! Ya chowderhead! Ahem. Click ahead to watch, then stick around for more Buzz Break.
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"I kind of am excited about doing a film where actually everyone wants to make it," Darren Aronofsky told David Poland last November about the prospect of directing The Wolverine with Hugh Jackman, "just to see what the experience is like, and see if I can do what I do in that world." Looks like he'll have to wait a bit longer to find out. Aronofsky announced today that he has left the project.
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Right now, studios are attempting to tackle an adaptation of the Stephen King fantasy series Dark Tower (which will include three movies and a television series) and a big-screen remake of the thousand-plus page epic The Stand. These ridiculous projects got me thinking: instead of attacking windmills, why not remake some of the total clunkers were based on King's stories?
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Mel Gibson couldn't make the SXSW premiere of his hotly-anticipated, long-awaited, reasonably acclaimed film The Beaver, but that doesn't mean he wasn't participating in important photo ops on Wednesday.
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Unhappy news on this happiest of St. Patrick's Day: Michael Gough has passed away at the age of 94. Despite having 179 credits to his name, most will remember him best for his role as Alfred in the four pre-Christopher Nolan Batman movies. He was last seen on-screen in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow back in 1999, but did provide a voice for Burton in Alice in Wonderland. [TMZ]
