Happy Thursday! Also in today's edition of The Broadsheet: Sharon Stone will get maternal in Lovelace... Elvis Mitchell gets his close-up... Sacha Baron Cohen's method... Ricky Gervais wastes no time scaring the Hollywood establishment... and more.
Nearly five months after giving birth to her first child, Natalie Portman returns to Hollywood tomorrow night to take part in Jason Reitman's live reading of The Apartment at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The Oscar winner will play Fran Kubelik, "the fetching elevator operator" that Shirley MacLaine played (and earned an Academy Award nomination for) in the 1960 Billy Wilder film. J.K. Simmons, Ken Jeong, Nick Kroll, Mindy Kaling and Jake Johnson will round out tomorrow night's cast. [@JasonReitman, Vulture]
The jury's still out as far as I'm concerned on whether or not director Gary Ross (Seabiscuit) was the right director to helm Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, even with the mostly-satisfying first trailer debut earlier this week. Lionsgate, however, seems more confident in Ross, as they want him to return to helm the second Hunger Games installment, 2013's Catching Fire, with writer Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours) reportedly in the running to script.
Open the gates and seize the day! Following a successful run at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse, the Harvey Fierstein-adapted stage musical Newsies -- based on the best period musical of all time about turn of the century paperboys fighting Big Business (that also starred Christian Bale) -- will open on honest-to-goodness Broadway in March. This gives you bandwagon-jumpers plenty of time to catch up to the rest of us Newsies diehards who've known all along that one day, the family-friendly stylings of legions of dancing street urchins just trying to sell some 'papes would catch on like gangbusters. The world will know ...that we're not crazy! (Right?) [Wall Street Journal]
It wasn't so long ago that I enjoyed my own reunion with Titanic, but this time, James Cameron invites everyone to Titanic 3-D, the Avatar'd-up revamp of his 1997 blockbuster. What parts are you looking forward to seeing in 3-D? Leonardo DiCaprio's shabby togs? Kate Winslet's unadorned areolas? Kathy Bates's contempt? You'll get them all in April, 2012, which marks the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster. Trailer after the jump.
And now, allow Carrie Fisher to break up your busy work day by pointing out the differences between the epic film franchise in which she starred as Princess Leia, Star Wars, and the television sci-fi series Star Trek. "They're not in the same league. I mean, they have the word 'star' in the title. And there is space travel. Where do they go to? [...] Klingon? That sounds like a laundry detergent." Click here for the rest of Fisher's inspired diatribe which also touches on Star Wars merchandising, her Princess Leia metal bikini and Dick Cheney's penis, of course. [YouTube via EW ]
Among the heap of speculative projects idling in the landfill otherwise known as Hollywood, a Michael Jackson biopic has long been one thought likeliest to be reclaimed. This week, in fact, comes word that the late pop icon's estate is in discussions with Ivan Reitman's Montecito Picture Company to nudge such a project forward. Not to be outdone, an Irish bookie with a demonstrated interest in the most outlandish cultural wagers imaginable has commenced casting speculation in an inspired -- very inspired -- fashion.
I'm clinically unashamed most of the time, but today I come to you with a confession worthy of St. Augustine or at least Diane Keaton: Twilight may be the ultimate Bad Movie We Love. It is surely bad, as it looks and acts like the longest, moodiest Evanescence video of all time, but it's also hard to resist. It's neither pretentious nor overconfident. It's silly. Bella Swan is hot for a shock-white ghoul with darting pupils and a social disorder. Celebrate.
Happy Wednesday! Also in this edition of The Broadsheet: Kristen Stewart rumored for Akira... The Expendables 2 upsets the Bulgarian bat population... Ron Meyer tries a little tenderness... There is a Dutch version of Jersey Shore... and more.
We've seen enough satirical Muppets promo material to last us through the next hundred Muppet sequels, but I have to hand it to the tireless Disney merchants for their newest gag: a Twilight Saga spoof. The Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog posters are expected, but it's the third, Lautner-ian one-sheet that left me speechless. The pun is also first-rate.
Now that Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin has made its world premiere and his Christmas drama War Horse is already garnering Oscar buzz, the director is free to plan his next epic directorial project. According to Deadline, the filmmaker is considering getting biblical with Warner Bros. for Gods and Kings, a gargantuan film that will chronicle Moses's entire life. Are you interested in Spielberg's take on the Old Testament?
The marketing blitz accompanying this week's Breaking Dawn release has prompted a bit of nostalgia about The Twilight Saga around Movieline HQ -- particularly its eminently intriguing movie posters. Gone is the quaint patina of the original 2008 film, with sultry, semi-known Robert Pattinson locking his poo-colored gaze and clay-like visage on virginal, vaguely known Kristen Stewart, both doctored with minimalist Photoshop fervor. But gone, too (for now, anyway), are the hilariously earnest, carefully manipulated one-sheets from New Moon and Eclipse -- the hand-mangling, the cock-blocking, the stank-eyed cast of thousands. In fact, the newest posters look like photographs of actual people! Very attractive and heavily airbrushed people in romance-novel clutches, but people nonetheless. Join Movieline's Dept. of Marketing Forensics in looking back on how we got here.
The Muppets are legendary TV and film characters, but there's something about Sesame Street's giggliest resident, Elmo, that makes small children perk up. Constance Marks, the director of the new documentary Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey, put Elmo's appeal this way: "Kids sit up, pay attention, and turn on. There's that bright red fur and adorable bulgy eyes, but it's the soul of the puppeteer that people are responding to. It's an amazing gift."
Co-star Matthew Modine, promoting his short Jesus Was A Commie, explained why the notion to film the megabudget blockbuster at Occupy Wall Street was scrapped. "The wisdom of Christopher Nolan and his incredible team was that, while it seemed like a good idea to give [the protestors] an opportunity for work, to give them money, it would send a terrible message. At the end of the day, we're making a movie. What's happening down there is more important than that. To co-opt what's happening there and around the country... we didn't want to trivialize it. It was more important to respect what they're doing than to do anything that could potentially trivialize the political situation downtown." [indieWIRE]
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