"Evidence continues to mount that Michigan's budding film industry really was no such thing. Would-be moguls scatter as soon as a new governor deep-sixes the nation's leading incentive program because it amounts to cutting Hollywood checks for money spent here, not capital invested. Now a state-of-the-art studio backed by savvy businessmen with names like Al Taubman and John Rakolta is on track to miss payments to bondholders, often a fraught tripwire on the way to bankruptcy. Not much of an industry, that. Not if you understand the word to imply a modicum of permanent investment — the kind Taubman, Rakolta & Co. assumed with their backing of Raleigh Studios in Pontiac — instead of a traveling minstrel show partly financed by starstruck taxpayers." But! They'll always have 30 Minutes or Less. [The Detroit News]
After scoring a critical and commercial hit with his directorial debut, 2009's Zombieland, director Ruben Fleischer decided to make the relatively humble crime comedy 30 Minutes or Less (in theaters Friday) as his follow-up, rather than take on some huge Hollywood work-for-hire gig like Mission: Impossible 4, which he was once in the running to direct. And as he tells Cinema Blend, when he watched the first trailer for the Brad Bird-helmed spy sequel, he knew he'd made the right decision.
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After contributing scene-stealing but all-too-brief supporting turns in films like Observe & Report, I Love You, Man, and Funny People ("Raaaaandy!"), Aziz Ansari finally gets a full-on leading role in this week's 30 Minutes or Less as Jesse Eisenberg's straitlaced BFF/partner in crime, Chet. What took Hollywood so long to give Ansari, who's currently between seasons stealing yet more scenes on Parks & Recreation, the screen time he deserves? According to Ansari, he's just been paying his dues.
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In Ruben Fleischer's upcoming comedy 30 Minutes or Less, Jesse Eisenberg plays a pizza delivery man coerced into robbing a bank by two thugs (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson) who strap a bomb to his chest and threaten to detonate him. Comedy ensues, of course, but the real-life 2003 event that loosely inspired the film didn't end so hilariously, as the family of late Pennsylvania pizza man Brian Wells would like to point out.
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When Movieline grabbed a few minutes with star Aziz Ansari at Comic-Con to discuss his upcoming comedy 30 Minutes or Less (more to come), the Parks & Recreation funny man described the two-man comedy he's developing with Funny People director Judd Apatow. Hit the jump to hear more about Spacemen.
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