Tom Sturdy Will get His Motor Runnin'

For any new biker movieWarner Bros. clearly realized that whenever Beginning and the approaching role at nighttime Dark night as Bane, Tom Sturdy would be a talent they ought to retain in close connection with. It had not been a surprise, then, to understand now he had signed an initial-look cope with the studio. Using the ink barely dry around the documents, he's introduced his first project: starring within an outlaw biker drama. John Linson, you never know a few things about two-wheeled terrors because of his creating responsibilities on Sons Of Anarchy, emerged using the original idea and handed it to Vacancy's Mark L. Cruz to party out a script.Sturdy will have a wounded Vietnam vet who comes back home to Bay Area in the center of the culture clash melee in 1969. He decides to create war instead of love, and increases being the best choice of California's most violent outlaw biker club. Heck, it can also be a prequel to Clay, Jax and also the relaxation at SOA...As they might want to forget he was ever within this Means War (even when he was entertaining inside it), Sturdy has got the Dark Dark night Increases next, and we'll all discover when we can know very well what Bane says on This summer 20.

Lionsgate Prone To Heist Action No. 1

The storyplot of Nic Cage's stolen comic...What "Nicolas Cage heist comedy" may picture a number of concepts within your fevered creativity... but possibly not that certain. As they're not going to always are available in the film, Cage is really a character in Lionsgate's Action No. 1, using the true story in the robbery of his valued posession.The initial problem of Action Comics was where a certain Superman made his debut in 1938. Cage possessed a replica, nevertheless it was stolen in 2000, and merely retrieved a year ago. Cage, who'd mentioned his insurance in those days, was without it fixed, plus it continued to be while using LAPD for a while, before fetching accurate documentation $2.16m at auction last November.The script is simply by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, who co-written Evening Within The Museum and Balls Of Fury, and were the designers of Comedy Central's Reno: 911! Their imaginary undertake the particular occasions involves several brainiacs planning the geek heist in the century. Clearly, the film was written using the expectation that Cage would play themselves, but sadly, that doesn't seem to become happening. Whether someone else could possibly get to see the arch-warlock, or maybe the film will in some manner circumvent his absense, remains to look.There's no start-date or potential cast yet, but we'll have a very beady eye on that certain. So when you have not seen his costume test for your abandoned the 19 nineties Tim Burton version, often be grateful this is really the closest Cage is most likely now to access a Superman movie...

Mike Fleming: Let Me Rant More Than Rave About The Film Climate In Hollywood Now

I spent Oscar week in Los Angeles, and after lengthy chats with film executives and agents, I detail below the long-term issues concerning Hollywood. But first, to sum up: I’m convinced they’ve never seen their business in a greater state of disarray than it is right now. Vets who’ve done this for decades admit they feel less confident than ever about the formula to create hits, and are perplexed why it has become next to impossible to create movie stars anymore (Channing Tatum was on all their lips after The Vow, Chris Pine and Tom Hardy less so after This Means War, but beyond Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Adam Sandler and Will Smith, do any actors draw reliably at the box office?). And there was a palpable lack of excitement for the Oscars, which is clearly hamstrung not by the imagination of its producers, but rather the Academys unwillingness to get off its high horse and start showing audiences around the world what they really want to see. We are in a period where major studios have been burned enough by tentpole bets that nearly all have become infatuated with making films that cost under $10 million. One exec held his arms wide to express the divide that has become the priority for studios. One side represented films that cost nothing and had no stars, while the other represented $100 million-$200 million bets that are concept- and not star-dependent. Theyve almost completely vacated that middle space where star-driven movie were a staple of the slate, the executive told me. These found footage movies may bring opening weekends, but good reviews are hard to find. The current uncertainty is the result of a business in transition that will eventually evolve into new consumer-friendly distribution models, but that process needs to speed up. The recent box office momentum provided by films like Safe House and The Lorax figures to screech to a halt this weekend with the opening of A Thousand Words and John Carter. The Eddie Murphy comedy shot four years ago harkens to a pre-financial crisis time before studios stopped paying prime sums to stars who dont ensure opening-weekend grosses. Murphy once had a quote of $12 million-$15 million against gross, but who’d pay that now after his string of flops? A Thousand Words had to come out some time, and found its way on the calendar when Murphy was set as Oscar host. He bailed on that gig and now Paramount distributes a $70 million legacy from its days owning DreamWorks, which produced it. Ive heard each studio is quietly pointing the finger at one another. The same kind of thing is going on with Disneys softly tracking film John Carter, which cost $250 million or maybe more, depending on whom you believe. Current management has credited this one to Dick Cook, even though he hasn’t been on the lot since being fired in September, 2009. My colleague Nikki Finke has predicted John Carter might be the biggest write down in film history based on soft early tracking, and it will likely be far short of the $70 million needed to turn such a pricey film into a hit. Cook supporters say current management should have put politics aside and not allowed Andrew Stanton to be given more rope than perhaps any first time live-action director since Orson Welles. This was a political minefield, because Stanton is a gold mine for Disney-owned Pixar — writing or directing such cash cows as WALL-E and Toy Story– but $250 million or more for a movie with no discernible audience awareness for the material, and a marketing campaign that didn’t help matters? Cook supporters also point out that nobody at the Mouse House tossed Cook the bouquets when Alice In Wonderland grossed over $1 billion. Here are some of the long-term issues that executives were most concerned about, starting with the reason I was out there, the Academy Awards: Why cant the Academy face the fact that its stuffiness and stubbornness has turned movies most important night into the Super Bowl for dress designers? The red carpet pre-show has become a more anticipated event than an awards show that focuses too much on a Hollywood past the masses dont care about, technical awards the masses dont care about, and movies from last year that audiences either saw or decided not to see a long time ago. By comparison, the recent Grammy Awards handed out awards for last year’s tunes, but the show started with Bruce Springsteen singing a song off his new album, and a parade of talent kept tickling its audience with whats next. Why can’t the movie business do the same thing? Instead of Cirque du Soleil, what if Oscar promised an exclusive clip of Tom Cruise singing an ’80s rock number in his decadent hair band rock icon character from Rock Of Ages? A clip showing the giant dragon Smaug or a battle scene from Middle Earth from The Hobbit? A killer scene from The Hunger Games? One from Prometheus, Ridley Scotts revisit to Alien terrain? The Dark Knight Rises? An action scene marking the return of James Bond in Skyfall? You get the idea. All of these scenes would be exclusive, and this could become a tradition which could be promoted and would give a global movie-loving audience more to embrace than dresses that actresses are wearing. Insiders say this hasn’t happened because the Academy is intransigent in its fear that the integrity of the awards would be compromised. After all, they only just started allowing movie ads during the telecast. Hey, Academy: join the 21stcentury. And while were at it, doubling the number of Best Picture nominees has mostly added a few more films most people didnt see. Why not create some other awards that honor the best comedy or best ensemble, which might give the unwashed masses something to root for? And when you have a year where Harry Potter was again ignored for Best Picture after an eighth installment that marked the end of an unprecedented achievement of an engrossing serial that grossed $8 billion, why not INVENT AN AWARD that gives the cast and filmmakers the chance to take a final bow in front of a grateful global TV audience? One exec suggested if the Academy cant get it together, perhaps the best move is to return to the old days when the awards were bestowed during a dinner party at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. This dovetails into the other prevailing gripe among film executives and agents: the need for studios and exhibitors to wake up to the fact that audiences want what they want when they want it, on the delivery system they want it on. The snails pace revenue run of a movie from opening weekend to DVD and VOD takes too long and is too expensive to support, particularly when most movies do the bulk of their box office the first three weekends. One agent wondered why the industry, after having its sell-through business crushed by kiosks charging $1 for rentals, doesnt go back to the old system of high-priced DVDs, until VOD matures to the point where DVDs become obsolete. The prospect of movies coming out in ancillary form months after a movie has played out seems as ridiculous as the old style Hollywood journalism I practiced most of my career at Variety, where I would polish stories all day and turn them in at day’s end so I could tell you tomorrow what I knew today. Isn’t it better to let Hollywood know Chris Nolan’s agent Dan Aloni was leaving CAA while he was being escorted out of the building? With continued advancements in home viewing systems, studios are probably going to have to change terms with exhibitors and cut them in on the proceeds so that films can be released day and date or weeks later for premium prices on VOD. But it isn’t happening nearly fast enough. Until that happens, the current climate of contraction — the Summit-Lionsgate mash-up eliminated a buyer and left good execs on the street, and DreamWorks is stalled waiting to reup with Reliance — has film agents proactively pushing talent into television. HBO, Showtime and the cable nets made series work a viable option for feature stars, but did you ever imagine Dennis Quaid, Sigourney Weaver and so many other movie stars would be doing pilots? Agents tell me that until the movie industry is righted, the money is better on TV over elusive feature roles at take it or leave it prices. More feature directors and writers are also jumping into TV, crowding out established small screen talent.

'Sister Act' will get Raven-Symone

Raven-Symone has kept in a stint like a alternative star of Broadway musical "Sister Act" inside a gig that begins later this month. Actress, making her Broadway debut, will have charge within the tuner in regards to a nightclub singer who hides out of the Mafia inside a convent. She replaces soon-to-exit Patina Burns, who obtained a Tony nom last season on her perf within the role. Raven-Symone involves the Rialto having a profile cultivated from her years because the star of Disney Funnel skein "That's So Raven." Whether it'll prove enough to draw in box office attention remains to appear. Even though it opened up last season, "Sister Act" has not handled to locate a secure foothold around the Rialto landscape, with changing weekly grosses and average attendance that from time to time drops underneath the 50% mark. A week ago the show drawn in around $480,000 and performed to houses that averaged 48% of capacity. Burns will have her final perf within the tuner March 18, with Raven-Symone set to consider over March 27. An understudy will have the role within the interim. Contact Gordon Cox at gordon.cox@variety.com

Locarno fest adds cash, prize

ROME -- The Locarno Film Festival is beefing-up its Filmmakers from the Present competition with increased cash along with a new jerk for the best emerging helmer. Filmmakers from the Present, which runs parallel towards the primary competition from the indie-friendly Swiss fest, is presenting the emerging director award, worth 20,000 Swiss Francs ($22,000). At the same time, section's primary prize, the Filmmakers from the Present Golden Pard, has been upped to $44,000 from $33,000. About 15 feature-length works, including docus, will compete. The 65th edition of Locarno is going to be held August. 1-11 Contact Nick Vivarelli at nvivarelli@gmail.com

Pixar Hits a Girl Power Bullseye with New Brave Trailer

Fingers are crossed that Pixar bounces back from the uncharacteristic critical disappointment that was Cars 2 with their next effort, Brave -- a foray into Disney princess territory about a headstrong young Scottish lass (voiced by Kelly Macdonald) who defies tradition in her parents' kingdom. A new trailer for the animated adventure promises no small measure of spunky girl power as our heroine Merida upends an archery contest where doofus candidates are vying for her hand in marriage. It's not a traditional trailer so much as it is a scene from the film, but it conveys a sense of what to expect, tonally. (Watch the first full trailer here.) From what's been released so far it seems Brave's story will be its strength; the round, cartoony CG-animated character design doesn't appeal much to me, but Merida's spirit is infectious in this twist on the familiar medieval archery scenario. (That's Billy Connolly voicing her father and Emma Thompson as her mom, in case you were curious.) Brave hits theaters June 22; leave your impressions below!

CDG's fashion platoon

Columbus Short, Kate Beckinsale and Len Wiseman party at BevHilton. Deborah Hopper and Marcia Gay Harden flank Clint Eastwood within the Costume Designers Guild Honours. Jennifer Eve, Lou Eyrich and Ryan Murphy celebrate a "Glee" victory Tuesday. David Fincher with Trish Summerville Jany Temime and Jane Lynch "I have not experienced a place due to a lot of well-fitted people," presenter Betty Kemper mentioned Tuesday within the Beverly Hilton. Indeed, they were. Jane Lynch emceed the Costume Designers Guild Honours, where kudos received to "W.E.'s" Arianne Phillips, "Harry Potter's" Jany Temime and "Dragon Tattoo's" Trish Summerville, among others. An honorary award visited they of Deborah Hopper and Clint Eastwood, who mentioned, "Everyone knows movies and tv are an ensemble. People discuss company company directors and auteurs. I never supported that kind of factor. It's a platoon."Kate Beckinsale also received an honorary trophy, which she mentioned belonged to all or any the costume designers who've fitted her. But, she quickly added, "I'm by using this award home because I'm I deserve something for that wrecking my stomach using the corsets you earn me placed on over time.Inch