Nicole Kidman Pays Visit to the Big Apple
Nicole Kidman Pays Visit to the Big Apple
There’s just something about New York City - the energy, the nightlife, the theaters - that attracts all kinds of celebrities. And Nicole Kidman was in town yesterday for an exclusive screening of “Margot at the Wedding.”
The Aussie actress was spotted at the Grand Hotel in Tribeca, along with Jennifer Jason Leigh and hubby Noah Baumbach. And from the looks of it, “Margot” is going to be an understated hit.
Though she’s married to Keith Urban now, Nic was once in Katie Holmes’ shoes, as the wife of megastar Tom Cruise. In a recent interview, she got real about her last marriage.
The “The Others” actress told press, “Tom and I, we moved and moved and moved. Your sense of where do I come from becomes less and less relevant. A lot of my life, particularly when I was working so much, it was about trying to fill in the gaps. Now there’s much more reason to exist in the world without my identity needing to be through work.”
And funny enough, she’s on her way to Germany, where her ex just wrapped filming “Valkyrie.” “I’m going to Germany to do a film called The Reader for six weeks. Naomi Watts, my girlfriend, is going to be shooting in Berlin. She just had a little baby. She’s doing a film with Clive Owen there. I don’t know Germany at all. I’ve been to the Berlin film festival, and that’s it.”
Children of Men: The series
Since it looks like Bionic Woman is not coming back to NBC, although nothing’s been confirmed, the executive producer is moving on. David Eick is writing a pilot based on the Alfonso Cuarón film Children of Men for SciFi.
The film, brilliantly directed by the Mexican filmmaker, was a grim tale about the future — England in 2027 — where women have become completely infertile and the human race faces a major crises with less than a century to survive.
At the SciFi Channel’s upfront, Eick said the proposed TV series would veer closer to the source material, P.D. James’ novel. “It’s really taking root more in the origins of the novels in that it will focus on the cultural movement in which young people become the society’s utter focus.”
Eick’s version of Children of Men will also not star Clive Owen, Julianne Moore nor Michael Caine, who were all in the 2006 feature film. The TV Children of Men is going to question how society defines responsibility, freedom and a sense of values when it doesn’t necessarily believe humans will survive as a species. “It’s not really a war show like the movie was. It’s more an exploration of that issue.”
Eick is also preparing Caprica, a prequel to Battlestar Galactica for SciFi.
Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Wilkinson Join Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity
If it wasn’t for the blasé title, Duplicity might have a more pronounced blip on 2009 movie radars. Director Tony Gilroy’s debut, Michael Clayton, scored seven Oscar noms, including Best Picture and Best Director, and the cast to his follow-up is of similar caliber, with Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Wilkinson now joining Clive Owen and Julia Roberts in the thriller about the pharmaceutical industry, modern greed and espionage.
However, the casting does sensically play into the title, with Thornton and Wilkinson in the roles of rivaling CEOs for massive drug companies and Owen and Roberts the opposing spies they set in motion in a race to obtain an invaluable “innovation.” Like Clayton, the film was written by Gilroy, and it’s good to see Wilkinson and the director working together again so soon after the former’s deserved Best Supporting Actor nom.
No word on whether Duplicity’s characters will stealthily cruise around in 2009 Mercedes-Benzs, but I’d count on it; returning cinematographer Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood) can shoot a luxury automobile like it’s the second coming, and even make light reflect off the hood like existential drizzle.
Shoot ‘Em Up Sequel?
Shoot ‘Em Up hasn’t even been released and yet they’re already talking about a potential sequel. Not only are they talking about it, but ComingSoon found out that writer/director Michael Davis has already written the script.
“I’ve written another crazy wild funny action script that could be ‘Shoot ‘Em Up’ if I made a few alterations,” admits director Davis. “You’re not going to see me be the guy that genre hops because my favorite genre is the action movie. The greatest goal for me would be to continue on as a writer/director that people identify your signature and doing a ‘Shoot ‘Em Up’ sequel to me would just be validation to me that ‘Hey, I created something that people want to see.’”
“He’s been very clever,” said producer Susan Montford. “He’s written a brilliant script and it could be adapted to be a sequel or it could stand alone.”
When asked about characters that might be unable to return, Murphy explained “This film is very much in the tradition of Sergio Leone, and if you watch that trilogy, they’re not really sequels. The same characters come back and the same actors come back, and then they have another story, so there’s no reason we can’t have all three of these people back in a different story and still call it ‘Shoot ‘Em Up 2.’” Murphy also admits that the baby won’t coming back for more: “In the script we’ve read, there’s no baby.”
I was able to catch a sneak peak of Shoot ‘Em Up last week in San Diego, and can’t say enough good things about the film. Shoot’em up is like Crank but with guns. It’s non-stop action, no questions asked, no plot needed, and no apologies offered. It knows what it wants to be and goes for it. It’s intense, insane and improbable. Clive Owen eats Carrots while kicking ass, in an attempt to save the life of a little orphaned baby. Paul Giamatti is the evil bad guy from every comic book I read as a kid.
If you haven’t already. check out the red band movie trailer.