Ewan Flying High With Amelia
Ewan McGregor is headed for the wild blue yonder.
The Star Wars star has come aboard Fox Searchlight’s Amelia, a biopic starring Hilary Swank as the legendary aviator.
According to Variety, the 37-year-old actor will play the father of famed author Gore Vidal, Gene Vidal, with whom Earhart had a passionate affair while married to publisher George Putnam. Richard Gere has been cast as Putnam, while Virginia Madsen will play Putnam’s first wife, Dorothy Binney Putnam.
Amelia is being helmed by Mira Nair (The Namesake) from a script by Ron Bass, who won an Oscar for writing Rain Man.
Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean and was declared dead after a courageous 1937 attempt to circumnavigate the globe.
McGregor is about to wrap the comedy-drama I Love You, Philip Morris, opposite Jim Carrey.
He’ll then have a brief window to shoot his role for Amelia, which is currently filming in Toronto, before beginning work next month on Angels and Demons, Ron Howard’s highly anticipated prequel to The Da Vinci Code.
Choke Movie Trailer
Fox Searchlight has released the movie trailer for Clark Gregg’s big screen adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk‘s Choke. If you were a fan of Fight Club, you’ll love Choke. I’ve seen the movie two times now, and’s Mel Valentin is even quoted in the trailer (right after Entertainment Weekly), how cool is that (you can read Mel’s full review here). I’m hoping that a red band movie trailer will be released which might give you a better look at the tone of the film, but I think the green band does a good job. What do you guys think?
Watch the trailer in High Definition on MTV.com. Choke will hit theaters on September 26th 2008.
Official Plot Synopsis: Actor-turned-director Clark Gregg shows he is as adept behind the camera as he is in front of it with CHOKE, a wickedly colorful dark comedy about mothers and sons, sexual compulsion, and the sordid underbelly of Colonial theme parks. Victor Mancini (Rockwell), a sex-addicted med-school dropout, who keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida (Huston), in an expensive private medical hospital by working days as a historical reenactor at a Colonial Williamsburg theme park. At night Victor runs a scam by deliberately choking in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who “save” him. When, in a rare lucid movement, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his father’s identity, Victor enlists the aid of his best friend, Denny (Henke) and his mother’s beautiful attending physician, Dr. Paige Marshall (Macdonald), to solve the mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever.
Release Date Change: Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke
Fox Searchlight has just informed us that the big screen adaptation of Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke has been pushed back to September 26th 2008. When the company snapped up the film for a hefty $5 million at Sundance, they immediately announced an August 1st release date.
The last Friday of July/first Friday of August is Fox Searchlight’s magic date. They opened films like Little Miss Sunshine and Garden State in that calendar spot to much success. The plan usually is to open the film in a couple markets, slowly expand throughout August, and open wide in September. But for some reason, Searchlight has decided to move the release back to late September. And this might not be a bad move. This will give Choke breathing room from the other high-buzz late Summer indie releases like American Teen, Towelhead and The Wackness. Palahnuik also has a huge young adult following, so opening the film up right after College is back in session might help the film’s marketing strategy.
Official Plot Synopsis: Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell), a sex-addicted med-school dropout, keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida (Anjelica Huston), in an expensive private mental hospital by working days as a historical reenactor. At night he runs a scam where he deliberately chokes in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who “save” him. When, in a rare lucid moment, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his father’s identity, Victor must enlist the aid of his best friend, Denny (Brad William Henke), a recovering chronic masturbator, and his mother’s beautiful attending physician, Dr. Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald), to solve this mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever.
Tropic Thunder to Feature Fake Movie Trailers
An exhibitor who has seen a small portion of Tropic Thunder reveals that the new Ben Stiller film will actually feature three fake movie trailer (ala Grindhouse). The one he had the chance to see, called Satan’s Alley, opened with the Fox Searchlight logo and featured Robert Downey Jr. and Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire. Apparently the other two trailer will also have non Paramount logos, which is kinda interesting since the film was produced by DreamWorks/Paramount.
During the Tropic Thunder theatrical trailer, Ben Stiller’s character Speedman is seen holding two huge guns (seen above) while delivering the line “Who Left The Fridge Open”, likely part of one of the other trailers. It’s unclear if any of these movie trailers will play before the Dreamworks/Paramount logo opens the film, although that would be awesome if it did.
via: Anne Thompson