Posts with tag michael mann
Posted Feb 24th 2008 11:02AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Thrillers, Casting, Universal, Johnny Depp
I want to say that Michael Mann's
Public Enemies cannot possibly get any better -- but this could be one of those movies where so much awesome has come together that the universe must destroy it in order to keep us all in balance.
The Hollywood Reporter has announced that
David Wenham and
Stephen Graham have joined the cast -- which is led by Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, and
Christian Bale as the famed FBI Agent, Melvin Purvis, who hunted him down. These two actors can do no wrong, and it is going to be a lot of fun watching them go head to head.
Wenham, who was last seen as Dilios in
300, will be playing Pete Pierpont, a member of Dillinger's gang who is violently opposed to authority. Graham will be playing the famous gangster, Baby Face Nelson. They round out Dillinger's gang, which already includes Marion Cotillard, Giovanni Ribisi, Stephen Dorff, and John Ortiz. (Is the Reporter a misprint, by the way? Wikipedia lists a
Henry Pierpont in Dillinger's gang, not a Pete.)
Continue reading Michael Mann Makes A Few New 'Public Enemies'
Posted Jan 28th 2008 1:32PM by Christopher Campbell
Filed under: Drama, Casting, Noir, Universal, Johnny Depp
If you've seen
Marion Cotillard in
La Vie en Rose, you've seen one heck of a great performance. But will we see another from the actress, or was playing Edith Piaf the role of a lifetime? While I can't imagine her ever making such a huge transformation or giving such a notable, career-defining performance again, I'm excited to see where her Oscar nomination takes her and I hope that she can at least follow it up with some interesting parts. We've
already heard that her next major role will be in Rob Marshall's
Nine, an adaptation of the musical inspired by Fellini's
8½. After that, she could be heading to Chicago (not Marshall's
Chicago, the real city) for Michael Mann's
Public Enemies.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Cotillard is in negotiations to play Billie Frechette, the torch singer girlfriend of
John Dillinger, who will be played by
Johnny Depp. Channing Tatum, Giovanni Ribisi, Stephen Dorff and Jason Clarke have also joined the cast.
As Monika
relayed last week, Billie will be a major character in the plot of
Public Enemies, which also stars
Christian Bale. The movie will reportedly balance between Dillinger's crime story and his love life while also focusing on FBI agent
Melvin Purvis (Bale), who famously pursued and caught Dillinger in the mid-1930s. It is interesting to note that
Public Enemies will be another singing role for Cotillard, who did not actually perform any of the Piaf songs in
La Vie en Rose. But while the actress is not a born singer nor a long-trained one, she did sing in in the 2001 French film
Les Jolies Choses (
Pretty Things) and will be singing in
Nine. Also, if you think Cotillard is suddenly getting work just because of her
La Vie en Rose acclaim, you're mistaken. You may have seen her in either of her two English-language movies (Ridley Scott's
A Good Year and
Tim Burton's
Big Fish), in any of the three
Taxi movies, as the female lead in the sweet
Amelie wannabe
Love Me If You Dare, in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's
Amelie follow-up,
A Very Long Engagement or in any of the many other French films in which she has appeared.
Posted Jan 21st 2008 5:32PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Drama, RumorMonger, Scripts
First, Depp
thought about becoming Dillinger. Then,
he became Dillinger. Then, Bale signed on
to battle him. Personally, I don't need any more information for the upcoming Michael Mann flick
Public Enemies. It focuses on old-school criminals and the birth of the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover's notoriety, and features two of the most talented, irresistible actors today --
Johnny Depp and
Christian Bale. Then again, stories have ruined flicks before, so it's probably a good idea to wait and get word about the script.
If sources over at
Latino Review are right, this will be one sweet, dramatic, crime-filled ride. Their source, Caxe, says: "I wasn't too excited about this project after
Miami Vice, but now that I've read it -- sh*t, I cannot wait until 2009, because it seems
Michael Mann might actually be back in top form with Public Enemies." He says it's not a biopic, but will detail Dillinger's desperation as his ways become obsolete and Purvis tracks him. "We have a great, twisting plot that balances Dillinger's crime story and his love affair [with a young girl named Billie] with the overall picture of organized crime in the 1930s and how the government was trying to stop it." Topping that off, he says it's filled with great characters, historical accuracy, slick dialogue, and "flat-out fantastic action sequences." We have to wait until 2009 to see if he's right, but for now, you can get more details over at Latino Review.
Posted Jan 11th 2008 9:02AM by Scott Weinberg
Filed under: Action, Drama, Universal
Two of the hottest actors on the planet right now are
Johnny Depp and
Christian Bale. And I don't mean "hottest" as in "sexiest," honest, although I'm sure there are a few women out there who might disagree. So who is the director that could bring Batman and Captain Jack Sparrow together in one movie? Scorsese? Spielberg? Uwe Boll? Nope, it's
Michael Mann, a filmmaker who clearly knows a little something about getting the most out of his leading men.
According to
Variety, Mr. Depp and Mr. Bale will co-star in Mann's
Public Enemies, with the former playing infamous bank robber
John Dillinger and the latter portraying persistent FBI agent
Melvin Purvis. Damn. Already I want to see this movie. Production on the Universal project (which is based on a book by Bryan Burrough) is expected to begin in March ... which means the film
could be ready for the end of the year! (Couldn't it?)
Check out Chris Campbell's earlier report on this project
right here. Obviously we'll bring you more news on this one as soon as it comes in.
Posted Dec 20th 2007 3:32PM by Christopher Campbell
Filed under: Action, Drama, Sony, RumorMonger, Tom Cruise
Considering how hard it is to get people to go see a
Tom Cruise movie these days, it wouldn't be surprising if it was also hard to get a director who'll work with the guy. Of course, Cruise's waning bankability isn't the reason that
his spy movie, the weakly titled
Edwin A. Salt, has already lost
Terry George and
Michael Mann as potential directors. I'm not sure why they aren't doing the film (Mann apparently
picked Public Enemies instead), but it can't be fears of a potentially low gross. No matter; they are out and Peter Berg (
The Kingdom) is in,
according to Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider Blog. Well, he's not quite in yet; Columbia Pictures is only reportedly wooing the guy, though in the end it's supposedly up to Cruise's approval whether or not he gets the gig. Interestingly enough, Berg can almost be viewed as a Mann protégé, since he produced
The Kingdom and Berg's follow-up, next summer's Will Smith vehicle,
Hancock (the
trailer of which hit the net this week). However, it doesn't appear that Mann will have any involvement with
Edwin A. Salt.
I won't admit to being the biggest fan of Berg's work (who could, really?), but I will admit that
The Kingdom was one of my top ten movies of 2007. Though it's mainly on my list because all critics have to have that one obligatory mainstream Hollywood pick, I do think it was directed quite well, with a tone that perfectly suited what it was really about (American dreams of an '80s action-movie-type response to 9/11). Also, his
Friday Night Lights (the film; I haven't seen the TV pilot he did) was better than most high school football movies. So, I'm excited to see what he can do with Cruise, a script from
Kurt Wimmer (
Equilibrium) and the beginning-to-get-tired world of spies.
Posted Dec 6th 2007 1:32PM by Christopher Campbell
Filed under: Drama, Casting, Universal, Johnny Depp
Two days ago
it was a question; today it's a reality:
Johnny Depp will indeed portray
John Dillinger in
Michael Mann's Public Enemies. According to
Variety, the actor and director sealed the deal yesterday a few hours prior to Depp's appearance at the
Sweeney Todd premiere. This is one of those rare situations in which something good came as a result of the writer's strike (not that it means the writer's strike is a good thing, of course), because Depp was only able to take this role after his
Shantaram gig was postponed. Mann, too, has had other projects in his pipeline lately, including
Empire with Will Smith,
Frankie Machine with Robert De Niro, a
Hollywood noir with Leonardo Dicaprio,
Edwin A. Salt with Tom Cruise and
one of two dueling biopics about ex-KGB Alexander Litvinenko (with the competing movie expected to star Depp, interestingly enough). None of those films have been reported as being passed over due to the strike, though.
Public Enemies was scripted by Mann himself, adapted from Bryan Burrough's book
"Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34." In addition to Dillinger, the non-fiction tome goes into the stories of gangsters Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, the Barker gang and Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. There's no indication, however, that the movie will be focusing on any story except Dillinger's. Maybe the others will show up in passing, while Dillinger features as the main concentration. With a star like Depp in the guy's shoes, it's hard to imagine him sharing the screen with anyone expected to be taken as significant as he. Then again, it is called
Public Enemies plural ...
Mann and Depp are set to begin shooting in Chicago in March.
Posted Dec 4th 2007 11:02AM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Drama, Casting, Deals
Before the strike,
Johnny Depp had a pretty sweet schedule set. From the bloody steps of
Sweeney Todd, he'd jump into
Shantaram -- the strange story of a Aussie heroin addict who flees to India and becomes a doctor in the slums, then somehow finds himself being a counterfeiter, smuggler, and gunrunner, before heading to Afghanistan and battling Russians, as we all come to do. However, the script needed some work, and with writers striking, the project had to be delayed. After that, he was planning to one again take on Hunter S. Thompson in
The Rum Diary, which would be all sorts of great, but again, it's
been delayed.
So, Depp's schedule is wide open, and
The Hollywood Reporter has posted that he just might fill it with a passion project stewing with
Michael Mann -- giving the actor an entirely different type of violence. The filmmaker has been interested in bringing Bryan Burrough's nonfiction work
Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 to the big screen. Previous plans had Leonardo DiCaprio attached, but he's headed for the
Island, so the coast is clear. Since Mann is also free (he won't commit to
Edwin A. Salt), this could be the time to make it happen. They're reportedly going to meet this week to discuss the possibility of bringing the production together this March, with Depp looking at playing famous robber
John Dillinger.
The book follows the crime wave that came about during the Depression, sporting all the famous names we know today -- Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and so on. Beyond traversing the bloody waves of these crime figures, the book details how good ol' J. Edgar Hoover molded the FBI into what it is today. Is Depp a good fit? And who would you nab to portray the other epic names?
Posted Nov 13th 2007 9:02PM by Patrick Walsh
Filed under: Action, Classics, Comedy, Drama, Horror, Independent, Thrillers, Mystery & Suspense, Scripts, Tom Cruise, Home Entertainment, Cinematical Seven, Lists
Putting together last week's
list of my favorite screenplays of the 2000's was relatively easy. I came up with about ten worthy candidates and narrowed from there. When I started putting together
this week's list -- my favorite screenplays of the 1990's -- things got a lot more complicated. I had a
much larger list of worthy candidates to choose from. It made me realize that a) the 90's, particularly the late 90's, was a genuinely incredible time for film, and b) I was going to have to split my list into two halves: 1995 -- 1999 and 1990 -- 1994.
So, in support of all the great screenwriters currently on strike, what follows is my favorite screenplays produced between 1995 and 1999. Read that last sentence carefully! If you've got movies you'd add to or subtract from my list, I would
love to hear them, but make sure your choice fits the criteria. On my 2000's list, I was getting comments like "How DARE you not include
Citizen Kane, you freaking idiot?"
Now then, with all apologies to the scripts it killed me to leave off (
Office Space, A Simple Plan, As Good As it Gets, Chasing Amy, Lone Star, Three Kings, Swingers, Jackie Brown, Kingpin, I could go on and on), here is my alphabetical list:
Continue reading Cinematical Seven: My Favorite Screenplays 1995 - 1999
Posted Oct 25th 2007 10:02AM by James Rocchi
Filed under: Casting, Deals, Noir, Mystery & Suspense, Paramount, Newsstand
Any fan of modern crime fiction has got to be a little jazzed about this news: The
long-in-development adaptation of Don Winslow's crime novel
The Winter of Frankie Machine now has a star
and a director -- and it's the same team who gave us the modern crime classic
Heat. Variety reports that Paramount's production, which has been on their development slate since the studio bought the rights to Winslow's novel pre-publication back in 2005, is moving forward with Michael Mann on-board to direct the
long-attached Robert De Niro in the lead role. Winslow may be the best crime writer you've never heard of; his
California Fire and Life is certainly my pick for one of the best page-turning thrillers of the past 20 years, and his decades-spanning, border-crossing drug epic
The Power of the Dog is a knockout as well.
The Winter of Frankie Machine will be shooting from a script adaptation by Brian Kopplman and David Levien (
Rounders, Oceans 13), following the reluctant re-criminalization of Frank Machianno -- veteran, small businessman, surfer and ex-killer -- as all his old allegiances and alliances draw very close around him.
In a lot of ways, Winslow's book is about how easily civilized, upstanding San Diegan Frank Machianno goes back to being Frankie Machine, descending Dante-style into Hell to try and get out; it's a juicy part for De Niro, one similar to some of his more iconic roles and yet very different; Winslow's book makes no bones about the age of its protagonist, and Frank's sense of honor will make for ripe stuff in the hands of the men who created the principled-yet-predatory jewel thief Neil McCauley in
Heat. With Mann on board as the director, this film just moved up several notches on my radar; now, if we can just get Peter Berg to return to that film version of
California Fire and Life he was supposedly attached to, it'd be a very good time to be a fan of California crime on the big screen. ...
Posted Oct 11th 2007 9:02AM by Christopher Campbell
Filed under: Drama, Casting, Sony, Newsstand
I may have initially hated
Miami Vice, but it might be time to take another look. Especially because it's taking
Michael Mann a long time to make a follow-up (though it's normal for him to take a few years between films). Lately he's been concentrating on producing, overseeing such pics as
The Kingdom, which is currently in theaters, and the upcoming
Hancock, which stars
Will Smith.
According to Variety, though, Mann has found a project that he's interested in directing next year, and it's to be another vehicle for Smith, who Mann previously directed to an Oscar nom in
Ali. The drama, titled
Empire, will also reunite Mann with screenwriter
John Logan, with whom he worked, as a producer, on
The Aviator. The plot involves a "contemporary global media mogul."
Other than that job title for (I'm assuming) Smith's character, little is known. But with such a great team involved, I don't think we need to worry. They're all very talented and respected (even if Logan did write the recent version of
The Time Machine), Columbia apparently dished out at least a million bucks for the must-be-amazing pitch and I trust that Mann will not disappoint me again in the future. Something about this project -- perhaps the hint of corporate and media dealings -- makes me think it will be most in line with Mann's
The Insider, which I think is his best film, even though it doesn't have a lot of action nor does it have
Pacino and DeNiro face to face.
Empire also won't feature classic Hollywood icons, like the film noir Mann and Logan were recently
said to be making, but with that in mind, I think I'm anticipating this new project on less-kitschy grounds. Meanwhile, I'm also hoping that Smith make this a priority over
Seven Pounds, his
presumed next film (following
Hancock) that returns him to the care of
Pursuit of Happyness director
Gabriele Muccino. I guess it all could come down to which film Smith thinks offers him a better chance at another Oscar nom for 2009.
Posted May 29th 2007 11:32AM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Drama, Casting, RumorMonger
The wall has come down and the Cold War has been pushed into the decades-old past, but it's not completely gone. Heck, it definitely wasn't for the late Alexander Litvinenko -- an ex-KGB agent who was poisoned with polonium last November. Since then, a documentary called
Rebellion: The Litvinenko Affair has debuted at Cannes, and both
Johnny Depp and
Michael Mann have been looking to make features on it since mid-January. While at the festival for the showing of the doc, Marina Litvinenko, Alexander's wife, has chatted about her husband's death and the projects based on his story.
In January,
I posted that Depp's production company got the rights to
Sasha's Story: The Life and Death of a Russian Spy. The next day,
Jessica Barnes shared news that Mann had been hired by Columbia Pictures for a competing film. Now the story is a little different. According to
The Guardian, Warner Bros. has the rights to Marina's book about her husband --
Death of a Dissident -- with Michael Mann directing. To top that off, they claim that the widow has said that Depp will be playing the ex-KGB agent in the film. If this is right, I assume that he ditched the Cowell book in favor of the widow's? I imagine that the film will take a while to get to the screen, as developments continue to pop up. Most recently, Litvinenko's death has been linked to former KGB officer Andrei Lugovoi, and a formal request has been made for his extradition. So, Depp has had scissors for hands, Hunter S. Thompson and a famous, swashbuckling pirate. What are the chances that he can pull off a Russian ex-KGB agent? I'd say pretty darn good.
Posted May 12th 2007 6:31PM by Ryan Stewart
Filed under: Action, Drama, Universal, Trailer Trash, War
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Peter Berg's military-actioner The Kingdom was supposed to come out this past spring, and got pushed to fall for reasons that escape me at the moment. Anyway, a new trailer for the film has just come online, and there's one thing I really liked about it -- it's scored to US2's "Bullet the Blue Sky" from The Joshua Tree. Aside from that, it strikes me as a sort of an unexpectional mish-mash of the Harrison Ford Jack Ryan movies, where American military professionals are trying to stride through a hostile Middle Eastern country and get shot at, and an Edward Zwick political action movie, with a lot of sympathetic reaction shots of locals trying to tell the Americans what's-what and so on. Also, I regret to say that, based on this trailer, it looks like Jamie Foxx has no intention of broadening his range, ever. Co-starring in the film with Foxx is Jennifer Garner, and I couldn't help but notice that she doesn't have a single word of dialogue in this entire trailer, which runs a good three or four minutes. What's that all about?
The flim's plot revolves around an elite team of FBI agents who are sent into Saudi Arabia to investigate the bombing of an American military base that killed an FBI agent and many other Americans. Somewhere along the way, they decide to enlist the help of a local Saudi and pretty soon they are picking up the trail of the terrorist bomber. Jason Bateman and Chris Cooper also have roles in the film and it's interesting to note that, although from what I understand, a few days of location shooting were done in the Middle East, the film was mostly shot in Arizona. I guess desert is desert, right? The Kingdom is set for release on September 28.
Posted May 11th 2007 10:31AM by Ryan Stewart
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Horror, Romance, Casting, Deals, Lionsgate Films, RumorMonger
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With Heat being one of my favorite films of all time, I took the opportunity at yesterday's press junket for Bug to ask Ashley Judd if she was keen to ever work with Michael Mann again, to which she replied "I would love to work with Michael Mann again. He is a really neat, committed and very inspired filmmaker. Also a really nice guy -- my husband and I are really fond of him." I also inquired as to who she'd like to work with after Bug, and to that she said "Wayne Wang and I are talking about doing something together again, which I'm looking forward to." Wang directed Judd in 1995's Smoke, and the project she's referring to, I'm guessing, is Wang's upcoming romantic comedy Good Cook, Likes Music, about a slacker who sends away for a mail order bride and gets some life-changing woman of his dreams, or something like that. Sounds like Judd alley, no?
Judd also confirmed that she'll be appearing in Crossing Over, and had this to say about the project: "I'm getting ready to work with a guy called Wayne Kramer, and I'm really excited about that. He's a South African who immigrated to the United States a while ago, well over a decade ago I believe, perhaps longer. He's directing a script he wrote called Crossing Over, which looks at immigration issues, and I'm looking forward to that. He's put together an amazing cast. My scenes will be with Ray Liotta and a young African girl whom I've not met yet -- I'm looking forward to that. Sean Penn and Harrison Ford are also in the movie, so that's gonna be neat." She also said she's in talks with a first-time director about a project that involves human trafficking and slave labor, but no further details. Expect a full report from the junket soon.
Posted May 2nd 2007 7:32PM by Christopher Campbell
Filed under: Drama, Thrillers, Casting, Noir, Mystery & Suspense, MGM, Celebrities and Controversy
Even though I
hated his
Miami Vice movie, I still consider myself a fan of
Michael Mann's work, and I continue to look forward to whatever he delivers next. And it looks like his next will be something to really, really look forward to. Variety
reports that Mann will direct a film noir about a Hollywood murder investigation and that
Leonardo DiCaprio is expected to play the detective. The project, which was packaged by CAA, is currently being shopped around to the studios with a script written by
John Logan.
The film will take place in the 1930s on the MGM lot and will apparently feature cameos from people like
Judy Garland and
Bugsy Siegel (people playing them, anyway). The plot will likely follow the detective as he is hired by the studio to clean up a scandal involving a starlet who may or may not have murdered her husband. The only other part of the script that has been revealed is that there will be a major shootout that takes place in the Trocadero nightclub on Sunset Boulevard. Despite the fact that no studio is yet confirmed (New Line has been revealed to have bid, but too low), the film will start shooting in February.
There can never be too many period noirs set in Hollywood, which had a lot of interesting scandals during the golden era, but after the failure of
The Black Dahlia some studios may be hesitant to think there's a chance for another
L.A. Confidential. Still, with Mann, DiCaprio and Logan teamed up -- they all worked together on
The Aviator, which Mann produced -- it will be difficult to lose with this film.
Posted Feb 24th 2007 9:02AM by Christopher Campbell
Filed under: Awards, Paramount, Tom Cruise, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Oscar Watch
According to L.A.
Weekly blogger Nikki Finke, there
will be three presenters of the Oscar for Best Achievement in Directing. Those presenters? None other than
Steven Spielberg,
Francis Ford Coppola and
George Lucas. Finke doesn't go on to make assumptions, but I'll go ahead and speculate that the planners of the telecast know something about who will win this award -- or they're making a hopeful gamble. Of course it will be great television to feature three of the most important "New Hollywood" directors hand a long overdue award to a fourth member of that era,
Martin Scorsese. Personally, though, I think if Scorsese is a definite lock for the award, then
Robert Redford,
Kevin Costner,
Barry Levinson and
Roman Polanski should be the ones presenting it.
Finke has learned of a few other "surprises" we can look forward to on Sunday night, including an appearance by
Tom Cruise to present his old boss at Paramount,
Sherry Lansing, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Also, the supporting acting awards will not be announced at the beginning of the ceremony, as they usually are, and none of the scheduled performers from
Dreamgirls (
Beyoncé,
Jennifer Hudson and
Anika Noni Rose) will sing the song they sing in the movie -- who will perform what is not revealed, however. As for montages, we can expect one directed by
Michael Mann about the portrayal of America in movies and one directed by
Nancy Meyers about the portrayal of writers.
It is being rumored that this year's Oscar telecast will be extremely long, so hopefully the Academy and the planners have some other surprises that are more exciting than these. Of course, many of us will be glued to the set the whole way through to find out which picture will be revealed as the best, but I think the media is overestimating the public curiosity this year and I doubt that many people will really care enough to be up that late.
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