Three Quickies: Caesar, Victor, Jared
Thursday, June 19, 2014 at 4:40PM Caesar
Have you ever considered the job of Location Manager? I can quickly confess that I have not despite often considering plentiful jobs that go on behind the scenes on motion pictures. The Credits discusses the complicated work with Catou Kearney the Location Manager of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. It's a technically challenging movie, not least of which because they shot so much outdoors and needed a lushly overgrown forest.
The apes ... have created a vast forest utopia. Finding such a place, one that looks as abundant as the script demands, but that could also support a large crew and a ton of equipment, takes months of research, legwork, and a few thousand phone calls. Kearney is a seasoned location manager, and relishes the opportunity. “It’s like putting a ten-thousand piece puzzle together,” she says. “When that last piece falls into place, there’s nothing like it.”
As it turns out the Vancouver rainforests got the job of portraying futuristic California wilderness.
Igor (Marty Feldman) in "Young Frankenstein"Victor
Since we're in an era wherein everything that is enormously familiar is being regurgitated nonstop, we're going to get a new Victor Frankenstein movie shortly after getting a new Victor Frankenstein on TV in Penny Dreadful. Next October to be exact. The new angle this time? The story will be told from the perspective of Dr Frankenstein's assistant Igor who will be played by Daniel Radcliffe. The mad doctor is James McAvoy. I've always felt a little bad for the Frankenstein Monster because of the classic monsters, he's the least popular... though that never stops Hollywood. My theory on this is because he's not thematically easy like the self-generating metaphor machines that vampirism and to a lesser extent lycanthrophy are. Maybe when science evolves to a point where we all have organ transplants and articifial limbs and cyborg parts and we worry about what we've become everyone will be really into him.
Jared
Remember when I interviewed Jared Leto last year for Dallas Buyers Club and he was all 'don't expect me back in the movies anytime soon'. Liar liar pants on fire! He's being talked up for Doctor Strange. I think Cumberbatch & Hardy are great actors but I honestly like the idea of Leto so much more in that particular role. That's partially because he's less familiar as a screen actor and feels 'other' already which would help - and he's just replaced Will Smith in the lead role in Brilliance.
As In Contention astutely points out
To those who say winning an Oscar makes no difference to one's career, here's evidence to the contrary. This time last year, news of Jared Leto replacing Will Smith on a major commercial project would have seemed like crazy talk ...
Brilliance is a thriller based on the novel by the same name by Marcus Sakey about a federal agent chasing a deadly terrorist. They're both "brilliants" which is a sort of human being with 'extras' if you will. Everyone's gotta be superpowered these days whether they get it honestly by mutations, under duress via bags of leaky drugs implanted in their stomachs, or they're airlifted in from other planets.
Reader Comments (6)
Leto seems committed to his music and up until now was a fringe actor with sporadic minor successes in film mostly in low budget pictures. But he never was one to relentlessly pursue high profile projects.
Now with the Oscar and the fact that he's a looker in what is considered the proper age bracket he is the pursued and is probably being offered everything. Who can blame him for selecting a few he thinks are worth the time and making hay while the sun shines.
I'm happy we'll see more Leto at the cinema...
One: That's actually, probably, why he's not really a good choice. I haven't read many of the comics, but he seems like a fairly normal in personality, if always a bit arrogant and ostentatious, guy who just so happens to have the actual last name of Strange. It might work, but I can see Cumberbatch possibly working as well. As for Tom Hardy? There's a lot of actors who bulk up and (at least personally) look less aesthetically pleasing than when they're skinnier or, even, fat (Christian Bale LOOKS better, though in different ways, in The Fighter and American Hustle than he ever did as Batman). Hardy (and, shockingly, formerly fat Chris Pratt) actually make slightly more sense visually with muscle and I can't imagine Hardy's contract for THIS role wouldn't stipulate losing muscle. Someone I'm completely shocked Marvel never considered putting on the wish list for this, though, was Jon Hamm. He's a big deal due to Mad Men, but probably a smaller pay cheque than their other three contenders and still fairly appropriate for the part in his own way.
Christian Bale LOOKS better, though in different ways, in The Fighter and American Hustle than he ever did as Batman...
Crazy talk.
Now, if you had said Velvet Goldmine and The Prestige I might have gotten on the train to Crazy Town with you...
Paul & Volvagia -- i also think that's crazy (re: Bale) though i agree with the thesis statement that not everyone looks their best when they're muscled up. I'll probably never see it again but Tom Hardy was SO BEAUTIFUL before he bulked up. Now he's just a sexy guy with big muscles. But he's no longer gorgeous. I *far* prefer him skinnier. Chris Pratt though looks perfect with big muscles. It's true they just fit some people aesthetically better than they do others.
Chris Pratt: delicious.