Links: Colossal's Trailer, Moana's Brothers, Namor's Rights

Coming Soon Colossal, that kaiju movie starring Anne Hathaway that we told you about at least year's TIFF is coming out this year and it has such a cute poster (pictured left) and the trailer is also here.
Deadline good interview with Octavia Spencer on why she did Hidden Figures and diversity in film
Coming Soon here's a super duper strange news item. Kenneth Lonergan is writing an miniseries adaptation of Howards End to star Hayley Atwell. Never mind that there's zero chance of improving on Merchant & Ivory's 1992 masterpiece!
Variety what does the Academy look for in an Original Song nominee and winner?
Tracking Board what makes a TV pilot script a success?
In Contention profiles former sound mixing partners nominated against each other for the first time for Hacksaw Ridge and 13 Hours
THR an anonymous source talks about the lack of shame in Hollywood around the gender imbalance in the director's chair 
MNPP pays tribute to sexy German actor Clemens Schick
/Film the Jurassic World sequel has started production

Playbill a deleted scene from Moana - she had many brothers in an original draft
Playbill Fathom Events is showing the filmed movie of Disney's Broadway version of Newsies starring Jeremy Jordan today (and a couple of other dates within the next week)
Coming Soon I didn't think I could want to see Suicide Squad 2 any less than I already did. I was wrong. Mel Gibson is in talks to direct 
/Film the latest rumor has it that Marvel Studios is secretly working on a Namor film. I don't believe this one personally because since Namor is a mutant I assume his right are locked up with Fox (though the article mentions they were once with Universal). Fox owns most of the mutant characters due to their extensive X-Men contract and even if Namor doesn't fall under that (since he's rarely thought of as an X-Universe character he is much more closely associated with Fantastic Four which Fox also owns.
Film School Rejects a call for more wangs on screen -- and this from a straight dude so everyone is noticing that they refuse to show 'em - even in sex movies like 50 Shades
Variety the hilarious Constance Wu (Fresh Off the Boat) is in talks to headline a new romantic comedy called Crazy Rich Asians 

Infinity Links... "a fun filled year of lensing"

Esquire cool interview with the director of John Wick: Chapter 2, a former stuntman
Stage Buddy on a new book about the immortal classic Casablanca
Vox an excellent piece on AMC's Humans and how it differs from HBO's similarly AI themed but wildly different Westworld  
NYT Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy to return to the stage 
Indie Wire Tulip Fever gets pushed back AGAIN even though it was supposed to open in less than two weeks
Silver Screening Room on the Adapted Screenplay race of 1976 for reasons I dont know but I enjoyed 

More after the jump including Avengers Infinity War...

Click to read more ...

Nicole Kidman for Aquaman?

The Aussie goddess, most recently spotted defying fashion rules with parrots at the SAG Awards, maybe should have worn seahorses instead? She's in talks to play Atlanna in Aquaman (due October 2018). For those of you who don't know -- I wasn't a DC kid growing up so I also didn't know this -- Atlanna is the mother of Aquaman. Never mind that Nicole Kidman is only 12 years older than Jason Momoa, you know how Hollywood do. (If you've been following along, previously she was supposed to be Wonder Woman's mother but that didn't work out.)

Comic books are always rewriting their own histories so who knows if this is considered true anymore or was true for any longer than five minutes but from my understanding Aquaman is only half human, from the father's side, while she's more of an underwater goddess sea-dweller and Queen the way Triton was King in The Little Mermaid. If Kidman is going to be stuck playing supporting moms from now on, we hope she collects a big paycheck and they go really crazy with her underwater couture. 

Final Predictions: Animation, Documentary, and Sound Categories

Another day another dizzying array of last minute nerves over this confusing Oscar race. We've already talked Picture, Director, Actor, and the Screenplay categories right here. Now several more categories...

Animated Feature
A couple of months ago The Red Turtle looked like the sure thing "art" entry in the this category but it doesn't appear to have gathered much momentum and I worry it may be omitted. Working the opposite trajectory is Kubo and the Two Strings (more and more popular... could it even give Zootopia a run for the win?) and My Life as a Courgette which could pick up nominations in both animated feature and foreign language feature, something that has never happened before.  

Documentary Feature
The only question that seems relevant at this point is "can anything beat O.J.: Made in America?"...

Click to read more ...

2016's Box Office Scorecard. Big & Minor Hits (Some Flops due to Budget)

Each day for the past two weeks we've been looking back on the year that was from different angles. Today, the biggest hits of 2016 in two different categories (franchise vs original).

It will surprise no one that the year's biggest hits continue to prove Hollywood right (sigh) in pursuing nothing but animated and superhero pictures and franchisable intellectual property and neglecting the nurturing of movies for adults. On the bright side quality pictures do occassionally break through audience resistance to original concepts and voices, often with the help of awards at year's end. So next time you hear people complain about awards season, remind them that we might never get movies made for adults if there weren't shiny gold statues to chase.

How many of these 35 pictures have you seen and which will you hit next? 

Click to read more ...