Ben Mendelsohn set for Rogue One and and Spielberg hired for Ready Player One

We reckoned Warner Bros had set their hopes unrealistically high when they announced their director’s shortlist for the adaptation of Ernest Cline’s sci-fi novel Ready Player One. Names such as Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings, King Kong), Christopher Nolan (Inception, The Dark Knight), Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump), Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim VS The World) and Matthew Vaughn (Kingsman: The Secret Service, X-Men: First Class) where previously mentioned in connection.

We now know that it’ll be Steven Spielberg, the Oscar winning legend behind Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can and Lincoln. Scripted by Zak Penn (The Avengers), it’ll join Spielberg’s list of upcoming projects including Tom Hanks thriller Bridge of Spies, Mark Rylance fantasy The BFG and Jennifer Lawrence drama It’s What I Do.

He’s one of the best supporting actors around but Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn is now set for the big time by joining the first Star Wars spin off, Rogue One. The star, who is yet to have officially joined the film, is best known for playing Daggett in The Dark Knight Rises, the crooked Wayne Enterprises head who meets a grizzly end at the hands of Bane in the infamous scene above. He was also in the thrillers Killing Me Softly and The Place Beyond the Pines as well as the newly acclaimed Netflix show Bloodline. His new role has not yet been revealed but we’d assume he’ll be a member of the titular pilot squad. Rogue One is directed by Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, Monsters) and will star Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything).

Rogue One – December 16th 2016

Ready Player One – 2018?

The 2015 Preview Issue

2015 is the new 2012 (The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Skyfall, The Hunger Games, The Hobbit), which itself was the new 1999 (The Sixth Sense, The Phantom Menace, The Matrix, Two Story 2). Its releases should not only be huge financial successes but promise to be delightful watches as well. Here’s what we reckon will be topping the year’s box office in twelve months time.

1. The Avengers: Age of Ultron – Director: Joss Whedon – $1.7 billion
2. Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens – JJ Abrams – $1.4 billion
3. Spectre – Sam Mendes – $1.2 billion
4. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 – Francis Lawrence – $925 million
5. Furious 7 – James Wan – $875 million
6. Minions – Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin – $800 million
7. Jurassic World – Colin Trevorrow – $775 million
8. Inside Out – Pete Docter – $725 million
9. Mission: Impossible 5 – Christopher McQuarrie – $700 million
10. Ant-Man – Peyton Reed – $675 million
11. The Good Dinosaur – Peter Sohn – $625 million
12. Ted 2 – Seth MacFarlane – $600 million
13. Terminator Genisys – Alan Taylor – $575 million
14. The Fantastic Four – Josh Trank – $550 million
15. Tomorrowland – Brad Bird – $525 million

We reckon The Avengers sequel will edge Star Wars seeing as the former series’ commercial success is actually growing. Pixar’s double-billed return to original storytelling with Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur should score them impressively but Minions will triumph on the animation front. The only other original work we expect to see doing well is sci-fi adventure Tomorrowland. The race in the new crop of reboots will be won by Jurassic World, beating off competition from Terminator and Fantastic Four. Close to gracing the Top 15 will be sequels to YA franchises (The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials, Insurgent) and there might be an upset for Chris Columbus/Adam Sandler comedy Pixels and Joe Wright/Hugh Jackman fantasy adventure Pan. Should it finally get a major release, The Interview may well be a smash hit.

Now here are our top twenty to one most anticipated releases of the year.

20) The Fantastic Four

Director: Josh Trank
Writers: Josh Trank, Simon Kinberg, Jeremy Slater, TS Nowlin
Starring: Miles Teller, Jamie Bell, Kate Mara, Michael B Jordan, Toby Kebbell
Premise: For a very long time, next to nothing had been revealed about Fox’s Fantastic Four reboot. Star Wars took a similar approach and that sent fans running wild with speculation but no such hype surrounded the FF, exposing a serious lack of interest. Still, Chronicle’s Trank is a promising hope and the the high-end castings of Teller (Whiplash), Bell (Bill Elliot), Mara (House of Cards), Kebbell (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) and Jordan (Fruitvale Station) ought to liven things up.
Release: August 6th

19) Everest

Director: Baltasar Kormakur
Writers: William Nicholson, Mark Medoff, Justin Isbell, Lem Dobbs, Simon Beaufoy
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, Robin Wright, Jason Clarke, Elizabeth Debicki, John Hawkes, Emily Watson
Premise: An absolute first-rate cast from two teams who embark on an expedition to the peak of the world’s highest mountain, where they also face the world’s toughest terrain. The stills so far reveal some spectacular drama.
Release: October 2nd

18) Mission: Impossible 5

Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Writers: Drew Pearce, Will Staples
Starring: Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Alec Baldwin, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Ving Rhames
Premise: It’s hard to get excited when all we have to go on is a few on-set snaps but we can still expect a high-end spectacle of action. Uniting Cruise and McQuarrie (star/writer of Edge of Tomorrow) is a solid move and the returning cast of Ghost Protocol (Pegg, Renner, Patton) hints at more franchise continuity than before.
Release: December 26th

17) The Man From UNCLE

Director: Guy Ritchie
Writers: Guy Ritchie, Lionel Wigram, Jeff Kleeman, David Campbell Wilson
Starring: Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Hugh Grant, Elizabeth Debicki, Jared Harris
Premise: Bond and Hunt are both set in stone in their nationalities but spy reboot The Man From UNCLE pitches a teaming up of the American Napoleon Solo (Cavill) and the Russian Illya Kuryakin (Hammer). With Sherlock Holmes/Snatch director Guy Ritchie helming it ought to be a truly gripping thriller.
Release: August 14th

16) Child 44

Director: Daniel Espinosa
Writers: Richard Price
Starring: Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Noomi Rapace, Paddy Considine, Jason Clarke, Dev Patel, Joel Kinnaman, Charles Dance
Premise: In Stalin-era Soviet Union, a detective investigates a series of murder, the complication is that the state believes crime doesn’t exist. The cast alone is enough of a reason to get interested and Daniel Espinosa proved his action credentials in Safe House.
Release: April 17th

15) Minions

Director: Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin
Writer: Brian Lynch
Starring: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud, Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton
Premise: There are very few well favoured comedy spin offs but the first trailer for Despicable Me’s spawn the Minions looked promising.
Release: June 26th

14) Untitled Steven Spielberg Cold War Project

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Matt Charman, Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring: Tom Hanks, Amy Ryan, Alan Alda, Mark Rylance
Premise: We know nothing more than the title suggests but another collaboration between Spielberg (Jaws, ET, AI, Minority Report, Schindler’s List, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park) and Hanks (Forrest Gump, Captain Phillips, Cast Away, The Green Mile, Road to Perdition) is a huge attention grabber. The pair’s previous collaborations are Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal and Saving Private Ryan.
Release: October 9th

13) Chappie

Director: Neill Blomkamp
Writers: Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell
Starring: Sharlto Copley, Hugh Jackman, Dev Patel, Sigourney Weaver
Premise: The director of District 9 takes on a slightly more light hearted venture as Chappie, a discarded robotic cop, us taken under the wing of a group of scientists who teach it. Soon, others realise that Chappie is potentially dangerous.
Release: March 6th

12) The Walk

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writers: Robert Zemeckis, Christopher Browne
Starring: Joseph Gordon Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon, James Badge Dale
Premise: As chronicled in the Oscar winning documentary Man on Wire, stuntman Philippe Petit begins his ultimate accomplishment by wire walking from one Twin Tower to the other. This is the first teaming up of the duo Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, Cast Away) and Joseph Gordon Levitt (Looper, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception).
Release: October 2nd

11) Ant-Man

Director; Peyton Reed
Writers: Gabriel Ferrari, Andrew Barrer, Adam McKay, Edgar Wright
Starring: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Corey Stoll, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Pena, Judy Greer

10) Inside Out

Director: Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen
Writers: Michael Arndt, Pete Docter
Starring: Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Mindy Kaling, Lewis Black, Kyle MacLachlan, Diane Lane
Premise: Pixar’s second release of 2015 is the brilliantly madcap concept of emotions, symbolised as the characters above, controlling the emotions within our mind. Unlike The Good Dinosaur, this has a Pixar regular, Pete Docter (Monsters Inc, Up), at the helm as well as Toy Story 3 writer Michael Arndt.
Release: July 24th

9) Jurassic World

Director: Colin Trevorrow
Writers: Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly
Starring: Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Pratt, Nick Robinson, Ty Simpkins, Omar Sy, Judy Greer, Jake Johnson, Vincent D’Onofrio
Premise: We’re well prepared for a sequel that won’t live up to the original’s same magic. Still, Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed) and his new set of leads – Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy), Howard (The Help), Robinson (The Kings of Summer) and Simpkins (Insidious) – look set to give a fresh rebranding.
Release: June 12th

8) Tomorrowland

Director: Brad Bird
Writers: Damon Lindelof, Brad Bird
Starring: Britt Robertson, George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, Judy Greer
Premise: One f the year’s most secretive releases comes from Pixar protogee Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) and, while it is a fairly original prospect, it’s in fact roughly based upon Walt Disney’s own bright and bold vision of the future.
Release: May 22nd

7) Mad Max: Fury Road

Director: George Miller
Writers: George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris
Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Zoe Kravitz, Nicholas Hoult
Premise: Pleasing the die hard fans of the original will be a tough task but the footage so far revealed for this sequel is phenomenal. It’ll be massively entertaining to see Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises, Locke) in a rawer action role.
Release: May 15th

6) The Martian

Director: Ridley Scott
Writer: Drew Goddard
Starring: Matt Damon, Jessican Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kirsten Wiig, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Michael Pena, Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean
Premise: The film’s tone, either epic or dramatic, has yet to have been established but it sees Damon’s astronaut stranded on the red planet. Still, we’re immediately excited to see what legendary Brit director Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Black Hawk Dawn, Alien, Blade Runner) can bring next.
Release: November 27th

5) Spectre

Director: Sam Mendes
Writers: John Logan, Neil Purvis, Robert Wade
Starring: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Lea Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Dave Bautista, Monica Bellucci, Andrew Scott, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear, Jesper Christensen
Premise: After Skyfall became one of the undisputedly great Bond films (rivalling Dr No, Goldfinger, GoldenEye and Casino Royale) and its follow up is hoping to be just as successful. In this new adventure, Bond (Craig) tracks a mysterious signal from a previous mission and finds a secret organisation, led by Waltz’s Oberhauser.
Release: October 23rd

4) In the Heart of the Sea

Director: Ron Howard
Writers: Charles Leavitt, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, Charlotte Riley, Tom Holland, Ben Whishaw, Brendan Gleeson
Premise: Fresh off of smash hit racing drama Rush, Ron Howard (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind) returns with a period thriller based on the true story that inspire Moby Dick. Hemsworth’s whaling crew are stranded in the see for weeks on end as the most fearsome whale they have ever witnessed haunts them. The trailer is awesome, terrifying and truly monstrous.
Release: March 13th

3) Crimson Peak

Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Writers: Guillermo Del Toro, Matthew Robbins, Lucinda Coxon
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam, Doug Jones, Burn Gorman
Premise: The masterful Mexican Del Toro, director of Pan’s Labyrinth and Pacific Rim/writer of The Hobbit trilogy, returns to properly gothic horror as aspiring author Edith Cushing (Wasikowska) moves into a new home with her sinister new husband Thomas Sharpe (Hiddleston). If it’s what it promises to be, we could have a chilling masterpiece on our hands.
Release: October 16th

2) The Avengers: Age of Ultron

Director: Joss Whedon
Writer: Joss Whedon
Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, James Spader, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Samuel L Jackson, Andy Serkis, Cobie Smulders, Don Cheadle, Stellan Skarsgard, Hayley Atwell, Thomas Kretschmann
Premise: Stark’s robot peacekeeping program gets out of hand as his creation begins its own global dominations. Marvel’s other properties (Inhumans and Doctor Strange) are being set up elsewhere but this is sowing the seeds of Civil War, Black Panther and Infinity War. Still Whedon’s superhero sequel will be darker, bolder, bigger and better.
Release: April 24th

1) Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens

Director: JJ Abrams
Writers: JJ Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan
Starring: Andy Serkis, Max Von Sydow, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Lupita Nyong’o, Gwendoline Christie, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, Warwick Davis, Christina Chong, Iko Uwais, Maisie Richardson Sellers
Premise: Besides the setting (30 years on from Return of the Jedi) we know almost nothing but how could anything else be number one? Perhaps it would have been lower down before that trailer landed but it just blew 90% of our worries out the water. We’re equally terrified and excited to what JJ will produce. Others may be surefire hits but this is the one we hope for the most.
Release: December 18th

Al Pacino confirms discussions with Marvel and first trailer for Zemeckis’ The Walk

Al Pacino is perhaps the greatest actor of the past fifty years. The Oscar winning star of Scarface, Serpico, Heat, Scent of a Woman, Dog Day Afternoon, Insomnia, Carlito’s Way, Donnie Brasco and The Godfather trilogy did, earlier in the year, express interest in a collaboration with Marvel following his viewing and immediate delight in their space-set smash hit Guardians of the Galaxy. He’s now confirmed that he’s met up with Marvel’s studio head Kevin Feige about the possibility of a role in the films.

“I would imagine either there’s something he feels is right for me,” he explained. For different roles the mysterious part of Star Lord’s father is still up for grabs; hopefully he won’t get stuck as a generic villain. Other more venerable actors to take the step into the fray of Marvel’s action packed world include Anthony Hopkins in Thor, Michael Douglas in Ant-Man, Jeff Bridges in Iron Man, Tommy Lee Jones in The First Avenger and Robert Redford in The Winter Soldier. It’s no long stretch to imagine Pacino accepting such a role. The Marvel movies up for casting are Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Thor: Ragnarok, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Inhumans and The Avengers: Infinity War.

Although the story was comprehensively covered in the Oscar winning documentary Man on Wire, the death defying accomplishment of tightrope walker Philippe Petit, who walked on wire from one Twin Tower to the other, will be seen on screen again in The Walk, the first trailer for which has been released. Robert Zemeckis, director of Back to the Future, Cast Away, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Contact and Forrest Gump, commands the cast of Joseph Gordon Levitt (Looper, Inception, Lincoln), Charlotte Le Bon (Mood Indigo, The Hundred Foot Journey), James Badge Dale (Iron Man 3, World War Z) and Ben Kingsley (Gandhi, Hugo, Shutter Island).

The Walk – October 2nd 2015

Awards special – Boyhood leads in LA and Boston while Pride scores at British Independant, new directors shortlist for Ready Player One

Films such as Gone Girl, Birdman, Whiplash and The Grand Budapest Hotel have received great acclaim but Boyhood is evidently the Oscar frontrunner. It had beaten off competition at the New York Critics’ Circle but its real test for gaining awards season traction will be at the upcoming accolade distributors. The results are in from both the LA and Boston Critics Awards and Boyhood has triumphed. Here’s the winners in full. Firstly, Los Angeles:

Best Picture:

Boyhood

Best Director:

Richard Linklater – Boyhood

Best Actor:

Tom Hardy – Locke

Best Actress:

Patricia Arquette – Boyhood

Best Supporting Actor:

JK Simmons – Whiplash

Best Supporting Actress:

Agata Kulesza – Ida

Best Screenplay:

Wes Anderson – The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Foreign Language Film:

Ida

Best Documentary:

Citizenfour

Best Cinematography:

Emmanuel Lubezki – Birdman

Best Animation:

The Tale of Princess Kaguya

Best Editing:

Sandra Adair – Boyhood

Best New Filmmaker:

Ava DuVernay – Selma

And in Boston:

Best Picture:

Boyhood

Best Director:

Richard Linklater – Boyhood

Best Actor:

Michael Keaton – Birdman

Best Actress:

Marion Cotillard – Two Days One Night

Best Supporting Actor:

JK Simmons – Whiplash

Best Supporting Actress:

Emma Stone – Birdman

Best Ensemble Cast:

Boyhood

Best Screenplay (tie):

Birdman/Boyhood

Best Documentary:

Citizenfour

Best Animation:

The Tale of Princess Kaguya

Best Foreign Language Film:

Two Days One Night

Best Editing:

Sandra Adair – Boyhood

Best Cinematography:

Emmanuel Lubezki – Birdman

Best New Filmmaker:

Dan Gilroy – Nightcrawler

If the snubbing of British acts here frustrates you then you might prefer these victors at the British Independent Film Awards. The pack was lead by mining/gay rights drama Pride, followed quickly by army thriller ’71 and Nick Cave’s semi-biopic 20,000 Days on Earth.

Best British Independent Film:

Pride

Best Director:

Yann Demange – ’71

Best Actress:

Gugu Mbatha Raw – Belle

Best Actor:

Brendan Gleeson – Calvary

Best Supporting Actress:

Imelda Staunton – Pride

Best Supporting Actor:

Andrew Scott – Pride

Best Screenplay:

Jon Ronson, Peter Straughan – Frank

The Douglas Hickox Award (Best Debut Director):

Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard – 20,000 Days on Earth

Best Documentary:

Next Goal Wins

Best International Independent Film:

Boyhood

The Raindance Award:

Luna

The Richard Harris Award:

Emma Thompson

The Variety Award:

Benedict Cumberbatch

Warner Bros set their hopes high when they revealed that Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar) was in consideration for the sci-fi project Ready Player One. Their vision seems no less ambitious when the rest of their directing shortlist. Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, King Kong, Heavenly Creatures), Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim VS The World, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End, Shaun of the Dead), Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class, Layer Cake, Stardust) and Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Contact, Cast Away, Back to the Future). Jackson, Nolan and Wright are more innovative filmmakers and would rather advance their own projects but the material seems appropriate for either Vaughn or Zemeckis.

Ready Player One – 2017?

Weekend box-office – 6th to 12th of September 2014 – will the Guardians rescue end of summer showdown?

It’s no secret that this summer’s American box office takings have been sub par. The pre-summer period was booming with X-Men: Days of Future Past, Godzilla, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Maleficent raking in the cash. Edge of Tomorrow had initial difficulty but eventually made back its budget. However, one or two of the summer’s surefire (The Hobbit 3, The Good Dinosaur) hits were delayed leaving a summer period with only one opening north of $100 million, Transformers: Age of Extinction. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Lucy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and How to Train Your Dragon 2 attempted to capitalise but weren’t quite as successful as Bay’s explosion-fest. Despite this, the year’s riskiest film is storming ahead in the charts and has becoming the highest grossing domestic release of the year so far. As predicted, Guardians of the Galaxy is wrapping up the summer in style.

US:

1. Guardians of the Galaxy – Director: James Gunn – $17.1 million
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Jonathan Liebesman – $11.9 million
3. If I Stay – RJ Cutler – $9.3 million
4. As Above So Below – John Erick Dowdle – $8.6 million
5. Let’s Be Cops – Luke Greenfield – $8.3 million

UK:

1. Lucy – Luc Besson – £2 million
2. Let’s Be Cops – Luke Greenfield – £1.7 million
3. The Inbetweeners 2 – Damon Beesley, Iain Morris – £1.3 million
4. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For – Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller – £1.1 million
5. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn – £1 million

$17 million may not seem particularly impressive, and on most weeks it wouldn’t be, but Guardians has retained its top position for the third time on this, its fifth, week of release. It’s fallen less that 1% from last week. Paris-set horror As Above So Below has made a fairly hefty debut for its kind while Pierce Brosnan spy thriller The November Man hasn’t scratched the top five, landing in sixth. In the UK, sci-fi thriller Lucy has only dropped a third rather than the predict 50%. Crime comedy Let’s Be Cops has made a surprisingly decent entry, despite Jake Johnson’s lack of star appeal this side of the Atlantic. Sin City’s sequel A Dame to Kill For has faired remarkably better here than in the States but it’ll still have to go down as a huge flop. This week I’ve scored a rather embarrassing 1/10.

US:

1. Guardians of the Galaxy – James Gunn
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Jonathan Liebesman
3. Forrest Gump (20th Anniversary re-release) – Robert Zemeckis
4. If I Stay – RJ Cutler
5. Let’s Be Cops – Luke Greenfield

UK:

1. Before I Go To Sleep – Rowan Joffe
2. Lucy – Luc Besson
3. Let’s Be Cops – Luke Greenfield
4. The Inbetweeners 2 – Damon Beesley Iain Morris
5. Sex Tape – Jake Kasdan

Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana and Vin Diesel in Guardians of the Galaxy, this week’s US number one.

Scarlett Johansson in Lucy, this week’s UK number one.