Neeson in talks for Scorsese’s Silence and Her and Captain Phillips triumph at Writer’s Guild Awards

In loving memory of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, an Oscar winning legend and star of The Master, Capote, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Mission: Impossible 3, who died today aged 46. July 23rd 1967 – January 2nd 2014

Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity) picked up the Director’s Guild; American Hustle, Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine), Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave), Matthew MacConaughey and Jared Leto (both Dallas Buyers Club) swept up at the Screen Actor’s Guild; Gravity and 12 Years a Slave tied and Producer’s Guild. The Guild Awards now conclude with the Writer’s Guild Awards.

Best Original Screenplay:

Her – Spike Jonze

American Hustle – Eric Warren Singer, David O’Russell

Blue Jasmine – Woody Allen

Dallas Buyers Club – Craig Borten, Melissa Wallack

Nebraska – Bob Nelson

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Captain Phillips – Billy Ray

August: Osage County – Tracy Letts

Before Midnight – Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy

Lone Survivor – Peter Berg

The Wolf of Wall Street – Terence Winter

Best Documentary Screenplay:

Stories We Tell – Sarah Polley

Dirty Wars – Jeremy Scahill, David Riker

Herblock: The Black and the White – Sara Lukinson, Michael Stevens

No Place on Earth – Janet Tobais, Paul Laikin

We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks – Alex Gibney

In TV, Breaking Bad, Veep, Days of Our Lives, House of Lies and The Colbert Report won one award each.

Just a quick snippet of news to say that two Oscar nominated legends will be teaming up for an upcoming project. Director Martin Scrosese (The Departed, Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, Shutter Island, Hugo, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Aviator, Casino, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, The Last Temptation of Christ, After Hours, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy and Mean Streets) has just added Liam Neeson (Taken, Schindler’s List, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight Rises, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia) to the cast of the upcoming drama Silence alongside Andrew Garfield, Ken Watanabe and Adam Driver. The pair will be reuniting for the first time twelve years, the last being when the acclaimed Gangs of New York was released.

Silence – 2015

Grace of Monaco to open Cannes, Ant-Man’s release brought forward and Cuaron victorious at Directors Guild Awards

Ant-Man will possibly be one of the biggest hits of next year but one of the potential problems of it would be it getting swamped by the other, more well known, superhero releases of 2015, e.g Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Fantastic Four and Batman vs. Superman. B vs S flicked Ant-Man from June to August but you’ve probably picked up that the former project was delayed into 2016. With producers comfortable that director Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End, Shaun of the Dead) and stars Paul Rudd (Anchorman’s Brian Fantana) and Michael Douglas (Wall Street’s Gordon Gecko) are ready to go ahead, Marvel’s Ant-Man has scurried in for the June release.

Above is one of the the stills from Grace of Monaco, a film that’s now been confirmed to be opening the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, following in the footsteps of Up, The Great Gatsby and The Da Vinci Code. The biopic of Oscar winning, 1950s Hollywood star Grace Kelly stars Nicole Kidman and Tim Roth and is directed by Oliver Dahan (La Vie en Rose, a film that won Marion Cottilard an Oscar). We can expect the rest of the line up to be announced soon.

Finally, the results of the Directors Guild Awards have been announced and are as follows:

Best Directorial Effort in a Motion Picture:

Alfonso Cuaron – Gravity

Paul Greengrass – Captain Phillips

Steve McQueen – 12 Years a Slave

David O’Russell – American Hustle

Martin Scorsese – The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Directorial Effort in a Documentary:

Jehanne Noujaim – The Square

Zachary Heinzerling – Cutie and the Boxer

Joshua Oppenheimer – The Act of Killing

Sarah Polley – Stories We Tell

Lucy Walker – The Crash Reel

In TV, Breaking Bad, Behind the Candelabra, 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live all won one award each.

Grace of Monaco – May 14th at Cannes Film Festival, France

Ant-Man – July 17th 2015

Batman vs. Superman – May 6th 2016

12 Years triumphs at People’s Choice Awards and new Amazing Spider-Man 2 posters

After director Steve McQueen and star Michael Fassbender were snubbed for both Hunger and Shame, they’re finally getting award recognition for 12 Years a Slave, which won Best Film at the Golden Globes and People’s Choice and shone out at the Academy Award nominations. Here’s the full list

Best Picture

12 Years a Slave

American Hustle

Captain Phillips

Dallas Buyers Club

Gravity

Her

Inside Llewyn Davis

Nebraska

Saving Mr Banks

Best Actor

Matthew MacConaughey – Dallas Buyers Club

Christian Bale – American Hustle

Bruce Dern – Nebraska

Chiwetel Ejiofor – 12 Years a Slave

Tom Hanks – Captain Phillips

Robert Redford – All is Lost

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett – Blue Jasmine

Sandra Bullock – Gravity

Judi Dench – Philomena

Brie Larson – Short Term 12

Meryl Streep – August: Osage County

Emma Thompson – Saving Mr Banks

Best Supporting Actor

Jared Leto – Dallas Buyers Club

Barkhad Abdi – Captain Philllips

Daniel Bruhl – Rush

Bradley Cooper – American Hustle

Michael Fassbender – 12 Years a Slave

James Gandolfini – Enough Said

Best Supporting Actress

Lupita Nyong’o – 12 Years a Slave

Scarlett Johansson – Her

Jennifer Lawrence – American Hustle

Julia Roberts – August: Osage County

June Squibb – Blue Jasmine

Oprah Winfrey – The Butler

Best Young Actor/Actress

Adele Exarchopoulos – Blue is the Warmest Colour

Asa Butterfield – Ender’s Game

Liam James – The Way Way Back

Sophie Nelisse – The Book Thief

Tye Sheridan – Mud

Best Acting Ensemble

American Hustle

August: Osage County

The Butler

Nebraska

12 Years a Slave

The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Director

Alfonso Cuaron – Gravity

Paul Greengrass – Captain Phillips

Spike Jonze – Her

Steve McQueen – 12 Years a Slave

David O’Russell – American Hustle

Martin Scorsese – The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Original Screenplay

Spike Jonze – Her

Eric Warren Singer, David O’Russell – American Hustle

Woody Allen – Blue Jasmine

Joel and Ethan Coen – Inside Llewyn Davis

Bob Nelson – Nebraska

Best Adapted Screenplay

John Ridley – 12 Years a Slave

Tracy Letts – August: Osage County

Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke – Before Midnight

Billy Ray – Captain Phillips

Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope – Philomena

Terence Winter – The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Cinematography

Emmannuel Lubezki – Gravity

Bruno Delbonnel – Inside Llewyn Davis

Phedon Papamichael – Nebraska

Roger Deakins – Prisoners

Sean Bobbit – 12 Years a Slave

Best Art Direction

The Great Gatsby

Gravity

Her

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

12 Years a Slave

Best Editing

Gravity

American Hustle

Captain Phillips

Rush

12 Years a Slave

The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Costume Design

The Great Gatsby

American Hustle

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Saving Mr Banks

12 Years a Slave

Best Hair and Make-up

American Hustle

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Butler

Rush

12 Years a Slave

Best Visual Effects

Gravity

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Iron Man 3

Pacific Rim

Star Trek Into Darkness

Best Animated Feature

Frozen

The Croods

Despicable Me 2

Monsters University

The Wind Rises

Best Action Movie

Lone Survivor

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Iron Man 3

Rush

Star Trek Into Darkness

Best Actor in an Action Movie

Mark Wahlberg – Lone Survivor

Henry Cavill – Man of Steel

Robert Downey Jr – Iron Man 3

Brad Pitt – World War Z

Best Comedy

American Hustle

Enough Said

The Heat

This is the End

The Way Way Back

The World’s End

Best Actor in a Comedy

Leonardo Di Caprio – The Wolf of Wall Street

Christian Bale – American Hustle

James Gandolfini – Enough Said

Simon Pegg – The World’s End

Sam Rockwell – The Way Way Back

Best Actress in a Comedy

Amy Adams – American Hustle

Sandra Bullock – The Heat

Greta Gerwig – Frances Ha

Julia Louis Dreyfus – Enough Said

Melissa McCarthy – The Heat

Best Sci-fi Horror Movie

Gravity

The Conjuring

Star Trek Into Darkness

Iron Man 3

Best Foreign Language Film

Blue is the Warmest Colour

The Great Beauty

The Hunt

The Past

Best Documentary Feature

20 Feet From Stardom

The Act of Killing

Blackfish

Stories We Tell

Tim’s Vermeer

Best Song

Let it Go – Frozen

Atlas – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Happy – Despicable Me 2

Ordinary Love – Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Please Mr Kennedy – Inside Llewyn Davis

Young and Beautiful – The Great Gatsby

Best Score

Stephen Price – Gravity

William Butler, Owen Pallett – Her

Thomas Newman – Saving Mr Banks

Hans Zimmer – 12 Years a Slave

Gravity has won the most awards with an impressive six wins but it’s 12 Years a Slave’s day as it picked up Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay. American Hustle gained four wins while Frozen, The Great Gatsby, Blue is the Warmest Colour and Lone Survivor got two. I’m not going to do in depth analysis but I’m stilled surprised Her is being praised as an “original” and “fresh” premise as it has exactly the same plot as a Big Bang Theory episode where a lonely Raj (Kunal Nayyar) falls in love with his I-Phone’s Siri. I’m probably not the first to say it but I haven’t heard anyone else pick up on it.

The only other major piece of news is the stunning new poster for Marvel and Sony’s superhero sequel The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Marc Webb directs and Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Paul Giamatti, Sally Field, Dane DeHaan and Chris Cooper star but today’s focus is the hopefully terrifying new villain Electro, played by Ray, Collateral and Django Unchained’s Jamie Foxx.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – April 18th