In the movie The Sound of Music, naive apprentice nun Maria says to Captain von Trapp that when “the Lord closes a door, He opens a window.” In the case of Australian actor Sam Worthington, it was more like “When the other creatives decide to get a little rambunctious, it’s time to exercise your option, and get the hell out of that movie and into a new one.”

Which is exactly what it looks like Worthington did when he left the set of The Tourist due to “creative differences,” and signed on to film The Last Days of American Crime instead, according to Variety.

Based on a bi-monthly comic book miniseries written by Rick Remender and drawn by Greg Tocchini from Radical Publishing—the first of three issues will ship next month—Crime tells the tale of an possible future where the U.S. government plans to use a secret signal which will make it impossible for anyone to consciously break the law.

This leaves Tourist with a different male lead, and is likely to start a crop of rumors about how difficult it can be to work with Angelina Jolie or Alfonso Cuaron.

I really feel for the Tourist producers right now. All they want to do is make a little movie about an American traveling abroad who gets drawn into a cat-and-mouse game between Interpol and a man with whom she once did the horizontal mambo, but they keep losing lead actors. And even though Variety says that Johnny Depp is now the lead actor, I can’t buy that there would be any chemistry at all between him and Jolie.

Let’s just hope it all works out in the end.

Related Posts: Quick Cuts: Stephen King’s son gets movie deal, and other stories, Making Out with the Media: The Roundup for November 4, 2008

Ever since I first learned that Universal Pictures was going to be releasing a movie called 47 Ronin, I have had some serious misgivings about the project. The announcement that the film is close to getting a director is doing nothing to allay my fears—but it’s not creating new ones, either.

As seen in Variety, commercial and short film director Carl Erik Rinsch is close to signing a deal to direct Keanu Reeves and a cast of at least 46 other leaderless samurai in what has been called a “fact-based” adaptation of the classic Japanese story wherein a group of samurai redeem the honor of their slain lord by stalking and killing the man who drove him to suicide.

This is his real first feature film project, as the original plan for Rinsch to direct the Alien prequel was shafted by Ridley Scott’s decision to take the helm of it himself based on the blowback from the studios not wanting to give buckets of money to a newcomer who also happened to be dating Ridley Scott’s daughter.

Interestingly, the Variety article brings up this very same concept with this sentence: “[The film] is a priority project for Universal, and it is unusual to see a first-timer entrusted to helm a film with a large budget and tentpole aspirations.”

Now, I’m not automatically going to assume that all first-time directors suck. Nor am I going to automatically assume that all commercial directors can’t make a good feature-length movie. I mean, look at Makoto Shinkai and The Place Promised in Our Early Days or Duncan Jones and Moon.

No, I think I’m just going to hope for the best and pray that should Rinsch book this job, he’ll be smart enough to cast some really awesome Japanese actors in the lead roles and keep Reeves in a stunt-character role.

Related Posts: Whoa… Keanu Reeves to star in 47 Ronin

Earlier, I linked to a list of movies that had taken the Bechdel test—some passed, some failed. I am uber-pleased to learn that there’s at least one more movie coming to the U.S. next year that could pass and nay, end up at the top of the list.

Starring Max Minghella (Art School Confidential), Rachel Weisz (The Brothers Bloom), and Oscar Isaac (Body of Lies), the film is called Agora, and according to Variety, the U.S. distribution rights were bought by Newmarket Films (The Passion of the Christ) who will release it some time in the first half of next year.

The English-language story revolves around a fictional Egyptian slave (Minghella) who is in love with his master, a real historical figure named Hypatia of Alexandria (Weisz) who also happens to be the world’s first notable female mathematician and astronomer-philosopher. The backdrop to this romance is the rise of Christianity in Egypt and how it tore Egypt apart and set back its scientific discoveries.

It was screened both at Cannes and at the Toronto Film Festival and so far, the Tomatometer’s findings are mixed despite a $30 million gross in during its first month of release in Spain. The L.A. Times said it was “crammed with both stirring visual images and intellectual ideas” and a subsequent interview with director Alejandro Amenabar (The Sea Inside) reveals that:

[The] movie is definitely a condemnation of  fundamentalism. It’s about the moment in history when the Christians were finished being persecuted and began to persecute others.

All I know is that any movie that features both epic street brawls and figures in neofeminism is definitely one to watch out for, and I’d even say a possible contender for another Academy Award for Weisz when the film becomes eligible in 2010.

Of all the movie and/or story genres out there, the only one I can think of as being uniquely American is that of the Western; however, it’s a genre in which some of the best films have been made by non-Americans (see: Sergio Leone’s The Dollars Trilogy).

According to Variety, Spanish producer Ibon Cormenzana and Arcadia Motion Pictures hope to continue that trend with a Western called Blackthorn, to be directed by Mateo Gil (writer for Open Your Eyes).

What’s more, Cormenzana aims to strike at the heart of one of Hollywood’s contemporary classics by suggesting that not only did he survive the Bolivian gunfight at the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but that 15 years later, a disguised Cassidy would pull yet another “final heist” to try and earn the goods to return to the U.S.

Here’s a little more about the plot:

Noriega plays a trigger-happy cowboy who loses Cassidy’s life savings, pushing Cassidy (Sam Shepard) into a final job, a mine heist. Stephen Rea [plays] a railroad employee, originally sent after Cassidy following his string of U.S. bank robberies, who’s still keen to hunt Cassidy down.

Filming will begin next March in Spain and Bolivia.

Just in case you weren’t sure of what you’re going to be doing in the year 2010, Focus Features decided to help out by firming up their movie release schedule—at least just a little bit.

March 12, 2010: Greenberg – Categorized as a “dramedy,” Ben Stiller stars as a New Yorker who moves to L.A. to figure out his life while housesitting for his brother and ends up falling in love with his brother’s assistant. Directed by Noah Baumbach (Fantastic Mr. Fox), the movie also features Jennifer Jason Leigh in the cast and with a story credit.

April 16, 2010: Babies – This documentary by Thomas Balmes will chronicle the lives of either four children who are born in the same year in Namibia, Japan, Mongolia, and San Francisco. Despite my initial tendency to snark, I think I rather like the idea of seeing how children are born and raised in different cultures, social strata, etc. My sense of the macabre comes back into play when I ponder if there will be an Oscar-baiting (or warding-off) scene which will end with a death.

September 1, 2010: The American – Just in case you didn’t have enough George Clooney in your life, he will return to the fall movie screens as an assassin who is almost ready to retire and tries to live like an ordinary person… in the Italian countryside. So, it’s like the The Whole Nine Yards, but less of a slapstick comedy?

November 2010: It’s Kind of a Funny Story – Another dramedy, the Anna Boden Ryan Fleck (Sugar) adaptation of the young adult novel is the story of a depressive New Yorker teen who decides to commit himself and the only psychiatric ward that has space is for adults.

Fall 2009: The Eagle of the Ninth – Set in pre-Arthurian England, a Roman soldier (Channing Tatum) ventures out into the wilds of what is now Scotland to solve the mystery regarding his the disappearance of his father’s entire legion. Sounds like more of a summer blockbuster to me.

Also being released sometime during the year will be director Sophia Coppola’s Somewhere, wherein Stephen Dorff stars as a “bad-boy actor” who gets reunited with his grown daughter (Elle Fanning). In other words it’s The Game Plan, but set in Hollywood and turned indie?

Of these, I think the one I’d like to know more about is Funny Story, and luckily there’s a book version to help me out. Ninth sounds like it could be good, and because I don’t know nearly enough about England before Arthur had a sword lobbed at him by a watery tart, it could be fun to let the movie draw me into its story—and then I’ll research everything later.

Next up for them this year is Pirate Radio, which comes out today.

Seeing as the new Clash of the Titans is already a remake of a pastiche of bits and pieces of Greek mythology that got served up around state of the art special effects scenes, my inner English literature nerd is blessedly silent while watching this teaser trailer for the new movie:

Just in case you couldn’t read the plot synopsis:

In Clash of the Titans, the ultimate struggle for power pits men against kings and kings against gods. But the war between the gods themselves could destroy the world. Born of a god but raised as a man, Perseus (Sam Worthington) is helpless to save his family from Hades (Ralph Fiennes), vengeful god of the underworld. With nothing left to lose, Perseus volunteers to lead a dangerous mission to defeat Hades before he can seize power from Zeus (Liam Neeson) and unleash hell on earth. Leading a daring band of warriors, Perseus sets off on a perilous journey deep into forbidden worlds. Battling unholy demons and fearsome beasts, he will only survive if he can accept his power as a god, defy his fate and create his own destiny.

I know what I just wrote regarding movies that have significant screentime for female characters, but at the same time I am also wondering just who this Alexa Davalos chick is and why the editors chose to put her in a trailer that’s all about bad-assery if her role as Andromeda is to be the damsel in distress. I want to see more monsters! And more of Sam Worthington kicking those monsters in the teeth!

Clash of the Titans will be released in the U.S. on March 26, 2010.

I’m gonna lay something down on y’all: I am a girl.

I am a girl who read the first two volumes in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series and bawled because I remembered what it was like to be a girl who didn’t fit in, who felt that the only people she could trust were her group of tight-knit friends, and the woman that I am now mourned the loss of those friendships to time and distance.

That’s why at first I cheered when I read in Peter Bart’s and Michael Fleming’s Variety blog that author Ann Brashares had scored another movie deal based on her writings that hadn’t even been published yet.

According to Fleming:

New Regency and Peter Chernin won a bidding battle for screen rights to My Name is Memory, the first of a three-book series written by Ann Brashares. Deal was high six against seven figures.

Good for Brashares, I thought. She really knows how to appeal to teen and ‘tween girls, and she can write scenes like the ones where Tibby is coming to terms with her friend Bailey dying from childhood leukemia that can earn it a spot in the list of movies that pass the Bechdel Test.

And then I read the logline for the book series:

[The] series begins as a college age couple meets, and a young man makes a startling confession. Turns out their souls have been reincarnated over hundreds of years, but these soul mates keep losing each other. While he remembers the details of their previous lives—and his often exasperating attempts to connect with her romantically—she cannot recall the events of those past lives, nor the rivalry that exists with another soul that keeps getting in the way.

In fact, not only does that plot borrow too much from The Time Traveler’s Wife and Twilight, it also borrows a bit too much from Hancock, minus the superpowers.

You know what would make an excellent movie or series of movies? Why hasn’t some smart producer like Mean Girls‘ Jill Messick taken a look at the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld? It takes the best parts of the “Twilight Zone” episode originally titled “The Eye of the Beholder,” tosses it into a dystopian future worthy of 1984, adds in a Red Dawn-esqe resistance movement, and sets the whole blender on frappe.

Too bad I don’t have pots full of money, eh?

Of all the films being shopped at this year’s American Film Market, the one I have to say I’m excited to know more about is the one I found out about from Twitter.

For it was Moon director Duncan Jones himself who forwarded to his Twitter list the link to the blog article written by an associate of his, that sourced ScreenDaily.com‘s article reporting the news. With that kind of pedigree, you know the news has to be good.

Anyway, the movie in question is called Source Code, and the news is that Jones will be directing it, with Jake Gyllenhaal playing the lead role. The film, which will start filming early next year, will be distributed in the U.S. by Summit Entertainment for Vendome Pictures and the Mark Gordon Co. after having been at Universal Pictures with Topher Grace as the lead and Shane Abbess as the director in 2007 (according to Variety).

/Film.com has some possibly spoilery comments on the plot, based on a first version of the script that writer Brendon Connelly read:

In the first scene, a man named Colter—Gyllenhaal’s character—wakes up on a train headed through the New Jersey countryside. He has no idea how he got there and nobody he speaks to can offer him any clues, though he is told that, to his surprise, he has taken this train every day for the last three months.

After some interaction with the various characters in his train car, many of whom become more important as the story unfolds (particularly Christina… but I won’t say why, and mention her in part to just raise the question of who the female lead might be), Colter heads to the bathroom where, quite surprisingly, he finds a bomb. Unfortunately, just after Colter finds it, a cell-phone detonator is triggered and…

…he’s killed. In fact, the entire train explodes. There’s a big ball of fire and, for just eight frames of film, some other cryptic goings on that only make sense later. We’re now seven or eight minutes in and about to be shocked.

…Colter awakens again, this time in an Isolation Unit where he’s being debriefed by a man named Goodwin, perhaps symbolically so. It seems that Captain Colter Stevens has just been living through a virtual simulation of the incident on the train in order to discover who it was that bombed it.

As for his previously announced plans, Jones himself had this to say , also via his Twitter feed:

For those asking, Mute [is] still in the plans, just slightly delayed. It’s a hard sell…whereas Source Code came with an offer hard to refuse.

If  “offer” means “money” like I think it might, I don’t think I’d mind waiting for Mute so that Jones can raise the funds and increase his bankability as a director in studio execs’ eyes.

Because that’s just the price you pay when you have such a strong debut as an indie filmmaker.

Related Posts: Duncan Jones riffs on Blade Runner in Mute

Gwyneth Paltrow has signed on to be Nicole Kidman’s lover in The Danish Girl, replacing former co-star Charlize Theron. I’ll bet there are hundreds of people out there who wish I wasn’t talking about a movie. (Source: Variety)

I’m going to be one sad puppy when I live-blog the Oscars this year, because I am not getting my wish of having Neil Patrick Harris be the host of the show. Instead, producers Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic have decided that not only should Steve Martin return for a third time to host the show, but that he’d be sharing the duties with Alec Baldwin. All I know is that this time, I’m going to have a bottle of wine handy. (Source: Variety)

Helen Mirren is joining the cast of Red, and no one could be more surprised than original graphic novelist Warren Ellis, who said in response via Twitter: “So weird.” The Hollywood Reporter added that Mary-Louise Parker and John C. Reilly would be joining the cast as well, as his innocent bystander love interest and one of the cohorts that lead Bruce Willis is hoping to help him throw an assassin off his tail. (Source: Variety, THR‘s Heat Vision)

And speaking of John C. Reilly, he’s one more actors who has decided to jump into Cedar Rapids , the Ed Helms comedy vehicle. The new cast members include Reilly, Sigourney Weaver, and Alia Shawkat. The only detail given was that Weaver would be playing Helms’ former seventh grade teacher. (Source: Variety)

Related Posts: Charlize Theron steps out, Nicole Kidman remains to genderbend as The Danish Girl, Trisha’s Take: Oscars ceremony gets new producers… again , Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis to possibly see Red?, Quick Cuts: Matt Damon, Josh Brolin to gain some True Grit, and others

It’s funny what starring in a sleeper-hit comedy movie will do for you. Just ask The Hangover star Bradley Cooper, who has picked up yet another leading movie role.

According to Variety, Cooper will be starring in a suspense thriller from Relativity Media and Universal Pictures called Dark Fields, directed by Neil Burger (The Illusionist).

The plot, which I have some problems with, is as follows:

Project is described as a what-if story about a designer drug that can make you rich and powerful. Eddie (Cooper) is a down-and-out New York writer until he possesses a pill that gives him the ability to access the full capacity of his brain. He soon realizes that his newfound intelligence and success come at a hefty price as mysterious forces begin to pursue him.

First of all, I don’t think that increasing the ability to access all of your brain’s capabilities is automatically going to make you successful. It’s what you do with the information and abilities that you’re given that makes a person succeed in life. I mean, how many people do you know who are bright and talented, but due to some strange circumstances of life haven’t been able to fully utilize their talents?

Second, any writer worth his salt would not see the taking of this drug as being beneficial because he’ll have read “Flowers for Algernon” or seen Charly and would know that it’s not going to end well. I hope that screenwriter Leslie Dixon (Hairspray) addressed these problems when she adapted the script from the novel by Alan Glynn. (Incidentally, the description of the novel’s plot sounds way more intriguing than the movie.)

Filming will start late next spring.

While doing an interview with the Jack Giroux from Atomic Popcorn.net about his newest film The Road, Australian director John Hillcoat was asked about his future projects.

And boy, did he talk!

Fans of Australian rocker Nick Cave can rejoice as the two leads for his script The Wettest County in the World have got stars’ names attached to them. Hillcoat said that Ryan Gosling and Shia LaBeouf were attached, but quickly added “But yeah, I shouldn’t really talk about it cause it’s in the middle of all sorts of stuff.” Which means that they’re still “in negotiations.”

The movie will be about “west Virginia, moonshine, backwoods, and Prohibition,” and if anyone else out there isn’t suddenly feeling nostalgic for “The Dukes of Hazzard” TV series, I will eat my hat.

Pre-production has not yet started.

When it comes to second phases in entertainment careers, you really can’t go wrong with being a producer. Julia Roberts seems to have embraced that idea fully because she has just signed another deal with Reliance Big for her production company Red Om Films.

According to Variety, Roberts and co-producers Philip Rose and Lisa Gillan acquired the rights to a non-fiction book called In the Neighborhood by Peter Lovenheim which will be published next April.

The conceit of the book is that Lovenheim felt as if there wasn’t enough community spirit in his neighborhood of Brighton, New York after a family that lived down the street suffered a horrible tragedy. So, he decided to create one by spending a night in each of his neighbor’s homes and learning all about who they were as people.

An opinion article published in the New York Times gives a brief taste about what we’d be in for during the rest of the book and movie and so far, I agree with writer Michael Fleming’s assessment that it’s going to be “Capra-esque.”

This will mark the fifth deal that Roberts has with Reliance Big; here’s information about the other films-to-be:

My Mother the Cheerleader: Though it does have a terrible title, this novel by Robert Sharenow set in the 1960s is about a 13-year old girl whose worldview is challenged when a New York reporter comes to do a story on her mother who spends her mornings jeering at the first black girl in their community to go to an all-white school.

Jesus Henry Christ: Directed by Dennis Lee and expanded from his 18-minute short film of the same name, the film’s plot is now about a 10-year old test tube kid’s search for his biological father.

Mallory: Written by Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet (Vanity Fair), this would be a biopic about British mountaineer George Mallory who attempted to climb Mt. Everest three times but died on his third attempt. His body was only recovered in 1999.

The Journey is the Destination: Based on the journals of photographer Dan Eldon who was killed by an angry mob while covering the story of a botched U.N. peacekeeping mission in Somalia, the movie will star Daniel Radcliffe and is slated to begin production in 2011.

Proving that once again, you can never keep a good Welsh actor down or out of roles that require him to wear lots of make-up and become a figure of fantasy, Variety reported that Anthony Hopkins will be playing the part of Odin in Kenneth Branagh’s Thor for Marvel Studios and Paramount Pictures.

I’m not surprised that he was cast in the role, but it does make me a little sad because I have a feeling that Hopkins is going to play Odin the same way he did Hrothgar in Beowulf, Old Ptolemy in Alexander, and Titus in Titus Andronicus. And that’s not very fun at all.

Also in the article is a note that British actor Tom Hiddleston will be playing Loki. Hiddleston is a relative unknown like Thor star Chris Hemsworth, though he does have some British TV credits to his name.

Interestingly, Hiddleston’s IMDB page also notes that he’ll be in The Avengers, too; wonder what that says about that movie’s plot.

Related Posts: Natalie Portman is Jane Foster in Branagh’s Thor, Kenneth Branagh may have found his Thor