Barbie’s about to be made into a live-action comedy movie according to an announcement by Sony Pictures Entertainment, Mattel and Parkes+MacDonald/Image Nation. Sony’s hoping to launch a Barbie film franchise and if everything goes as expected, filming will begin later this year.
Jenny Bicks (Rio 2, The Big C) is handling the script, Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald are producing, and Marc Resteghini and Julia Pistor are executive producing.
“We’ve always thought that the Barbie story had great potential, but a universe of possibilities opened up when Jenny, Walter and Laurie brought us their unexpected, clever, and truly funny concept,” said Columbia Pictures’ President of Production Hannah Minghella. “It captures everything that has made Barbie a classic for generation after generation while also standing on its own, establishing Barbie as a truly original screen character. We’re confident that Barbie will delight audiences, no matter where her adventures take her.”
Parkes and MacDonald added, “While it’s an overused word, Barbie truly is a legend, a cultural symbol whose career choices have been as unlimited as her wardrobe. She is about empowerment, but never at the expense of fun. Our hope is to capture all of these aspects of Barbie in a modern take of the character that can appeal to moviegoers of all ages.”
Details on the Film [Courtesy of Sony]
From princess to president, mermaid to movie star, Barbie® has done it all – through her more than 150 careers, she has gained valuable experiences and shown her fans that anything is possible for a modern woman. In her live-action big-screen debut, Barbie will inhabit many of these roles, utilizing her personal and professional skills to inspire change in the lives of everyone around her.
What can viewers expect from the season one finale of The CW’s Star-Crossed? At the 2014 WonderCon in Anaheim, CA, Star-Crossed executive producers Meredith Averill and Adele Lim said that fans of the series can expect a “huge cliffhanger” and a real game-changer to the world created in the sci-fi series.
Meredith Averill and Adele Lim Star-Crossed Interview
Is this sci-fi series a natural fit for The CW?
Meredith Averill: “I think certainly right now it’s a natural fit for them. That seems to be the direction that they are going. I think that all of their pilots they picked up last year had some sort of sci-fi element to them.”
Adele Lim: “Yeah, and it’s a great home for us, too, because not a lot of the other networks do as much sci-fi. None of the major networks do, and so in terms of being excited about the material and being comfortable with the material that we want to do, CW is a great fit for us.”
Because it’s on The CW, do you have to skew the storylines a little more toward the teen audience or do you worry about that at all?
Meredith Averill: “It’s actually the opposite. They are pushing us to go in the opposite direction. They are wanting to go to a darker, more dangerous, more adult place. I think they are getting away from the model of the WB world that they used to live in and pushing us more toward telling the bolder stories, which has been great for us because that’s what we want to be doing.”
Adele Lim: “Absolutely, and you can see it in the evolution of the show. When we were first on the show, I thought we were going to be doing more of a Romeo and Juliet but with an extraterrestrial setting and that was it. And that’s not the case at all. They challenged us to make more of the world and to make it a little darker and more expansive, and when we did it took on a life of its own. So you’ll see that, even in our first season from midway through all the way up to the end, the stakes are higher, the danger is there. We get more into the culture and the things that make them different and dangerous. It’s been so amazing for the show because it opens up story and it ups the stakes to everything.”
The show is also bringing up different social issues.
Meredith Averill: “Without having to feel like they are spoonfed a particular theme or message.”
Adele Lim: “Or that we’re singling out a particular group of minorities. This country, particularly, has an interesting relationship with how they’ve treated people that they viewed as outsiders – whether they were a different race, different set of immigrants, people with different sexual preferences. We think the way we’re doing our show is we can take the best of those, the most dramatic points of that history and sort of turn it into storytelling. It’s worked out amazing for our characters and the relationship they have with each other, and some really heartbreaking stories.”
Do you see season two of Star-Crossed getting a lot darker?
Meredith Averill: “Yes. It’s funny because we’re actually talking about season two right now and we wish that we could spoil for you – but we would never want to – what happens in our finale, which is a huge cliffhanger, a very explosive finale. It’s all leading up to something very big happening and it really is a game-changing event going forward for season two. So we’ve been talking about what that new world kind of looks like and the impact that has on our characters. We do see it going in a darker place though still maintaining the relationships and the characters that everyone knows and loves. They’re not changing, it’s more that their situations are changing.”
Adele Lim: “Yeah, and we’re also really looking forward to, again, because we can only explore a little bit of the Atrian alien culture because they’re basically held in an internment camp, but in season two we’d like to blow all of that up and give the audiences a more in-depth look at not just what their culture was like in their home planet but sort of what it’s become now that they’re marooned.”
How far out in your heads do you have the seasons planned? Do you know what a season three or a season four would look like if it got that far?
Meredith Averill: “We’ve been talking about some ideas for what a season three would look like. That’s about as far as we have gotten.”
Adele Lim: “And honestly, for us, having gone through the making of season one, you don’t know to want to be limited. Sometimes you think you’re heading to this amazing place but somebody has an amazing idea in the middle of it. And that’s also one of the benefits of having our series be something that was created out of whole cloth, that you’ll be able to come up with the stories and the trajectories in time. Because sometimes an amazing actor comes in and an amazing storyline presents itself and you have to give yourself over to it and see where it goes.”
The stakes have been raised as the group on the ground discovers there’s much to fear on Earth in the new The CW series The 100. Episode six of season one airs on April 23, 2014 at 9pm ET/PT.
The “His Sister’s Keeper” Plot: Bellamy (Bob Morley) leads his crew into Grounder territory as they search for Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos). Raven (guest star Lindsey Morgan) can’t help but notice the deep connection between Finn (Thomas McDonell) and Clarke (Eliza Taylor). Meanwhile, flashbacks reveal Bellamy’s and Octavia’s childhood on the Ark.
Paige Turco, Isaiah Washington, Henry Ian Cusick, Devon Bostick and Chris Larkin also star. Wayne Rose directed the episode written by Tracy Bellomo & Dorothy Fortenberry (#106).
Writer/director Liza Johnson follows up her critically acclaimed feature film debut Return with Hateship Loveship, a compelling drama based on a story by Alice Munro. The cast of Hateship Loveship includes Guy Pearce, Hailee Steinfeld, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, but it’s Kristen Wiig’s character who’s the heart and soul of the story. Wiig is best known for her work in comedies, however in Hateship Loveship she takes on the part of a naive and sheltered woman unlike any character she’s played before.
The Plot:
Johanna Parry (Kristen Wiig) is a profoundly shy, unadorned woman who is hired by Mr. McCauley (Nick Nolte) as a housekeeper and a primary caregiver to his granddaughter Sabitha (Hailee Steinfeld). Despite her outgoing nature, Sabitha carries wounds from the death of her mother years before, complicated by the circumstances of that death for which her grandfather still blames her father, Ken (Guy Pearce), a hapless recovering drug addict with a certain ragged charm. In an act of mean-spirited rebellion, Sabitha uses technology to foster a pseudo-relationship between Johanna and her father, never dreaming of the potential harm to either party. Sabitha doesn’t understand that Johanna is not a demure cut-out, but rather a woman for whom the phrase “still waters run deep” could have been coined. The young girl’s interference provokes Johanna to indulge in something long missing from her life: the dream of a future and a home of her own.
Liza Johnson Hateship Loveship Interview
What does the title of the film mean to you?
Liza Johnson: “It comes from this Alice Munro story which is actually a longer title called Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. You see the girls play that game in the movie for a short time. It’s a little bit like he loves me, he loves me not where you spell out the name of a boy on your hand. You figure out what your future is. For me, in the original story that it comes from, it seems to me that those girls are living in a world where they know what is supposedly the proper normative biography for a woman to have. They’re trying to live it out, where Johanna does not have those expectations.
I think Munro intends the title somewhat ironically. She’s so unsentimental. Obviously most people’s lives don’t go that way. Mine is usually loveship, then hateship, then nothing. Then maybe dateship. Possibly some sexship, then nothing, then hateship. I think that because the story really suggests that a woman’s biography can go much differently, that partly that title is in there almost ironically to suggest that these expectations are a child’s game but real life is a whole different matter.”
Was Johanna your entry into the story? Is she the character you connected with as your entry point?
Liza Johnson: “I definitely do see her as the spine of the story. She is the one that I connected to largely because I thought it was so interesting the way that she comes from a world where it doesn’t really do her any good to want things that she can’t have. Then, when the girls trick her, she really has to grow into the idea that she can have a desire and really put herself at risk for it.
To me, that is something that we have to do as people, and maybe in a particular way as women. I was just very attracted to that aspect of the story. That’s kind of my way in.”
Do you have to like all of your characters as a director, despite the fact they might not have any redeeming qualities?
Liza Johnson: “I do like them all. For me, it also goes back to the source material. I don’t know if you got a chance to read the Alice Munro story but she’s not sentimental. It’s not like she thinks everybody’s good people or whatever. Every person in that story is acting out of an empathetic place. I would say even more than in the movie, in the story it’s really quite clear that the girls do a mean action but they’re doing it because they’re embarrassed. Hailee Steinfeld’s character is always embarrassed because her dad’s embarrassing her. Edith [played by Sami Gayle] is always embarrassed because she doesn’t have as much money as the other people. They’re always just reacting to their own station in the world. Even though they don’t always make good decisions or do what you would call nice actions, you can understand the impulses that they’re reacting off of.”
Can you talk about why Kristen Wiig was the right choice to play Johanna?
Liza Johnson: “I think she’s a really major talent in a way that’s really visible in her comedy, which I think is the work that people know her best for, obviously. That’s fair, right? She’s so beloved for that, that I think that really comes to dominate people’s impressions of her work. I understand that because her comedy is awesome. At the same time, she has done a lot of work where you can see her capacity to perform in more than one register.
Bridesmaids, in my opinion, is hilarious. It’s a very funny movie with a lot of broad comedy in it. But in between the broad comic set pieces, she’s doing a lot of very quiet, kind of sad stuff. People are giving me a certain amount of credit as if I knew something through magic, but it’s actually on the screen. It’s just that the comedy is so memorable that people forget about it. I never had any doubt in her capacity to do more dramatic or restrained registers of performance.”
Kristen Wiig in 'Hateship Loveship' (Photo Courtesy of Patti Perret, Hateship Capital LLC. An IFC Films Release)The way Kristen Wiig physically carries herself over the course of the film is so specific, transforming from slouched and slumped over to a woman who is more sure of herself and her surroundings. Was that your direction or something she came up with?
Liza Johnson: “We had a great time working on all that stuff together. I wouldn’t say that we rehearsed, but we talked a lot about the roll a lot before we did the movie. We worked on it with the costume designer. We had a lot of chances to talk about the physical work of the character. Obviously, that’s something that’s in common between dramatic acting and comic acting where she’s had a lot of experience on Saturday Night Live, creating a character in a really short amount of time. I feel like she has a lot of craft that comes from that in thinking about the physical work.”
You’ve assembled some terrific supporting players in Hateship Loveship. Was there any actor in particular you wish you could have had on the set a little bit longer?
Liza Johnson: “Oh, yeah. In particular, I wish we had more scenes for Jennifer Jason Leigh. I think she’s just an incredible performer. I was really glad that she was excited to come and do what I would essentially call a cameo role. I think that it’s a testament to Kristen that her work is so strong and so compelling to the rest of that ensemble. I think that her talent galvanized them. Jennifer Jason Leigh is one of the strongest actors I’ve ever seen in my life. The idea that she would come on our set for three days and blow in there for that performance and then blow back out. I think that’s a testament to how much people respect Kristen’s talent.”
As a female director, do you find the industry is changing and allowing female voices to be heard more than, say, even 10 years ago?
Liza Johnson: “I hope so. I still do know a lot of really talented female directors. I don’t really know if it is changing. I certainly hope so. All I can say is I’ve had really good experiences with the men and women that I work with. I don’t personally feel like I’m suffering for my fair gender.
I do know that it isn’t structurally even. I haven’t met anyone that just is really like, ‘Oh, women can’t direct.’ I have met people who think that some of the female protagonists don’t have any foreign value so you have to make them for $5.00. I can only just say how compounded that is if you’re working with subject material about people’s color, or queer people or queers of color. I think that there’s a really tenacious crowd of women directors and directors of color who are really committed to making that subject matter happen. What I would like to see is for it to become clear that the marketplace does support that. I think Bridesmaids was really helpful in the regards. I hope that other movies are also demonstrating that there is a market for subject matter that people aren’t certain whether there’s a market for.”
Dimension Films has released another trailer for the second Sin City film, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, from co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. If you liked the first Sin City, then you’re in for more of the same (but with what looks like an even larger cast) when A Dame to Kill For opens in theaters on August 22, 2014.
The Sin City: A Dame to Kill For cast includes Jessica Alba, Powers Booth, Rosario Dawson, Jaime King, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eva Green, Dennis Haysbert, Stacy Keach, Ray Liotta, and Jeremy Piven.
The Official Plot: Weaving together two of Miller’s classic stories with new tales, the town’s most hard-boiled citizens cross paths with some of its more reviled inhabitants.
The CW had a big presence at the 2014 WonderCon in Anaheim, CA, bringing quite a few cast members from both Star-Crossed and The 100 to the annual gathering of movie, TV, and comic book fans, and showing off new episodes of the sci-fi series as well as conducting Q&As with the fans. Among the cast members who took part in The CW’s Star-Crossed panel were Titus Makin Jr, who plays ‘Lukas,’ and Brina Palencia, who’s happy to actually get to play an alien in season one of the popular series.
Brina Palencia and Titus Makin Jr Interview
What is it like on set?
Brina Palencia: “The sets are beautiful. We got to film on soundstages in New Orleans. Some of it was on location, the Sector is apart from the studio but it’s just like a couple of miles away. The Sector was definitely my favorite.”
Titus Makin Jr: “Yeah. She got to do a lot of filming in the Sector, where they keep all the Atrians…the aliens. It was really cool.”
Brina Palencia: “It looks even cooler in post because they make it even bigger. The first time that I saw it I was like, ‘Oh my god! That’s amazing!'”
Titus Makin Jr: “And then obviously they do cool things like recreate the school, so it’s like everything that looks like an actual school is just like walls with no ceilings. It’s just really cool.”
What was the general appeal of Star-Crossed? Was it because it’s a sci-fi series?
Brina Palencia: “I know for me I’m a huge sci-fi fan…”
Titus Makin Jr: “Me too.”
Brina Palencia: “…so the opportunity to not only be in a sci-fi show but get to play an alien, was so rad.”
Titus Makin Jr: “I’m a fan of Will Smith so my goal was to be sci-fi and something comedic, and they said, ‘Comedic character in a sci-fi,’ – check! I think they’re really capitalizing on the sci-fi aspect. This is like the first year that CW has embraced sci-fi like crazy, and it’s awesome.”
Brina Palencia: “It feels like the other shows have been more fantasy or comic book-based. It’s been a while since we’ve had aliens in the general media so it’s always been vampires or zombies, and so I think it’s really fun to be one of the first shows in this realm. Of course there have been other shows with aliens aside from this realm, but now that it’s coming back I like being part of that new swell.”
Can you explain the tattoo process?
Brina Palencia: “They do have parts of it already made up. They are transfers so like you know when you were a little kid and you had those fake tattoos and you get water on it, they’re like that. Mine took a little bit longer than everyone else’s because mine were all very small individual pieces, because mine were very delicate. I know for Matt [Lanter], the one on his neck is all one big piece and then he has the pieces around his eyes because he’s a dude so more masculine. So, for me, it took a little bit longer. I would be in the makeup chair, since I had the tattoos and I had the wig it was about an hour and a half usually.”
Titus Makin Jr: “And I’d walk in and I’m out in about 10 minutes.”
How do you pass your time in the makeup chair?
Brina Palencia: “I play a lot of Plants versus Zombies on my phone. It’s my favorite game ever.”
Are you normally patient with the people applying the tattoos?
Brina Palencia: “Oh yeah. My best friend is a makeup artist and so she’s told me so many horror stories about diva actors and stuff. I definitely never ever ever want to be affiliated with that so I try and be as patient and kind as possible.”
What’s the feel of the set? Has it turned into one big family?
Brina Palencia: “Definitely. We were just talking about how awesome it was that we just genuinely love everybody on the set. It’s so much. We all get along really well.”
Titus Makin Jr: “It’s rare. We’ve all worked different sets and been with different ‘actors’, but this one everybody has their own agenda. We come together, work, we go off, people have different relationships, aspirations, music, and everything, and we come together and we just hang out. It’s really like a sorority/fraternity thing.”
What can you tease about the upcoming episodes?
Brina Palencia: “Every episode gets even more action scenes. There’s so many and everybody kind of gets pulled in. It sort of starts out with just Roman and Emery as part of the action and then Drake gets pulled in and Teri gets pulled in, and by the end of it all of us are part of the big plot. It’s really exciting.”
The unstoppable Terminator film franchise is back in business with the reboot of the franchise now shooting in New Orleans. Alan Taylor (Game of Thrones, Thor: The Dark World) is directing the new Terminator set up with Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions and scheduled to arrive in theaters on July 1, 2015.
This reboot has Arnold Schwarzenegger back in Terminator mode and co-stars Dawn of the Planet of the Apes‘ Jason Clarke, Game of Thrones‘ Emilia Clarke, Divergent‘s Jai Courtney, J.K. Simmons, Dayo Okeniyi, and Byung Hun Lee.
Laeta Kalogridis (Avatar) and Patrick Lussier (Drive Angry) wrote the script and David Ellison and Dana Goldberg are producing. Kalogridis, Lussier, Paul Schwake, and Megan Ellison are executive producing.
The original Terminator was released in 1984 and was directed by James Cameron. Terminator 2: Judgment Day followed in 1991, with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines arriving in theaters in 2003. The franchise was rebooted in 2009 with Terminator Salvation starring Christian Bale and Sam Worthington.
Actress Natalie Dormer and Seth Meyers on 'Late Night' (Photo by: Lloyd Bishop/NBC)
As Game of Thrones‘ Margaery Tyrell, Natalie Dormer’s gone through two husbands quicker than you can say “Winter is Coming.” And sitting down with Seth Meyers on Late Night, Dormer talked about shooting the Purple Wedding episode.
In the interview, Dormer chatted about playing Scrabble on iPads, getting the cast together, and shooting that specific scene. She also revealed her new haircut is for her role as ‘Cressida’ in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 and 2.
And here’s the official behind-the-scenes look at the Royal Wedding scene, courtesy of HBO:
The April 23, 2014 episode of The CW’s Arrow finds Roy Harper unleashing his rage and Oliver having to find a way to stop him. The cast is led by Stephen Amell as Oliver/Arrow with Colton Haynes as Roy, Caity Lotz as Sara/Canary, and Willa Holland as Thea.
The Plot of “Seeing Red”
The mirakuru sends Roy (Haynes) into an uncontrollable rage and he unleashes on the city. After Roy’s deadly fight with a police officer, Oliver (Amell) realizes the mirakuru has taken over Roy completely and must figure out a way to stop him. Things get more complicated after Sara (Lotz) declares that Roy is too far gone and the only way to stop him is to kill him. Meanwhile, Thea (Holland) believes she can breakthrough to Roy so she goes on camera at Moira’s (Susanna Thompson) campaign rally to lure him to Verdant. Her ploy works but after Roy attacks Thea, Team Arrow unleashes on him. Doug Aarniokoski directed the episode written by Wendy Mericle & Beth Schwartz (#220).
Director Johannes Roberts’ 47 Meters Down has been picked up by Dimension Films for North American distribution. Commenting on the acquisition of the underwater thriller, co-chairman Bob Weinstein said, “This script really caught my eye with its tension and adventure. I look forward to working with Johannes to bring audiences a very unique edge of your seat thrill-ride.”
“I feel privileged to be working alongside a company like Dimension whose understanding of the genre is unparalleled,” said filmmaker Roberts. “Together I think we are going to give the audience a film going experience unlike anything they have ever had before.”
The Plot:
The story revolves around two sisters who become trapped at the bottom of the ocean when a diving expedition to observe sharks goes horribly wrong. When the cable attaching the observation cage to the boat breaks and the cage sinks to the bottom of the ocean, the sisters must figure out a way to get back to safety battling injuries, lack of oxygen, and, worst of all, blood thirsty, great white sharks.
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