Film News

Pathe International and Distant Horizon have done roaring business on an upcoming Nelson Mandela biopic.

Beta has closed a US deal with Music Box for German box office hit Oh Boy.

UK distributor Arrow has bought Erik Skjoldbjærg’s 1980s set thriller Pioneer, set at the height of Norwegian “oil boom”, from TrustNordisk.

Plus Clive Owen and Carey Mulligan...

The third videblogisode from Cannes 2013 boasts four interviewees and one heck of a Bit Where It's Damo. Our chats with Clive Owen and Marion Cotillard are in honour of Guillaume Canet's Blood Ties, while Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan enjoyed some quality Empire time after we'd seen - and very much enjoyed - the Coens' latest, Inside Llewyn Davis.

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For more videblogisodery - yes, that's a word we just made up - be sure to head to our Cannes 2013 microsite, where you can also find all of our initial reaction reviews, news pieces, picture galleries and more.

    

Nicolas Winding Refn's new film divides the critics

 Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives arrived at the festival with a lot of expectations: reteaming the director with actor Ryan Gosling, many assumed it would be a sequel of sorts to their 2010 hit Drive. Unfortunately, many of those looking forward to the movie aren't exactly keen followers of the Danish auteur and were disappointed by this lurid, atmospheric drama. For those familiar with Refn's more experimental work – 2003's Fear X and 2009's Valhalla Rising in particular – this may well turn out to be one of his most distinctive works. Set in Bangkok, the film stars Ryan Gosling (in a role originally to be played by Luke Evans) as Julian, a British-American ex-pat now living in Bangkok, where he manages a boxing club. The club is a front for a drug-smuggling ring, dealing in heroin and cocaine, and is overseen by Julian's older brother Billy (Tom Burke). We don't get to see that much of Billy before he decides to “visit the devil”, which involves picking up a teenager hooker and brutally murdering her. At the crime scene, the police arrive and allow the victim's father to take his revenge on Billy, almost literally beating him to a pulp. Julian spares the man, but the arrival of his mother Crystal (Kristen Scott-Thomas) kickstarts a cycle of vengeance that soon spins bloodily out of control. Programmed for an 8.30am start, Refn's film would have benefited from a later slot, being a hellish, dreamlike vision of purgatory that works better as an immersive experience than a narrative. All performances are minimal and stylised, with a heavy use of red that excludes almost every other colour in the spectrum.  Larry Smith's cinematography is superb, and his crisp, sometimes hallucinatory visuals are complimented by Cliff Martinez's thrumming score, which neatly fuses Thai instruments and local ballads to create an otherworldly fusion. The story itself is spare and simple, a platform for some very extreme and inventive violence. But the curious, ethereal mood ensures that nothing is especially sadistic or shocking, rather Only God Forgives is about violence in the way that Drive was about driving: both films are really an reflection of a mental state, only this time the hero is at the mercy of a higher being and has no hope of redemption.  

The US gets this Only God Forgives on July 19, but we’re going to have to be a little bit patient as British cinemagoers will have to wait until August 2.

    

"Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon," from China's Huayi Brothers has sold to France, India, Korea, Taiwan, Russia and across Southeast Asia.

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Jampacked release calendars and executive intrigue make for an especially stressful blockbuster season as the $200 million gambles begin rolling out.

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The film, which the Weinstein Co. will distribute in North America, has also been picked up for France, Germany, Brazil and Australia, among others.

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In what the parties claimed to be the biggest US buy of the festival, Lionsgate/Roadside announced on Wednesday [23] they had acquired the Cannes competition entry. It is understood the deal with CAA on behalf of Worldview Entertainment closed at a little over $2m. Wild Bunch holds international rights.

"It was right after my cancer, and this beautiful gift was handed to me," the actor said of getting to work on Steven Soderbergh's Liberace biopic.

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Primeridian Entertainment has hired Roger L Simon to write its second feature project, tentatively titled The Future Is Now. 

Russian filmmaker Yuri Bykov’s second feature, starring Denis Shvedov and Irina Nizina, premieres in the Cannes Critics' Week sidebar.

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EXCLUSIVE: eOne, Ascot Elite buy Samuel L Jackson action-adventure, directed by Jalmari Helander.

Roadside Attractions will release Guillaume Canet's crime thriller starring Clive Owen, Mila Kunis and Marion Cotillard.

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The studio generated more than $250 million in sales, topping last year's result by more than 50 percent with the help of output deals.

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To flame on or not to flame on?

Fruitvale Station - Ryan Coogler's moving tale of the tragic shooting of Oscar Grant in the Bay Area in 2009 - has been one of the hits of the Cannes Film Festival thus far, with Michael B. Jordan's lead turn a particular standout.

We spoke to Jordan - so good in both The Wire and Chronicle, of course - and his Fruitvale Station co-star Melonie Diaz for an upcoming videblogisode, and they were on great form. You'll see the full interview on Friday. But we couldn't resist asking Mr. Jordan about the strong rumours that he's about to reteam with his Chronicle director, Josh Trank, on Fox's reboot of The Fantastic Four, where he would play Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch.

While Jordan's answer isn't a 100%, nailed-on, signed-on-the-line-that-is-dotted yes, his reaction to the question - the first time anyone had asked him about Fantastic Four on camera - is priceless... and if you ask us, it's pretty much a 'yes'. Click below to see it in full, and check out the videblogisode on Friday for more from Michael B. Jordan. 

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Fruitvale Station has no official UK release date as yet. Trank's Fantastic Four reboot, meanwhile, is aiming for a March 2015 premiere.

    

'You will not win...'

After several moody, tonally Terrence Malick-style teases for Man Of Steel, and then that impressive, grandiose effort more recently, things kick up a notch further on the action stakes with this combat-laden new trailer. There’s a greater chance for big moments (fights, not plot) to be spoiled, so take care, but otherwise… enjoy. 

Launched with another message from Michael “I WILL FIND HIM!” Shannon’s General Zod as he demands that we Earthlings tell him where Kal-El is hiding, it then segues into a blistering barrage of action scenes as Superman (Henry Cavill) faces off against Zod and, in particular in this one, Antje Traue’s Faora, who delivers a chilling threat to our hero: “For every human you save, we will kill a million more…” So if you were wondering whether Zod and Faora would be basically decent types, there’s your answer. Those two (and the Kryptonians they brought with them) are not messing around.

Man Of Steel will also find Kal-El trying to find his place in the world, living on a planet of people who are nowhere near as powerful as he. From the looks of this, he’ll end up having to protect us from some very angry, highly destructive Kryptonians.

Laurence Fishburne, Amy Adams, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe, Ayelet Zurer and Christopher Meloni all feature in this one, which arrives on June 14. We have to admit we’re excited to see some of those set piece moments on the biggest screen we can find. For more on the movie, check out the latest Empire, which features Supes or Zod as cover choices and plenty of coverage within. You can also read our interview with David Goyer on the film and our chat with score maestro Hans Zimmer. 

    

But no word yet on Statham returning

It's a long five years since Jason Statham last fastened his seatbelt for a Transporter movie. In the meantime, Stath has gone on to big things in the Expendables and others, and The Transporter has continued quietly without him, as a TV series with Chris Vance. More movies are finally on the way, however, with Luc Besson's EuropaCorp just striking a deal at Cannes for another three instalments.

Before you get too excited, there's no mention at all yet that Statham will be returning to his signature role as Frank Martin, the driver who never changes the deal and never opens the package (except when he does). Statham played the role in three films (four if you include his cameo in Collateral) and sad as it feels to say it, we'd be surprised to see him return: it would feel like a step backwards for a man recently confirmed to be frying some serious fish in the near future (nospoilersarrrgggh! But if you already know what we're talking about AND ONLY THEN click here for more). So we'd guess The Stath is an outside bet, and we're more likely looking either at some big screen adventures for Vance, or someone entirely new in the driving seat.

The deal as thrashed out is between EuropaCorp and its new Chinese partner Fundamental Films. It's a co-financing, production and distribution arrangement, with Transporters 4-6 each budgeted at a not-too-modest $30m-$40m. Not, say, as a random example, Fast & Furious levels of mayhem then, but not bargain basement straight-to-DVD action either. At least one of the three films will be shot in China.

More car-flipping! More oily shirt-off man fighting! More Francois Berleand! More news as we get it, obviously. We'll next see Statham in Hummingbird (or as the US has it Redemption) on June 28.

    

He's still attached to the sleuth script

Figuring that an injection of new writing talent might help the project work itself free of development hell, 20th Century Fox has turned to Dennis Lehane, someone with just a little bit of crime writing experience for Travis McGee, which Leonardo DiCaprio is interested in.

The planned film, based on John D. McDonald’s book Deep Blue Good-By, features the McGee character, a Floridian sleuth who moonlights as a treasure hunter. He’s featured in 21 novels, and Fox rightly figures that they could be franchise material if the first – simply being called Travis McGee at this point, in a Jack Reacher-style – works.

Trouble is, it’s been lingering on the slow burn development stove for years now, with Robert Schwentke, Oliver Stone and Paul Greengrass considering directing and Mark Boal and David James Kelly among those having taken a whack at the script.

So now Lehane – whose novels have formed the source for movies such as Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone and Shutter Island – is on board. This would mark his second script, after original work Animal Rescue, which is now being turned into a drama featuring Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace.

DiCaprio has been flirting with this one for almost as long as it’s been around, but hasn’t committed to star on the basis of any scripts so far. Fox will no doubt be keeping its corporate fingers crossed that the lure of Lehane snags Leo’s services.

    

Enter The Drift...

You might have thought that Pacific Rim’s publicity barrage would end with the big, main, supposedly final trailer that arrived recently. Oh, such innocence. Instead, now we’re being brought a behind-the-scenes featurette that explains how the giant robots stomping through the movie are controlled. Take a gander… 

Turns out the nifty neural connection between the two pilots – two because the mental load of controlling one of the behemoth ‘bots proved too much for a single brain in early tests – is called 'Drift Space', where the two controllers’ minds and memories blend and weave.

So, as actors Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi and other cast members explain (along with writer/director Guillermo del Toro), the link is an intimate, powerful one where no secret is left undiscovered and no corner of the brain unexposed. Which means that piloting teams have to be on very good terms and trust each other implicitly. We get the feeling that might not be so easy for washed out Jaeger jock Raleigh Becket (Hunnam) and rookie cockpit filler Mako Mori (Kikuchi).

The robots vs monsters mash-up also features Idris Elba, Ron Perlman, Charlie Day and Max Martini and stomps on to our screens on July 12. We’d expect more sneak peeks before that date arrives…