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David Fincher Directing The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Next Remember what we saidjust a week or two agoaboutDavid Fincherand his ever-expanding list of possible projects? About how they’re always subject to change? At the time it looked as if he might directPawn Sacrifice, theTobey Maguire-produced film about Bobby Fischer and his 1970s showdown against Soviet chess master Boris Spassky. But that time was also when Fincher started circling a gig directingThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoofor real....

Early Buzz: ‘Cloud Atlas’ Test Screening Reactions The same breathtaking ambition that makesAndy Wachowski,Lana WachowskiandTom Tykwer’sDavid MitchelladaptationCloud Atlasso intriguing also gives it the potential to flop, hard. Weaving together six interlocking stories that cut across time, space, and genre is difficult enough to do within the confines of a novel, to say nothing of a three-hour film. Then there’s that insane casting: stars likeTom Hanks,Halle Berry,Hugo Weaving,Hugh Grant,Jim Broadbent, andJim Sturgessare each playing multiple characters, in some cases switching genders or races to do so....

Emma Watson Replaces Emma Stone In Greta Gerwig’s ‘Little Women’ The tables have turned! At one point,Emma Watsonwas being considered for the lead inLa La Land, but ultimately lost the role toEmma Stone. Now, Stone is vacatingGreta Gerwig’sLittle Womendue to scheduling difficulties. Watson will now be playing one of the March sisters, although it’s not entirely clear which one. Varietybroke the news regarding Watson replacing Stone. Per their report, Stone was “unable to join the project because of promotional obligations for the Fox Searchlight film and award season contenderThe Favourite....

Exclusive: Why The Original ‘Rogue One’ Ending Didn’t Work, According To Director Gareth Edwards Rogue One: A Star Wars StorydirectorGareth Edwardsis a SXSW regular at this point. His first film,Monsters, premiered at the fest years ago. The first footage from hisGodzillascreened there alongside a repertory screening of the 1954 original. And now, he’s back in Austin, Texas to deliver a keynote speech…and to answer questions about the upcoming home video release of the firstStar Warsspin0ff....

Full Cannes Lineup Includes Films By David Cronenberg, Jacques Audiard, And Andrew Dominik The primary lineup for the competition slate at the 2012 Cannes has been unveilend, and it is a very strong list of films. There are quite a few expected entries:David Cronenberg’sCosmopolis,Lee Daniels’The Paperboy,John Hillcoat’sLawless(formerlyThe Wettest County), andAndrew Dominik’sKilling Them Softly(formerlyCogan’s Trade), and we already knew thatWes Anderson’sMoonrise Kingdomwould open the festival. But the international lineup is even more exciting, with films such asRust & BonefromJacques Audiard,AmourfromMicheal Haneke,The HuntfromThomas Vinterberg, andMekong Hotelfrom 2010 Palme d’Or winnerApichatpong Weerasethakul....

George Clooney’s Insistence On Black And White Could’ve Sank Good Night, And Good Luck Some films are nearly impossible to imagine in anything other than black-and-white. For example, in the case of"Schindler’s List,“Steven Spielberg shot his harrowing Holocaust drama as though he were a journalist recording the movie’s events for the sake of posterity, its monochrome palette inseparable from the real-life historical horrors it depicts. The same goes for 2005’s “Good Night, and Good Luck,” a dramatization of radio and TV journalist Edward R....

Han Solo’s Jacket From ‘Empire Strikes Back’ Can Be Yours For Only $1.3 Million The world of collectible movie props is a lucrative business, but as we learned in the wake of an Iron Man helmet being stolen from a storage facility in Southern California,it can also be a shady business. However, there are also plenty of legitimate sales happening in broad daylight thanks to auction houses around the world. And one of them is about to bring one of the coolest yet simple jackets to the auction block from a galaxy far, far away....

How ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ And ‘The Great Escape’ Influenced ‘War For The Planet Of The Apes’ The Bridge on the River Kwai,The Outlaw Josey Wales,Ben-Hur, andApocalypse Now- these are a few of the classic films that inspiredWar for the Planet of the Apes. The battle of wills from David Lean’s classic andThe Thin Red Line’s “darker, more nuanced reflection of human nature” werekey influencesfor filmmakerMatt Reeves. Before Reeves' sequel, which our own Ethan Andersoncalled"one of the most significant blockbusters of the decade," hits theaters this week, he’s revealed a couple more influences, includingStar Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,The Great Escape, andPaths of Glory....

How Kelsey Grammer Became Sideshow Bob On ‘The Simpsons’, Including The Origin Of His Voice With the exception of Dr. Frasier Crane on bothCheersand the spin-off seriesFrasier, easily the best roleKelsey Grammerhas played in his career is that of Sideshow Bob, the sidekick of Krusty the Clown on the long-running animated seriesThe Simpsons. Grammer won an Emmy for his voiceover performance as the character in 2006, and he’s one of the fans' favorite side characters from Springfield....

Interview: Director J.A. Bayona On Exploring Destruction And Storytelling ‘In A Monster Calls’ J.A. Bayona’s latest film packs a heavy punch. Bayona’s adaptation of author and screenwriterPatrick Ness' novel is a pure tearjerker, a movie that mixes the grand with the intimate. The film follows a young boy (Lewis MacDougall) struggling with his mother’s terminal illness. In need of help, he calls upon a monster (Liam Neeson), a talking tree that promises to tell Conor three stories as long as the boy reveals his deepest, darkest secret....

Japan’s ‘Demon Slayer’ Topped The Opening Weekend Of ‘Raya And The Last Dragon’ At The US Box Office It’s no secret that the box office hasn’t been all that thrilling over the past year thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. But now that theaters are starting to open up more and vaccinated audiences are returning to the big screen, business is starting to pick back up. That’s paved the way for a recent animated import from Japan to top the opening weekend of one of Disney’s big animated movies and earn one of the biggest anime openings of all time....

Josh Trank Says Rumored Synopsis For ‘Fantastic Four’ Is “Totally False” Josh Trankhasn’t revealed much about the plotline of his newFantastic Fourreboot, which means rumor and speculation have had free rein. The latest story making the rounds is that Trank’s film will radically alter the team’s origins, doing away with the whole outer space mission thing and turning Ben and Reed into government weapons. But it’s not true, according to Trank....

Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Will Feature Hobbit Ancestors Called ‘Harfoots’ Who doesn’t love hobbits? They deeply value second breakfast (and elevenses and luncheon and afternoon tea, and all those other vital meals), prefer to spend their days chilling and smoking Pipe-weed, and have extra-hairy, leathery-soled feet that do away with the need for shoes and socks. Alas, we can’t all be hobbits. Just as bad, hobbits simply cannot play a major role in Amazon’s “Lord of the Rings” prequel series,“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,“seeing as their historical anonymity was the key to their success in acquiring and later destroying the Dark Lord Sauron’s Ring of Power by chucking it into Mount Doom right under his nose (er, eye)....