By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

ERIC BANA, REBECCA HALL BEGIN PRODUCTION NEXT WEEK ON JOHN CROWLEY-DIRECTED INTERNATIONAL SUSPENSE THRILLER; SUPPORTING CAST, CREW SET FOR U.K. SHOOT

Posted Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 - Comments Off on ERIC BANA, REBECCA HALL BEGIN PRODUCTION NEXT WEEK ON JOHN CROWLEY-DIRECTED INTERNATIONAL SUSPENSE THRILLER; SUPPORTING CAST, CREW SET FOR U.K. SHOOT
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NEW YORK, April 11, 2012 – Production begins next week in the U.K. on Focus Features and Working Title Films’ untitled international suspense thriller starring Eric Bana (of Focus’ Hanna) and Golden Globe Award nominee Rebecca Hall (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, The Town) for director John Crowley (Boy A). The original screenplay is by Steven Knight, Academy Award nominee for Dirty Pretty Things and BIFA Award nominee for Focus’ Eastern Promises.

Rounding out the cast are British Independent Film Award nominee Riz Ahmed (Four Lions); Academy Award winner Jim Broadbent (Iris); Olivier Award nominee Kenneth Cranham (An Inspector Calls); BAFTA Award nominee Anne-Marie Duff (Nowhere Boy); in his fifth film for Focus, Ciarán Hinds (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy); and Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominee Julia Stiles (Dexter). Adriano Goldman (Focus’ Jane Eyre) is the feature’s cinematographer; Jim Clay and Natalie Ward, both of Focus’ The Debt, are the production designer and costume designer, respectively.

Mr. Bevan and Mr. Fellner are producing the film with Chris Clark (The Guard), and Working Title’s Liza Chasin is executive producer. Focus holds worldwide rights to the feature, and will commence overseas sales at the Cannes International Film Festival in May.

In the thriller, two ex-lovers, Martin (to be played by Mr. Bana) and Claudia (Ms. Hall), find their loyalties tested and their lives at risk when they are joined together on the defense team in a terrorism trial.

Working Title Films, co-chaired by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner since 1992, is one of the world’s leading film production companies. Founded in 1983, Working Title has made nearly 100 films that have grossed over $5 billion worldwide. Its films have won 6 Academy Awards, 30 BAFTA Awards, and prestigious prizes at the Cannes and Berlin International Film Festivals. The company’s 2012 slate includes Baltasar Kormákur’s Contraband, starring Mark Wahlberg and Kate Beckinsale, which recently posted the company’s all-time biggest domestic box office opening weekend; Les Misérables, directed by Tom Hooper and starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, and Anne Hathaway; and Joe Wright’s epic love story Anna Karenina, starring Keira Knightley, Jude Law, and Aaron Johnson.

Focus Features and Focus Features International (www.focusfeatures.com) comprise a singular global company. This worldwide studio makes original and daring films that challenge the mainstream to embrace and enjoy voices and visions from around the world that deliver global commercial success. The company operates as Focus Features in North America, and as Focus Features International (FFI) in the rest of the world.

Upcoming Focus releases include Moonrise Kingdom, the new feature from Wes Anderson that will world-premiere as the opening-night film of the 2012 Cannes International Film Festival, starring Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Jason Schwartzman; Lorene Scafaria’s Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley; Sam Fell and Chris Butler’s ParaNorman, the new 3D stop-motion comedy thriller from animation company LAIKA; Jamie Travis’ contemporary comedy For a Good Time, Call…, starring Ari Graynor and Lauren Anne Miller; the historical tale Hyde Park on Hudson, directed by Roger Michell and starring Academy Award nominees Bill Murray and Laura Linney; and the aforementioned Anna Karenina.

Focus Features is part of NBCUniversal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. NBCUniversal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment television networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. Comcast Corporation owns a controlling 51% interest in NBCUniversal, with GE holding a 49% stake.

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Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | Comments Off on ERIC BANA, REBECCA HALL BEGIN PRODUCTION NEXT WEEK ON JOHN CROWLEY-DIRECTED INTERNATIONAL SUSPENSE THRILLER; SUPPORTING CAST, CREW SET FOR U.K. SHOOT

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon