Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” is getting the 3D treatment this weekend on the occasion of the film’s 20th anniversary. We’ll circle back later this week with some thoughts on the film and the conversion, but with it in mind, the HitFix team started pondering what other films we might consider seeing converted to 3D.

This is still sacrilege for many, of course. Even though some conversions like James Cameron’s “Titanic” and Spielberg’s dinosaur adventure have been top-notch, the status quo is still to get it done quickly and cheaply and reap the benefits of the inflated ticket prices as a result. So there’s very little real art involved in the process, but with the right touch, there are some films that could truly dazzle.

Naturally the best examples of the format will continue to be native technology that actually opts to shoot the film in 3D with the cumbersome camera set-up rather than convert the image to 3D in post-production. Films like “Avatar,” “Hugo,” “Life of Pi” and “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” still rank near the top of such examples. But we would at least consider taking a look at the films in the gallery below if they were converted.

So take a look, give us your thoughts on our selections and feel free to offer up your own in the comments section below.

Screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski have apparently been trying to get their project, “Big Eyes,” about feuding artist couple Walter and Margaret Keane for years. They’ve finally secured a progressive track, reports Deadline, with Tim Burton set to direct and The Weinstein Company closing a deal to fund and distribute. Christoph Waltz and Amy Adams, fresh off awards attention in the Weinstein-distributed “Django Unchained” and “The Master,” will star.

The Keane story is fascinating. In the 1950s and 1960s, their portraits of wide-eyed children were sold all across the country and turned them, particularly Walter, into stars. “My psyche was scarred in my art student days in Europe, just after World War II, by an ineradicable memory of war-wracked innocents,” Keane told Life Magazine in 1965. “In their eyes lurk all of mankind’s questions and answers. If mankind would look deep into the soul of the very young, he wouldn’t need a road map. I wanted other people to know about those eyes, too. I want my paintings to clobber you in the heart and make you yell, ‘DO SOMETHING!'”

But dispute arose soon enough over who was really the genius behind the images. As Walter’s celebrity grew, Margaret asserted that their work was really the result of her vision. They divorced in 1965. Margaret even challenged Walter to a public paint-off on multiple occasions, but Walter continuously declined.

After Walter accused her of claiming credit for the portraits only because she assumed he was dead, Margaret sued him for slander and that’s when what is sure to be a wacky scene in Alexander and Karaszewski’s script played out: a Honolulu judge demanded the two produce separate paintings for the jury. Margaret whipped one up in under an hour while Walter opted out, saying he was taking medication for a shoulder injury. The judge ordered Walter to pay $4 million for emotional distress and damaged reputation.

This kind of thing seems right up Alexander and Karaszewski’s alley. The two first collaborated with Burton on 1994’s “Ed Wood. Two years later they and director Milos Forman brought the life of of pornography titan Larry Flynt to the screen in “The People vs. Larry Flynt” and struck again with the director in 1999, this time with Andy Kaufman and the Jim Carrey-starrer “Man on the Moon.” They also penned a script about “Ripley’s believe It or Not” franchise founder Robert Ripley, which once upon a time had Burton attached with Carrey set to star. It never happened, though, and is still looking for the right combination.

For now, they can at least check “Big Eyes” off their list as the unique project has found a home with top talent all around. And with Burton (who was nominated for his second Oscar last year, for animated feature “Frankenweenie”) and Weinstein under one roof, well, that should certainly be interesting come awards season.

Over the weekend, The New York Times broke the news that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited its 6,000-strong membership to a May 4 session to be held in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco to discuss…something. “Please join us for a special event: The future of the Academy,” the invite read, somewhat mysteriously.

Calling the event “unprecedented,” Deadline’s Pete Hammond wrote that it would be more apt to consider it a “mixer on a much larger scale.” One should not, however, expect major issues like the number of Best Picture nominees or the Academy’s calendar to be on the table in any significant way. After all, it’s not exactly a democracy. Those decisions are left to the elected Board of Governors.

It could, however, just be an attempt by one-year AMPAS President Hawk Koch to make waves while he can before terming out (per regulations) after serving his nine years as a governor in the Academy. Similarly, presenting a “Wayne’s World” reunion at the Academy with Lorne Michaels, Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey in attendance seems curiously self-serving; Koch was the executive producer of the film and the event graced the cover of the monthly newsletter to members for April rather than more fitting programs built around Oscar-winners such as “Jurassic Park 3D” (screening tonight) or “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” (screening Thursday).

Whatever results from the May 4 meeting won’t likely be groundbreaking, one member told me in my calls this week. “Rumor is it has something to do with ABC,” the member said, speculating that extending the current contract for the Oscars telecast with the network past 2020 could come out of the event. Or some sort of news about the on-going Academy museum project. “Stuff you could do in a newsletter,” the member said. “It seems like a self-aggrandizing measure to push Hawk and Dawn [Hudson, CEO of the Academy], and she’s clearly in trouble,” the member went on, alluding to reported tension between Hudson and the older guard, which seems ever resistant to change.

At the end of the day, while the meeting may present an opportunity for “questions and conversation with our members,” as the invite states, the mere appearance of being so progressive could ultimately be the biggest goal. As Koch sets his sites on returning to the fold after taking his required year away from administrative activities with the organization, surely he would like to leave something memorable behind.

We’ll see…

Last week, I listed Steve McQueen’s much-anticipated third feature “Twelve Years a Slave” among the films I was most hoping would appear in the Cannes Film Festival lineup, which will be announced later this month. But it seems we Croisette-bound journos will have to wait until the fall to see the star-studded slavery drama: according to the Hollywood Reporter’s Pamela McClintock, the film simply won’t be finished in time for the May fest.

That means we should expect “Twelve Years a Slave” to make its world premiere in September at the Venice Film Festival — where McQueen’s last film, “Shame,” also bowed two years ago. Regular cinemagoers, however, will have to wait all the way until the year’s end to see it: early today, distributor Fox Searchlight announced a US release date of December 27 — placing it firmly in the Oscar spotlight.

That’s no surprise, considering the film’s prestige credentials. While British artist-turned-director McQueen’s first two features were a little too left-of-center for Academy consumption, this adaptation of Solomon Northup’s classic slavery memoir — which stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender among many, many others — promises to be rather more in their wheelhouse, offering an alternative perspective on a subject matter that “Lincoln” and “Django Unchained” recently returned to the cultural conversation. And even if it’s been over eight years since a December release won the Academy’s top prize, the month remains fertile ground for studios’ baitiest properties.

December 27, however, is an unusually late date for Fox Searchlight to choose. The indie outfit has recently enjoyed its greatest Oscar success with summer releases (“Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “The Tree of Life,” “Little Miss Sunshine”) and films in the November-to-early-December window (“The Descendants,” “Black Swan,” “127 Hours,” “Slumdog Millionaire”). You have to go back to “Notes on a Scandal” in 2006 to find a Searchlight awards hopeful that opened on or after Christmas Day — the British melodrama received four nominations, though Best Picture wasn’t among them.

Last week, following the announcement that Searchlight had acquired Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” with the possibility of a 2013 release, I wondered how the company’s currently lean awards slate for the year would pan out. If its reviews match its on-paper potential, it seems likely that “Slave” will be on it.

Other major titles, meanwhile, that McClintock says we should not expect to see at Cannes this year include Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine” (despite three of his last five efforts premiering at Cannes), Spike Jonze’s “Her,” Atom Egoyan’s “Devil’s Knot,” Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher,” Lee Daniels’ “The Butler,” John Wells’ “August: Osage County” and another late December release, Olivier Dahan’s “Grace of Monaco” — not that those last four ever seemed likely inclusions. (She also mentions Pedro Almodovar’s “I’m So Excited,” though everyone knew that already — the film’s already out in France.)

On the other hand, widely expected films like James Gray’s “Lowlife,” Asghar Farhadi’s “The Past,” the Coen brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis” and Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Only God Forgives” are still on course for a Cannes premiere, while festival director Thierry Fremaux is said to be “courting” Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska” and J.C. Chandor’s “All is Lost.” All will be revealed soon enough. 

The Film Society of Lincoln Center recently announced Barbra Streisand as the recipient of its 40th annual Chaplin Award at the Society’s annual gala on April 22. The event launched in 1972 with a tribute to Charlie Chaplin, who returned to the US from exile to accept the honor.

Today the role call of presenters has been revealed, including Pierce Brosnan, Blythe Danner, Richard Dreyfuss, Amy Irving and Kris Kristofferson. Given that Streisand has had a ground-breaking career in both film and music, there will be a large musical component to the tribute as well. Tony Bennett, Kristin Chenoweth, Wynton Marsalis and Liza Minelli have been tapped for performances.

Former President Bill Clinton will present the award.

Tickets to the event will be available to the public. For ticketing and other information, visit filmlinc.com/gala.

In February, Barbra Streisand made an appearance at the Academy Awards where she performed “The Way We Were” to round out the In Memoriam segment as a tribute to her friend and collaborator Marvin Hamlisch, who died in 2012.

Here is a list of past Film Society of Lincoln Center Gala Tribute Honorees:

2012 – Catherine Deneuve
2011 – Sidney Poitier
2010 – Michael Douglas
2009 – Tom Hanks
2008 – Meryl Streep
2007 – Diane Keaton
2006 – Jessica Lange
2005 – Dustin Hoffman
2004 – Michael Caine
2003 – Susan Sarandon
2002 – Francis Ford Coppola
2001 – Jane Fonda
2000 – Al Pacino
1999 – Mike Nichols
1998 – Martin Scorsese
1997 – Sean Connery
1996 – Clint Eastwood
1995 – Shirley MacLaine
1994 – Robert Altman
1993 – Jack Lemmon
1992 – Gregory Peck
1991 – Audrey Hepburn
1990 – James Stewart
1989 – Bette Davis
1988 – Yves Montand
1987 – Alec Guinness
1986 – Elizabeth Taylor
1985 – Federico Fellini
1984 – Claudette Colbert
1983 – Laurence Olivier
1982 – Billy Wilder
1981 – Barbara Stanwyck
1980 – John Huston
1979 – Bob Hope
1978 – George Cukor
1975 – Joanne Woodward & Paul Newman
1974 – Alfred Hitchcock
1973 – Fred Astaire
1972 – Charles Chaplin

I read publicity maven Peggy Siegal’s Oscar weekend diary at The Huffington Post with the expected mixture of fascination and disgust. You find yourself smiling at the gluttony of Hollywood during awards season until you don’t, as the cup of excess runneth over. And Siegal’s diary is a perfect record of all that superficiality.

One of the delights of being in New York this year has been watching Siegal in action. She’s a machine, a force of nature. And any A-list celebrity will say exactly as much about her. The legend is she stole her old boss’s rolodex and that’s how she expanded her self-made horizons, but she pretty much runs the city when Oscar campaigns make their way here. The season is her hour, and one as contentious and competitive as this last one was ended up being the perfect opportunity to see her in the thick of her element.

Some people take a stab at this kind of man-on-the-scene stuff during the season, but no one’s nailed it like Siegal does here. Regarding the line to pick up tickets for the show:

“Suddenly, a messenger slipped in and cut the line. He announced to the uniformed guard in a stage whisper, ‘Dreamworks,’ and it was as if God-like Steven Spielberg himself had just delivered the Gettysburg address: The messenger was ushered upstairs–the final act of the ‘Lincoln’ campaign.”

Further hinting at catty industry attitude toward Spielberg’s film:

“Voters knew that Obama had secretly hosted three screenings in the White House, but they weren’t invited.”

Getting to the heart of why Emmanuelle Riva was never going to win Best Actress and why people like me were just lost in a healthy dose of wishful thinking:

“The French phenomenon doesn’t speak English; neither did last year’s Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin. Riva had never been to L.A. Her campaign felt like voting for a ghost, even for her 86th birthday.”

Speaking of which, I loved this little aside about George Clooney’s “revenge” on “The Artist” star Jean Dujardin:

“I huddled with George Clooney to discuss ‘The Monuments Men,’ a movie he is directing in Berlin about the Nazis’ theft of art owned by Europe’s Jews. I asked him, ‘Who dies?’ He said, ‘Two Jews, one Frenchman.’ I asked, ‘Who is the Frenchman?’ He said, ‘Jean Dujardin.’ I asked, ‘How?’ He said, ‘I shoot him.’ I asked, ‘How many takes?’ He said, ‘Thirty-five.’ I said, ‘Justice will be served.’ He smiled and nodded knowingly. This is Clooney’s sweet revenge toward Dujardin, who beat him last year for Best Actor without uttering a word.”

And did everyone step on Amy Adams’s “Oscar de la Renta silver-ruffled train?” I feel like Anne Thompson mentioned she did the same when we did our postmortem podcast after the fact. Or was that someone else’s train? I have no idea.

Anyway, if you haven’t had your fill of last season yet, you should give Siegal’s piece a look. I wish it had come out the week after the Oscars rather than a month later, but this kind of in-the-thick-of-it recollection gives you a lot of perspective on Hollywood’s glamorous yet somehow gaudy big night.

I have not seen Andrew Niccol’s “The Host” yet, so I have no opinion to offer. It’s languishing at a woeful 12% at Rotten Tomatoes so it’s rather clear it’s a dud. HitFix’s Drew McWeeny crucified it in his review, noting that it is “one of the worst things [he’s] seen in a while…a genre film that fails at every genre it attempts, and it fails at even the meager ideas it attempts to engage.” Ouch.

All of that said — and indeed, “The Host” may be every bit of that and more — I feel a need to defend Niccol more often than not. He draws an inordinate amount of ire. I can only imagine that “Gattaca” and “The Truman Show” were such a promising start that the general downward trajectory since has been tough to swallow. But there have been highlights. Yeah, “S1M0NE” was the beginning of that fall, but it was a prescient idea. I don’t think “In Time” was such a terrible premise, as Drew and others do. And “Lord of War” was actually a really good movie, in my opinion. He dabbles in ideas that, all things considered, I’d rather be mulled over by SOMEONE. The execution will come back, I’m sure of it.

But that’s that and “The Host” is “The Host.” So if you have seen it or plan on seeing it, hit the comments section here and call a spade a spade if you must. Or defend it if you feel the need. I’ve heard some interesting thoughts on the pro side, actually. And as always, feel free to vote in our poll below.

Not gonna bog down into a political debate on the gun thing here. The liberal-minded will bang its head against a brick wall and the conservative-minded will decry the gall of another sect knowing what’s best and it’ll just be grossly, pathetically predictable.

That said, Jim Carrey’s recent “Cold Dead Hand” video at Funny or Die taking the piss out of the National Rifle Association and its late leader actor Charlton Heston was, well, hilarious. Carrey has been outspoken about magazine limits and an assault rifles ban ever since the debate caught fire again in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December.

As a result, like clockwork, Fox News has breathlessly attacked the comedian as of late, and all of that scrambling has been almost as funny as the video itself. “He is probably the most pathetic tool on the face of the earth,” Fox’s Greg Gutfeld spat out, like some middle school bully scrambling for a good comeback. “I hope his career is dead and I hope he ends up sleeping in a car the way his life began.”

Well, Carrey has a thing or two to say about that and returned fire this week with the following statement.

“Since I released my ‘Cold Dead Hand’ video on Funny or Die this week, I have watched Fux News rant, rave, bare its fangs and viciously slander me because of my stand against large magazines and assault rifles. I would take them to task legally if I felt they were worth my time or that anyone with a brain in their head could actually fall for such irresponsible buffoonery. That would gain them far too much attention which is all they really care about.

“I’ll just say this: in my opinion Fux News is a last resort for kinda-sorta-almost-journalists whose options have been severely limited by their extreme and intolerant views; a media colostomy bag that has begun to burst at the seams and should be emptied before it becomes a public health issue.

“I sincerely believe that in time, good people will lose patience with the petty and poisonous behavior of these bullies and Fux News will be remembered as nothing more than a giant culture fart that no amount of Garlique could cure.

I wish them all the luck that accompanies such malevolence.”

If you missed the Funny or Die sketch, check it out below. My favorite bit: “Clearly Sam Elliott.” Meanwhile, Carrey’s film “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” is currently floundering at the box office, so maybe that’s some solace for poor Mr. Gutfeld.

You can download “Cold Dead Hand” at iTunes if you want. It’s catchy.

Back when the first “G.I. Joe” film came out, I wasn’t nearly as pro-Channing Tatum as I am these days. “21 Jump Street” and “Magic Mike” made most of us see the light on that one: dude’s hilarious. So I mainly went into a matinee of “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” today to see what he had to offer in the wake of that comedic success, but this was clearly The Rock’s show. Oh sorry…Dwayne Johnson.

Eh, it was worth the diversion I guess. Jonathan Pryce was a bit, well, priceless at times. HitFix’s Drew McWeeny found it fun enough, calling it “breathless in all the right ways.” But it’s a turn-your-brain-off exercise if there ever was one, whether director Jon Chu’s fandom shines through or not. Though Adrianne Palicki ain’t too bad on the eyes for 90 minutes. Let us know what you thought/think if you get around to seeing it, and feel free to vote in our poll below.

Unsurprisingly, considering the minimal theatrical exposure documentary shorts receive even relative to their live-action and animated counterparts, Best Documentary Short annually seems to be the award about which most Oscar watchers (and even some pundits) seem to be the least aware and/or informed. And the same is true within the Academy itself: among the 6000 voting AMPAS members, only a few hundred vote in this particular category.

That was mostly because of a restrictive rule requiring members to attend official screenings of all the nominees to vote. However, as Steve Pond reports, the Academy is scrapping this requirement — just as it did in the Best Documentary Feature category last year. Voters across the Academy will now receive screeners of the five nominees, and can vote after (hopefully) viewing them at their own leisure. The committee-driven nomination process, however, will remain unchanged.

Screener-based voting would appear to give an edge to the most populist nominee, a theory borne out by the most recent winners for Best Documentary Feature (“Searching for Sugar Man”) and the similarly amended Best Animated Short (Disney’s “Paperman”). Admittedly, “populist” is a relative term when dealing with short-form documentary: the field tends to be pretty evenly matched in terms of mass appeal and exposure.

Meanwhile, the Academy is also changing qualification requirements in the category, with an eye to enabling a more globally diverse slate of contenders: the previous system, which required films to have week-long theatrical runs in Los Angeles and/or New York, tended to skew the category in favor of American films. From now on, the Academy will also add top prize-winners from 24 international festivals, ranging from Sundance to SXSW to Melbourne to Krakow — to the mix, as well as Student Academy Award winners.

Most dramatically of all, though nothing has been confirmed yet, plans are afoot to significantly expand the size of the documentary voting branch — which, with 173 members, is currently the Academy’s second-smallest. Branch governor Rob Epstein — himself a two-time winner of the Best Documentary Feature Oscar — claims that there is “great support” for the expansion within the Academy’s Membership Committee.

He tells Pond: “From our perspective, we”ve had a backlog of veteran filmmakers that we felt we needed to bring into the branch. This is exciting, because it gives us the opportunity to invite younger filmmakers and broaden our membership.”

With these changes coming on the heels of last year’s productive if imperfect overhaul of the doc feature category, it’s encouraging to see this once-stuffy branch making such a concerted effort to reflect the growing range and stature of the medium. 

A biopic of late, great stand-up comedian Richard Pryor is clearly a cursed production. Versions with filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Kasi Lemmons have crashed and burned, even with stars attached. Filmmaker Bill Condon was coming off the $100 million “Dreamgirls” in 2006 and had an honest script in place depicting all the drugs, women and turmoil of Pryor’s life, but the hard R rating made it difficult to land financing. It was dark with a capital “D,” and stars such as Eddie Murphy, Will Smith and Jamie Foxx balked, further scaring off studios as the project bounced from Fox Searchlight to Paramount.

Eventually, actor Marlon Wayans nailed his audition with Condon and secured the role. The project  then found its way to Sony, where Adam Sandler and Chris Rock were set to produce under Sandler’s Happy Madison shingle. With a budget south of $20 million, per Sandler’s deal, the studio couldn’t say no. And yet, it still didn’t happen. The late comedian’s widow, Jennifer Pryor, complicated the production and it went away yet again. Plus, a non-star like Wayans, whether he nailed the audition or not, was surely a dicey aspect for studio types.

When Condon took the reins on the final two installments of the “Twilight” franchise, I personally cringed, because it didn’t seem like material worthy of an artist like him. But if cashing in meant he could tackle projects like this, then I was all for it. Well, it looks like he had to just let it slip away, because now comes news that Forest Whitaker has taken over the nearly 20-year effort to bring this epic story to the screen.

But the question is: Will it actually happen?

Deadline reports that Whitaker is teaming with Pryor’s widow to produce the film through his Significant Productions shingle with partner Nina Yang-Bongiovi. But there’s nothing in the report to suggest the project will come to fruition as financing isn’t in place yet and, as the history suggests, there is something keeping this thing from happening. We certainly wish all involved the best of luck, because an outstanding production centered on Pryor would be huge.

Whitaker is coming off Sundance success with his involvement in Audience Award winner “Fruitvale.” That film starred Michael B. Jordan of television fame, who gave an outstanding performance and is suggested by Mike Fleming at Deadline for the role. But, like Wayans, I imagine Jordan’s low profile could make it tricky to land money and a distribution partner. That could all change if “Fruitvale” hits hard this fall, so I imagine everyone will be keeping an eye on that.

In the meantime, who would you suggest to star as Richard Pryor in a film about the comic’s life? Let us know in the comments section below.

Round about the time we were all waiting breathlessly for “The Tree of Life” to finally land, the idea of a Terrence Malick film bowing simultaneously in theaters and on VOD and iTunes would have seemed pretty far-fetched. But the journey for his follow-up, “To the Wonder,” has been different from the off.

Unveiled at Venice without a US distributor, the esoteric love story garnered enough damning reviews to scare off bigger distributors like Fox Searchlight (who had nurtured “Tree”), and was left waiting for some time before finding a home with niche outfit Magnolia Pictures. They were in no hurry to release it, either, wisely skipping the pressures of the 2012 awards season and waiting until the spring — allowing the UK to be the first territory to release the film, last month. Meanwhile, critical reception for the film has warmed up somewhat since its chilly festival debut, with further champions joining the early defenders. 

Magnolia have traditionally been pretty progressive when it comes to releasing prestige films on multiple formats — 18 months ago, Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia” was made available on VOD prior to its theatrical release. So it’s not a huge surprise to hear that they’ve opted to offer “To the Wonder” on VOD and iTunes day-and-date with its theatrical release on April 12.

That’s good news for Malick acolytes living outside the usual realms of arthouse distribution, and makes sense for a film that is unlikely to gain much traction in theaters — the film has been a quiet performer here in the UK, grossing just over $300,000 in a month, slightly less than German-language critics’ darling “Lore,” released on the same day.

Still, it has to be said that VOD is not the ideal format for a first encounter with any Malick film, and this one is arguably more dependent on its visual and sonic marvels than most. As with “The Tree of Life,” Emmanuel Lubezki’s staggering cinematography deserves the widest screen possible. I’m a fan of the film, but I can concede that its poetic indulgences could grate more in a less immersive viewing environment. Still, good to finally get the film out there before the suddenly prolific Malick springs his next opus upon us — possibly as early as May’s Cannes Film Festival.

Meanwhile, Magnolia president Eamonn Bowles has confirmed that the VOD release will not interfere with the film’s Oscar eligibility — though I suspect he knows as well as anyone that, unless the cinematographers really think for themselves with regard to Lubezki, “To the Wonder” will not be troubling Academy voters at all.  

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4912353552001

Sony Pictures Classics has Richard Linklater’s “Before Midnight” primed for a May 24 release. Michael Barker and Tom Bernard picked the film up out of Sundance, reuniting them with the filmmaker they brought to the fore over 20 years ago with “Slacker” via Orion Classics.

I’ve written plenty about the film by now, most of it out of Park City, but now you can get a taste of it yourself with the new trailer. However, I would suggest this: If you are a huge fan of the “Before” series, you really ought to stay away from this and just go into the movie. It reveals an element of Celine and Jesse’s relationship that is better experienced for the first time while watching the movie.

It happens very early in the film and it’s just a lovely note, not a massive spoiler or anything. There were audible reactions to it in the Eccles Theater when it was revealed (and indeed, early press requests asked that reviewers tread thoughtfully about where the two are in their relationship at the beginning of the film — though I imagine many didn’t bother). I just think that, if you haven’t read a lot of reviews or know what I’m talking about (not that it’s something hugely surprising anyway), it would be nice for you to go in fresh. That’s all.

Check out the new trailer above if you like.

I kept having to correct myself when writing about “Moonrise Kingdom” last year, as my brain repeatedly leapt to the assumption that it was a Fox Searchlight property — instead of Focus Features, for which the whimsical youth romance was their biggest prestige triumph of 2012. There was a reason for the error: Searchlight had handled both Anderson’s previous features, “The Darjeeling Limited” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” and “Moonrise” played very much like something in their wheelhouse.

Anyway, I needn’t make the same error with Anderson’s next film, “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” It was announced today that Searchlight have renewed their relationship with the writer-director, and have picked up “Hotel” with an eye to releasing it either in 2014 or late this year.

The date, I’m guessing, will depend on how the studio’s awards slate shapes up — they’ve been known to make some fairly late switches on that basis. Remember that last year’s “Hitchcock” was originally slated for a release this year before being tossed out last November in a failed Oscar bid for its stars. (Okay, so it got a Best Makeup nod for its trouble.)

At this stage, Searchlight’s 2013 slate is looking a little lean. For all their A-list credentials, spring releases “Stoker” and “Trance” are divisive genre efforts that would be lucky to get awards attention even for their stunning technical attributes, while this year’s big Sundance pickup, “The Way, Way Back,” should appeal to audiences, but is no “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” There’s plenty of room yet, then, for the company to shake things up with this year’s answer to, say, “The Descendants.”

Whether that could be Anderson’s latest, of course, is hard to say: the three-time Oscar nominee’s sensibility is usually a little too precious for the Academy’s liking — though “Moonrise Kingdom,” which is as fey as they come, got closer than any of his films to date to a Best Picture nomination.

The new film — not a sequel to “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” I’m happy to report — sounds typically episodic, though somewhat more expansive, centering as it does on the friendship between a European hotel concierge and his young protégé between the First and Second World Wars. Subplots include the theft and recovery of a priceless painting and a family inheritance dispute. Shooting began on location in Germany last month.

The cast, as we’ve come to expect from the director, is a starry one, crammed with Anderson regulars as well as some new alumni: Ralph Fiennes takes the lead, with Tilda Swinton, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Saoirse Ronan, Mathieu Amalric, Jason Schwartzman, Tom Wilkinson, Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Jeff Goldblum and F. Murray Abraham.

The crew, including composer Alexandre Desplat and cinematographer Robert Yeoman, is largely unchanged from “Moonrise Kingdom,” though three-time Oscar-winning costume designer Milena Canonero, who worked with Anderson on “The Life Aquatic” and “The Darjeeling Limited,” has returned to the fold. Most interesting, however, is that this is the first film Anderson has ever made without a co-writer: what can we expect from his untempered imagination? 

While the media and cinephiles alike fixate on the films being officially premiered at Cannes, for many others, the festival is all about the market — a separate insiders’ sphere which nonetheless plays a huge role in determining what we’re going to see in the months and years to come.

A film can be a hot property at the Cannes market before it even visibly exists, and one yet-to-be-shot title that’ll be vying for buyers’ attention on the Croisette this year is “Rosewater,” the directorial debut of “Daily Show” anchor (and erstwhile Oscar host) Jon Stewart.

Sales company Sierra/Affinity will be flogging the film, set to be produced by Stewart with Scott Rudin and OddLot Entertainment head Gigi Pritzker, to international buyers at the festival. (Other OddLot credits include “Rabbit Hole” and recent Sundance hit “The Way, Way Back.”) It has no US distributor at this stage — UTA is handling North American sales — though it’ll be interesting to see for how long that remains the case as it shores up deals in other territories. Will that wait until its presumed debut on the 2014 festival circuit?

Stewart big-screen career began as an actor, and ended on rather a low note 11 years ago with the infamous flop “Death to Smoochy,” back when “The Daily Show” was a relatively young phenomenon. Though his work before the camera has been primarily comic, he’ll be taking a very different tack for his first turn in the director’s chair: “Rosewater” is an adaptation of Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari’s bestselling memoir “Then They Came For Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity and Survival,” in which he recounts his incarceration by the Iranian government between the months of June and October 2009.

Stewart’s connection to Bahari’s story is a direct one, which should stand him in good stead when making the film. During Bahari’s imprisonment, a “Daily Show” interview in which he’d participated was cited by his captors as evidence of his affiliation with Western spies; the show monitored his ordeal on a daily basis, and featured Bahari as a studio guest after his release. 

Stewart will be taking a 12-week “Daily Show” hiatus this summer to shoot the film. No cast has been announced yet, but it’s clear from the substantial story material, not to mention the interesting power pairing of Stewart and Rudin, that this could be a prestige item to watch next year. Could Stewart be angling for some film industry honors to add to his 18 Emmy Awards? We’ll see. Things turned out pretty nicely for the last Iranian hostage drama to hit theaters, after all.

Remember back on February 19 when The Weinstein Company put out a press release announcing that director David O. Russell would be taking the reins on “The Ends of the Earth,” from a script by “Argo” writer Chris Terrio? But the Russell quote in the release said nothing about the project and everything about actress Jennifer Lawrence, who starred in his awards contender “Silver Linings Playbook” and was attached to the project?

“Jennifer possesses a self-deprecating humor that made all of the cast and crew feel at ease,” Russell said of the Oscar-nominated (now Oscar-winning) actress in the release. “She is that kind of person. She is the most dedicated person I know. She is devoted to her family and they have been the true inspiration for her character and integrity. Her acting is effortless and she always makes it look easy.”

It was a big love letter on the final day of Oscar voting to an actress in the thick of the Oscar conversation…but little more. Terrio was making it clear to journalists that he had no knowledge of any of it and hadn’t even met Russell, but entertainment news outlets (yes, including HitFix) ran the news because there was really no reason on the face of it to think the press release was bogus.

But it was. And that’s finally coming out now.

No one is quoted in Pamela McClintock’s piece, but the report notes that people close to the project are saying Russell was never committed to it. A few months back, before the release hit, my own source said Russell wasn’t interested because he “didn’t want to do another incest movie” (and was, of course, surprised when the release hit). Terrio’s script tells the true-life love story of oil tycoon Ernest Marland, who lost everything after engaging in a controversial love affair with his adopted daughter Lydie. Russell’s debut film, meanwhile, was the award-winning 1994 incest comedy “Spanking the Monkey.”

Terrio told me just after the Academy Awards, which saw him walk away with an Oscar for writing “Argo,” that he was trying to be as zen as possible about the situation. But nevertheless, it was obviously a bit of expert posturing by Weinstein at the end of what was already one of the dirtier seasons on record. (And really, anyone who doesn’t think this last Oscar season had more than its fair share of skullduggery just wasn’t paying attention.)

Former Variety film editor Josh Dickey, who this week transitioned over to TMZ, let it be known earlier today that he “turned in a deeply sourced column” the day after the Oscars about the shenanigans that were afoot throughout. But Variety editors shot it down. That’s hardly surprising, since the 108-year-old trade, which sold for relative pennies to Penske Media Coporation in October, is historically the last place one would expect to rock the industry boat. “At the time [of the release], multiple sources close to ‘Ends of the Earth’ said [the] David O. Russell announcement was TOTAL bogus,” Dickey went on. “Not that it wasn’t obvious.”

Obvious or not, again, they ran it anyway. When the system can be so easily rigged, who can blame someone like Weinstein for playing it like a harp, particularly in this age where Deadline will run anything it’s handed without a second thought as the (Penske-owned) blog has become a virtual bulletin board for unvetted Hollywood gossip and “news?” This didn’t move the needle much on votes or anything, but it was a nice way to have “Silver Linings Playbook” dominating headlines on the last day of Oscar voting.

I do hope the project finds a talented craftsman soon. It’s a very beautiful script and will absolutely be an awards player when it finds its way to screens, I guarantee it. But even though people close to Russell and Weinstein are claiming the director is “still seriously considering it,” it seems fair to say right now that the February 19 release was a jump of the gun, and a shrewd one at that.

Russell and Lawrence will, however, be re-teaming on the currently untitled “ABSCAM” project formerly known as “American Bullshit.” The Sony Pictures release recently staked out a December 13 limited release date, so expect to be hearing more about that in the upcoming awards season.

The will-he-won’t-he dance between Sam Mendes and the James Bond franchise continues. After the Oscar-winning director steered “Skyfall” to the best critical and commercial returns of the series’ 50-year history, it was obvious that the producers would want him to remain on board for the next entry. At one point, it seemed that could be the case: in November, screenwriter Robert Wade hinted that Mendes had devised a plot for the next film with co-writer John Logan, while at last month’s BAFTA Awards, sound mixer Scott Milan suggested the director “might” return. 

Mendes himself put an end to the speculation three weeks ago, saying that it had been a “difficult decision” to turn down Bond 24, but that his theatrical work in particular — including West End productions of “King Lear” and a “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” musical — made it impossible for him to take the gig.

That’s not to say, however, that he won’t return — and producer Barbara Broccoli seems bullishly confident that they haven’t seen the last of the “American Beauty” helmer. “We haven’t given up hope,” she told Getty News. “Maybe not for the next one, but we will get him back again. We are working on him. We hope that maybe he will have gotten inspired to come back.” 

Mendes himself, meanwhile, has admitted that that he’s “left the door open” for a return to the series, but that he’d need to come back with a fresh perspective. “I’ve never really repeated myself, done the same type of movie one after the other,” he said. “So just give me a chance to think about what I actually want to say.”

Seems sensible enough. As much as I liked Mendes’s work on “Skyfall” — which repaid him with arguably the most acclaim and accolades he’s received for a film since his award-guzzling debut, including the first BAFTA win of his career — I’m not sure getting locked into a blockbuster franchise, however classy, is the best use of his time and talent. Most of Mendes’s post-“Beauty” prestige projects haven’t quite panned out the way they should have, but I’d still love to see him make a film closer to his stage work in terms of style and material. 

The question now, of course, is who directs the next one. Will the producers continue to chase counterintuitive choices like Mendes and “Quantum of Solace” director Marc Forster, or return to a genre journeyman like Martin Campbell, who has twice reinvigorated the franchise with “GoldenEye” and “Casino Royale?”

Joe Wright, a suitably high-end name who proved his action chops with “Hanna,” would make a lot of sense as Mendes’s successor. On the other end of the scale, an up-and-comer like Eran Creevy (an indie graduate who has won some admiration for his slick London cop thriller “Welcome to the Punch”) could inject some younger energy into 007. Who would you like to see take on Bond 24? Tell us in the comments.

With “Spring Breakers” in wide release this week, I imagine more of you have found a chance to see it. If so, be sure to let us know what you thought.

Meanwhile, James Franco seems like the hardest working man in show business these days, hitting the publicity circuit for both this film and “Oz the Great and Powerful.” One of those stops came last night on David Letterman, during which Franco recalled the “legend” of Harmony Korine getting kicked off the show once upon a time.

“The legend is that he pushed Meryl Streep backstage,” Franco said, coaxing Letterman to recall the altercation, which he did.

“The story was, and it’s absolutely true, I went upstairs to greet Meryl Streep and she was not in there,” Letterman said. “I looked around and I found your friend Harmony going through her purse. True story. And so I said, ‘Okay, that’s it. Put her things back in her bag and get out of here.”

Franco made sure it was known that this was a period of time when Korine, who had been on the show previously to promote the films “Kids” and “Gummo,” was “out of it.” I think we can surmise what that might mean. He vouches for him now, of course, calling him a great artist and great person to work with. But hey, we’ve all had our going-through-Meryl-Streep’s-purse bouts along the way, right? No judging here!

Check out the clip from last night’s show below, with Korine’s appearances on Letterman through the late 90s after that. And if you haven’t yet, make it out to “Spring Breakers.” So far, it’s easily one of 2013’s best films.

Here is Korine’s appearance on the show  “Kids” in 1995, voice cracking throughout:

Here he is two years later to promote “Gummo”:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uZgJapYmEI&hl=en_US&version=3]

And just one year later to promote his book “A Crackup at the Race Riots,” looking “out of it” to be sure: