• Greg Ellwood shrewdly notes potential motive to announcing Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) first as presenters at this year’s Academy Awards. [Awards Campaign]
• Tom Hooper and Geoffrey Rush respond to the notion of cutting “The King’s Speech” to appease a PG-13 rating. [Inside Movies]
• “Master Class: Editing James Franco…with James Franco meets on Thursday afternoons weekly.” [Movieline]
• David O. Russell’s “The Fighter” unspooled at the AFI Fest. Kris was impressed and later reported from a Q&A with the film’s stars.
• This week’s Off the Carpet column pondered the presence of money-spinners in this year’s Best Picture race.
• The Long Shot, meanwhile, wondered if that very race is currently looking a little flimsy.
• News of Hugh Jackman turning down the gig prompted the annual speculation over who should host the Oscar ceremony.
With the season now unshakeably upon us, it’s time to dust off the annual conversation topic of who should host the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony. I am prompted to do so, of course, by Deadline’s recent scoop that 2009 host Hugh Jackman — the first choice of new Oscarcast producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer — has turned down the gig, owing to a scheduling conflict with the shooting of of “Wolverine 2.”
Many will be disappointed by this news, given that the Jackman-hosted telecast was one of the better-received of recent years. As one of its few detractors, I’ll admit to feeling relieved: Jackman’s song-and-dance schtick was amiable enough, but he lacked the comic zeal I prefer in an Oscar host.
To be fair, the balance between comic and cuddly is a difficult one to strike at the Oscars. There’s ample room for error on either side of the beloved Billy Crystal school of sweet-and-sour satire: Jackman played it too safe for my liking, but neither do I want to see an encore of Chris Rock’s hostile, room-cooling barbs. The Academy Awards, as much as we might like to mock them, are effectively the industry’s prom night, and the tone should be appropriately celebratory.
• Anthony Breznican on the opening of “A Christmas Carol” and the early holiday grab. [USA Today]
• Dissecting “Amelia”‘s troubled road to the screen. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Hugh Jackman gives newly tapped Oscar hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin his blessing. [Vulture]
• Brian Lowry on how The Ten is an Oscarcast producer’s nightmare. [Variety]
• With Hugh Jackman out, Jeff Wells thinks the Oscars need to skew younger with their host. [Hollywood Elsewhere]
• The producers of “London River” launch a deserved Oscar campaign for Brenda Blethyn, despite still lacking US distribution. [Notes on a Season]
As the annual guessing game of who will host the Academy Awards continues to go in circles, there’s at least one name we can remove from consideration: a certain Mr. Hugh Jackman.
Variety confirms that the previous Oscar emcee was invited to repeat, but “quietly” turned down the opportunity sometime in the last few weeks, not wanting to do the task in consecutive years. (He may host again in the future, in other words.)
This largely puts paid to the speculation that the hiring of choreographer Adam Shankman to produce the show meant we were essentially in for a rerun of last year’s show, which is fine by me.
The previous Oscarcast format was very much the singular vision of Bill Condon and Laurence Mark, while Jackman’s song-and-dance stylings will stay fresher if used on an irregular basis.
With the 2009 Oscar telecast a little over four months away, it may seem a tad premature for the annual round of “how-to-save-the-show” suggestions, but it’s really the best time — now that Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic have been handed the reins, they’ll be drawing up plans immediately.
So the LA Times’s Mary McNamara has handily weighed in with her annual list of ideas and pointers for the show’s producers, ranging from the widely agreed-upon (drop the irrelevant musical numbers) to the slightly more idiosyncratic (“Do something with vampires,” she helpfully advises).
Given that, like McNamara, I wasn’t as big a fan of the last Oscarcast as many were, it follows that I would agree with several of her ideas. I do think film clips have a necessary place in the acting presentations — as strange as it seems to those of us more familiar with the films on an annual basis, a brief, well-chosen clip from a lesser-known title can arouse interest from less informed viewers. (More so than a smarmy verbal tribute from, say, Adrien Brody.)
• The Academy finally named the producers for next year’s Oscar telecast, first-timers Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic.
• All of which added weight to the speculation that Hugh Jackman might return as host.
• The Gotham Awards provided the season with its first set of nominees, though it inspired more talk for its omissions.
• Chief among those omissions: “Precious,” prompting talk of a backlash, despite generous media exposure positioning it as the one to beat.
• Pete Hammond joins the speculation that yesterday’s Oscarcast producer announcement bodes well for a Jackman repeat. [Notes on a Season]
• Nathaniel Rogers is awed in the presence of Tilda Swinton at the New Yorker Festival. (Where, apparently, “Michael Clayton” was never mentioned. Huh.) [Tribeca Film]
• David Poland brands the Gotham Awards “meaningless” for not trying to predict the Oscars. I despair. [The Hot Blog]
UPDATE: Anne Thompson has now posted this story (which she’s been working on a while) in full with — imagine that — sourced information.
EARLIER: Over at Deadline Hollywood Daily, Nikki Finke conveys what we all know: that AMPAS brass would love a do-over of last year’s Oscarcast and have already approached Bill Condon and Laurence Mark about directing and producing the show once again. The new news, however, is that, in the wake of the duo’s “thanks but no thanks” (busy, busy), the Academy is going to approach Hugh Jackman to host the show once again.
This is, as Anne pointed out in last week’s edition of Oscar Talk (wherein we also discussed ideas for hosts and producers), putting the cart before the horse as no producer has been nailed down yet. Finke floats the idea of Joe Roth again (a confidante of newly tapped Academy president Tom Sherak, also mentioned by Anne last week). But she also reports murmurs that Hawk Koch and Joel Silver separately offered to produce the show.
It’s all rumor-mill stuff right now, and Finke says that Jackman’s handlers will suggest he decline the offer if it is extended, so there’s no way of knowing what’s true and what’s not at this point. But it’s getting to be crunch time. Let’s get on with it…
It seems the annual spitballing over who will/should host next year’s Academy Awards ceremony has already started.
Sasha Stone has compiled a list of her own preferred men (and women) for the job, while Kris has other ideas. (More seriously, his Kevin Spacey suggestion last year remains one I’m completely on board with.) Meanwhile, Kris and Anne will spotlight the issue in tomorrow’s edition of Oscar Talk.
For my part, I can’t see a Hugh Jackman repeat working as effectively without Bill Condon and Laurence Mark’s creative steering. (Besides, as game as he was, I missed the comedy a little.) And for all the championing of vogueish names from Neil Patrick Harris to Justin Timberlake — and as much as I actually appreciated Jon Stewart’s efforts — I always find the night feels more comfortable with a genuine movie figure on stage.
I don’t know why this came to mind so quickly. There is no director yet and the screenplay is yet to be hammered out, but I couldn’t help but wonder, with the announcement of the P.T. Barnum biopic “The Greatest Showman on Earth,” whether Hugh Jackman might finally find himself in the awards hunt for a change.
I don’t mean to boil a simple news item down to an awards angle, which can be a knee-jerk reaction to this stuff in this racket. But really, can anyone think of a more suitable role for Jackman? Maybe it’ll just end up being fluff, I don’t know. But there’s a real opportunity here.
The film is apparently part of a string of musicals Jackman and partner John Palermo plan to usher to the screens, as the genre attempts to make a valiant comeback. And now’s as good a time as any for frothy entertainment to capture the public’s imagination. “The Sound of Music” won the big award during some dreary times, after all. And the script is taking the old school route, written with actors in mind throughout. Anne Hathaway (who you’ll recall held her own quite well opposite Jackman on Oscar’s stage back in February) will co-star.
The headline says it all. After bringing in 105 new members last year, the Academy has just announced a new list of 134 names to join their ranks.
Actors include Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Jeffrey Wright (woo-hoo!), James McAvoy, Casey Affleck (who should have been brought in after his 2007 nomination), James Franco, Michael Cera and Seth Rogen, as well as, of course, all of the first-time nominees from last year’s season. I was rather surprised to see Brendan Gleeson only now getting the invite.
A big huzzah to director Rod Lurie, who made the cut in the directors branch, along with last year’s big winner Danny Boyle and animator Henry Selick, among others. And another tip of the hat to Clint Mansell (robbed blind for his “Fountain” score two years ago), who joined the composers’ ranks along with Peter Gabriel (another guy I figured would have been in long ago) and last year’s winner in both music categories, A.R. Rahman.
Neither here nor there, since now we’re getting to inside baseball, but a big shout-out to Paramount’s Megan Colligan, who was allowed passage in the public relations arena.
Check out the full list after the jump.
“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” opens nationwide today but it dropped just a little earlier across the pond. Owen Vaughan at The Times of London has put together a nice dissection of the Wolverine character with comic writers Len Wein and Chris Claremont in mind but I really wish Wein had participated because the entire piece is filled with Claremont quotes.
The significance of the two men is undeniable. Wein, of course, created Wolverine way back in 1974 as a sideline villain in the pages of “The Incredible Hulk.” You might remember that photo of Hugh Jackman meeting his maker, so to speak, at San Diego ComicCon last year.
The character’s first appearance came on the final page of issue #180 of the series, but it’s #181 that stands out most to fans (and commands the most dollars if you’re looking to bulk up your Wolvie collection). The cover is a classic image: Wolverine, in his odd recognizable regalia, slashes violently at the Hulk as the villainous Wendigo stalks the two of them in the background.
Claremont, meanwhile, gave Wolverine all of his characteristic charm and, together with artist Frank Miller, added texture and depth in “Wolverine” mini-series of 1983. As Claremont says in the Times interview, “The film is based on the Wolverine Weapon X series and [Paul Jenkins’s] Wolverine Origin but the essential character is my guy.”
Further expanding on his vision of the then nine-year-old character:
“My idea of Wolverine was that if you walked into his room half of it would be a total trash heap, a sloppy couch and more beer cans than you can imagine, and half would be the quintessence of economy and grace – a stand for his sword and maybe a picture on a table. Wolverine is essentially at war with himself. There’s a part of him that wants to be this pure, pristine man of honour and there’s a part of him that wants to say, ‘F*** this’ and hit the bars. He hasn’t found a way to reconcile those two things.”
After weeks of bad press following an unanticipated work print leak and rampant speculation that the film was likely to be D.O.A., both financially and creatively, the best thing one can say about “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” is that it wasn’t as awful as expected. But positivity hits a brick wall after that concession.
In a genre that only seems to spark when filmmakers come at the material from a place of passion, Gavin Hood’s prequel to Fox’s “X-Men” franchise comes across like an anonymous, factory-assembled piece of corporate product with no personality and no thematic virtue.
What it lacks in quality it doesn’t exactly make up for in spectacle, and while it is more centered on character than story, it nevertheless skims the surface where that is concerned. A film that might have had something for everyone nearly offers nothing for no one.
Hugh Jackman dons the too-tight jeans and adamantium talons for the fourth time in nine years as James Logan, a hyper-healing mutant with a shady (and lengthy) past. Screenwriters David Benioff and Skip Woods borrow and manipulate Marvel’s “Origin” mini-series at will, especially in the early portions of the film, to give a vague point of entry that neither gives the audience a nuanced portrait of the character nor Jackman the proper material in which to invest himself.
America liked it and they put a ring on it.
Beyonce’s new thriller “Obsessed” topped the domestic box office this weekend with $28.5 million, adding another impressive performance to the budding actress’s career. Impressive box office performance that is.
Whether or not Beyonce truly and gracefully inhabits the character of a woman forced to kick ass when some other crazy bitch starts stalking her man, I can’t be certain. This should easily make $70 million+ from a $20 million budget so all involved have just gotten a nice bonus.
Despite gunning for the same target audience, Universal’s “Fighting” also performed admirably and earned $11.4 million for third place. You can’t accuse them of not being straight to the point and enough males or teens must have thought that a movie called “Fighting” had to be bad ass and worth their $10. Channing Tatum’s career lives to fight another day.
Actual star power enters the fray at number four with “The Soloist.” Joe Wright’s once-Oscar hopeful earned $9.7 million, which is okay but not enough to justify moving out of the 2008 season. Even though audience reaction is bound to be positive, I just don’t see the legs being great here and a sub-$30 million finish won’t have anybody remembering these folks when ballots are due next year.
I’d love to see some great, hi-res photography from backstage at last night’s Oscar ceremony. But somehow, this terrible quality AP photo is the best we can do:
