• Michelle Kung writes up Toronto from the perspective of plays taking to the screen en masse, like Tracy Letts’s “Killer Joe”… [Speakeasy]
• …which Liddell Entertainment, by the way, picked up at the fest. [Variety]
• Sasha Stone on life after the 2011 fall festival circuit. [Awards Daily]
(UPDATED: 8/29)
Now that the Toronto and Venice line-ups have been unveiled (though we have a few more Toronto announcements to come), I figured I’d take a few stabs at sussing out the Telluride crop this year. I haven’t been a good journalist and called around or anything. Just spinning my wheels.
One studio that always has a big presence at Telluride is Sony Pictures Classics, and this year, honchos Michael Barker and Tom Bernard have a full plate once again. Of that stable, David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method” is hitting both Venice and Toronto. It’s very possible, then, that it will kick things off in the Rockies.
Roman Polanski’s “Carnage,” meanwhile, was announced as a Venice play this morning. It would be easy enough for the team to bring the film there and not worry about getting the filmmaker in town (seeing as he can’t legally step foot in the country), saving his press run for Venice. (7/28 UPDATE: The film has been set for New York fest, so it seems unlikely we’ll see it in Telluride.)
Harvey Weinstein has never been one to put much faith in the length of Academy voters’ memories, so as usual, he’s favoring a late-year release plan for his presumed awards contenders — the prospects of which I was discussing only the other day.
Thanks to Coming Soon’s Ed Douglas for pointing out the newly announced release dates for his holiday-season prestige slate. You won’t be surprised to hear that it’s November and December down the line: “My Week With Marilyn” is first to go forth on November 4, followed by “The Artist” on November 23, “Coriolanus” on December 2, “W.E.” on December 9 and “The Iron Lady” on December 16.
You can read as much or as little into this schedule as you like, though it’s worth noting that none of them are bowing as late as last year’s Weinstein Company property “Blue Valentine,” the perilously tardy post-Christmas release of which was widely blamed for a meager awards showing — with more time for glowing critical buzz to build, Ryan Gosling and writer-director Derek Cianfrance could arguably have stood a better chance of joining Michelle Williams in the nominee circle.
Having done all right with the last film to cover the romantic tribulations of King Edward VIII — it was called “The King’s Speech,” it won a few Oscars, you might have heard of it — The Weinstein Company clearly feels there’s an appetite among audiences for more on that chapter of British royal history, with Edward’s story center stage this time.
So it is that that Harvey and his minions have bought the US distribution rights to Madonna’s sophomore directing effort, “W.E.” — a decades-spanning portrait of the affair between the one-time future King of England and Wallis Simpson, the American divorcée for whom he abdicated the throne, fused with a fictional modern-day story of a young New Yorker inspired by their romance.
Starring Andrea Riseborough and James D’Arcy as the historical couple, and Abbie Cornish as the woman obsessed with their romance, it all all sounds suspiciously like “Julie & Julia” with crowns replacing the chef’s hats — which, combined with the novelty factor of the film’s celebrity writer-director, leads me to think the Weinsteins may view this more as a light commercial play rather than the hefty awards bait of their last monarchy biopic.