In Contention

Tag: Simon Beaufoy

  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

    This year’s race for Best Adapted Screenplay has seemingly been the most predictable of the year. One script has dominated the precursor circuit and the name behind that script is as worthy as ever given his contributions to the medium over the years.

    I’m not particularly a fan of this slate. One script is an interesting experiment that doesn’t fully land as a piece of screenwriting, another is a near word-for-word adaptation of a novel (which is fine, but credit where it’s due) and another, frankly, made for the most overrated film of the year. But the two that seem to be duking it out for the win are worthy and deserve to be here, in my opinion, so I have little room to complain.

    The nominees are:

    “127 Hours” (Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy)
    “The Social Network” (Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin)
    “Toy Story 3” (Screenplay by Michael Arndt; Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich)
    “True Grit” (Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen)
    “Winter’s Bone” (Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini)

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  • Boyle and Beaufoy and werewolves, oh my

    The best part of this evening for me wasn’t Aaron Sorkin and Ben Mezrich winning an award for “the best adaptation of the printed word into film” (for a work that is debatable as an adaptation in the first place).  It was probably talking with finalist Simon Beaufoy about his latest script.

    Some of this has made the rounds in the UK, but apparently it’s a werewolves-in-gangland-LA script adapted from an epic poem, “Sharp Teeth,” about same from Toby Barlow.  Seriously.  Picture “Boyz N the Hood” where Doughboy and his crew turn into savage dogs at night.  And it’s a potential project for Danny Boyle to direct.

    Beaufoy told me about ride-alongs he has taken with LAPD officers in Compton and Watts in the way of preparation.  As a screenwriter, he says he prefers to observe quietly, but the cops he was riding with would insist, quite comically (as he describes it), on perpetrators spending a couple of minutes chatting with him at every bust.

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  • Annual Fox holiday bash draws filmmakers and talent

    20th Century Fox held its annual holiday party on the roof of the Thompson Hotel in Beverly Hills last night. It afforded a good opportunity to corral press members into a tight space with talent from the studio’s five awards season contenders.

    Newly tapped Oscar host Anne Hathaway was on hand (with “Love & Other Drugs” co-star Jake Gyllenhaal), but her co-host James Franco couldn’t make it.  I chatted briefly with “127 Hours” director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, as well as “Never Let Me Go” composer Rachel Portman (who seemed quite prim and shy).  I know “Conviction” screenwriter Pamela Gray was making the rounds but I never got a chance to say hi.

    I did, however, finally meet one of the cinematographers from “127 Hours,” Enrique Chediak.  And as we were talking, a publicist tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “Would you like to talk to Anthony Dod Mantle?”  Of course I would, so I turned and staring back at me was Mantle live via Skype from Cape Town, South Africa, where he’s currently filming Pete Travis’s “Judge Dredd” reboot with Karl Urban.

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  • 11/11 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: R.I.P. Dino, screenwriters round table, Gonzalez Inarritu makes the press rounds

    • Legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis dies at 91. [Reuters]

    • Screenwriters round table with Aaron Sorkin, Simon Beaufoy, Michael Arndt, John Wells, Todd Phillips and David Lindsay-Abaire. [Hollywood Reporter]

    • Todd Gilchrist talks to “Conviction” director Tony Goldwyn about capturing reality and avoiding the “Oscar Bait” curse. [Speakeasy]

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘127 Hours’ dissent, BIFA nods, interviews

    • Guy didn’t much care for “127 Hours.” That got you talking.

    • Happily, Kris did, and got talking to director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy.

    • The British Independent Film Award nominations threw some surprises into the mix, handing scads of noms to “The King’s Speech”… and “Kick-Ass.”

    • Chad’s Life Without Oscar column eased into the late 1980s, showcasing one films on either side of the Hollywood border.

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  • INTERVIEW: ‘127 Hours’ director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy

    Danny Boyle has been wanting to tell the story of Aron Ralston on celluloid for four years now. He met with the mountain climber in 2006 seeking permission, but at the time, Ralston was looking to convey the story in documentary form.

    “He didn’t want to make it as a feature with a major actor,” Boyle says, sitting with screenwriter Simon Beaufoy discussing their latest collaboration. “He wanted to narrate it a la ‘Touching the Void.’ Any climber is very much conscious of Joe Simpson and that kind of world. And also he’s not from our world in the media. He and his peer group particularly think Hollywood is bullshit, and you can imagine what they think Hollywood might do to a true story like this.”

    Flash forward a few years and Boyle is coming off a high after his film, “Slumdog Millionaire,” swept the Oscars and provided plenty of cachet (and confidence) for him to tackle anything he wanted. But this story of a 27-year-old undergoing physical trauma and mental enlightenment in a tiny Utah canyon was still sticking with him.

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  • On ‘127 Hours,’ and a messy little thing called opinion

    It all started, as so many conflicts do these days, with a tweet. After spending a morning and afternoon musing on “127 Hours,” following a breakfast-time screening on the last day of the London Film Festival, I accepted the hard fact that I simply didn’t like it very much.

    I wanted to feel differently. Danny Boyle, in addition to being one of my favorite ever interviewees, is a vital filmmaker whose previous misses I’ve even found more stimulating than most directors’ hits. James Franco is shaping up to be among the most pleasingly off-kilter leading men of his generation. The tech geek in me was excited to see the long-underused Enrique Chediak working on a large canvas, alongside the justly rated Anthony Dod Mantle.

    I had, I admit, harbored doubts about how Team Boyle could cinematically enliven Aron Ralston’s simple-if-grisly survival tale, one that could promise no surprises after ample media coverage as recently as 2003. Some blinder of a structural or technical choice, I assumed, was being hidden up someone’s sleeve — and when I saw only a familiar collection of hopped-up editing tricks and multimedia interpolations that designerised the protagonist’s plight without deepening it, I wasn’t afraid to say I felt a little crushed.

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  • Boyle, Beaufoy on pushing the boundaries of cinema

    I sat down earlier this afternoon with “127 Hours” star James Franco, director Danny Boyle and writer Simon Beaufoy.  I’ll have proper written pieces up surrounding each in the coming days but there was something I wanted to share now.

    Firstly, it’s always a joy to talk cinema with Boyle.  He’s a truly excitable character who projects a brand of passion impossible to counterfeit and is just a good guy on top of it.  (Check out my interview with the director from the 2008-2010 season — “8 things I’ve learned from my career in features” — here.)

    Anyway, he got fired up when we began discussing the hallucination sequences of the film, how to convey something that’s intrinsically so personal in a creative but organic way.  Off he went on a tangent, soon joined by Beaufoy, that I found inspiring as a fan and as a writer.  Maybe you will, too.  Have a listen after the jump.

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  • Oscar winner Simon Beaufoy to write ‘Wolverine 2?’

    Simon Beaufoy at the 81st annual Academy AwardsUPDATE (3/27): I figured I’d include the latest here, so this entry is up to date.  /Film has the following today:

    Earlier this week we reported that Slumdog Millionaire screenwriter Simon Beaufoy had mentioned during an appearance at the Bradford International Film Festival that he had been offered and accepted an offer to write a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Hours later our friends at FirstShowing heard back from 20th Century Fox who claimed that “the executives haven’t talked with any writers” for the project. Now Entertainment Weekly confirms that “Beaufoy was approached by Wolverine producer Lauren Shuler Donner to gauge the writer’s interest in W2, but no formal offer was made.” So that’s the final word on the story — there was some truth to the story after all.

    EARLIER: Peter Sciretta at /Film landed a pretty interesting scoop this afternoon.  It seems Simon Beaufoy, the Oscar winning screenwriter of “Slumdog Millionaire” and “The Full Monty” has been tapped to pen the sequel to May’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.”  Can anyone say paycheck?

    Honestly, I don’t see how this fits but I’ll give Beaufoy the benefit of the doubt.  I’m still heavily anticpating Gavin Hood’s film, though I’ve heard terrible things ever since negative word-of-mouth on David Benioff’s script was making the rounds a few years back.  And let’s face it.  Benioff hasn’t offered a suitable script since his debut, “25th Hour,” seven years ago.  Troubled production, late re-shoots and a general cloud of doubt around the Wolverine film haven’t broken my spirit…yet.  But if there’s a new project in the pipeline, maybe there’s hope.  Maybe.

    Here’s what Sciretta’s tipster had to say:

    alright guys, im currently working at the bradford international film festival in the UK, and tonight we had simon beaufoy, screenwriter of slumdog millionaire doing a screentalk. anyway he dropped a bit of a scoop, hes been employed to write the script for “wolverine 2″ a film i didnt actually realise was even in the pipeline. he commented that while he was apprehensive about the project (claiming to not even know what a wolverine was!) his agent pursuaded him to take it on.

    The bold is mine. Like I said, paycheck. Agents make bank in this town when their clients do, after all.  And kudos to Peter for at least trying to double source the story before just posting it up, since he’s been hanging onto the scoop for a day now.  AICN has different standards, which forced his hand, but there we are.

    Here’s the latest trailer for “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”:

  • ‘Slumdog’ wins WGA’s adapted screenplay award…

    Anyone surprised?  David Carr reports:

    After listing the nominees – Eric Roth for “Button,” Christopher Nolan for “Dark Knight”, John Patrick Shanley for “Doubt,” Peter Morgan for “Frost/Nixon” and Simon Beaufoy for “Slumdog”, [presenter Terry George] made the unsurprising announcement that “Slumdog” had won.

    Mr. Beaufoy examined the winged sculpture thingie that the WGA gives out and pronounced it “beautiful., and there are many awards out there that are not genuinely beautiful.”

  • Predicting BAFTA, part two — main categories

    Continuing yesterday’s not-so-educated guesses at tomorrow’s BAFTA Awards, we move on the main categories. In many ways, they’re easier to predict than the frequently confounding technical categories, but that’s no reason to get complacent – as we saw last year with then-unexpected wins for Tilda Swinton and Marion Cotillard, BAFTA is more than capable of throwing a significant spanner in the works in the top races.

    By the way, be sure to tune in tomorrow, when I’ll be liveblogging the ceremony, beginning with the red carpet coverage at 11 a.m. PST (that’s 7 p.m. London time).

    BAFTA bizarrely issues a press release revealing the winners before the ceremony begins. (I told you they haven’t a clue how to organise the event.) I’ll be ignoring that, for my part – the ceremony can be dull enough without having every last drop of suspense extricated from the proceedings. But the info will be available. I leave the choice up to you.

    Moving on to the predictions…

    Best Film
    “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    “Frost/Nixon”
    “Milk”
    “The Reader”
    “Slumdog Millionaire”

    There really is terribly little to discuss here. The truth is that “Slumdog” would likely be a BAFTA favourite even if it weren’t primed for Oscar glory – a true British success story, from a popular but largely unsung hometown filmmaker, featuring a British lead actor from a high-profile Channel 4 TV drama, it’s been a massive local box-office success, and has enjoyed nearly the same level of critical adulation here as in the States. BAFTA has celebrated homegrown product in this category for the last two years, and will do so for a third time running. If anything were to derail the Mumbai express, it would be the very British-flavoured “The Reader” … but it won’t.

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  • Thank you

    Since I was talking about original screenplays earlier today, I was interested to see that Jeff Wells is also on the topic. He offers a brief rundown of the nominees for Saturday’s WGA Awards, and offers this theory on why Jenny Lumet missed out on both Guild and Oscar nods for “Rachel Getting Married”:

    Lumet’s screenplay didn’t render enough bombast and sword thrusts in the big-money confrontation scene between Anne Hathaway and Debra Winger. They start to get into the “why did you leave me with him?” issue, Winger freaks and slaps and then Hathaway runs out — not satisfying!

    I’m not sure ‘bombast’ is the word I’d use (I rather think more subtlety was called for), but I’m glad to see that scene singled out — for me, it was a lazy, artificial bit of dramatic shortcutting that caused the film’s whole emotional construction to fall apart somewhat. Anyway, old news and apropos of nothing really, but I’m glad someone else said it.

    As for the WGA, we all know Simon Beaufoy is taking the adapted category. Does Dustin Lance Black win original by default, since he’s the only Oscar nominee of the bunch? I guess so — barring a surge of peer affection for four-time winner Woody Allen. But if Black does lose — not likely, of course — I wouldn’t fancy his Oscar chances much. Just an idle thought.

  • ‘Wrestler’ rules London crix awards

    The London Film Critics’ Circle have just announced their winners, and I have to say they’ve done a pretty terrific job. (I discussed the nominations here.) The really heartening news is that “The Wrestler” finally has another Best Picture award to its credit, five months after taking the Golden Lion at Venice — who would have thought that it’d be left to the Europeans to give this quintessential piece of Americana its due?

    Naturally, Mickey Rourke took the Best Actor award too, while Kate Winslet added yet another trophy (awarded jointly for both her 2008 films) to her crowded mantlepiece. David Fincher was a somewhat surprising winner of the Best Director award, and “Waltz With Bashir” took yet another foreign-language gong.

    If you’re wondering where “Slumdog Millionaire” features in all of this, it ruled the roost in the British Film categories, taking Best British Film and Director, and also landing Screenwriter of the Year for Simon Beaufoy. In the British races, the Londoners like to have their cake and eat it — for example, Kristin Scott Thomas took a richly deserved award for Best British Actress, but beat Best Actress winner Winslet in the process.

    Meanwhile, I’m thrilled to see Michael Fassbender getting some hardware for his staggering work in “Hunger” (which also took the Breakthrough Filmmaker prize), while in the supporting race, Eddie Marsan is another thoroughly deserving victor. Good work all round, London critics.

    Full list of winners below the cut.

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  • A night at the Scripter Awards

    Cover of Q&A by Vikas SwarupUSC’s Scripter Awards ceremony is moving on up.  It’s evolved form an intimate gathering to a full spread awards dinner over the years, and last night’s festivities marked the first time the Scripter winner was unveiled at the show rather than beforehand.

    It gave the atmosphere a tinge of anticipation.  Even with the “Slumdog” writing on the wall, the Scripter is a place where the adapted screenplay race can at least find some variety.  Or at least it used to be.  Like any precursor as of late, it seems the Scripter might be bent on predicting Oscar.  So of course, Simon Beaufoy’s name was called (along with “Q&A” author Vikas Swarup) for “Slumdog Millionaire,” and the steamroller keeps moving.

    Jamie Lee Curtis was a nice enough emcee, bringing her signature brand of dry, slightly crazy humor to the table (a slight shift from Jason Alexander last year).  Earlier in the evening, Michael Chabon accepted the Literary Achivement Award (not a Lifetime Achievement Award, as last year’s introductory recipient Steven Zaillian made loudly clear).  Zaillian was on hand to present the honor and Chabon’s speech was touching, funny and certainly humble.  The best line: “I think it was Vladimir Nabokov who said, “Keep giving me prizes.  Prizes are awesome. (Laughter spreads throughout the room.)  He had the Russian accent, so…”

    Chabon was also quite self-deprecating, noting that he had no creative input into the screenplays adapted from his work that seem to be met with success or at the very least production (2000’s “Wonder Boys” and the upcoming “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh”).  But five years of his toiling away at an adaptation of his own “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” has not even yielded a green light, he said.  “I was lucky enough to work on the second ‘Spider-Man’ film,” he said.  “You know the part where Spider-Man is holding up that big wall at the end and he says, ‘Hi,’ and Mary Jane says, ‘Hi,’ and Peter says, ‘This is really heavy’?  That was me.”

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  • 1/26 Oscarweb Round-up

    Jim Carrey in I Love You Philip Morris• Mark Magnier quotes a few Indians and feels it okay to say a nation disapproves of “Slumdog Millionaire.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • Jeffrey Wells wonders if category confusion could keep Kate Winslet form a lead actress win, especially in the wake of Meryl Streep’s victory last night. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Tom O’Neil gives poor Anil Kapoor shit for forgetting Simon Beaufoy’s name in his list of appreciations last night.  Give the guy a break, Tom O. [Gold Derby]

    • Beaufoy and Danny Boyle, meanwhile, talk about their film across the pond. [The Times]

    • It looks like there’s just one contender worth banking on. [USA Today]

    • Brad Brevet finally catches up with the Academy’s preferential balloting system.  Knowledge is power, Brad. [Rope of Silicon]

    • Peter Bart writes up Jim Carrey’s recent string of press for risk-taking role choices.  Finally the pendulum is swinging back, ever so slowly. [Peter Bart]

    • Anne Thompson talks this weekend’s screenwriter’s panel from Santa Barbara. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Tiffany Hsu on the box office boost for this year’s Oscar contenders still in the marketplace. [Los Angeles Times]

  • Suspicion of optimism

    As you know, one of the many things that aggravated me about this year’s BAFTA nominations was the pointed shut-out of Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky.” The snub extended to lead actress Sally Hawkins, who has torn through the critics’ awards on the other side of the Atlantic and stands a sizeable chance of landing an Oscar nod on Monday morning — as does Leigh himself, for that matter.

    The Independent recently did some digging into the snub, and has found that a number of Leigh’s peers and contemporaries are similarly shocked by the omission. Venerable critic Barry Norman (something of a British institution) is particularly outraged, hailing “Happy-Go-Lucky” as the equal of BAFTA-garlanded “Slumdog Millionaire,” and going so far to label Leigh “a prophet without honour,” less appreciated in his homeland than he is elsewhere.

    Of course, Leigh has won three BAFTAs in his career, so perhaps that’s getting a little dramatic. Nonetheless, the article wonders whether this year’s snub could be put down to a BAFTA grudge against the famously candid filmmaker, who has criticised the organisation’s voting methods in the past.

    Hmmm. Ultimately, interestingly enough, it is “Slumdog Millionaire” scribe Simon Beaufoy who might have hit the nail closest to the head when he says the film was a victim of “traditional British suspicion of optimism” — something which I think accounts for the film’s polite but less-than-ecstatic critical reception here. It’s also a precise echo of a sentiment Eddie Marsan voiced in my October interview with the actor:

    “I thought the film might go down well in America — better, even, than at home — because they’re not quite as cynical as the British. I think they’re more willing to buy into an optimistic character.”

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  • OFF THE CARPET: A season less ordinary…or is it?

    (from left) Michael Caine, Heath Ledger and Christian Bale in The Dark KnightThe critics have nearly concluded their annual kudos dish.  The first guild has spoken, giving us some sliver of insight into what Academy members might think of the 2008-2009 Oscar season.  With such a thin crop of contenders, the tome has been “broad, but shallow, playing field,” leaving the opportunity for multiple films to find their champions and even the least AMPAS-friendly of products to find room at the table.

    So as we inch toward year’s end, what have we learned?  When it comes to the usual blend, the Academy will find a way.

    A scenario has been kicking around inside my head for some time that, like one concerned reader in another post, scares me to death.  It is pretty much a done deal for “Slumdog Millionaire” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” two refreshingly different films where AMPAS tastes are concerned, but paradoxically boring with the knowledge that there is passion elsewhere, seemingly too intimidated to rear its head.

    “Frost/Nixon” and “Milk” are assured after that, it seems, two films cut from the AMPAS cloth from a director who knows that cloth well and one who only finds Academy acceptance when he goes there, respectively.  After that, “the knowledge” has become the truly exciting spark of the season: can a populist film such as “The Dark Knight” or “WALL-E” find the right base of passion to push through for a Best Picture nomination?

    I fear we may have all gotten carried away with ourselves and our love of these films, whether you fall on one side or both, because we’re ignoring AMPAS tendency at our own peril.

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  • 12/22 Oscarweb Round-up

    Marisa Tomei• The “Seven Pounds” dogpile continues. [/Film]

    • Ditto Baz Luhrmann and “Australia.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Regarding Luhrmann, Peter Bart warns the director away from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gasby.” [Peter Bart]

    • David Gritten talks to Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy about critics’ favorite “Slumdog Millionaire.” [Daily Telegraph]

    • Donna Freydkin spends some time with Marisa Tomei, makes this site’s editor insanely jealous. [USA Today]

    • Reed Tucker looks into Brad Pitt’s love affair…with David Fincher. [New York Post]

    • Mark Olsen spends some time with the Laurent Cantet regarding French Oscar entrant “The Class.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • On the “disturbing tendency” to portray Nazis in a sympathetic light on the big screen as of late. [The Times]