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Entries by Colin Boyd (1188)

The Big Picture Interview with Emma Stone

She grew up just down the road from The Big Picture here in Phoenix, and now Emma Stone has two movies in theaters this weekend, with The House Bunny and The Rocker with Rainn Wilson. She's just 19, but Stone has already carved out a little niche for herself with her new flicks and her turn last summer in Superbad. Stone recently returned home for a couple of days, where we had a chance to catch up with her and talk shop.

Is Amelia in The Rocker a lot like Emma?

No, and that's what I liked about it. She felt different than me. She's not a smiler and she looks at the dark side of things more often than the light side of things. I'm a little more silver lining in my life. That's what drew me to her, especially in a comedy, finding a character like that that is so sardonic and so completely stiff-faced, and the challenge of not smiling and not cracking jokes.

Speaking of cracking jokes, Jason Sudeikis has some of the most memorable dialogue in The Rocker. Did he just come in and improv all of that or was his character of the douchebag record executive already written? And did everybody else get to improv, too?

The majority of Jason's stuff was improv. He definitely went...the distance with his improv. There were hysterical things that were not in the movie.

But I've been lucky to have more free reign in movies, like House Bunny and Superbad. This one we knocked out pretty quick, so there were two lines I wrote in this movie, but that was the extent of my free reign.

You learned bass for the movie and you guys rehearsed as a band, right?

Yeah, we did, to get that feel. We had to have that camaraderie as a band and "get each other" enough, so for about two weeks before we started shooting, we rehearsed everyday in a big empty warehouse in Toronto.

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Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2008 at 03:31PM by Registered CommenterColin Boyd in , , | CommentsPost a Comment

'Quantum of Solace' Changes Release Date to November 14th

Ugh. Enough already.

With Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince bolting from its November 21st opening date for potentially greener pastures next summer, the entire fall landscape has been altered. First there was the very wise decision to move the young adult-friendly Twilight to Potter's old opening date - so now instead of a mid-December opening, it's on the 21st of November - and now Quantum of Solace has moved back a week, too.

Columbia and MGM announced today that the next 007 movie will open on November 14th instead of November 7th. Acknowledging that the move was made in part because of the decision by Warner Bros. to move Potter to 2009, Columbia distribution ace Jeff Blake says that moving the film gives Bond a better chance to make more money.

"We believe November 14th is a great date that allows us to play straight through Thanksgiving and right into Christmas," said Blake. The Bond films have a long history of entertaining audiences in this holiday corridor going back to Goldeneye in 1995. The studio enjoyed tremendous success opening Casino Royale in North America on November 17, 2006, and we believe this decision will give the public a wider opportunity to see the film over the holiday.”

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Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2008 at 02:46PM by Registered CommenterColin Boyd in , , , | Comments2 Comments

Favreau Confirms He's Working on 'Iron Man 2,' But Who's the Bad Guy?

The Los Angeles Times caught up with Jon Favreau recently, ostensibly to talk about his new political charge, but the subject naturally turned to Iron Man.

On the political front, the director and Arnold Schwarzenegger are spearheading a move to create tax breaks for film and TV production to keep more of that money in California. According to the article, there are 40% fewer days of production in Los Angeles since 1997, and a lot of people point to tax incentives in New Mexico, Arizona, and even New York for some of the exodus.

Regarding Iron Man, Geoff Boucher got Favreau to provide a brief update. "We're working on [Iron Man 2] now," said Favreau, "which hasn't been officially announced. It will be released in 2010."

Oh, we know when it will be released, all right. I would imagine that a lot of this work was already taken care of ahead of time. Marvel clearly had a plan for Iron Man all along, and it wasn't a one-and-done scenario. Hopefully in round two, we can explore some more of Tony Stark's dark passage into alcoholism - it's really one of the great storylines for any comic book character - which should allow for an even better performance by Robert Downey Jr.

Deciding on the villain is the major thing at this point, and you've got to think Marvel wants to use Mandarin or Crimson Dynamo, right? I think Mandarin is the most often seen villain in the comic, and about 18 months ago, there were reports that Favreau wanted to use him for the first movie.

Each villain offers a stereotypically good foundation: Mandarin is obviously Chinese, so that could be pretty wicked in a Marvel movie, and Crimson Dynamo is Russian, and movies just wouldn't be movies without the occasional Russian bad guy.

I'll make the same plea I always do for comic book movies: One villain per hero per film, please. It's much easier on everyone that way.

Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2008 at 01:19PM by Registered CommenterColin Boyd in , , , , , | Comments2 Comments

Even More Ridiculously Good Imagery from 'Australia'

It was kind of a hush-hush thing, but I was privileged to see a two-and-a-half-minute Australia featurette last night. It was kind of an alternate trailer, really, but Fox hasn't released it publicly yet. Hopefully, we'll get that for you pretty soon. I also saw close to 150 production photos for Baz Luhrmann's upcoming epic, and it just looks more and more magnificent with each new picture. Even without the proper context, the photos are staggering, colorful, and full of life. Couple their impact with the short compilation I saw, and its position as a prohibitive Oscar hopeful is pretty much secured, at least in my eyes.

There was one other fascinating nugget I learned last night: Every stitch of Australia has to earn Luhrmann's approval. That means every shot in every trailer, every publicity photo, and every poster gets his seal of approval before it's released to the public. Simply put: This movie is all about Baz Luhrmann's vision, and since he's one of the most visionary directors in the world at the moment, that's probably a good thing.

I wish I could share with you everything I saw last night, but I do have a few a trio of new pictures as well as mammoth high quality versions of the first three teaser posters (they're much better than the versions we had a few days ago).

(Download the enormo-sized version of this poster)

(Download the enormo-sized version of this poster)

(Download the enormo-sized version of this poster)

We'll definitely keep you posted on this one between now and November 14th. Until the next update, enjoy the pics.

Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2008 at 10:03AM by Registered CommenterColin Boyd in , , , | Comments5 Comments

Fearless Forecast - A 'Death Race' For the Top Spot

This is, for all practical purposes, the last summer movie weekend. I know there's Babylon A.D. and Disaster Movie on the horizon for Labor Day weekend, but this is the last weekend where any significant money will be made. And even at that, "significant" is a very relative term.

You might think that Death Race would cruise to victory this weekend, but I'm not entirely sure. Jason Statham has only had a number one movie (though never a $20 million debut) and because this isn't opening in anywhere near 3,000 theaters, it would have a lot of work to do to take the top spot. Ditto the new comedy The House Bunny.

So if it's not a new movie at number one, I guess that means Tropic Thunder will win again, right? It could, but even under optimum conditions, it wouldn't be by a huge margin. It's still the best option in theaters, with the biggest names and the most buzz. However, the movie is still not poised to be the runaway hit I thought it would be. The only thing is, I'm troubled by the drop-off from an already less-than-stellar opening weekend. If the decline is just a little more than it should be, Death Race could slip in at number one without having a huge breakout weekend.

And what about The Dark Knight? What should even more new movies do to its chances to break $500 million? Nothing, really. Because they aren't must-see summer movies, that makes the Batman sequel an even better prospect for repeat business than it might normally be. By Monday, the second-biggest movie in history will be a week away from half a billion. The interest for me is how long Warner Bros. keeps it alive. It's currently in 3,600 theaters or so, but you can expect that number to be cut dramatically very soon. I still like the $535 million we proposed a month ago, with the possibility of more if the studio boosts the film again at Halloween.

The Top Five:

1 - Death Race ($15.5 million)

2 - Tropic Thunder ($15 million)

3 - The Dark Knight ($11 million)

4 - The House Bunny ($8.5 million)

5 - The Rocker ($6.5 million)

Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2008 at 09:37AM by Registered CommenterColin Boyd in , , , , , , , | CommentsPost a Comment
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