The Hitlist Movies Blog

Summit Releases New Images from 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1'

The film is still about vampires and werewolves

By Kate Erbland Aug 18, 2011 1:11PM

In advance of the next entry into their wildly popular "Twilight Saga" franchise, Summit Entertainment has just sent over a batch of new images from the upcoming film, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1." These new photos place a heavy emphasis on the long-desired honeymoon for Edward and Bella, so expect Twilight fans everywhere to swoon over seeing the happy couple swimming, playing chess, and going a bit too fast in a speedboat.

But there are also a few images that hint at the drama to come - a worried Bella clutching her tummy is a nod to the unexpected consequences of Bella and Edward's honeymoon in paradise. If you're not aware of what happens in the book the film is based on, you're like wholly unprepared for the massive battles that are waged, both on a very personal level for the star-crossed lovers and on a worldwide scale for vampires and werewolves everywhere.

Summit has also crafted a new official synopsis for the film: "In 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1,' Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson), plus those they love, must deal with the chain of consequences brought on by a marriage, honeymoon, and the tumultuous birth of a child… which brings an unforeseen and shocking development for Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner). With more of the romance, passion, intrigue and action that made 'Twilight,' 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon' and 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse' worldwide blockbusters, 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1,' based on Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling book series, begins the conclusion of the tale of vampire love, boundless friendship, acceptance, and finding your true self."

The films are based on the worldwide best-selling series from author Stephenie Meyer. The last two films in the franchise are directed by Bill Condon, with a script by Melissa Rosenberg (who has been all of the "Twilight" film adaptations).

"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1" will open on November 18. Check out the other new images after the break.

But is this a sequel or a prequel? A reboot or a remake? What?

By Kate Erbland Aug 18, 2011 11:26AM

We’ve known since March that Warner Bros.’ financing and production company Alcon Entertainment was working on securing a rights package (one that included rights specifically for prequels and sequels, not remakes) for Ridley Scott’s iconic sci-fi thriller “Blade Runner,” but news has been quiet since then. Not so today. Deadline reports that the film’s original director, Ridley Scott, is set to direct and produce a new “Blade Runner” film that “advances [the] seminal and groundbreaking science fiction film.”

The exclusive news doesn’t come with many details – it’s unknown if this next film will be a sequel or a prequel, whether any of the original cast will be involved, and how much it will reach back to the film’s source material, Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Considering that the first film was only very loosely based on that work, it’s safe to say that we probably won’t get too much more Dick in this new film. The only thing we do know is that it will not be a remake, at least as far as Alcon’s rights package guarantees that.

The original “Blade Runner” was released by Warner Bros. in 1982, and the Harrison Ford-starring film was adapted by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction). It also routinely tops "best of" lists and was, in 2007, "was named the 2nd most visually influential film of all time by the Visual Effects Society." As Deadline notes, the film was not a blockbuster at the time of its release, but it has clearly gained a huge amount of respect in the intervening thirty years.

Film is already Woody Allen's highest grossing U.S. hit

By Kate Erbland Aug 18, 2011 10:56AM

If you somehow missed Woody Allen's spring gem, "Midnight in Paris," Sony Pictures Classics is giving you a second chance. SPC will re-expand the film to an upwards of 600 additional theaters, giving the surprise hit show times at over 1,000 theaters. The Hollywood Reporter reports that the expansion will kick in to gear next Friday, August 26. This will serve as the film's second wide release, pushing it back into the realm of its previous largest release (1,038 theaters). The film has been in release since May 20, but it's kept up steady business, currently ranking as Box Office Mojo's sixteenth best weekend theater average moneymaker.

The film has made nearly $50 million at the American box office, giving auteur Allen his biggest U.S. take in his long and varied career. With the expanded release, SPC will also amp up marketing, pushing out a new TV campaign that asks audiences who previously saw and loved the film to "take a friend to Paris." New marketing and an expanded showing schedule hint at SPC's plans for angling the film as an Oscar contender, a not wholly crazy idea for the project.

The film stars Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Michael Sheen, Adrien Brody, Marion Cotillard, Kathy Bates, and Tom Hiddleston in an utterly delightful and unexpectedly charming tale. Wilson is the standard Allen surrogate, a writer whose ultimate dreams of living out a happy (but penniless) existence in Paris are at odds with the ambitions of his fiancee (McAdams). The two take a trip to the City of Lights, and Wilson discovers that his literary and artistic heroes (even the dead ones) just may support his dreams. If you have not yet seen the film and don't know what direction Wilson's character's wonderings and wanderings take him, don't spoil the film for yourself, check it out. It's one of summer's true crowd-pleasers.

Nicolas Cage Ups the Crazy in 'Trespass' Trailer

Reunites with '8MM' director Joel Schumacher

By Corwin Neuse Aug 18, 2011 10:40AM

So a rich guy's mansion is broken into and his family held hostage by a vicious gang of young hoodlums. They threaten his wife and daughter with grievous bodily harm unless he gives in to their demands for money/jewels/whatever's in that giant wall safe in the living room. Twists, double crosses, sexual intrigue, and a man fighting desperately for his family ensue. Sound familiar?

No, it's not "Firewall" with Harrison Ford, or even "Hostage" with Bruce Willis. It's "Trespass," the new film by gleeful schlockmeister Joel Schumacher, starring Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman and blah blah blah, you get the point.

The film looks about as good as Nicolas Cage's fat, tired old man makeup. (At least, we hope that's makeup.) Which is to say, terrible, but potentially hilarious, and, at the very least, entertaining. (Which may be all Schumacher is aiming for. In which case, bravo to him.) Does Cage think he can win an Oscar nomination by making himself ugly, a la Charlize Theron in "Monster," or Kidman in "The Hours?" Or himself in "Adaptation?"

Still, it's nice to see Cage and Kidman back in some sweat-drenched genre fare. Have you seen "Dead Calm?" Directed by Phillip Noyce ("Salt"), "Dead Calm" stars Kidman and Sam Neill as a struggling married couple trapped on a boat with a murderous, loopy Billy Zane. Awesome.

Check out the official "Trespass" trailer (via Yahoo! Movies) after the break.

Okay, not really. Susan and Robert Downey Jr. will produce.

By Corwin Neuse Aug 18, 2011 9:58AM

In 1996, Hunter Scott was merely your average 11-year old boy searching for a topic for a national History Day competition. Naturally—and like most 11-year old boys—instead of going to the library or otherwise actually doing research, Hunter sat at home watching "Jaws" on television. And then he got to the scene where Robert Shaw, playing Quint, the irascible shark-hunter, terrifies Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider's characters by regaling them with a harrowing tale of surviving a week-long shark attack after the sinking of his boat, the USS Indianapolis, during World War II.

Unlike most other 11-year old boys, Scott did not immediately pee in his pants and then refuse to go to the bathroom for three weeks because "there are sharks in the toilet water." Instead, he saw the scene as inspiration, and set about learning all he could about the ship, its sinking, and the fate of its surviving crew. The end result of which was not only a very good national History Day project, but a successful campaign—that eventually involved Hunter testifying before Congress—to exonerate the ship's disgraced and courtmartialed Captain, Charles McVay. Does that sound like a good story to you?

And she's blue, da-ba-dee, da-ba-di

By William Goss Aug 18, 2011 8:53AM

In 2002, Screen Gems successfully unleashed their first "Resident Evil" film, starring Milla Jovovich and directed by her husband, Paul W.S. Anderson. In 2003, Kate Beckinsale and Len Wiseman followed suit with "Underworld," which similarly spawned its own franchise. Jovovich stuck with her series while Beckinsale bailed on the third film of hers, a prequel that swapped out Rhona Mitra as the leading lady to slightly softer box-office grosses.

Now, whether for love or money, Beckinsale has returned to the franchise in "Underworld: Awakening," which is of course produced by Wiseman and of course in 3-D. (Aren't these movies too dimly lit to begin with?) If the new trailer is to be believed, gone is the original's Romeo-and-Juliet by way of vampires-and-werewolves storyline, with generic revenge and rivalry front and center. As The Playlist notes, the series remains as steadfastly blue as ever in the hands of directors Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein, while Beckinsale still has her pout down pat.

I'm not sure that I'd call any of the "Underworld" films to date outright awful (maybe 2006's "Evolution"), but they've already grown mighty interchangeable. If this is what's going to hold us over in the girls-with-guns department until the next interchangeable "Resident Evil" outing, then so be it.

Daniel Radcliffe Haunts 'The Woman In Black' Trailer

Mutton chops! Stubble! ... and other things to keep you up at night

By Corwin Neuse Aug 18, 2011 8:33AM

Just moments after releasing its first images online, CBS Films has debuted the full trailer for Daniel Radcliffe's upcoming "The Woman In Black."

A quick recap, for those of you who don't have time or just want to continue staring in rapt amazement at the above picture: looking surprisingly stylish in an impeccable suit replete with snazzy vest, an all-grown-up Radcliffe arrives by horse and carriage (this is a period piece, natch) at an isolated village somewhere in the bleak British countryside. While a decrepit music box plinks out a disturbing tune, some creepy children recite a vaguely sinister rhyme about a spectral "woman in black" who visits all those who dare live nearby. Radcliffe bravely soldiers on, and investigates a spooky mansion inhabited by the titular ghost. Several smoldering looks, a lot of suspense, and at least one sufficiently shocking jump-scare follow.

Check out the trailer after the break.

I always suspected as much

By William Goss Aug 18, 2011 12:50AM

In 2003, two Canadian teens murdered their alcoholic mother -- making it look like an unfortunate drowning in a bathtub fueled by pills and drink -- and weren't caught for nearly a year. Reporter Bob Mitchell published a book on the case in 2008, "The Class Project: How To Kill a Mother: The True Story of Canada’s Infamous Bathtub Girls," which screenwriters Fabrizio Filippo and Adam Till have since adapted for a feature film.

Now, according to Movieline, Abigail Breslin has signed on to play one of the two sisters in director Stan Brooks' film, "The Class Project." It would be a marked change of pace for the young actress, but if she can merit an Oscar nod for "Little Miss Sunshine," imagine what she might pull off her. (To play devil's advocate, the material does sound ripe for a TV movie above all else.)

The question is, who will be cast opposite Breslin before production starts later this month? Dakota Fanning? Elle Fanning? Spencer Breslin in a wig? Which young star do you think could pull off a sad but true tale like this?