Fassbender the Ginger
Also getting some new images over Cannes are “Grace Of Monaco” and “Frank.” The former, a biopic of Grace Kelly starring Nicole Kidman, is unveiling some footage at the festival on Friday, and has a couple of new images over at The Hollywood Reporter, while the latter, a rock’n’roll comedy from “What Richard Did” writer Lenny Abrahamson, stars Michael Fassbender (under the giant papier mache head), Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Scoot McNairy, all of whom are featured in the still below, courtesy of Screen Daily
IndieWire
Coming off the heels of both an official December 27th release date and a Hollywood Reporter article suggesting it won’t be done in time for Cannes, Steve McQueen’s “Twelve Years a Slave” has been given an “R” rating by the MPAA roughly nine months in advance of its release date. Wouldn’t that mean the film is indeed ready for Cannes? Read the rest HERE
At the end of Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class we watch what looks like the birth of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Mutants. The final scene of the film sees the brilliant, evil mastermind, played by Michael Fassbender, break into a CIA holding cell along with Riptide (Álex González), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Angel (Zoe Kravitz), Azazel (Jason Flemyng), and break-out Emma Frost (January Jones). But as the Brotherhood grows in the X-Men movie universe, it appears that it’s making the previously established Hellfire Club disappear.
The Coventry Telegraph has learned from studio sources that X-Men: Days of Future Past, the upcoming Bryan Singer-directed sequel to First Class, will not feature the 1960s underground mutant club led by Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon). While the reasons for this should be pretty clear to those who saw the last movie and watched the group’s leader die after getting a coin through the head, its implications remain unknown. As of now the only confirmed cast members from First Class, good or evil, include Fassbender, Lawrence, James McAvoy and Nicholas Hoult, but what does that mean for the Hellfire members?
If the characters don’t end up returning, it won’t be a surprise to the actors involved. Last week Flemyng told the Irish Independent, “I don’t think I will be back. Initially I was gutted, but then, I remembered I had to get up at two in the morning, I had to be painted red and be slightly out of focus and posed a lot, and that was sort of it. Now I don’t have to do that.” Similarly back in January, Jones was also quoted saying that she wouldn’t likely be back and that nobody had reached out to her about the sequel. We still don’t know what’s going on with Gonzalez or Kravitz - or Caleb Landry Jones or Lucas Till for that matter - but anything could change between now and the start of production. For now, though, it seems as though only a few mutants will be coming back for part two.
This news comes right on the heels of a new casting report last week from Singer himself, who revealed that Daniel Cudmore will be back to play Colossus in X-Men: Future Past and that new additions BooBoo Stewart and Fan Bing Bing have also signed on for mystery roles. He revealed the new actors’ involvement by posting headshots of his entire cast, seemingly specifically leaving six spots blank:
If those empty spots are indeed being saved for actors who haven’t signed on yet, who would you like to see get their image up on the wall? Would you rather see a returning face, similar to Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Shawn Ashmore, Ellen Page, Halle Berry and Anna Paquin, who have all signed on for the sequel? Or would you rather see them bringing in new stars, like they have with Peter Dinklage, Omar Sy, Stewart and Bing Bing? (X)
This ensemble is getting bigger and bigger. I like these actors, but I hope Singer focuses on Magneto, James, and the original XMFC crew.
One of the most bickered about movies of last year was Ridley Scott’s “Alien” pseudo-prequel “Prometheus,” a gaudy, lumbering hulk of a movie with more moving parts than your father’s Chevy, it was a film that posed just as many questions as it answered and whose elliptical nature allured as many moviegoers as it repelled. Well, it was still something of a hit, and it appears work is moving ahead on a sequel, at least according to “Prometheus” leading lady Noomi Rapace.
Catching up the actress as she did press rounds for “Dead Man Down,” when we asked where she was in the “Prometheus 2” process, she said, “They’re working on the script. I met Ridley in London a couple of weeks ago. I would love to work with him again and I know that he would like to do another one. It’s just like we need to find the right story. I hope we will.”
We then asked about her thoughts on the reaction to the film – the endless speculation, theories, and essays that bloomed in the wake of “Prometheus.” She began by describing her experience on the first film. “I love working with Ridley. It was pure joy,” she said. “It was really hard work sometimes. My body was a complete mess – I had bruises and cuts and emotionally I was a bit slammed. But being in his world and his universe was such an amazing experience.”
She then implied that the speculative angles are things she would like to see influence the sequel. “And it’s interesting because people, most people I’ve talked to who see the movie, see things that are quite different. Some people who see the movie many times and discover new things. There are all these religious aspects and there are very interesting conversations,” Rapace explained. “And for me, if we do a second one, there are a lot of things to explore in there and to continue.” She added: ” I would love to do it.”
But, we had to ask, since original screenwriter Damon Lindelof (who took the original script, a more straightforward prequel, into all those loopy directions) isn’t coming back (he’s got an HBO series in the works and that super-mysterious Disney thing “Tomorrowland”), have they hired a writer? “You would have to ask someone at the studio about who the writer is.” We prodded — was she sure she can’t squeal? “No!” she chirped back.
THIS.
