The Weekly Report

All news contained herein corresponds to the world of film. The Weekly Report will seek to cover general film news that has emerged over the last seven days.

• BAFTA
  • With final voting for the 2016 Academy Awards closing on Tuesday, February 23, last weekend was BAFTA’s chance to offer the final push for hearts and minds before the awards silly season ends. Sunday saw the dishing out of relatively unsurprising gongs to The Revenant, Leo, Brie and Alejandro, while Best Supporting nods were, at a glance, a little less-expected: Mark Rylance won for Bridge of Spies and Kate Winslet for Steve Jobs. Beneath the surface, however, it seems neither of those picks have had much of an effect on the Oscar race. Alicia Vikander picked up her Supporting nomination for Ex Machina rather than the Academy’s pick (The Danish Girl), while Rylance took his mask in part because Stallone’s turn in Creed didn’t even make it to BAFTA voters (and in part because he turns in a ruddy good performance). So, what does it all mean?
    Nothing. One Room With A View will be providing live coverage of the event come Sunday.

• Deadpool 
  • At the fourth time of asking, Mr Ryan Reynolds has snagged himself a bona fide superhero hit. Really, who even remembers Blade: Trinity or Green Lantern or X-Men Origins: Wolverine anymore? All that matters is that Deadpool managed a stonking $135million opening weekend, making it the biggest ever weekend for an R-rated release, a Fox offering, a directorial debut and a Reynolds opening. As a result, you can expect to see plenty more of the Merc with a Mouth; Fox already has a sequel in the works and maybe, just maybe, there’s a cameo in X-Men: Apocalypse to film. Maybe.

Courtesy of: 20th Century Fox

• Fox Searchlight
  • Claudia Lewis, Production Head at Fox Searchlight for the last ten years, has stepped down from her role at the company, bringing to an end 21 years of service for the indie distributor. Under Lewis’ tenure, Searchlight cranked out a huge amount of critical and commercial hits – with Birdman, Black Swan, 127 Hours, and The Full Monty (the company’s first Best Picture nominee) among them. Hollywood Reporter sources claim that the move could be down to cost-cutting measures imposed by parent corporation 21st Century Fox, though there are also some relative failures in the box marked “recent” including The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Far From The Madding Crowd. In any case, continuity looks the name of the game and executive VPs Matthew Greenfield and David Greenbaum will step up in the interim, presumably for the release of eagerly awaited offerings The Birth of a Nation and Ab Fab: The Movie.

– SON

What’s Hot

Dealing with those projects in production, this is where to come to find out what has been greenlit, what major casting decisions have been announced, what century we can expect Avatar 2 in, and any other related film news.

• WolveRine
  • With Deadpool’s success, a lot of thought in The Industry has turned to what can be learned from a $135million weekend. Like, say, why didn’t this Reynolds fella get a shot at a superhero earlier, or are there other bristly Commonwealth natives with a penchant for social media who could rock an R rating? According to comicbook.com, we may see an affirmative to the latter. Fox execs are considering slapping that hallowed R (likely a 15 in the UK if DP is anything to go by) onto the third instalment in the standalone Wolverine franchise. Little is known about the film’s plot, supposedly Jackman’s final outing as the hirsuterhero, but there’s a very good chance it’ll contain “strong and frequent language and/or violence, nudity for sexual purposes and/or drug abuse.” You heard it here first.

• Donnie Yen
  • Star of martial arts sensations The Ip Man and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, Donnie Yen has decided to inject some real Xcitement into his Xistence – to the Xtreme! Yes, Deadline reports that Yen has jumped, presumably from a crashing snowmobile or a skateboard with snakes for wheels, into a role in xXx: The Return of Xander Cage. Such casting news has also helped flesh out some more plot details to go with what we already know (namely that the film features the return of Vin Diesel’s Xander Cage) as Yen will be playing an “alpha-warrior” battling Cage in the race for a doomsday weapon. Yen is currently shooting Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which only features a race for the plans of a doomsday weapon.

Courtesy of: Asia Releasing

• Suburbicon
  • The Coen brothers + George Clooney can only = critical and commercial success (with regards to Hail, Caesar! – ehh, we’ll see) so it’s little surprise that Suburbicon, to be directed by Clooney from a Coen script has been snapped up for global distribution quicksharp. Due to begin shooting in October, territories as diverse as the Czech Republic, Taiwan, the Middle East and even the UK have all been sewn up well in advance, with the latter deal sealed at the Berlin Film Festival (reports Variety). Paramount Pictures will handle things stateside. Centring on the aftermath of a shocking death in 1950s Middle America, Suburbicon counts Matt Damon, Julianne Moore and Josh Brolin among its cast and “betrayal”, “adultery” and “blackmail” as some of its descriptive nouns. It’s a Coen comedy alright.

• Catherine The Great
  • Barbra Streisand, director of Yentl, The Prince of Tides and Streisand: Live in Concert, has had her next project pencilled in for a while and now (via Hollywood Reporter) she almost has her lead; Keira Knightley has apparently been in talks since last year for the role of Russia’s longest-ruling female monarch, Catherine the Great. If things work out and all goes swimmingly – its script, by Kristina Lauren Anderson, did make the 2014 Black List so signs are promising – we can write Catherine the Great! If it’s bad, we’ll probably go for Catherine the not so Great! We’re set either way.

– SON

Trailers of the Week

Want to know what you should be excited about this week? This is the place to come to check out the week’s best trailers and related items including clips, TV spots, and teasers.

This week has seen a couple of not-quite trailer trailers. There’s a tease for the new Ghostbusters trailer, and a Star Wars: Episode VIII promo to inform punter and shareholder alike that production has begun, but neither have any meat. Instead, sink your teeth into a 60-second spot for 10 Cloverfield Lane, the “blood relative” to Cloverfield that stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman. With the former seemingly imprisoned in a bunker and hidden from, well, who can say?, the publicity campaign has done a decent job of keeping things to a slow, mysterious build. It remains to be seen if the film can do the same.

For something just a little lighter but with remarkably similar subject matter (confinement, escape, potentially alien creatures) here’s the trailer for Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, the further adventures of Paul Reuben’s oddly well-preserved comedic creation. Big Holiday premieres on Netflix on March 18, but this spot does a decent job of establishing just what’s in store, namely a relatively blinding colour palette. Enjoy!

– SON

Thanks for reading. Be sure to come back next week for your weekly film news with One Room With a View.