Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email WhatsApp1. Nominations announced for BAFTA Rising Star Award We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: democracy simply doesn’t work. That said, the “as voted for by you” BAFTA Rising Star Award has a pretty decent track record. For example, James McAvoy was the inaugural winner in 2006, besting some veritable “where are they now?” failures like Rachel McAdams, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Michelle Williams, while winners in recent years have included John Boyega, Jack O’Connell and Juno Temple. Voters this year get to choose from a slightly more obscure crop than usual—especially when you consider that 2012 saw Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Chris O’Dowd and Eddie Redmayne all fail to win. The favourite for that ever-so-creepy BAFTA mask is your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, Tom Holland, though he faces stiff opposition from Loving’s Ruth Negga, Manchester by the Sea’s Lucas Hedges, Victoria’s Laia Costa and The Witch’s Anya Taylor-Joy. As always, voting is open to the great unwashed here and the winner will be announced February 12. 2. Woody be interested in Han Solo’s mentor? Fabled movie mentor man Woody Harrelson has already inspired his charges in Kingpin and The Hunger Games, but now it looks like he’s going to have a substantially more difficult student on his hands: Han Solo. According to Variety, the good ol’ Texan boy is in talks to play Solo’s mentor in the upcoming spinoff that is all set to star Alden Ehrenreich as everyone’s favourite scruffy-looking Nerfherder. If Harrelson does join the project, he’ll soon find himself alongside Donald Glover, Emilia Clarke and directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller when production begins this month. While nothing has been confirmed, it does sound like Harrelson is Disney’s number one pick, with the studio apparently keen for a big name according to The Hollywood Reporter’s Borys Kit. True that Disney & Lucasfilm wanted someone big for HAN SOLO…before Woody Harrelson, CHRISTIAN BALE was the other big name in the mix. — Borys Kit (@Borys_Kit) January 3, 2017 3. Fifty Shades Darker looks… Well, it looks pretty much exactly like how you think it’d look, except that now the violence is emotional. Still, the new trailer does feature some gunplay and a helicopter crash so it’s a fair bet that some actual violence is included too. Starring Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan and Kim Basinger, the sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey is out in UK cinemas on February 10, just in time to ensure a pleasantly awkward Valentine’s date. 4. Noted fans of dick jokes, the WGA, nominate Deadpool We’re not not in Awards Season anymore, Toto; this week the Writers Guild Awards released their shortlist ahead of the February 19 ceremony, hosted by Patton Oswalt. The biggest eyebrow-raiser is probably Deadpool, which can now ironically file its nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay alongside the couple it got from the Golden Globes. Also up for the Best Adapted gong: Arrival, Fences, Hidden Figures and Nocturnal Animals. Meanwhile, in the Best Original Screenplay category, Hell or High Water, La La Land, Loving, Manchester by the Sea and Moonlight make up a slightly more predictable quintet. Oddly though, Moonlight and Loving will both be fighting for Oscar nominations in the Best Adapted category rather than Original. The Academy Awards ruled differently on their eligibility back in December as Moonlight originated as an unproduced stageplay while Loving was originally developed as an HBO documentary. 5. Could Logan win an Oscar? Yes, says a close, personal friend of One Room With A View. Ryan Reynolds admitted this week to Variety that he thinks Logan could be the first live-action comic book movie to nab a Best Picture nomination. According to Reynolds, the James Mangold-helmed flick “might break that glass ceiling… it’s amazing.” Yes, apparently Hugh Jackman’s swansong to Wolverine is more of a character piece than its contemporaries, and the picture stands an outside chance when you consider that there are up to 10 slots to fill for the category. Saying that, it could even be that Reynolds’ Deadpool finds itself in with a shout—we’ll have to wait until January 24 to find out. 6. We found a new trailer for The Founder By and large it’s been a pretty slow week for trailers, likely down to the big studios’ video minions still waddling about full of last year’s meats and carbs. Fittingly then, here’s the newest trailer for The Founder, telling the story of how the ubiquitous McDonald’s restaurant chain started small and got not-small thanks to one slightly crazed man. Michael Keaton, seemingly cast so to-type as to render scripting pointless, is that slightly crazed man: travelling salesman Ray Kroc. Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch are the less-crazed men who started the whole golden arched shebang and rapidly find themselves losing control of their creation. The Founder hits UK cinemas on February 17. 7. Sly Stallone recruited to direct and star in Marine drama A few weeks after turning down a job in the Trump administration so as to focus on drawing attention to the country’s returning military personnel, Sylvester Stallone has signed on to direct and star in Tough As They Come, an adaptation of US Army Staff Sgt. Travis Mills’ memoir about his experiences receiving and recovering from a combat-prompted quadruple amputation. Former marine and current all-round superstar Adam Driver is currently attached for the role of Mills while Stallone is set to play Mills’ father-in-law, Craig Buck—a character of huge significance in the book and, well, Mills’ life. According to Deadline, Fox is the frontrunner to buy the film, memoir and the life rights of Mills and Buck, and an announcement is expected shortly. 8. 2016’s most unwanted award has a winner As is tradition, Torrent Freak has released its annual list of the most torrented movies of last year, with a relatively unsurprising victor: Deadpool. According to estimates based on download statistics on BitTorrent trackers (no wait, this gets interesting any second), Deadpool managed to fend off competition from Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Captain America: Civil War, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and several other films with an active colon. Most obviously, there’s a whole lot of sci-fi and comic stuff. The Merc With A Mouth’s success is probably due in part to its 15 rating (R in the US), as there’s only so many times that 16 year-olds in the US could buy tickets to Gods of Egypt and sneak into a Deadpool screening; either way, the torrent action doesn’t seem to have done too much harm to the films in the top ten – only Independence Day: Resurgence and Warcraft managed less than $500million worldwide. Your Week In Film: Rising Stars, Deadpool, Han Solo and more! was last modified: January 6th, 2017 by Stephen O'Nion Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email WhatsApp