Lucasfilm was reportedly unhappy with Collin Trevorrow's Episode 9 Screenplay

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Yesterday we reported about The Wall Street Journal's scathing report on the behind-the-scenes drama of "Solo: A Star Wars Story." I don't know how I missed this, but there's a tidbit on Collin Trevorrow and his episode 9 screenplay which was all but shunned by Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy:

 According to the outlet, Trevorrow was tapped following the success he achieved with Jurassic World and wrote a script with Jack Thorpe. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy was reportedly unhappy with the first draft, with Trevorrow also feeling frustrated with the story he turned in. The filmmaker reportedly asked for another chance at writing the script, though Kennedy didn't allow him this chance, leading to the departure.

 [Comic Book]

Wall Street Journal: Ron Howard re-shot 70% of “Solo: A Star Wars Story." Writer Lawrence Kasdan fought with Chris Miller/Phil Lord, and is to blame for their firing.

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The Wall Street Journal has some juicy tidbits in regards to the problems "Solo: A Star Wars Story" had in pre, during and post-production.

Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy is described as person that “too frequently second-guessed her own choices and hasn’t effectively resolved disagreements with directors,” which explains her problems with directors, most notably fired filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller on "Solo" and Collin Trevorrow on "Episode 9" but also kept but "technically fired" Gareth Edwards on "Rogue One."

WSJ also states that Miller and Lord most notably fought with "Star Wars" veteran writer Lawrence Kasdan over the script even before production, with Lord and Miller deciding to rewrite tons of pages from his screenplay. "Retakes and on-set improvisation are commonplace while shooting comedies. However, crew members, who have been around “Star Wars” sets previously started to become “frustrated” and “exhausted” by the directors’ shooting style." Yikes.

Kasdan even “undermined” the filmmakers and even criticized them behind their backs to the cast and crew. Despite all the brouhaha, Lord and Miller did finish the film, but were ultimately fired and replaced by Ron Howard. 

“Ron wanted to go back to the spirit of the original trilogy, while Phil and Chris were looking forward to something new, more like ‘Guardians of the Galaxy.’” The source continues saying that Howard re-shot about 70% of the movie.

On a side note, the WSJ report states that Lucasfilm did approach Rian Johnson to direct the final film in the new trilogy, but “serious discussions” were never developed. 

Is Martin Scorsese's “The Irishman" Actually A Netflix Mini-Series?

Martin Scorsese sat down for a q & a today following a Director’s Fortnight screening of his classic Mean Streets. The 75 year-old was wearing mauve socks, a nod to De Niro in "Casino?" Regardless, the most fascinating part of this rather slowly-elaborated conversation happened when Scorsese mentioned that his upcoming "The Irishman," contains about “300 scenes.” What? That's enough for an 8 hour mini-series, not a 3 hour flick. A typical movie would have, what, around 60-70 sequences?

There's a New York Times story that confirms the reported “300 scenes” quote. So, is "The Irishman" gonna be a Netlix miniseries and also have, ala Assayas' "Carlos," a shorter theatrical version for Oscar consideration? Who knows.

"The Irishman," is the real-life saga of Jimmy Hoffa’s supposed assassin, and stars Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Anna Paquin, Bobby Cannavale, Harvey Keitel and Ray Romano.

Roman Polanski exclaims #MeToo Movement is “Collective Hysteria” and “Total Hypocrisy”


The Polish edition of Newsweek (via AP) recently interviewed Roman Polanski. In that rare sit-down, Polanski bashed the #MeToo movement saying it was “collective hysteria of the kind that sometimes happens in the society." h went on to say "Everyone is trying to sign up, chiefly out of fear,” and compared the movement to North Korea’s public mourning for its leaders when everyone cries so much that “you can’t help laughing.” Yikes.

 “To me this is total hypocrisy,” he concluded. 

 Believe it or not, was conducted before the May 3rd to oust him from the Academy.

 Ah, the times we live in.

60 years ago today, Alfred Hitchcock's “Vertigo" premiered in theaters

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"Vertigo" received poor reviews upon its release, but since then it has routinely been cited as one of the greatest movies ever made. It topped Sight & Sound's list of the 50 greatest films and is currently ranked 9th on the American Film Institute's 100 greatest American films of all time. I consider myself lucky to have seen "Vertigo" twice now in theaters. I was looking around my archives, but couldn't find any essay i had written on Hitchcock's movie, which I consider to be the greatest movie of all-time. I will write something when I return from Cannes.

Report: Terry Gilliam Reportedly Hospitalized With Possible Stroke

My colleagues over at The Playlist are reporting that Terry Gilliam has been hospitalized. From what, we are not sure of, but, regardless, the last few months have no doubt been very taxing on the 77 year old director, what with his creative and judicial struggles to finally bring "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" to the big screen being threatened yet again by a greedy producer. The film has been plagued by close to 20 years of bad luck from actors dying, to weather demolishing sets, to the aforementioned ex-producer attempting to not have the film premiere at Cannes on May 20th.  
The Playlist are sourcing French publication Nice-Matin"
"Gilliam was supposed to appear in court but was unable to attend. They also report that, even if ‘Don Quixote’ gets the go-ahead to premiere at the prestigious film festival, Gilliam may not be able to make it to France to introduce the film."
Nice-Matin reports that Gilliam had a “stroke,” Le Point says it was some kind of “discomfort” alas we'll keep you posted on the health of this legendary cinematic giant.

Cannes Jury Press Conference Was All About #MeToo

CANNES –The #MeToo movement took center stage at the Cannes Jury press conference. 
This year's jury is composed of five women (President Cate Blanchett, Ava Duvernay, Kristen Stewart, Léa Seydoux, and Khadja Nin) and four men (Denis Villeneuve, Chang Chen, and Andrey Zvyagintsev.)
Of course, the most recurrent questions were related to what was happening right now in the industry, movements such as #TimesUp and #MeToo, which had me starting to grow impatient, especially considering nothing new was said and barely any movie-related questions were asked. This is a film festival I am attending, right?
At some point Blanchett answered a question by saying “Being attractive doesn’t preclude being intelligent.” Someone shoot me now.
She went on to add: “This is by its very nature a glamorous, fantastic, spectacular festival.  Full of joie de vivre.  Full of great good humor.  Full of discord and disharmony.  Making art, making work is not always going to be harmonious.  We are not always going to be in concord and agreement. The world would be terribly boring if it was. I think those aspects of the festival are things to be enjoyed but in an equal fair and equitable way.”
As for the festival being politicized, at least the actress more or less, agreed with my own sentiments about the weapon of politicization and art:
“I think it’s not a political film festival and I think making the work is often inherently political and how it is going to be digested and disseminated post the festival may well have political implications for people and open their minds and hearts to situations going on around the world.”   
“As Ava was saying, forming bridges and family situations or love relationships or the trials and tribulations of people you can relate to whether you lived in Compton or grew up in East Ivanhoe in Australia as I did.  But this is not the Nobel peace prize, it’s the Palme d’or.  It’s a slightly different function.  But, yes, it’s a terrible situation that two of the filmmakers will more than likely not be here when their films screen. It’s a very, very terrible situation.”
The two directors she refers to are Jafar Panahi, director of “Three Flowers,” who has been making movies the last 8 or so years, despite a twenty-year media and travel ban imposed on him in 2010.  Kirill Serebrennikov, director of “Summer,”is under house arrest until October for bogus fraud charges which stink of Putin dictating. 
An interesting thought from DuVernay:

“I feel like cinema is this voice and it’s the way that where I’m from, Compton, California, was able to understand the humanity of a family in Iran or in Shanghai,” DuVernay says. “There was nothing outside of my window to orient me to my place in the world. It’s film that brought me that. It’s film that allows me to assert my voice. I feel Cannes is so important because it brings us together from all points of the world from wherever we are to assert our voices to assert ourselves so our voice actually speak to each other in cinema. It’s so important I feel that we are inclusive in the ways we participate in film, whether that’s in a theater or not. It’s still film. I think this is a question that the industry and artists and executives alike are grappling with. What is a film? A film is a story told by a filmmaker and the way in which that film is presented to the audience I don’t think has a bearing of whether or not it’s a film. I look forward to having those debates with my fellow jury members, like the ones sitting next to me and others.”
The 71st Cannes Film Festival is on until May 19th. 

We will know if Terry Gilliam's “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" can legally premiere at Cannes on Wednesday

A decision over whether Terry Gilliam's "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" can premiere at Cannes will be rendered on Wednesday, April 9 by a court judge.

"We will have to wait and so will Terry Gilliam," said Fremaux.

Gilliam and ex-producer Paulo Branco have been butting heads on the film. A few years back they had both reached an agreement on the production of “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.” The deal was simple, Branco would fund "Quixote," give Gilliam creative freedom and reap the benefits.

Those aforementioned benefits never came to Branco, Gilliam found another producer to finance the film, and then film the started production. Branco has now re-entered the picture and claims the film cannot be released, let alone premiere anywhere, until he gives permission, pointing to the 2016 contract between he and Gilliam. Gilliam says the contract was nullified due to Branco not giving him any funding.

I won't go into great detail about the bad luck and mishaps that have hampered-down Terry Gilliam's passion project "The Man who Killed Don Quixote" for the better part of three decades now. At some point, it seemed like the cursed project, which finished production on June 4th and is now practically completed in the editing room, was on course to be released this year with even a Cannes premiere booked in advance. They most definitely resolved the last setback, John Hurt's death, which was settled with Gilliam regular Jonathan Pryce taking over the role. 

Mark Hamill purposely reveals important character that will be in “Solo: A Star Wars Story"

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Mark Hamill. God bless him. I don't think these "Star Wars" movies would be as entertaining without his rambunctiously honest interviews. Hell, he’s not even in “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” but hey, don't tell Hamill not to reveal an important plot point.

In an interview on the Cape Up Podcast  [Comicbook.com] Hamill spoke about the upcoming Han Solo film:

“[Anthony] Daniels was so happy, ‘cause he’s in every single ‘Star Wars’ movie. Every single one. All the prequels, he’s in ‘Rogue One,’ he’s in ‘Solo’… Whoops! I hope that’s not — erm… but anyway, he’s in every single ‘Star Wars’ movie. That’s not such a reveal — all ‘Star War’s fans expect him to be in every movie.”

Anthony Daniels, of course, plays the role of C-3PO in the ‘Star Wars’ films. 

I will be watching "Solo: A Star Wars Story" next week here at the Cannes Film Festival.

CinemaScore says Martin Scorsese's criticism is wrong

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 After Martin Scorsese slammed Cinemascore and RottenTomatoes for "devaluing" cinema, Harold Mintz of CinemaScore sent my colleagues at The Playlist his own rebuttal.
“To begin, it’s important that it’s understood that CinemaScore should not be looped with Rotten Tomatoes. CinemaScore’s inception was to poll opening night moviegoers to let others who don’t attend opening night know if the film is worth their hard earned money,” says the email. “To loop CinemaScore with a critic based service (Rotten Tomatoes) shows that Mr. Scorsese has no understanding of what CinemaScore represents.”
Mintz goes on to defend the random people that are chosen every week to rate a movie as “the most enthusiastic group for a movie. If they don’t like the movie, that opinion gets filtered down to those who are willing to wait a week or two to see it,” continues Mintz. “CinemaScore polls the audience that MOST want to see it… The data is deadly accurate. It correlates to box-office as well. To bury those results as Mr. Scorsese wishes to suggest only says that he doesn’t want his fans to let others know whether or not his latest film meets expectations.”
“It confuses me as to why Martin Scorsese wants to censor his fans from voicing their opinions. I can understand his concerns with Rotten Tomatoes because their opinions get released BEFORE the movie gets released which could cause the problem he’s most concerned about,” explains Mintz.
He concludes by saying that Scorsese’s “attack against CinemaScore is simply unjustified.”
I too was taken aback by Scorsese mentioning CinemaScore in his rant last week - Regardless, CinemaScore isn't wrong in defending themselves the way they did. 

Does Cannes have a few surprises in store for us?

Another month of May, another Cannes film festival. Despite the apparent lack of impressive names in this year's lineup, oh you Americans, I couldn't help but take another look at this year's contenders and goddammit, I like what I see. Okay, fine, only two American premieres will make it to the Croisette this year, Spike Lee's "BlackKklansman" and David Robert Mitchell's "Under the Silver Lake," but I'm pretty sure the people complaining about this year's lineup are mostly Oscar pundits. I mean, how else can you find fault in a lineup that includes the latest films from masters such as Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Asghar Farhadi, Lars von Trier, Terry Gilliam, Jia Zhangke, Jafar Panahi, Jean-Luc Godard, among many more. Yeah, this isn't for the Marvel crowd, but that's why the festival, in its 71st edition, has continuously proven its worth as the trues,t most in depth showcase of what world cinema has to offer. Yeah, sure, American movies aiming for Oscars have decided to snub the festival the last few years, mostly in fear of their Oscar bait being forgotten come nomination time and also because, well, Netflix. I won't go there again. Know what I say? Who cares.

The fest kicks off tomorrow with Farhadi's "Everybody Knows," starring Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz which will be screened for critics at 7:30pm. Oh, and, Apparently, according to Variety, Netflix might actually buy it, thus punking the fest. 

“Avengers: Infinity War” Becomes Fastest Movie Ever To Reach $1 Billion Mark

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“Avengers: Infinity War’ keeps on truckin'.
In its second weekend, ‘Infinity War’ stayed at the top, with a $112.5 million box-office total in just three days. It has now garnered $450.8 million overall, domestically. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” still has the best second weekend total ever when it scored a second weekend of $149 million back in 2015. 
However, globally, Marvel Studios has broken a tremendous record. “Infinity War” is the fastest film to ever reach the billion-dollar mark globally (11 days).  ‘The Force Awakens’ did it in 12 days.
All of this and the film hasn't even been released in China yet. On May 11th is when Asia will have a chance to nab Avengers fever. I presume "Infinity War" will crack the top 5 next week after its China release.
1. Avengers: Infinity War — $112.5M ($450.8M)
2. Overboard — $14.75M 
3. A Quiet Place — $7.6M 
4. I Feel Pretty — $4.9M 
5. Rampage — $4.6M
6. Tully — $3.2M 
7. Black Panther — $3.1M (693M)
8. Truth or Dare — $1.9M 
9. Super Troopers 2 — $1.8M 
10. Bad Samaritan — $1.76M

Martin Scorsese Blames Rotten Tomatoes For The “Devaluation of Cinema”

Martin Scorsese was given the Robert Osborne Award at the TCM Film Festival. The Award has, as a tradition, to honor a man or woman “whose work has helped keep the cultural heritage of classic films alive and thriving for generations to come.” Thanks to EW, Scorsese decided to use his speech to comment on modern film criticism.

“It can all be summed up in the word that’s being used now: content. All movie images are lumped together. You’ve got a picture, you’ve got a TV episode, a new trailer, you’ve got a how-to video on a coffee-maker, you’ve got a Super Bowl commercial, you’ve got ‘LawrenceofArabia,’ it’s all the same,” said the filmmaker. “They can also turn a picture off and go straight to the next piece of content. If there’s no sense of value tied to a given movie, of course, it can be sampled in bits and pieces and just forgotten.”

Scorsese seems rather critical of YouTube, even though he doesn't outright mention the streaming giant. We should, however, remember that Scorsese's next film is  “TheIrishman,” which is being distributed by Netflix.

On the toxicity of Rotten Tomatoes:

“The horrible idea they reinforce that every picture, every image is there to be instantly judged and dismissed without giving audiences time to see it. Time to see it, maybe ruminate and maybe make a decision for themselves. So the great 20th-century art form, the American art form, is reduced to content,” explained Scorsese.

He left the audience with hope, saying “You know the difference between a YouTube video and the great American art form..You react against the devaluation of cinema and movies by showing up.”

Of course, I agree what he has to say, I have for many years now. Rotten Tomatoes narrowing movies down to a binary good/bad is definitely helpful for the general audience but it also stops people from actually reading reviews. Instead of finding a critic they trust, a lot of people see a 40 and think the movie isn't worth their time

I've seen the rise of the internet ruin the art of film criticism. As I mentioned to a colleague the other day, there is no way Pauline Kael would survive today's zeitgeist. She'd be touted as a "troll." Admit it, I'm right. A movie, hell art, should not be given a consensus-driven endeavor. Imagine having a Rotten Tomatoes for paintings? Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" receiving a 95% Fresh score. I cringe just thinking about it. 

Movies and music seem to be the only art forms that are seriously rated by score ratings.  If they want to be taken more seriously in the next generation they will have to delve away from this format and into more thought-driven criticism. I say, stop giving ratings to film and force the reader to actually, you know, read the review. It should always be a hands-on approach of attentive dissection. No matter the movie. Now with Rotten Tomatoes all but accepting 500 or so critics for their aggregator system, the difference between a good film critic and a bad film critic is being blurred into oblivion. My advice? Seek the ones worth reading, the Nick Pinkerton's of this world.

Rumor: There will be a significant time-jump between ‘The Last Jedi’ and the untitled ‘Episode IX.’

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I'll be watching “Solo: A Star Wars Story” next week at its Cannes Film Festival premiere. For now, rumors are actually swirling towards what lies ahead with next year's J.J. Abrams directed "Episode IX.". We don't much anything about the plot for that forthcoming film, but, in an interview with Yahoo, John Boyega, who stars in the trilogy as Finn, offered up a hint:

 “I can’t wait to start shooting the next and final leg of the franchise,” said Boyega. “The first step is growing out my hair, so you can wait for the trailer to see why.”

 This comment has led fans to speculate that there’s going to be a significant time-jump between ‘The Last Jedi’ and the untitled ‘Episode IX.’ Also, it would allow the little boy at the very end of the film to play a major adult role in the films, right?

 The Star Wars franchise is notorious for time jumping. In fact, six of the seven films released in the franchise have been followed by a sequel that takes place years later, the only film that didn't? "The Last Jedi" which picked up right where Rey and Luke left off in "The Force Awakens."