Tag: Articles

Tom Cruise’s ‘Mummy’ Reboot Casts Annabelle Wallis

More news for The Mummy Reboot, via Variety:

Annabelle Wallis is in talks for the female lead in Universal’s “The Mummy,” starring Tom Cruise, sources tell Variety.

Wallis will play an archaeologist in the film. Sofia Boutella, meanwhile, is on board to play the iconic monster.

The film is set to bow on June 9, 2017.

The studio tapped Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan last summer to help develop a monster universe for Universal with rebooted versions of classic monster movies. Kurtzman is also on board to direct, and will produce alongside Morgan and Sean Daniel.

Jon Spaihts is penning the script. Plot details are vague other than the fact that the pic will be set in the present day, unlike the previous three installments starring Brendan Fraser.

Universal executive VP of production Jon Mone and VP of development Jay Polidoro will oversee the project for the studio.

Wallis is best known for her work in Steven Knight’s “Peaky Blinders.” She also starred in the 2014 horror pic “Annabelle” and the comedy “Brothers Grimsby.” Wallis will play Maid Maggie in Guy Ritchie’s upcoming King Arthur movie — set for release in 2017. She also recently wrapped Zack Whedon’s thriller “Come and Find Me” opposite Aaron Paul.

‘Top Gun 2’: Jerry Bruckheimer Generates Excitement With Tom Cruise Tweet

Jerry Bruckheimer posted a photo with Tom and mentions Top Gun 2 discussion!

From Variety:

Bruckheimer produced “Top Gun,” the Oscar-winning 1986 action drama that starred Cruise as young Navy pilot Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.

Development of “Top Gun 2” was confirmed last year by Skydance CEO David Ellison, who also shared some details about the plot.

“It is very much a world we live in today where it’s drone technology and fifth generation fighters… It’s really exploring the end of an era of dogfighting and fighter pilots and what that culture is today,” said Ellison at a “Terminator Genisys” press junket last June. The exec also hinted that Cruise would be returning to reprise his role as Maverick. “There is an amazing role for Maverick in the movie, and there is no ‘Top Gun’ without Maverick, and it is going to be Maverick playing Maverick,” Ellison said.

Val Kilmer, who played Lt. Tom “Iceman” Kazanski in the original, announced on Facebook in November that he was offered a role in the sequel as well, adding, “not often you get to say ‘yes’ without reading the script.”

Christopher McQuarrie Eyeing Return for ‘Mission: Impossible 6’

VARIETY EXCLUSIVE. Mission: Impossible 6 may have found it’s director: Christopher McQuarrie.

Following the massive success of “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation,” Paramount and Skydance are hoping to stay in business with writer-director Christopher McQuarrie. According to sources close to the situation, McQuarrie will return to write “Mission: Impossible 6,” as well as possibly direct the next installment.

The studio and reps for McQuarrie have declined to comment, but several sources with knowledge of the situation say talks are progressing towards a deal being closed, with one insider saying that the studio plans to get production up and running by next August.

Tom Cruise is set to star with the studio also holding an option for Rebecca Ferguson to reprise her “Rogue Nation” role of Ilsa Faust. Cruise is currently filming “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” in New Orleans. Following the success of “Rogue Nation,” Paramount made it clear they wanted to move fast to get the next installment of the popular “M:I” franchise into production sometime next year.

If McQuarrie’s deal closes, it would mark a major milestone for the franchise, which has never had a director helm more than one installment.

While he has plenty in development, McQuarrie has nothing pressing on his slate that would impede him from working on an “M:I 6” script and prepping the film for a summer 2016 shoot.

Tom Cruise meets with Medellin mayor

Tom Cruise is in Colombia to film Mena and he met with Medellin’s mayor:

Hollywood star Tom Cruise met with the mayor of Colombia’s second largest city, Medellin, to discuss the filming of “Mena,” a film about Pablo Escobar.

“It was a friendly and productive meeting that lasted more than an hour,” Mayor Anibal Gaviria said, adding that Medellin Film Commission members and Dynamo Producciones executive Andres Calderon also participated in the gathering.

Cruise plans to “spend a few more days” in Medellin to “get some work done on the shooting” of “Mena,” the mayor said.

The 53-year-old actor thanked officials for their support and said he felt “comfortable” in the city, Gaviria said.

Cruise plays Barry Seal, an American pilot who worked for Medellin drug cartel leader Pablo Escobar and later became an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, in “Mena.”

“Cruise is living in Medellin. He’s gone to different restaurants to eat and has spent time with the people,” the mayor said.

The Hollywood star was impressed with the “beauty of the mountains” in Medellin, Gaviria said. “His comments about the city were positive and he has an extremely positive impression of Colombia.”

Cruise shared some ideas about how to turn Medellin into the “film industry capital of Latin America,” the mayor said.

Source

Jack Reacher Sequel To Start Shooting In November

News via Empire.

Jack Reacher, like Oblivion and Edge of Tomorrow, didn’t quite do the business expected of its megastar headliner Tom Cruise. A sequel, despite the obvious franchise potential of the multiple Lee Child source novels, wasn’t a foregone conclusion, although rumblings began in May that it was starting to look possible, with Ed Zwick in the director’s chair.

Now, with the success of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation reassuring everyone that Cruise’s mojo is still intact, studio Paramount are pushing ahead, with shooting on Jack Reacher 2 earmarked for November this year, for a release in late 2016.

Paramount are also keen to keep on striking while the Mission: Impossible iron is hot, with THR reporting that the studio want the sixth instalment shooting next summer, for a June or July release in 2017.

Back when Jack Reacher 2 was first mooted, the plan looked to be an adaptation of 2013’s Never Go Back, Child’s eighteenth Reacher novel. That plot would see Reacher heading back to his old military base in Virginia, to be charged with a violent incident and faced with a paternity case, neither of which transgression he remembers. Richard Wenk had been working on the screenplay, but it’s now being re-written by Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. So the final thrust remains to be seen.

With Cruise and Doug Liman’s drug-smuggling DEA drama Mena almost wrapped but not due to come out until the beginning of 2017, we’re looking at a triple-whammy of Cruiser vehicles released in a single year. Is Paramount making a mistake, putting its faith in ’90s-style star power when, these days, it’s IPs rather than people that dictate box office? Tell us your thoughts on that in the comments section, why don’tcha.

‘Mission: Impossible 6′: Paramount Backs Tom Cruise for Another Sequel

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation has just been released (and not even everywhere yet!) and Mission: Impossible 6 is already getting a greenlight!

Paramount Pictures vice chairman Rob Moore is ready for more Ethan Hunt, strongly endorsing Tom Cruise’s recent announcement that “Mission: Impossible 6″ is in the works.

“We’re very happy to be developing this movie with Tom,” Moore told Variety. “There’s no question that Ethan Hunt deserves another film.”

The veteran executive was basking in the glow of a $121 million global opening for “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation” — $56 million in the U.S. and another $65 million from 40% of international markets. “The international brand is as strong as ever,” he added.

It was the first public comment by Paramount execs — who tend to take a measured approach in discussing future films. Even as “Rogue Nation” opened on Friday, the studio was insisting that its tracking showed a $40 million U.S. opening, even though the final figure turned out to be 40% higher.

Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak, said he’s not surprised that another “Mission: Impossible” is in the works.

“I think it’s very smart,” he added. “Given the performance of ‘Rogue Nation,’ there has to be another movie.”

Cruise revealed plans on Tuesday to return in the Ethan Hunt role for a sixth “Mission: Impossible,” asserting that shooting could start as early as a year from now.

“We’re starting to work on it now. We’ll probably start shooting it next summer,” he told host Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.”

The previous four “Mission: Impossible” films have grossed a combined $2 billion at the worldwide box office. “Rogue Nation,” which carries a $150 million pricetag, is produced by Cruise along with J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger.

Christopher McQuarrie directed from a screenplay he wrote with Drew Pearce. Each “Mission: Impossible” has employed a different director. The previous films were directed by Brian De Palma, John Woo, Abrams and Brad Bird.

Cruise, 53, is currently shooting drug thriller “Mena” with Doug Liman directing. He also said during the show Tuesday that he’s discussed an “Edge of Tomorrow” sequel with McQuarrie and Liman, who wrote and directed the sci-fier, respectively.

Source: Variety

‘Rogue Nation’: 5 Reasons It’s the Best ‘Mission: Impossible’

Review via Variety:

Just when Tom Cruise had been written off as an action star, he makes a triumphant comeback — at age 53 — with “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation.” The summer’s most entertaining popcorn movie not only eclipses “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Jurassic World” and “Mad Max: Fury Road” with its action sequences, it also brings to mind Cruise’s prime days (“Top Gun,” “Jerry Maguire,” etc.) on the Hollywood A-list.

Here are five reasons “Mission: Impossible 5” is the strongest film in Paramount’s 19-year-old spy franchise.

(1)It’s sleeker than any James Bond movie you can remember.
The first “Mission: Impossible,” which opened nearly two decades ago in 1996, was a standard bigscreen reboot of a TV show. But the franchise received a jolt in 2006 with J.J. Abrams’ “Mission Impossible 3,” which interwove the heart-pumping twists of “Alias” (season one) into a theatrical recipe that could give Daniel Craig as 007 a run for his money.

This new “Mission: Impossible,” directed by Christopher McQuarrie under Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions, ups the stakes at every level. Cruise not only dangles from an airplane in the opening sequence, he withstands multiple beatings from a villain known as the Bone Doctor (Jens Huten), goes for a terrifying dip in an underground water chamber, stops an assassination attempt at the Vienna opera, leads a car chase in Casablanca and commands a motorcycle ride through the winding roads of Morocco. If the Oscars gave a trophy for stunts, “M:I 5” would win it.

(2) The script lands on both feet.
Whereas story has never been a strong point of the “Mission: Impossible” movies, this isn’t a spy adventure that require CliffsNotes to follow along. In this installment, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is battling a secret agency known as the Syndicate, run by Solomon Lane (Sean Harris, enjoying every moment of playing the villain). Hunt is aided again, of course, by his crew at IMF, which includes Simon Pegg (the perfect comedic foil), Jeremy Renner and Ving Rhames. McQuarrie, who also wrote the script, wisely keeps the narrative focused on the battle between good and evil, not letting any extraneous plot twists trip up his action.

(3) Cruise gets his sexy back.
Ever since he jumped on Oprah’s couch in 2005, Cruise has struggled to maintain his heartthrob persona. Thankfully, “Mission Impossible 5” finds him a leading lady — Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson (of TV’s “The White Queen”) — who manages to re-awaken Cruise’s sex appeal. The two have the best chemistry for a Cruise movie since he romanced Renee Zellweger in “Jerry Maguire.” For all the praise for last summer’s “The Edge of Tomorrow,” one of the central flaws of the film was the lack any romantic spark between Cruise and Emily Blunt. Even though Ferguson is only 31, the age difference between her and Cruise isn”t noticeable or distracting, because she comes across as his equal.

(4) The leading lady carries half the movie.
Ferguson doesn’t just elevate Cruise, she also carries half the film, playing a spy who may or may not be on his side. She keeps up with every punch he throws or weapon he fires. Like Rosamund Pike in “Jack Reacher,” “Mission: Impossible 5” will be remembered as a breakout vehicle for its heroine. In another summer of action tentpoles that treat female characters as afterthoughts (see: “Avengers” or “Ant Man”), “M:I 5” gives us a female lead who shares equal screen time.

(5) “M:I 5″ is a throwback to how summer tentpoles should be.
Most action movies now are so serious, a byproduct of the Marvel universe, where superheroes sulk in their own darkness. And when “Jurassic World” tried to be a fun, it just came across as silly with its high-heel-wearing heroine played by Bryce Dallas Howard. But “Mission: Impossible 5” finds the right tone for a summer blockbuster. Its 131 minutes of escapist entertainment prove that not all sequels must be pale imitations of what comes before. This is the rare Hollywood franchise that only gets better with age.

TOP GUN 2 Will Explore Drone Warfare and the End of the Fighter Pilot Era

Oh, is the movie getting off the writer’s desk now?

Top Gun 2 has been in development for almost five years now. When the project was first being revived, Tom Cruise was planning to return for a small role. Since then, the project has ballooned, and Cruise will have a starring role in the sequel.

During a group interview at the press day for Terminator Genisys in Berlin, Skydance CEO David Ellison and CCO Dana Goldberg were asked about the status of Top Gun 2, and what we can expect from the film, which is currently being written by Justin Marks (Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li).

(…)

Ellison confirms that Tom Cruise is starring in this one when he says “Maverick playing Maverick”. What makes me curious is that this clearly can’t be the same cocky kid from the original movie. I’m interested to see what that character looks like almost 30 years later, especially since his profession has changed so drastically. He used to be the hot shot, and now it appears he’ll be the fossil.

In addition to confirming that the movie will be in 3D and IMAX (there will also be practical effects because that’s how Cruise rolls), Ellison went into more detail about what he meant when he talked about what the Navy has become and how it relates to Maverick:

ELLISON: Absolutely, I think this is a movie that should be in 3-D and in IMAX, and again something that you can shoot practically. As everyone knows with Tom, he is 100% going to want to be in those airplanes shooting it practically. When you look at the world of dogfighting, what’s interesting about it is that it’s not a world that exists to the same degree when the original movie came out. This world has not been explored. It is very much a world we live in today where it’s drone technology and fifth generation fighters are really what the United States Navy is calling the last man-made fighter that we’re actually going to produce so it’s really exploring the end of an era of dogfighting and fighter pilots and what that culture is today are all fun things that we’re gonna get to dive into in this movie.

So it sounds like this movie isn’t going to be in the vein of the deadly serious Good Kill, although this is still a difficult line to walk. Drones are killing lots of people, and it’s a complex issue. We have the power to summon death from above with no risk to us. However, it also reduces the number of soldier we have to send to dangerous places. I’m not sure how a character like Maverick fits into that, but I’m curious to find out.

Head over to Collider for the full interview with David Ellison

Tom Cruise’s Most Insane Stunt? Holding His Breath

Tom Cruise’s Most Insane Stunt? Holding His Breath

When you think he topped his own stunt with Ghost Protocol, he pulls another! Via Yahoo!:

Forget rock climbing, scaling skyscrapers and flying on the wing of a jumbo jet. Tom Cruise’s most breath-taking feat involves not taking a breathing at all.

Cruise, the A-list daredevil who’s known for taking on the most death-defying stunts for his movies, told USA Today that the incredible underwater scene that we saw earlier this week in the new Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation trailer was done all in one take, a stunt that required him to defy the normal bounds of the human body. For six and a half minutes.

“It’s something I have always wanted to do,” he told the newspaper. “I have done a lot of underwater sequences. But we wanted to create a suspense underwater sequence without cuts…. We’re underwater and we’re doing breath-holds of 6 to 6 ½ minutes. So I was doing all my training with the other stuff [on-set]. It was very taxing stuff.”

To give you some context for this insane cardiovascular accomplishment, the average human can hold his or her breath for 30 to 40 seconds. The further one dives, the harder it is, and Cruise is swimming all over the place in the clip (which you can see below).

The record for breath-holding was broken last year by a German diver named Stig Severinsen, who was dropped into a temperature-controlled tank and stayed down there for over 22 minutes on one single breath. He was completely still the entire time — that’s called static apnea — while Cruise was performing dynamic apnea, which meant that he was moving the entire time. And of course, it’s much harder to hold your breath in that state.

It requires years of training and meditation to even reach six minutes, but Cruise says he only began thinking about attempting this stunt while making last year’s action movie Edge of Tomorrow.

We’re looking forward to the third trailer, in which Cruise will presumably turn into a dragon and fly through space.

Universal Sets Tom Cruise-Doug Liman ‘Mena’ Flight Plan For January 2017

We have a release date for Mena: January 6th, 2017!

Mena, the team-up between Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman that Deadline broke back in January, now has a full flight plan and a January 6, 2017, release date. Universal Pictures has confirmed that Cruise is reteaming with his Edge Of Tomorrow helmer (a most underrated film) for the true and truly outrageous exploits of Barry Seal, a hustler and pilot unexpectedly recruited by the CIA to run one of the biggest covert operations in U.S. history. Given Cruise’s penchant for doing his own Mission: Impossible stunts and his prowess as a pilot, this one ought to be an adventure, and it likely will be impossible to get him out of the cockpit. Joining Cruise is Ex Machina‘s Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Friday Night Lights‘ Jesse Plemons, Caleb Landry Jones, Jayma Mays, Benito Martinez, E. Roger Mitchell, Lola Kirke and Alejandro Edda. Cross Creek is fully funding, with Brian Oliver and Tyler Thompson producing with Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer and Kim Roth, and Quadrant Pictures’ Doug Davison.

“I love stories of improbable heroes working against the system, and Barry Seal took the government, and our country, for an unbelievable ride,” said Liman. “Interpreting his story has the makings for an entertaining film that is equal parts satire, suspense and comedy—and always surprising.”

Via Deadline

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