Here's a star studded period set movie for you: Ben Foster is the latest one to join HOSTILES which already has Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi, Adam Beach, Q’orianka Kilcher, Stephen Lang, Bill Camp, Peter Mullan.
Set in 1892, HOSTILES tells the story of legendary Army Capt. Joseph J. Blocker (Christian Bale), who after stern resistance, begrudgingly agrees to escort a dying Cheyenne war chief, Chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi)
and his family back to tribal lands. Making the perilous journey from
an isolated Army outpost in New Mexico to the grasslands of Montana, the
former rivals encounter a young widow (Rosamund Pike), whose family was murdered on the plains. She joins them as they try to overcome the hostile Comanche tribes.
'LIMEHOUSE GOLEM' PHOTOS
BILL NIGHY, DOUGLAS BOOTH, SAM REID, OLIVIA COOKE
Speaking of starstudded casts, check out this one it is truly marvellous: first photos from THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM starring Bill Nighy, Douglas Booth, Sam Reid, Olivia Cooke, DanielMays, Eddie Marsan! This Gothic mystery is set in London, 1880. In the dangerous Limehouse district, a series of murders have shaken the community. So monstrous and ruthless are these crimes that the press claim they’re the work of The Golem – a legendary creature from dark times…
Confronted by a murderer of a yet unknown kind and with no genuine leads, the police put the vastly experienced Detective Inspector Kildare (Nighy) on the case, a scapegoat for when the next victim surfaces.
Now here's a surprising twist: rumour has it that Santiago Cabrera and Liam Garrigan are set to go medieval again after just being cast inTRANSFORMERS 5: THE LAST KNIGHT. Cabrera who played Lancelot in BBC's Merlin series and Aramis in their Musketeers is allegedly set to play Merlin here, while Garrigan who already played King Arthur in Once Upon a Time ABC show is set to take the crown again! They join previously announced Laura Haddock, who herself isn't a stranger to costume drama since she starred in Da Vinci's Demons, alongside Josh Duhamel, Anthony Hopkins, Tyrese Gibson and Mark Wahlberg. It isn't much known about the plot of the movie which is already filming, but it is expected that it will be set both in modern times and the times of Camelot, with Optimus Prime coming back to Earth trying to find some valuable artefact, obviously connected with King Arthur and his wizard Merlin! Michael Bay's movie should be released next June!
EMMA THOMPSON TO
LEAD 'THE CHILDREN ACT' Deadline reports today that British thespian Emma Thompson is in
negotiations to star in Richard Eyre's THE CHILDREN ACT as judge Fiona
Maye who is so involved with her cases that she hears that it often
strains her marriage. But one case is of particular difficultly — that
of a 17 year old boy who is suffering from leukemia and does not want to
be forced to have possible life saving blood transfusions because it
goes against his religion. The case causes internal turmoil for the wise
and compassionate judge who must choose between the bright boy’s right
to choose and the possibility of a future. It will be an adaptation of Ian McEwan's book!
'PANFILOV'S 28' TRAILER
RUSSIA'S HEROIC WW2 SOLDIERS
And a marvellous trailer comes today from a movie which tells of Russia's glorious heroic past! PANFILOV'S 28, set to open in Russian cinemas this November, follows Panifilov's 28, a group of twenty eight soldiers of the Red Army's 316th Rifle Division, under the command of General Ivan Panfilov, that stopped the advance on Moscow of a column of 54 Nazi tanks of the 11th Panzer Division for several days. Though armed only with standard issue infantry rifles and machine guns, all useless against tanks, and with wholly inadequate anti-tank grenades and anti-tank rifles, they fight tirelessly and defiantly, with uncommon bravery and unwavering dedication, to protect Moscow and their Motherland.
CASTS EMILY WATSON, SETH GABEL, VINCENT KARTHEISER
Remember how just a week or so ago I told you that National Geographic is preparing GENIUS series on Einstein? Now lead star Geoffrey Rush has been joined by a really strong cast including Emily Watson, Vincent Kartheiser, Seth Gabel, Samantha Colley, Michael McElhatton...
Each of the ten episodes will explore Einstein’s extraordinary
scientific achievements, along with his volatile, passionate and complex
personal relationships as an imaginative, rebellious patent clerk, who
couldn’t get a teaching job or a doctorate, unlocked the mysteries of
the atom and the universe. Seth Gabel will play his confidante Michele
Besso; Colley portrays Serbian scientist Mileva Maric, who later became
his first wife and many believe she came up with most of his theories.
Vincent Kartheiser will be a consulate official in Berlin. Rush and
Johnny Flynn play Einstein at different ages.
'WILD OATS' TRAILER
SEES SHIRLEY MACLAINE AND JESSICA LANGE GO CRAZY
The only trailer I have for you this Monday, along with the first poster, is for comedy movie WILD OATS in which Shirley MacLaine plays a retired widow who hits the jackpot when she receives a life insurance check mistakenly made out for $5,000,000 instead of $50.000. She and her best friend, played by Jessica Lange, then take off, only to become media sensations and fugitives from justice. Billy Connolly, Demi Moore, Judd Hirsch and Stephanie Beacham round up the senior cast of the movie!
NURGUL YESILCAY TO REPLACE BEREN SAAT AT THE THRONE?
Television news for you this Sunday, starting with the royal gossips coming from Istanbul's Topkapi palace which say that Beren Saat could be replaced in the second season of the worldwide hit saga KOSEM SULTANA by Turkey's best paid TV star Nurgül Yeşilçay! I must admit I'd welcome the replacement given how much the audience was dissatisfied with Beren's lack of any interest in giving some depth or personality to her portrayal of the 17th century sultana Kosem who ruled Ottoman Empire through her husband and later on her sons. With her shocking lack of expression and acting chops Beren has really taken for granted the role which most actresses would consider an acting playground and a role of a lifetime. It is interesting that the second season will have an unprecedented full cast change, since all of the characters have been killed in the first one or have grown up and will be played by older stars. Caner Cindoruk, Burak Yamantürk, Metin Akdülger, Farah Zeynep Abdullah, Naz Elmas are just some of the stars I've heard could play Kosem's grown up princes and princesses and courtiers in the new season which should return this Autumn.
TOBY SANDEMAN IS
MOROCCAN PRINCE IN 'ROYALS' Speaking of royal courts, E!'s first scripted series ever which has set
December 4th for the return in its third season, THE ROYALS has just
cast Toby Sandeman as a Moroccan prince! Sebastian is described as
being articulate and cerebral and has fully embraced everything that
comes with being a contemporary royal including the scrutiny and
attention it brings. He joins Elizabeth Hurley, Tom Austin and William
Moseley in the popular drama. NBC BUYS 'THE ARK' SF DRAMA Meanwhile, NBC has bought
a high concept sf drama THE ARK a modern retelling of the
Noah’s Ark story from the Bible, following an engineer who, after the
death of his wife, has a vision to construct a ship capable of
sustaining life in space. When the build happens to coincide with the
coming end of the world, the engineer realizes there may be a larger
story at play. BBC TO TURN 'THE MINIATURIST' INTO MINI SERIES Across the pond, British
national broadcaster BBC has announced that they're making a new period
set series. They will adapt Jessie Burton's THE MINIATURIST into a three
part series! The 2014 bestseller is set in 1686 with the story
revolving around eighteen year old Nella Oortman, who arrives in
Amsterdam to become the wife of wealthy merchant Johannes Brandt.
She receives a wedding gift of a doll's house from a mysterious
Miniaturist, which she soon realises is mirroring the situation in her
house, and predicting the future in unnerving ways.
We really did fell in love with super charismatic Luke Pasqualino in BBC's The Musketeers series and now he will lead Crackle's SNATCH, a ten episode small screen adaptation of Jason Statham movie of the same name. Dougray Scott, Lucien Laviscount and Rupert Grint are also starring.
Inspired by a real-life heist in London, SNATCH centres
on a group of twenty something, up and coming hustlers who stumble upon
a truckload of stolen gold bullion and are suddenly thrust into the
high stakes world of organized crime. Luke Pasqualino’s Albert is
an aspirational young man. He is smart, handsome, charming and a bit of
a thinker as well as a doer. He strives to ensure that he doesn’t end
up like his father, Vic (Dougray Scott). Loyalty, heart and passion are at his core.
Lucien Laviscount will play Billy Ayers, a handsome, aggressive and stubborn boxer.
'A DOG'S PURPOSE' TRAILER
FROM LASSE HALLSTROM!
And since it was international dogs' day yesterday here's a warm trailer for you coming from Dennis Quaid movie A DOG'S PURPOSE out this January. Based on the beloved bestselling novel by W. Bruce Cameron, and directed by our most beloved Lasse Hallström (Chocolat, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, The 100 Foot Journey) this stirring journey shares the soulful and surprising story of one devoted dog who finds the meaning of his own existence through the lives of the humans he teaches to laugh and love. The family film told from the dog's perspective also stars Dennis Quaid, Peggy Lipton, Britt Robertson, K.J. Apa, Juilet Rylance, Luke Kirby, John Ortiz and Pooch Hall.
Here's a new period set project for us: BBC 2 is to turn Eleanor Catton's novel THE LUMINARIES into a six part TV series set on the Wild West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island in the boom years of the 1860s gold rush!
The 2013 Man Booker Prize winner starts in 1865, following a defiant
young adventurer Anna Wetherell, who has sailed from Britain to New
Zealand to begin a new life. There she meets the radiant Emery Staines,
an encounter that triggers a strange kind of magic that neither can
explain. But Anna must survive the dangerous world, where shipwreck and
murder, blackmail and betrayal, greed, gold and false imprisonment all
conspire to keep her apart from Emery. The star-crossed lovers begin to
wonder: Do we make our fortunes, or do our fortunes make us?
MOVING 'LION' TRAILER
DAV PATEL & NICOLE KIDMAN
And the first trailer has been released for another adaptation, this time Saroo Brierley’s 2013 memoir A Long Way Home! LION follows the 5 year old Saroo (Sunny Pawar) who becomes separated from his family after falling asleep on a parked train, and winds up 1,000 miles from his village in Calcutta. After learning to survive in Kolkata, Saroo is ultimately adopted by an Australian Couple (Nicole Kidman, David Wenham). But as he grows (Dev Patel), questions linger about the life he left behind. With the help of Google Earth, Saroo sets out to find his family. The movie is out November 25th!
Two projects that we've been waiting for a long time now, beginning with a few new cast photos from HBO's long awaited sf series WESTWORLD which should finally kick off its ten episodes on Sunday October 2nd! It is a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the evolution of sin, exploring a world in which every human appetite, no matter how noble or depraved, can be indulged in a virtual reality park whose inhabitants don't even know they're not real.
ANTHONY HOPKINS, THANDIE NEWTON, JAMES MARSDEN, RODRIGO SANTORO STAR Anthony Hopkins plays the founder and owner of WESTWORLD who has an uncompromising creative vision for the park. The Man in Black (Ed Harris) is the distillation of pure villainy into one man. Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood)
is a provincial, beautiful and kind rancher’s daughter, who begins to
discover that her entire idyllic existence is an elaborately constructed
lie.
Teddy Flood (James Marsden), a new arrival to a small frontier
town, quickly proves both his charm and talent with a revolver.
Beautiful, razor-sharp madam Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton) has a genius for reading people and a knack for survival. Hector Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro), WESTWORLD’s
perennial “most wanted” bandit, subscribes to the theory that the West
is a wild place, and the only way to survive is to embrace the role of
predator. Logan (Ben Barnes) is a veteran guest whose hedonistic romp through the park is motivated by self-indulgence.
'A NEW KINGDOM' TRAILER
KINGDOM FOR A WIFE
After a rather long wait the first trailer has been released for a true story movie A UNITED KINGDOM starring Rosamund Pike, Jack Lowden, Jack Davenport, Tom Felton ... in which David Oyelowoplays
Prince Seretse Khama of Botswana who causes an international stir when he marries a white woman from London in the late 1940s.The movie is out in UK this November.
'A HANDMAID'S TALE' TV SERIES We're talking about new book adaptations today, starting with the news coming from the small screen adaptation of Margaret Atwood's A HANDMAID'S TALEwhich has just cast Joseph Fiennes in the lead male role!
Hulu's
ten episode series is set in the dystopia of Gilead, a totalitarian
society in what was formerly part of the United States. Facing
environmental disasters and a plunging birthrate, Gilead is ruled by a
twisted fundamentalism that treats women as property of the state. As
one of the few remaining fertile women, Offred (Elisabeth Moss) is a Handmaid in the Commander’s (Joseph Fiennes)
household, one of the caste of women forced into sexual servitude as a
last desperate attempt to repopulate a devastated world. In this
terrifying society where one wrong word could end her life, Offred
navigates between Commanders, their cruel Wives, domestic Marthas, and
her fellow Handmaids – where anyone could be a spy for Gilead – all with
one goal: to survive and find the daughter that was taken from her. Max Minghella, Ann Dowd, Samira Wiley and Madeline Brewer will also star.
BBC TO ADAPT SEVEN MORE
AGATHA CHRISTIE'S NOVELS A word comes over from BBC that they will adapt seven of Agatha Christie's novels into series after And Then There Were None and The Witness for the Prosecution which is currently in production with Kim Cattrall in the lead role. The first among the books which will be adapted in next four years is Ordeal By Innocence which explores the psychology of innocence, while Death Comes As The End, a murder mystery set in Ancient Egypt, and The ABC Murders, a race against time to stop a serial killer who is operating across 1930s Britain, have also been confirmed so far!
'CUCKOO SONG' YA NOVEL
TO BE TURNED INTO TV SERIES Meanwhile, UK's Catalyst Global Media is planning to make a four part TV series out of Frances Hardinge's YA fantasy novel CUCKOO SONG
in which the story is set in 1920s England where a young girl wakes
after an accident to find herself and the life around her eerily
altered. Her diary is of no help to her memory loss because all of the
pages have been ripped out, her sister seems frightened of her and her
parents whisper behind closed doors. She soon unearths a magical world
and embarks on a quest to repair her broken family which is still
haunted by the events of World War I.
Two trailers for you today starting with the long delayed sf adaptation of MAX STEEL which is finally out this year in October. Based on the popular toys and animated TV series, the film chronicles the adventures of 16-year old Max McGrath (Ben Winchell) and his alien companion Steel, who must harness and combine their tremendous new powers to evolve into the turbo charged superhero MAX STEEL. As these two unlikely friends struggle to accept their oddly connected fates, they begin to uncover unimaginable secrets, working together to find the truth, and fighting the mysterious forces threatening their world. United as the superhero Max Steel, they must combat an alien menace and unlock the secrets of their past. Andy Garcia and Maria Bello also star.
NEW 'GUARDIANS' TRAILER
FOR RUSSIAN SUPERHERO TEAM You can also check out the latest mind blowing trailer for Russian action
adventure spectacle GUARDIANS or ZASCHITNIKI which hits theatres next
year! Set during the Cold War, a secret organization named "Patriot"
gathered a group of Soviet superheroes, altering and augmenting the DNA
of four individuals, in order to defend the homeland from supernatural
threats.
The group includes representatives of the different nationalities of the
Soviet Union, which each one of them have long been hiding their true
identity. In hard times, they settled down to business and gather to
defend their homeland. Sebastien Sisak, Anton Pampuchniy, Sanzhar
Madiev, Alina Lanina, Valeria Shkirando and Stanislav Shirin star.
NEW 'LA LA LAND' TRAILER
EMMA STONE & RYAN GOSLING
There is also the second trailer released for new musical movie starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling LA LA LAND which is to dance its way into cinemas this December. The movie tells the story of Mia
(Stone), an aspiring actress, and Sebastian (Gosling), a dedicated jazz musician, who are struggling to make ends meet in a city known for crushing hopes and breaking hearts.
Oh, do I have the most stylish of delights for you today, my spylings, to glitz up your boring Monday! Positively enchanting cast photos and a captivating glamorous trailer for UK Amazon's new period set series THE COLLECT- ION which opens its runway in only a few days - September 2nd! This lavish new period set drama series, the first one ever from UK Amazon, THE COLLECTION is set in a post WW2 fashion house with cast lead by our beloved Tom Riley and Richard Coyle! Written and executive produced by Oliver Goldstick (Desperate Housewives, Lipstick Jungle) the series has already been sold to national televisions around Europe!
BIRTH OF AN EMPIRE Eight part fashion drama is set in Paris in 1947, starring Richard Coyle (Crossbones, Coupling) and Tom Riley (Da Vinci’s Demons)
as brothers with secrets that could destroy their dreams of seeing the
family’s fashion house restore Paris’ supremacy as the haute couture
capital.
Internal rivalries and betrayals, hateful bargains made to survive
the Nazi occupation, and the twisted secret behind the master’s success
could threaten to topple this empire at any moment. The staff of the
atelier survived one devastating war, but another looms; one where
personal battles and passionate love stories set family against family,
protégés against mentors, and the past against the future. No one’s
position is secure!
RICHARD COYLE IS THE BOSS
Our dear British star Richard Coyle
is returning again to historical genre after the godawful 'Crossbones'
two years ago playing Paul Sabine, the couturier with a romantic vision
that he hopes will resuscitate a beleaguered, post war Paris. Ambitious,
dashing and street savvy, he is a beguiling figure who’s climbed a long
way from his scrappy beginnings. He works hard to protect his brother Claude, keep his marriage in tact, impress the President with his next collection and keep the twisted truth about how he became so successful a secret.
TOM RILEY IS GAY GENIUS
That irresistibly handsome devil Tom Riley (from Da Vinci’s Demons whose almost entire crew is working on this series as well) takes on
the role of Paul’s mercurial brother Claude Sabine, the true but hidden genius
behind the Paul Sabine label. He is a rebellious, romantic spirit,
forced to hide his homosexuality during the Occupation, who’s traded a
public face for personal freedom. As you can see in the trailer below we can expect Tomzie showing more of his Riley in a naked bathtub scene :)
IT'S NOT WHAT THEY'RE WEARING BUT WHAT THEY'RE COVERING UP Their formidable mother, the scheming matriarch Yvette Sabine, is played by Frances De la Tour (who
was wonderful in ITV's sitcom 'Vicious') — a woman who will stop at
nothing to use her sons to help achieve her own thwarted ambitions.
Meryl Streep's daughter MamieGummer is Helen Sabine, Paul’s American wife, an ex-pat who’s called Paris home for over a decade.
Jenna Thiam is Nina, the working class daughter of the Maison’s
chief seamstress and the unexpected beauty who becomes the iconic face
of the label. JamesCosmo is Jules Trouvier, the silent partner who bankrolls the Sabine.
JAMES PUREFOY & ANEURIN BARNARD IN MOZART FILM We're continuing our period set projects weekend today with first pictures coming from some of the new period set movies we're anxiously awaiting to see in the future, beginning with first photos coming from INTERLUDE IN PRAGUE a directorial effort of John Stephenson who is known as the special effects supervisor in Babe, English Patient, 101 Dalmatians, The Flintstones and many other classics. This time he directs a story of Mozart starring James Purefoy and Aneurin Barnard.
MURDER AND SCANDAL Appropriately shot in the Czech capital this costume drama portrays a
few turbulent months in the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the famous
18th century composer. A love story and a tragedy of epic proportions
stars Aneurin Barnard (The White Queen, War & Peace)
as the composer at a time when has been brought to Prague by the vain
and self obsessed Baron Saloka. The evil aristocrat is played by James Purefoy, who himself isn't a stranger to costume drama having starred in Rome, Roots, Hollow Crown, Kamelot and many other period set series.
Morfydd Clark, who recently starred next to Cate Beckinsale in Love and Friendship
plays the beautiful soprano Zuzanna Luptak, who is betrothed to Saloka
but falls in love with Mozart. Saloka, a psychopath, sexual predator and
serial rapist, develops an overwhelming hatred that results in callous
brutality and murder. Les MiserablesSamantha Barks also stars.
FIRST 'THE EXCEPTION' PHOTOS
WITH CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER, JAI COURTNEY, LILI JAMES
A few photos are also available from World War One epic drama previously known as The Kaiser's Last Kiss and now THE EXCEPTION in which Academy Award winner Christopher Plummer and Janet McTeer lead the cast of the adaptation of Alan Judd’s novel The Kaiser’s Last Kiss, about German Kaiser Wilhelm II’s post-WWI exile in the Netherlands.The young cast is lead by Spartacus' superstar Jai Courtney and War and Peace'sLily James.Ben Daniels and Eddie Marsan also star. Jai Courtney is a German soldier who tries to determine if the Dutch resistance has planted a spy to infiltrate the home of Kaiser Wilhelm in Holland during the onset of World War II, but falls for a young Jewish Dutch woman during his investigation.
'ALI AND NINO'
FIRST EPIC MOVIE PHOTOS A few photos have also arrived from another big screen adaptation of a beloved book ALI AND NINOby Kurban Said which was showed at Sundance and is awaiting it's theatrical release. Directed by Asif Kapadia and starring international stars Adam Bakri, Maria Valverde and Connie Nielsen, it follows ALI AND NINO upper class teenagers living in Azerbaijan just before the outbreak of World War I. He is Muslim, and she is Christian, but despite their cultural differences, they love each other and get married despite the disapproval of their parents. When Ali takes her to spend several months in Persia, she realizes how much her freedom is being constrained. The clash between East and West and between traditional Muslim life and the twentieth century independence of her upbringing is very striking. Then the Great War breaks out, and things take a turn for the worse.