Posted on Monday, 13th June 2011 by Aidan Bayly
CANNES, France — As his star has risen in the last few years, Chris Pine has become known primarily for action roles – his reprisal of the Capt. Kirk character in “Star Trek” in 2009 or as the upstart train man to Denzel Washington’s veteran rail rat in “Unstoppable.”
But those who have sensed that Pine has more serious acting chops could get a chance to see them in a new drama.
The actor is in talks to star in a new movie called “Mud,” a coming-of-age story that will be written and directed by emerging Cannes director Jeff Nichols and produced by “Memento’s” Aaron Ryder, according to a source close to the project who asked not to be identified because talks were ongoing.
In an interview Sunday, Ryder declined to comment on the status of the Pine talks. But he did confirm the project and described it as in the vein of “Stand by Me,” essentially a drama about figuring out one’s place in the world.
Nichols is the filmmaker behind the supernatural-tinged drama “Take Shelter,” which is playing in the Critics Week section at the Cannes Film Festival. (The movie, which stars Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain, had a strong showing at Sundance and will hit theaters later this year.)
Nichols’ new movie will center on two 14-year-old boys who come across an adult fugitive of the law, the titular Mud (who would be played by Pine), and must help him escape from an island in the Mississippi. The ambiguity of the story lies with Mud, who is both an unsavory and a redemptive character and who teaches the boys as much as he learns from them.
The riverside setting and coming-of-age motif will inevitably draw comparisons to Huckleberry Finn, though the film will be set in the contemporary world.
“Mud” comes from a company called FilmNation, which is founded and run by independent-film veteran Glen Basner. Though it initially focused on financing movies by way of the sale of international rights – it was behind the sale of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s “Looper” and is also peddling the Shia LaBeouf movie “The Wettest County in the World” – it also is beefing up its financing and production arm under Ryder, a close associate of Christopher Nolan’s who produced “Memento” and “The Prestige” and who will produce “Mud” with veteran Terrence Malick producer Sarah Green.
Ryder said his association with the blockbuster helmer had helped inform his current projects. “What Chris helped teach me,” he said, “is that you can make commercially viable movies that people want to see that are still smart and sophisticated.”
BRIDGING DIVIDES WITH ‘HEROES OF NANKING’
The international film business can bridge a lot of cultural divides. But can it knock down one of the great walls of cinema culture – the one that stands between China and the U.S.?
Precious few American movies are allowed in China every year, despite halting efforts to change that, and almost no Chinese blockbusters succeed in North America. But the people behind the Chinese epic “The Heroes of Nanking” hope their movie can help create a new pipeline.
The period drama, which tells of an American priest who puts his life on the line during the Nanking Massacre to shelter more than a dozen prostitutes and students, has roots in Chinese history and cinema. And it’s based on a popular Chinese novel. But it also stars a Hollywood leading man, Christian Bale, as the priest and is directed by Zhang Yimou, the award-winning filmmaker who came to mainstream prominence in the U.S. when he staged the pyrotechnics of the Beijing Olympics’ opening ceremony and has directed numerous films, including “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers.”
On Saturday afternoon at the Cannes Film Festival, filmmakers gathered at the city’s Majestic Hotel to tout the project, at a reception thrown by the newly hired U.S.-based sales agent, who has come on to help the film find distributors around the world. (The company’s producer, New Pictures, is also currently seeking U.S. distribution.)
Zhang Weiping, who produced as well as financed the film, said there was a social component to his piece of entertainment. “Chinese people love Hollywood movies, but in the West there are a lot of misconceptions about China,” he said, speaking through a fellow producer, Chaoying Deng, who was translating. “We want this movie to give Americans and Europeans a perspective on China and Chinese cinema. We want to communicate with every race and people.”
Weiping said he wasn’t worried about the historical nuances being lost on a non-Asian audience. “It’s a story about heroism, and everybody can relate to that,” he said.
DEAL FOR JOLIE’S DIRECTORIAL DEBUT
Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut, “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” which is set against the backdrop of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s, will reach U.S. theaters in late December under a distribution deal announced Sunday in Cannes.
FilmDistrict, a subsidiary of Graham King’s GK Films, said it will release the English-language version of the film Dec. 23 in the United States. Terms of the deal were not revealed.
The buy marks the second at Cannes for FilmDistrict, which has been part of the resurgence in the film-acquisitions market. The company is run by Peter Schlessel, the former Sony executive who helped spearhead the acquisition of “District 9,” and Bob Berney, the longtime distribution guru who is in no small part responsible for the success of such films as “The Passion of the Christ” and “Pan’s Labyrinth.”
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The movie, which was filmed largely in Hungary, was the subject of some controversy last year amid reports that the plot included a romance between a Serbian rapist and his Bosnian Muslim victim – a plot point that Jolie and her representatives denied. Representatives of the Association of Women Victims of War in Sarajevo protested to government officials in Bosnia, and permits to film in the city and another small town were temporarily thrown into doubt. But filming later went forward.
FilmDistrict, which has had success at the box office this year with several small-budget films, including “Insidious” and “Soul Surfer,” inked a U.S. distribution deal in Cannes for “Looper.” The quirky time-travel film involving hit men stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis.
Tags: Chris Pine, Pine
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