Michael Fassbender Archives -

CASEY AFFLECK TO STAR AS HARVEY WEINSTEIN IN BRETT RATNER MOVIE

HOLLYWOOD – In a bold move, Casey Affleck stars as Harvey Weinstein in Brett Ratner’s new biopic.

A new movie based on the life of Harvey Weinstein will star Casey Affleck. Rush Hour director Brett Ratner had this to say:

We want the film to be as realistic as possible. This is an American tragedy and we need to get to the heart of it.

Based on a script by Woody Allen and Roman Polanski in their first ever collaboration, the films also stars Mel Gibson and Michael Fassbender. Louis CK is in talks to play Bob Weinstein, Harvey’s brother. Ratner continues:

This is a story that needs telling right. We need to tell it from the inside. I got Bill Cosby to go over a draft of the script for me.

But don’t you think we need the perspective of the women who have spoken out?

Who like?

Asia Argento, Rose McGowan, Angelina Jolie, Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow? There are about thirty and counting I think.

We have got a woman’s perspective in there though.

Who?

Lindsay Lohan.

Harvey will be released in 2018.

HIDDEN GEMS: 25. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

Hidden Gems brings to light little known film gems which have somehow slipped through the collective cinematic consciousness. This week David Lean’s rarely seen Lawrence of Arabia. You’re welcome.

When David Lean’s adaptation of T.E.Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom came out, no one went to see it. Everyone said: ‘why isn’t it called the Seven Pillars of Wisdom? That’s a doozy of a title!’ It isn’t like David Lean doesn’t know how to adapt books. He made Great Expectations. Or Dickens of London to give the originally title. Set in Tatooine, Lawrence of Arabia stars Michael Fassbender’s android from Prometheus and Alien Covenant as Peter O’Toole as T.E. Lawrence. It shows how the young British officer managed to win the trust of the Bedouin tribes – led by the finest Arabic actors Anthony Quin and Alec Guinness, along with Egyptian Omar Sharif – to engage in a tribal war against the occupying Turks.

As the war progresses, Lawrence’s single-handed determination and ascetic self-sacrifice leads to a kind of megalomania and fanaticism. It is a cunning psychological study of a man who wishes to deny his own humanity and escape himself. Within lies also the glamour and the brutality of war. At once a stirring adventure film and a keenly observed study of how a powerful personality can manipulate history to his own ends for a limited period. The politics of the situation are also sadly relevant as superpowers use the middle east as nothing more than a conveniently distant battleground and then divide the spoils with scant attention to the locals.

The imagery is beautiful – never before or since have landscapes been imbued with such meaning, beauty and terror. And the score by Maurice Jarre is so good it’s become a cliché. But the film roots itself in the Peter O’Toole’s performance. Lawrence’s sexuality, vulnerability and almost otherworldly way of seeing things come over amazingly. Which could be why it was never heard of again. Until now.

For more Hidden Gems CLICK HERE.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER’S FLUTE ALBUM A MASSIVE HIT IN GERMANY

BERLIN – Michael Fassbender hits number one on all German charts with his collection of flute music.

Michael Fassbender is one of the world’s most promising young actors. In films such as Fishtank, Hunger and Shame he has shown himself a startling performer and more recently with Alien: Covenant, someone who can make a move into the mainstream. So it might come as a surprise that in Germany Michael Fassbender is known primarily as a flautist. Gustav Bok, secretary of the Fassbender Flaut Uber Alles club told the Studio Exec:

Of course Michael is part German so that suggests perhaps why we Germans love him so much. But obviously it is the flute playing which is the most important thing. Michael has a wonderful pair of lips and he purses them just so. Making for the sweetest sound. And his lungs! Boy does this guy have the lungs. Many of our members don’t even realise he is an actor. They go to his concerts and buy his CDs and music. Many only went to Alien: Covenant because Michael plays the flute in it.

Fassbender’s flute antics also landed him a big role with a Hollywood director. Quentin Tarantino tells the story:

I was in Germany on a tour with a film and I was watching television and there was this massive flute concert and I didn’t even realise that fluting was so big in Germany. And I don’t mean like a flute and an orchestra. This is just one guy and a flute and he’s up there for three hours. It’s unbelievable. Magical even. And I thought I haev to have this guy. It was only when we were actually on set and filming Inglourious Basterds that this guy could actually speak English as well.

Michael Fassbender’s Flute Favorites is available on iTunes.

5 THINGS WRONG WITH ALIEN: COVENANT

HOLLYWOOD – Alien: Covenant is out and I tried to like it but in space no one can hear your eyes roll.

With Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott has made a film that’s a bit better than the last bad film he made. Warning: there are SPOILERS.

Continue reading “5 THINGS WRONG WITH ALIEN: COVENANT”

FANS PREPARE TO PRETEND TO LIKE ANOTHER TERRENCE MALICK FILM

HOLLYWOOD – Terrence Malick’s Song to Song premiers at the SXSW Festival.

There was a time that a Terrence Malick film was a rare thing of beauty. Now he seems to be trying to match Marvel Studios. Unfortunately, the quality has dropped precipitously from the Days of Heaven when we used to visit the Badlands. The New World was the beginning of the rot with a tree hugging Pocahontas who made the Disney version seem like Joan of Arc. Then the ‘masterpiece’ Tree of Life which began to divide audiences. Half saw a technical mastery, a beauty, an unconventional but grandiose ambition. Others thought it looked like an advert for a credit card company that wanted to corner the whispery demographic. To the Wonder made us feel sorry for Ben Affleck. And Knight of Cups… Oh good God, shoot me already.

Even his documentary Voyage of Time, which ought to have been right in his wheelhouse, managed to be annoying shit. Now Song to Song has premiered and we’re back at it. The remaining Malick fans now have a critical Stockholm Syndrome that forces them to like anything he does. The problem is that with each new film that comes out, one feels that the other films are getting worse. Re-watching the Tree of Life after To the Wonder for example takes the first film down a good few notches.

With Song to Song, it seems Malick is doubling down on his modus operandi and best of luck to him. But this might well be the first one that I give a miss.

QUENTIN TARANTINO TO DIRECT NEXT BOND

HOLLYWOOD – Quentin Tarantino today confirmed that he will be directing the next James Bond, although it is still unclear who the next Bond might be.

Following the news that Sam Mendes won’t be directing the next James Bond outing, speculation has been rife as to who will take over the job of helming the most successful and long running cinema franchise in the history of film. It looks like today that question has been answered with an EXCLUSIVE interview with Quentin Tarantino.

So Quentin, it looks like you got the gig.

I did indeed. It’s no secret that I wanted to direct a James Bond film since the very beginning of the Daniel Craig years. I laid out my ideas very clearly: Casino Royale but done in period and very faithful to the novel. They took on half of that idea but since then I’ve not stopped talking to Barbara [Broccoli] and the 007 team and when it became clear that Sam Mendes wasn’t coming back then I thought I could step in once more.

So what will be the story and who will be Bond?

Let’s be clear about this. Barbara runs the show. I’m gonna throw in my suggestions and I’m gonna write the script but the direction of the story, the casting and all of that is out of my hands. I’m pitching a remake of Thunderball. It’s the film that was done a couple of times and for various copyright reasons it was never really resolved. And as for Bond I like the suggestion of Idris Elba and I love Michael Fassbender, but if I really had carte blanche I’d have Samuel L. Jackson. He’s so good. I mean suave and dangerous.

What are the chances that Daniel Craig might stay on?

I don’t know. We need to have that conversation and I know that he’s really all about the script so I’d be eager to sit down and talk him through my ideas. But I can also tell him right now that there’ll be a lot more swearing and a bit less violence. But the violence will mean more if you know what I mean. And I want to put in the humor again, like the old Roger Moore Bonds.

Thundermotherf*ckingBalls will be released in 2018.

SETH ROGEN GOES ON FOOD DIET

HOLLYWOOD – Comedic actor and Steve Wozniak impersonator Seth Rogen opened up today to the Studio Exec about his radical food diet.

Seth Rogen has had a hard year with his appearance in a rare straight role co-starring with Michael Fassbender in Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs and appearing once more alongside Zac Efron for Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising.

You look great Seth. What’s going on?

Well, I knew that this year was going to be a tough one for me. I had a lot of challenges to confront and frankly after The Interview I’d begun to take a new perspective on life. It was time to get myself in shape so I started to think about it properly.

So what did you do?

I went on a special food diet.

Sounds crazy, what does it involve?

You have to eat food. Breakfast: food. Lunch: food. Dinner more food.

Jesus!

I know it’s pretty strict. Of course I can, if I feel hungry in-between ‘meals’, I can have a snack but it has to be food.

So it’s basically food, food, food.

That’s right. Of course I can drink sometimes as well, but if I do it is only liquids, fluids, that sort of thing.

Sounds very strict.

It is but you can see the results and standing next to Zac Efron, I don’t have anything to worry about this time around. I think people are going to be really surprised.

This is Christian Bale like dedication to your craft.

It is on the scale of the Machinist. Yes. Or Night Crawler.

How do you keep your sanity?

Every week I have one cheat day.

Ah ha! And what do you have on your cheat day?

Wool. I just go and hit the wool stores. I buy like two barrels of that shit and I just wolf it down. But because of the food diet my body is fooled into thinking it’s food and so it doesn’t effect my diet.

Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising will be released in 2016.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER’S ASSASSIN’S CREED PHOTO CAUSES ALARM

HOLLYWOOD – A new image of Michael Fassbender in Assassin’s Creed has leaked onto the internet and caused widespread consternation among fans of the game.

The film version of Assassin’s Creed directed by Justin Kurzel and starring Michael Fassbender is eagerly awaited by fans of the Ubisoft open world stealth game. However, the first image to be released onto the internet shows Fassbender as the iconic assassin but clearly wearing a pair of what appears to be boxing shorts. Already fans had been shook by the release of Creed earlier this year, starring Sylvester Stallone and Michael B. Jordan which many gamers believed was an abhorrent betrayal of the original game (for that story Click Here). Top ‘Creeder’ Jose Pentacle told the Studio Exec:

Frankly we’re getting tired of being jerked around. We know that there was a boxing movie in the seventies that featured a character called Apollo Creed. We get it. But that should have nothing to do with the movie version of Assassin’s Creed. I’m not naive. The movie business is a business whose primary aim is to make money.So I’m sure if they can combine these two properties they will, but I also want to be clear that the Assassins who have been fighting the Knight Templar for centuries will not lie down and allow some big shot Hollywood producer desecrate what is a very important video game.

Director Justin Kurzel responded to the criticisms by issuing the following statement:

My interest in the Assassin’s Creed universe is the same as any other fan. I want to bring to life a story that we have all been living, all been writing for years now. I will do everything to remain true to the source material and the spirit of that material. Michael Fassbender is also a dedicated actor who is fully committed to bringing the Count of Monte Fisto to the screen in all his glory.

Assassin’s Creed will be released in 2016.

FREE HATS TO BE GIVEN AWAY WITH X-MEN: APOCALYPSE

HOLLYWOOD – Free hats are to be given away at cinemas showing X-Men: Apocalypse, Bryan Singer revealed today.

X-Men: Apocalypse director Bryan Singer revealed that everyone who goes to see his new film X-Men: Apocalypse will be given a free hat. Bryan Singer was speaking EXCLUSIVELY to the Studio Exec following the release of the trailer for the new installment which will star James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Sophie Turner and Michael Fassbender as Magneto!

It is really hard for us right now. The Avengers are really out there kicking our asses and then there’s Star Wars and all the spin offs from that to contend with. There are all these gimmicks as well. IMAX, 3D, IMAX 3D, so I was thinking how can I make the X-Men relevant once more? How can I make it so people want to come and see our movie and not some other movie? And the answer came to me in a dream. Give away free hats.

With every ticket?

Yes, absolutely with every ticket. Once you get your ticket, you get the free hat. I’ve designed them personally. They’ll be top hats and they’ll have writing across them. One will say ‘I went to see the X-Men: Apocalypse and Loved It’ and the other will say ‘The X-Men Rock (Not As Much As The Avengers, But Still)’. The idea is that people will go and see our film and when they come out wearing their hats, it’ll be advertising for our movie. Isn’t that wonderful?

And these are top hats?

Yes.

Well, won’t they block the view? I mean if everyone gets a top hat and puts it on during the film, the people behind won’t be able to see.

The don’t have to… why would they…

You could have bowler hats.

We’ve already bought the top hats. We’ve already made them. Hundreds of thousands of top hats. Half of them saying ‘I went to see the X-Men: Apocalypse and Loved It’ and the other half saying ‘The X-Men Rock (Not As Much As The Avengers, But Still)’.

Didn’t that cost a lot of money?

Half our budget.

This is a really…

Shut up.

X-Men: Apocalypse will be released on May 26th, 2016.

MACBETH – REVIEW

MACBETH – REVIEW: Michael Fassbender murky, mumbling and murderous Scottish noble mucks about in the mist.

Justin Kurzel – of Snowtown fame – directs a new adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays. Already creditably served by an Orson Welles version and Rom Polanski’s bloody take, Kurzel’s Macbeth is a beautifully rendered piece of out and out gloom. Set in the cold forbidding boglands of Scotland and in a period aggressively Dark Aged, Fassbender is the Laird who, with the goading of Witches and wife (Marion Cotillard), decides to hasten his upward mobility with some judicious well placed stabbing.

If there is one criticism, it might be that the film is utterly drained of humor – the Porter scene (never actually funny, truth be told) being cut – and so is effectively a one note piece, a drone that is matched by the percussive, internal organ liquidating soundtrack. And yet like the music, it also holds a hypnotic power as blood is waded through and ambition leads to atrocity and on to destruction. Fassbender’s troubled soldier descends into madness and the whole world seems so consumed by blood, violence, sound and fury, that even the possibility of goodness seems to have had its throat cut late one moonless night.

The performances are all suitably intense, the direction and photography stylish, but it’s the screenplay that really deserves some praise. This guy can write.

For more Reviews, Click Here.

CREED NOTHING LIKE THE GAME, COMPLAIN FANS

HOLLYWOOD – The long awaited movie adaptation of the Assassin’s Creed video game Creed is now in theaters and fans are furious.

Directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone, Creed had all the promise of a surefire hit, but fan reaction has been harsh and the backlash looks set to continue. So what went wrong? Arch-fan and Creedian, Apollo X. Now told the Studio Exec EXCLUSIVELY about his disappointment.

We heard that they were making an adaptation of the game and we were excited but also nervous. It is a perfect game to adapt because of the narrative structure, the action and the epic scope, but we had been disappointed so many times.

So what went wrong Apollo?

The first danger sign came with the change in the title. From Assassin’s Creed to just Creed. We thought okay. This is like changing Star Wars to just Wars, but okay. Then Michael Fassbender who had been cast apparently dropped out and Michael B. Jordan who is a very talented actor came in.

Is it because he’s black?

No not at all. I had no problem with that but when I saw the movie they had just the whole concept of the game and indeed they seemed to have changed the actually genre in which the story works so well.

What do you mean?

Well, he kind of boxes all the time. He’s a boxer and there’s all this stuff about his father and this old guy (Stallone) who becomes his trainer and who knew his father. I mean’s it isn’t a bad movie at all. It just shouldn’t be called Creed because it has no connection to Assassin’s Creed at all. If anything it reminded me of an old Rocky movie.

Isn’t it a Rocky movie though?

Sylvester Stallone kept answering to the name Rocky but I thought that was a meta-joke. You know post-modern. Look, if they want to make a Rocky movie that’s great, but why try to tie it in to Assassin’s Creed.

But isn’t the title a reference to Apollo Creed, the character’s father? I mean Michael B. Jordan’s character is called Adonis Creed.

Oh. Oh, I see. Okay. So it is a Rocky movie. Right. Wow. I got the wrong end of the…

Stick yeah.

Shit. That’s embarrassing. Look forget I said anything.

No problem.

Wait, are you recording this?

Creed is currently in theaters.

STEVE JOBS – SPOILER FREE REVIEW

STEVE JOBS – SPOILER FREE REVIEW – Following the amazing Ashton Kutcher biopic, few could have considered the idea of doing another film about Steve Jobs, except perhaps the creative team of Aaron Sorkin, Danny Boyle and Michael Fassbender.

Did they do the iGenius credit? Or was this a hack job with little to interest those not taken in by the self-proclaiming hype of the Apple founder?

Find out in our SPOILER free review:

There’s this guy.

And some computers.

And he’s called Steve Jobs.

For more Reviews, Click Here.

RIDLEY SCOTT TO FILM CANDY CRUSH

HOLLYWOOD – Ridley Scott has confirmed that he will film a motion picture based on the popular app/game Candy Crush Saga by King.com.

Gladiator and Prometheus director Ridley Scott today confirmed he will be filming a new adaptation of the popular game Candy Crush, recently purchased by Activision. Scott spoke to the Studio Exec exclusively:

I’ve always wanted to film something that is just about connections, patterns and confectionery, with no characters, no dialogue, just sweeties and shapes and stuff. And this looks like my chance.

Billed as a cross between The Parallax View and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Scott’s film is already in the late stages of pre-production. Scott told us:

The real problem was getting a story. Angry Birds you have a story, so that script wrote itself (well actually Cormac McCarthy wrote it) and I’m hoping to film it sometime late next year. Kevin Smith wrote a brilliant treatment for Monopoly but it was too obviously Marxist, so we had trouble selling that to the big studios. Candy Crush is colorful and exciting but where’s the story? Then I saw Battleship and it was like I had been hit by lightning. Eureka! We don’t need a story. We can just go ahead. We don’t need characters or any human emotion. Obviously I’d been experimenting with that kind of film with The Counselor and Prometheus but this will give me the scope to go all out.

Michael Fassbender is to play the yellow sweets whose paradisiacal home is threatened by the multicolored gobstoppers led by Kevin Spacey.

Candy Crush is due out late in 2016.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER IN WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS REMAKE

HOLLYWOOD – Following his new take on Ashton Kutcher’s Steve Jobs, the first poster for Michael Fassbender’s new version of the Kutcher classic What Happens in Vegas has hit the internet.

You have to admire his nerve. Michael Fassbender is making good on his promise to remake every Ashton Kutcher film with himself in the roles that many believed the Kutch had made definitively his own. The second remake What Happens in Vegas has already finished filming and a poster featuring Fassbender and co-star Cameron Diaz has already been released. The 2008 was a critical and commercial smash firmly cementing Diaz and Kutcher in the minds of the cinema-going public as a new Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy of comedy. Although Fassbender has called co-star Cameron Diaz in to reprise her role of career girl Joy, who marries playboy Jack Fuller (Kutcher/Michael Fassbender) in a drunken stupor, director Michael Vaughan has been replaced by Fassbender favourite Andrea Arnold.

Fassbender came into the Studio Exec bungalow to talk about his obsession:

What Andrea brings to the project is a woman’s perspective and I thought this was very important. I love the way Cameron Diaz plays her role in the original and I didn’t want to change a thing about that. Neither do I want to diverge overly from Ashton’s masterful interpretation. HIs lightness of touch, his subtlety, the nuances, the line readings, his over the shoulder reaction shots. Look at the poster. Just the way he has that grin and he points at Cameron as if to say ‘I know, right!’ it is possibly the biggest challenge of my career to go up against that. At least with Steve Jobs I could pretend I was interested in the real Steve Jobs, but here it was undiluted Kutcher.

What do you bring that is different to the role?

Nothing at all. Jesus Christ, are you high? I want to imitate Ashton down to the smallest particular. The details. This is a loving reproduction, not a reinterpretation. How would I ever have the gall to do that?

What Happens in Vegas will be released in 2016.

Image courtesy of @ThePixelFactor.