Aaron Eckhart boards Clint Eastwood’s Captain Sully movie

Earlier this summer, Tom Hanks was found genial and competent enough to play Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger in the Clint Eastwood-helmed film about the Miracle On The Hudson events. We at The A.V. Club were somewhat skeptical of Hanks’ ability to portray an ordinary man who must overcome extraordinary odds, in part because he’d once befriended a volleyball. The Hollywood Reporter has somewhat set our minds at ease with the news that Hanks will have some help in the film: Aaron Eckhart has been cast as Sully’s co-pilot and co-miracle worker.

Eckhart will play Jeff Skiles, Sully’s first officer and co-pilot who was manually flying the plane when it ran afoul of some Canadian geese. Although Skiles never received a sweet nickname from a mayor, he was instrumental in safely landing the plane in the Hudson. Eckhart’s been slumming in Gerard Butler-led action films and action-horror hybrids lately, but he could apply what he learns about performing a daring rescue in “real time” to help Hanks look good on film.

The film will be based in part on Sullenberger’s book, Highest Duty: My Search For What Really Matters, with a script from Todd Komarnicki (Perfect Stranger) for Warner Bros. The as-yet-untitled project is in pre-production and will be released some time in 2016.

source: avclub.com

Will You Be Impressed By Another Action Thriller That Plays Out “In Real Time”?

I would have thought the TV series 24 was the peak of “real time” drama and thrills. Maybe it was. And maybe the peak for the technical side of the concept was with literal real-time features Timecode and Russian Ark, films that were only made possible by digital cameras. The only sort of real-time efforts that are still of interest are those broadcast live, which are back in vogue through NBC and now Fox’s presentations of live musicals, including next year’s production of Grease.

When I saw that a new action movie with the “takes place in real time” conceit was titled Live!, I thought maybe the TV musical gimmick was carrying over to the cinema. But no, it’s just another movie that sounds like Nick of Time and 88 Minutes. Aaron Eckhart will play a “disgraced cop” who has only 80 minutes to find the police commissioner’s kidnapped daughter, and of course 80 minutes will also be around the length of the movie, too.

The difference, maybe, is that this is supposedly going to be shot in real time, too, by stunt coordinators Darrin Prescott (John Wick) and Wade Allen (The Dark Knight) making their directorial debut. If so — if they’re really aiming to rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and then only roll cameras during a single 80-or-so-minute stretch — then that’s cool. But that is very unlikely. And if it wasn’t, then that sort of thing should be indeed a live event, broadcast to theaters like so many operas and concerts are these days.

As speculates /Film, the truth is probably that there will be some “invisible” edits similar to those of the recent seemingly single-shot Best Picture winner Birdman and, almost 70 years prior, Hitchcock’s Rope. It will be a step up for something like that to be made in the action genre, but just a little bit. Audiences are becoming less impressed with the idea of the long take, as technology allows for them to appear in most major tentpole action movies of late.

Perhaps this is a step towards live movies set in and broadcast in real time, though the logistics of exhibition on that would be difficult. I’d say they could do multiple shows through the opening weekend and then after that all screenings are of the best recorded version (or an edit of them), but obviously audiences would mostly only flock to those first screenings (isn’t that what Hollywood prefers we do now anyway?). It sure would make moviegoing an event again.

source: filmschoolrejects.com

Aaron Eckhart to Play an Exorcist in INCARNATE for Director Brad Peyton

Brad Peyton of “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” fame will direct the film, which will shoot in November.

Coming off the $40 million opening of Insidious: Chapter 2, Blumhouse Productions is hoping to launch another horror series with Incarnate.

Aaron Eckhart is on board to star in the microbudget horror movie that will be directed by Brad Peyton, who last directed Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.

Ronnie Christensen wrote the script, which, according to Blumhouse, tells of “an unconventional exorcist who can tap into the subconscious of the possessed who meets his match when a 9-year-old boy is possessed by a demon from his past.”

A November start in Los Angeles is being planned on the picture, which will be co-financed by Blumhouse and IM Global.

Blum is producing. Exec producing are Blumhouse’ Couper Samuelson as well as Stuart Ford, Charles Layton, Michael Seitzman, Trevor Engelson and Peyton.

 

Olympus Has Fallen: Trivia facts

Olympus Has Fallen: Trivia facts

Olympus Has Fallen: Trivia facts

1.This is one of two movies released to cinemas in 2013 with the same premise: the garrisoning of the White House by criminals who hold the President hostage. The other is White House Down (2013).

2.Cerberus, or Hellhound, is the three-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld in Greek mythology. It keeps those who have died from escaping across the river Styx.

3.Morgan Freeman was filming the crisis room scenes in Louisiana at the height of his Internet death hoax. He began each day of filming by serenading the extras with old jazz songs, and endeared himself to the unsuspecting crew with pranks.

4.Putting North Korean terrorists in the plot was widely viewed as prescient when real-world tensions between North Korea and the USA emerged in 2013. In an interview, director Antoine Fuqua said he didn’t want the film’s villains to be from the Middle East because he felt other films had covered that, to the point of saturation. North Korea was interesting to him because it was completely closed off to the outside world, and no one really knew what it wanted or was capable of doing.

5.While filming the White House tourist scenes in Louisiana, the weather was so hot that the Humane Society representative insisted that the German Shepherds playing K-9 watch dogs stay in an air-conditioned van between shoots.

6.For her more physically demanding scenes, Melissa Leo did step-ups on an apple box in-between takes, to keep her heart-rate up. She also wore a brown wig, because she needed to keep her hair long while shooting Treme (2010).

 

7.Gerard Butler was once in consideration to star as CIA operative Mitch Rapp in a proposed film adaptation of Vince Flynn’s novels. One’s plot is very similar to this film; terrorists seize control of the White House, and Rapp must get to the President in his bunker before the terrorists do.

 

8.One trailer, used in TV ads, included Emergency Alert System tones. They are used to alert TV viewers about real-life emergencies; using them outside of emergency broadcasts or tests violates federal law. In 2014, the FCC fined ESPN, Viacom, and NBC Universal $1.93 million for broadcasting Emergency Alert System tones in non-emergency broadcasts.

9.The role of the Secret Service director was originally written for a man. Antoine Fuqua persuaded Angela Bassett to audition, then had the role re-written for a woman.

10.This is the second time Dylan McDermott has played a Secret Service Agent. He also played a similar role in In the Line of Fire (1993) with Clint Eastwood.

11.Winona Ryder was the studio’s first choice to play the First Lady.

12.This is the fourth film in which Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd have appeared in together, but this is the first time that their characters do not share any screen time together. The first three films they worked together in were Kiss the Girls (1997), High Crimes (2002) and Dolphin Tale (2011).

13.Aaron Eckhart (the President) and Morgan Freeman (the House Speaker) both played Batman allies in The Dark Knight (2008).

14.The intruding aircraft is a modified Lockheed AC-130, itself a modified C-130 Hercules. In the movie, the plane has two GE M134 miniguns on each side. In real life, the aircraft only has air-to-ground armament on the left side to provide close air support to ground troops, among other high-risk tasks.

15.Dylan McDermott and Angela Bassett have both starred on the hit TV show American Horror Story.

16.Hamish MacDonald is a real news reporter for channel 10, based in Sydney, Australia.

17.The interceptor planes are Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor jets designed for air superiority and intercept roles.

18.The typeface used for the word “Olympus” in the poster is the same as that of the logo of company “Olympus”, manufacturer of optics.

19.Dylan McDermott and Robert Forster appeared together in Automata (2014).

20.Ironically, Rick Yune, who plays the villain, was born in Washington D.C..

After the attack on the White House and kidnapping of the President and Vice President, Speaker Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) becomes Acting President of the United States. Freeman previously played the President of United States in Deep Impact (1998).

21.After the president is shot, there would have been much more blood, yet as they are walking out the rotunda, the presidents shirt is spotless and then bloody again but not as much as when he is propped against the wall when Banning reaches him

22.Second film where Dylan McDermott is a secret service agent. (First one being In The Line of Fire)

 

London Has Fallen attacked for ‘insensitivity’ by 7/7 victims’ trust

The chairman of an organisation set up to honour the memories of the victims of the 7/7 terrorist strike on London has labelled a new trailer for the Hollywood disaster movie London Has Fallen “extremely insensitive”.

Babak Najafi’s film, a big budget sequel to 2013 action thriller Olympus Has Fallen, stars Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart and Morgan Freeman in the story of an attack on the capital. Chair of the 7/7 Memorial Trust, Philip Nelson, said the timing of the trailer’s release was wrong just a few days before the 10th anniversary of Britain’s worst terrorist strike of recent times.

“This is not the first time that Hollywood has been insensitive,” he told the Mirror. “If the story is about terrorism then this is extremely insensitive. People have also recently died of a terrorist attack in Tunisia.

“I have seen an image of Big Ben with the clock face blown out, that’s also insensitive. “[Our Trust] has had lots of help from America so I just think that these are the wrong images to portray. Is the summer the best time to be promoting this film anyway?”

It was not clear whether Nelson contacted the Mirror to express his concerns or was approached for a comment by a reporter seeking to put together a story. However, the trailer for London Has Fallen has also provoked upset on Twitter.

Fifty-two people died and more than 700 were injured in the bombings at Russell Square, Edgware Road, Aldgate and Tavistock Square, London on 7 July 2005. 

London is Fallen is due to be released in the US on 22 January.

Aaron Eckhart to Star in ‘Live!’, An Action Movie Shot in Real-Time

Aaron Eckhart (OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, THE DARK KNIGHT, upcoming BLEED FOR THIS, MY ALL AMERICAN and Blumhouse/Universal’s INCARNATE) is set to star in the high concept action film LIVE!, it was announced today by producers Myles Nestel (THE NOVEMBER MAN, LAGGIES), co-founder and partner of The Solution Entertainment Group and Skip Williamson (UNDERWORLD franchise, GAMER, CRANK) of 5B Artist+Media.

The Solution is producing the film, which will begin principal photography in October.  Onboard to fully finance and co-produce is Fubar Films, headed by producer Colin Bates (MAGGIE). Executive producers are Fubar Films’ Peter M. DeGeorge, William Stetson and Lindsey Howery.

The Solution’s Lisa Wilson and Craig Chapman and Sentient’s Christopher Tuffin and Renee Tab are also executive producing the film.  LIVE! marks the first picture in a multi-picture collaboration between Fubar and The Solution.  The Solution is also handling worldwide sales on the project.

Written by Jeremy Drysdale, LIVE! will be co-directed by award winning second unit action directors/stunt coordinators Darrin Prescott & Wade Allen (JOHN WICK, INSURGENT, DRIVE, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, 2 GUNS) who will make their directorial feature film debut.

Shot in real time, the original script tracks disgraced cop, Kyle Penny (Eckhart), on his hunt to rescue Police Commissioner

Volk’s kidnapped daughter, trapped somewhere in the city with only 80 minutes to live.  A deranged killer on his heels, Penny’s only hope is teaming with Ava Brooks, an ambitious young online reporter who films the wild chase live.

“There are very few independent action movies being made and this one truly kicks ass,” said producer Nestel. “We’re thrilled to have Aaron star as he will bring an intensity and authenticity to the role of Kyle Penny that will elevate the material to another level.  And with Darrin and Wade at the helm, LIVE! will set the bar for today’s action audiences.  We are so excited that this is the first project that we are partnering with Fubar on and look forward to this being the first of many!”

“Having worked shoulder to shoulder with Darrin and Wade on several action films over the years, I could not be more amped to watch them in the director’s chair where they will bring out many of the stunts and action sequences they have always wanted to do,” added Williamson.  “Teaming them with a true actor of Aaron’s caliber will create something the action crowd will love.”

On behalf of Fubar, Colin Bates added: “We are thrilled to be coming onboard LIVE! and to join forces with The Solution in the first of many co-productions. The intensity and uniqueness of the script combined with the talents of Darrin, Wade and Aaron make for a sure fire success.”

Aaron Eckhart stars opposite Miles Teller in The Solution’s highly anticipated boxing biopic BLEED FOR THIS.  Executive produced by Martin Scorsese, the film will be released by Open Road Films. Eckhart is also starring in MY ALL AMERICAN which will be released in the fall, as well as Blumhouse/Universal’s INCARNATE.  Eckhart’s previous credits include playing Harvey Dent aka “Two-Face” in Christopher Nolan’s critically acclaimed and worldwide box office sensation THE DARK KNIGHT and OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN with Morgan Freeman and Gerard Butler. He will reprise his role in the sequel, LONDON HAS FALLEN, coming to theatres in January 2016 through Focus Features. Eckhart was nominated for a Golden Globe for his leading role in THANK YOU FOR SMOKING.