THE MIDWEEK NEWS # 2

MOVIES RELEASED
Crazy Moon Pictures reach the moon

1-The Heirs
Action
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring Sean Penn, Robert De Niro, Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell, Christian Bale, Robin Wright-Penn
Release Date: Wk 1, July
Box Office: 158 mill.
Net Gain: 117 mill.

2-Fear The Darkness
Horror / Evil
Directed by Wes Craven
Starring Dakota Fanning, Laura Linney, Dennis Quaid, Benicio Del Toro
Release Date: Wk 4, October
Box Office: 117
Net Gain: 80

CRITICS SAID

1.The Heirs

“The formula: Goodfellas + The Godfather x The Sopranos = The Heirs”
-Bob Felton, ‘Entertainment Weekly’

“A masterpiece. Scorsese at his best. Don’t miss it.”
-Charlie McGowan, ‘Variety’

“An overdose of testosterone. Penn, De Niro, Farrell and Bale in a virility contest. That’s nothing I’m interested in”
-Rosie Carrigan, ‘Vogue’

2.Fear The Darkness

“Another girl in a haunted house? Well, ok, I had nothing better to do in Halloween…”
-Billy Conn, ‘The New York Post’

“The best of the movie is the character of Darkman. Del Toro is fantastic as the evil leader of the cult. I would say that Craven has found a new Freddy Kruger”
-Lilly Stevens, ‘USA Today’

“I was sceptic at the beginning. But I have to admit that the movie scared me to death. Dakota Fanning can make believable the unbelievable”
-Matt Davies, “ET”

PREMIERE – THE HEIRS
We’ve got the pictures!

AWAITING RELEASE
CMP looking for laughs

THE MOGULERS: Zach Braff and Jennifer Love-Hewitt try to avoid the stealing of a movie simulation computer game from Danny DeVito, a PC game industry mogul. See ‘The Movie File’ and ‘Inside CMP’ for more info.

THE PERFECT CANDIDATE: Ben Stiller plays a marketing genius that directs the presidential campaign of a fake leader, an amnesic Steve Martin. His plans will get in trouble when a journalist, played by Courtney Cox, starts to suspect something and the candidate begins to recover the memory. Rene Russo plays an actress hired to act as the candidate’s modelic wife and Stanley Tucci is the candidate’s party advisor. Mike Nichols directs this political satire.

MOVIES IN DEVELOPMENT
Too many heros?

THE CRUSADES: Budget is said to be getting out of control in this 'peplum' production. A long list of stars are said to be part of the cast, but only Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly are confirmed by the moment. Ridley Scott stays behind the cameras.

BILL AND THE ROCKET MAN: A peculiar and strange story about Bill, a shy man (Paul Giamatti) who has lived since childhood with an imaginary friend, the superhero Rocket Man. Giamatti will have to react when his imaginary friend falls into depression and tells him that he’s feeling too old to keep being a superhero. George Clooney produces this original project and also plays the depressed and imaginary Rocket Man.

CORSAIRS: Antonio Banderas stars in this story about treasure haunters in the malaise seas during 17th Century. Martin Campbell is directing it in locations in Asia.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CMP is trying to launch a franchise based on the superhero. Brett Rattner as director and Ben Affleck as Captain America himself are the first names heard related to this project.

THE MOVIE FILE

The Mogulers
Action / Comedy

The Cast: Zach Braff, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, Danny DeVito, Vincent D’Onofrio
The Director and Producer: Ivan Reitman
The Plot: When a bedroom coder creates a movie studio management PC game, little did he know the big boys of the video game industry had plans to steal it away and market it as their own... Can he defeat the evil conglomerates and earn the money he truly deserves? Braff plays the game creator and Love-Hewitt plays his girlfriend, while De Vito is the mean video game industry mogul and D’Onofrio plays the wacky policeman that investigates the case.

RUMOURS AND GOSSIPS
The world is full of sequels projects

Dakota Fanning has signed a nice contract to star a possible sequel of ‘Fear The Darkness’. Laura Linney, who plays her mother in the movie, rejected the offer of a sequel’s contract.

It is confirmed that ‘The Heirs’ will be a trilogy of movies. But, as Colin Farrell and Christian Bale’s character died in the first movie, killed by De Niro, Martin Scorsese will have to look for new stars to join the saga.

George Lucas has rejected to get involved in a new Star Wars trilogy produced by CMP for the moment. Stark maintains his hopes of convincing him.


INSIDE CMP
Life’s tough

Who said that running a movie studio is easy? The story around ‘The Mogulers’ proves it is not. The original idea for the movie was conceived by Daggler, one of CMP’s executive producers, with the title ‘Lights! Camera! Stolen!’. He wanted to make a serious action thriller about cyber robberies. But CMP’s Executive Board decided that they’d turn the original screenplay written by him into an action comedy changing the title to ‘The Mogulers’. That was not what Daggler wanted. So, after so many come and goes, a new screenplay was finally written by Richard Norris, definitely changing the original idea and implementing all the comedy elements. Daggler didn’t like it, so he disowned the project and refused to appear in the movie’s credits appealing to ‘creative differences’. Only box office will tell if CMP was right. And only time will tell if Daggler will be willing to work with the Studio again.