It seems impossible these days for a film franchise to keep its cast intact for a full run. This time it’s the Twilight series that has succumbed to the switcheroo game, as Bryce Dallas Howard was announced to be taking over Rachel Lefevre’s character, “Victoria,” as of the third film, Eclipse. This sort of thing nearly happened before for the Twilight series when Taylor Lautner came close to being fired from the part of “Jacob” after the first film, because he wasn’t seen as a strong or fit enough actor for the demands of the role in New Moon.
With this news, Howard cements herself as the official go-to actress for filling in vacated roles. In the past she has been a substitute in Lars von Trier’s USA - Land of Opportunities trilogy, taking on the lead role “Grace” originated by Nicole Kidman in Dogville for the sequel Manderlay, and she more recently filled in for a non-returning Claire Danes as “Kate” in the Terminator franchise (for which she also replaced the first-choice substitute, Charlotte Gainsbourg) Also, let’s not forget that she replaced Kirsten Dunst as the lead in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village, when Dunst departed to make Elizabethtown.
With the way things are going for her, I predict she’ll be taking over as “Ginny Weasley” in the second part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, “Black Widow” in Iron Man 3 or The Avengers, “Rachel Dawson” in the next Batman film and “Kumar” in A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas.
Let’s take a look at what the rest of the film blogs are saying about the substitution after the jump:
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As of this writing, no film at Cannes has yet managed to surpass Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, which premiered three days ago, as the hot topic of conversation. In fact, the chatter began before the movie screened: there was a palpable level of excitement days ago about a main Competition title, in English, from a name-brand auteur, with elements of genre that could potentially up its market value. In fact, for awhile there was talk that Antichrist could be the most accessible film Lars Von Trier has ever made. And then people saw it.
As you may have heard by now, the film stars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a married couple (they’re never named) who lose their only child in a freak accident, which they were present for but failed to stop because they were distracted having operatic sex. After she spends some time in a psychiatric ward dealing with her grief, Dafoe, a therapist, convinces Gainsbourg they should retreat to their house deep in secluded woods (they call it “Eden”) so that he can teach her how to face her fears. The house happened to be where the wife used to go to work on an academic thesis on Gynocide — ie: archaic and semi-mythic violence against women, witch hunting and like practices through which, as Gainsbourg’s character puts it, “nature causes people to do evil things to women” — before her husband dismissed her subject and thereby discouraged her ambition. Feeling as though her own sexuality is responsible for the death of her son, the woman essentially internalizes the texts she’s studied and becomes an embodiment of the “evil” she once dedicated her life to critiquing, manifested mainly through total sexual hysteria. And it’s funny!
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It’s the first true Big Cannes Moment to happen since I arrived in Cannes on Friday: Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, starring Charlote Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe, screened for the press last night, and immediately word started to spread that the film was intentionally unreleasable, chock full of intense violence, graphic sexuality, unforgivable misogyny … and also beauty. One man’s total debacle is another’s ecstatic vision, but thus far the Antichrist supporters seem to be outnumbered by the offended press. I haven’t seen the film yet — I waited in line for an hour last night, but didn’t get in — but I did watch the press conference. As I passed through the Palais, my attention was drawn over to a bank of monitors when I saw this quote on Matt Dentler’s Twitter stream: “I work for myself,” Von Trier said. “And I am the best film director in the world.”
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The trailer for Lars von Trier’s Antichrist has hit Vimeo (see it here after the jump). If patented Lars Von Trier creep applied to what seems like an old-school horror formula doesn’t pique your interest, the final money shot probably will. Unless you have something against a naked Willem DaFoe thrusting atop Charlotte Gainsbourg, who is herself mounted on a tangle of muddy tree roots and froze, anonymous limbs!
The general consensus seems to be that this film will probably be at Cannes. So will I! I will report back.
Via FILMMAKER Blog
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I’m swooning this morning over a 16-page PDF, advertising the fall programming schedule for Los Angeles’ Silent Movie Theater, which has recently been remade as a full-service rep house. Growing up in Los Angeles, the old Silent Movie was a key constellation on the moviegoing map, along with the New Beverly, the Nuart, the Music Hall, that shitty discount Cineplex Odeon on Fairfax and Beverly, and the (recently-shuttered) Rialto in Pasadena. Now that I’ve been spoiled by New York theaters like Film Forum and the Pioneer, I understand that none of these places were all that adventurously programmed when I was frequenting them in the mid-to-late 90s, but within Los Angeles’ oppressive strip mall non-culture, there was something exciting about watching something like King Kong with live organ accompaniment at the Silent, or even just getting a car full of people to drive out to Pasadena to see a print of Ghostbusters that actually had scratches on it.
But with the new Silent Movie, Los Angeles finally has the rep house that it probably doesn’t deserve. The program for the remainder of 2007 is wildly exciting. I’ve listed some highlights after the jump; you can download the gorgeous PDF program here.
[Via Filmmaker Blog]
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Variety says
Sex and the City made almost $56 million over the weekend––almost twice what tracking would have indicated as late as Friday morning. 
