Warner Bros. has sent over high resolution versions of all the new Clash of the Titans movie posters that recently hit the net.  Originally scheduled for release on March 26 and in 2D, WB has moved the release date to April 2 and Clash is now going to be a 3D release.  While I have no idea how they were able to get this done so quickly, if they were able to make Clash look cool in 3D, I’m all for it.

As of now, there have been no test screenings of the film, and I don’t know anyone that’s seen the final version.  But I was on the set last year and what I saw looked awesome.  Look for my set report on the 18th - along with interviews with the cast.  Hit the jump to check out the posters in high res:

CLASH OF THE TITANS
(Warner Bros. Pictures/Legendary Pictures)

Director: Louis Leterrier
Writers: Travis Beacham and Phil Hay & Matt Manfredi
Producers: Basil Iwanyk, Kevin De La Noy
Executive Producers: Richard D. Zanuck, Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni, William Fay

Cast: Sam Worthington, Gemma Arterton, Mads Mikkelsen, Alexa Davalos, Jason Flemyng, Ralph Fiennes, Liam Neeson

Action Fantasy. In “Clash of the Titans,” the ultimate struggle for power pits men against kings and kings against gods. But the war between the gods themselves could destroy the world. Born of a god but raised as a man, Perseus (Sam Worthington) is helpless to save his family from Hades (Ralph Fiennes), vengeful god of the underworld. With nothing left to lose, Perseus volunteers to lead a dangerous mission to defeat Hades before he can seize power from Zeus (Liam Neeson) and unleash hell on earth. Leading a daring band of warriors, Perseus sets off on a perilous journey deep into forbidden worlds. Battling unholy demons and fearsome beasts, he will only survive if he can accept his power as a god, defy his fate and create his own destiny.

click on any poster for a high res version

It’s not easy being the outsider among giants, and now, according to Twitch, the independent Imagi Animation Studios is closing down after being forced to lay off 300 of its employees due to financial woes.  The studio launched in 2000 and after doing animation work for TV and in a supporting capacity with DreamWorks Animation’s Father of the Pride (2004), the studio had a moderate success in 2007 with TMNT.  Unfortunately, their next film, last year’s Astro Boy opened to disappointing numbers, raking in only $23 million worldwide, which was less than a third of its budget.

Unfortunately, Imagi was in the middle of working on an adaptation of the 1970s anime TV series Gatchaman.  The series [as related by Wikipedia] centered on five teenage superhero ninjas who opposed a group of technologically advanced villains from taking control of the Earth’s natural resources.  While their adaptation, set for 2011, is most likely dead, it’s also likely that someone will pick it up in the future and shoot it back to the big screen.  You just can’t keep a group of teenage superhero ninjas who dress like birds down.  But if you want to feel wistful and long for things that will not be, click here to see a teaser poster, a clip, and images from the film and click here to see a teaser trailer.

Deadline reports that Tom Cruise has decided he’ll light the fuse and return as Special Agent Ethan Hunt for Mission: Impossible 4.  Cruise will produce the film with Mission: Impossible 3 director J.J. Abrams with screenwriters Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec on board to handle the script.  Applebaum and Nemec both wrote for Abrams’ Alias and co-created the short-lived series October Road and the U.S. remake of Life on Mars.  Abrams and Cruise are currently looking for a director.

As for Cruise, he first played Hunt back in 1996 and is intending to make M:I- 4 his next film, with shooting scheduled to begin this summer for a Memorial Day 2011 release.  It will be interesting to see if the result of this outing will create the same animosity the third one created between Cruise and Viacom (Paramount Pictures’ parent company) head honcho Sumner Redstone over the third film’s lackluster box office.  Even if it does, it’s good to know that folks can bury the hatchet if they’re also digging for more money.

Cruise will next be seen alongside Cameron Diaz in James Mangold’s Knight and Day, which is set to hit theaters on July 2nd. [UPDATE: Paramount has sent out a press release on Cruise's return to the franchise. Hit the jump to check it out.]

PARAMOUNT PICTURES TO MAKE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE IV:
TOM CRUISE & JJ ABRAMS TO PRODUCE; CRUISE TO STAR
***
Film slated for release Memorial Day 2011

HOLLYWOOD, CA (February 9, 2010) - Paramount Pictures announced today that it is making “Mission Impossible IV.” The film, which will be produced by Tom Cruise, J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot Productions and will star Cruise, will be released Memorial Day weekend 2011.

“Tom and J.J. are great talents and we are excited to be working with them to re-launch this legendary franchise,” said Paramount Pictures Chairman & CEO Brad Grey.

Screenwriters Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec are attached to write the script, from an original idea by Cruise and Abrams.
The studio, Cruise and Abrams are in now the process of identifying a director for the film.

Abrams’s last project with Paramount was “Star Trek,” which he produced and directed. The film grossed $385 million globally.  Cruise’s “Mission Impossible” franchise has grossed over 1.4 billion globally.
“Mission Impossible IV” will be co-financed by David Ellison’s Skydance Productions.

Cruise is represented by CAA. Abrams, Applebaum and Nemec are represented by WME.

About Paramount Pictures Corporation

Paramount Pictures Corporation (PPC), a global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment, is a unit of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), a leading content company with prominent and respected film, television and digital entertainment brands.  The company’s labels include Paramount Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Paramount Classics, MTV Films and Nickelodeon Movies.  PPC operations also include Paramount Digital Entertainment, Paramount Famous Productions, Paramount Home Entertainment, Paramount Pictures International, Paramount Licensing Inc., Paramount Studio Group, and Worldwide Television Distribution.

Have you ever wanted to hear what Darth Vader originally sounded like on the set of Star Wars…before George Lucas got James Earl Jones to provide his voice?  If you have, hit the jump for some awesome behind the scenes footage.

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to win the lottery?  Do you think all your problems would disappear?  After watching Jeffrey Blitz’s (Rocket Science, Spellbound) new documentary Lucky, I’ve learned what people go through when they come into a ton of new money and it isn’t always easy.

Lucky premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and the film features interviews with both lottery winners and regular folks hoping to win.  What’s interesting is how some of the winners have changed dramatically, and others are almost the exact same people.  It’s a fascinating movie about something millions of people play every week, and by the end, you’ll probably want to buy a ticket.

While at the Festival, I was able to talk with Jeffrey Blitz and producer Sean Welch.  They talked about being back at Sundance, how hard it was to find people to be in the film, the editing process, what will be on the DVD, and they tell some great behind the scenes stories.  Watch what they had to say after the jump:

Jeffrey Blitz and Producer Sean Welch

• What has the Sundance experience been like for them.  And is it the same as last time
• How did Lucky come together (you also get a great exchange between Blitz and Welch)
• 3:00 - Blitz talks about how the lottery was not a part of his life before this project
• 5:00 - How difficult was it to get the people in the film who had won the lottery and how many did they have to approach
• 7:10 - Did anyone drop out once filming began
• 8:10 - How long was the editing process and what was it like to go through all the footage
• 9:30 - What did they take away from this experience and do they now play the lottery
• 12:30 - Have they talked about a 3rd project yet
• 13:20 - What will be on the DVD and will they do any follow ups
• 14:00 - Blitz talks about directing The Office and what that’s like
• 15:20 - Sean Welch talks about the DC Comics documentary he is producing

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With director Chris Columbus’ Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief opening this Friday, I was able to talk with screenwriter Craig Titley (Scooby-Doo, Cheaper by the Dozen) about his involvement in the project yesterday afternoon.  During the interview, we talked about writing Percy Jackson, his involvement in Star Wars: The Clone Wars cartoon (he’s written two episodes), and what’s up with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  And just to clarify the 20,000 Leagues story, two competing projects were going at the same time last year, one was at Disney with McG helming, and one was being developed at New Line with Sam Raimi’s company.  Titley wrote the New Line one.  During the interview he talks about his take on the material and what it’s about.

Watch the interview after the jump:

And one final thing before the interview…I need to come clean. Craig Titley and I have been friends for a number of years, so it’s more of a conversation between friends than a hard hitting interview.

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Craig Titley

• Star Wars Clone Wars talk - talks about the two episodes he wrote, going to Lucas Ranch, meeting George Lucas, and how he’s a Star Wars nerd
• 5:00 - Percy Jackson talk - How did he get involved in the movie
• 6:10 - How close is the movie to the books
• 7:15 - Did he have fun writing the Gods and what kind of research did he do
• 8:15 - When he was writing the script did he know the caliber of actors that were going to get cast
• 9:30 - Craig explains how Chris Columbus scripts taught him to write
• 11:15 - Has he seen the final cut of Percy Jackson and what was cut
• 12:15 - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea talk - He did the one with Sam Raimi’s company that was set up at New Line (not the Disney one)
• 13:20 - What’s his take on 20,000 Leagues
• 15:30 - Did he write 20,000 Leagues with any sort of budget in mind
• 16:15 - What is he working on right now

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Yesterday, we reported on David Goyer leaving his showrunning duties for ABC’s FlashForward focus on his film career, which included a mention of the inevitable Batman 3. At the time, it seemed like a continuation of the logical but as-of-yet unconfirmed rumor that director Christopher Nolan and screenwriter Goyer would return to Gotham.  A new report Deadline, advances said heresay and ups the ante by about a million chips.  Not only has Nolan cracked the story of the sequel to The Dark Knight and committed to participate, but Warner Bros. has recruited the modern auteur to “godfather” the newest film in the Superman franchise.  It’s unlikely that Nolan will direct the Superman sequel, but any portion of the reins handed to the man indicates a serious effort on the studio’s part to make the best Superman while they still have the time.

For speculation on the future of two of the biggest superhero franchises on the planet, hit the break.

Recall that Superman sequel is in its own kind of production hell right now due to the critical and commercial underperformance (relatively speaking) of Superman Returns as well sa the ongoing legal battle for the rights for the iconic tale of Clark Kent.  Last time we checked, all story rights will return to the families of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of the Superman comics, in 2013.  Not only does this create a deadline for Warner Bros. to make a movie, but it puts into question the profitability of such a move.  After all, why should the studio spend $232 million (the budget of Superman Returns) to reboot a struggling franchise if they do not have the rights to sequels to capitalize on the theoretical success of said film?

Nolan’s involvement is surely a sign, however, that the studio has hope for the franchise.  Superman is, of course, one of the most recognizable superhero brands on the planet.  Warner Bros. values its relationship with Nolan, particularly after he delivered a billion dollar success in The Dark Knight; they bought into his mysterious (and expensive) Inception despite a premise that seems impossible to advertise, and they have let Nolan take his time in crafting a worthy follow-up to The Dark Knight, perhaps foregoing the opportunity to strike while the iron is hot.

I don’t want to overstate Nolan’s control over the project; it seems very unlikely that he will direct any Metropolis-based adventures.  But if you’re Warner Bros., and you truly want to unleash a successful Superman film on the moviegoing public, this seems the best way to announce your intentions: hire the guy who created the most critically acclaimed (and most profitable) superhero movie of all time to mentor the attempt.  The sequel is now closer to fruition than before, but perhaps only marginally so.  They still need a solid script, a director who knows what to do with the material, a star who can fill every inch of the Superman’s red boots, and in all likelihood a deal for sequel rights beyond 2013 before this thing really gets going.

So what exactly will the next film look like if Warner Bros. makes it in the next couple of years?  It seems that Bryan Singer and Brandon Routh of Superman Returns are out for good.  Many directors–including Tim Burton, JJ Abrams, McG, and Brett Rattner–came and went before Singer was chosen.  Clearly it’s no easy task to find the director right for such a vision, though I imagine they are searching far and wide as we speak.

Consider the influence Nolan will have in his peculiar involvement.  He is famous for bringing a gritty, realistic touch to his Batman films while shying away from a more traditional escapist approach to comic adaptations.  Warner Bros. Pictures Group president Jeff Robinov has previously mentioned interest in making the Superman franchise “edgier”.  Especially after the announcement that Spider-Man franchise will be rebooted in a “gritty, contemporary” style, confirming a sea change in Hollywood’s approach to costumed heroes, we have every reason to believe that any new Superman movie will be grounded in some form of realism.  I’m excited about any forward motion on a new Superman movie, and am even more jazzed that Nolan, who has yet to make a bad movie, is attached in any manner.  But I do wonder if a gritty Metropolis is the best approach to the infinitely wholesome character of Superman.

I approach the news of Nolan’s commitment to a Batman sequel with much less reservation.  Though The Dark Knight has the makings of a perfectly suitable end to Nolan’s Bruce Wayne saga, it also set up a potential third movie that could conclude a wonderful trilogy.  If you recall, at the end of The Dark Knight, Batman sacrificed his reputation for the good of Gotham to become an enemy of the state.  I would suggest that the theoretical third chapter would be a redemption story for Batman, as he finds some way to balance the nobility of his intentions with the moral ambiguity of his vigilantism.  It will be hard to top The Dark Knight, of course, in either the critical or commercial realm.  But I trust Nolan’s sense of integrity; if he didn’t believe he had anything more to say on the subject, I truly believe he simply wouldn’t return to the world, and let another director depict his own vision of Gotham.  For me, his participation is confirmation that a Dark Knight sequel could be terrific.

Really, for how cool all this news is, we probably aren’t much closer to seeing either Superman or Batman on the screen than we were yesterday.  Warner Bros. always wanted to make a new Superman movie, but there still isn’t a script, star, or director.  Likewise, the studio always wanted Nolan to return (and he has!), and the story is “cracked”, but the script is unwritten.  But “cool” this news undoubtedly is, and I think it serves as a great foundation upon which to bat around theories on both of these franchises which permeate pop culture so thoroughly.  I would love to hear your views in the comments below.

24 might be heading to movie theaters, as Twentieth Century Fox has hired Billy Ray (State of Play, Breach, Shattered Glass) to write the script for the feature version.  According to Variety, Ray pitched taking Jack Bauer to Europe, and his take met with enthusiasm with Fox execs and producers of the television series.

For a long time Kiefer Sutherland has talked about making a 24 feature film, as a year ago he told me the movie “would lose the real time aspect, which would be a huge freedom for the writers.” He went on to say the film “would be a two hour representation of a twenty-four hour day.”

More after the jump:

Now before you start getting nervous you’re watching the final season of 24 on Fox, the development of a 24 feature film is still in the very early stages, and a lot is going to be figured out in the coming months.

After all, while the ratings “are down versus last year by 10% in total viewers (11.9 million versus 13.3 million) and by 15% in adults 18-49 (3.9 versus 4.6).  The drama remains Fox’s third-most watched show behind American Idol and House.” (via Variety) If they move the show to the big screen, they’ll lose a huge hit on the network.

But the show is extremely popular around the world and it has a built-in audience and brand awareness, which means making a feature film is low risk if done right.

While some may scoff at having to pay for a 24 adventure, I think a lot of people would love to finally see Jack Bauer on movie screens - especially if the movie is high concept and high action.

If I were a beating man, I think this is going to be the final season of 24 and rather than shut down the production offices, they’ll all transition into making the feature film.  But that’s just a guess.

If you have some thoughts on the 24 movie….leave them in the comments below.

A few days ago, we reported the rights to the Terminator franchise were going to be auctioned off today, and after a marathon bidding session between a number of parties, it seems the Santa Barbara-based hedge fund Pacificor has won the auction and now owns the rights to all future Terminator movies and TV shows.  While Sony and Lionsgate both submitted bids, it seems the offer from Pacificor was too sweet, as they not only paid $29.5 million for the rights, but they let Halcyon keep the revenue streams from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Terminator Salvation.  In addition, Halcyon will also get $5 million for every Terminator movie made from now on.  It’s a hell of deal for  Halcyon, as they not only got a nice lump sum payout, but Terminator 3 and Salvation will continue to generate money for the foreseeable future.

While the future of the Terminator franchise is not yet known, Pacificor is now in the drivers seat.  I’m confident we’re going to see more Terminator movies, it’s just a matter of time. (via Deadline)

UPDATE: It seems Pacificor is now talking with Sony and Lionsgate to handle future Terminator films. These talks are currently underway, so expect plenty of updates.  (via LATimes)

Katherine Heigl plus a best-selling book series plus a character who is a lingerie buyer/bounty hunter adds up to a very promising prospect for Columbia Pictures and Lakeshore Entertainment.  According to Variety, the Grey’s Anatomy star is attached to play the role of Stephanie Plum in the adaptation of Janet Evanovich’s One for the Money.  The book spent 75 consecutive weeks on USA Today’s best seller list and has spawned 15 novels, each of which have a number theme.

While she has yet to make a smash box office hit stateside (Knocked Up’s success is generally attributed to Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow), Heigl’s romantic comedies have done well proportional to their budgets.  Her most recent film, The Ugly Truth, grossed $205 million worldwide off a $38 million budget.  This was a much greater succcess than her 2006 film, Zyzzyx Road, which cost $2 million but only made $30.  That’s $30.00, not $30 million.

Heigl will next appear alongside Ashton Kutcher in the action-comedy Killers, which is set to hit theaters on June 4th.

The romantic comedy Valentine’s Day is a veritable who’s who of Hollywood, with a cast that includes Julia Roberts, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Jamie Foxx, Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Alba, Anne Hathaway, Topher Grace, George Lopez, Shirley Maclaine, Hector Elizondo, Taylor Swift, Taylor Lautner and Emma Roberts, just to name a few. And the man responsible for getting all that talent together is director Garry Marshall, who the all-star ensemble was excited to work with.

Following the intertwining storylines of a diverse group of Los Angelenos as they navigate their way through romance and heartbreak over the course of one Valentine’s Day, the film showcases new love, young love, long-time love, the love between best friends and the heartbreak that can result.

During a press conference for the film, co-stars Julia Roberts, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Biel, Jessica Alba, Bradley Cooper, Jamie Foxx, Ashton Kutcher and Topher Grace talked about love, romance and living in Los Angeles.

Check out what they had to say after the jump:

Question: A theme of this film is the idea that the right person for you could be your best friend that’s been there all along. For the ladies, was there a moment you realized you had a friendship that became more?

Roberts: Gary just said he and I didn’t get married, even though we are best friends.

Garner: Somewhere around the second kid, I thought, “This is turning into something.”

Alba: I married my best friend. We were friends first. It lasted 10 days.

Biel: I guess that’s been more my experience too.

Garner: You were never friends.

Biel: Okay, that’s true.

Do any of you have a worst Valentine’s Day experience?

Foxx: Well, love in L.A. is tough. When I first got here and I didn’t have the name tag, it was a little interesting to even try to date in L.A., but it was great. I met this girl on a Monday and it was incredible. We went to party, kicked it, went back to my crib, made love and then, after that, we cuddled and talked, and I woke up that next morning and smelled breakfast. She was cooking breakfast. I was like, “Wow, she’s great.” We hung out, and then she left. That was Monday. That was back when there were no cell phones, and I didn’t call Tuesday or Wednesday. Then, I was at the club on Thursday and I saw her with another guy and she said, “Hey Jaime, how are you? This is Michael. I told him all about you. Oh, and by the way, he has a Range Rover like yours, only it’s this year’s.”

Can you give any tips for a healthy Valentine’s Day?

Kutcher: I think watching this movie is a healthy Valentine. We had a green set, so there was a lot of dedication to using solar panels and clean energy, and recycling. Due to the fact that the movie was shot in L.A., that was actually an easier thing to make happen. In some ways, it worked out and in some ways it didn’t, but I think that every opportunity we have in our industry to make what we’re doing something more environmentally conscious is a good thing. So, this movie was mostly a green movie and coming and supporting a movie that was made that way can contribute to that.

Garner: And you get popcorn, which has lots of fiber.

Ashton, are you romantic in real life, like your character in the film is?

Kutcher: I had the good fortune of playing a florist in this movie, and one of my best friends is a florist, so I got to work with him. What I really learned about that was that these guys are like the real cupids, passing these messages off from one person to the next person. The way that arrangement shows up can affect a relationship. It’s almost like, if you can find something like that, that can really translate what it is that you’re trying to say, it’s a big deal. That was my experience on this movie. As far as being a romantic, I don’t know. I love life, I love people and I love sharing, so I would say that I’m romantic.

Grace: There wasn’t a Valentine’s Day that went by on That ’70s Show where I didn’t get a card or something from Ashton.

Kutcher: I did all kinds of nice shit.

Grace: It was very, very romantic.

For the parents, how do you find time for romance with kids at home?

Roberts: My kids go to bed at 7:30.

Alba: Mine goes to bed at 7, but I’m usually too tired, unfortunately.

Garner: You change the definition of romance. Romance is romance, but in addition, romance can just be breakfast over the tops of heads. You just have to get through the day. You’ve got to create that being romantic.

How will you celebrate Valentine’s Day this year?

Garner: I think most of us will be promoting this movie. That’ll be romantic.

Alba: We’re pretty spontaneous. We try to squeeze in a smooch here and there, or a little card or note to say, “I love you.”

Roberts: For Valentine’s Day, we’re just gonna be makin’ out for the full 24 hours.

This film is a love letter to Los Angeles. What do you love about L.A.?

Kutcher: I love the weather.

Alba: I second that.

Garner: Farmer’s Market.

Biel: Real Foods Daily. The fact that you can go to the mountains and the ocean, with no more than an hour drive.

Grace: The 405.

What’s the key to a successful relationship, especially in L.A.?

Biel: Laughter, definitely. Just being able to laugh and not take things too seriously.

Alba: I think communicating is important.

Roberts: I think it’s the same in any city. L.A. isn’t distinctive in its uniqueness to what makes a relationship work. Two people who work at it, in any town you go to, is what works.

What do you think about the film’s representation of L.A.? Is that how you see it?

Garner: What’s great about the way Garry uses LA in the film is that it’s just a city. It’s not celebrity central. It’s not about Hollywood. It’s a city and you never see it that way. You always see it as the backdrop for some other world. This reminds you that L.A. is just a city full of people going through the same little triumphs and tragedies in their love lives as anyone, anywhere else in the world.

Kutcher: A friend of mine once told me that Los Angeles is a city filled with the second best looking person from every town across the America. The best looking person stays home because they have it good there.

Grace: By the way, wouldn’t you like to meet the guy in Iowa who is better looking than Ashton?

Kutcher: His name is Casey Prince.

Jamie, how much improv did you get to do in this?

Foxx: We had a great time. To work with Garry Marshall and to be back in comedy, working with Jess [Biel] and Jen [Garner] in my scenes, it was great. There was a Laverne and Shirley type energy going on. I’m serious. We had a great time and, to be able to be back to some comedy, I was excited for the chance to work with everybody. It was a ball. I had a good time.

Ms. Biel, your character turns to chocolate for comfort. What do you turn to for comfort, at disappointing times?

Biel: That’s where it usually starts.

Garner: I would recommend hitting a piñata.

Kutcher: Xanax.

It seems like love and the pursuit of it is what everyone wants. It’s like a drug. People want to be happy and that’s really the only thing that makes us happy. Do you all think that’s the case?

Roberts: It is a drug though, isn’t it? Love and that feeling, and what it does to make us all tingling inside, is a drug.

Kutcher: When it comes to love, everyone wants to receive it, but at the end of the day, you don’t get to receive it until you start to give it. That goes for everything. What you give is what you receive. If you want the drug, you have to give the drug.

Is there another character in the film that any of you would have liked to play, instead of your own?

Garner: Well, Julia got to sit the whole time, and she pushed the cry button, at the end. I knew it was coming, and I still cried.

Jennifer, you did great work with the baseball bat and the pinata. How did you prepare for that?

Garner: I like batting cages, as much as the next girl. Girls can do that stuff too. I’m from West Virginia, and we tip our cows like that.

Julia and Bradley, can you talk about shooting the sequences in the plane and what it was like to work in such a confined space?

Cooper: I liked to sit down and talk all day.

Roberts: We caught up. We hadn’t seen each other for awhile and I grilled him pretty good. We did 98 performances together on Broadway.

Bradley, when you found out your love interest was going to be Eric Dane, what did you think?

Cooper: He has a beautiful body and succulent lips.

Was there an extended version of your scene together?

Cooper: Absolutely. I have the rights to it, though.

Why is Valentine’s Day so important? Shouldn’t you put effort into being romantic the rest of the year too?

Grace: You’re right.

Foxx: You’ve got to remember all of these dates, like the birthdays and anniversaries, and all of that. Put them in your cell phone, if you have to. Women have fake anniversaries, so get all those dates down. The most important thing is, four or five days before that day comes, get something for her, so you’re prepared. Then you can go without doing something the rest of the year. The rest of the year, you can fuck around.

Biel: Just do it all day, and all year long too.

Kutcher: For the movie, we’re doing a thing online where people are posting their best Valentine’s Day gifts and their worst Valentine’s Day gifts. You tag it V-Day Gifts. They’re going to compile them into the 100 best Valentine’s Day gifts and the 100 worst Valentine’s Day gifts, so just go to the best list and pick something off of that.

Julia, how did it feel to be reunited with Garry Marshall and Hector Elizondo, all these years after Pretty Woman?

Roberts: We had a lot of Pretty Woman people on the set. Our D.P., Chuck Minsky, shot Pretty Woman, and our prop department was the same. We laughed about a lot of things, particularly how old we’ve all gotten in 20 years. In fact, we’re 20 years older, in 20 years. We seem to do this every 10 years. We did Pretty Woman, and then, 10 years later, we did Runaway Bride, and then, 10 years later we did Valentine’s Day. So, I will see all of you back here when I’m 51.

The lovely and talented Rachel Weisz will be joining equally lovely and talented Daniel Craig and Naomi Watts in Jim Sheridan’s upcoming thriller Dream House.  According to Variety, the story centers on a, “successful publisher (Craig) who quits his Gotham job and relocates his wife (Weisz) and two daughters to a quaint New England town, only to discover that their perfect new home was the murder scene of a mother and her two children.”  And that’s why they got such a good price on it.  You can get a great price on a home if you’re cool that the previous inhabitants were slaughtered in their sleep.  Remember: Location, location, location.  Watts will play a neighbor who was close to the slain family.  Variety does not specify if this closeness relates to geography and/or emotional connection.

EW has released the first still from the upcoming Mickey Rourke and Megan Fox film Passion Play, the directorial debut of Mitch Glazer.  The shot reveals little about the film other than the fact that as usual, Megan Fox is stunning.  The synopsis sounds pretty cool: Rourke will play a troubled musician while Fox is a winged sideshow attraction and they “rescue each other from dangerous circumstances.”  Coming off The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke has reemerged as one of Hollywood’s best actors, and certainly one of the most unique.  I’m also excited to see Megan Fox get to play a role where she’s given more to do than run from robots, because she’ll have the chance to really prove herself as an actress rather than just an endlessly quotable sex symbol.  Rourke recently called her “probably the best young actress I’ve ever worked with,” which is high praise indeed.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

‘Tis a very good night for Hollywood actresses, as we learn from Deadline Hollywood that three of the loveliest leading ladies in show business scored high profile roles.  Cate Blanchett will join Saoirse Ronan and Eric Bana in Joe Wright’s Hanna, the story of a 14-year-old girl trained by her father to assassinate a high-ranking government official.  Amber Tamblyn will play the female lead opposite James Franco in Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours, the story of the mountain climber Aron Ralston, who survived being trapped under a boulder by cutting off his own arm.  Finally, Mia Wasikowska will help bring literary classic Jane Eyre to the big screen under the guide of Sin Nombre writer/director Cary Fukunaga.

For more details on each project, please hit the jump.

I’ll start with the news item that intrigues me the most, namely Tamblyn’s casting. 127 Hours is Danny Boyle’s follow-up to the critically and publicly adored Slumdog Millionaire, so high expectations are a given.  Due to the solitary nature of the main character’s predicament, there has been talk of Boyle’s desire to keep the first hour or so free of dialogue, with only the picturesque mountain scenery and Franco’s lovely mug to keep the audience entertained.  However, Mike Fleming’s report includes a brief description of Tamblyn’s role as Ralston’s girlfriend, “with their relationship played out in flashbacks that keep him going”.  This would certainly be more (though not entirely) conventional than the aforementioned structure, although I was sold as soon as Boyle was attached: I look forward to how the inherently captivating story will play out on screen, no matter what that entail.

Elsewhere, things are heating up over at Hanna headquarters, as just last week it was announced that Bana would join Ronan as she reunites with Atonement director Joe Wright for the film.  It certainly is a unique logline, and perhaps that’s what attracted someone of Blanchett’s stature to the project.  The Oscar winner adds even more weight to the already impressive cast; the talent involved combined with the potential of the premise ensure this will be one to look for.

Lastly, we find out that Wasikowska will follow up her lead role Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland by portraying the heroine from yet another adaptation of classic literature, Jane Eyre.  For those who didn’t encounter the novel in their high school curriculum, Charlotte Brontë’s novel describes the struggles of the orphaned Jane, who survives a terrible childhood to become an admirable young woman in Victorian society.  Wasikowska’s participation in Wonderland has considerably raised her profile, and this seems like a good (if safe) career move in the vein of Keira Knightley’s transition from the blockbuster Pirates in the Caribbean to her Oscar-nominated role in the adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.

If you always thought that Tim Robbins could produce offspring bent on world domination, then you’re probably a far-right conservative.  You’re also correct about his character in Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern as Heat Vision reports that Robbins will play Senator Hammond, the disapproving pops of the movie’s villain, Dr. Hector Hammond, who will be played by Peter Sarsgaard.  Dr. Hammond has psychic powers and, in the comics, a comically-oversized noggin.  I imagine Senator Hammond’s purpose is to humanize Hector by showing that daddy issues may not be a good reason to become a supervillain, but it’s an understandable one.

Ryan Reynolds will star as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern with Blake Lively as Carol Ferris (aka, the love interest).  The film is set to begin filming this March in Louisiana where hopefully by then they’ll have cleaned up all the Saints Super Bowl-win confetti.  Green Lantern is slated to hit theaters on June 17, 2011.

If you haven’t heard of Aaron Johnson yet…I promise you will very soon.  That’s because in director Sam Taylor Wood’s Nowhere Boy, Johnson gives an amazing performance as a teenage John Lennon.  And in a few months,  Johnson will be everywhere, as he’s one of the leads in director Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass.  Trust me, this guy is going to be huge.

Anyway, at this year’s Sundance Film festival, I was able to speak with Aaron Johnson and Director Sam Taylor Wood about Nowhere Boy and our conversation is after the jump.  We talked about the delicate balancing act of trying to make a movie that’s based on such a famous person.  We also covered being at Sundance, what was it like on set, how did they prepare for the movie, and a lot more.  It’s a great interview so take a look.

Also, while Nowhere Boy has already been released in the UK, it’s still opening around the world.  I saw the film at Sundance and it’s great.  If you’re a Beatles fan, or just curious what Lennon’s life was like as a teenager, it’s really worth your time.

Here’s the synopsis of Nowhere Boy and the trailer.  The interview is further down:

NOWHERE BOY

Imagine… John Lennon’s childhood. Liverpool 1955: a smart and troubled fifteen year-old is hungry for experience. In a family full of secrets, two incredible women clash over John: Mimi, the buttoned-up Aunt who raised him, and Julia, the prodigal mother. Yearning for a normal family, John escapes into the new and exciting world of rock n’ roll where his fledgling genius finds a kindred spirit in the teenage Paul McCartney.  Just as John begins his new life, tragedy strikes. But a resilient young man finds his voice - and an icon explodes into the world.

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Director Sam Taylor Wood and Aaron Johnson

• When did they find out they got into Sundance and what does it mean to them
• 1:30 - How did the project come together
• 2:20 - How did Aaron Johnson come to the project
• 3:35 - How was it on set and trying to make everything feel real
• 5:30 - Sam Taylor Wood talks about balancing making a movie versus being true to what really happened
• 6:30 - Aaron Johnson talks about what he learned about John Lennon by playing him
• 9:00 - Aaron Johnson talks about how big of a year 2010 is with Nowhere Boy and Kick-Ass
• 10:15 - What will be on the DVD/Blu-ray. What got cut out?
• 11:30 - How do they feel about extended edition DVDs
• 12:25 - What do they have coming up
• 13:45 - Is Johnson paying attention to the great buzz on Kick-Ass

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The Playlist reports that Steven Soderbergh, the hardest working man in show business, has once again lengthened his to-do list.  Soderbergh will re-team with The Informant! scripter Scott Z. Burns for Contagion, an “action-thriller about the outbreak of a deadly virus.”  The film doesn’t have a distribution deal yet, but with such heavy hitters as Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Marion Cotillard attached to star, you can expect a bidding war for the rights.  More on the origins of Contagion and the rest of Soderbergh’s slate after the break.

Although the information we have so far is kinda vague, there’s a great deal of potential in the given premise, and I implicitly trust so many of the attached talent to deliver on such promise. Burns shed some light about the genesis of the project in a previous Playlist report.  On the set of The Informant!, a scene in which Scott Bakula’s character sneezes launched a back-and-forth between writer and director about germs, specifically how the a virus outbreak could be used as a metaphor for “information and misinformation travel” in modern society as well as a platform to dissect “issues of sovereignty”.  Some heady themes to be sure, but that philosophical space is just where all the greatest science fiction thrives.

The parties involved are looking to start production this autumn, so a release sometime next year is likely; of course, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for Oscar season 2010.  After the 2009 trilogy of Che, The Girlfriend Experience, and The Informant!, Soderbergh had a very busy year; if you find yourself jonesing for the director in 2010, remember his upcoming martial arts pic Knockout.  From our various reports on its development, Knockout is shaping up nicely with a stellar cast featuring Michael Douglas, Ewan MacGregor, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas, and Bill Paxton, plus one of Soderbergh’s trusty non-actors, MMA fighter Gina Carano.  For those worried about the state of Liberace, the director’s planned biopic of the famed effete musician starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, fear not: production has merely been postponed to early 2011.

Opening this Friday is director Joe Johnston’s (The Rocketeer, Jurassic Park III, Jumanji) take on the classic Universal monster The Wolfman.  To help promote the film, Universal Pictures held a big press junket for journalists from around the world this past weekend.  While I already posted all the things Johnston said about his next project, The First Avenger: Captain America, it’s time for The Wolfman Q&A.

During the press conference, Jonston talked about his decision to use both practical and CG for the Wolfman, what changes he made when he got attached to the project, and for fans of extras on DVD/Blu-ray, Johnston says they’ll be an extended cut of The Wolfman with 17 addtional minutes added back in when it gets released on home video.  The additional footage is from the beginning of the film - before Benicio transforms.  Hit the jump for the transcript or audio from the press conference:

If you’d like to watch some movie clips from The Wolfman, click here.  And if you’d like to listen to the audio of the press conference, click here.  Look for more Wolfman interviews soon.

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Question: In the process of re-shoots and changing release dates, did you ever try a PG-13 version of this film?

Joe Johnston: No, it was always an R rating. At one point, the head of the studio called me and said, “Do you think we could re-cut this into a PG-13?” I said, “Yes, but nobody would want to see it.” So, it was always intended to be an R. It deserves to be an R.

Q: Were there ever extended versions?

Joe: Well, there is an extended cut that will be on the DVD. It’s about 17 minutes longer and it’s what we cut out of our third cut, in order to reduce the time between the beginning of the film and when Benicio transforms into The Wolfman because we knew that that was the moment the audience was waiting for. They knew it was going to happen and they were, perhaps, less patient than I was with getting to that point. The note we got from the preview screenings was that the beginning was slow. I wanted the characters to develop and those relationships to be a little fuller before we got to the place where he is bitten and transformed. Basically, what you’ll see in the extended cut is the restored footage from the first 40 minutes.

Q: Why did you want to make Benicio’s character more noble?

Joe: I wanted there to be as much contrast between Lawrence and The Wolfman as possible. Originally, Lawrence was a little bit of a hellraiser. He was this actor who went out and partied all night, went to bed with three women at once and he hung out in opium dens, and places like that. It was a different take on the character, but I felt that, in order to increase the contrast between who this guy was and what he was going to become, the hero and the villain, I felt like he should be slightly more noble.

Q: Anthony Hopkins plays his character so cool and detached. Was that in the script?

Joe: No, it was part of his madness. He recognized that for him to overplay that would have detracted from it, and he was really conscious of that. That’s the way he is. He doesn’t think there’s anything out of the ordinary about it.

Q: Did you feel comfortable, from the outset, that that was going to work?

Joe: I felt very comfortable. The studio didn’t necessarily. I got calls saying, “He’s not doing anything.” I said, “Well, wait ’til we cut it together.”

Q: How were you able to reference the classic Universal monster films while creating a horror film for today’s audience?

Joe: I think it’s because they’re used to vastly different horror films. I wanted to go back to something that I remembered from a long time ago. We’ve seen so many examples of CG characters running around and doing things that subconsciously we know they can’t do, and that takes you out of the picture sometimes. I wanted you to always feel that, whatever this beast was, he was not breaking any laws of physics. He had a strength and a power that you could understand. I didn’t want to basically do what we saw in Van Helsing, which is since you can do anything, you take advantage of that and you do it. Audiences know when it’s not real and when it is. It’s a subtle thing that you don’t ever think about, but you know when this guy is leaping and landing and punching people, it feels more real.

Q: What made you decide to use a CG bear and stag, and then blend CG and real make-up for the transformation?

Joe: It’s difficult to have a real bear, the size that I wanted to have. We could have used this bear from Czechoslovakia that’s almost a pet, but to get it across the borders, and get all the permits signed and everything, it turned out to be a lot easier to have the CG bear. It was a bear that already existed in the computer. It was basically the bear from The Golden Compass. It’s obviously not a polar bear, and we changed its face, but the point is that the data was already there. We didn’t have to design it from the ground up. The stag also existed from some other project, and we changed him too. To get a stag, and be able to stake him to the ground and have him pull against the rope, is more than we would want to do with a real animal. As far as the transformation goes, I know that Rick Baker originally thought that he would do the transformations with mechanisms, prosthetics and rubber, like he had done with An American Werewolf in London. Nobody does that stuff better than Rick. The problem I had was that I was coming in three weeks from principal photography and, in order to have Rick do the transformation, I would have had to decide, almost immediately, exactly what the stages of the transformation were. By letting them be CG, I could make those decisions deep into post. I just didn’t have the flexibility to be able to sit down and say, “This is exactly what I want it to be,” that early in the production.

Q: Would you do another Jurassic Park film, entirely in CGI?

Joe: I don’t think I’d want to do it entirely in CGI, but there’s no other way to really do a walking dinosaur. What we did in the Jurassic Park movies was build full-size dinosaurs that we could have interact with the people. We often blended the animatronic dinosaurs with the CG and, hopefully, you don’t know where one begins and the other one ends. Like any other kind of visual effect, what you really want to do is use it as a tool to tell the story. I don’t want anybody to come out of the theater saying, “Wow, what great visual effects we just saw.” I’d rather have them say, “We really enjoyed the movie. It was really entertaining.” You don’t want to separate the effects. I like visual effects that are basically invisible, where you don’t know when you’ve seen one, or you forget that it was an effect.

Q: Was it a conscious decision to not show much of the first transformation?

Joe: I wanted to take what I remembered from the Lon Chaney version and update it, even though we’re setting it in 1891, and the original was set in 1941. I just wanted to re-tell that story, in the way that I remembered the original looking, which was very dark and shadowy. I didn’t want you to see the first transformation. I wanted you to get glimpses of what he was becoming and to put that together in your imagination, so that by the time he takes the head off in the swamp, you’ve never really had a full, clear shot of him. You’ve had glimpses, but you know exactly who he is and what he’s capable of. There was a shot that we did where he comes out from behind a tree and you see him in a big close-up, with every hair perfectly illuminated by moonlight, and we cut that shot out because, once you’ve seen that, you quit trying to see him. It took away from your experience. I like it when audiences can participate and use their imagination to fill in the blanks. We were conscious of that, in that first transformation. We knew we were going to show you the second transformation in all its glory, completely illuminated by the asylum theater gas lights. After that point, there’s nothing else to hide, but we wanted to just keep a little bit of mystery about it, up until that point.

Q: Why did you take the space out of the Wolf Man’s name?

Joe: We wanted it to exist as a word, and we also wanted to set it apart from the original. Now, it’s a thing until itself.

Q: How is pre-production going on Captain America? Are you going to cast an American actor in that role?

Joe: Absolutely. Oh, yeah. I don’t think we could make the film without an American playing the part. But, we may not be casting in America because we’re going to London. I think we’ll probably shoot in the U.K. for most of it because it takes place in Europe.

Q: Has there been any talk of shooting it in 3-D?

Joe: No. We’re shooting in HD, but you can take any film now and make it 3-D. We’re not going to be shooting it specifically in 3-D, but this is the first film I will have shot in hi-def. It gives you a lot of flexibility in post. When you shoot a movie in hi-def, if you want to zoom in 200%, you can. In film, you can go about 15-20%, at most, before you start seeing grain and degradation. But, in hi-def, you can basically re-shoot the film in post, if you want to. I’m looking forward to trying that.

Q: Do you see opportunities to bring your own style to it, like Sam Raimi did with Spider-Man, and Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan did with Batman?

Joe: We’re definitely going to shoot it in a different way than any of the other Marvel pictures have been shot. What I’m trying to do is look at the comics, mostly the new ones in the Brubaker series, and interpret that visual style into a film, in a way that I think has been tried before, but always looks like it’s a little too on the nose. It looks like, “Oh, they’re shooting a comic book movie.” I want to try something a little bit different.

Q: Have you nailed down what the big set pieces will be?

Joe: Yes, we have. Right now, we have to pick our battles because it’s a little more than we can afford. But, there will be some great action sequences, and stuff we haven’t seen before.

Q: With the casting, is it about finding the right person, or does it have to be a big name star?

Joe: No, we’re looking for a complete unknown.

Q: So, it won’t be a movie star in the part?

Joe: I hope not. I hope it’ll be somebody that we discover. He’s probably been in something, but you won’t know who he is. You won’t recognize him. And, we’ll surround him with more prominent names. That’s who we’re looking for. Will we find him? I don’t know. It’s tough.

Q: When do you have to have casting done?

Joe: March 1st.

Over the weekend, Universal Pictures held a huge Wolfman press junket for journalists from around the world.  In attendance was the cast, as well as director Joe Johnston and make-up artist Rick Baker.  Over the next few days I’ll be posting a number of Wolfman interviews, as the movie arrives in theaters this Friday.  While I debated who to post first…I decided to go with one of the best actors working in the business, Sir Anthony Hopkins.

During the press conference, the Academy Award Winning actor talked about why he wanted to be involved with The Wolfman and a lot more.  As usual, you can either the transcript of what he said or listen to the audio of the press conference after the jump:

If you’d like to watch some movie clips from The Wolfman, click here.  And if you’d like to listen to the audio of the press conference, click here.  This is one of those interviews I really recommend listening to as Sir Anthony Hopkins was a lot funnier than I expected him to be…and the transcript doesn’t catch that humor.

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Question:  Well, The Wolfman is a very British horror story because of where  it’s set and because of who’s in it, like folks like yourself and Miss Blunt. How important is the Britishness of it to you?

Anthony Hopkins:  Well, it’s an American movie and it’s an American subject. Didn’t it start in America? So it’s an American movie, really, it’s not a British subject. What’s interesting about it is that it’s an American gothic movie filmed in Britain, in real locations, which makes it, gives it another dimension, gives it another reality.

But making this version more British, like setting it in London-was that an important aspect of the story to you?

Anthony Hopkins:  I don’t know, because I’ve never, you know, I don’t think about things like that. It’s an American movie made in Britain. That to me was a big gothic movie. It’s like a western set in an English setting. I said it on the first day when I was on the set in the big house. With all the American machinery and sets and everything. There was a sort of real location, and I said to Joe Johnson, I said this is a big American gothic, he said yeah. So that’s it.  No, actually no, the Claude Rains one was set in Britain wasn’t it? But it was filmed in Hollywood, so the sets all looked all wrong. They were terrible sets, I remember. My favorite was the Abbott and Costello Meet the Wolfman. That was the best, and you know, meet Frankenstein. I loved those because they were funny. But the Claude Rains, Lon Chaney one was set in England. But in those days the Americans didn’t pay much attention to real architecture so the sets in the villages were terrible when they built them. Like How Green Was My Valley was supposed to be set in Wales, everyone had Irish accents. And this coal mining valley full of thatched cottages, which, the audiences laugh because they’re not like that at all. But this is actually more authentic because it was set in English villages and on an English set but they were, the interiors were American sets, so it gave that extra largeness. Anyway.

Were there any concerns for you when you heard they were remaking, doing the monster movie, Universal? Was there any concerns or were you-

Hopkins:  Why would I be concerned? Why would there be concerns?

Well just, you know.

Hopkins:  They offered me the part.

Right.

Hopkins:  That’s the reason I did it. The, I see what you’re trying to get at. The only slight edge I found was being written by an American writer, which is fine, he’s a fine writer, but he tended to overstate the part that I was playing. He’s an English guy who talks like this all the time. I can’t play that, I don’t want to play that-that’s alien to me. No, I can’t do that, I hate that sound. So I thought well I’ll play it like an, a quite, a much quieter man, based on someone that I knew when I was a little boy. He was an old farmer who was kind of eccentric and he used to come to my father’s bake house. My father would give him stale bread to feed his pigs, you know. And I used to follow him, he was fascinating. We, all the kids, built up this fantasy about him that he was a demon or something. He was just a harmless old man, he didn’t speak very much. So I based my character on him, and on the coldness-there’s one line in the script when I say to Benicio Del Toro, I say ‘by the way, I’m sorry to-your brother’s body was found in a ditch, on the priory road. Do you have the right clothes for the funeral?’ So cold. And I liked that about him. So I pulled that coldness right through the character. But he’s not particularly crazy or bad or anything, he’s just eccentric and distant and ice cold. And he says at one point, he says ‘look into my eyes, I’m quite dead.’ Because he is already dead, he’s the walking dead, the living dead.

So the fact that you had to be-have action-weren’t any concerns for you? You didn’t have some action scenes with Benicio?

Hopkins:  No. Did all my own stunts.

We think about the trifecta of monster movies in Hollywood, you know you already came out in a movie with Dracula. Now with the wolfman. Would you be interested in working a movie about Frankenstein?

Hopkins:  I don’t know. If it’s a good script. I suppose. It depends what the script is life, I don’t know. I’m not sure.

Without revealing too much about your character in the story, it strikes me that one of the things that he has in common with another iconic aggressor you’ve played, Hannibal Lector, is this sense of confidence that he projects. For you, does that sort of, is that where aggression begins? Is that a foundation, that confidence? And do you find that that’s something that you build on when you’re sculpting this kind of character?

Hopkins:  No, it comes out of expediency. I think a certain coldness. I mean my, the relationship between fathers and sons for example. I know you’re talking about Hannibal Lector, that’s a long time ago, but um, fathers and sons is very interesting because from the whole of literature-Willy Lohman and Death of a Salesman,  D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, and Fathers and Sons, Turgenev, and Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov-that coldness, that harsh, brutal business of being a father and a son. And we all, most men, know about that. The pain of that, the wound as they call it. Um, the Oedipal wound. But I think in this case, and my own father was a tough man. He was a pretty red hot guy but he was also cold. He was also slightly disappointed in me because I was not a good kid as a school boy, you know. But I learned from it, I liked that coldness, because it was harsh. And he taught me to be tough. So I know how to be tough. I know how to be strong. I know how to be ruthless. It’s part of my nature. I wouldn’t be an actor if I wasn’t. You have to be pretty tough to be an actor, and you have to be pretty certain what you want. You can’t waffle through this business. So I use all that power in me as an actor. So it’s easy, it comes to me easy, but I’m not evil, and I’m not a cruel person. But I don’t have much time for wimps, and people who just say oh, I can’t do it. Forget it. The yes-but merchants of the world. Yes, but-oh, shut up. And you know, there are people who have a sense of ‘yes, but it’s all very well for you.’ You know. I don’t have any time for that, no time. Life’s too short to screw around like that. So I understand that personality trait, when he says oh, your brother’s body was found in the ditch,  have you got the right clothes-he doesn’t waste time saying I’m sorry about that, I’m sorry your brother is dead. He’s dead. Dead is dead. So it’s an interesting foundation to build from. And I am drawn to those kinds of characters, those hard characters. Dostoyevsky-like characters. I’ve played a few of those. Not Hannibal Lectors but people who are like that. And in a way, I admire it. Because we’re living in such a nanny age now, of, everyone’s so coddled and we’ve lost strength. I come from-I came from Wales, and it’s a strong, butch society. We were in the war and all that. People didn’t waste time feeling sorry for themselves. You had to get on with it. So my credo is get on with it. I don’t waste time being soft. I’m not cold, but I don’t like being, wasting my time with-life’s too short.

In real life too, you’re not just talking about the character now?

Hopkins:  Yeah, I’m talking about the character, how I based, on how I find it easy to play those sort of parts.

You’ve had an amazing career as an actor and I’m wondering if you have any advice for a younger generation of students and people who are coming up through the ranks that aspire to do what you’ve done?

Hopkins:  Well I do sometimes, I’ve taught at, I’ve taken classes at UCLA and various other places, and I say to young actors, I get a camera in front of them, I say okay, just get up and do it. Don’t do all this preparation. I joke with them, I do it with humor. I say don’t waste time, just get up and do it. You know, they audition pieces from Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, or Arthur Miller, whatever. I say just do it. And they do it. I say there you are, you can do it. Don’t waste time worrying about it, looking over your shoulder. But when you’re young, I say, it’s not easy to do that, because you always want to analyze, because when you’re young, you’re very insecure. And if I could learn, if I could revisit my own past I could say to myself, don’t think too much, just get on and do it. So that’s what I tell young actors. Do it. Have the courage to do it. If you’re going to make mistakes, who cares? Don’t worry so much. You know, we’re always looking over our shoulders, what they will think, what the press will think, what will this one-am I making the right career move? When you’re young you have to do all that to survive I suppose. You get to a certain point, you think to hell with it. Just work and be lucky that you’re in work. That’s my general philosophy about everything. And I’m a lucky guy to be around, you know, still, 72 years of age, still there, fighting [something.]  Power, power of personality. Give out the energy and it’ll come back to you in abundance. But if you go [makes whiny sound] it’ll all fold, you may as well die. You know, I knew an actor who was [calling?] for every, for years and years, he was absolutely eaten up because another actor wouldn’t do his off lines in a famous movie called On the Waterfront. Fifty years ago. I said you’re still going on about it? Well you know. It’s over, it’s done, it’s over. My life is over, I’ve done that. I don’t go back to Hannibal Lector or any of that stuff. I’m here. And that’s a tremendous power.

You mentioned not having time for wimps. Is that a measuring stick for directors and how did Joe Johnson sort of survive?

Hopkins:  Oh, he’s great. Joe Johnson just gets on with it. He’s another one. But he’s very calm. I mean, he had a lot of pressure on the film because he didn’t have much preparation. He came in to replace another director, I don’t know what that was about, but anyway, that’s the situation-and he’s very um,  very focused, very amenable. He’s got the double-edged thing where he’s concentrated, he’s, uh, knows what he wants. But you can go to him and say can I try this? Yeah, do it. That’s the best director you can work with and he’s sure of himself. And there was a lot of pressure on him. He kept his patience. I saw him blow up once on set, and he just said can we have more quiet. That was all. All that patience, I said god, I don’t know how you have such patience, control is-because he had a lot of pressure on him. So he’s one of the best I’ve worked with.

One of the really great things in this film is watching you and Benicio come at the same dilemma from such different angles. He’s very internal and he’s struggling with the beast. Your character relishes the beast, especially toward the end. Can you talk about the-

Hopkins:  He relishes the beast.

He really gets into it. So can you talk about you and Benicio and the process of you guys creating these characters and that relationship?

Hopkins:  What was the process?

With you and Benicio, yes sir.

Hopkins:  Well I just learned my lines, he learned his, and then we showed up on set. There’s nothing more to it than that. Oh, you can talk about it a bit, but I’m not even aware of-what you said is a nice observation. I wasn’t aware of that at the-but relishing the beast. I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, and that means not the beast but the shadow. The dark side of one’s nature. Have fun with it and you know, is to accept everything about ourselves. And in this case it’s a highly fantasized version of the shadow, of the imperfections. This is a monster growing inside of him like the alien, you know, Ridley Scott’s the Alien, the monster that jumps out of John Hurt’s stomach [munching sounds]. It’s the same thing but it’s more fantasized, scientific, science fiction thing. It’s more of a fantasy, a fairy tale of you want to-Grimm’s Fairy Tale. But relishing the beast? It’s a part of psychologist. Relish everything that’s inside of you, the imperfections, the darkness, the richness and light and everything. And that makes for a full life. It’s what Nietzsche and Jung  used to say, enjoy it all. But of course I mean Sir John  is completely bonkers, I mean he’s-he’s not playing with a full deck. Minus sandwich in the picnic.

We are in the middle of the awards season and talking about transformation, I was wondering how much did it transform your own life and your career, something like the Oscar, and the title, Sir Anthony Hopkins? How much did it transform your life and your career?

Hopkins:  Well, I still have to look in the shaving mirror in the morning, see the same old face there, so it doesn’t change your life that much. But no, it’s fun to get the Oscar, it was fun to get a knighthood. But you know, you wake up in the morning, the reality’s still there. You’re still mortal. And it’s fun to have an Oscar. I remember getting up on the podium and thanking people, saying thank you very much, I thought I could make some bad movies now and it doesn’t matter. I’ve reached the top. But they you go on making more movies, you wake up a few days later, the Oscar’s there, I’ve got it at home in Malibu and it’s there.  I don’t look at it every day and worship it. I, sometimes, oh there it is. I mean people come to say there’s his Oscar, I say-no, it’s a great symbol of success or whatever you want to call it. But you can’t get, you can’t become the Oscar, you can’t become what you think you have to become when you get the Oscar. If you do that, that’s the road to madness. And the movie industry is full of crazy people who think that they are god. You know, you look around, you go oohhh. Keep, hide them from sharp objects, you know? There’s some lunatic people in this business, and I’ve witnessed them, you know. You go to the Oscars, you see some of them there. Hello, you think these people are nuts. So you have to take it with a sense of humor, and stay sane.

And what about the Sir title, being named Sir Anthony Hopkins. How much did it transform your own life?

Hopkins:  Well I get a good table in the restaurant. I don’t use it over here, I’m an American citizen now. It was a great honor. It really was a true honor. And I’ve forgotten it. When people call me Sir Anthony I just think oh, that’s a bit odd. But I’m not cynical about it. Um, I just feel more comfortable being called Tony or Mr. Hopkins, whatever name I’m called. Somehow coming into a restaurant, Sir Anthony, I say okay, I don’t-but they say Sir Hopkins, I say no, no. Because that’s wrong. Americans tend to get it wrong. But they, Americans are funny, they always say well, I want to call you Sir Anthony. I say okay, be my guest. But it doesn’t transform your life, you know. Yeah.

Sir Anthony. You talked a little bit about relishing the beast in life. When you-

Hopkins:  Let me correct that. Relishing the imperfect side of our lives. Darkness. The thing that’s in us all.

Well you’ve played characters like Sir John and like Lector, who really embrace their darker primal urges. You’ve also played very repressed characters, as in The Remains of the Day.

Hopkins:  That’s what happens if you don’t address the darkness in you. You become repressed and depressed and suicidal.

What’s more challenging to play? Because with the guys who embrace it, you can really go over the top, and with the repressed guys you can pull back-

Hopkins:  They’re all pretty easy. I mean, I played Remains of the Day, all I did was don’t move much. See, if you’re playing a butler you can’t bang doors and say yeah my lord, you want a cup of tea? People say how the hell did you stay so still? I don’t move. Michael [Werner?]’s directing-you don’t remember that from the Charles Bronson called uh-oh, he plays the guy who plays, a guy who takes out the killers?

Deathwish.

Hopkins:  Deathwish. And uh, when the studio-Michael Werner directed it, and he’s one of those very outrageous British directors, and they said Michael, you can’t give it to Charles Bronson, he doesn’t look like a lawyer, because he’s supposed to be playing-so I said well, you stick a pencil in his hand and he’s a lawyer isn’t he? And a gun in his pocket. And he said everyone has stereotypes about it all. But how do you play a butler? Just don’t move to much. You know, move gently and quietly. How do you play Hannibal Lector? Well just don’t move. Scare people by being still. How’d you play the wolfman? Well, learn your lines, show up, and do it and snarl a bit. Acting is very easy. If you ask John Wayne well, how did you play? He said well you go to Monument Valley and get on the horse and you become John Wayne. Acting is very, very simple. When you’ve been doing it a long time, anyway. So, no acting required.

Benicio lobbied for the makeup versus CGI and Hugo Weaving said he would prefer not to work on a green screen. Do you have a preference or does it matter?

Hopkins:  I don’t mind.

You don’t mind?

Hopkins:  No. It’s more interesting if you’re on set, but CGI, if they’re going to get the effect that they need. We did some CGI out here at the studios. I don’t mind. Whatever they-they know what they’re doing, so I don’t argue with it.

I believe you’re playing Odin in Thor and I wanted to know could you talk a little bit about-have you already started filming? Are you-could you talk a little bit about the film and also-

Hopkins:  I’m supposed to be talking about Wolfman, not-Well just a little side. Yeah, I’m enjoying working with Ken Branagh very much. Terrific young director. Well, he’s not that young. He’s younger than me-anyone’s younger than me. But he’s terrific and I’m really enjoying it.

I just wanted to know if you’d read any of the comic books or gotten into it or if you’re just–?

Hopkins:  No. I’m not a great researcher. Although I’ve got the whole Marvel comics book, but I haven’t read it yet. It’s very dense. I’m not into that culture. Like Wolfman, this is a big cultural thing isn’t it, these monster movies. I’ve never been caught up in that.

What about Norse myths though? It goes back to Norse mythology.

Hopkins:  Yeah, I know a little bit about it. Not much though, I’m not well read in Norse mythology. More in Greek mythology and Roman mythology, but not in-but I’m learning a bit through comic strips now, about Odin. And I know that Thursday’s named after Thor and Wednesday’s named after Odin. And uh, yeah, interesting stuff. History of the Vikings is very interesting, the Viking invasions of Europe.

Emily Blunt was telling us that some part of the script they were retooling it to give some different depth to the characters. Do you have a say in about when you read a script, do you make changes? Often?

Hopkins:  Yeah. Well, with all appreciation and respect for the writer, there are certain things they may miss because they-you know, they’re on schedule, they’ve got to rewrite this stuff, they’ve got to-I’m not taking the shine from them. But there was a scene, I’m in the asylum with my son and there were lines that were sort of up in the air and I thought well, what is the background to this? So I said to Joe, I said I’d like to just rewrite something in there, so when I knock out the-I describe to my son how I knocked out my man servant because he’d locked, forced me to-I don’t remember this. I said I’d like to just build a history into it that Sir John Talbot has been all over the world. He’s like the Walter Huston character in Treasure of Sierra Madre, he’s been everywhere. Australia, New Zealand, he’s been up in the mountains of the Andes, he’s fought in the waterfronts of Boston Harbor and in San Francisco, as a pugilist, a bear boxer. So he’s a man who is scarred by life and he’s been everywhere. He’s a killer, he’s a tough, tough man. Like those Victorians were. Those great pioneers who pioneered the west, they were tough. And the killings in the saloons of the great mid-you know, like bear, like Bob Fitzsimmons and all those guys. They were tough people. So I built that into the script, I said that’s what I want to do is to build this raucous, vicious man, who just survived through sheer will and muscle. My grandfather was like that, my father’s father, was like that, muscle man, you know, just sheer muscle and tenacity. And so I based some of this on my grandfather as well. And there’s a scene I think in my,  I did that in the scene. I don’t know if it’s been cut, they may have cut some of the lines. But so I built up a historical biography for myself, just to give it a bit of dimension.

The official poster for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards has been released and it features co-hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin sitting on the Oscar.  The ceremony is scheduled for March 7 and it’ll air on ABC live around the world.   Take a look at the full poster after the jump:

(Via Variety)