In the name of everything one holds sacred … it's real. Far from being a dare, or some elaborate satire on the end of ideas in Hollywood, it appears that Ridley Scott's movie based on the board game Monopoly is really in development.
To be candid, when Lost in Showbiz first handled this story last year, it was more for its novelty value than out of any serious belief that a collaboration between Universal, Ridley, and the games manufacturer Hasbro would actually get within a million earth miles of pre-production stage. But here we are, faced with a detailed piece in the LA Times in which the producer Frank Beddor explains how he convinced Sir Rid that he wanted to be a part of the magic.
I created a comedic, lovable loser who lives in Manhattan and works at a real estate company and he's not very good at his job but he's great at playing Monopoly. And the world record for playing is 70 straight days – over 1,600 hours – and he wanted to try to convince his friends to help him break that world record. They think he is crazy. They kid him about this girl and they're playing the game and there's this big fight. And he's holding a Chance card and after they've left he says, 'Damn, I wanted to use that Chance card,' and he throws it down. He falls asleep and then he wakes up in the morning and he's holding the Chance card, and he thinks, 'That's odd.'
He's all groggy and he goes down to buy some coffee and he reaches into his pocket and all he has is Monopoly money. All this Monopoly money pours out. He's confused and embarrassed and the girl reaches across the counter and says, 'That's OK.' And she gives him change in Monopoly money. He walks outside and he's in this very vibrant place, Monopoly City, and he's just come out of a Chance Shop. As it goes on, he takes on the evil Parker Brothers in the game of Monolopy. He has to defeat them. It tries to incorporate all the iconic imageries - a sports car pulls up, there's someone on a horse, someone pushing a wheelbarrow - and rich Uncle Pennybags, you're going to see him as the maître d' at the restaurant and he's the buggy driver and the local eccentric and the doorman at the opera. There's all these sight gags.
It was that pitch, that's where Sir Ridley got excited. After I pitched it to him, he put out his hand and said, 'What do I have to be part of this movie?'
Be insane? Naturally, it now falls to us to begin dreaming of fantasy casts - I myself will be praying Sir Rid makes it the third of his Russell Crowe epics - before sitting back to wait for the inevitable moment at which the words "mired in development hell" are uttered, and some measure of human sanity is restored.
Wrestler writer channels `nerd rage'
When director Darren Aronofsky sought a screenwriter to turn his idea about a broken-down wrestler seeking one last shot into a movie, he turned to writer Robert Siegel.
The Wrestler went on to be nominated for a slew of awards last year, including Oscar nominations for its stars, Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei. And the script for the original film that drew Aronofsky to Siegel, Big Fan, is finally hitting Toronto theatres Friday.
Big Fan "has a similar vibe" to The Wrestler, said Siegel, as he talked with the Star in a downtown hotel dining room this week. "At least superficially they are stories of guys on the fringes of the sports world."
Comic Patton Oswalt (who voiced Remy in Ratatouille) plays Paul, a 35-year-old parking-lot attendant who still lives with his mother in Staten Island, N.Y. A rabid New York Giants fan, Paul can't wait for his nightly calls to a local sports radio station, where he reads carefully scripted rants loaded with sports clichés.
But when Paul finally comes face-to-face with his hero, Giants star linebacker Quantrell Bishop (Jonathan Hamm), after following him to a Manhattan strip club, he ends up crashing into reality with heartbreaking results.
Siegel has once again penned a script that features a very believable anti-hero. But this time, he's also directing the dark film, which drew comparisons to Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
"I like writing character-driven stuff. Character interests me even more than the story," explained Siegel, 38, former editor-in-chief of the American newspaper satire, The Onion.
Siegel started working on Big Fan when he was still at The Onion, but he left after nine years on the mock paper to take some "low-level Hollywood writing jobs" to pay the rent while he finished the Big Fan script. Soon it was making the rounds in Hollywood, and directors – including Aronofsky – started calling.
Aronofsky was one of several "high-profile" directors interested in the project, said Siegel. But although the two met and talked at length about Big Fan, Siegel was reluctant to relinquish control of the movie. "I just wasn't that excited about somebody else directing it," he said. "It sounds cheesy, but I felt maybe the script was just waiting for me. I was pretty ambivalent about having some big-name director involved."
But Aronofsky was clearly impressed with Siegel and came back to him for The Wrestler script. That project took Siegel away from Big Fan for two years.
Unlike The Wrestler, which Siegel wrote "with Mickey Rourke in my head" even though the actor hadn't even been cast, Siegel didn't have anybody in mind for chubby loner Paul. He knew he didn't want to cast obvious choices like Paul Giamatti or Philip Seymour Hoffman, and he needed an actor in his 30s to play the role.
He sent the script to Oswalt.
"I didn't test him, I didn't ask him to read," said Siegel. "I knew he was a very smart guy and I knew he was funny and I knew he understood the psychology of nerd rage, based on his comedy."
Siegel has a soft spot for Toronto; The Wrestler was picked up for distribution at TIFF, a day after winning the Golden Lion top prize at the Venice Film Festival.
But he added that people are mistaken if they think critical success equals a big payday. "People think if you have a successful movie, money just falls from the sky," Siegel said with a smile. "There's an opportunity for me to make lots of money, but I would have to write Ice Age 4 or The Hangover 2. I would have to come up with an idea for something with vampires and Seth Rogen.
"It's hard to get any movie made and it's even harder when you don't have Johnny Depp attached and you don't have aliens."
The Wrestler went on to be nominated for a slew of awards last year, including Oscar nominations for its stars, Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei. And the script for the original film that drew Aronofsky to Siegel, Big Fan, is finally hitting Toronto theatres Friday.
Big Fan "has a similar vibe" to The Wrestler, said Siegel, as he talked with the Star in a downtown hotel dining room this week. "At least superficially they are stories of guys on the fringes of the sports world."
Comic Patton Oswalt (who voiced Remy in Ratatouille) plays Paul, a 35-year-old parking-lot attendant who still lives with his mother in Staten Island, N.Y. A rabid New York Giants fan, Paul can't wait for his nightly calls to a local sports radio station, where he reads carefully scripted rants loaded with sports clichés.
But when Paul finally comes face-to-face with his hero, Giants star linebacker Quantrell Bishop (Jonathan Hamm), after following him to a Manhattan strip club, he ends up crashing into reality with heartbreaking results.
Siegel has once again penned a script that features a very believable anti-hero. But this time, he's also directing the dark film, which drew comparisons to Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
"I like writing character-driven stuff. Character interests me even more than the story," explained Siegel, 38, former editor-in-chief of the American newspaper satire, The Onion.
Siegel started working on Big Fan when he was still at The Onion, but he left after nine years on the mock paper to take some "low-level Hollywood writing jobs" to pay the rent while he finished the Big Fan script. Soon it was making the rounds in Hollywood, and directors – including Aronofsky – started calling.
Aronofsky was one of several "high-profile" directors interested in the project, said Siegel. But although the two met and talked at length about Big Fan, Siegel was reluctant to relinquish control of the movie. "I just wasn't that excited about somebody else directing it," he said. "It sounds cheesy, but I felt maybe the script was just waiting for me. I was pretty ambivalent about having some big-name director involved."
But Aronofsky was clearly impressed with Siegel and came back to him for The Wrestler script. That project took Siegel away from Big Fan for two years.
Unlike The Wrestler, which Siegel wrote "with Mickey Rourke in my head" even though the actor hadn't even been cast, Siegel didn't have anybody in mind for chubby loner Paul. He knew he didn't want to cast obvious choices like Paul Giamatti or Philip Seymour Hoffman, and he needed an actor in his 30s to play the role.
He sent the script to Oswalt.
"I didn't test him, I didn't ask him to read," said Siegel. "I knew he was a very smart guy and I knew he was funny and I knew he understood the psychology of nerd rage, based on his comedy."
Siegel has a soft spot for Toronto; The Wrestler was picked up for distribution at TIFF, a day after winning the Golden Lion top prize at the Venice Film Festival.
But he added that people are mistaken if they think critical success equals a big payday. "People think if you have a successful movie, money just falls from the sky," Siegel said with a smile. "There's an opportunity for me to make lots of money, but I would have to write Ice Age 4 or The Hangover 2. I would have to come up with an idea for something with vampires and Seth Rogen.
"It's hard to get any movie made and it's even harder when you don't have Johnny Depp attached and you don't have aliens."
The Adam Lambert AMA video on YouTube has been extremely
The Adam Lambert AMA video on YouTube has been extremely popular for the past couple of days. Those that missed the Adam Lambert AMA performance are searching for the YouTube video to see what all the controversy is about. A lucky few will be successful and find an Adam Lambert AMA video on YouTube. They will get excited, link it in their blog and email all of their friends. Then, a short few minutes later they try to re-visit the link only to realize that it has been pulled by Dick Clark Productions because of a copyright claim. Then, you have to delete your blog post (which was bringing in thousands of page views and ad revenue), email your friends a retraction (to avoid looking like an idiot) and try to find another link to the video (and try to save it to your computer this time.)
So what's the big deal? Why does Dick Clark Productions even care that people uploaded the video on to YouTube? Isn't it actually a GOOD thing? After all - viewing the Adam Lambert AMA performance was technically free..
Dick Clark Productions owns the rights to the Adam Lambert AMA performance. They can sell, distribute, and reproduce copies of the performance as they see fit. The copyright protects their financial interest in the production. After all - they did most likely spent a lot of money on the production. With all the controversy surrounding the Adam Lambert performance, distributing the video could bring in a significant amount of money.
Dick Clark Productions isn't pulling the Adam Lambert AMA video on YouTube because they are a buzz kill. They aren't doing it because they are embarrassed of the performance. They have deleted the videos as they pop up on YouTube because they want to protect their financial interests. This is something that everyone should accept and understand.
So what's the big deal? Why does Dick Clark Productions even care that people uploaded the video on to YouTube? Isn't it actually a GOOD thing? After all - viewing the Adam Lambert AMA performance was technically free..
Dick Clark Productions owns the rights to the Adam Lambert AMA performance. They can sell, distribute, and reproduce copies of the performance as they see fit. The copyright protects their financial interest in the production. After all - they did most likely spent a lot of money on the production. With all the controversy surrounding the Adam Lambert performance, distributing the video could bring in a significant amount of money.
Dick Clark Productions isn't pulling the Adam Lambert AMA video on YouTube because they are a buzz kill. They aren't doing it because they are embarrassed of the performance. They have deleted the videos as they pop up on YouTube because they want to protect their financial interests. This is something that everyone should accept and understand.
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