The Morning Roundup: SAG Winners, Buy Benjamin Button’s Mansion, Twilight Sequel Casting
Written by: Phoebe Raven, CC2K Staff Writer
This morning we offer you the SAG Awards and Sundance winners, a chance to own Benjamin Button's mansion, casting news for the Twilight sequel and the usual trailerpalooza.
Award season is keeping everyone busy these days. This weekend it was the SAG Awards that kept our eyes focused on Hollywood. Amongst the still looming strike the guild gave out its top honors to the following people:
Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture — The Dark Knight
Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series — Heroes
Female Actor in a Comedy Series — Tina Fey (30 Rock)
Male Actor in a Comedy Series — Alec Baldwin (30 Rock)
Ensemble in a Comedy Series — 30 Rock
Female Actor in a Drama Series — Sally Field (Brothers and Sisters)
Male Actor in a Drama Series — Hugh Laurie (House)
Ensemble in a Drama Series — Mad Men
Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries — Laura Linney (John Adams)
Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries — Paul Giamatti (John Adams)
Male Actor in a Leading Role — Sean Penn (Milk)
Female Actor in a Leading Role — Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Male Actor in a Supporting Role — Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Female Actor in a Supporting Role — Kate Winslet (The Reader)
Cast of a Motion Picture – Slumdog Millionaire
The "Best Dressed on the Red Carpet Award" goes to Kate Winslet, who blew the competition out of the water in her cobalt Narciso Rodriguez gown (see upper right).
Highpoint of the ceremony was once again Heath Ledger and the standing ovations for his win. Gary Oldman accepted the award on his behalf. All we need is the Oscar for Heath now.
The winners of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival were also announced. It's a long list, click here to read it.
Speaking of award season: There is an interesting report out there about the piracy relating to Oscar films. Since Academy members receive screeners of nominated films, most of the Oscar films show up on torrent pages only 6 days after the screeners are released (on average). The only Oscar-nominated film of 2009 currently not available is Rachel Getting Married (note: the report claims Changeling is also not available, I have proof of the contrary). Read more about this here and here.
The box office is up next, though I wish I had better news. Paul Blart: Mall Cop is still the top movie. It managed to nix out the new entry Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (sans Kate Beckinsale and Len Wiseman) at No. 2 and Gran Torino at 3. One reason to rejoice: Slumdog Millionaire made it to #5, thanks to all the awards hype surrounding it.
At the overseas box office (this includes numbers from Europe to Asia) Valkyrie was the most-seen movie (it did moderately well in Germany, but not as well as some had hoped). Also doing well overseas are Slumdog Millionaire, Revolutionary Road, Twilight and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Speaking of which: if you're are a big fan of Ben Button, you can go to the website of famed auction house Sotheby's and place a bid for the original house The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was filmed in. That's right, you can own the nursing home you saw Brad Pitt grow younger in and it's only going to cost you $2.85 million. For thirty pictures of the mansion and more details of its history go here.
News from pre-production heaven/hell:
The big screen debut of the Green Hornet, starring Seth Rogen, may be in trouble. /Film have it from a source that at Sundance several people reported Sony may very well pull the plug on the production. This might be good news for Rogen, who said he likes himself better when chubby and out of shape anyway.
William Monahan, known to most as the scribe of Martin Scorsese's The Departed, will make his directorial debut with a film called London Boulevard. The film has now found its stars in Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley. In it Farrell plays a criminal, who swears to live right when he gets out of prison and gets a job as a handyman for a reclusive young actress (Knightley). You interested yet?
The sequel to Twilight, New Moon, is going to be filmed this summer (for a release later in 2009) and Dakota Fanning is among the people who might join the cast. She confirmed that she is in talks to star as Jane, a vampire from Italy. You like the choice?
News from the LaLa Land of TV (which I have neglected of late, I apologize):
Last Thursday saw the best-rated episode of USA's Burn Notice ever. The excellent spy drama/comedy outperformed such other original programming as Private Practice, The Eleventh Hour and ER in the 10 p.m. time slot. It's the first time Burn Notice ventured out of its usual summer air dates and it was a smashing success. Well done, Michael Weston!
And lastly, as always, trailerpalooza!
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Japanese Trailer)
Coraline
The Great Buck Howard