Just before jumping into the holidays and spreading that yuletide brotherly love, let’s pit the best movies of 2012 against one another in some of the must coveted awards competitions the industry has to offer. The Golden Globe, SAG and Critics’ Choice nominations are in, and it looks as though top honors will come down to “Argo,” “Les Misérables,” “Lincoln,” “Silver Linings Playbook” and “Django Unchained” amongst others.
Looking ahead, new details have surfaced on one of Johnny Depp’s next projects, Wally Pfister’s directorial debut, “Transcendence.” Mark Wahlberg’s “Transformers 4” co-stars have also been revealed, as has the possible plot for DC Entertainment and Warner Bros’ “Justice League” movie.
Sure that’s a nice little sampling right there, but you want the details, right? Scroll down for all the goods in your weekly Movie News Cheat Sheet.
1. Golden Globe Nominations: If the Golden Globe nominations are any indication of what to expect at the Academy Awards, get ready for a lot of “Argo,” “Django Unchained,” and even more “Lincoln,” “Argo” and “Django” both taking five nominations and “Lincoln” earning a total of seven. All three are up for Best Motion Picture – Drama alongside “Life of Pi” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” while “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” “Les Misérables,” “Moonrise Kingdom,” “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen,” and “Silver Linings Playbook” vie for the same honor for comedies or musicals. “ParaNorman” sadly didn’t make the cut for Best Animated Feature Film, the five nominations going to “Brave,” “Frankenweenie,” “Hotel Transylvania,” “Rise of the Guardians,” and “Wreck-It Ralph.” Best Director is an exact repeat of the Best Motion Picture – Drama category, while the Best Screenplay one is the same save for David O. Russell and “Silver Linings Playbook” ousting David Magee and “Life of Pi.” Click here to check out all of the Hollywood Foreign Press’ nominees and tune in when the winners are crowned on January 13, 2013.
2. SAG Award Nominations: Sadly, as expected, “Beasts of the Southern Wild” didn’t receive a single nomination, but, on the bright side, a number of deserving films did. “Argo,” “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” “Les Misérables,” “Lincoln” and “Silver Linings Playbook” are all in the running for Outstanding Performance By A Cast while the Best Male Actor category breaks down to Bradley Cooper, Daniel Day-Lewis, John Hawkes, Hugh Jackman and Denzel Washington. Sure enough, Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence are up for Best Female Actor alongside Marion Cotillard, Helen Mirren and Naomi Watts. In the supporting section Anne Hathaway is the favorite to Sally Field, Helen Hunt, Nicole Kidman and Maggie Smith, but it’s more of a toss up in the male supporting role category, Christoph Waltz nowhere to be found leaving Alan Arkin, Javier Bardem, Robert De Niro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Tommy Lee Jones vying for the title. We’ll see how it all plays out when the winners are unveiled on January 27, 2013. (via SAGAwards.org)
3. Critics’ Choice Award Nominations: The Broadcast Film Critics Association has also released its nominations and while the list does consist of quite a few usual suspects, “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Magic Mike,” “Looper” and “Perks of Being a Wallflower” all make appearances. “Beasts” finds itself in the mix for Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Young Actor/Actress while Matthew McConaughey puts “Magic Mike” on the board for Best Supporting Actor. “Looper” got nods for Best Original Screenplay as well as some of the more unconventional categories including Best Actor in an Action Movie, Best Actress in an Action Movie, and Best Sci-fi/Horror Film. “Perks” pulls a similar move, wedging its way into Best Adapted Screenplay while also putting Logan Lerman in the running for Best Young Actor/Actress against Quvenzhane Wallis. Head on over to the Critic’s Choice website to take a look at the full list of nominees and find out who the winners are when the ceremony airs on The CW January 10, 2013.
4. Johnny Depp to Lead “Transcendence:” News of Johnny Depp’s plan to star in longtime cinematographer Wally Pfister’s directorial debut, “Transcendence,” has been around for a couple of months, but now The Wrap offers more details. Apparently Depp is set to play “a scientist whose brain is uploaded into a supercomputer.” An Alcon spokesman did warn that any plot information made public could be dated and is also subject to change during the revision process. Regardless, here’s the information The Wrap tracked down – Warning: This feels a lot like a beginning, middle and end, so this could be a major plot spoiler. “Three scientists – Max and the husband-and-wife team of Will and Evelyn – have been developing a programming code for the world’s first fully self-aware computer.” It goes on to say, “A group of anti-technology terrorists assassinate Will, and Evelyn uploads his brain into a prototype supercomputer. Although she at first finds that the experiment seems to have gone wrong, before long, Evelyn finds Will responding in computer form. She goes on to connect Will to the Internet so he can help make further scientific breakthroughs. Will asks Evelyn to connect a microphone and a camera to the computer so he can see and speak to her as well. Will creates a backup of himself to every computer in the world, and furthers his work through accessing online indexes. When the anti-technology organization finds out, they try to steal the supercomputer and destroy it, but Will no longer needs the computer to survive.” According to Deadline, Rooney Mara, Emily Blunt and Rebecca Hall are all in the running for the film’s female lead, which, should The Wrap summary be accurate, is Evelyn. No word on who’s up for the role of Max, but also via The Wrap, Ewan McGregor passed on an early draft and Tom Hardy was approached, but isn’t available.
5. Wahlberg Gets Young Co-Stars for “Transformers 4:” Trading Shia LaBeouf for Mark Wahlberg was a sweet enough deal; should Brenton Thwaites and Nicola Peltz be as good as Michael Bay is likely hoping, things could be looking up for the “Transformers” film franchise. As reported by Twitch, Thwaites and Peltz have been chosen to star alongside Wahlberg in film #4, Peltz as Wahlberg’s character’s daughter and Thwaites as her biker boyfriend. Thwaites does have a small role in “Maleficent,” but otherwise, here in the US, the Australian actor is a fresh face. Peltz isn’t exactly a household name either, but she does have a pretty major stain on her resume courtesy of “The Last Airbender.” Perhaps an upcoming performance in “Bates Motel” will clear up that blemish a bit before “Transformers 4” hits.
6. “Parts Per Billion” Gets Badgley, Bledel, Palmer and More: Casting is clearly a top priority for writer-director Brian Horiuchi because not only has he lined up Frank Langella, Gena Rowlands, Rosario Dawson and Josh Hartnett for his directorial debut, “Parts Per Billion,” but now he’s added Penn Badgley, Alexis Bledel, Teresa Palmer and Hill Harper, too. All AKA/Bow Street Films has to offer in the way of a synopsis is the following – “The story of three couples dealing with the same reality shaking event that threatens to tear them apart.” The gang is due to shoot through Christmas in Detroit.
7. Is This the Plot of “Justice League?:” Now that the film community has calmed down from reports that Darkseid is the “Justice League” villain, how about even more information on the plot from Latino Review? Again, the outlet doesn’t reveal a source, so we’ll have to relegate this to the rumor mill for now, but they’re saying that screenwriter Will Beall is using Gerry Conway’s “Justice League of America” issues 183-185 as source material. Considering I’ve got little to no clue what I’m talking about with these comics, I’ll pull straight from the Latino Review write-up – “In a nutshell, plotwise, the three issue arc involves Darkseid planning the destruction of Earth by blasting it with a ray that’ll move Apokolips into the Earth’s place.”
8. Garrett Hedlund Confirmed for More “Tron:” Preparations for “Tron 3” are underway and both Garrett Hedlund and Joseph Kosinski are here to prove it. While promoting “On the Road,” Hedlund confirmed he’s in for round three, but couldn’t confirm much more, but he did note that the studio is very excited about the project. Meanwhile, MTV was busy chatting with Kosinski, the director revealing, “We’ve got an idea for the next movie that’s really exciting to me,” and, “You look at what happened in the closing scenes of ‘Legacy’; I think it sets a clear direction for what could happen in the next chapter.”
9. Trailers: “Pacific Rim,” “Man of Steel,” “Lone Ranger:” Need some alien destruction in your life? The new “Pacific Rim” trailer has all you could want and more courtesy of the actual aliens that arise from the sea and the giant man-operated robots used to take them down. Of course, “Man of Steel” will have flying and fighting outside the bounds of reality, too, but the film’s trailer also has this wonderful moody tone that grounds the hero in a great deal of emotion. We round out this section with the new trailer for “Lone Ranger.” Much of the footage matches that of the teaser, but this one does offer quite a bit in the way of the Lone Ranger legend and how he came to be.
10. Box Office: “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” may be trailing the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy as far as reviews go, but at the box office, it’s a much bigger winner. The first of three films scored $84.8 million opening weekend, easily taking out the first trilogy’s highest earner, “The Return of the King” with $72.6 million, and absolutely demolishing the competition. “Rise of the Guardians” comes in at a very distant second with $7.4 million, which is just enough to edge out “Lincoln” and its $7.2 million weekend six haul. Just behind that is “Skyfall” with $7 million and rounding out the top five is “Life of Pi” with $5.4 million. (via Box Office Mojo)