Morning News Bulletin

Good morning all.

The Morning News Bulletin is a daily roundup of film news that happened over the last couple of hours while we were fast asleep here in SA. In today's news headlines Toy Story 3 starts officially campaigning for a Best Picture Oscar nomination, Adrien Brody blocks a film that he stars in from being released and Gore Verbinski is set to direct The Lone Ranger. Details on these stories after the jump.

The LA Times has revealed that Disney/Pixar wants Toy Story 3 to be nominated for and win the Best Picture award at next year's Oscars. The studio has begun a creative advertising campaign wherein its animated toys reenact iconic moments from previous Oscar winners such as Shakespeare in Love and The Godfather: Part II, and other films. However, just like The LA Times, I wonder if the film really has a chance of winning the award. It just does not have a production story that involved pain for the creators and apparently the Academy likes to see people struggle a bit. This is even though it has been one of the best-reviewed films of 2010, and has collected in excess of $1 billion worldwide in ticket sales, making it 2010's biggest earner. Pixar has won best animated film five times in the last decade. The only film that could really scupper its record would be DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon.

According to The New York Times (via The Associated Press), Adrien Brody has managed to stop a horror film featuring him from being distributed or sold in the US.  Brody who recently starred in the sci-fi-horror remake Predators has sued the makers of Giallo, directed by Dario Argento because they have not been able to pay him. In the film, he plays an investigator who is helping a woman find her kidnapped sister. On Monday this week, Judge Dale S. Fischer of the US District Court in Los Angeles ruled on the matter, writing that Mr. Brody was “suffering, and will continue to suffer, immediate and irreparable harm” unless the release of the film was halted. A lawyer representing the “Giallo” producers did not immediately comment to The A.P.

Director Gore Verbinski (The Pirates Of The Caribbean) has officially signed on to direct a remake of The Lone Ranger for Walt Disney Pictures. There's no word yet on who will play the title character but Deadline Hollywood reports that Johnny Depp has already signed on to play Tonto while Jerry Bruckheimer will be producing. I really wish Gore Verbinski would just do the BioShock movie already but I guess, just like the long gestating Halo movie, this video game adaptation also seems doomed to be stuck in development hell forever. The Lone Ranger will have to do for now I guess.

Today we leave you with the trailer for Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, the film that somewhat controversially won The Golden Lion Award for the Best Picture at this year's Venice Film Festival.



The movie is only being released in the US this December and most likely sometime early next year in SA. That brings us to the end of today's bulletin. See you again tomorrow.