MGM shuts Eminem pic 'Southpaw'

EminemFuquaWhen DreamWorks place the Eminem-brought boxing pic "Southpaw" into turnaround in August, many industry associates wondered whether another studio could be willing to go into the ring with director Antoine Fuqua, film writer Kurt Sutter and it is questionable star. But Paul Rosenberg and Stuart Parr at Eminem's Shady Films banner and also the father-and-boy creating team of Alan and Peter Riche fought against difficult on its account, as well as their collective efforts have recently compensated off, as MGM has closed an offer to create the gritty drama, which is written by The new sony Pictures. MGM didn't have discuss the offer, though associates near to the process say the organization leapfrogged fellow suitors Alcon Entertainment and Summit Entertainment after being seen because the underdog as lately as a week ago. Story finds Eminem playing a welterweight boxer who fights his method to the title, simply to see his world collapse after tragedy strikes. The film follows Eminem because he fights to reclaim his past glory and regain the affection of his youthful daughter. The title refers that Eminem is really a lefty (a harmful factor inside a boxing ring) and also the project is going to be fueled through the struggles that inform Eminem's music and mirror his existence. Eminem has not made an appearance around the bigscreen since his breakthrough perf in Curtis Hanson's 2002 rap drama "8 Mile." He's switched lower numerous movie offers within the years since, permitting "Southpaw" for everyone because the follow-as much as his acting debut. Eminem is repped by ICM and manager David Schiff, who'll professional produce the pic, that is likely to start production sometime the coming year. Contact Shaun Sneider at shaun.sneider@variety.com

H'wood orgs support Iranian filmmakers

Nine Hollywood organizations have emerged to assist jailed Iranian filmmakers and pressure the us government to free them.In the statement launched Wednesday, the groups reported last month's arrest of Naser Safarian, Mohsen Shahrnazdar, Hadi Afarideh, Shahnam Bazdar, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb and Katayoun Shahabis on charges of espionage and treason after they labored while using BBC. Iran has since released Safarian and Shahrnazdar nevertheless the fate from the co-employees is unknown.Furthermore they protested the ongoing house arrest of director Jafar Panahi as well as the detention of actress Marzieh Vafamehr, who was simply sentenced with a year jail time and 90 lashes.The orgs are the Academy of motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the American Cinema Editors, the American Society of Cinematographers, the organization company directors Guild of America, the Intl. Documentary Assn., the Producers Guild of America, the Screen Stars Guild, the Authors Guild of America West as well as the WGA East. The AMPAS board of governors mentioned the issue demands "serious" attention. "These filmmakers -- while others -- are artists, not political combatants. We join our co-employees around the globe in calling positively of those filmmakers' safety, release, and return to filmmaking," the board mentioned. "They deserve the identical, full freedom of expression the overwhelming the majority of our people love each day, wherever they are from, wherever they work, no matter what their values."SAG noted that Iran features a strong tradition of artistic expression reaching back millenia. "That tradition is under attack in the contemporary Iran that has apparently switched against its own artists," SAG mentioned. "Screen Stars Guild deeply deplores the persecution of Marzieh Vafamehr as well as the filmmakers together with other entertainment and media industry reps now under attack in Iran. We add our voices for the thousands of artists worldwide getting in touch with the Iranian government to instantly free Marzieh as well as the other artists and filmmakers jailed because of their artistic and cultural endeavors."A Tehran appeals court recently upheld a six-year jail sentence against Panahi additionally to some 20-year filmmaking and travel stop round the helmer. Panahi reaches home in Tehran pending the execution in the jail sentence. His lawyer, Farideh Ghairat, attracts Iran's Top Court. The filmmaker was arrested in March 2010 when government physiques objected with a documentary he was mentioned being making in regards to the disputed 2009 re-election of Leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He happened for 3 several days just before being released under house arrest. Contact Dork McNary at dork.mcnary@variety.com

'Immortals' Mondays: Behind-The-Scenes Look At Fight Training

"Immortals" Mondays forges on with another exclusive look behind the scenes of the upcoming Greek mythological epic. Last Monday, you learned a little bit more about Theseus, played by Henry Cavill. This week, we take a look at the work that went into the fight scenes even before Cavill and the rest of the cast showed up on set. It takes a lot of hard work to look like an expert Grecian warrior, and this week's video shows us just the kind of training the stunt team from Montreal went through to become the soldiers you'll see on screen. Check back next Monday for more exclusives from "Immortals," which hits theaters November 11. Also, let us know what you what you think in the comment section below and on Twitter!

Was Shakespeare a Fraud? 'Anonymous' Screenwriter John Orloff Sure Thinks So

Sony has been promoting Roland Emmerich's upcoming literary thriller 'Anonymous' with the Joker-esque tag line "Was Shakesperare a Fraud?" Which sounds like yet another insulting Hollywood dumb-down of history -- until you realize that Emmerich, 'Anonymous' screenwriter John Orloff, and his on-screen narrator, the esteemed Shakespearean actor Derek Jacobi, all believe that the answer is yes. Turns out the debate between Stratfordians, who believe Shakespeare's works were indeed written by William Shakespeare of Stratford upon Avon, and anti-Stratfordians, who don't, has been raging for quite some time. As any anti-Stratfordian will tell you, Mark Twain was one of the first writers to point out just how difficult it is to believe that the mind that produced 'Hamlet,' 'MacBeth,' 'The Merchant of Venice,' and so many other immortal works could have belonged to some knucklehead commoner from Nowheresville, England. But so far, within the Ivory Tower at least, the anti-Stratfordians have been treated like TMZ photographers at a George Clooney cocktail party. (You can find an impassioned defense of the Stratfordian view here.) The release of 'Anonymous' could change that. The movie advances an intriguing, if far-fetched, scenario involving a nobleman who has been an anti-Stratfordian favorite since the 1920s: Edward De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. I'll let John Orloff, whom I interviewed at length on the subject, take it from here. I know that this is a screenplay that you've been living with for a long time. Fifteen, 20 years. What was the original impetus? I was in my early 20s when I became interested in the Shakespeare authorship question. I thought, "Wow, that would be a really fantastic film." The problem was, I was young, not British, and had only written a couple of scripts at UCLA film school. It just seemed a little too intimidating. Then I met my now-wife, and she worked in the movie division of HBO at the time and would bring home these long-form, non-fiction scripts. And I would read them and say, "Fuck, these suck! This person has an agent? You're thinking of hiring this person -- you're crazy!" So I pitched her this as a movie. She said, "Yeah. If it's no good, nobody has to read it." I spent about two years, from the age of 30 to 32, researching -- also known as procrastination. The long walk to the typewriter. But it was fun. I just read everything I could about Elizabethan England, because it's such an amazingly rich culture. It's so complicated, and way darker than people think. People just go, "Oh, look, Queen Elizabeth, Golden Age." She killed anybody who was a problem. She was ruthless. And so were the people around her. So I did tons of research and finally wrote it. And did you become persuaded of any particular view? I'll be honest with you: I am a firm anti-Stratfordian. I don't think Shakespeare wrote the plays. I am a likely Oxfordian. I'm also thinking -- I'm evolving, I've spent 20 years on this and I'm wondering more about the group theory. I definitely am Oxfordian, but I think there's room for Oxford to have been part of a larger group. Let me ask you this: What's the single most compelling reason to think Shakespeare didn't write the plays? What's the single, compelling reason that he did? I'm gonna ask you, because there's not a single piece of paper that has ever been discovered that's written by William Shakespeare. But I'm asking the questions here. [Laughs] To me, there are two issues that are the nagging issues. First, there's no documentary evidence. That's a big one. We have no letters to or from William Shakespeare at all. There's not a single piece of paper that's ever been discovered, ever written by him. So, we have to assume, if Shakespeare wrote the plays, that history has done this terrible thing to us -- taken every single piece of paper he's ever written, and made them burn, or get in floods, or who the fuck knows? And we have those kinds of records for other playwrights of the time? Oh, absolutely. There are letters to and from people you've never heard of. Dante, Cervantes, these people wrote letters and said, "Wow, I'm writing this thing called 'The Inferno' and it's really hard." We have these letters. We have letters from Ben Johnson, who's a contemporary of Shakespeare. We have original poems written by John Dunn, by John Milton, by Johnson. Nothing by Shakespeare. Right, so that's one thing. That's one. Number two is education. The other problem has always been, How did the kid from Warwickshire gain the knowledge to write these plays? Because whoever wrote the plays had to speak Greek, Latin, Italian, and French. That's just a fact, because Shakespeare had a tremendous amount of source material that was not yet translated into English. As an actor, wouldn't he have been exposed to a lot of oral traditions, so he could've heard these stories from other cultures without necessarily reading Greek? No, no, because you can get into very specific minutiae of Greek poetry that are used in Shakespeare's plays. That aren't just sort of, "Oh, let's talk about making a play, and oh, yeah, I remember this great Greek poet that nobody's heard of that said blah blah blah -- why don't we use that? Why don't we steal that?" I don't particularly think that works. OK, let's hear another reason. All of Shakespeare's characters, all of his heroes, are noblemen. They are not servants -- as opposed to Ben Johnson, for example, who's the exact opposite. Johnson was a commoner and wrote about common men. Shakespeare's characters are nobles, and they know things about falconry, a nobleman's sport. When you get into the totality of that, you start to say, Where did this person, from Warwickshire, get this education? But Shakespeare's plays have people from every caste. Name some of the names of the lower caste. Falstaff. Impotent. Bottom? I mean, he makes fun of these characters. Those aren't the heroes. Those are the people that are made fun of in his plays. And it's a classist piece of work, Shakespeare's work. It is pro-nobility. It also happens to be pro-Tudor. They're very political pieces of work. OK, so the evidence gives you reason to doubt that Shakespeare wrote the plays. Now let's talk about Oxford. That gets interesting. In 1920, I think it was, a guy [J. Thomas Looney, author of 'Shakespeare Identified'] said, "I don't buy this Shakespeare." Now you have to remember, Mark Twain wrote a whole book on why he didn't think Shakespeare was the author of those plays. The last book he ever wrote was called 'Shakespeare's Debt.' His basic thesis was, "I could not have written about the Mississippi had I not been a Mississippi River boat pilot. My life experiences are what made those books work. And there is no way you're going to tell me that the kid from Stratford had the life experiences to write 'Hamlet,' or whatever play you want to insert here." So in the early 20s, this guy said let me just do some research.' He discovered this man named Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, who was claimed by several contemporaries to be the greatest playwright of his time but who had to use a pseudonym. We have a document that says that. There's a document that says that? Oh, yeah. That doesn't mean he wrote the Shakespeare plays. All of the evidence is circumstantial. There is no smoking gun. The closest to the smoking gun is the Geneva Bible. We have De Vere's Bible where he underlines things, and those things that are underlined happened to end up in the plays. Is it a smoking gun? No, it's just one more little tiny piece. Anyway, so this guy Thomas Looney said, "Let's think of it like a murder mystery. What are the things that the guy who wrote the plays would've had to have been?" Well, the languages I told you about. He was probably a lawyer, because the law in Shakespeare is incredibly accurate. He probably went to Italy, because there are a dozen plays set in Italy, and they're pretty fucking accurate about what the place and time was like. He probably knew the ocean, because there's so much sea-craft metaphors in the plays. He probably was a nobleman, for reasons you can argue with. So he finally came across this guy Edward De Vere, and he starts reading this guy's biographies and learning about him, and he goes, "Holy fuck! It's Hamlet!" Everything that happens to Hamlet happened to Edward de Vere. Everything that happens to Prince Hal and Falstaff happens to De Vere. You can go on and on and on, and suddenly you're not talking about these plays as though they've come out of the ether, like they're imagined out of nowhere, which you have to say if Shakespeare wrote them. You kind of say, It was like God touched him and he made this shit up out of nowhere, right? I noticed in the film that there are a couple of parallels -- there's a Hamlet-killing-Polonius moment in De Vere's life, for instance. You picked up on that! Polonius in 'Hamlet' is Burghley, the David Thewlis character -- everybody agrees. Whether you are a Stratfordian or an Oxfordian, Polonius is a caricature of Lord Burghley. Lord Burghley's daughter is this woman named Anne. Polonius' daughter is this woman named Ophelia. Oxford marries Anne; Hamlet is in love with Ophelia. The whole speech that Polonius gives, "Neither a lender or a borrower be," is an actual caricature of a letter that Lord Burghley wrote to his son. We have that piece of paper, and it's almost the same thing. Like Hamlet, De Vere's father died when he was 12, 13. His mother married six months later in an over-hasty marriage. He was captured by pirates when he was 20 years old -- no, he really was! I think his cousin is named Rosencrantz, I can't remember, first cousin, second cousin. I mean, there's all this shit where you just sort of go, 'Oh, wow!' And what happens is, suddenly you see reason for things in the plays. So you resisted the urge to embellish -- the screenplay is as factually accurate as you could make it, is that a fair assumption? It is. You could have gone in and said, "OK, I'm going to make a dramatic case and pull the five most famous things from Shakespeare's plays and make them happen in De Vere's life," and you decided not to do that. No, my thing was, this movie is not going to -- it's not built to prove the case. This is not a documentary, it is not a book. It is a piece of drama, and it should first and foremost tell a really, really cool fucking story. It should be thematically driven, because all the best movies are thematically driven. They're not plot-driven, they're not trying to prove anything. They're just trying to get you emotionally engaged and maybe speak to a wider truth. I mean, I happen to be an Oxfordian, I happen to be an anti-Stratfordian, but as I worked on it and as I got older and as Roland and I worked on it, it becomes about something else. The movie's really about, Is the pen mightier than the sword? Is might more powerful than intellect? I mean, it's kind of trite to say the pen is mightier than the sword, but it's not trite. Right now, we're in a struggle about intellect versus might, you know? Are ideas more important than power? As Johnson says in the film: "If anyone ever remembers any of us, it's because of these plays." And he's not wrong. In the film, Shakespeare is portrayed not just as not the author of the plays but as a complete buffoon and horrible person. Tell me about that choice and are you concerned about that? No, I love that. What's interesting is that I wrote the movie before 'Shakespeare In Love' came out. So my initial idea was: I'm going to make him like a movie star. He's going to be like Brad Pitt. And then, of course, Joseph Fiennes made 'Shakespeare in Love' and we all thought, "Oh my God, Shakespeare is a sexy, young, hot guy." So that idea was kind of gone. That was taken. But I had already written Shakespeare as ambitious and aggressive. So then I just sort of made the choice: well, what are actors like? Well, you know, they're ambitious, they're self-obsessed. I just made him an actor. You know you're going to piss off a bunch of people, but beyond that, do you have a goal of gaining acceptance for the anti-Stratfordian view within the academy? Absolutely. Listen, I have no issue with somebody who's a firm Stratfordian. The evidence does point that way. I just happen to think it's not beyond a reasonable doubt. There is a conversation to be had, and hopefully the movie will open up the conversation. Even if at the end of the day, you say, "That's all hogwash. Shakespeare wrote the plays. Orloff and Emmerich are all fucking crazy" -- well, at least we had the conversation. At least we've talked about Shakespeare's plays in a meaningful interesting way. But it does tip the scales of the conversation a bit, to have a however-many-million-dollar popular film on your side. But there's already been a however-many-million-dollar fictional film with Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth. Nothing's true in that film. That's their version of what happened, and here's our version of what happened. And yes, you're right: cinema gives the patina of legitimacy to everything. And you're right: that's one of the goals I wanted to have with this movie. Let's say, "Hey! You know what? There's another story here that may be true and maybe we should talk about this." I remember being in seventh grade reading 'Romeo and Juliet' for the first time and reading that seven-page biography about the author, William Shakespeare, not realizing that those seven pages are all guesses. We know nothing about Shakespeare, really. Not even seven pages' worth. What we do know has been stretched into thousand-page biographies of guesses and assumptions and must-haves. That was the biggest thing for me, like, Wait a minute, you're presenting facts to me that aren't facts. They're guesses. At least say they're guesses and go from there. And so you can do the same thing with the facts available to you. Exactly. 'Anonymous' is in theaters on Oct. 28 [Photo: Sony Pictures/Columbia Tri-Star] Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook

New You are able to Comic Disadvantage: Electricity Entertainment Creative Chief Hopeful for 'Green Lantern' Film Follow up

Thanks to Warner Bros. Pictures NY - Geoff Johns, chief creative officer at Electricity Entertainment, one of your time Warner's Warner Bros., expressed hope here Friday that you will see another Eco-friendly Lantern film. Speaking on the panel at NY Comic Disadvantage, he stated: "There's anticipation that people will ultimately see one." The Warner Bros. film that centered on the super hero captured was seen as an box office disappointment. Johns sooner or later throughout Friday's panel stated relating to this summer time's Eco-friendly Lantern film that "clearly, you would like it to be as large as Titanic." But he added: "Hopefully the smoothness will get another film, and it'll be live-action again - I guarantee." TW chairman and Boss Shaun Bewkes stated formerly this summer time's release, featuring Ryan Reynolds, "didn't meet anticipation - fell fairly far lacking individuals." A choice on the potential follow up will come "in the end," Bewkes also stated. Sources formerly told The Hollywood Reporter though that Warner Bros. wasn't quitting on the follow up. Speaking throughout a panel titled "Eco-friendly Lantern All Access," Johns on Friday stated that although experts stated the film didn't have sufficient character development - a sense also expressed by a crowd member throughout the panel - he was happy it introduced the Eco-friendly Lantern character to numerous new people. "There is lots of great stuff within the movie," Johns stated, adding that the director's cut DVD that's being marketed at this time includes added moments that increase the protagonist's story and character. Johns also pointed out the approaching animated Eco-friendly Lantern series on TW's Cartoon Network. "Using the new animated series, Eco-friendly Lantern will simply develop,Inch he stated. Highlighting that it's the first CGI animated series with different Electricity character, Johns also guaranteed fans that "you will see more" such series. He didn't provide further particulars though. Also at NY Comic Disadvantage on Friday, Johns introduced the Robot Chicken series on TW cable network Adult Go swimming is going to do a Electricity Comics special next summer time that'll be within the vein from the show'sStar Wars special. Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com Twitter: @georgszalai

Fox Renews Which Means You Think You Are Able To Dance and MasterChef

Which Means You Think You Are Able To Dance You should get some dancing footwear as well as your best apron because Which Means You Think You Are Able To Dance and MasterChef are returning for additional. Fox introduced pick-ups for shows Thursday. Dance judge and executive producer Nigel Lythgoe first broke this news about his series via twitter. "FOX has acquired #SYTYCD for it's ninth season, it had been introduced today by Mike Darnell, Leader of Alternative Entertainment, Fox. [HOORAY]," Lythgoe authored. Take a look at our fall preview for art galleries, scoop, premiere calendars and much more! A lot more than six million audiences viewed Melanie Moore go ahead and take Season 8 Dance title this summer time. MasterChef, from Gordon Ramsay, snapped up 6.5 million audiences because of its Season 2 finale in August. Dance's renewal occurs the heels of 1 of their most significantly acclaimed seasons. The show received Emmy nominations for the best reality competition program and host Cat Deeley. No return dates happen to be introduced, but MasterChef starts casting for Season 3 on March. 29 in La. Are you currently excited these shows are returning?

Box Office Report: 'Moneyball' Tops Friday, But 'Dolphin Tale' Projected to Win Weekend With $15 Million

Alcon Entertainment and Warner Bros.' family pic Dolphin Tale is headed for first place in its second weekend with $15 million, followed by fellow holdovers Moneyball and The Lion King.our editor recommendsBox Office Report: 'Lion King,' 'Dolphin Tale' and 'Moneyball' Lock-Out New FilmsBox Office Shocker: 'Lion King' Set to Become No. 3 Animated Pic of All Time Thanks to Re-releaseBox Office Preview: 'Lion King,' 'Moneyball,' 'Dolphin Tale' in Close RaceDream House: Film Review But the biggest surprise of the weekend is the strong performance of Sherwood Pictures and TriStar's faith-based movie Courageous, which grossed $3.1 million on Friday and is looking at an opening weekend gross of $9 million - besting the three other new films, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen's cancer dramedy 50/50, Anna Faris-Chris Evans R-rated comedy What's Your Number? and the Daniel Craig-Rachel Weisz horror pic Dream House. PHOTOS: Top 10 Grossing Films Courageous, about four police officers who grapple with their faith, is playing on only 1,161 screens, a fraction of the number of its competitors. It received a glowing A+ CinemaScore, as did Dolphin Tale last weekend. Moneyball, Sony's critically acclaimed Brad Pitt baseball drama, topped the Friday box office with $3.9 million, followed by Dolphin Tale with $3.5 million and Disney's Lion King with $3.3 million. Dolphin Tale is widely expected to pull ahead over the weekend, while Moneyball and Lion King are expected to vie for No. 2 with grosses in the $12 million range. PHOTOS: 'Moneyball' Premiere in Oakland Morgan Creek's Dream House opened to No. 5 on Friday with $2.9 million, and is on course to gross $8 million for the weekend. The movie, which Universal is distributing, received a B CinemaScore. 50/50, from Summit Entertainment, opened softer than expected, considering it is a critical darling and received an A- CinemaScore. The movie grossed $2.87 million to all but tie with Dream House, but Summit expects it to pull overtake Dream House with a weekend gross of $8.6 million. What's Your Number?, from Fox and New Regency, trailed with an even softer Friday opening of $2.1 million. The pic is now only expected to gross $5.5 million to $6 million for the weekend. Related Topics Brad Pitt Chris Evans Joseph Gordon-Levitt Rachel Weisz Seth Rogen Box Office Daniel Craig Anna Faris 50/50 Moneyball Dolphin Tale

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