By Brent Lang
TheWrap

Forest Whitaker, whose role as an unassuming White House butler in “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” has catapulted him into the thick of the Oscar race, will receive the eight annual Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film from The Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

The award will be handed out at a dinner on Sunday, December 15, 2013. Past recipients include Robert DeNiro, Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford, Quentin Tarantino and Kirk Douglas himself.

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“Forest Whitaker is an exceptional man and actor.  His commitment to human causes, his passion for what is right, and his dedication to his craft are inspirational and at my age, inspiration is rare,”Kirk Douglas said in a statement.

It’s a busy fall for Whitaker, who will also be seen in the crime drama “Out of the Furnace,” opposite Christian Bale and the musical, “Black Nativity,” opposite Jennifer Hudson.  He also produced the highly acclaimed “Fruitvale Station.”

Whitaker previously won an Academy Award for his chilling portrayal of Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland” and has logged memorable supporting turns in “The Crying Game,” “The Color of Money” and “Good Morning, Vietnam.” He has also had several successful directing efforts, including “Waiting to Exhale” and “Hope Floats.”

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By Greg Gilman
TheWrap

Put Will Ferrell in front of a camera and it’s guaranteed to produce hilarious results, which is exactly why Chrysler has dozens upon dozens of commercials featuring Ron Burgundy selling the 2013 Dodge Durango.

The advertising campaign — a  unique collaboration between the car company, paramount Pictures and Funny or Die’s commercial production company, Gifted Youth — launched earlier this month, but is far from over. The 30-60 second spots will be entertaining consumers on the web and television through the rest of the year as paramount prepares to release “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” in theaters on Dec. 20.

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“We went into production with 30 scripts written, but over the course of two days, we broke all previously held records and shot 25 different spots of the 30 we had written,” Chris Bruss, Funny or Die’s vice president of branding, told TheWrap. “Will was so prolific with the jokes. When we got into post production, we didn’t just have 25 spots — we had different versions of each. So if you put out everything we could possibly run, it would be up around 70 different spots.”

The commercials are centered around San Diego’s classiest newsman admiring the modern features of the new Durango, such as its available Hemi V8 engine, 360 horsepower, or more importantly, the thermoplastic olefin glovebox that “goes on for inches” and “comfortably fits two turkey sandwiches.”

While the commercials were written by Funny or Die staff in partnership with Chrysler’s Portland-based ad agency Wieden + Kennedy, with input from Ferrell and “Anchorman” director Adam McKay’s Gary Sanchez Productions, it was Chrysler chief marketing officer Olivier Francois who hatched the idea roughly six months ago.

“Will Ferrell’s name was in the drawer where I keep my ‘dream commercials,'” Francois said earlier this month. “And when I found myself visiting my friends on the paramount lot, and they mentioned they were in production on ‘Anchorman 2,’ I immediately felt that the beloved character Will embodied with Ron Burgundy was exactly the right fit for us. And we began to build our ideas from there.”

Ferrell had “100 percent” creative control over the spots shot last August, paramount’s chief marketing officer Josh Greenstein told TheWrap.

With McKay busy editing the movie the integrated ad campaign was based on, Ferrell wanted Funny or Die director Jake Szymanski — who also directed Ferrell’s Old Milwaukee commercials — to helm the project.

“We’ve got a long history of automotive partnerships,” Greenstein said, referencing BMW’s “Mission: Impossible 3″ commercials and General Motor’s Michael Bay-directed “Transformers” ads. “When Chrysler approached with this idea, we loved it. To make it even better, we knew that Will Ferrell and the guys at Funny or Die had to be involved creatively to be exceptional.”

The multi-platform commercial campaign has already achieved millions of views, and will only continue to attract millions as Chrysler releases a steady string of spots, while longer form content will debut exclusively on Funny or Die in November.

Bruss described the Burgundy Durango campaign as “one of the easier and most satisfying” he has ever worked on, and gives the companies involved “massive credit” for taking the risk of putting creative control in someone else’s hands — a strategy which is becoming more popular in the advertising industry.

“Gifted Youth is starting to see that landscape change a lot,” Bruss said. “We think it’s shifting that process for the better.”

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By Todd Cunningham
TheWrap

paramount said Thursday that it will open “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” nationwide on Jan. 17, 2014, the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. It had been set for Christmas Day,

The studio also added “Shadow Recruit” to the title, and said the Skydance Productions thriller will get an Imax release as well.

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The announcement came hours after word came down that Sony was shifting the David O. Russell political thriller “American Hustle” up a week. It had been scheduled to go wide on Christmas Day, but will now go nationwide on Dec. 18, after a Dec. 13 limited release. It also gave George Clooney’s World War II drama “The Monuments Men” a Feb. 7, 2014, release date. It had been set for Dec. 18.

paramount hasn’t made an announcement, but it plans to move the Martin Scorsese-directed Leonardo DiCaprio drama “The Wolf of Wall Street” into the Christmas Day slot vacated by “Jack Ryan.

The holiday will be crazy crowded. On that same day, Fox has set “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” Universal’s debuts Keanu Reeves’ “47 Ronin” and Warner Bros. opens the Sly Stallone-Robert De Niro boxing comedy “Grudge Match.”

The Weinstein Company is giving “August: Osage County” a limited release on Christmas Day, and expanding “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” that same day. And Open Road earlier this week slotted the Justin Bieber concert documentary “Believe” on Dec. 25 as well.

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By Brent Lang
TheWrap

“Gravity” will generate $1 million from a single IMAX theater in New York City, the wide-screen company told analysts during an earnings call on Thursday.

Of course the multiplex in question, AMC’s Lincoln Center location, happens to be one of the busiest theaters in the country, but that’s still astounding and a testament to the success of Alfonso Cuaron’s space epic as a motion picture event.

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“The success of ‘Gravity’ shows there’s a place for 3-D with the right movie,” IMAX CEO Richard L. Gelfond told analysts.

“You’re bringing people who wouldn’t otherwise go to the movies,” he added.

Greg Foster, chairman and president of IMAX Entertainment, argued that the film’s ad campaign trumpeted the brand.

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“The IMAX presence in the advertising seemed to be even more present than it has in the past,” he noted.

That sales pitch worked and on opening weekend the movie generated $11.2 million, or more than 20 percent of the movie’s domestic total, from IMAX locations.

In the case of those lordly New York grosses, it also helps that the IMAX at Lincoln Center is one of the only “true” IMAX screens in the five boroughs. Many IMAX theaters throughout the city are only slightly bigger than regular screens and lack the standard 52 feet by 72 feet dimensions that characterize the real McCoy.

Casting an eye towards China, the IMAX chieftans noted that “Gravity” is currently scheduled to open within a day of “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” potentially pitting the two films in a Blockbuster death match. A similar situation occurred last year with “The Amazing Spider-Man” and “The Dark Knight Rises,” which studio executives privately groused cost them millions of dollars at the box office.

“Obviously, you’d rather they not open on top of each other, but there are ways to minimize the fall out from that,” Gelfond assured analysts.

In particular, he noted that unlike in the United States, IMAX has the capacity to screen more than one film at a time. Given that “Gravity” has a relatively slender running time of 91 minutes, he postulated that the company could squeeze in additional showings to help off-set the screen crunch.

Moreover, he noted that since China is the second largest market for films, scoring a release in the country is better than having censors reject an application for films like “Gravity” or “The Hunger Games” sequel.

“We look at the glass as way more half-full,” Gelfond said.

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By Jeff Sneider
TheWrap

Tom Cruise and “Oblivion” director Joseph Kosinski are planning to reteam for the racing movie “Go Like Hell,” multiple individuals familiar with the 20th Century Fox project have told TheWrap.

The film is based on A.J. Baime’s book “Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans.”

While there are no deals in place yet for Cruise or Kosinski, the duo are in talks to develop “Go Like Hell” as a starring vehicle for Cruise.

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Story is set in the early 1960s when the Ford Motor Company was falling behind in the sports car marketplace, with baby boomers preferring to buy fast, stylish automobiles rather than safe, comfortable vehicles.

Cruise is circling the role of Henry Ford II, who with the help of young visionary Lee Iacocca and former racing champion-turned-engineer Carroll Shelby, concocted a scheme to reinvent the Ford company by entering the high-stakes world of European car racing, which had been dominated by Enzo Ferrari up until then.

The trio set out to design, build and race a car that could beat Ferrari at his own game at the world’s most prestigious and dangerous race — Le Mans.

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Jason Keller wrote a draft of the script back when Michael Mann was developing the project. paramount has been developing its own version of the story as it owns Shelby’s life rights, as well as a script originally written by Lisa Schrager.

Cruise and Kosinski are coming off of “Oblivion,” which grossed $286 million worldwide. Cruise will first shoot “Mission: Impossible 5″ with frequent collaborator Christopher McQuarrie. The actor knows his way around the race track, having starred in Tony Scott’s 1990 action-drama “Days of Thunder.”

Cruise next stars in Doug Liman’s “Edge of Tomorrow,” which Warner Bros. will release June 6. He’s represented by CAA and Greenberg Glusker.

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I was curious to see the trailer but I didn’t like its predecessor “Captain America” at all.  I don’t think Chris Evans is a very good actor.  Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johanssen (sp?) in this trailer alone are better.  Chris is just a bit too plain for me, boring. 

By Brent Lang
TheWrap

Alec Baldwin, the “30 Rock” star turned MSNBC host, said that the movies have become so derivative, audiences are staying home rather than heading to the theaters.

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“Now people’s own lives are more interesting than what’s in the theaters,” Baldwin said during an interview at the American Magazine Media Conference in New York on Tuesday night.

He noted that 50 years ago, studio chiefs would have laughed someone off the lot if they pitched a superhero movie, but times have changed.

“They only want Spider-Man,” Baldwin told moderator David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker.

During a wide-ranging discussion, Baldwin easily won over the crowd of magazine editors and publishing types with a mixture of candor and wit. He didn’t just turn a jaundiced eye towards Hollywood — he examined his own missteps as well.

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In particular, he labeled his participation in the 2012 jukebox musical “Rock of Ages” a miserable experience and called the box office dud a “horrible movie.”

“It was a complete disaster,” Baldwin said, noting that he was convinced to do it because he liked the director Adam Shankman and a cast that included Russell Brand and Tom Cruise.

He quickly recognized he’d made a mistake.

“A week in you go, ‘Oh God, what have I done?'” Baldwin said.

He said an actor can tell when a movie is a turkey.

“The plane is buffeting, the engine is on fire,” Baldwin said.

The Emmy winner and Oscar nominee remains busier than ever, despite the rare cinematic disaster. Last spring he finished up seven seasons as the effortlessly smooth Jack Donaughey on “30 Rock” and had a well-received turn as a Bernie Madoff-like con in Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine.” This month, he began hosting a talk show, “Up Late with Alec Baldwin” on MSNBC.

Remnick asked the actor, who has publicly flirted with the notion of entering politics, if there was anything left to check off on his bucket list.

“To become the editor-in-chief of the country’s foremost literary magazine,” Baldwin joked.

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By Brent Lang
TheWrap

Peter Jackson wants to return to his low-budget roots after his three-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” wraps up in 2014.

In fact, Hollywood’s most famous Kiwi wants to focus his camera on stories that are rooted in New Zealand, instead of just using the lush and mountainous country as a stand-in for Middle Earth, he told The New Zealand Herald this week.

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“We have got a few bits and pieces that we are working on. … The things that we are most excited about are some New Zealand stories,” Jackson said. “We just want to step off the Hollywood Blockbuster thing for a while, and we’ve had a few New Zealand stories in line for a while that we think would make great films.”

He described his passion projects as in the vein of “Heavenly Creatures,” the 1994 true-life murder story that announced Jackson as a major talent. It’s not that Jackson has been entirely consumed with dwarfs and goblins. He’s also directed a remake of “King Kong” and an adaptation of the best-selling book “The Lovely Bones.”

Jackson noted that it was never his intention to return to the world of “The Lord of the Rings.” He ultimately had to slide behind the camera when the original choice to direct the films, “Pacific Rim” director Guillermo del Toro, left the project over production delays.

“In some respects in terms of my remaining film-making career this was a five-year chunk that was kind of taken out of it unexpectedly,” Jackson said of the experience of directing “The Hobbit.” “My future is five years less than I thought it was. I thought if I am going to do that I am actually going to enjoy it. I am going to have fun. Hopefully, that is reflected on the screen, too.”

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TheWrap

“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” has been approved for a November release in China, Lionsgate said Tuesday.

The hotly anticipated sequel scored entry into the world’s second largest market for films just under the wire. As TheWrap reported exclusively last week, China has reached its quota of foreign films it allows to debut in its borders. An individual with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap, that it was not entirely clear what films had made the cut, but under a recent trade agreement, China only allows 34 foreign releases annually, with a particular emphasis on 3D and IMAX releases.

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“Thor: The Dark World” is also believed to have scored a coveted slot, the individual said, and this month Warner Bros. confirmed that “Gravity” will hit the People’s Republic in 2014.

“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” will be released nationwide in China with both dubbed and subtitled prints by the China Film Group in conjunction with Lionsgate’s Beijing-based promotional partner, Talent International Film Co. Ltd.

It premieres on Nov. 21, 2013 on more than 3,000 screens in China, which is a day before it will debut domestically.

“The Hunger Games,” the first film in the science-fiction franchise, grossed nearly $700 million worldwide when it debuted in 2012, with $27 million of that haul coming from China.

“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Francis Lawrence (“I Am Legend”) directs.

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