CANNES: eOne Partners with Colin Firth, Ged Doherty on ‘Eye in the Sky’

VARIETY



LONDON — Entertainment One is partnering with Colin Firth and Ged Doherty’s Raindog Films to produce contempo international thriller “Eye in the Sky.” Firth is attached to star in the pic, which will be helmed by Gavin Hood (“Tsotsi,” “Ender’s Game,” “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”).

Entertainment One also has unveiled its global film production arm, which is led by Xavier Marchand, prexy, film production. The goal is to finance or co-finance up to eight films with strong international potential a year.

Firth and Doherty will produce “Eye in the Sky” alongside Marchand. eOne will distribute in the U.K., Canada, Benelux, Spain and Australia/New Zealand. Its international sales division under prexy Harold van Lier will handle sales in all other territories, including the U.S.

The film, which is penned by Guy Hibbert, is set in the shadowy world of remotely piloted “drone” warfare. It centers around London-based military intelligence officer Colonel Michelle Madden, who is set to remotely command an operation to capture a group of terrorists from their safe-house in Nairobi, Kenya. The mission escalates from a “capture” to a “kill” operation when Madden realizes that the terrorists are about to embark on a deadly suicide mission.

“The use of unmanned aircraft in modern warfare and in the so-called ‘War on Terror’ poses critical questions for us all,” said Firth. “Raindog was launched with the hope of making challenging thoughtful films, and I’m pleased to be a part of an exploration into such a crucial issue.”



Production is expected to begin in South Africa on Aug. 11, 2014.

” ‘Eye in the Sky’ showcases what our film group is all about: source a sought-after project with outstanding talent attached, produce it, secure all rights, and handle direct distribution in our territories and sales around the world,” Marchand said.

The global film production arm under Marchand will work closely with van Lier’s sales division to leverage eOne’s distribution infrastructure to invest and finance projects at source.

“Xavier is so very well suited to lead our production efforts. He has an extensive knowledge of both film production and the demands of international market,” said Patrice Theroux, who oversees eOne’s global film business.


READ MORE HERE: http://variety.com/2014/film/news/cannes-eone-partners-with-colin-firth-ged-doherty-on-eye-in-the-sky-1201167695/

Colin Firth is About to Make His Fans Very, Very Happy

BBC AMERICA
By Leah Rozen | Posted on April 9th, 2014



Benedict Cumberbatch isn’t the only one who has been busy, busy, busy. So has fellow English actor Colin Firth.

The Oscar winning star, who has been absent from movie screens since the release of the little seen road movie Arthur Newman nearly a year ago, has a surfeit of new films opening in the next few weeks and months.

Colin Firth attends the New York premiere of The Railway Man on Monday, April 7, 2014. (Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

First up is The Railway Man, an inspirational drama based on a true story that arrives in movie theaters this Friday (April 12). Firth portrays Eric Lomax, a middle aged, British World War II vet who can’t put to rest his memories of being tortured by the Japanese when, as a soldier, he was a prisoner of war in Burma. Nicole Kidman plays the sympathetic woman he marries who helps him confront his past.

Here’s the scene where Firth and Kidman’s characters first meet:

Come May 9, Firth will play a Yank and a Southerner when he portrays a private investigator in Devil’s Knot. His character, based on a real person, volunteers to help the lawyers defending a teenager who, along with two other teens, was tried and convicted–many believe mistakenly–for the killing of three young boys in 1993 in a celebrated case that came to be known as the West Memphis Three. The film, which had its premiere last fall at the Toronto Film Festival, suffered in the estimation of most critics when compared with earlier, more thorough documentaries on the same topic.

Here’s a trailer:

READ MORE HERE: http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2014/04/colin-firth-make-fans-happy/

How Colin Firth finds the familiar in a story half a world away

GEOFF PEVERE
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Jan. 31 2014, 5:00 PM EST
Last updated Friday, Jan. 31 2014, 12:00 AM EST

When Atom Egoyan approached Academy Award-winner Colin Firth to play Ron Lax, the real-life private investigator who assisted lawyers defending three teenagers charged with a multiple child murder in West Memphis, Ark., in the 1990s, the director knew he was bringing the actor a peculiar challenge – playing a man who can’t make a difference. No matter how much doubt Lax raised about the guilt of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr., the machinery was in motion: Somebody had to be found guilty for a heinous crime.

But Firth, who had worked with the renowned Toronto director on Where the Truth Lies, rose to the challenge, and agreed to appear in Devil’s Knot. At the Toronto International Film Festival last September, the actor talked about taking on one of the more counterintuitive assignments of his career.

The details of the case were new to you at the time; the West Memphis Three case is notorious in North America, but not in England. What was your initial reaction to it?

There was a conflicting double reaction. One of which was indignation and shock. Shock at the crime and the way everything was handled. But also a sense of it being all too familiar. This takes place in different forms everywhere, and the reasons for it are clear. It’s easy to make facile judgements of the people who mishandled it, but nevertheless the film does not make glib statements. You can really see how it happens.

And it doesn’t happen only in Arkansas.

There are equivalents in my own country, endlessly. When there’s a climate of fear, people look for answers and they want resolution, they want satisfaction, they want justice, they want to make sense of things. Then you get people whose job it is to provide that. Law enforcement and the judicial system, egged on by a media, which stokes up the temperature. You get a climate where people try to fast forward to some kind of understanding or resolution, which has not been acquired properly.

Not the best climate for due process.

What Atom has done is to let the questions breathe again. I think that’s the role of my character, who on the face of it doesn’t seem to achieve much. You want your detective to get his guy. That’s not what happens here. Ron’s the guy who says, ‘We cannot pretend these questions have been answered when they haven’t.

READ MORE HERE: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/how-colin-firth-finds-the-familiar-in-a-story-half-a-world-away/article16612535/

Q&A: Colin Firth (The Devil's Knot)

NOW
By NORMAN WILNER



It’s a few hours before the Toronto Film Festival premiere of Devil’s Knot, but Colin Firth isn’t sweating it. This isn’t his first rodeo, and TIFF loves him; in 2010, the People’s Choice Award for The King’s Speech set that film on the path to four Academy Awards, including Firth’s own for best actor.

Devil’s Knot is a far less triumphant work, concerned with the mystery surrounding the 1993 murders of three children in West Memphis, Arkansas. Atom Egoyan’s dramatization of the events surrounding the crime and the trial of local teens Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr. casts Firth as Ron Lax, whose investigation into the crime leaves him with more questions than answers.



You’ve played a number of characters with ambiguous motivations – in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Arthur Newman most recently – and Devil’s Knot is all about not knowing the reasons behind awful events. Do you actively pursue these projects, or is this just happenstance?

I’ve always liked grey areas. I’ve always liked ambiguity: “Where is this person on the spectrum between heroism and failure? Are virtues to be found in what seems to be banal, what seems to be ordinary?” I don’t find conventional heroic stories particularly edifying. They don’t reveal anything to me. I enjoy a fantasy as much as the next person, but I’m much more interested in stories that throw up paradoxes and conflicts, and are less easy to judge.

Is that what drew you to the project?

It doesn’t take a simple path. It’s not [about] the sleuth getting his man. It doesn’t give you the satisfactions of a conventional narrative, a conventional thriller. No one can stand uncertainty, particularly when something as horrific as this has happened. People very passionately want answers, and the danger is that they hasten toward them. If we rush these things, we often end up in the wrong place, and the job of my character – and in a way the job of the film – is to say “You’re gonna have to live with doubt. You have to keep that alive. You will get even further from the truth if you are impatient for it.”

READ MORE HERE:http://www.nowtoronto.com/movies/story.cfm?content=196307

Colin Firth and Livia Firth leaving the 2013 MET Gala

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7KtsB3tR4M

Colin Firth Movie news (video)

Disappearing act: Colin Firth looks half the Single Man he used be at Devil's Knot premiere in Toronto

MAIL ON LINE
By DONNA MCCONNELL and CHELSEA WHITE
PUBLISHED: 08:10 EST, 9 September 2013 | UPDATED: 09:19 EST, 9 September 2013

Colin Firth's Hollywood ascendance appears to have affected his waistline.

The Single Man actor looked extremely slim on the red carpet at the Toronto premiere of new film Devil's Knot, alongside his co-star Reese Witherspoon.

Firth has shed pounds to play a prisoner of war in upcoming film The Railway Man. 

Based on the true story of British officer Eric Lomax, Firth plays the soldier who is captured by the Japanese during the Second World War and forced to work on the Thai-Burma railway.

The Oscar-winning actor, who won for The King's Speech has previously spoken about how mastering a character’s physical appearance is key to his acting method.

He said: ‘Some people spend days, weeks even, getting inside a character, getting under his skin, working out how he thinks, what makes him tick.

‘My secret is that I get outside the character. Take my character in [2009 film] A Single Man: it’s the big glasses that draw you in, make George’s anguish believable.’

Meanwhile co-star Reese Witherspoon has also waged her own battle to shed the baby pounds, and she has certainly won it.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2415997/Disappearing-act-Colin-Firth-reveals-dramatic-weight-loss-Devils-Knot-premiere-Toronto.html#ixzz2eQTZdyXJ 

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TIFF 2013 Colin Firth says there is no such thing as “just acting”

CANADA.COM

Katherine Monk

Published: September 8, 2013, 6:21 pm

Updated: 12 hours ago

Jacki Weaver referred to him as “that bastard!” — but she said it with a gigantic smile, because even if Colin Firth really were a scoundrel, we’d like him anyway.

It’s a rare talent to be lovable yet aloof, and it’s clearly one that serves the English Oscar winner extremely well because even as he sits stiffly in a comfy chair wearing a finely tailored black suit, crisp white shirt and the kind of thick-rimmed glasses that make everyone look like they’re an extra on Mad Men, he projects a prickly pear sweetness.

Cast of The Railway Man

You want to know him, plumb his Firthy fruit and squeeze it, which no doubt explains why he’s so incredibly guarded.

“It’s fine,” he says, as he addresses the issue of the celebrity cocktail blender that is the Toronto International Film Festival. “You have to pace yourself and remember that you have a home to go to.”

Firth will be homeward bound in just a few hours, but right now, he’s talking about Devil’s Knot, the new Atom Egoyan movie in which he plays a special investigator looking into the case of three teens accused of murder, now known as the West Memphis Three.

READ MORE HERE: http://o.canada.com/2013/09/08/colin-firth-says-there-is-no-such-thing-as-just-acting/

First look at Colin Firth in 'Devil's Knot' -- EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
By Thom Geier on Aug 29, 2013 at 1:26PM   @thomgeier

Oscar winner Colin Firth turns private detective in Canadian director Atom Egoyan’s new fact-based drama Devil’s Knot, which premieres at the Toronto Film Festival on Sept. 8. Firth stars with Reese Witherspoon, Amy Ryan, Dane DeHaan, Stephen Moyer, and Mireille Enos in the film, which is based on the notorious case of three heavy-metal-loving teenagers from West Memphis, Ark., who were convicted of the 1993 murder of three 8-year-old boys despite a lack of evidence. The so-called West Memphis Three became the subject of Paradise Lost, a series of three award-winning documentaries by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, as well as a Peter Jackson-produced doc called West of Memphis that won them the attention of a host of celebrity and criminal-justice advocates. In 2011, the trio was freed from prison under an Alford plea that allowed them to proclaim their innocence while technically upholding their murder convictions (and exempting the state from civil penalties).

READ MORE AT:http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/08/29/colin-firth-devils-knot-photos/

Colin Firth: Zurich International Film Festival 2013 line-up includes "Devil's Knot" and "The Railway Man."

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
2:06 AM PDT 8/15/2013
by Scott Roxborough

COLOGNE, Germany – A series of high-profile titles will be heading to the Zurich Film Festival this year, with gala premieres of Oliver Hirschbiegel's Lady Di biopic Diana starry Naomi Watts; George Clooney/Sandra Bullock-starrer Gravity from Alfonso Cuaron and period drama The Railway Man from director Jonathan Teplitzky and starring Colin Firth.

Other gala premieres heading to Zurich for the 9th annual international festival this year include Atom Egoyan's latest, Devil's Knot, a crime drama which also features Firth alongside co-star Reese Witherspoon; J.C. Chandor's acclaimed one-man survival drama All is Lost featuring Robert Redford, which premiered in Cannes; David Gordon Green's Joe, which stars Nicolas Cage as a redemptive ex-con; and best agers romantic comedy Le Weekend from Notting Hill director Roger Michell starring  Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan as a British couple who take a second honeymoon trip to Paris in an attempt to rekindle their marriage.

READ MORE:  http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/zurich-film-festival-gala-premieres-606933

What happened to Mr Darcy? Colin Firth displays his incredibly slimline physique after losing weight for movie role

By EMILY SHERIDAN

MAIL ON LINE

PUBLISHED: 04:34 EST, 22 July 2013

UPDATED: 07:27 EST, 22 July 2013

He shifted the pounds to play a prisoner of war in upcoming movie The Railway Man.

However, with filming having long ended, it looks like the slimline Colin Firth may be here to stay.

The Oscar winner, 52, was looking trim as he attended his newest director Woody Allen's jazz band performance on the French Riviera on Sunday.

he actor may like his trimmer fame, or perhaps he is required the keep the weight off for another film.

This year, busy Colin has several films in the pipeline, including Devil's Knot, with Before I Go To Sleep, Genius and the Woody Allen project, which is as yet untitled.

The Railway Man sees Colin play Eric, who was tortured by Japanese Kempeitai military police when he was sent to work on the Death Railway after being captured in Singapore in 1941.

READ MORE HERE:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2373217/Slimline-Colin-Firth-stay-trim-actor-attends-Woody-Allens-jazz-band-performance-France.html

Colin Firth To Play Kidman’s Evil Husband In ‘Before I Go to Sleep’ MOVIES (BLOODY DISGUSTING)

Devil’s Knott‘s Colin Firth, pictured, is confirmed to star with Nicole Kidman in Rowan Joffe’s thriller Before I Go to Sleep for Scott Free and Millennium Films, Variety reports.

Firth will play Kidman’s husband in the film, which also stars Mark Strong and Anne-Marie Duff.

“Story follows a north London woman (Kidman) who wakes up every morning remembering nothing. Her husband tells her she suffered a trauma, and that she dare not leave home. She sneaks off to a doctor (Strong) who gives her a small digital recorder and urges her to play back her thoughts day after day in hopes of re-integrating her mind. She does and it works, and that’s when she comes to realize that the man sleeping next to her isn’t her husband.”

READ MORE: http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3217351/colin-firth-to-play-kidmans-evil-husband-in-before-i-go-to-sleep/

Colin Firth's Wax figure from Madame Tussaud's makes it's escape

I love this picture because

1.  The lighting combined with his expression here makes him look unreal.  

2.  He's gorgeous.

Why Is Robert Pattinson Staying With Reese Witherspoon? 1 day ago by Laura Case (WET PAINT)

They’re more than just former co-stars. They’re friends.

Amid the media firestorm over his girlfriend Kristen Stewart’s photographed dalliance with her married Snow White and the Huntsman director, Robert Pattinson is reportedly crashing at Reese Witherspoon’s swanky ranch in Ojai. But why is Rob staying with his newly remarried, very pregnant Water for Elephants co-star?

According to RadarOnline, Reese identifies with Rob’s plight and wants to be there for him. A source tells the site, “Reese went through a very public cheating scandal herself when Ryan Phillippe went outside their marriage and hooked up with Abbie Cornish, so her first thought when she heard about Kristen and Rob was to reach out to him and make sure he was okay.”

READ MORE: http://www.wetpaint.com/network/articles/why-is-robert-pattinson-staying-with-reese-witherspoon

Colin Firth: Reese Witherspoon tackles last film role before taking a break to have her baby By DAILY MAIL REPORTER PUBLISHED: 19:55 EST, 30 June 2012 | UPDATED: 19:55 EST, 30 June 2012

Reese Witherspoon has never been one to shy away from tough movie roles.

And an advanced pregnancy isn't about to stop her now.

The Legally Blonde actress was filming scenes today in Atlanta for her new film Devil's Playground, her expanding baby bump on full display.


In the movie, which is based on harrowing real-life events, Reese plays Pam Hobbs, the mother of one of three eight-year-old boys who were murdered in 1993 in West Memphis, Arkansas.

The movie has a large cast of stars, including True Blood's Stephen Moyer and British actor Colin Firth.

Firth, who plays a pro-bono defender of the three men convicted of killing the children, was also photographed taking a break from filming today wearing a black shirt and jeans.

Thirty-six-year-old Reese was dressed in a matching navy and white polka-dot short-sleeved shirt and skirt, her blonde hair styled in waves around her face.


READ MORE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2167130/Heavily-pregnant-Reese-Witherspoon-tackles-film-role-taking-break-baby.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Colin Firth: Hollywood comes to Morrow Neighborhood used to film major motion picture Want daily summaries and Breaking News alerts? By Jeylin White (HENRY DAILY HERALD)

MORROW — Residents on Mural Drive couldn’t wait to get a glimpse of some of Hollywood’s most notable actors, seeing how their neighborhood was being used to film scenes for a major motion picture, since the beginning of this week.

#A-list superstars Reese Witherspoon, Colin Firth and Mireille Enos are set to appear in an Atom Egoyan movie called, “Devil’s Knot” that is due out in theaters next year.

#Neighbors Crystal Hobby and Lori Hopkins sat crouched in a yard across from the home where the movie was being filmed, hoping to just get one snapshot of Witherspoon. “I just love Reese Witherspoon. She is my favorite actress of all time,” said Hopkins.

#A black Suburban with pitch black-tinted windows drove past, and Hopkins sprung into action, with her camera in hand ready to snap a photo. A blonde, petite woman emerged from the SUV but it was not the famous actress. It was her body double.

#“My God, she looks just like her,” said a disappointed Hopkins.

#Though many of the residents seemed to be thrilled that Hollywood came to their neck of the woods, that was not the case for Darrell Melton, who has lived in his Morrow house since 1962.

#“I don’t want nothing to do with them — nothing!” said Melton, whose home is smack dead in the middle of all the action. Both of his neighbors’ houses — on each side of him — are being used for filming. “They asked me if they could rent my driveway and I said, ‘How do you rent a driveway?’ ” he asked. “I said, ‘No. I don’t want you over here in my yard — just stay off!’”

#However, according to Melton, they came in his yard anyway. “You know what time I went to bed?” he asked the Clayton News Daily. “Two-thirty in the morning!”

#Neighbors Gilda Hutcherson and Jane White said they had already been surveying the scene before the actual filming started. “I saw them moving furniture from the home were [they are filming] and then I started seeing them moving furniture in and out. I thought, ‘Well, maybe this is really happening,’ ” said White.

#Word traveled fast, as scores of residents started pouring out of their homes to look on, as crew members prepped for each scene. “This is the most excitement this neighborhood has seen,” said Hutcherson, who’s been living in her home for more than 50 years.

#Chris Reed said she was especially overjoyed when she was asked by the production company if they could rent her back yard for staging. “They ran a cable through my yard to power the lights for filming,” said Reed. “I had to sign a contract.”

#Crew members were especially tight-lipped about the details of the production, even advising Grant Wainscott with the Clayton Film office to keep the press from shooting any pictures of the set and not to give any details about the movie. One crew member, who asked for his identity not to revealed, said the actors requested for the press to be banned, to keep paparazzi from shooting photos of a very pregnant Witherspoon.


READ MORE: http://www.henryherald.com/news/2012/jun/29/hollywood-comes-morrow/

Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon's West Memphis Three Pic Gets Financing (Exclusive) (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER)

CANNES -- Devil's Knot, Atom Egoyan's West Memphis Three biopic starring Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon, is moving full speed ahead.

Devil's Knot is based on the 2002 best-seller by investigative journalist Mara Leveritt about the savage murders of three 8-year-old boys and the conviction of three teenagers accused of killing them as part of a satanic ritual. In August 2011, the defendants were released due to lack of evidence after spending 18 years in prison.

Actual defendants Jessie Misskelley Jr. and Jason Baldwin are executive producing Devil's Knot with Worldview's Molly Conners, Sarah Johnson Redlich, Maria Cestone and Hoyt David Morgan. Producers are Elizabeth Fowler, Clark Peterson, Richard Saperstein and Worldview CEO Christopher Woodrow.

READ MORE:http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/colin-firth-reese-witherspoon-west-memphis-three-325588

Colin Firth: 'Devil's Knot' to star Firth, Witherspoon (VARIETY)

By JEFF SNEIDER

Jessie Misskelley Jr., one of the West Memphis Three, has come on to exec produce Atom Egoyan's "Devil's Knot," which is set to star Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon.

Misskelley Jr. joins fellow West Memphis Three member Jason Baldwin and his longtime supporter-turned-girlfriend Holly Ballard as executive producers on the pic, which is being produced by Elizabeth Fowler, Clark Peterson, Richard Saperstein and Paul Harris Boardman, the latter of whom co-wrote the script with Scott Derrickson ("Sinister").

"Devil's Knot" follows private detective Ron Lax, who took on the West Memphis Three case pro bono. He found DNA evidence linking Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of the three murdered boys, to material that was used to bind one of the young victims.

That evidence helped convince a judge to release Misskelley Jr., Baldwin and Damien Echols last year after the trio submitted an Alford Plea, which allowed them to plead guilty in exchange for release from prison for time served.


READ MORE VARIETY:  http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118051434?refCatId=13

Colin Firth joins Reese Witherspoon West Memphis 3 movie, Devil's Knot (Perez Hilton)

We can't emphasize enough how please we are that such wonderful talents are getting involved in this very important story that must be told!

To recap - back in December, Reese Witherspoon signed on to star in Atom Egoyan's Devil's Knot, which follows the story of the West Memphis 3.

Reese will be playing the role of Pam Hobbs, the mother of one of the murder victims who is eventually persuaded that the 3 were wrongly accused.

Now, we've learned that Colin Firth has signed on to the film as well, and he'll be playing Ron Lax, "a private investigator who was the first pro bono supporter of the defendants as they headed to trial in 1993."



Read more:  http://perezhilton.com/2012-02-01-colin-firth-joins-reese-witherspoon-in-upcoming-west-memphis-3-movie

Colin Firth to star as P.I. in "Devil's Knot" (Arkansas Times)

Posted by Max Brantley on Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 4:40 PM

• COLIN FIRTH: In West Memphis Three film.

'Tis a long way from the great houses of Britain to the trailer parks of West Memphis, Ark.

But get ready for an actor to make the transition. Colin Firth has been confirmed to play the role of Ron Lax, a private investigator, in "Devil's Knot," the movie treatment of Mara Leveritt's book on the West Memphis Three case. Lax, originally from Memphis, worked on the case for more than a decade and is credited with breakthroughs in the case, including DNA found in physical evidence linked to the stepfather of one of the three children slain in 1993. The search for DNA in evidence turned up none linked to the three men convicted of the crimes. A long way for Firth from Mr. Darcy and King George VI.

Read more:  http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/02/01/colin-firth-to-star-as-pi-in-devils-knot