BBC bosses are braced for a backlash over sadistic sex scenes to be shown minutes after tonight’s 9pm watershed.
Former Doctor Who favourite David Tennant will be seen raping his wife in a horrific 70-second scene in The Politician’s Husband.
David — playing Cabinet minister Aiden Hoynes in the BBC2 drama — takes out his jealousy over his politician partner’s soaring career in a graphic and sickening act.
Chiefs fear the appalling attack, airing five minutes into the second episode, will be met with uproar and a flood of complaints.
Vivienne Pattison, director of pressure group Media Watch UK, slated the decision to show “adult material” immediately after the 9pm divide.
She said: “The Politician’s Husband will be following on from snooker.
“Snooker to sadistic sex is quite an extreme leap and care should be taken to avoid putting the most ‘challenging’ material immediately after 9pm.”
And Katie Russell, of charity Rape Crisis, insisted viewers should be warned of the sexually violent nature of the show before they watch it.
She said: “It’s important that any programme planning to screen such scenes carries clear and repeated warnings to avoid triggering flashbacks or distressing and re-traumatising sexual violence survivors.” During the shocking encounter, Aiden’s MP wife Freya Gardner, played by double Oscar nominee Emily Watson, is seen locking lips in bed with her husband.
But within seconds the mood changes and what started out as simple sex becomes a sinister power game.
Emily Watson has revealed her embarrassment over a violent sex scene with former Doctor Who David Tennant in new BBC2 mini series The Politician’s Husband.
Mother-of-two Watson said that although Tennant was a “complete gentleman”, sex scenes are “always a bit of a nightmare”.
Her character is sexually abused by her husband, a fellow politician played by Tennant in the drama, which starts on April 25. Watson, 46, told The Times: “The power struggle between them becomes so intense that it spills into violence.
Arriving in US theaters on November 16, 2012, “Anna Karenina” is acclaimed director Joe Wright’s new vision of the epic story of love, stirringly adapted from Leo Tolstoy’s great novel by Academy Award winner Tom Stoppard. The film marks the third collaboration of the director with Academy Award-nominated actress Keira Knightley and Academy Award-nominated producers Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, and Paul Webster, following their award-winning box office successes “Pride & Prejudice” and “Atonement.” The film also stars Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kelly Macdonald, Matthew Macfadyen, Domhnall Gleeson, Ruth Wilson, Alicia Vikander, Olivia Williams and Emily Watson.
The parallel story of Levin’s love for Kitty is gentler and more innocent than Anna’s for Vronsky, yet it too falters under the scrutiny of society. Actor Domhnall Gleeson had auditioned for director Joe Wright, but it wasn’t until he performed the part of Levin at a table read – at which his empathetic take on the character impressed one and all – that the part suddenly became his. One facet of the material that the actor sought to convey was “the wry sense of humor shooting through it, which I appreciate; this story gets to the depths of what it means to be alive.”
Invited to reunite with the filmmakers and leading lady with whom he made “Pride & Prejudice,” BAFTA Award winner Matthew Macfadyen leapt at the chance to portray Oblonksy, Anna’s brother. The actor enthuses, “Oblonsky is incorrigible; he’s disarmingly direct and brings humor and warmth to the story as he tries to help the people he loves and cares about, particularly in attempting to be a matchmaker for his friend Levin.
“Oblonsky is one of those people who lights up a dinner party when they come in. He has a wandering eye. He likes the pleasures of the flesh, drinking and eating; to me, he was a very attractive character because he doesn’t suffer from terrible introspection. I don’t see him as ‘a bad man,’ and I hugely enjoyed playing this part – except for the moustache I had to grow.”
“Matthew is a hoot in this role,” enthuses Emmy Award-winning actress Kelly Macdonald, who signed on to play Dolly, wife of Oblonsky and sister-in-law to Anna. “He’s played Oblonsky in just the right way: charismatic, frustrating, lovable – and selfishly addicted to passion.”
The actress felt that she understood Dolly’s temperament, remarking that “Dolly is married to a man she adores, she’s passionate about her family, and she’s pregnant all the time. She is completely happy with her lot in life before finding out about her husband’s affair with the woman who is meant to be looking after their children.
Two-time Academy Award nominee Emily Watson was tapped to play Countess Lydia Ivanovna, who claims the moral high ground in disapproving of Anna’s behavior. The actress opines, “Her fervor is probably repressed sexual energy, and she mistakes her own passion for Karenin for religious zeal. She sails about like a steam ship, and the costumes gave me that sense of posture.
“This story is so sophisticated, set in a time more valorous and chivalrous than our own, and we’re doing it in a way which I found liberating.”
Michelle Dockery, who had filmed a memorable cameo for Wright in “Hanna” just before coming to world attention in the television series phenomenon “Downton Abbey,” appears in Anna Karenina as Princess Myagkaya, who is “one of the socialites within Betsy’s circle. I love Joe’s detailed way of working, and this was quite a fun character to play; she takes an interest in Anna and although I would like to think that she does it out of the goodness of her heart, I believe it’s more that she likes being associated with a scandal!”
Politics are in fashion on TV, with political series becoming as prevalent as medical dramas.
Former Doctor Who star David Tennant will co-star with Emily Watson as husband and wife on BBC Two’s upcoming political series, The Politician’s Husband.
Deadline reports that the new three-part series will explore the changing family dynamics when a wife becomes a greater success story than her husband.
The series comes from Paula Milne and serves as a follow up to the 1995 feature film of the same name.
If Lara Pulver is sick of talking about that scene, she does a convincing job of hiding it. But the one thought about her naked turn as dominatrix Irene Adler in BBC1’s Sherlock Benedict Cumberbatch that she can’t stomach is that some of the 2.5 million viewers who watched it on iPlayer might have paused every frame. At this, she looks horrified, puts her fingers in her ears and sings: “La la la la la. I don’t want to know.”
When I mentioned to male colleagues that I had interviewed Pulver, they went gooey-eyed — although the 31-year-old has plenty of female admirers too. And now she has won international recognition for the role, with a nomination for the American Critics’ Choice Television Awards, alongside Jessica Lange, Julianne Moore and Emily Watson.
“I’ve won, just in my name being read out with those ladies,” she says. “It’s so weird. You never know in an acting career what’s going to pop. I’ve done one 90-minute episode and more people talk to me about that than anything else.”
When she read the script for A Scandal in Belgravia, she had just finished filming the final series of Spooks, and was flying back to Los Angeles, where the Kent-born actress lives: “It was one of those moments when you think ‘turn the plane around! I have to do this job’.”
As well as drawing in almost nine million TV viewers on the night, the episode also attracted 100 complaints. “I think the human form is something to celebrate. And you don’t actually see anything. That’s why we spent eight hours shooting that scene because if you saw a tiny bit of nipple ...” She breaks off. “It is so cleverly shot by [director] Paul McGuigan, that it is what you don’t see that makes your imagination go crazy.”
Shooting the scene sounds a logistical nightmare: “Our producer was going through it with the BBC — ‘So you can have one out-of-focus buttock but not two out-of-focus buttocks.’ It was kinda hilarious what she had to adhere to.”
Pulver was completely nude for the scene “apart from Louboutins and some beautiful diamond earrings”, turning down the offer of a self-adhesive gel bra and pants: “They actually made me feel more uncomfortable.”
But there were filming considerations too: “Paul McGuigan took me to one side and said: ‘Look, we’re going to spend probably 14 hours shooting this with that stuff on because if we see a glimpse of it, we can’t use it.’ [Being naked gave] an inch more space to play with. Otherwise, if I wasn’t spot on my mark, it was a complete waste of time ... It would have been: ‘We have to go again, we can see a bit of gel bra coming out of Benedict’s left eye’.” She admits being “scared out of her wits to take her clothes off” but adds: “It was empowering to go, ‘In my rawest physical form, in my skin and bones, I am okay.’ I didn’t crumble. I had a minor freak out inside but was able to do my job.”
The acting categories seem particularly close this year, with Benedict Cumberbatch, Dominic West, John Simm and Joseph Gilgun all nominated for the leading actor award. It feels like West has the momentum behind him for his extraordinary portrayal of Fred West in in Appropriate Adult – he took the same category at the 2012 Royal Television Society awards. And yet … Cumberbatch, who lost out in this category last year, surely deserves recognition for his remarkable playing of Sherlock. A tough call.
West's co-star, Emily Watson finds herself in a similar situation in the leading actress category: up against This is England '88s Vicky McClure, who took the award last year for This is England '86. I think Watson edges it here, with a subtle, nuanced and complex performance as Janet Leach. There is however, potential for upset. Nadine Marshall was excellent in Channel 4's Random, while Romola Garai is in the running for The Crimson Petal and the White.
It's heartening to see so many really first-rate performances recognised in these lists: supporting actress has Anna Chancellor (The Hour), Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey), Miranda Hart (Call the Midwife) and Monica Dolan (Appropriate Adult). I'm not sure Hart's performance was really that much of a stretch – others will disagree – but Chancellor was absolutely the best thing about The Hour. Dolan, however stands out here: she was astonishing as Rose West, and certainly I could imagine Appropriate Adult sweeping the board in all three acting categories.
Colin Firth is set to play famed English playwright Noel Coward, in the Willy Holtzman-penned project, “Mad Dogs And Englishmen,” about Coward’s eventful two week stay at The Desert Inn in Las Vegas in 1955. Although there’s still no director attached, this seems like a great role for the actor to sink his teeth into, as Coward was famous for what Time called “a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise.” So we’ll be definitely be looking forward to this project in the future. [Screen Daily]
And finally, Rupert Everett will make his directorial and screenwriting debut with “The Happy Prince,” an Oscar Wilde biopic. Everett, pulling triple duty, stars as Wilde, and has drafted a talented cast to help him realize Wilde’s life, including Colin Firth (him again?) legendary character actor Edward Fox, Emily Watson, and Tom Wilkinson.The film will take place during Wilde’s final days as he looks back on his life with characteristic dry wit and black humor, and seeing as it shares a name with Wilde's classic fairy tale, it may well end up including some elements of that story. There’s been a whole slew of actors getting behind the camera over the past few years, hopefully Everett ends up on the Ben Affleck side of the spectrum. Shooting starts summer 2013. [Hollywood Reporter]
Colin Firth will portray legendary writer and wit Oscar Wilde in a film biography that will mark the feature directorial debut of out actor Rupert Everett, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Happy Prince is described as a comedy biography that will look at "Wilde’s final, tragic days as he looks back on the disasters of his life with characteristic dry wit and black humor." Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson, and Edward Fox are also attached to star in the film. Shooting for the film is expected to begin Summer 2013. Everett previously starred in two film versions of Wilde's plays, 1999's An Ideal Husband and 2002's The Importance of Being Earnest.
Focus Features will release Anna Karenina starring Keira Knightley in the U.S. on November 9, a couple months after the September UK release.
Summit has pushed The Cold Light of Day—a spy thriller led by Henry Cavill, Bruce Willis, and Sigourney Weaver—from April 6 to September 7.
Anna Karenina
Jude Law, Aaron Johnson, Kelly Macdonald, Matthew Macfadyen, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Emily Watson, Olivia Williams, and Ruth Wilson also star in the adaptation of Anna Karenina, directed by Joe Wright (Atonement).
Here’s the official synopsis:
The third collaboration of Academy Award nominee Keira Knightley with director Joe Wright, following the award-winning boxoffice successes “Pride & Prejudice” and “Atonement,” is the epic love story “Anna Karenina,” adapted from Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel by Academy Award winner Tom Stoppard (“Shakespeare in Love”). The story unfolds in its original late-19th-century Russia high-society setting and powerfully explores the capacity for love that surges through the human heart, from the passion between adulterers to the bond between a mother and her children. As Anna (Knightley) questions her happiness, change comes to her family, friends, and community.
First Look at Keira Knightley as Anna Karenina
Posted 02.23.12 by Mandy
The screenplay for Anna Karenina was written by Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love), but there's no word yet on whether the story will concentrate on Anna's extramarital affair or Levin (Domhnall Gleeson) mowing with a scythe.
The movie co-stars Matthew Macfadyen as Oblonsky, Kelly Macdonald as Dolly, Alicia Vikander as Kitty, and Emily Watson as Countess Lydia. The movie does not yet have a US release date, but it will open in the UK on September 7.
ANNA KARENINA stars Keira Kinghtley, Jude Law, Aaron Johnson, Kelly Macdonald, Emily Watson, Matthew Macfadyen, Olivia Williams and Ruth Wilson. The film hits theaters this Fall.
Keira Knightley worked with Emily Watson on Anna Karenina
Knightley a delight for Watson
(UKPA) – 6 hours ago
Keira Knightley was lovely to work with on Anna Karenina, Emily Watson has
revealed.
The duo appeared together in a scene in Joe Wright's big-screen adaptation of
Leo Tolstoy's classic novel, in which Keira plays Anna while Emily is Countess
Lidia.
"I have just the one scene with Keira. She was absolutely delightful," she
said.
Emily - who is currently gracing cinemas in Steven Spielberg's War Horse -
enjoyed showing off a different side to her in the upcoming movie, which she has
just wrapped.
"It's a little role - small but pivotal. I play Countess Lidia, who is a
right royal b****. It was fun to play," she said.
Keira has taken on another difficult role in the upcoming movie Anna Karenina. It’s based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy and the actress has been reading up on psychoanalysis to help her with the part.
She has worked with director Joe Wright before, on movies Pride & Prejudice and Atonement, and worries about giving the film her all.
“We’re all very aware that it’s an incredibly difficult part and an incredibly difficult piece, and very often it hasn’t worked,” she said. “But we have a brilliant team and a great group of actors, and we’re going to do our best.”
By Baz Bamigboye Last updated at 1:59 AM on 27th January
Knightley, as Anna Karenina, emerges
from the mist, her gaze focussed on her husband — and her lover — played by Jude
Law and Aaron Johnson, respectively.
The actress is wearing an embroidered coat
that sweeps the floor, a hat trimmed in fox fur — and £1 million worth of Chanel
gems, dangling from her ears.
The costume designer, Jacqueline Durran, has
at the request of director Joe Wright, created a hybrid look for Keira, in which
1870s style meets fitted Fifties couture, and the result is stunning.
Anna Karenina is Tolstoy’s giant meditation on
the aspects of love, and Keira, now 26, is clearly up to the task of playing one
of the greatest heroines in literature.
I’ve been following Keira’s career for years,
but as I stood looking at her on the set of Anna Karenina, something had
changed. The film’s hair and make-up designer Ivana Primorac articulated my
thoughts. ‘Keira looks like a proper woman,’ she says Director Joe Wright, who is filming the train
station scene at Shepperton studios, tells me: ‘There’s fire in Keira’s
belly.’
While most of the filming was done on lavish
sets, there were real life locations, too; and some shooting is being done in
Russia, for the more naturalistic scenes involving Levin and Kitty. The scenes I watched looked amazing. Ornate
tableaux peopled with extras of Russian heritage, all choreographed to move in a
certain way. And the cast is as rich as Greenwood’s sets.
Ruth Wilson plays Princess Betsy; Olivia Williams is Countess Vronsky; Emily
Watson plays Countess Lydia; Kelly Macdonald is Dolly; and Matthew Macfadyen,
Oblonsky. Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery has been cast
as Princess Myagkaya, while her former co-star Thomas Howes (William, the
ill-fated footman) plays Yashvin
Emily Watson's life lessons. Photograph: Fabio Lovino/Contrasto/Eyevine
I was a pretentious child. I grew up without a television. I read a lot of books and I loved Shakespeare. Still do. When I was nine my mother took me to see Much Ado About Nothing with Judi Dench, and I was hooked. I met my husband [Jack Waters] at the RSC. My daughter is called Juliet. I blame Shakespeare for everything.
In my early career I was like a goldfish.Rejection didn't affect me; I'd just forget how bad it was and keep going back for more. Then I got a break and I can't say there's been a lot of rejection since. I've hit a vein of success and been very lucky.
Working with Lars von Trier[in Breaking the Waves in 1996] was life changing. Moving from theatre to film felt like going from messing about to actual acting. When I got into the world of Lars von Trier I remember thinking: "Oh, I see."
Believing in God is a very intense inner struggle of mine. It's something I worry about a lot, but which I don't have the answer to.
I don't know what makes a marriage work. My husband and I don't have it right at all; it's very tough on him. From the outside it looks like it's all about me – I have a glorious career and he doesn't. He's a writer who only writes intermittently because he's holding the fort a lot of the time. It's hard, but I credit our relationship for keeping me grounded. It's my centre.
I'd describe myself as a method actress without a method. I like to immerse myself in the world of the character and get to the point of convincing myself that it's all really true, and then I go to work. I cry very easily. The last time was this morning. I was talking about my granny – her brother died in the First World War, and I was thinking about young people in relation to that war and how utterly pointless all the slaughter was.
Feminism is a broad church. I'd describe myself as a feminist, as any self-respecting woman would, but I do think men get a rough deal these days.
In this business, your body is a tool. There's definitely a pressure for women to be thin and pretty, particularly in Hollywood. Less so in the UK, but still helps if you look a certain way.
We all deal with grief in different ways.My mother passed away while I was filming Oranges and Sunshine and I had to "shut down" to keep working. It felt very brutal and sudden and too soon. I have a temper. It manifests itself a lot in quiet, passive-aggressive fury, and then occasionally it explodes. It's not very nice. I wish it didn't happen.
I mind getting older.I really thought I wouldn't, but I do. I feel young inside and I can't accept that I'm a woman in my mid-40s. It sounds very old to me, like it's happening to someone else – to those people. Over there.
One possibly apocryphal (yet delicious) story about the making of You've Got Mail had it that in order to preserve the cinematic power of Meg Ryan's tousled Sally Hershberger hairdo, no other actresses or extras working on the film were allowed to sport blonde locks. Whether true or not, it's a bit of cinematic trickery that Steven Spielberg seems to have taken to heart while making War Horse, where virtually every actor in the movie is ostentatiously blue-eyed, all the better to emphasize those big brown eyes of Joey, the movie's titular animal. In fact, Spielberg throws so much pupil-reducing key light at his actors' faces in this film that you'd think he were lighting Anjelica Huston in The Addams Family! With all those big blue peepers on display, Vulture felt compelled to provide an analysis. Whose eyes were bluer, and what exactly did those wide eyes convey?
Albert (played by Jeremy Irvine)
As the nearest thing to a human protagonist in this ensemble picture, Irvine's also got the most opportunities for a blue-eyed close-up. He does not disappoint, seizing the chance to give Spielberg Face at every moment.
What Do These Blue Eyes Convey? Dreamy innocence.
Captain Nicholls (played by Tom Hiddleston)
In the upcoming Marvel movie The Avengers, Hiddleston's Loki seeks to enslave Earth with his magical god-powers and extraterrestrial army. However, why bother with those meager weapons when he could simply use DEM EYES? Hiddleston's pair of peepers is perhaps the most lavishly lit thing we've seen in a Spielberg movie since Kate Capshaw in Temple of Doom.
What Do These Blue Eyes Convey? Clear-eyed British decency.
Rose (played by Emily Watson)
It sure was nice of Spielberg's longtime cinematographer Janusz Kaminiski to light everything in this scene the same hue as Watson's cloudy-blue eyes.
What Do These Blue Eyes Convey? Noble, long-suffering Emily Watson–osity.
Grandfather (played by Niels Arestrup)
Is it nighttime? Are we in a dark cottage that's barely lit by candlelight? Who cares: Get a klieg light on this old man's pretty cerulean orbs!
What Do These Blue Eyes Convey? Fatigued but unbroken old-man spirit.
Emilie (played by Celine Buckens)
Perhaps there are child labor laws stating that you can't shine set lights straight into a 10-year-old's eyeballs; it would account for how Buckens is the only actor in the movie whose pupils aren't reduced to mere pinpricks to better show off her eye color. As you can tell, she feels really bad about it.
What Do These Blue Eyes Convey? Lachrymal overload.
Gunther (played by David Kross)
Both cross-eyed onscreen and at cross-purposes with his own German army, Kross provides the movie's interlude behind enemy lines. And you'd better believe that an Aryan guy's got blue eyes to spare.
What Do These Blue Eyes Convey? Sympathy for good Germans.
Major Jamie Stewart (played by Benedict Cumberbatch)
Okay, you can't really see them in this picture, but trust us: Cumberbatch has blue eyes for days! Still, out of all the stars in the movie, no one can top Hiddleston. Thanks for playing.
What Do These Blue Eyes Convey? Squinty support designed not to pull focus from one's mustache.
Joe Wright is a man responsible for titles like Pride & Prejudice and Atonement and a director who obviously has some kind of crush on Keira Knightley. Why?
Well, because his upcomingAnna Karenina movie marks their third collaboration!
At this moment Anna Karenina still has no USA release date but at least we have an official synopsis part to share with you!
So, we’re all familiar with the epic love story Anna Karenina adapted from Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel, right?
Only, this time, thanks to screenwriter Tom Stoppard, we have the story which unfolds in its original late-19th-century Russia high-society setting and powerfully explores the capacity for love that surges through the human heart, from the passion between adulterers to the bond between a mother and her children.
As Anna (Knightley) questions her happiness, change comes to her family, friends, and community. Jude Law, Aaron Johnson, Kelly Macdonald, Matthew Macfadyen, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Emily Watson, Olivia Williams and Ruth Wilson also star in Anna Karenina.
Stay tuned for more updates on this one! Keira Knightley
Actors: Aaron Johnson, Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Emily Watson, Jude Law, Keira Knightley, Kelly Macdonald, Matthew Macfadyen, Olivia Williams, Ruth Wilson
Genre: Drama
Director: Joe Wright
Writers: Leo Tolstoy, Tom Stoppard
Rating: Not available
Official site: Not available
Studio: Focus Features
(No Ratings Yet)
The story unfolds in its original late-19th-century Russia high-society setting and powerfully explores the capacity for love that surges through the human heart, from the passion between adulterers to the bond between a mother and her children. As Anna (Knightley) questions her happiness, change comes to her family, friends, and community
This week we’re doing a Christmas round-up of films, so you know what will be on in theatres up until New Years Day. There’s three new releases to be looking forward to – The Adventures of Tintin, War Horse and The Iron Lady – and there’s also a few of last week’s films still doing well, with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows placing itself at the top of the box office.
Out in cinemas today is The Adventures of Tintin, the first instalment in a planned trilogy of computer-animated motion-capture adaptations of George Remi’s series of comic strips. The film follows British actor Jamie Bell in the motion captured role of Tintin, as he discovers directions to a sunken ship and sets off on his first adventure, a treasure hunt. Directed by Stephen Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson, the actors in this movie hold many more big British names too, including the talents of Daniel Craig (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings), Simon Pegg (Paul), Nick Frost (Attack The Block), and Toby Jones (Tinker Tailor). Tintin has been going great guns in international markets and it will be interesting to see if an American audience warms to this famous European comic book character. The Adventures of Tintin opens nationwide and you can watch the trailer below:
Steven Spielberg’s second film this holiday season is set for a Christmas Day release. War Horse follows the story of a young boy, Albert, played by Jeremy Irvine (TV’s Life Bites), and his horse, Joey. Despite being too young to enlist in to the cavalry, Albert heads to France when his horse is sold and sent into the trenches of War. Alongside Jeremy Irvine are fellow Brits Tom Hiddleston (Thor) as Captain Nichols, Benedict Cumberbatch (The Hobbit) as Major Stewart, with David Thewlis (Harry Potter), Emily Watson (Oranges & Sunshine), Johnny Harris (London to Brighton) and Peter Mullan (Tyrannosaur). You can get a good look at the movie, that is bound to be around come awards season, by taking a look at the trailer below, or you can watch 8 clips from the film in a previous post here.
The Iron Lady sneaks in to this year with a limited release from 30th December in Los Angeles and New York City, which will be just in time for the film to qualify as an Academy Award contender.
The film looks at the life of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (played by Meryl Streep), and the price that is paid for power, as the Prime Minister in London in the 1980′s. It shows how she came from nowhere, smashing through the barriers of gender and class to make her voice heard in a male dominated world. The film stars British actors Jim Broadbent, Anthony Head, Richard E. Grant, and Olivia Colman, and will be released to a wider number of theaters officially on 13th January, 2012.
Also out today is the fourth instalment to the popular action franchise, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. We did mention this film, which stars British actor Simon Pegg in one of the main roles, in last week’s post as it had a limited release from 15th December. The film made $13.4M in 425 theatres, but with a full release today you will have a better chance of getting to see it. The film follows IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) who is carrying out an operation in Moscow when a terrorist bombing destroys the Kremlin, leading the US government to initiate a black operation known as “ghost protocol”, disavowing the entire Impossible Mission Force. Hunt must now go undercover with his new rogue team to clear their organization’s name. You can watch a new featurette spotlighting Pegg’s “ultimate IT guy” Benji and take a look at Pegg’s character in action in the clip below:
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was released yesterday too, starring British actor Daniel Craig in an English adaptation of Stieg Larsson‘s Swedish Millennium trilogy. Craig plays investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who is asked to help uncover the truth about a woman who has been missing for forty years. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder and that the killer is a member of his own dysfunctional family. This is where Blomkvist meets Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a young female hacker, as we start to discover the disturbing truth about her past as well. The first Swedish adaptations of the novels, directed by Niels Arden Oplev, were a brilliant set of films, but it will be nice to see Fincher’s take on the trilogy, and also not to have to read any subtitles. This big budget production, which has had some amazing promotion over the last few months will of course open nationwide and you can get a good idea what the film is all about with the 8 minute trailer below:
Then there are the holdovers from the last few weeks. First up still in cinemas is Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows which is currently at the top of the box office after making nearly $40M in its first week. The film follows Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr) and his side kick, Dr Watson (Jude Law) who reunite and team up with mysterious gypsy Sim, played by Noomi Rapace (The Swedish version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) to bring down the evil Professor Moriarty, played by Jared Harris (Mad Men). After a strong box office performance in its first week, this will be showing nationwide and as well as the trailer below you can see our full coverage of clips and featurettes here.
Finally Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is still going strong and is expanding into more and more theaters. In its second week of release it grossed half a million dollars in just 16 theaters across the country – an average of $28.5K per theater. Based on the novel of the same name written by John le Carré, Tinker Tailor is set in London in the 1970s when secret agent George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is brought out of retirement to help identify a mole who has infiltrated the Secret Intelligence Service headquarters. With its Brit packed cast of Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch and John Hurt, this espionage thriller will continue to expand over the coming weeks and well into awards season, you can see if it is coming to a theater near you here.
