Thursday, April 17, 2014

"The Homesman" officially in Cannes lineup

The Cannes Film Festival announced its official entries for 2014 today, and as expected, The Homesman is among them.  The film is listed as running 2 hours 2 minutes and will be in competition for the Palme d'Or. Looking forward to this film hopefully being received well.

In other unrelated news, I learned today that HBO turned down a pitch from director Ryan Murphy of a movie of the making of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?.  The project was to star Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon.  Are they talking about Best Actress?  If so, I obviously wasn't the only one who thought she would be good for this project.  I don't know which actress was set to play whom, but it sounds like the project was rejected in favor of A Normal Heart (which I can't wait to see).  Maybe if they get Meryl attached to the Baby Jane project it could considered for a theatrical release.  More wishful thinking on my part of course, but this obviously has some traction as it was already suggested to HBO.

7 comments:

  1. Poor Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon can't catch a break on the movie front anymore

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    1. Agreed. This is probably a great project and it would be a compelling pairing. Makes me wonder how much Meryl's name gets things off the ground. Would it get made or accepted if she were in it? Would so many of her other movies? Would her movies if Lange or Sarandon were the main focus? Probably not.

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    2. Meryl's career at this point is unparelled. None of those from her 'generation' are able to get a project off the ground or enjoy a high level of critical or commercial success.
      When I read of Meryl being a trailblazer, as true as that is I am curious if this is unique to her or if others will enjoy this degree of success as their career progresses.

      I do believe, as you pointed out in your revisions, that The Devil wears Prada's success rescued Meryl from the supporting role category and we know for sure this is what got Julie/Julia the green light. I wonder what Meryl's career might have looked like had she not become a 'box-office titan' when she did..

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  2. It will be interesting to how many minutes in screen time our girl gets in
    Tomny Lee's feature...

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    1. It's likely a beefed up cameo. Hear rumor that Jones expanded role of Altha Carter a bit from the book (in which the part is quite small), but still will likely be minor. I think Streep's interest was more working again with Jones and perhaps with daughter Grace.

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  3. I was struck when you noted that Meryl had taken on a variety of supporting roles during the last decade, but after the 'explosion of Prada' she was inundated with offers. We know at least from Nora Ephron that Julia/Julia got the green-light due to Meryl's box office standing.
    I cannot think of another actress from Meryl's generation who has the same power and draw right now. In some ways it's a shame as much as it is good for Meryl! :)

    It would be interesting to speculate how her filmography would look had this turnaround not happened...

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    1. Yes, Devil Wears Prada was instrumental in so many ways. Particularly for an actress at her age, the door opened for other projects to get off the ground that otherwise would never see the light of day. That's obviously a good thing, but it got in the way of her being able to stay with The Last Station for example. Kind of a nice problem to have I guess. As I've said in my re-imagined history, it is all about the right timing.

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