Rob Marshall has directed one really good musical (Chicago) and one not-so-great one (Nine). Presumably it’s the former that has Hollywood’s biggest stars eagerly lining up for his next one.
Emily Blunt and Christine Baranski have entered negotiations to team with Marshall for Disney’s Into the Woods, joining Johnny Depp, Meryl Streep, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Chris Pine. The fairy tale mash-up is based on a Broadway musical by Stephen Sondheim.
The darkly comic fable follows a baker and his wife whose family has been cursed by a witch. They head into the forest to try and lift the spell, crossing paths with iconic characters like Rapunzel, Cinderella, Jack (of Beanstalk fame), and Little Red Riding Hood along the way. The original Broadway production was nominated for some ten Tonys in 1988, and won three of them (Best Score, Best Book, and Best Actress).
Broadway star James Corden has been linked to the part of the baker, but his casting hasn’t been confirmed yet. Blunt is in talks for the female lead role of his wife. Baranski’s part hasn’t been revealed, though she played Cinderella’s mean stepmother in a script reading a few months back. As previously reported, Pine and Gyllenhaal are circling the roles of Cinderella and Rapunzel’s self-absorbed princes, Streep is set to play the witch, and Depp will portary a sexy wolf.
Like Pine and Gyllenhaal, Blunt doesn’t have much experience with movie musicals. Baranski, on the other hand, has previously demonstrated her vocal talents in Mamma Mia! and Marshall’s Chicago.
No release date has been announced for Into the Woods, but with the film on track to shoot this fall we can likely expect it in theaters sometime next year.

Source: SlashFilm.com

I’m working on giving this site the well deserved facelift. Be warned, the site might look rather weird here and there…

The Five-Year Engagement (2012, Universal, R, $30) — From Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller, the same team behind Forgetting Sarah Marshall, comes the rare romantic comedy that’s full of surprises. Segel and Emily Blunt star as a couple engaged to marry who, for one reason or another, can’t seem to make it down the aisle. He leaves San Francisco behind to follow her to Michigan after she lands her dream job. But resentments and infidelities ensue. In addition to being hilarious, the film is perceptive about the ebb and flow of long-term relationships. This comic gem is among the year’s best.
Extras: deleted scenes, commentaries, gag reel and featurettes.

Source: NorthJersey.com

We’ve already confirmed that Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis (Looper) and Colin Firth (Arthur Newman) will be around for TIFF. Now, Emily Blunt’s PR rep has told us that the English star will also be in town to promote those two films, in which she co-stars. Last year, Blunt got her party on when she attended the festival for Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. This year, she’s got two premieres to attend, to which we say: double the premieres, double the party.

Source: TorontoLife.com

A second international trailer for Rian Johnson’s futurist action thriller Looper has come online and can be watched here.
Opening in theaters on September 28, the film stars Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Noah Segan, Piper Perabo and Jeff Daniels.
In Looper, time travel will be invented – but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a “looper” – a hired gun, like Joe (Gordon-Levitt) – is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good… until the day the mob decides to “close the loop,” sending back Joe’s future self (Willis) for assassination.

Source: ComingSoon.net

Emily Blunt thought Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were “extraordinary” at facing off against one another in Looper. The 29-year-old beauty stars alongside the pair in the forthcoming sci-fi movie – which sees Bruce play an older version of foot soldier Joseph Simmons and Gordon-Levitt portray the younger version of the character – and she was fascinated watching the 31-year-old actor impersonate his older colleague. She said: “I saw them do one scene and it was really cool because I was watching from the side and they were facing each other. It was kind of extraordinary. I don’t know, it was just really cool. “I don’t really know how Joe managed to embody Bruce Willis in the way that he did, but he did. And it wasn’t an impersonation. It wasn’t like a cheap impersonation. It was more of his kind of essence that was just so, so cool. He got that New Jersey accent, but also the way he speaks, the way he moves – really well observed.” While Emily admits she wasn’t a sci-fan when she was younger, she is “fascinated” by the movie – which is set in 2042 and sees Gordon-Levitt’s alter-ego realise he is being paid to kill his future self (Bruce) – because she thinks it could be where the world is “heading”. Speaking to ScreenCrush.com, she added: “I didn’t grow up being a sci-fi fan, but this kind of sci-fi to me is so fascinating because there’s something frighteningly familiar about it and human. “That this, it could be where we’re going, this post-apocalypto, it could be where we’re heading. So I always react well to sci-fi films that are not necessarily about people floating around in silver space suits. I don’t have any interest in that.”

Source: Contactmusic.com

Stanley Tucci has secretly married Emily Blunt’s sister Felicity. The pair became engaged last year and the actor confirmed he is a married man after his new bride was spotted wearing a wedding band at a screening of new movie Hope Springs in New York on Monday (August 06). A source tells the New York Daily News that Tucci and literary agent Felicity are planning a formal wedding for friends and family later this year. Tucci was introduced to his new wife by actress Emily Blunt after they grew close on the set of their 2006 fashion hit The Devil Wears Prada. The actor was widowed when his wife Kate lost her battle with cancer in 2009.

Source: Contactmusic.com

Warner Bros.’ U.K. studio facility Leavesden Studios will host the Tom Cruise starrer All You Need Is Kill as its first production to shoot at the studio site. Warner Bros snapped up the Leavesden site on outskirts of London after making all eight Harry Potter films there using temporary soundstages and facilities. The studio pumped £100 million plus ($154 million) into revamping the site into a fully-fledged permanent studio with nine stages. The studios opened its doors for business in June, alongside with a Harry Potter tour for the buying public. That particular brand of Warner backed wizardry has been welcoming visitors since April. The studios have been used by Warner Bros for reshoots of Jack the Giant Killer earlier this year. Doug Liman’s All You Need Is Kill starring Cruise and Emily Blunt, is in pre-production and will be the first feature to be entirely based there. It is a sci-fi story about a soldier who becomes stuck in a time loop on the last day of a battle to defend Earth from aliens and based on a novel by Japanese writer Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Warner Bros revealed details of the film to gasps of delight among the exhibition heavy audience at this year’s Cinema Europe conference in Barcelona earlier this year.

Source: HollywoodReporter.com