‘WORLD WAR Z’ SCORES NEW BLOCKBUSTER RECORD FOR BRAD PITT

The Brad Pitt suspense-thriller World War Z has made a big splash at the box-office as it set the title as the actor’s best ever first weekend opening movie. Debuting in 220 screens nationwide, it  opened at #1, grossing over P88.7 M on its first weekend, despite competition from strong second week hold-over Man of Steel which had more screens.  Top 10screens were SM Mall of Asia (P3.84M), Trinoma (P3.82M), SM North Edsa (P3.55M), Newport (P3.22M),  SM Megamall (P 2.96M), Glorietta 4 (P2.85M), Greenbelt 3 (P2.61M), Alabang Town Center (P2.43M), Powerplant (P2.39M) and Eastwood (P2.16M).

The weekend receipts handily out grossed comparative figures of previous Brad Pitt action blockbusters Mr. and Mrs Smith and Troy.  It also scored the 5^th all-time highest weekend opening for a Paramount movie in the Philippines.

The heart-pounding zombie movie scored the similar records  in other Asia-Pacfiic countries like India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia & Hong Kong. It also surpassed last weekend’s opening from Man of Steel in Malaysia (+178%) & Taiwan (+41%).In total, WORLD WAR Z has so far taken home an incredible $31,479,178 from Asia Pacific alone and $47,051,370 internationally in its first five days of release.

In the Philippines, the title is expected to hit over P180 Million on its second week with continued strong word of mouth and repeat views still promising a long run.

‘WORLD WAR Z’ is released and distributed by United International Pictures

through  Solar Entertainment Corp.

Showing in over 140 theatres nationwide.

The Heat Movie Review

There was a time that cop genre in TV were a hit. Now, there are only selections for cop flicks that are really good. When I first heard that Melissa McCarthy is going to be in this movie, I know that it will be a comedy and is gonna be fun to watch.

Photo courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

 

Little did I know that this will be worth every penny to watch in a cinema. Although it is a police comedy, it is nothing new. Eddie Murphy already did it in his Beverly Hills trilogy. But what makes this unique was that there are two woman cops.

 

The other half of the main role is shared by Sandra Bullock. Ms. Bullock plays an FBI agent paired up with a Boston cop(McCarthy) on a case. You may find this similar to Bullock's FBI agent role in Ms. Congeniality movies but it is far different.

 

Although Sandra Bullock had experience in comedy but it was more on Melissa McCarthy who really brought the house or cinema down. I believe this was her best comedy work yet and I am glad that she has more movie projects now. I saw her recently in Identity Thief.

 

Since this is a cop action-comedy, it is expected that the audience in this movie are 13 above and is restricted below that age(R-13). The Heat opens June 27 and is released by Twentieth Century Fox and distributed by Warner Bros.

SANDRA BULLOCK IN “THE HEAT”

Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock stars in “The Heat” and tries on improv comedy for the first time under director Paul Feig.  

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

                Bullock stars as Sarah Ashburn, an FBI agent hoping for a promotion and high-tails it from her home base in New York City to Boston, to help solve the mystery behind several murders.  Standing in Ashburn’s way is a hard-hitting Boston police officer, Shannon Mullins played by Melissa McCarthy, who’s not happy that the FBI – especially the stuck-up Ashburn -- is treading on her turf.  Ashburn is determined to wrestle the case away from Mullins, but the disheveled, foul-mouthed, in-your-face cop is a formidable adversary.  They’ll soon discover they have more in common than they ever thought possible, including their misfit status and complementary skillsets. 

                “Ashburn’s effectiveness as an FBI agent comes from her meticulousness, stubbornness and thoroughness,” says Bullock.  “But she’s completely inept when it comes to any kind of social interaction.  She’s trying so hard to make up for that particular weakness that she becomes insufferably arrogant on the job.  Ashburn is respected but not liked because she isn’t a team player.  Every time she opens her mouth, people cringe.”

                The improvisational nature fueled the fun and on- and off-screen bonding. “It is great working with Melissa,” enthuses Bullock. “She comes through the door and improv is the way that she does things. Then we had a director who comes from that world too and nearly everyone in the cast was also from that world. The world of comedy that I had been familiar with was always very controlled. There was the script and you had to go through 27 people and the studio before you could change a line.  I always wanted to do this kind of comedy that we have in THE HEAT (which I have done in real life, sort of free form,) but I was never really allowed to experience what it was like before on a film. 

Walking onto the set of THE HEAT it took me a couple of days to realize: ‘I’m allowed to do it.’ It was very liberating. When you are around that, you take it in and you want to improve your game. It is a muscle that you have to exercise and if you haven’t had much time exercising that muscle, it gets stale. Watching these people work is exciting and inspiring, but daunting sometimes too.”

“Melissa has great moves,” says Bullock,”discussing McCarthy’s comedic skills. “When I saw her dance, I knew we were going to be fast friends.We did the dancing with no practice whatsoever,” she continues.

“We said: ‘let’s not rehearse anything,’ ”interjects her co-star. “Let’s just be as terrible as we’re capable of being. Poor Paul turns around and we both have our faces taped,” laughs McCarthy,  “and he’s like, ‘What’s happening?’ It was a weird descent into controlled madness. It was really fun. There was a lot of ruined tape,” she says. McCarthy adds: “Yeah, I got the moves, but I don’t have the sense to stop whatever’s going on.”

“We really hit it off, she is like my sister,’’ adds Bullock. “I’d say it’s rare that actors get together and have the kind of chemistry and connection we have together. It somehow just works and it’s something inexplicable that is bigger than what is on the page.”

“The Heat” is distributed by Warner Bros.

The Lone Ranger Characters: Dan Reid

Essentially, fabled Lone Ranger isn't really alone. In Disney/Bruckheimer Films' “The Lone Ranger” – a thrilling adventure infused with action and humor – our famed masked hero is joined by a gallery of beloved characters portrayed by a talented cast. Let's meet them beginning with...

Dan Reid (James Badge Dale). Referred to by Tonto as “Great Warrior,” Dan Reid is a Texas Ranger in a class of his own, something his younger brother John has been painfully aware of all his life.

Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

“The Lone Ranger” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International through Columbia Pictures.

 

JAMIE FOXX IN “WHITE HOUSE DOWN”

Jamie Foxx seems to be following suit after Harrison Ford. Remember Air Force 1?

On a roll after his acclaimed performance in the Oscar-winning “Django Unchained,” Jamie Foxx now stars as President Sawyer in Columbia Pictures’ new action thriller “White House Down” from director Roland Emmerich.

Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

In the film, Capitol Policeman John Cale (Channing Tatum) has just been denied his dream job with the Secret Service of protecting President James Sawyer.  Not wanting to let down his little girl with the news, he takes her on a tour of the White House, when the complex is overtaken by a heavily armed paramilitary group. Now, with the nation’s government falling into chaos and time running out, it’s up to Cale to save his daughter, the president, and the country.

Producer Bradley J. Fischer says that casting Jamie Foxx was part of the key to defining the tone of the film. “We were hoping to find the right actor to play the President – somebody who could play it in a way that was a little disarming,” says Fischer.  “We were hoping to find an actor who could bring the gravitas of the presidency, but also a comedic element – not jokes, but funny, light moments that would cut the tension.  In a way, Cale and Sawyer are a classic ‘buddy’ pairing.  That’s why Jamie was perfect – he won an Oscar® for the way he can inhabit different characters.  Not only that, but it turned out he has great chemistry with Channing – they played off of each other in a way that we all found incredibly satisfying to watch.  With Channing and Jamie together, the movie is just so much fun.”

Foxx says that the 46th president of the United States is “a man who would do anything to protect America, but also a man who understands that in order to protect America in this day and age, you have to have an understanding of the enemies.  If you don’t have that understanding, or a way to open a dialog, you’ll forever be at odds and something drastic will constantly keep happening.”

Emmerich says that screenwriter James Vanderbilt wrote the character of President Sawyer as an interesting counterpoint to Cale.  “When President Sawyer gets elected, he wants to do so much – and then when he’s in the job, it’s not that easy.  He has to spend an inordinate amount of time on the politics of the job,” says Emmerich.  “Whereas Cale’s goal is to try to impress himself and his daughter, the president is holding himself up against greatness – he wants to do something truly presidential, something Lincolnesque.  He wants to be remembered as a great president.  So that is part of the fun of the movie: you have a former soldier battling it out intellectually with the commander in chief as they’re stuck together throughout the movie.”

“It’s a complicated role,” says Vanderbilt.  “You have to have a serious side as the President of the United States, but also, the president in our movie has got to be able to play the fun stuff as well.  He’s got to be able to play the physical stuff, the light moments, the dark moments, all of it.  And on top of it all, the actor had to be believable as an electable president and pair well with Channing.  Jamie was a perfect choice.”

“In this situation, the President is faced with the beginning of a new world order,” explains Foxx.  “He’s learning that the might of the sword is not always the best course of action.  We bring up some of these political issues, but not too heavy on the political side.  It’s a fresh look at what I would call a super action hero.  Sit down, get ready for the ride, watch Channing go to work and do his thing as Officer John Cale.”

Working with Roland Emmerich was a revelation for Foxx.  “As an actor who wants to be a director, I’d think about the movie and wonder, ‘Wow, the scope!  How is he going to make this cinematic?’  I got to watch him – I got the chance to look over his shoulder and get a peek at his shot list.  It was really a blast.  But Roland was also a great collaborator – he allows you to bring in your own voice, your ideas, and then he shapes them in the way that he can execute the movie – and if you go too far off, he’s there to pull you back in.”

            “White House Down” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Follow Mark_Templar on Twitter and like the L.E.N.S. blogs on Facebook for more movie updates and reviews.

Iconic Lone Ranger Characters: SILVER

Essentially, fabled Lone Ranger isn't really alone. In Disney/Bruckheimer Films' “The Lone Ranger” – a thrilling adventure infused with action and humor – our famed masked hero is joined by a gallery of beloved characters portrayed by a talented cast. Let's meet them beginning with...

Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Silver.
A magnificent white stallion with a sense of humor all its own, Silver is, according to Tonto, the Lone Ranger’s very special “spirit horse.” The Lone Ranger” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International through Columbia Pictures.
 

Good Cop-Bad Cop Scenario in THE HEAT

Director Paul Feig reinvigorates the buddy cop genre by pairing Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock and breakout star Melissa McCarthy as law enforcers with wildly different styles in “The Heat.”   

Set in Boston, the movie follows Sarah Ashburn (Bullock), a by-the-book FBI agent forced to team up with Shannon Mullins (McCarthy), a brash undercover Boston street cop to track a ruthless drug lord.   This wildly dysfunctional duo must try to catch this high-powered criminal without killing one another in the process. 

Rated R-13, “The Heat” opens in cinemas on June 27 from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

FUN TRIVIA ON “THE LONE RANGER” SHOOT

From tricky masks to on-location inside jokes to magically multiplying population, the filming of Disney/Jerry Bruckheimer Films’ “The Lone Ranger” has been filled with fun trivia. Get a load of these fun facts involving castmembers Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer and the rest of the crew.

Photo courtesy of Walt Disney Studios

• “The Lone Ranger” opens in 2013, exactly 80 years after the character first made its way onto the airwaves courtesy of WXYZ radio in Detroit, Michigan, on January 30, 1933. And coincidentally, Detroit is the city in which producer Jerry Bruckheimer was born and raised!

• The creation of The Lone Ranger’s mask required much trial and error from Joel Harlow’s makeup department, with ten different designs and seven fittings with actor Armie Hammer. The final version was vacuum-formed over Hammer’s face, and was made of very soft goatskin leather.

• The terrifyingly perched “Spirit Platform,” on which John Reid (Hammer) awakens, really was terrifyingly perched at the very edge of Moab, Utah’s Dead Horse Point, with a nearly 2000 foot drop to the valley floor and Colorado River below. The rickety platform itself was an additional 18 feet high, and yes, that really is Armie Hammer and not a stunt performer on top of it!

• After wrap on the final day of filming in tiny Creede, Colorado, Johnny Depp held an autograph-signing session with local people for nearly four hours, and despite the fact that the town has a population of only 290, nearly a thousand souls magically appeared for the occasion.

• In location in Moab, Utah, the town’s sole sushi restaurant honored the film by creating such specials as “Tonto-maki” and “Kemowasabee Roll” and a drink called “Kemo-sake Mojito.”

• On the final day of Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer’s filming in late September 2012, a large cake was wheeled out with a picture decorating its top—not of the two stars, but rather their popular New Mexico-based stand-ins, Wes Trudell and James Blackburn—to the actors’ great amusement.

• Rather than hire existing trains, the demands of the script meant that the production needed to build two 250-ton trains, and the five miles of track on which they rolled.

• The filming required that several actors—among them Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner and Ruth Wilson—stand on top of trains moving at speeds up to 40 miles per hour.

• The Lone Ranger’s “Spirit Horse,” the famed Silver, is incredibly enough “played” by a ten-year-old Thoroughbred-quarter horse mix named Silver, with which head horse trainer Bobby Lovgren of “War Horse” fame was already familiar.
• In both Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly, several key cast members and filmmakers—including Depp, Hammer, James Badge Dale and director Gore Verbinski—lived out of their trailers at base camp, enjoying nightly campfires and music. They were sometimes fed traditional stews and fry bread by a local Navajo family on whose land they were staying.

            From producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski, the filmmaking team behind the blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, comes “The Lone Ranger,” a thrilling adventure infused with action and humor, in which the famed masked hero is brought to life through new eyes.

            In the film, native American warrior Tonto (Depp) recounts the untold tales that transformed John Reid (Hammer), a man of the law, into a legend of justice—taking the audience on a runaway train of epic surprises and humorous friction as the two unlikely heroes must learn to work together and fight against greed and corruption.

            Opening across the Philippines on July 17, “The Lone Ranger” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International through Columbia Pictures.

The Father Figures of The Man Of Steel

Fact: Coincidentally, these two actors both played Robin Hood in their respective movies.

In Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures' “Man of Steel,” the two very influential role models in the life of Kal-El/Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) are portrayed by two highly regarded actors: Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent, and Russell Crowe as Jor-El. 

            Screenwriter David Goyer shares that, “The film is about a man with two fathers: Jor-El, Kal’s Kryptonian father, and Jonathan Kent, Clark’s dad on Earth. Clark/Kal has grown up with two sets of histories, though only one was known to him until now. And now he needs to reconcile those teachings if he is to become the man that, arguably, both fathers would want him to be, in their own ways.”

            Jonathan and Martha Kent (Diane Lane) found their son when his spaceship landed on their farm in the town of Smallville, Kansas. Rather than alerting the authorities, they hid the ship, named the baby Clark, and raised him as their own. The secret came at a cost, though, as the alien boy exhibited otherworldly sensitivities and abilities that gradually raised concerns in the community. The Kents lived in constant fear that there would be a knock on their door, and Clark would be taken from them forever.

            “Jonathan and Martha understand right away that finding Clark was both a blessing and a curse,” director Zach Snyder says. “Jonathan knows that he is not only a father, but he also has to be the guy who, while protecting his son no matter what, has to keep his eye on the ball. He realizes that this is bigger than him, bigger than all of them. Clark could change the course of history.”

            Thus it falls to the concerned, loving dad to impress upon his son the magnitude of what his existence means for humanity, even if they are as yet unaware.

            Jonathan Kent's paternal responsibilities are greater than most could ever imagine. “The nature of a father is to teach and protect. My character tells Clark that he’s a miracle, proof that we are not alone in the universe,” Costner offers. “It’s a huge burden to bear, but Jonathan believes that his son is on Earth for a reason and, as he says to him, the day will come when he will have to decide whether to stand proud in front of the human race, or not.”

 

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

            Costner felt the themes of the film, especially with regard to the relationship between his and Cavill’s characters, have very real world implications. “People often talk about movies as being make-believe,” he says. “But the truth is, sometimes movies can construct moments that make you ask yourself, ‘What would I do in this situation? What kind of man am I?’”

            Kal-El is the light of his parents’ lives, if only for a moment. Almost immediately after he is born, his father, Jor-El, the planet’s leading scientific mind, and mother, Lara Lor-Van (Ayelet Zurer), must make the heartbreaking decision to send their infant hurtling through space in search of a safe haven. Krypton’s natural resources are depleted, and it is imploding at a rapid pace. Jor-El’s pleas to evacuate have fallen on deaf ears, and he feels the only way to preserve the Kryptonian race is by rescuing its most innocent member, with the hope that Kal can survive and, through him, their people.

            “Jor-El is very much an advocate of free choice, and that made him an outlier on Krypton,” Goyer explains. “In effect, it made him a criminal, an enemy of the State. Part of his hope for Kal is that he will continue that philosophy of free will.”

 

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

            Russell Crowe asserts, “If you come at the story from the perspective that Jor-El is simply a good guy, I think that is underselling the argument that exists, at least to my mind, that there’s a touch of madness to him, a touch of massive desperation in what he’s doing. As far as he’s concerned, it’s the last roll of the dice for keeping Krypton alive.”

            In order to accomplish that goal, Jor-El must first relate to Kal the story of his past, and impress upon him the importance of his future. This he accomplishes only when Clark’s journeys bring him to the one place on Earth that Jor-El can connect with him: a frozen tundra that holds a secret more than 20,000 years old…and that allows for Kal to come face-to-face with the image of his father.

            “Man of Steel” is distributed worldwide in IMAX 3D, Digital 3D and regular theaters by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.