ANNA KENDRICK STARS IN FUNKY MUSICAL ANIMATION “TROLLS” – OPENS NOVEMBER 2

Press release

 Also in upcoming action-thriller flick "The Accountant", actress Anna Kendrick sings to life one of the most beloved toy figures in the latest musical animation “Trolls,” starring alongside an ensemble of equally talented artists such as Justin Timberlake, James Corden, Gwen Stefani, Zooey Deschanel, Russell Brand, Christine Baranski, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Swedish pop music duo of Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo, Kunal Nayyar and Ron Funches.

              Kendrick is the voice of Poppy, the feisty and fearless leader of the Trolls, who are naturally cheerful and optimistic. They love to sing and dance, and they have rainbow-colored hair.  Justin Timberlake voices Branch, a gray and fearful troll. He is convinced that the Trolls’ mortal enemies, the Bergens, will track them down in their forest Utopia and capture them. The Bergens are miserable monsters and they are only happy when they eat Trolls. 

              The film was inspired by the quirky cute/ugly looking dolls with brightly colored hair that were invented by a Danish woodcutter in 1959. Created by woodcutter Thomas Damm, who then couldn’t afford a Christmas gift for his daughter, was inspired to make a doll based from his imagination.  The unique look of the doll caught the attention of the other children and from then on, Damm’s dolls became popular and has become one of the biggest toy fads among children and adults too.   

              In the latest toy-to-movie adaptation of “Trolls” where Kendrick’s character Poppy lives, the audience will be introduced to a stunning and original world, with a distinct hand-made look, which mirrors Poppy’s passion for scrapbooking.

              But when we meet Poppy, she is an eternal optimist who finds the inspiration for optimism from within.  She is the ultimate purveyor of positivity.   Moreover, she is an empowered female who is capable and confident, strong and resolute, collaborative and inclusive.   Kendrick appreciates Poppy’s toughness, sassiness, can-do attitude, loyalty and, most of all, her leadership skills.  But when she first met with directors Mitchell and Dohrn to discuss the role, the actress notes she had some concerns.  “I hardly felt like the person to play the happiest Troll; sugary sweet isn’t really my forte.  I warned Mike, Walt and Gina that I might lead Poppy down a feistier path.  I think I used the term ‘sparkplug.’”

 

 Photo credit: 20^th Century Fox 

              When the filmmakers assured Kendrick that her vision for Poppy was in sync with theirs, she embraced her inner Troll with a vengeance.  “Each time I stepped into the recording booth and was greeted with a picture of Poppy’s smiling face, I couldn’t wait to add some fire, sarcasm, sass and determination to her,” Kendrick recalls.  “That’s what makes the difference between a relentlessly happy character that’s a little irritating and one that really comes to life. 

              “That said, I usually ruined the first five minutes of each recording session by talking in my ‘adorable voice.’   I couldn’t help it; Poppy is so cute!  But Mike and Walt encouraged me to make this tiny pink creature feel real and complicated.  Poppy might not look like Shrek, but she’s complex, like him.”

              After viewing some early footage, Kendrick discovered even more unexpected aspects to the character, thanks, she says, to the “animation dream team at DreamWorks, which had captured the little firecracker inside Poppy with every minute expression. 

              “Every time they asked me to do another recording session, it made my week.  I experienced that moment of recognition when I wondered, how does a six-inch-tall pink Troll kind of remind me of myself?  Watching Poppy and the other Trolls fills me with joy.”

              A DreamWorks Animation feature, “Trolls” opens in cinemas on November 2 in cinemas nationwide (also in 3D) from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

ANNA KENDRICK IN “THE ACCOUNTANT”

Press release

Academy Award-nominee Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air) stars in Warner Bros.' new action-thriller “The Accountant,” as Dana Cummings, an accounting clerk who's in the center of a multi-million-dollar anomaly.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

Directed by Gavin O’Connor (Warrior), The Accountant tells the story of Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck), a math savant with more affinity for numbers than people. Behind the cover of a small-town CPA office, he works as a freelance accountant for some of the world’s most dangerous criminal organizations. With the Treasury Department’s Crime Enforcement Division, run by Ray King (J.K. Simmons), starting to close in, Christian takes on a legitimate client: a state-of-the-art robotics company where an accounting clerk (Kendrick) has discovered a discrepancy involving millions of dollars. But as Christian uncooks the books and gets closer to the truth, it is the body count that starts to rise.

Anna Kendrick describes her character, “Dana is the one who first noticed that something isn’t adding up in the company finances, so she’s a little disappointed when Chris comes in and takes the whole investigation out from under her. She’s not necessarily ambitious, but she wants to be included.”

“Dana has this bubbly personality, and that’s the last thing Christian wants when he’s trying to work,” producer Mark Williams suggests. “But he soon realizes she speaks his language as far as numbers go; she gets exhilarated the same way he does when the pieces start to come together. For that reason, he starts to bond with her and care about her.”

As Chris shows Dana what he’s found, “she gets reenergized by the idea that they’re working together to solve this puzzle,” Kendrick asserts. “She’s intrigued by him because he’s sort of a dorky accountant, but there’s something mysterious, too, which becomes even more obvious when things take a frightening turn. Basically, nerding it up with Chris is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to her,” she laughs.

Kendrick says she shares that sentiment from her own professional perspective. “Working with Ben, as well as Gavin, was hugely exciting for me, too. It was especially interesting acting opposite Ben in this role because Chris is so uncomfortable relating to people, but Ben found a way to make it so charming that Dana is drawn in by his vulnerability. He’s a big guy and physically stronger, but on an emotional level, he’s the one Dana feels needs to be protected.”

The admiration is mutual. “Anna brings a tremendous energy and honesty to her scenes,” Affleck remarks. “She’s someone I admired a lot beforehand, so I was thrilled to have the chance to work with her.”

O’Connor adds, “One thing I discovered about Anna is she can take the dialogue in a scene and—no matter how many times you’ve heard it—create an entirely new interpretation. Every take would be a variation on the theme of how she played it, and I loved that.”

Kendrick says she especially appreciated the director’s “reverence for the emotional content,” noting, “It’s an interesting thing because, in many ways, Gavin is such a dude. He and Ben would get so excited about all the action sequences, but then he also took such joy in the really sweet, emotional scenes.”

Opening across the Philippines on Nov. 02, “The Accountant” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.

ANNA KENDRICK AND ZAC EFRON IN R-RATED COMEDY “MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES”

Press release

It all started with a Craiglist ad that became viral when real life brothers Mike and Dave Stangle are looking for dates to bring to a wedding - sounds crazy but it really happened.  Their story reaches the big screen in the hilarious and  aptly titled “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates” starring Anna Kendrick, Zac Efron, Adam Devine and Aubrey Plaza.

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

                Mike (Devine) and Dave Stangle (Efron) are young, adventurous, fun-loving and, some would even say, obnoxious.  The “some” would include other members of the Stangle family.  So when their sister Jeanie announces she’s getting married, the family holds an intervention, demanding that Mike and Dave bring respectable dates.  To fulfill their family’s request Mike and Dave turn to the best source of decent, respectable girls they can think of: Craigslist.  They place an ad promising that their selected companions will receive an all-expense paid trip to Hawaii and the chance to participate in all of the Stangle family wedding-related activities.

                Along with its R-rated humor, “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates” has unexpected moments of heart.  Jake Szymanski, who makes his feature directorial debut after helming hilarious short form comedies on “Funny or Die,” says:  “The Stangle family is very tightly-knit, even when they disagree.  They’re very proud of being Stangles, so they’re just trying to have one family event that doesn’t get completely screwed up by Mike and Dave.”

                When tuning in to their back-and-forth banter, it becomes clear that the Stangles’ primary interest is entertaining each other.  If anyone else thinks they are funny too, well, so much the better.  Before long the idea of a book emerged.  Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (and a thousand cocktails) continues with the same volley of dialogue and ideas; Mike does a chapter, then Dave does a chapter and so on. 

                Whatever their differences, Mike and Dave are tight.  “They have a symbiotic relationship,” says Efron.  “They can’t exist without one another.  They’re as much best friends as they are brothers.”   

                Mike and Dave certainly know how to rock a room, but they’re small-timers compared to their dates.  As background to Alice (Kendrick) and Tatiana (Plaza), director Szymanski observes that they “have a history of misadventures that have taken them around the world.   They can travel around the globe with only a couple of backpacks, and have stories to tell for ages.”

“The characters were great inventions of our writers,” notes Ready.  “Tatiana is a mix of danger and sexuality, and everything she does is pretty extreme.  Alice is a wild child who is always unpredictable.  They are in such different places in their lives, and yet these wedding dates are just what they need.”

                The burgeoning brotherly bond between Devine and Efron was facilitated by the opportunity to spend considerable time together on location.   Says Devine:   “Zac and I arrived in Oahu two weeks before production started, and we didn’t know anyone else there.  Who else am I going to hang out with?  So we obviously were just going to hang out with each other every day and that was great planning on Fox’s part, because we became the best of buds.  By the end of production, he says with a laugh, “we finished each other’s sentences in a weird way.”

                Rated R-18 by the MTRCB, “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates” opens September 14 in cinemas from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros. 

TO LOVE AND TO GUARD IN ROMANTIC ACTION COMEDY “MR. RIGHT”

Press release

 In the tradition of highly-successful romantic action comedies comes a one-of-a-kind love story in “Mr. Right” starring two of Hollywood’s well-sought actors Anna Kendrick and Sam Rockwell.  

                In “Mr. Right,” Martha (Anna Kendrick) discovers that her new beau, Francis (Sam Rockwell), is a professional assassin… with a cause.  He kills the people ordering the hits. As the bodies pile up, Martha must decide whether to flee or join her man in the mayhem.

                Sam Rockwell is that rare Hollywood star who's equally adept in somber dramas like the most recent Broadway revival “Fool For Love” and BAFTA award-winning “Moon” as he is playing quirky characters in such black-humored action fare “Seven Psychopaths” and “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.” When director Paco Cabezas met with the actor in late 2012, Rockwell immediately responded to Mr. Right 's subversive sense of humor. "I said 'yes' right away because Max Landis wrote a really fun script that reminded me of movies like “Grosse Point Blank” in the way it mixed action and romantic comedy," he says. "I saw Mr. Right as being kind of like Mr. and Mrs. Smith-meets-Silver Lining Playbook where you have two dysfunctional bi-polar type people who find each other. They're both hot messes, on edge and scary. Francis and Martha might freak other people out, but they don’t freak each other out."

                Kendrick also sparked to Mr. Right because she knew Rockwell would be playing the title role. "I always pictured Mr. Right as Sam," she says. "I knew he would bring amazing energy to the character. He makes you love this guy who’s killing people. but because it’s Sam playing Francis, you’re rooting for him."

                Producer Jacobs says "Often times with movies in this genre, you see the female lead running scared once the gunfire starts. We needed to find an actress who had that America's sweetheart girl next door quality, but underneath all of that, in Mr. Right, the gunfire kind of turns Martha on. Anna knew how to pull off that turn."

                The movie veered away from using CGI trickery in favor of old-fashioned physical fisticuffs. "I'm tired of watching action movies plagued with digital effects where nothing is real," Cabezas explains. "In Mr. Right, everything's real. Sam Rockwell did 99 percent of the action himself, and he did it with grace and speed."

                Rockwell rose to the live-action challenge. "I’m not formally trained as a dancer but I have been boxing off and on for twenty years so that helped a lot with the lateral movement, feet agility, that kind of crap," Rockwell explains. "It’s all the same stuff."

                Blending dancing, violence and romance into one-of-a-kind hybrid entertainment, "Mr. Right" aims to seduce audiences with its twisted take on the classic boy-meets-girl formula. "I don’t have a clue how to categorize this movie, and that's what I love about Mr. Right," says Cabezas. "It’s funny, it’s a thriller, it has action and a lot of heart. In that sense, it's an explosive cocktail. I love movies that are great roller coasters of emotion, where you never know what to expect. I hope people who see Mr. Right  have a laugh and have a good time and say 'Wow, I wasn’t expecting that.'"

                Rated R16 by the MTRB, “Mr. Right” opens April 6 in cinemas from Pioneer Films.