REESE WITHERSPOON “SINGS” FOR UNDER-APPRECIATED MOTHERS

Press release

Rosita is a selfless homemaker and mother of 25 piglets who wants to remember what it feels like to be something other than a mother and wife. Oscar Best Actress winner Reese Witherspoon is Rosita's talking and singing voice in n Universal Pictures and Illumination’s musical comedy Sing.

Witherspoon proved to be the production’s ideal Rosita. Once a very promising singer, Rosita longs to recapture the feeling of being celebrated for her talents and to challenge herself in front of a live audience. Witherspoon first shocked the world with her singing talents in Walk the Line, in which she portrayed legendary artist June Carter. Praises Illumination founder Chris Meledandri: “Not only is Reese a brilliant actress and humanitarian, she has an inner fortitude that simply gives flight to Rosita. You root for Rosita at every step of the way because of the steely determination and maternal compassion that Reese gives this surprisingly complex character. She’s simply riveting in the role.”

In the singing competition, Rosita will be partnered with a Scandinavian pig named Gunter who instantly sees her inner diva and makes it his mission to unleash her incredible gifts. Their final performance will leave her family slack-jawed and appreciating her for the amazing talent that she is.

Sing stars Academy Award® winners Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon, alongside Seth McFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, John C. Reilly, Taron Egerton and Grammy Award-nominated Tori Kelly.

Set in a world like ours but entirely inhabited by animals, Sing stars Buster Moon (McConaughey), a dapper koala who presides over a once-grand theater that has fallen on hard times. Buster is an eternal—some might even say delusional—optimist who loves his theater above all and will do anything to preserve it. Now faced with the crumbling of his life’s ambition, he has one final chance to restore his fading jewel to its former glory by producing the world’s greatest singing competition.

Five lead contestants emerge: Mike (MacFarlane), a mouse who croons as smoothly as he cons; Meena (Kelly), a timid teenage elephant with an enormous case of stage fright; Rosita (Witherspoon), an overtaxed mother run ragged tending a litter of 25 piglets; Johnny (Egerton), a young gangster gorilla looking to break free of his family’s felonies; and Ash (Johansson), a punk-rock porcupine struggling to shed her arrogant boyfriend and go solo.

Each arrives under Buster’s marquee believing that this is their shot to change the course of their life. And as Buster coaches each of his contestants closer and closer to the grand finale, he starts to learn that maybe the theater isn’t the only thing that is in need of saving.

Opening across the Philippines on January 04, 2017, Sing is distributed by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures. #SingMovie

ZOE SALDANA IN “LIVE BY NIGHT”

Press release

ZOE SALDANA CAPTURES THE HEART OF BEN AFFLECK IN “LIVE BY NIGHT”

Known to global audiences as Gamora and Uhura in the Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Trek franchises, respectively, Zoe Saldana now portrays the exotic Graciela in Warner Bros. Pictures' new gangster film Live by Night.

Photo credit: Warner Bros.

Directed by Ben Affleck, Live by Night tells the story of Joe Coughlin (Affleck), a WWI vet who’s a self-proclaimed anti-establishment outlaw, despite being the son of the Boston Police Deputy Superintendent. Joe’s not all bad, though; in fact, he’s not really bad enough for the life he’s chosen. Unlike the gangsters he refuses to work for, he has a sense of justice and an open heart, and both work against him, leaving him vulnerable time and again—in business and in love.

Joe signs on with the Italian mob and is dispatched to Tampa, Florida where he almost immediately encounters Graciela. He is instantly intrigued, even more so when he learns that she and her brother control something integral to the success of the rum business: molasses.

Saldana's Graciela is a Cuban living in Ybor, a multi-ethnic, multi-racial community of hardworking immigrants, known for the production of cigars. “Joe’s been working with barbaric, violent criminals his whole life, so there’s an integrity to the people, Graciela’s people, that Joe finds appealing,” she suggests. “And Graciela is unlike other women he’s known. She’s educated, she’s traveled and studied music and art. She’s very cultured and also very smart when it comes to her family’s business.”

Perhaps what sets Graciela apart from the women in Joe's past is what she really wants out of life. “I don’t think Graciela woke up in Cuba and said to herself, ‘I want to date gangsters, I want to live on the dark side,’” Saldana adds. “I think she wants a full life with a good man, a home, children. The more time she spends with Joe, the more she realizes that she could have all that with this man. She sees who he really is, who he could be, if he could wash away all the bad that he does at night by doing good during the day. She sees his redemption.”

Affleck states, “Zoe was amazing. She was able to convey all the strength and confidence and elusiveness of the character that draw Joe in, but it’s Graciela’s expectations of him that give him something to strive for, which Zoe played so quietly yet powerfully.”

Producer Jennifer Todd concurs, “We were lucky to get Zoe because she has all these beautiful qualities, a lightness and grace, that suit Graciela so well, and she already speaks Spanish, but she applied an exquisite Cuban accent to her dialogue.”

Opening across the Philippines on January 18, 2017, Live By Night is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY in "SING"

Press release

McCONAUGHEY BURSTS WITH OPTIMISM AS KOALA SHOWMAN IN “SING”

Oscar Best Actor winner Matthew McConaughey provides the voice of the optimistic koala Buster Moon who is determined to save his struggling theater despite dwindling audiences, in Universal Pictures and Illumination’s Sing.

Photo credit: Illumination/UIP

While anyone else would have faced reality and switched careers, Buster has an unrelenting drive to succeed, by any means necessary. Well-intentioned, he does have a habit of stretching the truth, which usually widens the hole into which he’s digging himself. Nonetheless, he has an irresistible charm because his passion and optimism are utterly contagious.

For the role of Buster Moon, director Garth Jennings found one name immediately came to mind: Matthew McConaughey, whose career has spanned roles ranging from the deeply dramatic Interstellar and Dallas Buyers Club to the absurdly humorous Dazed and Confused. “Matthew realized quite quickly that in order for his character to work, his optimism had to be infectious,” Jennings states. “He had a way of making Buster incredibly endearing and incredibly relatable.”

“At the very beginning of the movie, you meet Buster Moon as a six-year-old koala,” Jennings discusses. “He is taken to the theater for the first time by his father, and it completely blows his mind. This experience has a transformative effect, and he grows up desperate to be part of the theater world. We then meet present-day Buster, and he owns the theater that he fell in love with.”

As Jennings and Illumination founder Chris Meledandri developed and shaped the character of Buster Moon, each inevitably found himself inspired by this showman who—through sheer force of will—was attempting to accomplish the nearly impossible. Armed solely with a singular passion to imagine and execute an event that would truly connect with audiences, young and old, Buster is the ultimate creator.

Sing stars Academy Award® winners Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon, alongside Seth McFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, John C. Reilly, Taron Egerton and Grammy Award-nominated Tori Kelly.

Set in a world like ours but entirely inhabited by animals, Sing stars Buster Moon (McConaughey), a dapper koala who presides over a once-grand theater that has fallen on hard times. Buster is an eternal—some might even say delusional—optimist who loves his theater above all and will do anything to preserve it. Now faced with the crumbling of his life’s ambition, he has one final chance to restore his fading jewel to its former glory by producing the world’s greatest singing competition.

Five lead contestants emerge: Mike (MacFarlane), a mouse who croons as smoothly as he cons; Meena (Kelly), a timid teenage elephant with an enormous case of stage fright; Rosita (Witherspoon), an overtaxed mother run ragged tending a litter of 25 piglets; Johnny (Egerton), a young gangster gorilla looking to break free of his family’s felonies; and Ash (Johansson), a punk-rock porcupine struggling to shed her arrogant boyfriend and go solo.

Each arrives under Buster’s marquee believing that this is their shot to change the course of their life. And as Buster coaches each of his contestants closer and closer to the grand finale, he starts to learn that maybe the theater isn’t the only thing that is in need of saving

Opening across the Philippines on January 04, 2017, Sing is distributed by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures. #SingMovie

A DISTURBED MAN'S “SPLIT” PERSONALITIES UNRAVEL IN NEW TRAILER

Press release

Universal Pictures has just revealed the main trailer for its creepy, pyschological thriller Split – the latest film from writer/director M. Night Shyamalan (The Visit).

Split stars James McAvoy (X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future of Past) as Kevin, a man who abducts three teenage girls who suddenly realize that Kevin is one of 23 personalities.

While the mental divisions of those with dissociative identity disorder have long fascinated and eluded science, it is believed that some can also manifest unique physical attributes for each personality, a cognitive and physiological prism within a single being.

Though Kevin (McAvoy) has evidenced 23 personalities to his trusted psychiatrist, Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley), there remains one still submerged who is set to materialize and dominate all the others. Compelled to abduct three teenage girls led by the willful, observant Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), Kevin reaches a war for survival among all of those contained within him—as well as everyone around him—as the walls between his compartments shatter apart.

Split reunites Shyamalan with producer Jason Blum, who produced the filmmaker’s latest commercial and critical success, The Visit.

Split opens in Philippines cinemas on January 18, 2017 and is distributed by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures.

GOING IN STYLE Official Trailer

Press release

SENIORS PLAN A BANK HEIST IN FIRST “GOING IN STYLE” TRAILER

New Line Cinema has just debuted the first trailer for its new heist comedy Going in Style starring Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin.

Oscar winners Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin team up as lifelong buddies Willie, Joe and Al, who decide to buck retirement and step off the straight-and-narrow for the first time in their lives when their pension fund becomes a corporate casualty, in director Zach Braff’s comedy Going in Style.

Desperate to pay the bills and come through for their loved ones, the three risk it all by embarking on a daring bid to knock off the very bank that absconded with their money.

The film also stars two-time Oscar nominee Ann-Margret as Annie, a grocery cashier who’s been checking Al out in more ways than one. Joey King stars as Joe’s whip-smart granddaughter, Brooklyn; with Oscar nominee Matt Dillon as FBI Agent Hamer; and Christopher Lloyd as the guys’ lodge buddy, Milton. John Ortiz also stars as Jesus, a man of unspecified credentials who agrees to show the guys the ropes, and Peter Serafinowicz as Joe’s former son-in-law, Murphy, whose pot clinic connections may finally prove useful.

Zach Braff directs from a screenplay by Theodore Melfi.

Going in Style is scheduled for release across the Philippines beginning April 6, 2017. It will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, and in select territories by Village Roadshow Pictures. Opens in Philippine cinemas on April 06, 2017.

AWARD-WINNING NOVEL “LIVE BY NIGHT” COMES TO LIFE IN THE BIG SCREEN

Press release

Based on Dennis Lehane’s bestselling novel, Warner Bros. Pictures’ Live by Night was a true passion project for Ben Affleck, who says, “As a filmmaker, this was a chance to pay homage to the classic Warner Bros. gangster movies of the 1930s through the `70s.  I grew up watching them and they had an epic, sprawling feel that really took you into a different world, a different era.”

 

Photo credit: Warner Bros.

Affleck adapted the screenplay from Lehane’s novel of the same name; the two first collaborated when Affleck made his acclaimed directorial debut with his screen adaptation of Lehane’s crime thriller Gone, Baby, Gone.  Lehane served as an executive producer on Live by Night.

“Creatively speaking, Ben and I are a unique fit—and it’s not just the Boston thing, though the Boston thing is big,” Lehane smiles.  “There’s something special about Ben’s aesthetic.  His first time in the director’s chair was with ‘Gone Baby Gone,’ and he did such a beautiful job, I love that film.  So when I heard he was going to adapt Live by Night, I was happy to be working with him again.  And like before, watching this book transmogrify in Ben’s hands, from the screenplay on, was a special thing.”

As a lifelong film buff, Affleck posits that the story has all the tropes that made him a fan of the gangster genre in particular: beautiful women, dangerous men, cops, the mob, shootouts, car chases…the whole fiery, combustible mix.  “As soon as I read Dennis’s book I knew that there was something there for anyone who just really likes to have a great time at the movies.”

Leonardo DiCaprio’s production banner, Appian Way, held the rights to the book, which Affleck read at the suggestion of DiCaprio’s producing partner, Jennifer Davisson.  “Our company is constantly looking for stories about great men—which doesn’t necessarily mean good men, just that they have greatness in them in one way or another—and what they sacrifice for that,” she explains.  “One of the things Dennis does so well is dissect the male ego in a really complex and interesting way, and that’s something I think Ben does equally well.  We had the property, but when Ben was reading the book, it was clear how much he liked it and that it was right for him.  When we read Ben’s beautiful script, the same Lehane sensibility jumped off the page.”

Producer Jennifer Todd agrees.  “Ben is attracted to Dennis’s stories, and this one in particular really excited him: the time period, the characters, going from Boston to Florida.  It all felt like nothing else we had looked at.  Add to that the central character Joe, who is not quite a bad guy and not quite a good guy but caught somewhere in between the two, so he makes his choices, but he feels the consequences.  Where does he really belong?”

Live by Night tells the story of Joe Coughlin (Affleck), a WWI vet who’s a self-proclaimed anti-establishment outlaw, despite being the son of the Boston Police Deputy Superintendent. Joe’s not all bad, though; in fact, he’s not really bad enough for the life he’s chosen. Unlike the gangsters he refuses to work for, he has a sense of justice and an open heart, and both work against him, leaving him vulnerable time and again—in business and in love. Driven by a need to right the wrongs committed against him and those close to him, Joe heads down a risky path that goes against his upbringing and his own moral code. Leaving the cold Boston winter behind, he and his reckless crew turn up the heat in Tampa. And while revenge may taste sweeter than the molasses that infuses every drop of illegal rum he runs, Joe will learn that it comes at a price.

           

Starring with Affleck are Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Messina, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana, and Oscar winner Chris Cooper.

Opening across the Philippines on January 18, 2017, “Live By Night” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

The Women of "xXx: Return Of Xander Cage

Press release

“xXx: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE” SOLO POSTERS OF THE WOMEN

Not to be outdone, the female stars of Paramount Pictures' xXx: Return of Xander Cage now step into their own individual character one-sheets, following last week’s reveal of the male cast’s posters. Check out Nina Dobrev, Deepika Padukone, Ruby Rose and Toni Collette in their solos below.

Xxx: Return of Xander Cage opens across the Philippines on January 18, 2017.

The third explosive chapter of the blockbuster franchise that redefined the spy thriller finds extreme athlete turned government operative Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) coming out of self-imposed exile and on a collision course with deadly alpha warrior Xiang and his team in a race to recover a sinister and seemingly unstoppable weapon known as Pandora’s Box.  Recruiting an all-new group of thrill-seeking cohorts, Xander finds himself enmeshed in a deadly conspiracy that points to collusion at the highest levels of world governments.

Packed with the series’ signature deadpan wit and bad-ass attitude, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage will raise the bar on extreme action with some of the most mind-blowing stunts to ever be caught on film.

Directed by D.J. Caruso (Disturbia), and written by Chad St. John (London Has Fallen) and F. Scott Frazier, adapted from characters originated by Rich Wilkes. The film also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Donnie Yen, Tony Jaa, Kris Wu, Neymar Jr., Nicky Jam and Rory McCann.

xXx: The Return of Xander Cage is distributed in the Philippines by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures.