It was announced today that Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby will be the opening film for the Cannes Film Festival, which will run from May 15th to the 26th. This is an odd move for Gatsby as the film is set to open in the US (along with Taiwan and India) on May 10, meaning that the film will be widely seen prior to it's prestigious screening at the festival. It will also be the second film to open the festival in 3D, the first being Up in 2009. The Cannes Film Festival is widely considered to be one of the most prestigious of the festival, and, sometimes, a very early indicator of potential Oscar favorites. This year's Jury President will be none other than Steven Spielberg. The lineup of films will be announced in April.
Personally, I find the fact that Gatsby will be opening the fest after it's American release date to be a huge vote of confidence regarding the quality of the film. With many rumors of a troubled production, it doesn't seem too outlandish to me to expect that the film is much more than the disaster that some are anticipating. Personally, I can't wait to check the film out, but I'm also a huge Luhrmann fan so I may be a bit biased. I won't be able to attend Cannes, but I'm eagerly anticipating the coverage of the festival from other movie websites, and I hope to see The Great Gatsby prior to it's Cannes premiere.
After the jump, check out other big stories from the day including news regarding the latest X-Men film and David O. Russell's Abscam project.
Other news highlights...
- It was announced today that Alan Cumming will be reprising his role as Nightcrawler in X-Men: Days of Future Past. He joins an ever growing cast, which includes actors from the original trilogy, actors from X-Men: First Class and a few new characters. I'm a fan of Cumming, and find his work on TV's The Good Wife to be terrific, but with every new casting announcement for this film I grow more and more weary. How can director Bryan Singer (who directed the first two films in the franchise) possibly balance all these characters while still telling a cohesive story? Many disappointing super hero films (Spider-Man 3 and The Dark Knight Rises comes to mind) suffered from stuffing way to many characters into it. I'm hoping I'm wrong, but I can't help but be pessimistic about this film, due to be released in July 2014.
- It was also announced today that David O. Russell's currently untitled Abscam film will be released this year. More specifically, it will open in New York and Los Angeles on December 13 before having a nationwide expansion on Christmas Day. The film boasts an all star cast- Christina Bale, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Louis C.K.- and is bound to be a serious Oscar contender. I didn't include the film on my Top 25 Most Anticipated of the Year, as I thought it would be released in 2014, but am thrilled to be wrong. I'd probably put the film in the number three slot, and can't wait for December so I can check this movie out.
- Warner Bros. announced that Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis will be returning for Horrible Bosses 2, with Jamie Foxx also likely to return as hitman Motherfucker Jones, and Jennifer Anniston and Kevin Spacey possibly filming cameos. I enjoyed Horrible Bosses quite a bit, but I find the idea of a sequel to entirely unnecessary. Is there any ground they can cover with a sequel that wasn't already explored in the original?
- Finally, Michael Fassbender has bowed out of Lynne Ramsay's upcoming film Jane Got a Gun. The film stars Natalie Portman as a woman who teams up with a former lover (to be played by Joel Edgerton) when her husband is targeted by his former gang. It was also announced that Jude Law will replace Fassbender in the film. I wasn't a huge fan of Ramsay's last film, We Need to Talk About Kevin, which I found incredibly well acted but a tad bit pretentious. Still, Jane Got a Gun sounds pretty interesting and with a cast that includes Portman, Edgerton and Law, I'm sure we'll have a few great performances at the very least.
A quick side note...
The blog will be kickstarted into high gear this week. I have a new, bi-weekly segment that I will be starting on Sunday that I think will be quite exciting, an essay on a controversial topic that I'll be posting by Friday, and will be keeping up with "Our Top Story Tonight." I'm also 90% sure that I'll be seeing Oz: The Great and Powerful this weekend, so you can expect a review by Monday at the very latest. And next week I'll be starting two more segments. So fasten your seat belts, Coach Potato Digest is going to have a lot more content coming to you. And, if you haven't, definitely follow me on Twitter!
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