'The Tempest' Trailer Drops

Julie Taymor (director) has to her name:

• 5 Tony Award nominations and 2 wins, Best Costume and Best Director For The Lion King Broadway
• 7 Drama Desk Award nominations with 3 wins, Oustanding Puppet, Costumes, Direction, The Lion King Broadway 
• An Emmy win
• An Oscar nomination for best original song

She is a certified BA in my eyes. If only for being the first woman to win a Tony for directing a musical. She's had time in theater and comes from that, using those honed skills and bringing a uniqueness to film. The Tempest included and directed Anthony Hopkins in the film adapt. Titus, another William Shakespeare play. She's slated to bring Spider-Man to Broadway as a musical. She directed Salma Hayek to her first Oscar nom in Frida. Across The Universe, a play off the Beatles as a musical film she directed in '07, was amazing and it looks as if she has utilized some of those techniques from that, and brought something newer, harsher, more rigid to this one. And very I'm fuckin' stoked.

Helen Mirren Added To Russell Brand 'Arthur' Remake

The '81 Oscar winning film Arthur, is being remade with Russell Brand set to star in title role that had Dudley Moore almost winning an Academy Award and Steve Gordon, picking up a best screenplay nod.


And now the great, the wonderful, the ever lovable and stupendous British actress Helen Mirren, is being added the cast as his longtime nanny/valet/driver. John Gielgud won the gold statue for the role in the original. So I'm sure she see's the capabilities to succeed in this role. 


In the original, Arthur turned to Hobson the butler (Gielgud) for advice after his family threatened to cut off his inheritance if he did not marry a woman he didn't love.


We'll see how this plays out. I've heard rumblings that Modern Family episode director Jason Winer could be helming the project. 

The original movie centered on a boozy playboy who is set to inherit a fortune if he marries an heiress his family thinks will make something out of him. However, he falls in love with a working-class woman and turns to his valet for help when his family makes him choose between money and love. The script is set scribbled by Peter Baynham. Baynham was a writer on Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat and Bruno. The start date for principle photography is set for July in New York City. 

Be keeping tabs on this potential Oscar bait. Looks like the Warner Bros. is trying to keep the remake in the same vein of prestige as the original did, maybe better? 


Munki Out.