Alejandro Amenábar has found his next leading lady…
The 41-year-old Chilean-Spanish Oscar-winning filmmaker will direct Harry Potter franchise alum Emma Watson in the thriller Regression.
Amenábar, who rose to acclaim after making the Spanish-language sci-fi film Abre los ojos, wrote the original screenplay for The Weinstein Company–Dimension Films project.
The storyline for Regression is being kept under wraps, but the film is being described as an “elevated suspense thriller.”
As previously reported, Ethan Hawke will star in the Regression, which has been slated for release in 2015.
Amenábar’s previous projects include The Sea Inside, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2004.
Alejandro Amenábar is partnering with The Weinstein Company-Dimension for his next project…
The film studio has acquired the U.S rights to Regression, an elevated suspense thriller to be directed by the 41-year-old Spanish-Chilean Oscar-winning director.
Amenábar returns to the English language realm with the film, starring Ethan Hawke, which is set in 1980 in a small Minnesota town where a man is arrested for sexually abusing his daughter. He admits his guilt despite having no memory of it. With the help of a psychologist, he relives the memories and implicates a police officer as his partner in crime. The man’s estranged son and other townspeople are also suddenly able to relive suppressed memories of horrific abuse. At the same time, the local news reports blame a Satanic cult that has been performing rituals of orgies, assault, killing animals and even babies, for years. The officers are alarmed when similar reports come in from all around the country—they believe they’ve uncovered a national and possibly supernatural conspiracy. Is the abuse real, or something else?
This marks a re-team between Amenábar, who won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2004 for the Javier Bardem-starrer The Sea Inside, and Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who last worked with the helmer at Miramax on The Others, the sleeper hitthriller that starred Nicole Kidman and grossed $97 million U.S. and $210 million worldwide in 2001.
Amenábar, a nine-time Goya Award winner, has a resume that includes Tesis, Abre los ojos and Agora.
Sure, Melonie Diaz is a certified indie film star… But her latest project could put her on the Oscar track.
The Weinstein Co. has released the trailer for the 29-year-old Puerto Rican actress’ latest film Fruitvale Station.
Starring Michael B. Jordan, the film tells the story of Oscar Grant, the 22-year-old San Francisco Bay Area man whose fatal 2009 shooting by Oakland BART police sparked outrage and protests against police brutality.
Diaz stars as Sophina, Grant’s girlfriend and the mother of his daughter.
The Weinstein Co. bought the film, the directorial debut by Ryan Coogler, at the Sundance Film Festival for $2 million even before it won the fest’s U.S. Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award.
Melonie Diaz’s latest film is getting a name change…
The 28-year-old Puerto Rican actress’ latest project, Fruitvale, which won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for U.S. Dramatic film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is getting an extra word in its title.
The Weinstein Company, which picked up the film about the 2009 fatal shooting of 22-year-old Oscar Grant on San Francisco’s BART by security guards for more than $2 million, changed the name of the film to Fruitvale Station
The Ryan Coogler-directed drama will still be released on July 26 as part of the company’s Oscar-season arsenal for its story about the final day of Grant’s life (as portrayed by Michael B. Jordan), a young man who has been in trouble with the law but is decent at heart and tries to straighten out his life to care for his girlfriend and young daughter.
The shooting galvanized protests against police brutality in Oakland.
Melonie Diaz has become part of Sundance Film Festival history…
The 28-year-old Puerto Rican actress’ latest project, Fruitvale, has become the first Sundance film to win the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for U.S. Dramatic film since Precious in 2009.
First-time director Ryan Coogler was inspired to write the film after 22-year-old Oscar Grant was shot in the back and killed by Oakland transit police on New Year’s Day morning 2009. Fruitvale tells the story of Grant’s last 24 hours alive, as he attempts to become a better father, a better boyfriend and a better son and friend.
“It’s about human beings and how we treat each other,” said Coogler, “how we treat people that we love and how we treat people that we don’t know.”
Diaz portrays Sophina in the film, which sparked a bidding war after its premiere. Rights for the film were ultimately acquired by The Weinstein Company for approximately $2 million.
Meanwhile, Sebastián Silva’s earned the Directing Award: World Cinema Dramatic for helming the Chilean film Crystal Fairy, which centers on two people who clash during aroad trip to Chile.
Who is Dayani Cristal?, a film produced by Gael García Bernal and Marc Silver, won the Cinematography Award, World Cinema Documentary. The film, directed by Silver and featuring García in some dramatic reenactments, centers on an anonymous body found in the Arizona desert sparks the beginning of a real-life human drama. The search for its identity leads the audience across a continent to seek out the people left behind and the meaning of a mysterious tattoo.
The 43-year-old Mexican-American filmmaker and Frank Miller have announced plans to film a sequel to their 2005 cult classic Sin City, a film that explores the dark and miserable town, Basin City, and tells the story of three different people, all caught up in violent corruption.
Entitled Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, the upcoming film was developed by Miller from his graphic novel of the same name, and scripted by Miller and William Monahan. The film will be distributed once again by Dimension Films.
“Audiences have been clamoring for Sin City 2 with Robert and Frank for a long time and trust me, it will be worth the wait,” said Bob Weinstein, co-chairman of The Weinstein Company. “This will be my 11th collaboration with Robert in 16 years and he’s become a great friend. I look forward to continuing our long lasting relationship and partnering on more projects in the future.”
Production is slated to begin this summer at Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas with casting starting next week. According to the official release, much of the film’s original cast is expected to return— though the release didn’t specify if the characters whodied in the first film would be popping up again.
The original film—which proved to be a landmark step forward in filmmaking, breaking ground with immersive green screen to create its iconic stylish look included appearances by some of today’s hottest Latino stars, including Jessica Alba, Alexis Bledel, Rosario Dawson and Benicio del Toro.
Sin City, released on April 1, 2005, grossed over $160 million.
