With Directorial Debut, Angelina Jolie Takes Audiences on Emotional Journey

With Directorial Debut, Angelina Jolie Takes Audiences on Emotional Journey By Melinda Loewenstein December 27, 2011 Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images With numerous blockbusters ("Lara Croft Tomb Raider," "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," "Kung Fu Panda") and an Oscar for "Girl, Interrupted" to her name, Angelina Jolie has stepped to the other side of the camera. Her celebrity status is international, and her humanitarian work with the U.N. and marriage to Brad Pitt have only added to her high profile. With her directorial debut, Jolie is looking to divert the spotlight from herself and raise global awareness. With "In the Land of Blood and Honey," Jolie takes on the controversial topic of the Bosnian war by setting a love story in the middle of the conflict.Falling Into the Film Jolie didn't set out to make a movie about the war. Rather, she wanted to study what happens to human beings during war to better understand post-conflict situations and find a way to help. Film was a natural choice, since that's what Jolie has spent her life doing. When she finished writing the script, she showed it to Pitt. "I just showed it to him as this private little experiment that was on my desk," says Jolie. After reading it, he encouraged her to make the movie. She was aware of the sensitive nature of the topic, so before moving forward, she sent the script to Bosnian Serbs, Muslim Serbs, and Croatians for feedback. Later, Jolie also sought feedback from the actors, who had all been affected by the war. Rade Serbedzija, who plays Nebojsa, credits her with being open to changes in the script so it would be more authentic. At his suggestion, Jolie changed some of the dialogue in the scene where Zana Marjanovic's character, Ajla, paints a portrait of Serbedzija's character. Jolie says her acting background made it easier to write the various roles: "I was able to flip characters in my head as if I was playing the different roles in order to write the different people, because you have to be one person and inhabit him and write from his voice, and then be her and write from her voice."Role Reversal Being an actor, Jolie was careful to make the audition process as painless as possible. Laughing, she says, "I kind of wanted to hire everybody or try to find something for everybody." She credits casting director Gail Stevens for making sure that actors got strong feedback even if they didn't get the part. "It was hard. I didn't want to put the actors through much." She had them do scenes as well as an interview on camera. She explains, "I pretty much cast them from that, and the people that I thought were going to be the ones, and I would say to Gail, 'What were they like when they came in? Were they nice to everybody? Were they humble? Were they gracious?' Because this was very important to me." Jolie then had the script sent without her name on it to the actors they wanted. "We kept our fingers crossed because we knew how sensitive it was."On Authenticity "When she called me and she said, 'I'm going to shoot it in both languages,' I was like, 'Well, wait a minute; you're a first-timer; we don't know the actors,' " producer Graham King recalls. But Jolie was passionate about it and sold him on the idea. Jolie didn't consider language while writing, but when it came time to adjust it to the authentic language, she made sure it was translated more than once: "A translator couldn't be just Bosnian Muslim or just Bosnian Serb or just Croatian, because even the translation would go slightly slanted to one side or the other." Generally they would do the first take in English, which helped the crew with the second take in the authentic language. "We understood exactly what was happening in the scene, and then when it changed languages, somehow in our minds we still understood what was happening completely. For example, the cameraman knew instinctually where to move in on that line because he somehow could feel that was that line," Jolie notes. After shooting in their native language the actors would often want to reshoot the English because their personalities and body language were different in their native language. While shooting she relied on the actors to help her check on performances: "So if Danijel had a big scene, I would pull Zana aside and say, 'It feels right for me emotionally, but textwise was there anything that I need to know?' " Acting Influences Directing Despite Jolie's first-time-director status, King notes that she had command of the set. Marjanovic says working with Jolie was great. "She's an actress, and it didn't feel like it was her first time directing at all. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she would just find an approach that was appropriate for the scene." Serbedzija compares Jolie's directing style to that of Clint Eastwood, and Goran Kostic, who plays Danijel, agrees. "Obviously they've been in front of the camera for such a long time, Clint and Angelina Jolie. And they understand the importance, and she allows time and space for us to bridge these troubles," he explains.The sensitive nature of the film made it especially important for Jolie to create a safe acting environment. One of the hardest days was when Jolie had to ask the old women to strip. "I hated it. I only shot it once." Because the women were Hungarian, she was speaking with them through a translator. "I think I must have gone up to them five times just to say 'Do they completely understand that the people inside have been directed; they've been told, and it's their job to laugh at them. They aren't laughing at them because they are getting naked; it's, they've been directed to do that, so please do not take it personally' and 'I'm so sorry that I need to ask them to do this, but for them to please know how much this is going to mean for people." She ended up having to shoot a lot of the reactions as cutaways, because the actors couldn't laugh at the women: "They kind of had a human reaction, and so then we had to do a cutaway when the women were gone." Jolie also feels that her acting background influenced her directing style: "I hoped that I was able to help the actors by giving them the space and the respect that they needed. I gave them what I always felt I needed when I was working, and I would protect Zana when there were scenes that she was very vulnerable or had to deal with sensuality or nudity, to be very considerate and only put in the film what is necessary for the storytelling. With the big emotional scenes I would kind of try to protect them from the crew, from the noise, from the, you know, so you just try to make these safe spaces and try to help them, because instinctually you know what you would need." Vanesa Glodjo (who plays Lejla) sums up Jolie's style by saying, "I think she fulfilled all her wishes as an actress first by writing the script and then by the way she directed us. I think she said, 'Okay, what I would adore; how would I love to be directed?' So that's how she did it."OUTTAKES "In the Land of Blood and Honey" was nominated for a 2012 Golden Globe for best foreign language film. Jolie says it will take a special project to get her back in the director's seat. Jolie wants to give her children a global experience, and the family has a home in Cambodia. With Directorial Debut, Angelina Jolie Takes Audiences on Emotional Journey By Melinda Loewenstein December 27, 2011 PHOTO CREDIT Jason Merritt/Getty Images With numerous blockbusters ("Lara Croft Tomb Raider," "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," "Kung Fu Panda") and an Oscar for "Girl, Interrupted" to her name, Angelina Jolie has stepped to the other side of the camera. Her celebrity status is international, and her humanitarian work with the U.N. and marriage to Brad Pitt have only added to her high profile. With her directorial debut, Jolie is looking to divert the spotlight from herself and raise global awareness. With "In the Land of Blood and Honey," Jolie takes on the controversial topic of the Bosnian war by setting a love story in the middle of the conflict.Falling Into the Film Jolie didn't set out to make a movie about the war. Rather, she wanted to study what happens to human beings during war to better understand post-conflict situations and find a way to help. Film was a natural choice, since that's what Jolie has spent her life doing. When she finished writing the script, she showed it to Pitt. "I just showed it to him as this private little experiment that was on my desk," says Jolie. After reading it, he encouraged her to make the movie. She was aware of the sensitive nature of the topic, so before moving forward, she sent the script to Bosnian Serbs, Muslim Serbs, and Croatians for feedback. Later, Jolie also sought feedback from the actors, who had all been affected by the war. Rade Serbedzija, who plays Nebojsa, credits her with being open to changes in the script so it would be more authentic. At his suggestion, Jolie changed some of the dialogue in the scene where Zana Marjanovic's character, Ajla, paints a portrait of Serbedzija's character. Jolie says her acting background made it easier to write the various roles: "I was able to flip characters in my head as if I was playing the different roles in order to write the different people, because you have to be one person and inhabit him and write from his voice, and then be her and write from her voice."Role Reversal Being an actor, Jolie was careful to make the audition process as painless as possible. Laughing, she says, "I kind of wanted to hire everybody or try to find something for everybody." She credits casting director Gail Stevens for making sure that actors got strong feedback even if they didn't get the part. "It was hard. I didn't want to put the actors through much." She had them do scenes as well as an interview on camera. She explains, "I pretty much cast them from that, and the people that I thought were going to be the ones, and I would say to Gail, 'What were they like when they came in? Were they nice to everybody? Were they humble? Were they gracious?' Because this was very important to me." Jolie then had the script sent without her name on it to the actors they wanted. "We kept our fingers crossed because we knew how sensitive it was."On Authenticity "When she called me and she said, 'I'm going to shoot it in both languages,' I was like, 'Well, wait a minute; you're a first-timer; we don't know the actors,' " producer Graham King recalls. But Jolie was passionate about it and sold him on the idea. Jolie didn't consider language while writing, but when it came time to adjust it to the authentic language, she made sure it was translated more than once: "A translator couldn't be just Bosnian Muslim or just Bosnian Serb or just Croatian, because even the translation would go slightly slanted to one side or the other." Generally they would do the first take in English, which helped the crew with the second take in the authentic language. "We understood exactly what was happening in the scene, and then when it changed languages, somehow in our minds we still understood what was happening completely. For example, the cameraman knew instinctually where to move in on that line because he somehow could feel that was that line," Jolie notes. After shooting in their native language the actors would often want to reshoot the English because their personalities and body language were different in their native language. While shooting she relied on the actors to help her check on performances: "So if Danijel had a big scene, I would pull Zana aside and say, 'It feels right for me emotionally, but textwise was there anything that I need to know?' " Acting Influences Directing Despite Jolie's first-time-director status, King notes that she had command of the set. Marjanovic says working with Jolie was great. "She's an actress, and it didn't feel like it was her first time directing at all. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she would just find an approach that was appropriate for the scene." Serbedzija compares Jolie's directing style to that of Clint Eastwood, and Goran Kostic, who plays Danijel, agrees. "Obviously they've been in front of the camera for such a long time, Clint and Angelina Jolie. And they understand the importance, and she allows time and space for us to bridge these troubles," he explains.The sensitive nature of the film made it especially important for Jolie to create a safe acting environment. One of the hardest days was when Jolie had to ask the old women to strip. "I hated it. I only shot it once." Because the women were Hungarian, she was speaking with them through a translator. "I think I must have gone up to them five times just to say 'Do they completely understand that the people inside have been directed; they've been told, and it's their job to laugh at them. They aren't laughing at them because they are getting naked; it's, they've been directed to do that, so please do not take it personally' and 'I'm so sorry that I need to ask them to do this, but for them to please know how much this is going to mean for people." She ended up having to shoot a lot of the reactions as cutaways, because the actors couldn't laugh at the women: "They kind of had a human reaction, and so then we had to do a cutaway when the women were gone." Jolie also feels that her acting background influenced her directing style: "I hoped that I was able to help the actors by giving them the space and the respect that they needed. I gave them what I always felt I needed when I was working, and I would protect Zana when there were scenes that she was very vulnerable or had to deal with sensuality or nudity, to be very considerate and only put in the film what is necessary for the storytelling. With the big emotional scenes I would kind of try to protect them from the crew, from the noise, from the, you know, so you just try to make these safe spaces and try to help them, because instinctually you know what you would need." Vanesa Glodjo (who plays Lejla) sums up Jolie's style by saying, "I think she fulfilled all her wishes as an actress first by writing the script and then by the way she directed us. I think she said, 'Okay, what I would adore; how would I love to be directed?' So that's how she did it."OUTTAKES "In the Land of Blood and Honey" was nominated for a 2012 Golden Globe for best foreign language film. Jolie says it will take a special project to get her back in the director's seat. Jolie wants to give her children a global experience, and the family has a home in Cambodia.

The American Horror Story Finale: Ryan Murphy Tells Us Who's Coming Back for Season 2

Dylan McDermott and Connie Britton [SPOILER WARNING: This story contains key plot details from Wednesday's season finale of American Horror Story. Read at your own risk.] American Horror Story really lived up to its name, huh? In the FX series' first season finale, the Harmons were finally reunited in the afterlife when Ben's vengeful former lover Hayden hanged him by the chandelier, staging it to look like a suicide. (You'll recall that Vivien and Violet, Ben's wife and daughter, already died, respectively, in childbirth and by overdosing on pills.) What were the top TV shows of 2011? So what does this mean for Season 2? Will Connie Britton and Dylan McDermott, who starred as Vivien and Ben, return to haunt the new owners of Murder House? Nope! "Those characters and those stories are done," creator Ryan Murphy told reporters Thursday morning. "Every season of the show will be a different haunting. Every season will have a beginning, a middle and an end. What you saw in the finale was the end of the Harmon house. The second season of the show will be a brand new home or building to haunt." Murphy says the show was always intended to be an anthology, with a new set of cast members and characters each season. But there will be some residual elements from Season 1. "Some of [the actors] will be coming back... so there will be familiar faces and also new faces on the show, but they will be playing completely different characters, creatures and monsters, etc." "Connie and Dylan will not be playing the leads of the show," Murphy reiterated. "But I'd love for them to come back and do something, albeit a different part or a smaller part or a cameo." He cites NY's Mercury Theatre, a troupe founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman in the 1930s, as an inspiration. "You have a cast of actors that you love and believe in and you just rotate them every season.... I have been getting a lot of calls from film actors who've always wanted to dabble in television." While Murphy declined to specify which original actors they are negotiating with to return for next season, he says, "I'd have them [all] back in a heartbeat." An announcement of new cast members and the second season story line is slated to come in February. Season 2 is tentatively scheduled to premiere in late September or October 2012. Who were the breakout stars of the year? Until then, Murphy says he's happy with the finale, in which the reunited ghost Harmons decorated the Christmas tree together. "I thought it was a great goodbye to those characters," he said. "I felt a lot of peace with how they ended up and I hope other people felt that as well. We're simply not interested in doing another season with all those people trapped in the house. The criticism had we done that would've been that it would be the same old thing. You really can't win sometimes... I can say with 100 percent optimism, I really think they will love the second season, perhaps even more so based on what we've cooked up." So what is in store for the second season? Murphy says there are plenty of tales to choose from, "Be it serial-killing stories, true crime stories or prison stories. Every year of the show is almost like a miniseries in itself.... The only thing I don't think I would do would be a season about vampires. The season we're planning now is very different from the California house approach." Murphy teases that there is a clue within the last three episodes that indicates exactly what next season will be about. Any guesses? What did you think of the American Horror Story finale? Will you miss the Harmon family? Hit the comments with your thoughts.

Vin Diesel Confirms Fast & Furious 7

The story's just TOO BIG for part 6.While chewing the fat and shooting the breeze during a photo-session for The Hollywood Reporter, Vin Diesel appears to have confirmed that a seventh Fast & Furious is already in the works. Shooting on the sixth hasn't even started yet, but the story that's being mapped out is apparently too massive to be contained in a single movie.The two films are being written simultaneously, according to Vin, although there's no indication of whether they'll be shooting back-to-back."With the success of this last one, and the inclusion of so many characters, and the broadening of scope, when we were sitting down to figure out what would fit into the real estate of number six, we didn't have enough space," Vin explains."We have to pay off this story, we have to service all of these character relationships, and when we started mapping all that out it just went beyond 110 pages. The studio said, 'You can't fit all that story in one damn movie!'"Without wishing to drop a spoiler on those who haven't yet caught the gloriously ludicrous Fast Five, it already seems that the next instalment will see the return of Michelle Rodriguez and Eva Mendes. So that, along with the presumable return of Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges, Matt Schulze, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot and, we certainly hope, Elsa Pataky and Dwayne Johnson, certainly indicates a lot of story to spread around. And then somewhere in there, there's the need to wreck some automobiles.It's not all about the cars though, Paul Walker believes; it's really about thefighting themes of brotherhood and family. "If the action was all it was, it would have fallen off a long time ago," Walker says. Let us know if you agree with that in the comments below. And tell us how long you can see the series continuing while you're there.Filming on Fast & Furious 6 gets going next year (after Diesel gets finished with Riddick 3), with Justin Lin at the helm, as he has been since Tokyo Drift. The release date is already set for May 27, 2013.

Brad Pitt Reveals What He, Sony Did to Save 'Moneyball'

Brad Pitt recalls it as "a dark weened for all of us." It was June 2009, and Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairman Amy Pascal and CEO Michael Lynton had pulled the plug on "Moneyball" only days before it was to go before cameras with Steven Soderbergh directing and Pitt starring, after five years of development and months of preproduction."It was really hard," recalls Pascal. "It was hard making that decision. It was really hard making it OK with Brad. I feel terrible because I think Steven Soderbergh is a wonderful director."But she couldn't go along with Soderbergh's last-minute rewrite of the script by Steven Zaillian, which had been built on an earlier script by Stan Chervin. Soderbergh planned to take a semi-documentary approach to what was already a sports story with questionable commercial appeal -- at a studio budget approaching $60 million."It was just a case of honest creative differences because that script didn't reflect all of our hopes and Sony's hopes and ambitions developed prior to Soderbergh coming on," says producer Michael De Luca, who had been working on the project since 2004 with producer Rachael Horovitz, who had acquired rights to Michael Lewis' best-selling novel in 2003.With $10 million already invested, Sony offered to let Pitt and Soderbergh take the movie in turnaround to another studio if they could make a deal for the $60 million production before it unraveled -- which meant in a matter of days. After a frantic weekend of activity led by Pitt's and Soderbergh's agents, however, there were no takers."Moneyball" had struck out; few films had ever come back from such a shutdown.Pitt was unhappy because he had a passion to play Billy Beane, the unconventional GM of the Oakland Athletics baseball club. "I'm a sucker for injustice stories," says Pitt, "and wanting to right the injustice."But Pitt was also realistic. "I understood that the numbers didn't add up for what Steven wanted to do with it," he says, adding that "the studio is the one writing the check, so I don't take offense to that."Neither Pitt nor Pascal, however, wanted to give up on "Moneyball."Pascal decided "Moneyball" would need additional leadership and work on the script to get it back on track. At the time, Sony was in production on "The Social Network," on which De Luca was also a producer. Pascal asked "Network" producer Scott Rudin and writer Aaron Sorkin to get involved with the baseball-themed story, and Pitt agreed to produce as well as star. "This was really complex, unconventional material," says Pitt, "so the more guns, the better. The more bright minds we have on this, the better."Pitt and Pascal each credit the other for reviving the movie. Pitt, says Pascal, is the "soul and spirit of this movie. He is the driving force behind it, in all of its troubled times and all the best times. He championed it all the way and never lost heart.""I was just glad they didn't scuttle it," says Pitt, "that instead what happened was Amy Pascal became our patron saint. She kept us alive."Pascal brought the budget down to $50 million, which included the $10 million already spent as well as Pitt's salary, which reportedly was more than $10 million. That left less than $30 million for all of the other cast salaries and to make the movie.Before accepting the assignment, Sorkin called Zaillian, who was on vacation in Rome when his phone rang. "I was standing on a side street just around the corner from the Pantheon," says Zaillian, recalling that Sorkin said "he was being asked to write some new scenes. And I said: 'That's better than dismantling the script. Try not to do that, if you can.' What I remembered most about the conversation was when I asked him what he'd do if I was calling to tell him what he was telling me. Without much hesitation, he said, 'I'd burn the studio down.' "Sorkin is an ardent baseball fan and had created the late-1990s TV series "Sports Night," so he was up for the challenge. "I was hired for three weeks and then again for another three weeks, and that turned into a year and a half," says Sorkin, who began revising the script while in his Boston hotel room during filming of "Network."Even after Sorkin's return to L.A., the work continued. "Brad would ride his motorcycle over to my house being chased by a couple carloads of paparazzi," recalls Sorkin. "I wanted Brad to do most of the talking. He'd speak generally about his love of character-driven movies from the '70s."Pitt had been a fan of Lewis' book but wasn't sure at first if he wanted to star after reading Chervin's early script. "They were trying for something more commercial, more comedic," says Pitt. "In reading the book and doing my research, I became obsessed with the deeper meaning within the book and a value system that was out of whack."Pitt meant that big-city teams have much more money for top players than small-market teams. He committed after a new script was written by Zaillian, which gave him the character he wanted to play: "It was a character I hadn't seen in a long time that was verbose, competitive and sharp."Although sorry to see Soderbergh go, Pitt still wanted to play Beane if they could find the right director and approach.So Sony began the search. As numerous names were tossed out, Pitt made a suggestion. "My dear friend Catherine Keener said, 'You've got to talk to Bennett Miller,' " he recalls.Miller, who hadn't directed since 2005's "Capote," is notoriously picky. "I got a call from [CAA's] Bryan Lourd asking if I was interested in baseball," he says. "I said I used to be. He said, 'If you're interested in taking a look at this thing, Brad would be interested in talking to you about it.'"Miller, who had met Pitt when trying to put together an earlier film, thought it over for three weeks. He read Lewis' book, Chervin's draft, Zaillian's script and Sorkin's, then flew to L.A. full of doubt about doing a studio film with "strong and powerful personalities." He wondered, "Would I be able to do what I'm interested in doing?"Miller isn't a baseball fanatic, and he pitched Pitt on the idea of making a movie that was "subversive to the genre. It's not really a conventional sports movie. It puts all that stuff on its head.""I wasn't interested in making a sports movie, just recycling tropes and convention," adds Miller. "Then I'd just be a gun for hire, working for the studio. But the question was, How do you avoid that? Brad said it will be a Trojan horse. We will give them the gift of a Hollywood movie starring Brad Pitt that's going to be real entertainment, but inside it is some cargo that is not really accepted in a vintage way, something that they don't anticipate."Pascal also signed off on Miller's concept, explaining that the director "had a wonderful vision for the movie. Scott, Rachael and Mike and I all believed he was fantastic with actors, and this movie was going to be about performance and getting inside the characters because it was really a character study."So Miller got the go-ahead to assemble his team, while Zaillian and Sorkin continued, separately, to write new pages. Each sent their contributions to Miller, who would then edit them together."Passing a script back and forth, obviously, isn't the most enjoyable way to work and is usually a recipe for disaster," Zaillian says of their tag-team approach. "Important things can get lost in the shuffle. But at the end of the day, difficult as it was, it worked.""Steve and I were now working at the same time," says Sorkin, "concentrating on different runs of scenes. It wasn't an ideal situation, but the point was, 'Whatever it takes to cross the finish line.' We were both courting the same girl, but we'd both invested way too much at that point to let ego stop us."Rudin, meanwhile, served as a kind of coach, overseeing work on the script and providing Miller with insights almost always in tune with the director's goals.For his crew, Miller looked for crafts people interested in making a studio film with an indie spirit. Cinematographer Wally Pfister had just worked with director Christopher Nolan on the big-budget "Inception," for which he won an Oscar, but had started on indies like Memento and as a news-documentary photographer in Washington."He had a sensibility that suits me and the film," says Miller. "The film has a quality not so much of telling a story but observing a story. The films I like are the ones that are not pedantic, that are not in your face, but the ones that reveal a story. He's never artificial."Production designer Jess Gonchor had collaborated with the Coen brothers on movies with an indie spirit such as "No Country for Old Men." For "Moneyball," Gonchor says: "We just wanted to keep it real. It was something real that happened that we were re-creating."Working on a razor-thin budget, he created the underbelly of the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum -- the players' locker room, the weight room, the coach's offices and a video room that became an extension of Billy Beane's office -- right on a Sony soundstage.Since there was no money to shoot in the eight different ballparks the A's visited, Gonchor dressed Dodger Stadium for three intense days of production to cover all those bases. He had less than two weeks to shoot the exteriors in the Oakland Coliseum, sometimes shooting at night because the A's were playing during the day. Other shots of Oakland actually were done in Long Beach and Glendale. They had a single day to shoot a crucial scene in Boston's Fenway Park, and it rained that day. The gloomy sky became a backdrop.Every set, location, uniform and piece of equipment had to be approved by Major League Baseball, which was cooperating with Sony, making the situation more complex. But Gonchor says they never interfered and often added ways to make the film more authentic.When Soderbergh proposed mixing interviews with real players into his story, he was shut down. But in his own quest for authenticity, Miller hired real players, scouts, umpires, executives and groundskeepers, whom he then mixed in with his actors.When his own schedule opened up, Philip Seymour Hoffman, who had starred in Miller's "Capote," called to say, "Have you cast the role yet of Art Howe?" Miller recalls, "We were on the verge of casting it, but had not yet, so I said, 'I'd love you to do it.' "For Peter Brand, the unlikely math genius recruited by Beane, Miller turned to Jonah Hill, whom he had known for five years. Hill was "desperate to change things," the director explains. "He was very funny in movies like 'The 40 Year Old Virgin,' but he had become stuck in that box and he wanted out of that box.""I love making comedies," says Hill. "It's amazing and a gift, but I am eager to do different types of roles. My worst fear is that at the end of my career they would say, 'He only did one thing over and over again.' I hope I'm going to have the opportunity to do many different things." (See "Inside Jonah Hill's Head," below.)Miller's biggest challenge was finding the right girl to play Beane's daughter. He saw dozens of young actresses before 13-year-old Kerris Dorsey came in and blew him away. "Not only was she perfect out of the gate," says Miller, "but the song she sang sent chills down my spine because it was impossibly perfect in every way."Her song, Lenka's "The Show," and the instrumental track "The Mighty Rio Grande" by This Will Destroy You are the only music among 23 pieces in the film that were not written by composer Mychael Danna. His goal was not to lay on music to force an emotional response but rather to use music to support the story. "It was important to Bennett and I that the music come from the material," says Danna, a Canadian who also worked on "Capote." "Baseball is a tradition-loving sport, and we wanted to use traditional [instruments] but come up with a new, slightly unexpected take."When principal photography ended after 58 days, Miller faced his greatest challenge: editing down not only footage he had shot but also hundreds of hours of archival material. He laughed when a Sony executive presented him with a postproduction schedule lasting 12 weeks. "I looked at it for 15 seconds and said, 'That's ridiculous,' " Miller says. "That's not going to happen."Instead, he spent the next 36 weeks editing in Los Angeles while working with his producers and two writers to refine the final script.Pitt frequently came by. "I'm really into the structure and putting together the puzzle and seeing what was working and what wasn't," he says. "I enjoy it, but I don't dictate."When Miller finally presented his director's cut, he was nervous about how it would be received. His cut was long and had an indie sensibility. He knew it wasn't a typical glossy commercial movie.It turned out he didn't need to worry. "There was such a great feeling when the lights came up and everyone felt we had done the right thing," recalls De Luca. "This was a movie that deserved its day in court."The test audience and a focus group afterward confirmed the feeling that the screening had evoked in the producers and studio executives."It was very emotional," says Horovitz. "I remember Amy Pascal and I both being teary-eyed when we saw the director's cut.""It scored beyond people's imagination and expectations," says Miller of the movie, which has gone on to beat the odds, grossing more than $74?million domestically and nearly $100 million worldwide since its Sept. 23 release. "We lived to fight another day." The Hollywood Reporter

ICM preps for publish-Rizvi future

Modern Household is most likely the suggests which have situated ICM and Rizvi Traverse Management to earn stout TV packaging-fee gold gold coin. SilbermannBergChris Silbermann spent nearly all this year driving toward the handshake agreement showed up at Friday to alter ICM in to a partner-possessed percentery, six years after it increased being the guinea pig website hosting equity possibilities in Hollywood's repetition business.The ICM prexy spent several days effective the agency's majority owner, Rizvi Traverse Management, that ICM's extended-term stability hinged on having the ability to keep top agents inside the fold and motivated. Inside the percentery world, motivation is doled to key players as partner status, huge bonuses or possibly an equity stake (even if basically a sliver) inside the agency.ICM hasn't had the chance to supply people perks because the possession remains so carefully held among Birmingham, Mich.-based Rizvi Traverse as well as the agency's top echelon, including Silbermann and ICM's longtime chairman-Boss, Rob Berg. Once the restructuring deal is finished, Silbermann's challenge would be to keep ICM competitive after making what comes lower to some large wager round the agency since it stands today.Experts mentioned ICM might be attractive just like a merger or acquisition target since there is no more an outdoors investor to cope with. However, industry sources mentioned ICM quietly examined the waters for just about any possible deal and among its bigger rivals taken and situated no takers (this remains declined by ICM affiliates, however).The campaign for just about any restructuring began early this year, as Silbermann stressed the requirement of the organization to own more flexibility in having to pay its finest adding factors and rewarding its up-and-comers.By multiple accounts, it absolutely was slow choosing for Silbermann with Rizvi Traverse prexy Suhail Rizvi and chief financial officer Ben Kohn, who runs their L.A. office and contains minded its acquisition of ICM. (Rizvi Traverse also provides possibilities in Summit Entertainment, Playboy magazine, Facebook.)Berg was mentioned being less intent than Silbermann on acquiring an offer done quickly with Rizvi until recently, when ICM began to eliminate prominent agents, including four defections to UTA.The inside drama spurred endless industry chatter of a boardroom fight for control raging between Berg and Silbermann. Knowledgeable sources have consistently downplayed the talk of extreme discord involving the two. Sources also stressed the pact revealed to ICM staffers on Friday (with little detail) won't have happened had Berg not been onboard, given his possession fascination with the organization, whether they have labored more than four decades.Berg orchestrated the 2005 deal with Rizvi Traverse that gave the organization an thought $75 million in recapitalization gold gold coin. It absolutely was a preliminary nowadays within this era for just about any Hollywood talent agency together with a personal equity finance concern. The Rizvi war chest allowed ICM to obtain Broder Webb Chervin Silbermann in 2006, getting its giant lit clients which is respected management team into ICM, which anxiously needed the completely new blood stream on fronts.A good investment has by all accounts been worth keeping for Rizvi Traverse, as ICM has received a windfall of TV packaging-fee profits within the off-network success of shows including "two and a half Males," "The Big Bang Theory," "Modern Family," "House," "Criminal Minds" and "Grey's Anatomy."Particulars in the restructuring deal remain murky, nevertheless it appears that Rizvi Traverse will cede numerous its equity fascination with ICM to have the ability to allow Silbermann and Berg to produce really its top artists into equity-owner positions.The sale was shown by people aware just like a "transfer of possession" for the new partnership instead of a proper management buyout, plus it was stressed that there is little rotate inside the transaction. Because of that, it's expected that Rizvi Traverse will hold onto a considerable chunk of ICM's best receivables ("Large Bang Theory" alone will generate 100s of vast amounts for your agency in later on through its syndie certification pacts).The quantity of agents in line for elevation to partner status remains unclear (one source mentioned "greater than two and under 100"). It'll encompass heavy gamers from within the agency's key divisions: TV, film, posting, legit, marketing, concerts and touring. Berg's and Silbermann's game game titles will most likely change beneath the partnership structure.Silbermann is mentioned to look for the reorg as relaxing the work for organic growth. Anticipation is the partnership structure will bolster the organization towards the top and supply new incentive up to the more youthful ranks. Contact Cynthia Littleton at cynthia.littleton@variety.com

Selena Gomez Is Really A Spring Breaker

Disney star teams with Harmony KorineYou're the star of the Disney Funnel series, with a little of the pop career quietly, along with a boyfriend known as Attacking Young Boys. So what's the next project? Why, a movie through the director of Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy and Trash Humpers, obviously. Selena Gomez just became a member of Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers. That seem frequency higher is Uncle Wally spinning in the cryo-chamber.Spring Breakers does really seem abnormally mainstream for Korine, although considering the fact that his last film involved masked octogenarian tramps making love with dustbins, it's all regulated relative. This a person's four college women cutting loose and funding their springbreak by slowly destroying a cafe or restaurant. When they are arrested and jailed, then they end up entangled using the drug-runner who bailed them out, and who desires these to whack his primary competitor.James Franco has already been mounted on take part in the dope dealer, and Vanessa Hudgens and Emma Roberts are aboard as a couple of the 4 girlie reprobates. So by our elaborate information, which means there's yet another gang-member to become cast, since Gomez is Girl Three."I am really excited," Gomez told MTV. "It is a different character than I have ever performed before, along with a different type of vibe, I believe, than people are utilized to seeing me in. What you are likely to see is much more raw, I believe. It will likely be raw and much more about acting."Shooting begins - when else? - early in the year. And don't forget, The Actor-brad Pitt only agreed to be a teenager TV posterboy until he met John Waters and Tim Burton. At the minimum, this ought to be one step up from Monte Carlo for that celebrity.

Muslim TV series spurs backlash

The TLC series "All-American Muslim" is compelling complaints from right-wing extremist groups declaring they have effectively compelled marketers to drag from the program. One particular organization, Florida Family Association, published an e-mail on its website it alleges to possess received from national store Lowe's Home Centers showing that the organization has withdrawn advertisements. "You will find certain programs that don't meet Lowe's advertising recommendations, such as the demonstrate introduced to the attention." That letter consequently spurred reaction Thursday from Muslim civil-protections group Council on American-Islamic Relations decrying the withdrawal. "Some 'All-American Muslim' marketers have apparently secured towards the hate-filled sights from the boycott's marketers," read a CAIR pr release. Lowe's has yet to reply to a request comment. A TLC speaker rejected comment. "Muslim" is definitely an unscripted series that opened recently around the Discovery Systems-possessed cable funnel following a lives of several middle-class American Muslim families in Dearborn, Mich. FFA, which states its goal as "enhancing America's moral atmosphere" in the mission statement, has belittled the series to be "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's obvious and offer danger to American protections and traditional values." CAIR also calls out other groups which have websites inviting its site visitors to complete forms that send messages lamenting "Muslim" to taking part marketers. These orgs claim that they can have motivated numerous entrepreneurs to drag from the show, though in some instances messages from individuals companies published online don't suggest they're doing so in reaction to requires boycott. "The program's detractors are utilizing every stereotype within the book to defame American Muslims and also to demonize Islam," stated Nihad Awad, national executive direcor of CAIR inside a statement. Though Lowe's message has not yet been clarified by the organization, it's already inspired a backlash on Twitter from customers upset that the organization might have drawn from "Muslim" because of pressure from hate groups. "Dear @lowes you are able to hug my company farewell,Inch tweeted @ArabVoicesSpeak. Contact Andrew Wallenstein at andrew.wallenstein@variety.com

Who Are the Most Bankable Stars in Hollywood?

Earlier this fall, Forbes figured out which dead celebrities are still making millions from the grave. In the continual spirit of measuring Hollywood stars by their bank accounts, Forbes has calculated which of today’s actors and actresses provide studios with the best return on their investments. Can you guess the five most bankable stars in Hollywood today? I’m betting that you can name at least two… If you correctly listed the following young ones, pat yourself on the back and feel free to brag away below: 1. Kristen Stewart - For every $1 Stewart is paid, her films earn an average $55.83. 2. Anne Hathaway - For every $1 Hathway is paid, her films earn an average $45.67. 3. Robert Pattinson - For every $1 Pattinson is paid, his films earn an average $39.43. 4. Daniel Radcliffe - For every $1 Radcliffe is paid, his films earn an average $34.24. 5. Shia LaBeouf - For every $1 LaBeouf is paid, his films earn an average $29.40. For the record, for every $1 I am paid, Target earns an average of 43 cents. For the complete list of bankable stars, which includes a few surprise names, head on over to Forbes. Hollywood’s Best Actors for the Buck [Forbes]

Social Power Rankings: You People Are Totally Grossed Out By Virgins Kissing

Virgin Diaries The people have spoken, and they are all saying one thing: TLC's Virgin Diaries is going to be better than your first time. On Wednesday, we posted a preview of the new series (which premieres Sunday at 9/8c) about, among other virgins, a "sexually inexperienced" couple who waited until their wedding to share an agonizingly awkward first kiss. Some of you had something to say about it. As a result, the as-yet-unaired show is No. 1 in our Social Power Rankings, the list of the most talked-about shows of the week. "Between that pic and the video, it looks like a promo for the second half of The Walking Dead," cracked TVGuide.com commenter bobby-j. On Facebook, Steve Franco wondered aloud why Hollywood hadn't better taught them to kiss. "None of them saw any of the John Hughes movies from the '80s?" he asks. (Ah, Samantha Baker, Jake Ryan, The Thompson Twins, by birthday-cake candlelight...) Another hot topic this week: Was Drew's elimination on The X Factor premature? Check back anytime to see the latest Social Power Rankings, which are updated in real time throughout the week.

NOVEMBER SWEEP: CBS Late Show Tops Tonight For first Amount Of Time In 17 Years, Late Late Show Posts First Victory Over Late Evening

NBC’s primetime worries are starting to spill into late-evening. Both Tonight Show With Jay Leno and Late Evening With Jimmy Fallon experienced double-digit year-to-year declines recently, giving CBS’ late-evening selection historic wins. Late Show With David Letterman (.9/4 in 18-49, 3.41 million total audiences) published its first November sweep victory within the Tonight Show (.8/3, 3.60 million) among grown ups 18-49 in 17 years, since Late Show‘s second season in 1994. Late Show being in 18-49 versus. last November (lower 8% as a whole audiences), while Tonight Show was lower 20% (4% as a whole audiences). The second still won as a whole audiences. CBS’ Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson (.6/3 in 18-49, 1.63 million) was the only real late-evening show around the broadcast systems to develop year-to-year in 18-49. It had been up 20% (lower 7% as a whole audiences) to publish the franchise’s first demo November sweep victory over NBC’s Late Evening (.5/3, 1.73 million). The second show, presently located by Jimmy Fallon, was lower 17% year-to-year and flat as a whole audiences, a category it won. ABC’s Due To Jimmy Kimmel Live! (.6/3, 1.97 million) tied Craig Ferguson and beat Fallon. It had been in 18-49 versus. this past year called the only broadcast late-evening show to publish development in total audiences, up 7%.