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Joel Silver
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unsafe at any speed
Joel Silver Leaving Warners! Except He's Not! Let Him Get Back to You!
As if a third-place opening wasn't bad enough for Speed Racer producer Joel Silver, Page Six today added a liberal dose of existential crisis to the mix when it reported Silver may have flopped for Warner Bros. for the last time. "For the past few months, he's been trying to get his deal extended, but the thinking at Warner is maybe just let his contract run out," its source says — but wait! Silver himself told Nikki Finke yesterday that he's sought no such extension! But his contract still isn't being renewed! We're so confused — help us, Joel! More »
speed racer
Amateur Publicist Joel Silver Has Wachowskis' Backs For the Last Time
In a loooooong video interview with David Poland over at Movie City News, producer Joel Silver chats about the prismatic, pyrotechnic up and downs of his career — the latter of which the bomb Speed Racer likely entered in the time since the modulated mogul sat for this conversation. And while he eventually acknowledges still dreading opening weekends and the Saturday morning silence that follows his weaker openings, he wastes little time defending the Wachowskis' career-suffocating reclusion and his role as de facto mouthpiece: "It ends up being harder for me because I end up being the voice for them. I wish sometimes they'd speak for themselves because they're much smarter than I am, and they're much more articulate than I am. ... I just listen to them relate to everybody and I say, 'Here's what they think.' That's how it happens." No, Joel — we think you mean that's how it happened. Time for a change, big guy. [The Hot Blog]
rants
The Wachowskis Still in Hiding as 'Speed Racer' Circles the Drain
For all its confectionery imagery, Christina Ricci scene-stealing and the few other things Speed Racer gets right, it still faces a box-office false start that could make Leatherheads look like a hit in comparison. We sketched a few of the hurdles here yesterday (number one being its own studio's resignation to its underachievement), but at this point there's only one that counts: Larry and Andy Wachowski need to climb out of their hole.
It might be self-serving of us to suggest they publicize their films, and in a way, we empathize with their reclusion; Larry Wachowski has been the subject of sex-change and dominatrix-dating speculation since a feminized version of himself — earrings, plucked eyebrows, manicure — showed up on the Matrix Revolutions red carpet in Cannes five years ago with mistress Ilsa Strix (née Karen Winslow) on his arm. The siblings later sneaked into the New York premiere of V For Vendetta (which they wrote and co-produced), and last week in Los Angeles they went positively presidential with subterfuge at the debut of Speed Racer. "They did not do the red-carpet press line at the Nokia Theatre on Saturday, and were well-camouflaged during the after-party," wrote Borys Kit in The Hollywood Reporter. "Photographers were sworn to secrecy as to their whereabouts, and Warner Bros. assigned handlers the mission of keeping journalists off the scent."
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hollywood genderwatch
Update: Larry Wachowski Probably Still A Dude
Yesterday, the internets were ablaze with rumors (well, really, one rumor) that allegedly gender-shuffling Matrix co-director Larry Wachowski had finally completed a long-whispered-about sex change, opting to spend the rest of his life as a woman named Lana who would haunt the dreams of every embattled publicist unlucky enough to be assigned to subsequent Wachowski Family films. Troubled by the swiftly spreading report, Fox 411's Roger Friedman put in some calls, and today is satisfied that Larry is still happily beschlonged:
On Wednesday, I had lovely chats with people at the sound studio in Germany where the Wachowskis have been making the live action version of the Japanese cartoon "Speed Racer." The folks I spoke to got quite a kick out of the whole thing.More »I asked one man in building operations, "Have you seen Larry lately? Does he have breasts now, as rumored? Is he wearing a dress, wondering if it's making him look fat?"
hollywood out of ideas
Joel Silver Ready To Resurrect He-Man
It's been 20 years since Hollywood pooped out Dolph Lungren vehicle Masters of the Universe, the big-screen version of the moderately beloved (let's be honest here: it was no Thundercats) 1980s after-school toy infomercial, so in keeping with the industry's loosely observed Two Decade Rule for the re-adaptation of previously exploited material, superproducer Joel Silver and Warner Bros. now feel enough time has passed to do another He-Man movie. The early plans already sound as if the creative team isn't going to sidestep the Gay He-Man Question, as recent queer-cinema blockbuster 300 is cited as an inspiration for their vision; once the deal is finalized and the script finished, production should begin on a cavernous Warner Bros. soundstage, where the prodigiously muscled, well-oiled actors playing He-Man, Ram-Man, and Fisto will gather in front of a green screen to battle the six-packed legions of darkness led by a liberally pierced Skeletor and equally terrifying, orally fixated henchman Trap-Jaw. More »
trade roundup
Trade Round-Up: Silver Trying To Take 'Wonder Woman' Competition Off The Market
· Jennifer Garner seeks to emasculate husband Ben Affleck by proving that at least one person in their household can carry a holiday-themed comedy, signing on to star in the remake of the 1945 movie Christmas in Connecticut for Warner Bros. [Variety]· Warner Bros. and Joel Silver, who have been developing a Wonder Woman movie to be written and directed by fanboy-sainted Buffy creator Joss Whedon, are "quietly" trying to buy another Wonder Woman script, possibly to cover their asses in the event its writers decide to sue because their "getting it on in the invisible jet" scene is too similar to the one in the eventual WB product. [THR]
· Unfaithful co-stars Richard Gere and Diane Lane reunite for the Nicholas Sparks adaptation Nights in Rodanthe for Warner Bros. [Ed.note—Is today Warner Bros. Day at the trades?], in which they hope to recapture the carnal chemistry they enjoyed in their previous collaboration. [Variety]
· American Idol continues to destroy everything in its path. Interestingly, its Nielsen halo effect is now even boosting its lead-ins, bringing Bones its highest ratings in a year. [THR]
· In speculating about how moving beloved, but ratings-challenged, Friday Night Lights to a better timeslot might improve the show's chances of survival, Var invokes the name of Freaks and Geeks, the standard by which all beloved-but-ratings-challenged-series- that-were-killed-off-too-quickly are judged. [Variety]
entourage
Page Six Doesn't Know 'Entourage' Is Make Believe
Page Six understandably may not be quite on their game lately, but something in today's item about another one of those Entourage episodes shot at a real! live! Lakers game has made us wonder if their editors' sanity has begun to crack under the payola-spotlight pressure: More »
joel silver
Getting Your Silvers Straight
Page Six is having some trouble keeping their various Hollywood Silvers straight, with an item running today identifying V for Vendetta's producer as Ron Silver celebrated star of Timecop and the woefully shortlived Fox porn industry drama Skin instead of superproducer Joel Silver, the man who brought the world Swordfish (the movie, not the entree), and Ultimate Frisbee (the sport, not the movie). If you should run into either one at a function, we'd typically suggest printing and saving the above side-by-side to tell them apart; but let's face it from a few paces away and after a couple of glasses of chardonnay, we'd probably fall victim to an embarrassing misidentified producer faux pas, too. Best to simply corner them, and repeat "Love your work, Mr. Silver," until they grow weary of the gushy formalities and tell you to "Just call me Ron/Joel, alright?" seconds before ducking out, thereby relieving you of any unwanted awkwardness. More »
joel silver
The Ultimate Joel Silver
Please excuse us if this is common knowledge that we're only stumbling upon now in our morning stupor, but we had absolutely no idea that notoriously, er, intense superproducer Joel Silver invented (or helped invent) Ultimate Frisbee, the sport that launched a thousand bong hits. But being the Hollywood animal that he is, Silver's baring his producing fangs to the director of a documentary about the game: More »
robert downey jr
What I Did on My Detox Vacation, By Robert Downey Jr.
Sitting down with the Associated Press at the Toronto Film Festival back in September to promote his new movie Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, Robert Downey Jr., the poster boy for drug abuse, made one thing crystal clear:
"I think part of my destiny has to be realizing that I'm not the poster boy for drug abuse," Downey told The AP at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Fine. If he isn't its poster boy, then he's its billboard man. You literally cannot take your eyes off him; he's like a particularly excruciating Jenga tower just waiting to topple over. More »
joel silver
Win Joel Silver's Acrimony: Auction A "Mistake"
Shortly after we wrote about the charity auction of a two-week internship having one's flesh melted off the bone in uber-producer Joel Silver's Hollywood crucible, the auction was abruptly ended, and a spokesperson from Warner Bros. got in touch to inform us that the auction "wasn't real." (We did get assurances that it wasn't unreal in the "hoax" sense.) Fortunately, someone did a better job of explaining the details of the auction's irreality to Variety: More »
joel silver
The Larchmont Charter School is holding an eBay charity auction for the opportunity to spend two weeks as an intern embedded within [Ed.note—How do we say this without winding up an orphan with cracked ribs?] famously passionate uber-producer Joel Silver's office. The description:
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Win Joel Silver's Acrimony
The Larchmont Charter School is holding an eBay charity auction for the opportunity to spend two weeks as an intern embedded within [Ed.note—How do we say this without winding up an orphan with cracked ribs?] famously passionate uber-producer Joel Silver's office. The description:
More »
