Matt Damon to Make His Directorial Debut with Father Daughter Time?
First time you hear Father Daugher Time, it sounds like one of those titles on posts where they are shooting big projects at everyday locations (remember Rory’s First Kiss?). But alas, this title is true to its name and is already considered a huge project. Father Daughter Time: A Tale of Armed Robbery and Eskimo Kisses, written by Matthew Alrdich, is about a man who goes on the lam with his daughter on a three-state crime spree. This film is already under the watchful eye of various studios with one ahead of the four.
Deadline is reporting that Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures, Relativity Media, Walter Parkes, and Matt Damon and Chris Moore have made offers to buy the script. But Warner Brothers has already made the moves to be the one studio with the exclusive rights to produce the pic, with Matt Damon likely to star in and make his directorial debut.
According to the site, Alrdich wasn’t looking for making a deal and just wanted to make a movie. With five parties vying for the rights of the film, it looks as though he got more than he bargined for. But the scribe said that “The script is not high concept, it’s a smallish, very personal, dark but playful road movie about a father and daughter.”
Intially Alrdich was worried that his script would become a big budget film and he wants to keep it in the spirit of the indie film. But with the possibility of Matt Damon being involved in both an acting and directing capacity, there is a chance that it could stay true to Alrdich’s vision.
“When one of the biggest movie stars in the world, who also happens to be an Academy Award-winning screenwriter, gets on the phone with your client and offers to protect the writer’s vision and opens his hand to be a creative partner, it’s hard to say no,” Ross said. “The money becomes secondary. This script is not the obvious studio movie. There are no explosions. It will require delicate handling. Avoiding years of development hell was our goal.”
Considering that Damon has starred in some of the biggest and smallest projects with some of the best directors in Hollywood, one has to wonder what we can expect from the actor should he decide to direct. It’s possible that we could see some Coen Brothers, George Clooney, and Clint Eastwood influences on this film, and I think this small indie film is perfect way for the actor to to possible kick start his directing career.
Matt Damon, Colin Firth Named To TIME 100
TIME has released its 2011 list of the 100 Most Influential People – and we’re happy to see some familiar Hollywood activists making the cut.
For their efforts to help fund clean water projects throughout the developing world, Matt Damon and Gary White – co-founders of Water.org – were honored in a piece written by Ted Danson. “Their message is one of hope; their solutions for providing access to clean water are simple and cost effective,” praises the actor. “And their work gives us an opportunity to change lives forever.”
We’ve given a lot of credit to Damon in the past for his efforts to help raise awareness on the water crisis – so it’s great to see him being recognized here. “Matt and I, along with our staff, partners, donors, and long-time supporters believe we can achieve universal access to safe water in our lifetime,” said White. “We know there will never be enough charity to fully realize our vision so it requires us to continually look to new ideas and ways to reach more people more quickly – something we have been doing since our founding.”
Best Actor winner Colin Firth was also singled out for his work both on and off the camera. “The two sides of Colin, 50, inform each other,” writes Helen Mirren. “He can be the glamorous celebrity, but look closely at photos of him on the red carpet: there is a kindness in his eyes, an introspection and consideration. He actively pursues a deeper understanding of the world around him, and his humanitarianism gives a depth and wisdom to his performances.”
Besides his work with Oxfam, Firth has also lobbied for the Make Trade Fair campaign, Amnesty International, and Survival International, and has won various awards for his efforts, such as the European Voice Campaigner of the Year award, The Hollywood Reporter’s inaugural Philanthropist of the Year award, as well as the BAFTA Britannia Humanitarian Award.
The 2011 TIME 100
Matt Damon and Gary White
Activists
Being a celebrity is like being a 5-year-old in a room with all the adults staring at you. It’s easy to spin out of control. But if you redirect the energy coming at you to a cause you care about, it can be very powerful.In Matt Damon’s case, what he wants you to know is that every 15 minutes a child under the age of 5 dies because of a lack of clean water and sanitation and it doesn’t have to be that way. Matt, 40, teamed up with Gary White, 48, a longtime expert in water-supply systems, in 2009 and created Water.org. Their message is one of hope; their solutions for providing access to clean water are simple and cost effective. And their work gives us an opportunity to change lives forever.
Damon, Douglas to lock lips in Liberace
Actor Matt Damon has revealed he is looking forward to lock lips with Michael Douglas for their new movie.
Damon will play Douglas’ lover in a movie about gay piano legend Liberace.
“It’s scripted that there’s more than one. I never thought I would get to kiss Michael Douglas,” contactmusic quoted Damon as saying.
Douglas, who revealed in January that he is in remission for stage four throat cancer, is equally enthusiastic about the project.
“I’m just going to get really comfortable so it’s not a caricature. Matt Damon’s going to be my younger lover. God bless Matt. I saw Matt and I was teasing him. I was saying, ‘Bring a lot of ChapStick, babe,” said Douglas.
The film will be helmed by Steven Soderbergh.
GQ Australia Q&A with Matt Damon
No matter how big a star he’s become (and thanks to the Bourne franchise, he’s become very big indeed) Matt Damon has always seemed refreshingly removed from the silliness of showbiz. Following the birth of his fourth daughter, the Harvard drop-out, activist and aspiring director is even more determined to play the Hollywood game on his own terms.
In a midtown hotel suite, Matt Damon looks intently at the view over Manhattan. He points out the Brooklyn Bridge, where a key scene in his latest film, The Adjustment Bureau, was filmed. In dark jeans, a white T-shirt and brown lace-up boots, with a turned-up nose and pale blue eyes, he looks, well, just like you’d expect Matt Damon to look, though at 178cm, perhaps slightly shorter.
Directed by George Nolfi (a screenwriter on The Bourne Ultimatum) and based on a Philip K Dick short story, The Adjustment Bureau is a sort of Sliding Doors love story, with Damon’s politician running around Manhattan’s streets in pursuit of a ballerina called Elise (Emily Blunt). But the forces of fate, led by Mad Men’s John Slattery, seem to keep them apart. At least, that seems to be the plot from a collection of film clips journalists were shown. The final cut wasn’t yet available.
No matter, Oscar-winner Damon has plenty more movies on his dance card. There’s the Coen brothers’ True Grit, which came out in January, plus Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion and Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo, both slated for release this year.
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Hereafter home video sales to benefit Japan relief efforts
The Matt Damon-starring movie “Hereafter” was pulled from theaters in Japan earlier this week, and Warner Bros. is using the film’s Tuesday release on DVD and Blu-ray as a way to raise money for relief efforts.
According to the L.A. Times, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is donating an unspecified percentage of DVD and Blu-ray sales to the Japanese Red Cross Society following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit the nation last Friday. Those familiar with the matter tell the Times that the donation will be in the ballpark of $1 million.
The Clint Eastwood-directed film focuses on grief and the afterlife, but it does contain a scene depicting a tsunami wreaking havoc on a coastal town. It’s been playing in Japan since February. A Warner Bros. rep explained to CNN, “In deference to the tragic unfolding events in Japan, we have pulled ‘Hereafter’ from the theaters.”
The Warner Bros. rep added that the opening of Anthony Hopkins’ horror thriller “The Rite,” which was originally scheduled to bow this weekend in Japan, has been postponed.
Matt Damon is a great actor, but after The Adjustment Bureau can he finally become a romantic star?
Quick, what’s the oddest thing about Matt Damon’s career? The obvious answer is that he has played a lot of oddballs. The drug-addled Gulf War veteran of Courage Under Fire (a role for which he lost 40 pounds — and he wasn’t exactly chunky beforehand). The troubled megamind of Good Will Hunting. The moody parasite-sociopath of The Talented Mr. Ripley. The amnesiac ex-government fighting-and-killing machine of the Bourne films. The lost-inside-himself CIA cipher of The Good Shepherd. The whistleblower-without-a-twinge-of-idealism in The Informant! The melancholy psychic of Hereafter. No question about it: For an actor who has long resembled a clean, upstanding, gleaming-white-toothed Boy Scout, and who now looks like a slightly older Boy Scout, Matt Damon has spent a long time going out of his way to cast himself against type.
But that’s still not the oddest thing about his career. That would be the fact that, in nearly 15 years as a major movie star (I’m dating his leap to leading man status from the explosive success of Good Will Hunting), Matt Damon has never starred in a romantic comedy. Not once. He has never tried to lighten his image, or rebound after a box-office failure, or simply play the game by agreeing to do some fluffy-sexy chick flick in which he plays a carefree executive bachelor who flirts with, gets taken down a peg by, and falls for Julia/Sandra/Jennifer/Kate/ Renée/Drew/etc.
The desire to steer clear of those kinds of movies has been an almost ideological decision on Damon’s part, and for anyone who follows him, it’s a choice with a ready explanation: Chick flicks are Hollywood at its most cheesy, formulaic, corporate, and even embarrassing — for the most part, they’re happy-face gobs of product masquerading as movies — and Matt Damon is not a cheesy guy, and not a formulaic or corporate actor either. He doesn’t make movies he doesn’t believe in. That’s why he’s virtually the only actor of his generation who was able to become an action star and hold fast to his integrity while doing it. The Bourne films aren’t quite works of art, but they’re super-smart about exciting audiences. They’re thrill rides with a vision.
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ReThink Review: The Adjustment Bureau — Love, Fate and Magic Hats
For millennia, mankind has wondered whether humans have free will and make our own decisions, or if Fate, God or gods are really pulling the strings and controlling our unalterable destinies. In The Adjustment Bureau, Matt Damon plays David Norris, a New York congressman who is told by shadowy, fedora-wearing supernatural agents of predestination that his promising future cannot include Elise, a dancer played by Emily Blunt, who Norris meets and falls for in a chance encounter on the eve of a big election. See the trailer below.
Perhaps the strongest parts of The Adjustment Bureau are the early scenes between Norris and Elise as their paths cross over several years. The chemistry between Damon and Blunt is undeniable, making it easy to understand why Norris remains so smitten with her despite the Bureau’s threats. And Damon, a close follower of politics who has donated generously to democrats, displays a facility with campaign mannerisms that makes you wonder if he’ll eventually run for office.
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The Adjustment Bureau Washington Post Review
Critic Rating: 4.5/5
When ‘Blade Runner’ meets Alfred Hitchcock
By Ann Hornaday
Friday, March 4, 2011God is in the details. So are the best movies.
“The Adjustment Bureau,” an enormously entertaining speculative thriller starring Matt Damon, would earn its kudos for ambition alone. An adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story, this is a movie of myriad genres and tonal gradations, including classic science fiction in the tradition of “Blade Runner” and “The Matrix” and the doomed romance of “An Affair to Remember.” Throw in the conspiratorial intrigue of “The Manchurian Candidate” – and a first-time director to keep it all straight – and the singular achievement of “The Adjustment Bureau” becomes all the more impressive.
Working from his own script, director George Nolfi has executed the cinematic equivalent of a twisting, tumbling high dive with precision and finesse. He proves himself just as adept with dazzling feats of visual imagination as with human emotion, which, while less spectacular, entails a higher degree of difficulty.
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Review: ‘Adjustment Bureau’ is ‘Inception’-lite
(CNN) — Are angels prone to human error? So it seems, though the man upstairs also bears some responsibility for overwriting his own grand plans in “The Adjustment Bureau,” a sci-fi romance that plays like an extended episode of “The Twilight Zone.”
That’s intended as a compliment. Rod Serling’s classic show was often glib and sometimes sentimental, but it also played on ideas: philosophy, paradox, even politics. This was cerebral sci-fi for mass consumption, before special effects and spectacle took over. Not that these things are incompatible — just don’t expect many visual pyrotechnics here.
George Nolfi’s film (he’s writer-director-producer) musters a chase scene or two, but they’re on foot, and it’s almost comically lo-fi — as retro as the unfortunate trilby hat Matt Damon sports in the climax. He is David Norris, a young up-and-coming New York politician whose Senate hopes take a dive when certain frat-boy antics from his recent past come out in the press.
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Water.org Water Bottle
With each purchase of a limited edition Water.org CamelBak Groove bottle, you give a life-changing gift. While it keeps great-tasting filtered water always in your reach, it also brings safe drinking water and sanitation to people in developing countries.
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