Box Office: Roman Polanski Controversy
Controversy sells. At least sometimes it does.
Roman Polanski (above, lower photo), under house arrest in Switzerland while fighting extradition to the United States on charges of having had sexual intercourse with a minor in the late 1970s, was named Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival for The Ghost Writer, starring Ewan McGregor (above, top photo), Pierce Brosnan, and Kim Cattrall. This weekend, the political thriller had the highest per screen average by far at the US box office: $45,752 at four theaters in New York and Los Angeles, for a total of $183,009 according to Box Office Mojo.
Some, including several commenting on this blog, remarked that those who watched Polanski’s movies — be it Chinatown, The Fearless [...]
by Andre Soares | February 22, 2010
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Tags: Box Office, Ewan McGregor, Kenneth Turan, Kim Cattrall, Peter Bradshaw, Peter Rainer, Pierce Brosnan, Political Movies, Politics, Robert Harris, Roman Polanski, The Ghost Writer
Berlin 2010: Film Line-Up Announced
Kim Cattrall, Ewan McGregor in The Ghost Writer
The complete official program for the 2010 Berlin Film Festival, which runs Feb. 11-21, has been announced.
Twenty-six films will be screened, of which twenty will be vying for the Golden Bear. The other six entries will be screened out of competition. Among the films in competition, Roman Polanski’s mystery thriller The Ghost Writer has attracted the most attention chiefly because of the filmmaker’s arrest last year. Stars Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan are expected in Berlin, but Polanski remains under house arrest at his chalet in Gstaad.
Based on the novel The Ghost by Robert Harris, who also wrote the film’s screenplay, The Ghost Writer was finished by Polanski after [...]
by Arthur Leander | February 1, 2010
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Tags: Berlin 2010, Berlin Film Festival, Ewan McGregor, Kim Cattrall, Pierce Brosnan, Robert Harris, Roman Polanski, The Ghost Writer
Roman Polanski’s THE GHOST WRITER to Premiere at Berlin 2010
According to The Guardian, Roman Polanski’s latest effort, The Ghost Writer, will have its premiere in competition at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival, which takes place February 11-21.
Based on the International Thriller Writers’ Award-winning novel The Ghost by Robert Harris (who also penned the screenplay), The Ghost Writer was shot at Studio Babelsberg outside Berlin and was finished by Polanski while in prison in Switzerland. The film stars Ewan McGregor as a professional ghostwriter hired to put on paper the memoirs of a former British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan) living on an island off the Eastern seaboard of the United States.
Not long after starting work, the writer is drawn into a series [...]
by Edwige Andersson | December 16, 2009
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Tags: Berlin 2010, Berlin Film Festival, Emmanuelle Seigner, Ewan McGregor, Kim Cattrall, Pierce Brosnan, Robert Harris, Roman Polanski, The Ghost, The Ghost Writer, Tony Blair
Roman Polanski Arrested
Roman Polanski, who won a best director Oscar for the Holocaust drama The Pianist in 2003, was arrested at the Zurich airport last night. According to reports, the 76-year-old filmmaker could face extradition to the United States for charges of having sex with a minor in the late 1970s.
Polanski, who was in Switzerland to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival, was apparently arrested at the behest of the U.S. Justice Department, following a lead from the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. He would be held until a decision was made regarding his extradition to the US.
In 1977, Polanski was accused of using champagne and a Quaalude tablet to have sex with a 13-year-old [...]
by Andre Soares | September 27, 2009
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Tags: Emmanuelle Seigner, Marina Zenovich, Robert Harris, Roman Polanski, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, Samantha Geimer, Sex, Sharon Tate, The Ghost, The Pianist