Jamie Dornan Shirtless Postponed + Tom Cruise & Jack Nicholson Reunited?

Jamie Dornan shirtless.

Jamie Dornan shirtless postponed: Pecs to become available on Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day 2015 will get a lot kinkier than Valentine’s Days of years past – well … depending on your concept of “kink.” Universal Pictures has announced that the movie version of E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey, likely to get either a tame (for sex) R or an even tamer PG-13 rating from the prudes at the Motion Picture Association of America, has a new release date – in 2015: Friday, Feb. 13, the day before Valentine’s Day and the start of Presidents’ Day weekend in the United States.

To be directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson (Nowhere Boy), Fifty Shades of Grey is set to star Henry Cavill-look-alike Jamie Dornan (Flying Home) as billionaire and S&M aficionado Christian Grey and Dakota Johnson (21 Jump Street) as his ready, willing, and able sex pal. Fifty Shades of Grey had been originally scheduled to debut on August 1, 2014.

Charlie Hunnam not responsible for ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ release date change

Officially, the key reason for the Fifty Shades of Grey release date postponement is not Charlie Hunnam’s abrupt departure from the project a few weeks ago (and Jamie Dornan’s subsequent casting), but that summer 2014 will be a crowded field made worse – in terms of international openings – by the World Cup in Brazil.

For the time being, August 1, 2014, belongs to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, featuring Chris Pratt, Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, and Benicio del Toro. Other August 2014 releases include:

• Jonathan Liebesman’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with Megan Fox and Will Arnett;
• Lasse Hallström’s The Hundred-Foot Journey, with Helen Mirren;
• Patrick Hughes’ The Expendables 3, with Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, and Antonio Banderas;
• Phillip Noyce’s The Giver, with Alexander Skarsgård, Meryl Streep, Katie Holmes, and Jeff Bridges.

On Valentine’s Day (and Presidents’ Day) weekend 2015, Fifty Shades of Grey could face competition from a movie adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ The Longest Ride, which has yet to begin casting.

‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ cast

Besides Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson (daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson; granddaughter of The Birds star Tippi Hedren), Fifty Shades of Grey features Luke Grimes, Victor Rasuk, and Jennifer Ehle. So far, Kelly Marcel (Saving Mr. Banks, Terra Nova) is the credited screenwriter for the film adaptation.

Tom Cruise & Jack Nicholson: ‘A Few Good Men’ stars to be reunited in ‘El Presidente’?

Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson together again in a movie named El Presidente? Well, that’s a possibility. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cruise has been trying to convince his A Few Good Men co-star to play the title role in the comedy (for now) to be directed Doug Liman. Without naming names, the Reporter article mentions “sources” that claim Cruise wouldn’t do the movie without Nicholson. Or so he supposedly said.

The story of a serious-minded secret service agent (Tom Cruise) assigned to protect a boozing, woman-crazy former U.S. president (Jack Nicholson), El Presidente apparently has escaped a few assassinations since casting rumors were first announced three years ago. Either that, or the president in question was shot dead and has recently been resurrected. Jay Roach (Meet the Fockers) was initially mentioned as the project’s possible director; the currently attached Doug Liman directed Tom Cruise in the sci-fi thriller Edge of Tomorrow, which is scheduled to come out in North America in June 2014.

The original El Presidente screenplay was penned by The Daily Show writer Daniel J. Goor and Jesse Armstrong (In the Loop). Paul Attanasio (Quiz Show, The Good German) has been doing rewrites.

Movies featuring fictional U.S. presidents run the gamut from the dead serious – e.g., Otto Preminger’s Advise & Consent (an ailing Franchot Tone) and John Frankenheimer’s Seven Days in May (Fredric March, about to be deposed by a right-wing military coup) – to pseudo-liberal fluff like Rob Reiner’s The American President, with Michael Douglas and Annette Bening, and Ivan Reitman’s Dave, a sort of modernized The Prisoner of Zenda starring Kevin Kline as both a dissolute U.S. president and his honorable Common Man double.

Jack Nicholson movies

The most recent Jack Nicholson movie was How Do You Know, released in 2010. The 76-year-old, three-time Oscar winner (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Terms of Endearment, As Good As It Gets) is purportedly picky about any new projects. And he might as well be. Directed by James L. Brooks, and co-starring Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, and Paul Rudd, How Do You Know was a mammoth box office bomb: a $120 million-budgeted comedy that grossed less than $50 million worldwide as per figures found at Boxofficemojo.com.

Though lambasted by critics, Jack Nicholson’s previous movie, the 2007 death-and-dying comedy The Bucket List, took in a respectable $175.37 million worldwide on a $45 million budget (not including marketing and distribution expenses). And before that, Nicholson was one of the stars in Martin Scorsese’s 2006 Best Picture Academy Award winner The Departed, co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon.

In addition to the titles already mentioned in the paragraphs above, among Nicholson’s movies of decades past are Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969), with Hopper and Peter Fonda; Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces (1970), opposite Karen Black; Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail (1973), with Otis Young and Randy Quaid; Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), with Faye Dunaway and John Huston; Warren Beatty’s Reds, co-starring Beatty and Diane Keaton; John Huston’s Prizzi’s Honor (1985), with Kathleen Turner and Anjelica Huston; and Tim Burton’s Batman (1989), starring Michael Keaton in the title role and featuring Nicholson as The Joker.

Besides his three wins, Jack Nicholson has been nominated for nine other Academy Awards. The last time, in the Best Actor category, was for Alexander Payne’s About Schmidt.

Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson, and Tom Cruise A Few Good Men image: Columbia Pictures.

Judi Dench as M in Funny or Die James Bond video

James Bond spoof helps to rescue ‘Philomena’ from the evil claws of the Motion Picture Association of America

James Bond, savior of the Free World, was just recently back, fighting the forces of undemocratic darkness. No, not in a new movie featuring communists and/or terrorists, but in a Funny or Die video, with Steve Coogan as a shoot-first-ask-questions-later James Bond (Adam Sandler better watch out) and Judi Dench as Bond’s boss M. See video below:

Here’s the story: The publicity-savvy The Weinstein Company and the prudish censorship board of the Motion Picture Association of America were at it again, doing the best they can to ensure that:

• TWC movies get lots of free buzz (particularly important as awards season is here). In recent years, think Bully, Blue Valentine, The King’s Speech.
• The MPAA ratings look as arbitrary, inane, and unhelpful as possible.

Yesterday, November 13, 2013, The Weinstein Company announced that the Motion Picture Association of America had changed the rating of the upcoming TWC release Philomena, starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, from an R to a PG-13. (See also: “The Parents Television Council vs. ‘Bully’; “The King’s Speech and Blue Valentine censorship woes.”)

Harvey Weinstein thanks James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli, Daniel Craig, Sam Mendes

The MPAA had slapped Philomena with an R rating because of two instances of the word “fuck” being used in the Stephen Frears-directed film based on a true story about an elderly Irish woman (Judi Dench) who, with the assistance of a journalist (Steve Coogan), attempts to find her son, taken away from her decades earlier. TWC head Harvey Weinstein said in a statement:

We owe this victory to Barbara Broccoli, producer of the James Bond series, Daniel Craig, and Sam Mendes, who because of their relationship with Judi Dench, gave permission to spoof the ratings system using the M character. We know that went a long way into shedding light on the themes of the movie and the fact that the PG-13 rating was correct. We are glad the MPAA has a good sense of humor and with the cooperation of Barbara and her team, it was proven once again no one does it better than James Bond.

Additionally, Harvey Weinstein thanked Steve Coogan, Philomena‘s co-star and co-screenwriter (with Jeff Pope), who “defended the case personally” at the MPAA.

‘Philomena’ release date

Philomena, which is sure to earn Judi Dench her seventh Academy Award nomination, opens in North America on November 27. The film has already earned Jeff Pope and Steve Coogan the Best Screenplay Award at the Venice Film Festival and was the runner-up for the People’s Choice Awards at the Toronto Film Festival (behind Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave). A few days ago, Philomena received four nominations for the 2013 British Independent Film Awards (Best Film, Best Actress Judi Dench, Best Actor Steve Coogan, Best Screenplay).

Besides Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, Philomena also features Michelle Fairley, Mare Winningham, Charlie Murphy, Sophie Kennedy Clark, and Charles Edwards. Philomena is based on Martin Sixsmith’s book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee; Coogan plays Sixmith in the film.

Image of Judi Dench as M in James Bond video spoof: Funny or Die.

‘Tell No One’ thriller to get Hollywood remake

Gavin O’Connor, among whose credits are Tumbleweeds, Warrior, and the upcoming Natalie Portman action drama Jane Got a Gun, “is in negotiations” to direct Universal and Warner Bros.’ thriller Tell No One, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Whether the film will be a direct remake of Guillaume Canet’s Ne le dis à personne (2006), starring François Cluzet and Marie-Josée Croze, or be based on the original source – Harlan Coben’s novel Tell No One – is unclear. Canet and Philippe Lefebvre were credited for the screenplay of the French movie.

Frequent Steven Spielberg collaborator Frank Marshall (The Color Purple, War Horse, Jurassic World) is producing the new Tell No One. Academy Award winner Chris Terrio (Argo) will be writing the adaptation. Curiously, Argo director Ben Affleck had been previously attached to this particular project as both director and star.

Besides 2010 Best Actress Academy Award winner Natalie Portman (Black Swan, Gavin O’Connor’s Jane Got a Gun features Ewan McGregor, Joel Edgerton, Rodrigo Santoro, and Noah Emmerich. The movie is schedule to open in North America in 2014.

‘Tell No One’ plot, cast

Sharing elements in common with Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps and North by Northwest, the intriguing – but more than a little far-fetched – Tell No One follows a doctor (François Cluzet) wrongly suspected of having done away with his wife (Marie-Josée Croze).

Besides Cluzet and Croze, the French Tell No One features an impressive cast, including Kristin Scott Thomas, Marina Hands, André Dussollier, Nathalie Baye, François Berléand, Jean Rochefort, Gilles Lellouch, Olivier Marchal, Jean-Pierre Lorit, and both Lefebvre and Canet in small roles.

Tell No One was nominated for five Césars, winning four: Best Actor (François Cluzet), Best Director (Guillaume Canet), Best Editing (Hervé de Luze), and Best Music (Mathieu Chedid).

François Cluzet and Marie-Josée Croze Tell No One 2006 photo: Music Box Films.