Having become one of the best-known actors working in Hollywood in recent years, with (500) Days of Summer and then Inception introducing him to huge audiences and critical acclaim, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is now set to make his foray into feature directing, already having a number of shorts under his belt.

Deadline report that Gordon-Levitt will make his feature directorial debut from his own script on an as-yet-untitled comedy, for which he’ll be taking the lead alongside Scarlett Johansson. And as you might expect, it sounds brilliant, with Deadline noting that the actor(-director-writer) described the film as,

“a sexy comedy about about a modern-day Don Juan, and his quest to become less of a “selfish dick.” He plays that character, and there is another female lead role that will be filled shortly.”

Nicolas Chartier’s Voltage Pictures (The Hurt Locker, the upcoming Killer Joe) will be financing the film, and Ram Bergman will be producing alongside Gordon-Levitt’s own hitRECord production company, having worked with him on Brick and the upcoming Looper already.

Speaking of the move into the director’s chair, and working from his own script, he says,

“I was a child actor for years and quit at 19, went to school awhile, and a big part of why I came back was that I ultimately wanted to make movies,” Gordon-Levitt said. “I spent a year working with Chris Nolan, Rian Johnson, Steven Spielberg, and I did my best to pay attention. I’ve also been making short films for a long time now, I’ve directed a ton of them, and that is a huge part of why I feel comfortable and confident in this.”

“This is the first time I finished a feature film I thought was good enough to make into a movie,” he said. “I’ve written others, including one mammothy huge sprawling thing that encompasses my entire point of view of everything since I was 20 years old.”

“I wrote myself a helluva role, one that people wouldn’t necessarily thought of me for.”

Now that he’s secured the financing for the film, and with shooting set to begin on 16^th April this year, there’s a question of whether or not he’ll still be able to star in Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming Django Unchained as planned.

“It will be tricky schedule-wise, but I was honest with Quentin upfront,” Gordon-Levitt said. “He was so cool and encouraging. He said, ‘You strike me as the kind of guy who would want to direct,’ and I took that as high praise.”

With a bit of luck, hopefully it will all work out smoothly. He earned himself high praise for his last role in 50/50, and we can look forward to seeing quite a lot of him this year, starting with The Dark Knight Rises on 20^th July, followed by Premium Rush and Looper both on 28^th September, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln in December, and hopefully Django Unchained on Boxing Day. And if all goes well, we should be seeing him in what sounds like a brilliant comedy and what will no doubt be a great feature debut for him as a director sometime next year.

Kicking off the casting with Johansson opposite him sounds excellent, and we’ll be seeing her soon in Cameron Crowe’s We Bought A Zoo on 16^th March, and then she’ll of course be reprising her role as Black Widow for The Avengers come 27^th April. Things are certainly coming together nicely for the new project, and hopefully we’ll have more news to bring you, including the cast of the other female lead, soon.

Following all of the recent images of the upcoming LEGO renditions of The Lord of the Rings films, we’ve now got another great set of images for toy-ified versions of the characters from the Nolan brothers’ conclusion to their Batman trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises.

*Potential spoiler warning* I don’t know whether these toys directly relate to what happens in the film, so if you want to fly fairly blind when it hits cinemas this summer, look away now.

A handful of terrific images have surfaced for the new toys over at Hero Complex, via Collider, in which we get a look at the adorable little figures for Bane and Catwoman, both with super-large, adorable eyes that you just can’t help but fall in love with. The Batman toy seems to come from a different set to the Bane and Catwoman figures, with Mattel making the former, and Funko making the vinyl POP! Heroes figures of the latter.

Directed by Christopher Nolan from a script by Nolan and his brother Jonathan, from a story by the director and David S. Goyer, The Dark Knight Rises of course brings back the familiar faces of Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, and Michael Caine, with a terrific set of actors joining the cast for the final film, including Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Juno Temple, Josh Pence, and Joey King

The Dark Knight Rises will be with us in cinemas on 20^th July, and is naturally set to be one of the summer’s biggest blockbusters, if not the biggest film of the year. You can catch up on all the rest of our coverage for the film here, including the latest and first full-length trailer that dropped at the end of last year. As usual with these new images for the ridiculously cute toys, you can click to enlarge. How much do you want Bane and Catwoman to just be stood on your desk?

Rian Johnson is no stranger to ambition.

His first feature, Brick, was made for under $500,000 and featured the sort of dialogue you’d expect from a know-it-all trying to ape Dashiell Hammett, and that’s precisely what it was, but it was really quite good. He then followed that up with The Brothers Bloom, an ambitious crime caper that although flawed managed to entertain with its twisting narrative and high-level cast.

This time round he’s gathered together another great ensemble including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels and Paul Dano to star in Looper, a film that on paper sounds like a bit of a mind-boggler.

The most detailed synopsis we have currently is a little vague but you can rest assured with Johnson at the helm things will get awfully complicated awfully quickly :

A present-day killer (Gordon-Levitt) works for a mob in the future and kills people who are sent from the future. He recognizes one victim (Willis) as himself and hesitates, resulting in the escape of his older self.

Talking to the Los Angeles Times the writer/director tried to play down the time travelling set-up explaining that, “if you just tell somebody the plot, you’re inevitably telling them the time travel stuff, but the movie actually uses that as a set-up. The best parallel I can draw is to the first ‘Terminator’ movie where time travel is used to set up this impossible situation between these people and then that situation plays itself out.”

In order to get Levitt to resemble a younger Willis throughout the film he will be wearing prosthetics, to quote Johnson: “the biggest thing is Joe’s performance, he’s really doing Bruce in a big and daring way, but he strikes a balance between obviously imitating Bruce and also building this organic performance.” It all sounds like a tough balancing act to pull off but the with the films obvious ambition whatever happens will at least be interesting. Better than that, like Brick, it may be something truly surprising and new.

Source: IndieWire

Rian Johnson, director of upcoming science-fiction thriller Looper, has given fans a New Year’s present of a picture of himself sat inside a pod-like structure, leaving fans speculating what part of the film’s set this mechanism could be.

Looper takes place in the future and follows a killer (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who works for the mob, who soon realises that one of his targets is an older version of himself (Bruce Willis).

The photo, which can be seen below, shows Johnson seated in the opening of what appears to be some kind of machine, which could very well be the key to allowing a reality where two different versions of the same person can exist simultaneously. In other words, it might be a time machine. But what do you think?

Looper reunites Gordon-Levitt with Brick director Rian Johnson, and also stars Emily Blunt. It is set to be released on 28th September, and you can visit the film’s Tumblr page for a full-size image, and for more constant updates on the film.

(Source: Image Blend)

A little over two years ago, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel graced the screen together in what became one of the best indie sleeper hits in years, (500) Days of Summer. The two were already rising stars at the time, and the brilliance of the film boosted their careers even further, with Gordon-Levitt going on to star in Inception, this year’s 50/50, and next year’s The Dark Knight Rises, and Deschanel starting up her own Golden Globe-nominated TV series, New Girl.

One of the many great things about (500) Days of Summer was its soundtrack, which included both of the two stars – Gordon-Levitt providing a drunken rendition of Here Comes Your Man, and Deschanel singing Sugar Town solo and Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want with her band, She & Him.

To celebrate the coming New Year, which is just a few hours away, the duo have reunited for a duet of Nancy Wilson’s What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? and it’s lovely. If you enjoyed their terrific chemistry in (500) Days of Summer, you’re going to love this.

Random trivia: The film wasn’t in fact the first time they’d starred together. Rewind eight years and you might remember they were opposite each other as teenagers in Manic, a much darker film than (500) Days, but one that I’d highly recommend if you have a chance to see it. [For the record, I did see Manic before reading Deschanel's following description for the new video. Random film trivia is always useful to have in your back pocket.]

“I have known Joe Gordon-Levitt for going on 12 years. We first met in the summer of 2000 while doing a tiny movie called Manic, where we bonded over a mutual appreciation for Harry Nilsson and Nina Simone and I have been lucky enough to call him one of my dearest friends ever since. When we did 500 Days of Summer 8 years later, we spent every lunch hour dancing to Marvin Gaye in the hair and make up trailer; we had loads of fun. I hope to do a thousand more movies with him because he’s simply the best. But in the meantime, we made a little New Year’s duet for all of you! The original by Nancy Wilson. ENJOY!
Don’t forget to check out Joe’s website http://hitrecord.org/
New Girl is back January 17 (my birthday) !”

As Deschanel notes, she’ll be returning with her TV series in the New Year. (I think I’m right in saying that it will be starting on Channel 4 here in the UKon Friday 6^th January, at 8:30pm. But you can catch the first episode here on 4oD already.)

Gordon-Levitt is set to have a fantastic year next year, and we should be getting to see him no less than four times at the cinema. First up is of course The Dark Knight Rises on 20^th July, followed by Premium Rush on 21^st September. Then just a week later (September will be a great month for JGL fans) will come Looper, followed byLincoln, which is expected to be released in December next year. And if his schedule allows, we might even see him in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained opposite his Inception co-star, Leonardo DiCaprio.

Before all that, of course, here’s the brilliant new song from the pair to enjoy, as well as a brilliant image of them together via HelloGiggles, who are hosting the video. They really do know how to sing; these harmonies are beautiful. Hopefully we can look forward to more duets in the coming year.

Thanks to THR for the tip-off.

*Spoiler Warning* If you want to stay spoiler-free for the Nolan brothers’ epic conclusion to their Batman trilogy, you may want to look away now.

This month, we’ve seen some terrific new things from next year’s The Dark Knight Rises, one of the most highly anticipated films of 2012, including the awesome first character poster of Bane, and of course, the first trailer that was really quite good. And by that, I of course mean it was incredible.

The plot of Christopher and Jonathan Nolan’s conclusion to their trilogy is being kept under wraps, and there’s very little that we know about it for sure. There now comes a new description for a scene from the film, via Hero Complex and Collider, and here is your spoiler warning once again.

I’m personally all for the secrecy, and so whilst I did watch the trailer, I’m steering clear of this scene description below (and so will just paste it below without reading it myself), but I’m sure there will be plenty of people who will relish the chance to read it. Given that I’ve not read it, I can only relay that it’s meant to be spoiler-ful, and so if you want to stay relatively the dark too, look away now.

“Gotham City is a war zone. A ruthless madman named Bane has ripped away any sense of security and the citizens, haggard and clutching suitcases with refugee anxiety, sit behind barbed wire waiting to see what will blow up next. A hooded prisoner is dragged in – it’s Bruce Wayne, one of Gotham’s most famous faces – but the eyes of the crowd go instead to the woman in black standing at the top of the staircase.

“Sorry to spoil things, boys, but Bane needs these guys himself,” says sultry Selina Kyle, played here by actress Anne Hathaway, navigating the steps with stiletto heels that, on closer inspection, turn out to have serrated edges capable of leaving nasty claw marks in a fight. She also wears high-tech goggles that, when not in use, flip up and resemble feline ears.”

Christian Bale will of course be reprising his role as the Dark Knight, alongside Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine, with Tom Hardy joining the cast as the notorious Bane, along with Nolan’s Inception stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Juno Temple, and Josh Pence.

The Dark Knight Rises will be coming to the big screen next summer on 20^th July, and judging by what we’ve seen so far, it’s going to be incredible. I could naturally be proven wrong, but I have a feeling that everything we have seen so far (all of which you can catch up on here) hardly scratches the surface with what we can look forward to next year. I think the Nolan brothers will be keeping plenty secret right up until the film reaches cinemas, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

Well, it is Christmas time and all I want for Christmas is a Dark Knight trailer, a Hobbit trailer and a Prometheus trailer… oh and some new images from The Dark Knight Rises!

Well, we can source most of these for you and in a few hours, we’ll also have a nice shiny new trailer for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus but to tide us over (it’s now here!) while we wait, here’s some nice new images from The Dark Knight Rises. We’ve seen most of them before but they’ve always been obscured by a magazine cover or been low res. Now they are nice and high, especially the one of Christian ‘Christmas’ Bale shooting his taser!

The Dark Knight Rises will be with us summer 2012, is directed by Christopher Nolan and stars Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Josh Pence, Marion Cotillard, Juno Temple, Liam Neeson, Cillian Murphy.

Click them below to enlarge:

In the past week, we’ve seen the ad campaign for Christopher and Jonathan Nolan’s final instalment in their Batman trilogy take an interesting new turn with the release of three documents regarding a man by the name of Dr. Leonid Pavel.

We’ve also been granted our first, ridiculously incredible Bane character poster for the film, and are expecting the film’s first full-length trailer to come any day now – with any luck, tomorrow.

The folk over at SuperHeroHype, via ComingSoon.net, have been treated to an awesome package adding to the film’s advertising campaign, and they’ve been nice enough to upload a few photos of what arrived for them in the mail: an awesome Bane t-shirt (which we should all be jealous of), and a cylindrical map of Gotham City upon which is written five strike zones. Whether we can take the zones on the map to be true to the film itself is of course a different question entirely, and one we’ll probably be debating until the film’s release next summer. In case you don’t want to take a look, I won’t spoil it for you, but some of the locations targeted sound like they’d make for epic battle scenes if they are true to the film.

The Nolan brothers look to be going all out for this final instalment and are sure to be bringing us something absolutely immense with The Dark Knight Rises. The tagline on the Bane poster we saw just a few days ago, ‘The Legend Ends’, is just so damn perfect; this really is going to be an epic conclusion.

Christian Bale​ will be reprising his role as the Dark Knight, alongside Gary Oldman​, Morgan Freeman​, and Michael Caine​, with Tom Hardy​ joining the cast as the notorious Bane, along with Nolan’s Inception stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt​ and Marion Cotillard​, Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Juno Temple​, and Josh Pence.

The film’s six-minute prologue has had a few select screenings here and across the Atlantic, and you can read our review of those first six minutes here, and catch up with everyone else Batman-related right here. Without further ado, here are those all-important shots of the Bane t-shirt and the Bane Strike Map. As usual, click to enlarge. Can you imagine waking up to something so cool in your mail?

Directed by the excellent Jonathan Levine (The Wackness), 50/50 has been by far one of my favourite films of the year. I got to see the film a little early at this year’s BFI London Film Festival and absolutely loved it. So much so that I went and saw it again when it came out a month later, at the end of last month.

50/50 has a terrific cast led by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen, who bounce brilliantly off one another on screen, and has such great supporting performances from Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anjelica Huston, Philip Baker Hall, and Matt Frewer.

I think one of the things that made the film so good is that its writer, Will Reiser, based the film on events he had been through in his own life. Gordon-Levitt’s character is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer at the young age of just 27, something that Reiser himself had been through. And what’s more, Rogen is one of Reiser’s best friends in real life too. That kind of truth-to-reality really makes everything in the film so believable, which makes it resonate all the more.

The film has been doing tremendously well in critics’ eyes, as well as at the box office, and Reiser’s script has been one of the things people are highlighting as being so good – which it really is. It’s earned the writer the Best Original Screenplay award from both the National Board of Review and the Washington DC Area Film Critics, as well as being recently nominated for the Best First Screenplay award at the Independent Spirit Awards, the results of which will be announced at the end of February next year.

In tandem with all of this success, Deadline have now been given access to the film’s shooting script, and have put it up to share with all of us – just click right here and read away. If you’ve seen the film already, then reading it will make you laugh as you remember how the moments came together on the screen. And if you’ve not seen it, then it will definitely encourage you to go see it as soon as you can. It’s still playing in a few cinemas across the country, and will hopefully be released here on DVD/Blu-Ray sometime in the spring. I’m already looking forward to seeing it for the third time. If you’ve not seen anything else from the film, then you can catch up on all our coverage for it here.

If ever there were a poster to guarantee itself as deserving a spot on your wall, this is the one. Christopher and Jonathan Nolan’s conclusion to their Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, is sure to be one of 2012’s biggest films – and it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to predict it making the Top 10 list of all-time highest grossing films, a list in which its predecessor, 2008’s The Dark Knight, currently sits – and everything that we’ve seen from the film so far points to an immense finale.

In the past few days, we’ve seen the film’s advertising campaign move into a new direction with the release first of two documents, followed yesterday by a third, with rumours surfacing that the release of the full-length trailer was imminent.

Sadly, that wasn’t to be last night, but we’ve now got an utterly epic poster to share with you for the film now instead, via ComingSoon.net, with the perfect tagline, ‘The Legend Ends’. We got the film’s absolutely brilliant first poster back in July, followed swiftly by the first teaser trailer, which was every bit as awesome as the poster. This new poster definitely maintains that high level of brilliance, and given the amazing posters that Nolan put out for his last film, Inception, I’d be willing to bet that we’ve got more incredible posters to look forward to in the campaign to promote The Dark Knight Rises.

Christian Bale will be reprising his role as the Dark Knight, alongside Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine, with Tom Hardy joining the cast as the notorious Bane, along with Nolan’s Inception stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Juno Temple, and Josh Pence.

Plot details are being kept under wraps, and this new poster will almost certainly set off a huge spark among fans as to what we can expect from it – we see Bane walking away in the pouring rain from a shattered Batman mask. Oh wow.

The Dark Knight Rises will be hitting cinemas on 20th July next summer, and I think we can all agree that we should all agree right now to clear our calendars for that day to make sure we see it at the first possible opportunity, because it’s going to be incredible. Without further ado, feast your eyes upon this amazing first poster of Bane. As usual, click to enlarge, and give yourself even more awesomeness to soak up.

[Updated] Just two days ago, we saw The Dark Knight Rises’ promotional campaign take a turn in a new direction with the release of two documents related to the film, regarding an unknown character, Dr. Leonid Pavel, which is already sparking much discussion on the Internet as to what the documents mean.

A third document has surfaced over at @thefirerises, with thanks to Empire for the tip-off, that continues the information that we saw from the first two documents, talking now about the exfiltration of Dr. Pavel, under the code name, Operation Early Bird, which in turn points us to this website. As the document notes, the exfiltration is set to take place at 1000 hours PST, which is 6pm on our time here in the UK. The Operation Early Bird site has a countdown that will run down at exactly 6pm tonight, so be sure to check back here to see what happens when the clock reaches zero!

It’s thought that we’ll be treated to the film’s first full-length trailer when it does, which is definitely an exciting possibility. We got the film’s first teaser back in July, and it was absolutely brilliant, and you just know that getting a full-length look at Christopher Nolan’s conclusion to his Batman trilogy is going to be immense. The film itself is going to be nothing short of incredible, no doubt about that.

Christian Bale will of course be reprising his role as the Dark Knight, alongside Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine, with Tom Hardy joining the cast as the notorious Bane, along with Nolan’s Inception stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Juno Temple, and Josh Pence.

The Dark Knight Rises will be hitting the big screen on 20^th July, and is naturally expected to be one of the biggest and best films of the year, and I can’t wait for the trailer to hit when the clock reaches 6 tonight. Be sure to check back in then. Without further ado, here’s the third document released as part of the new campaign. As usual, click to enlarge. And if you want a re-cap of everything we’ve seen so far, just click right here.

[Update:] Alas, we sadly weren’t treated to our first look at the trailer last night, as we were all hoping we would be. Instead, the Operation Early Bird site listed free screenings of the six-minute prologue for the film, which they’ll be playing in Manchester, Glasgow, Bradford, and London, on 14th December, ahead of the film’s release next summer. With any luck, we’ll be treated to that highly anticipated trailer very soon, and you can be sure we’ll be bringing it to you as soon as it hits.

In spite of not being a household name (yet), Anna Kendrick has notched up a diverse and interesting selection of roles in her relatively short career, including Scott Pilgrim’s sharp-witted and slightly scary sister, the very sweet and somewhat out of her depth Natalie in Up in the Air – for which she received an Oscar nomination, as well as putting in the only watchable performances in the entire Twilight saga.

She’s also a massive film fan, and for that reason alone we absolutely love her.

Anna was recently in town to promote 50/50, and we had the opportunity to speak to her about her experiences making the film, her first time as a romantic interest, and how to talk about Twilight without actually talking about Twilight.

On becoming involved with 50/50
I read the script mid-2009, and didn’t hear anything about it I met with Nathan Kahane from Mandate about it, but it was sort of about other things, and you never want to say, ‘I really want to do that movie’. You want to act super cool. Then, out of nowhere, at Christmas they offer it to me and I was really excited. I thought it had disappeared, and then it came back. I was very excited.

Now Seth and Will and Jonathon say, ‘we had her in mind the whole time’, but you never know about that stuff. It wasn’t written for me, no. It’s funny, because I wonder to what degree they were expecting me to do the same performance I did in Up In The Air. At a certain point I felt like that’s exactly what they wanted, and I felt bad because I felt like I was tricking them into offering me a part, and then planning to do something else, but everybody was happy with what I was doing.

On creating the character of Katherine
Somebody had told me, they were misinformed, but they told me that Katherine was based on a real character, and her dad was a therapist, and her heart wasn’t really in it, but she felt like she had to continue the family business, and I met with Jonathan after they’d offered me the part and said, ‘I can’t really reconcile that back story with what’s on the paper’, and he was like, ‘good news. She’s not a real person, so we can do whatever we want’. We tried to come much more from a place of a girl who cares so much, and is so excited to help people that she is sort of getting in her own way a lot – and that was much more exciting for me. So it didn’t feel like what was on paper was changing, but it felt like I was given permission to try something else.

On the reaction of real life psychologists
Yeah. I’ve been really nervous about that. A woman at the New York premiere came up to me and said, ‘I’m a psychologist’ and I was expecting a verbal lashing, but she was really cool about it. It’s a lot easier being the inexperienced and laughably bad psychologist, so I figured I could get away with a lot more. It’s a pretty condensed version of every mistake that a young psychologist could make. I met with this woman who had enough experience to say, ‘these are the mistakes I made’ and I tried to just channel all of that into one character.

On filming a story based on real experiences
It never felt like pressure, it felt like a relief. If we’d been making a comedy about cancer based on the ideas that popped out of somebody’s head, that would have been really terrifying. Having him as our writer, but then also having him on set all the time, he just kept us honest. There was never a moment where we felt like ‘oh my God, some cancer patient is going to see this, and we’re going to be crucified for it’, because we had a friend sitting in the same room to be our Sherpa.

On Seth Rogen playing a character based on himself
It’s hard, because Seth is so insensitive in the film, and I don’t find him to be an insensitive person at all. He’s smart enough to know when a joke is inappropriate and reaches that line, but from what I’ve seen, doesn’t step over it. So I do think that it’s an extreme version of the immature Seth that he may have been at 23, but he’s been nothing but really open in my experience, and I feel that he, actually is definitely, along with Will is one of the people that who had this kind of infallible ‘bullshit barometer’ on set, where if something didn’t feel honest, he would be the first one to point it out. So it doesn’t feel to me that he was the guy with the schtick, which I think maybe Kyle [Rogen’s character] has more of a schtick. He’s more open I guess, I don’t know.

How Seth and Will ensured the film was authentic
The only thing that I can think of is this moment where I go to see Joe in the hospital, and we’re about to start shooting, and Joe popped his eyes open and said, ‘Get Will in here! Get Will in here! Will, what’s morphine like?’ and Will had to give this detailed description of what it feels like to be on morphine. That was a fun day.

On her playing a romantic role
My first actually. Which I didn’t realise until we started shooting some of the flirtatious scenes, and particularly the final scene. I was so exhausted and I couldn’t figure out why, it seemed like, these kind of things are really simple, and I mentioned that to Joe, ‘I just realised that this was my first romantic role’. I always play weirdos, so I’ve never had a love interest, and it was great to hear from him, ‘it’s OK. It is a lot harder than it looks’, so it’s not like I’m just sucking. It was difficult to stay charmed for twelve hours, for both of us, I’m sure.

Our first scene together was the scene where I drop [Joseph Gordon Levitt] off at his house, and I give him my number, and we had met twenty minutes prior to shooting that scene, and that’s a testament to Joe. To keep that going, I don’t know if that got easier or harder, because there’s a sense of discovery at first, and once you’re friends, and you’ve said the same thing to each other fifty times, it’s hard not to just start faking it. It’s hard to keep that sense of discovery. But I’m really glad to have him as my first romantic interest, because as he pointed out, it’s a lot harder if you don’t get along.

On the difference between major roles in smaller films and small roles in blockbusters
I like sets that feel small. Sets that feel really big are really difficult. When you’re on a big set it feels like there’s constant miscommunication, so the thing that gets you through it is being surrounded by cool people, so I’ve been lucky so far, but I can see why people don’t necessarily have fun on big movies like that. But this kind of thing is really rewarding, and some of that can get lost on a big movie. I adored everything about Scott Pilgrim and making Scott Pilgrim, but there’s a lot of time between takes, and the pressure builds, and you do your one little part in this big movie, and sort of obsess about it for a really long time because it was all this build-up for a really quick thing. So sets like this, you’re able to relax a bit more. Although I think Jonathan was a big part of that. He makes it feel like you’re hanging out, and then occasionally, ‘oh I guess we should go make this movie, and then we can go to hanging out again’.

On Twlight
It dominates interviews, because people want to hit whore, as it goes. Is that a thing, hit whoring? So I guess I try to keep my comments boring and minimal, because otherwise it seems like I gave an interview about Twilight. But I know people have to ask about it, because otherwise they get in trouble, so I get it. But it’s tricky to be honest, but also be aware that you don’t want it to dominate everything you try to talk about.

Actors drawing in an audience
My feeling is always, people go to movies based on what the movie’s going to be. If they happen to see that they don’t recognise a single actor in it, they’re less likely to go because it must be a secretly bad movie or something, but I don’t know that many people that go based on actors. There doesn’t seem to be that following for anybody that people had for Cary Grant, so I don’t know that actors are doing that at all anymore. So I guess you just hope to be in movies that people seem based on the movie. I certainly don’t think that I have to worry about that sort of thing. That would be a nightmare.

Convincing people to see a film about cancer
Well, it’s tricky. Comedy about cancer, it’s tricky, but I think knowing that it’s a true story, and I think, especially the thing of seeing Seth, essentially playing Seth is fascinating to me. That’s why I would want to see it. [The fact that] Seth was actually the best friend to this guy is bizarre. When has that happened before? I think a movie like this, a lot of it is word of mouth. I know plenty of people that say to my face, which always amazes me, ‘I was thinking about seeing it, but it’s going to be such a downer because it’s a cancer movie’. I think it takes having a friend see it and say that it’s really good and it’s not a sappy cancer movie.

We originally reviewed as part of our coverage of the London Film Festival this September and you can read Kenji’s take on the film here. As the film is released in UK cinemas today we have another view of the film for you, here’s how Kelly Alyse saw 50/50.

If it wasn’t for Seth Rogen’s presence in this film, you’d probably be crying from beginning to end. I think I managed to get about half way through before my tear ducts gave way and left me in a bawling mess. That being said, I also laughed… A lot. It’s this combination of heartfelt emotion and crude humour that gives you a warm yet drained feeling as you leave the cinema. Bringing Joseph Gordon-Levitt into the whole situation just adds the cherry on top of this sad, sad cake because he’s just so believable to watch in any role he gets given, and this is no exception.

The film is a bit shocking purely because the trailers and posters make this out to be a slightly controversial comedy – I mean, what film isn’t with Seth Rogen in? But because it’s so sad, you’re shocked at how much it really gets to you. That’s why you’re drained as you leave the cinema. You walk in with an expectation of watching something slightly different in the cinema, but actually come out thinking ‘oh good god’, wiping away the remainder of your tears.

It’s a peculiar one. It’s based around Adam (Gordon-Levitt) getting a rare form of cancer, even though ironically he’s one of the healthiest and safest men there could be. We watch as he shaves his hair off with Kyle (Rogen), tells his family and girlfriend Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) and slowly comes to terms with the fact he’s suffering from the horrible disease, all with the help from his trainee psychiatrist Katherine (Anna Kendrick). It holds many different elements to the story that blend well, and has this dark sense of comedy which makes the topic of the film bearable. But when the sad scenes kick in, they really do kick in. Because of the acting, the achingly powerful emotion produced is almost too much, but then you’re lifted with the one liners from Rogen. It takes you through an intense journey, producing a connection with the characters that almost makes them one of your friends.

There’s every character you need in this film from the overbearing mother to the silly best friend, and of course the love interest. It keeps you following the film to see where they will take you. The vulnerability of Adam is one of the saddest aspects of this film. He’s so helpless in so many ways. When you watch the connection between him and Katherine gradually grow, you become more involved in his life. You see how much Kyle cares for him, and how those around him can really hurt him. You’re not just crying for the fact he has cancer, you’re crying for the situations he’s put in.

It’s not all sad though. The dialogue in this film is so simple it works perfectly. Their conversations flow and their connection seems completely natural. Once he finds out he has cancer, the story really kicks in and you can begin to fall into the film, absorbing every moment with ease.

There are situations where you find it a little awkward to laugh, purely because of the topic involved as you can imagine. But putting everything together, this is a great film. The balance of sadness, heartwarming scenes and a brilliant ending makes this a great watch for an evening… Just remember to bring the tissues.

After a problematic development, including losing its original leading man and changing its title at least three times, the rather wonderful 50/50 comes to cinemas this week. Given the difficulties getting it to screen, and the rather unusual, ‘true life’ inspiration – writer Will Reiser not only had the form of cancer depicted in the movie, but is and was best friends  with the film’s producer/co-star Seth Rogen – we jumped at the chance to speak to the pair about the project.

ON THE SUBJECT MATTER

Will Riser: Six years ago I had cancer, and I had something similar to what Joe’s character has in the movie. And we’ve [Will and Seth] been good friends for a really long time, and when I was actually sick, we talked about how there was no movie that accurately depicted what the experience is like, so we talked about the idea of doing a movie that was a comedy that dealt with cancer, because we’re comedy writers, and we used humour to deal with the whole situation, and we didn’t necessarily feel like there was a movie that did that.

ON SETH ROGEN PLAYING A CHARACTER VERY CLOSE TO HIS OWN EXPERIENCES

Seth Rogen: It’s really not like me, that much. That character would not do this [interview]. He would have bailed on this. It’s really not like me. By the time we started filming it became a really warped representation of what I was like at the time. There are some things – the dynamic between the characters is similar to our dynamic at the time…

I think the sexualisation of it all was something we did for comedy than anything. Our version of making light of it was just joking around about it more rather than making it manifest itself in anything sexual.

ON BALANCING REAL LIFE WITH DRAMA WHEN WRITING A SCREENPLAY BASED ON REAL EXPERIENCES

WR: I think really it was about making the best movie.

SR: If anything it was your instinct to dramatise things more at first, and I think it took a few drafts to whittle it down to a more realistic place.

WR: Possibly, yeah. I don’t think we ever said, ‘this is going to be an autobiography’. The important thing was what’s going to be the best movie.

SR: I think as the development of the script went on it became closer to real life rather than further from real life. Not to say that it’s that representative of real life…

WR: My personal, real life…

SR: But I think your first instinct was to add a lot of conventions because you didn’t give your own story credit that it deserved for just being original.

ON WHEN THE WRITING PROCESS ENDS

SR: The rewriting process, to me, goes on through the editing process of the movie – even beyond that, because you could add ADR jokes after that. The writing process is over when the movie is completely done. And if you’re George Lucas, 30 years after that.

WR: Yeah. I was writing while we were on set. In the script Adam’s father has had a stroke, he didn’t have Alzheimer’s, but then we realised it didn’t translate, so we changed it. That was something we added using ADR, was the Alzheimer’s line.

SR: You can change a lot after the fact, so I think the thing’s a work in progress until you literally can’t change anything anymore.

ON THE IMPROVISING THE HAIR CUTTING SCENE

SR: I guess. You know, the tone of the movie is such that there’s no bad reaction in a scene like that. We knew going in, no matter what either of us did, as long as it looked natural, it worked. We could have stood there in stunned silence, even if we’re trying to make jokes, even if they’re bad jokes, as long as they feel like jokes we would be making at that time, then it works.

I remember not knowing what Joe was going to do. Honestly, I didn’t know if it was going to be played as an emotional moment for him, or a lighter moment. I had no preconceived notion of how that was going to go down, and he really just approached it pretty lightly, and I just kind of took my cues.

WR: They did a really good job of playing off one another. There’s a lot of improv that goes on between them,

SR: That was the first day of filming too.

WR: But it seemed like right away they clicked.

SR: Usually for me the first day of filming really stands out. No matter what it is, for some reason I can just tell, I’m sure no one else can, but I can just tell it feels a little bit different than the rest of the movie, but for this movie it doesn’t for some reason, I think we just sort of got it.

ON LOSING A LEADING MAN

SR: Yeah. Around a week before, he dropped out, and we had just a couple of days to find a new actor. We got Joe, and we started filming five days later.

We hired Joe on a Saturday, and we started filming the following Monday, so we had around eight days with Joe before we started filming, and in that time we just read the scenes a lot, we asked him what he thought, he gave a lot of input and notes, we did a lot of rewriting, but that doesn’t intimidate us. We’re very fluid with the process. Again, we try not to have too many preconceived notions, and really just be open along the way.

It really wasn’t the hardest thing, as a producer, that I’ve had to do. It was unfortunate when it happened, but it ultimately couldn’t have fixed itself in an easier, better way. Joe, I really give him a lot of credit. It’s kind of fearless what he did, the fact that he would jump into a movie like this so soon before filming it. It kind of throws the notion that you have to research or prepare for a role out the window. I was telling him he  really fucked himself, ‘for the rest of your career, you’re never going to be able to use the excuse that you need time to research or do some kind of rehearsal or something like that. You’ve unfortunately proved that you don’t need that at all’.

WR: From the moment he said yes he just totally jumped in. We would have lots of conversations about the character, his hobbies and what he did. Joe went on the set and looked in his bedroom and looked in his house, looked at pictures and said, ‘I don’t necessarily think this…’

SR: Some things did change. There were some decisions that James had made with the character that we then changed when Joe came on, but it was more like textural things, the kind of music he listens to. It was more that kind of stuff.

WR: Joe decided that he really wanted his character to be a big jazz fan, so we incorporated that, and baseball. Lots of little things, but I think that really helped Joe understand the character more and make it his own.

ON THE FEEDBACK FROM MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS ON THE FILM

SR: Doctors seem to think that the doctors are portrayed unsympathetically. It’s funny. That, out of all the things in the movie, seems to be the one thing that draws the most heated debate, as to whether or not the portrayal of medical professionals in the movie is fair – which is really weird that that’s the bone people have chosen to pick, or the thing that people seem to get uppity about is that, ‘that doctor’s too much of an asshole’. I’ve had doctors that are such fucking assholes. I’ve had dentists that namedrop, it’s crazy that shit that these doctors do sometimes.

WR: It’s important to show the reason why some doctors are so good is because they don’t humanise the person, and they look at them as an object, not as a person, and they don’t get emotionally invested. One surgeon told me that the moment you start getting emotionally invested in a person, you can’t perform as well during surgery, because you’re worrying if you screw up, you could actually hurt this person. I feel like that’s not totally off base. I feel like I had doctors who treated me like that, so I don’t think it’s unfair to depict a doctor like that, and also Joe’s character, when he has his existential crisis, his fit in the therapist’s office, says ‘why won’t anybody just be honest with me, and just tell me how it is?’ and that’s what the doctor’s doing. I think it’s just more that, in that situation, when you’re being delivered bad news like that, it’s really hard to hear it from someone who’s so rigid and austere. It’s not the person you want to be telling you bad news. You want someone to tell you bad news then give you a hug and tell you it’s going to be OK, but that’s not really the doctor’s job. It’s all shades of grey you know. It’s not like we’re accusing doctor of being bad people, it’s just that that’s how the situation was for me, and I think people can relate to that.

Jonathan Levine’s 50/50 is finally on the cusp of hitting the big screen in the UK. America has had it for some time now, and I was lucky enough to catch it last month at the London Film Festival (and thought it deserved every one of the 5 stars I gave it in my review), and now its release is literally just a day away, coming out on Friday, tomorrow.

The film has an absolutely terrific cast, led by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen, with brilliant support coming from Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anjelica Huston, and Philip Baker Hall.

If you’ve missed our coverage of the film so far, you can catch up on it all here, and get immensely excited about its release tomorrow.

[adult swim], best known for the likes of Robot Chicken and Harvey Birdman, have got an absolutely fantastic promo video for the film, mixing live-action clips with ones that have been animated and it makes for an excellent watch.

The video itself was actually put online about two months ago, to coincide with the American release, but the film’s UK Facebook page have just put us onto the video, now coinciding nicely with our own release of it this weekend.

Writer Will Reiser has based 50/50 on the events of his own life and his diagnosis of cancer at such a young age, and having seen it, I know precisely how brilliant it is, with a perfect blend of comedy to match the seriousness of the impact cancer has upon the characters’ lives.

If you have a free morning, afternoon, or evening over the next few weeks, I cannot recommend enough how much you should go and see this film. I think it has a brilliant appeal to a really wide audience, and I’m hoping that it will be well received here upon its release, because it deserves nothing less than a tremendously positive reception. Without further ado, here’s the terrific promo video for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.

[adult swim] 50/50 promo from cat solen on Vimeo.

To celebrate this week’s release of 50/50 (in cinemas Friday) we are giving you the chance to win a 50/50 poster signed by Seth Rogen and Will Reiser (see our interview with them here) and a comedy DVD Bundle compromising of The Switch, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Happy Texas, Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, Killers, Bend it Like Beckham, Whip It, Adventureland, Weeds Season 1 boxset, Nurse Jackie Season 1 boxset.

Lionsgate UK’s 50/50 is an original story about friendship, love, survival and finding humour in unlikely places, inspired by personal experiences. Golden Globe nominee Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Emmy nominee Seth Rogen star as best friends whose lives are changed by a cancer diagnosis. Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick, Golden Globe nominee Bryce Dallas Howard and Oscar winner Anjelica Huston complete a top-notch starring cast in this warm and uplifting comedy drama which will open in UK cinemas on 25 November 2011.

Visit www.facebook.com/5050movieuk to find out “Who’s your go-to buddy?”

To be in with a chance of winning this fab prize, simply answer the following question using the form below:

Who plays Adam in the movie 50/50?

COMPETITION NOW CLOSED

The small print:

• Open to UK residents only
• Only one entry per household will be counted
• The competition will close 5th December at 23.59 GMT
• The winner will be picked at random from entries received
• No cash alternative is available

The usual T&Cs can be found here. Good Luck!

Inspired by a true story, 50/50 is an original story about friendship, love, survival and finding humour in unlikely places. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen star as best friends whose lives are changed by a cancer diagnosis in this new comedy directed by Jonathan Levine based on a script and story by Will Reiser.

I got the privilege to sit down with best friends, writer Will Reiser and actor Seth Rogen and asked them how they dealt copying with Will’s cancer in real life.

50/50 hits UK cinemas this Friday, 25th November.

Inspired by a true story, 50/50 is an original story about friendship, love, survival and finding humor in unlikely places. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen star as best friends whose lives are changed by a cancer diagnosis in this new comedy directed by Jonathan Levine from a script by Will Reiser. 50/50 is the story of a guy’s transformative and, yes, sometimes funny journey to health – drawing its emotional core from Will Reiser’s own experience with cancer and reminding us that friendship and love, no matter what bizarre turns they take, are the greatest healers.

Unless you’ve been in hibernation for the past several months, you’ll be fully aware that Christopher and Jonathan Nolan will be bringing us the conclusion to their Batman films next year with The Dark Knight Rises, and there’s every reason to expect that it is going to be nothing short of being utterly immense.

Photos and footage from the set have been unusually frequent through the filming stages of The Dark Knight Rises, with plenty of unofficial set photos and videos surfacing for quite some time.

What we’ve seen officially has been few and far between, but it’s all been brilliant. We first got a look at Tom Hardy as Bane back in May. Then came an awesome first poster for the film in July, followed swiftly by the first teaser trailer, which was just a little bit epic. And most recently, we got our official first look at Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, and needless to say, it was ridiculously cool.

We’ve now got two more great official photos to share with you, which are gracing the January 2012 edition of Empire magazine. The issue will be coming in two forms, one with Batman on the cover, and one with Bane, so choose wisely (or choose both, if you can’t choose between them).

The covers boast more official set photos inside the issue, so we can no doubt look forward to more excellent images surfacing soon. As much as I love the first two of Nolan’s films, I have to admit that my knowledge of Batman isn’t extensive beyond them, and so I can’t say whether what Batman’s holding in his cover is something entirely new or something that ties into his comic book history. I can say that it looks ridiculously awesome, whatever it is; judging by the way Christian Bale is looking down the top of it, as if taking aim, I’d guess it is some sort of weapon, but naturally only time will tell.

Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman will all be reprising their roles – and Cillian Murphy has reportedly been seen on the set – and they are joined by a further fantastic cast, including Hathaway, Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Juno Temple, and Josh Pence.

Despite the numerous unofficial images and videos from the set, I think Nolan still has so much about the film being kept under wraps – not least of which being the plot – and I think we’ve got a lot of surprises to look forward to next summer. The Dark Knight Rises will be hitting the big screen on 20th July next year, and by all accounts, it looks like it’s going to be incredible. Without further ado, here are the great new images. As usual, click to enlarge.

We’ve known him as Ali G. We’ve known his as Borat. We’ve known him as Brüno. We’ll soon be getting to know him as The Dictator (due out in May next year).

And now Variety report that none other than the Golden Globe-winning and Emmy-, BAFTA-, and Oscar-nominated actor, Sacha Baron Cohen, is close to finalising talks to star in Quentin Tarantino’s next highly anticipated feature film, Django Unchained.

The news is the latest in a slew of roles cast over the past few months, the most recent being Kerry Washington being chosen as the film’s female lead and Joseph Gordon-Levitt hopefully signing on, pending scheduling possibilities.

The film is being led by Jamie Foxx, with an immense supporting cast that also includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Don Johnson, and now hopefully Baron Cohen too. Foxx will play the titular Django,

“a slave who’s liberated by a German dentist-turned-bounty hunter and taught the tricks of the trade by his mentor. Django’s major goal in life is to recover his wife, and to do it he needs to get past the villainous ranch owner Calvin Candie (DiCaprio), who runs Candyland, a despicable club and plantation in Mississippi where female slaves are exploited as sex objects and males are pitted against each other in “mandingo”-style death matches. Candie is a slave’s worst nightmare, and that is where Django’s wife Broomhilda is an abused slave.”

Baron Cohen’s role is said to be one of the last major roles cast for the film, and provided talks go well, he’ll be playing Scotty, a gambling man who buys Washington’s Broomhilda to be his companion. And according to Variety,

“Though the part is small, sources said Tarantino was very particular on who he wanted to play it, given the character’s importance to the story.”

He might be a bit of a divisive actor, somewhat surrounded in controversy, but I think Baron Cohen is a brilliant and talented actor, not to mention something of a genius, and it’s interesting to see that he’s mixing his career up a bit and taking on roles we’re not used to seeing him in. We’ll next get to see him, for example, in Martin Scorsese’s anticipated Hugo (due out on 2^nd December), and I’m sure just a few years ago, there wouldn’t be many who’d think Baron Cohen would be signing on for a Scorsese film, and a family film no less.

Tarantino’s films are always nothing short of amazing, and I’ve been loving the casting news so much over the past few months. If Baron Cohen’s part is one of the last to be cast, then the slew of news that we’ve been getting recently is probably going to be coming to a slow now, with production scheduled to begin at the start of the year. Django Unchained is set to be released on Christmas Day in the States next year, and I’m hoping it will get the same release date here, because it cannot come fast enough.

It appears those working on Wall Street have had quite an exciting time recently. Christopher Nolan has chosen that iconic location to film an immense fight scene between Batman, Bane and Gothom Police – and we can watch it too thanks to modern technology.

The businessmen and women of New York have filmed the scenes from their phones and we can see in detail the enormity of this set, along with the huge amount of action it involves.

There are a few of these videos roaming around on Youtube, but here’s some of the best:

Batman and Bane fighting:

Tumblers being driven:

Huge amount of extras:

A closer view of the fight:

An even closer view

The film comes out in July 2012.