Ang Lee

[MacGuffin]

'Taking Woodstock' set to start
Emile Hirsch, Demetri Martin to star in Ang Lee pic
Source: Variety

Focus Features will begin production late this month on "Taking Woodstock," scripted by James Schamus and to be directed by Ang Lee.

Lee's ensemble cast includes Emile Hirsch, Imelda Staunton and Liev Schreiber.

Pic is an adaptation of the memoir of Elliot Tiber, who played a role in helping the historic 1969 music fest unfold on his neighbor's farm.

Less than a month ago, Focus had been thinking about postponing the start of production over concerns that a possible Screen Actors Guild strike could force a shutdown later this year. But numerous studios have begun to move forward on feature starts, and it's understood that Focus has worked out contingency plans in the event of a work stoppage.

Demetri Martin ("The Daily Show With Jon Stewart") had already been set to play Tiber, an aspiring interior designer in Greenwich Village obliged to run the family business, a Catskills motel. In summer 1969, he found himself at the center of a generation-defining experience when he volunteered the motel to be the home base for Woodstock concert organizers after his neighbor, Max Yasgur, made his farm available for the event.

Staunton and Henry Goodman will play Tiber's parents, and Jonathan Groff (currently starring in the Shakespeare in the Park production of "Hair" in Gotham) will play Woodstock organizer Michael Lang; Hirsch will play a recently returned Vietnam vet, Eugene Levy will play Yasgur, and Schreiber is in talks to play a transvestite named Vilma.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is set as a closeted married man having an affair with Tiber, while Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan play a hippie couple attending the concert. Dan Fogler will play a local theater troupe head, and Mamie Gummer will play Lang's assistant.

Focus Features CEO Schamus will produce with Lee. Celia Costas ("Angels in America") is executive producer.

[Convael]

Good, I got pretty nervous for Emile Hirsch after Speed Racer totally fucking bombed.  Hope he gets some good roles in the next year(s).

[matt35mm]

That.  Is a very interesting cast.

[MacGuffin]

Ang Lee is filming comedy on 1969 Woodstock concert

Taiwan-born film director Ang Lee, known for such box office hits as "Lust, Caution" and "Brokeback Mountain," is filming a comedy on Woodstock ahead of the landmark countercultural event's 40th anniversary, his spokesman said.

The film "Taking Woodstock," based on a book by a man who allowed the hippie-dominated music festival to take place in 1969 before half a million fans, will be the director's first comedy and his third look at homosexuality.

Oscar-winning Lee is shooting the film with Focus Features near the Woodstock location in New York state with an eye toward releasing it next year, spokesman David Lee said.

He declined to elaborate on the plot, the budget or the director's reasons for getting involved. "I'm not in a position to discuss details of the film," he said.

The film follows the book "Taking Woodstock, a True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life," by Elliot Tiber, who was instrumental in bringing the controversial concert of unprecedented scale to his region.

Lee found the movie theme when Tiber met him randomly in a San Francisco green room before a televised book promotion, said Dan Bloom, a Taiwan-based writer who has interviewed sources close to the film.

"A lot of people are going to wonder how a guy born in Taiwan can do this," Bloom said. "Ang Lee doesn't choose his movies. His movies choose him."

Broadly speaking, Bloom said, "Taking Woodstock" is about sizing up one's own life and controlling one's own destiny.

Lee, 53, lives in the United States and has explored other symbols of Americana, such as cowboys in "Brokeback Mountain" and the comic book character Hulk in a movie of the same name.

[modage]

Taking Woodstock, the new film from Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee, is a 1969-set true story about a man, Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin), who inadvertently played a pivotal role in making the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the famed happening it was. Mr. Tiber found himself swept up in a generation-defining experience that would change his life, and American culture, forever. Based on the book by Mr. Tiber with Tom Monte, the screenplay adaptation is by Mr. Schamus. The cast also includes Emile Hirsch, Imelda Staunton, Henry Goodman, Jonathan Groff, Mamie Gummer, Eugene Levy, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Liev Schreiber. Taking Woodstock opens in select cities on August 14th.

[MacGuffin]

Ang Lee circles 'Life of Pi' film
Director in talks with Fox 2000 to adapt novel
Source: Variety

Ang Lee is in talks to direct "Life of Pi," the Fox 2000 adaptation of Yann Martel's coming-of-age survival tale.

Novel revolves around a youth who is the lone survivor of a sunken freighter and winds up sharing a lifeboat with a hyena, an injured zebra, an orangutan and a hungry Bengal tiger.

The novel, which won the Man Booker Prize, was a global publishing phenomenon when Fox 2000's Elizabeth Gabler acquired rights to the tome.

Gil Netter is producing.

The project has been through several incarnations, first with scribe Dean Georgaris, then M. Night Shyamalan. Lee will supervise a new script. Studio will hire a writer shortly.

Project was most recently developed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who wrote a script with his "Amelie" collaborator Guillaume Laurent.

Lee, who last directed "Lust, Caution" and "Brokeback Mountain," most recently completed "Taking Woodstock," an adaptation of the Tom Monte book. Focus Features releases the film in August.

[SiliasRuby]

I'm very excited about 'taking woodstock' since I know 60's and 70's music and counterculture like the back of my hand. This 'life of pi', some people might go because they think its the sequel to darren aronofsky's debut film.

[pete]

I just came back from a talk with him and james schamus.  he showed a 4-minute clip of taking woodstock.  it was a pretty funny scene, in the classic billy wilder sense.  he even said so himself.  dimitri martin was great.  he said he just wanted to have fun with this shoot, so they picked the most enjoyable people to work with and had a blast.  he said it was hard cutting the film together though, same problem he ran into working on the ice storm.  they're done cutting now though.

he said he's still developing a script for life of pi, but nothing's set in stone, and he's still trying to figure out how to approach it and adapt it.  he said if it was something that already could be a movie, then he wouldn't've done it, life's too short.

[MacGuffin]

James Schamus and Ang Lee noodling with a new project
By Jay A. Fernandez; Hollywood Reporter

THR's Matthew Belloni and Stephen Galloway sat down with Focus Features CEO James Schamus in advance of his receiving the Hollywood Reporter's Indie Icon of the Year award up at the Sundance Film Festival Friday.

They covered a lot of ground, but among the moments that stand out of the interview is mention of a new project Schamus has just begun writing for his frequent collaborator Ang Lee ("Hulk," "Lust, Caution," "Taking Woodstock"). Schamus jauntily describes the unnamed material as "going back to the good old, tragic, suicidally depressing Ang!"

Schamus also strenuously defends Focus as a solid indie space in the face of multiple closures in the last few years. He claims that the resources he's being given to create a continuing slate mean that Focus isn't going anywhere.

Which bodes well for the presence of another solid potential buyer up at Sundance, which launches tomorrow.

[MacGuffin]

Ang Lee Explores 'The Life of Pi' in 3D
by Alison Nastasi; Cinematical

Fox 2000 acquired the rights to Yann Martel's Booker Prize winner, The Life of Pi, seven years ago. In the intervening years, the book has languished in development hell. Directors like M. Night Shyamalan, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and Alfonso Cuaron have all been involved with the attempt to bring Martel's story to the big screen -- and each has bowed out. The latest name to take on the project is none other than Ang Lee. Indiewire's In Production blog is reporting that the director is now onboard and the title is waiting for a greenlight from Fox in order to begin shooting later this summer.

The international bestseller is about a teenage boy who survives a shipwreck by climbing aboard a lifeboat with a tiger, a hyena and a zebra. The producers are looking to procure a budget in the $70 million range, partially to cover the film's elaborate CG costs and to make it a 3D feature. Obviously, the animals will be computer-generated, since having a tiger and other assorted beasts on a lifeboat sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Producer Elizabeth Gabler had this to say about what they hope to accomplish with the project: "It has elements of Castaway, when the kid is alone in the boat. You don't need language to convey what's on the screen. We need to make the movie for the whole world." It's a lofty ambition, but is Ang Lee the one to realize it? Lee's had an up-and-down career over the past few years -- earning praise and success for films like Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but seeing disappointing returns for his version of The Hulk and Taking Woodstock. Will Pi get him back on track? Gabler hopes The Life of Pi will lens this August and be released 2012.

[Pubrick]

well the good thing is it's already more interesting than Snoozing Woodstock.

[MacGuffin]

'Life of Pi' suffers another blow
Source: Los Angeles Times

EXCLUSIVE: Speaking of difficult books and the development challenges that accompany them, here comes another example, and it's a high-profile one.

"Life of Pi," Yann Martel's bestselling Booker Prize winner that has had more development go-rounds than a male Bengal tiger has mates, may  be on its way back to the development cage. Eclectic director Ang Lee had been set to shoot the movie, possibly even  in 3-D, but budget concerns appear to be putting the project on hold.

Lee and producer Gil Netter have returned to Fox 2000 with a budget that sources say is too high for the studio division. (A recent Indiewire piece  put it in the $70 million range.)

The filmmakers can still reconfigure the budget, but until they do, the film isn't moving forward. (Netter didn't immediately return a call for comment.)

That the project remains active at all is at least partly thanks to the devotion of  Gabler, who has been hugely keen on a "Pi" film.

Gabler has a fair amount of clout within Fox, and Fox 2000 has been highly profitable for the studio with other mid-budget book-based movies, such as "Marley & Me" and "The Devil Wears Prada." But those films, of course, had commercial hooks. This one, about a boy named Pi who finds himself trapped on a boat with a tiger after a shipwreck that sees many other animals meet their end, could be difficult to market (and, it should be noted, difficult to film).

If the Lee version doesn't work out, it wouldn't be the first time a name-brand director took on, then wound up separating from, a "Pi" adaptation.

Genre notables like M. Night Shyamalan and Alfonso Cuaron, along with French auteur Jean-Pierre Jeunet, have all been on board to direct a version of the film at some point. Fox is generally cost-conscious, and the fact that this movie, despite its bestseller status, can be a tricky shoot has them especially concerned -- particularly given the high number of CG creatures, as well as the water-bound location, which tends to drive up budgets in general.  On top of all that, "Pi" is exactly the kind of specialized, non-tentpole movie that nearly all studios are staying away from these days.

The title character in "Life of Pi" survived a difficult 227 days on a raft floating through dangerous waters. The film project may have to endure even more.

[MacGuffin]

Indian teen newcomer gets 'Life of Pi' lead
Ang Lee to start lensing early next year
Source: Variety

Fox 2000's bigscreen adaptation of Yann Martel's tome "Life of Pi" is at last rowing off to sea, with Ang Lee set to start lensing the fantasy adventure early next year.

After a monthslong search during which 3,000 young men auditioned, Lee has cast 17-year-old newcomer Suraj Sharma in the title role. Sharma is a student who lives with his mathematician parents in Delhi, India. Fox will release the pic on Dec. 14, 2012.

"Life of Pi" will be Lee's first 3D pic and utilize state-of-the-art technology in rendering the adventure tale.

Lee will direct from a script by David Magee ("Finding Neverland"). Lee begins principal photography in January in Taiwan and India.

Gill Netter is producing "Life of Pi," which will be a large-scale, all-audience film.

"Pi" tells the story of a boy lost at sea for 227 days in a lifeboat with four unusual and increasingly hungry companions -- a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, a hyena, a zebra and an orangutan -- after the ship carrying his family and its zoo animals sinks.

The novel, winner of the Man Booker Prize, was a global publishing phenom when Fox 2000's Elizabeth Gabler acquired rights. At that point, M. Night Shyamalan was attached to direct "Life of Pi," but he exited early on because of scheduling conflicts.

Lee boarded "Life of Pi" last year. Since then, Lee and the studio have been working on his vision for the film.

Lee was last in theaters with "Taking Woodstock" from Focus Features. Fox Filmed Entertainment co-chair Tom Rothman has worked with Lee three times before, on "The Wedding Banquet" and "Eat Drink Man Woman' at Samuel Goldwyn, and on "Ice Storm" at Fox Searchlight.

[Gold Trumpet]

Awesome news. What I like with Ang Lee and this project, is that I feel no need to second guess or wonder about the project. I just want it to happen with Lee. Feel a little like a fan boy.

[MacGuffin]

Steven Spielberg Drops Moses Biopic GODS AND KINGS; Warner Bros. Eyes Ang Lee as Replacement
Source: Collider

We have tracked the entire life cycle of Steven Spielberg's relationship with Gods and Kings, a Moses biopic written by Michael Green (Green Lantern) and Stuart Hazeldine (Exam).  Warner Bros. asked Spielberg in September 2011.  The director entered negotiations in November 2011.  He was reportedly near a deal in January 2012.  And now, according to Deadline, Spielberg has decided to drop the project.  This is sad news for Warner Bros., but now they are free to move on—after all, time is an issue, because ideally the studio would like to beat Ridley Scott's competing Moses biopic (now titled Exodus) in the race to the multiplex.  WB has reached out to Ang Lee to direct, now that he's caught up to Spielberg's two Best Director Oscars with his Life of Pi win.  Lee is said to be interested, but hasn't taken a formal meeting yet.

This is sure to be a high profile project once it gets the engine running, so we'll keep you posted.