Righteous Kill

[Kal]

'Righteous' men: De Niro, Pacino in thriller


CANNES -- Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are teaming to play New York police investigators hunting a serial killer in Jon Avnet's $60 million thriller "Righteous Kill" for Avi Lerner's Millennium Films and Emmett/Furla Films.

The independently financed feature written by Russell Gewirtz ("Inside Man", the upcoming "Labyrinth") unites the longtime friends on screen for some 90% of the film -- unlike their one shared scene in Michael Mann's "Heat" and no shared scenes in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather Part II".

"You see those two icons onscreen together for virtually the whole film," Lerner said at his Festival de Cannes offices, "(something) never seen before in the history of cinema. It's one of the hardest deals we've ever done to put these two actors together."

Lerner and Randall Emmett closed negotiations on the CAA-packaged project late Thursday morning during the festival.

Emmett said the actors had long been seeking a project on which to work together and that he acted as a catalyst to get the duo together.

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Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are not a bad start
'Righteous Kill' will give the acting superstars a rare chance to perform together in extended scenes.
Source: Los Angeles Times

When Emmett/Furla Films co-chairman and producer Randall Emmett announced from Cannes two weeks ago that he was financing the $60-million thriller "Righteous Kill," he implied that the idea for the film had been sparked by the desire of friends Al Pacino and Robert De Niro to work together again.

This was news to the script's writer, Russell Gewirtz, who started writing "Righteous Kill" four years ago, before his first attempt at a screenplay, "Inside Man," had even sold. Which would mean that De Niro and Pacino had to have pitched him when he was still just a guy in real estate.

Gewirtz's original screenplay follows two cops pursuing a serial killer and will finally afford moviegoers the opportunity to watch heavyweights De Niro and Pacino do an extended duet after the teases of "The Godfather: Part II," in which they shared credit but not scenes, and Michael Mann's "Heat," which really allowed them only one dramatic confrontation. The film is being rushed into production this summer, with Jon Avnet ("Fried Green Tomatoes") directing and producing.

Gewirtz won't reveal plot details, but "what's exciting is that the movie is really about the relationship between the two of them," he says. "And there'll be plenty of opportunity for them to play with that and do what they do so wonderfully."

Edward Norton had been attached to "Kill" for a while, and Spike Lee ("Inside Man") and John Dahl ("Rounders") had briefly considered it, but nothing really got going until a month ago. Gewirtz, who's been living in Brazil for six months, flew back to New York City to meet Avnet and De Niro for the first time and sit in on a read-through of the script. Two weeks later, Avnet got Pacino onboard.

After "Inside Man" scored such major talent and box office, Gewirtz joked in an interview that, "I can only go down from here." With De Niro's casting, Gewirtz continues his streak of attracting Oscar-winning actors — "Inside Man" stars Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster each have two. (And, believe it or not, Gewirtz is also writing a remake of a French thriller called "Labyrinth" that has attached ... Hilary Swank.) As for "Righteous Kill" producer Avi Lerner's hyperbolic comment from Cannes that "this is an event in world history," Gewirtz jokingly affirms that "technically, everything that happens is an event in world history — in that sense, he's correct."

"But listen," he says, "there's no doubt that when anyone looks back at the history of either of these actors, this movie will be one of the defining moments of their careers. Let's hope it's defined in a positive way."

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Overture goes in for 'Righteous Kill'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Overture Films has picked up all North American rights to "Righteous Kill," a $60 million thriller starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino as two detectives tracking a serial killer.

Rapper Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson is in final negotiations to co-star as a drug dealer who helps the detectives with their investigation. Director Jon Avnet is set to begin principal photography in Bridgeport, Conn., and New York in September.

"Kill" marks the biggest acquisition for Overture since CEO Chris McGurk and COO Danny Rosett founded the studio in the fall and carries a price tag near the top of the planned budget range for its inaugural slate. Russell Gewirtz ("Inside Man," "Labyrinth") is writing the screenplay, which has De Niro and Pacino onscreen together for nearly the entire film. The two longtime friends shared no screen time in 1974's "The Godfather: Part II" and only one scene in 1995's "Heat."

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http://www.cinemovie.info/Blog/RighteousKill_Poster.jpg

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Crime scene: Gugino pulls 'Kill' switch
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Carla Gugino has joined the cast of Millennium Films and Emmett/Furla Films' "Righteous Kill," the Jon Avnet crime drama that reteams Robert De Niro and Al Pacino as New York cops chasing a serial killer.

Gugino has been cast as the female lead, a crime-scene investigator with a dark personal life who enters into a relationship with De Niro's character.

The casting comes on the heels of Gugino joining "Watchmen," Zack Snyder's adaptation of the Alan Moore-Dave Gibbons DC Comics miniseries for Warner Bros. Pictures, in which she will play Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre.

Producing "Kill" are Avi Lerner, Randall Emmett, Avnet, Boaz Davidson, George Furla and Alexandra Milchan. Danny Dimbort and Trevor Short will serve as exec producers.

Russell Gewirtz wrote the screenplay for the $60 million movie, which goes before cameras at month's end.

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Righteous Adds to Killer Cast
Source: ComingSoon

Golden Globe winner Brian Dennehy is in negotiations to join newly added cast members John Leguizamo, Academy Award® nominee Dan Futterman, Trilby Glover and professional skateboarder Rob Dyrdek in Righteous Kill, the Jon Avnet production which begins filming September 4th in Connecticut and New York.

This rounds out the cast which includes Academy Award® winners Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, 50 Cent, Carla Gugino and Donnie Wahlberg.

The film, which Avnet (Red Corner, Fried Green Tomatoes, Up Close and Personal) is helming based on a script by Russell Gewirtz (Inside Man), follows long time police detectives, played by Pacino and De Niro, as they investigate a series of vigilante killings in New York City.

Leguizamo (Moulin Rouge!) plays a cop in the NYPD who butts heads with Pacino and De Niro as they search for a serial killer. Dennehy (Showtime's "Death of a Salesman," Assault on Precinct 13) takes on the role of their captain. Futterman (A Mighty Heart) and Glover (The Starter Wife) both play attorneys, and Dyrdek (MTV's "Rob and Big") a delinquent, who crosses paths with the detectives during their investigations.

The Nu Image/Millennium production will be distributed domestically by Overture Films. The film is produced by Jon Avnet, Avi Lerner, Alexandra Milchan, Daniel Rosenberg, Rob Cowan and Randall Emmett.

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[modage]

wow there are a lot of wrinkles in those photos.  has it been THAT long since Heat?   

[Pubrick]

wow there are a lot of wrinkles in those photos. 

no kidding, how many chins do they want?

Stop or My Grampa Will Shoot.

[Kal]

Grumpy Old Killers

It sucks when they cant hide how old they are getting... you know now no matter how good they are they cannot get some roles because they look like crap...

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Promo Trailer

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Pacino and De Niro. 'Nuff said.
Directing the two greats was like a master class, says Jon Avnet.
By Mark Olsen, Special to The Times

ROBERT De Niro and Al Pacino -- the names alone conjure a certain kind of streetwise intensity, an acting style of emotional soul-bearing right out of film's '70s heyday. Both rather famously appeared, if separately, in "The Godfather Part II," and it wasn't until the 1995 film "Heat" that they finally arrived on screen together, albeit briefly.

In "Righteous Kill," opening this fall, Pacino and De Niro at long last share the screen for a significant amount of a movie's running time. Coming from new studio Overture Films and directed by veteran Jon Avnet ("Fried Green Tomatoes") from a screenplay by Russell Gewirtz ("The Inside Man"), the latest outing with these legendary actors finds them playing a pair of grizzled New York City cops. With its serial killer through-line and undercurrent of kinky sex, the film could come across as a grubby, late-'90s erotic thriller were it not for the two stars who have three Oscars between them, making "Righteous Kill" something akin to watching two virtuoso jazz musicians work their way around an old standard.
 
Speaking recently in his West Los Angeles production offices, Avnet said it was the project's mix of lowdown genre and high-style acting talent that appealed to him. "What I thought the twin masters were, and what interested me, was that it's a genre piece and you have to satisfy the whodunit and the procedural elements, but the purpose of that was to serve the characters and the drama. And what better actors than Bob and Al to do a character piece?"

As someone who considers himself a fan of acting, Avnet said the experience of watching Pacino and De Niro at work did not disappoint.

"In a way 'master class' is not a big enough word. I've watched Al do numerous takes, and I've seen his imagination turn into behavior in a way that is astounding. That's what makes him Al Pacino. I've watched Bob do stuff that's so small and then go large in a way that catches you totally off-guard.

"They're both very opaque, you don't know whether they're going to kiss someone or kill them. And that suspense is what makes their performances so intense in the moment."

Though the actors may have their own trademarks -- Pacino's funky bravado and De Niro's interiorized angst -- in "Righteous Kill" they seem to have transferred some of their quirks back and forth as if by osmosis. Pacino brings forward a strain of seriousness that he often steamrolls over, and De Niro looks to actually be enjoying himself.

Highlighting the actors' interactions was Avnet's main goal, hoping for some on-screen alchemy. "They have very different processes," Avnet said. "Al is a trained theatrical actor who can rehearse and rehearse and improve and improve. Bob likes the spontaneity of coming in and doing it. They adjusted to each other, but it's very different styles of working. Which is not that atypical a problem for a director. Often some actors get it all in the first take, some like eight or 10. You're always trying to deal with that."

Avnet found the best way to deal with the differing styles of his stars was to just capture as much as he could simply and directly, keeping them both in the frame whenever possible.

"There were no laws, there were no obvious conclusions," he said. "I wanted to shoot two-shots whenever possible, because I was hoping their timing was going to be really special and I wouldn't have to tinker with it. I wanted to allow them to play off each other. To be able to watch two people who are great at what they do, you feel a responsibility to observe and appreciate it and to whatever extent possible let it brand itself on your brain and your soul and then to share it. There's a tendency to think what they do is easy, but there's a lot of work that goes into it."

Making a movie that will invariably be mentioned in the same breath as "The Godfather Part II" and "Heat," films frequently given the "modern classic" sobriquet, as well as following in the footsteps of directors Francis Ford Coppola and Michael Mann might seem daunting to some but not for Avnet.

"You don't do this job if you're not used to pressure and dealing with anxiety and anxious people," he said. "I happen to be a fan of Michael Mann's, I enjoyed 'Heat' and I really enjoyed the big scene with Bob and Al together. This kettle of fish is a whole movie of the two of them.

"When you say they're good, it's not like they're doing Shakespeare, they're playing New York City detectives; they are as New York as it gets. De Niro and Pacino the way you want to see them." Sounds like Overture's found its tag line.

[Stefen]

50 Cent? Ugh.

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Teaser Trailer here.

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New Trailer here.