The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

[MacGuffin]

'Parnassus' busy early
Filmmakers, Cinetic attempting to sell before Cannes bow
Source: Hollywood Reporter

The hottest U.S. acquisition title at the upcoming Festival de Cannes might not be sold at the festival at all.

"The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus," Terry Gilliam's story of a traveling carnival that also is Heath Ledger's final film, has topped the list of many executives since it emerged during the past few months that the title would have its world premiere on the Croisette.

Although the festival chose it as an out-of-competition title, filmmakers and U.S. sales rep Cinetic Media have opted to try to sell the film before the fest, which begins May 13.

A screening for top Los Angeles-based execs was scheduled for Tuesday night, where Cinetic hoped to seal a deal. (The company is repping domestic only; foreign sales in many territories already have been sold).

Filmmakers are believed to be seeking a studio-level deal with studio-level prices -- well into the seven figures.

"If the movie delivers, you're going to see people willing to open their wallets," said one exec who planned to attend the screening. "Even with the high price, you can pick up a marketable movie for a lot less than it costs to make it."

The movie is the first effort for Gilliam -- known for his unique visual style -- in four years, a period when special effects have made huge leaps. In addition to the Ledger hook, the film features such marketable stars as Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell, who stepped in to take over Ledger's role.

The Cinetic decision continues a trend in which big titles are increasingly sold outside festivals. In January, CAA chose not to take the Renee Zellweger period comedy "My One and Only" to the Sundance Film Festival even though the pic was ready; instead, it was screened privately for distributors.

But "Parnassus" represents an unusual next step: a film that's already going to a high-profile festival actively seeking a deal away from it.

There's a logic to the move. With the festival sales market bottoming out -- there has been one fest sale for at least $4 million in the past year, "The Wrestler" -- and with the Cannes audience thought to be unpredictable, Cinetic doesn't want to take any chances.

If a deal can be reached, it would mean that what was a Cannes screening for the industry becomes a launchpad for a studio's marketing campaign.

"Either way, there's going to be hoopla in Cannes," one indie veteran said. "But it's going to be a very different kind of hoopla if Cinetic gets a deal done this week."

[Ghostboy]

A screening for top Los Angeles-based execs was scheduled for Tuesday night, where Cinetic hoped to seal a deal. 

I was at that screening.

If this movie hadn't involved CGI it would have been awesome.

[Pozer]

that surely sucks. was imaginariuming Gilliam would finally win me over again. 

[Ghostboy]

Well, keep in mind that I love Tideland (albeit after a second viewing).

This one is a big lugubrious, but the story is ultimately pretty involving and touching. It's just the damn effects. They didn't have enough money to make them look really amazing, and so they should have just gone the practical route. The occasional models and practical effects are great.

[MacGuffin]

Terry Gilliam used magic to finish 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus'
After Heath Ledger's death, Gilliam called on the actor's friends to take over the role. Having an enchanted mirror helped.
By KENNETH TURAN; Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Cannes, France -- Terry Gilliam went to the movies the other night, and this is what he saw. "Trailers from 'Transformers,' ' G.I. Joe,' ' Harry Potter'; they all had the same explosions, the same sound mix, the same rhythms, it was all the same film," the director says, still not quite believing it. " Hollywood's been doing this for 20 years. When's it going to end?"

It ends right here and now at Cannes' Festival du Film, where Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," a work as exceptional and unusual as its title, premieres out of competition today. A tale of good and evil battling for souls that's made with Gilliam's fantastic and fantastical visual imagination, "Imaginarium" is the director's best, most entertaining film in years.

"Imaginarium" is also perhaps the most anticipated film of the festival because it's the one Heath Ledger was working on when he died in January 2008, the one that ends with the on-screen credit "A Film From Heath Ledger and Friends" because colleagues Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell pitched in to finish it.

More unusual still, the structure of "Imaginarium" and the nature of what was left to shoot when the actor died made the use of those substitute actors so seamless that, Gilliam said, "the postproduction sound guy assumed it had been written that way."

It's no wonder, then, that Gilliam feels that he "didn't make this film. Forces from above and below made it. It made itself. I don't panic anymore. It's got its own relentless momentum. It just needed some human sacrifice."

Gilliam means not just Ledger but producer William Vince, who died a few months after the actor, as well as the director himself, who was hit by a car and broke his back. "They were going for the trinity," he says with his trademark take-no-prisoners sense of humor. "That would have been a tidy end to the whole thing. But they didn't kill me. I'm stuck here to tell the tale."

Gilliam, who co-wrote the script with Charles McKeown, described the film as "my 'Fanny & Alexander,' my 'Amarcord.' I went back to the things I'm really good at."

And like Dr. Parnassus, the title character played by Christopher Plummer, Gilliam "was being frustrated, trying to amaze people and they're not paying attention. So the film became autobiographical in that sense."

Dr. Parnassus, it turns out, is a centuries-old traveling conjurer with a beautiful young daughter who tours around modern London in an astonishing ancient show wagon doing battle for souls with Mr. Nick, the prince of darkness, wonderfully played by Tom Waits. ("He was born for the part, his music is dark but tender," Gilliam says.)

The heart of the doctor's show is a magic mirror that allows those who go through it to experience another dimension of their own minds. That device, Gilliam says, was partly because of a purely pragmatic decision on his part. "I knew I didn't have the money to compete with the big effects films," he explains. Plus, "once you get into the world the effects create, that becomes normal, so you end up doing all this work for just normality. With a magic mirror, you can come back out before you spend too much money."

Ledger's character, Tony, is a hustler of uncertain morality who joins the show, in one of the film's many unsettling references to death, after he is nearly hung. Ledger, who had worked with Gilliam in "The Brothers Grimm," was watching the director explain some storyboards when, "in the middle of this, he slipped me a note that read: 'Can I play Tony?' "

"People don't know how brilliant he was. He was limitless. Anything you threw at him he could handle," Gilliam says of the actor, still not resigned to his death. "When we heard, my first response was that it was a P.R. stunt for his role as the Joker. [His death] didn't make any sense. Even now it doesn't compute."

Gilliam's initial thought at that point was "the film's over, we go home now. But my team, they beat me up, they wouldn't let me give it up. But I didn't think it was right to just get another actor." Because it was three fantasy scenes that remained to be shot, Gilliam decided on three actors, all friends of Heath. Though some rewriting and changes of shooting plans were necessary, it all went surprisingly smoothly.

"Having a magic mirror," the director says, "makes a lot of difference."

The first call Gilliam made was to Depp "because Johnny's a mate, direct and genuine. He loved Heath, and he said, 'I'm in, whatever.' " Then the problem became getting schedules to mesh. "Then Michael Mann's film ('Public Enemy') was delayed a week. I don't think Johnny told Michael he was going. My guess is that he snuck out."

Law, one of Gilliam's early choices for the part, agreed next, and Los Angeles casting agent Margie Simkin suggested Farrell after she saw him at an L.A. memorial service. "All the actors already in the film had to change their schedules, and there wasn't a moment's hesitation," Gilliam explains. "They all said, 'We'll do what's necessary.' It's really a love letter to Heath by everybody involved. He was beloved by so many."

Gilliam likes to joke, if asked what the film is about, that "it's about making marketing people work very hard," and he worries that being smart and entertaining in a dumbed-down world is going against the grain. "People are smart if you get their attention the right way," he says. As one of his characters puts it, "this world is full of enchantment for those with eyes to see." Nothing rewards those eyes as richly as this remarkable film.

[Stefen]

"I knew I didn't have the money to compete with the big effects films," he explains. Plus, "once you get into the world the effects create, that becomes normal, so you end up doing all this work for just normality. With a magic mirror, you can come back out before you spend too much money."

This is very encouraging. Now that CGI is so advanced it almost feels like it takes the place of creativity. That sense of wonder is gone. Filmmakers rely on CGI to get their ideas across instead of relying on their own imagination. Guys like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry have been very good at using creativity to get their ideas across, but Gilliam is and always will be the master at this.

[MacGuffin]

Three Clips From The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Source: Comme Au Cinema May 25, 2009


Three clips from Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus have come online and can be watched using the players below. The fantasy stars Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, Tom Waits, Lily Cole, Andrew Garfield, Verne Troyer, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law.

The film tells the story of Dr Parnassus and his extraordinary 'Imaginarium', a traveling show where members of the audience get an irresistible opportunity to choose between light and joy or darkness and gloom. Blessed with the extraordinary gift of guiding the imaginations of others, Dr Parnassus is cursed with a dark secret. Long ago he made a bet with the devil, Mr Nick, in which he won immortality. Many centuries later, on meeting his one true love, Dr Parnassus made another deal with the devil, trading his immortality for youth, on condition that when his first-born reached its 16th birthday he or she would become the property of Mr Nick.

Valentina is now rapidly approaching this 'coming of age' milestone and Dr Parnassus is desperate to protect her from her impending fate. Mr Nick arrives to collect but, always keen to make a bet, renegotiates the wager. Now the winner of Valentina will be determined by whoever seduces the first five souls. Enlisting a series of wild, comical and compelling characters in his journey, Dr Parnassus promises his daughter's hand in marriage to the man that helps him win. In this captivating, explosive and wonderfully imaginative race against time, Dr Parnassus must fight to save his daughter in a never-ending landscape of surreal obstacles - and undo the mistakes of his past once and for all.


http://www.commeaucinema.com/bandes-annonces=94221-video-15336.html

http://www.commeaucinema.com/bandes-annonces=94221-video-15337.html

http://www.commeaucinema.com/bandes-annonces=94221-video-15338.html

[MacGuffin]

New Trailer here.

[Gamblour.]

I'm officially excited. Luckily they went for that cheap goatee look or else none of those baby-faced actors (except maybe Farrell) would've been able to grow it.

[Kal]

That looks incredible

[MacGuffin]

'Parnassus' finds Stateside buyer
Sony in advanced talks to pick up Ledger film
Source: Variety

Heath Ledger's final film has finally found a Stateside buyer.

Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group is in advanced talks to pick up "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," with plans for it to go out theatrically, likely this year, via Sony Pictures Classics.

Pic is expected to be a lucrative homevideo title due to the Ledger angle and the other star power. Terry Gilliam's adventure also features Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell, who replaced Ledger in various fantasy scenes after the thesp died during the film's production in January 2008.

"Parnassus" was officially unveiled at Cannes this year in an out-of-competition slot toward the end of the festival. Several buyers screened the film just before Cannes, but a deal didn't immediately emerge.

Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group has been a key player in a number of pic deals lately, including for "The Young Victoria." That film will go out theatrically via Bob Berney and Bill Pohlad's new Apparition label, and SPWAG will handle all ancillaries as part of a three-way deal on the pic.

SPWAG has a homevid deal with Apparition.

The "Parnassus" deal with Sony has long been in the works and could be made official this week.

Reps on the deal, including sales agent John Sloss, remained mum.

The film goes out in the fourth quarter through various distributors in European territories including the U.K., France, Germany and Italy, plus Australia and New Zealand.

[MacGuffin]

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus to Open Christmas Day
Source:ComingSoon.net

ComingSoon.net has learned that Sony Pictures Classics plans to release Terry Gilliam's new movie The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus on Christmas Day, confirming earlier conjecture about the possibility.

Featuring the final screen performance by the late Heath Ledger, who earlier this year won a posthumous Oscar for his performance in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, the film will be making its North American premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on September 18 and be released in the UK on October 16.

The movie also stars Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, Jude Law , Christopher Plummer, Tom Waits, Lily Cole, Andrew Garfield and Verne Troyer.

[RegularKarate]

This was one of the Secret Screenings at Fantastic Fest.  I saw it last night.

It's not saying much to say this is his best film since Fear and Loathing, but it's at least something.

I mostly agree with Ghostboy that the CG stuff is where it loses me a little, but I didn't feel like it ruined it at all.  The weakest part, to me is that the story gets a little flustered toward the end.  Still, I enjoyed myself a lot.

The writing felt the most Gilliam I've watched in over twenty years.  There's even an almost Python moment in it. Too bad the script loses steam.

Mild Spoilers

Ledger's role in this is a little freaky considering his death and I think the film understands that you'll feel this way.  I hadn't read much about this before today and while it seems pretty obvious, I wasn't sure if Ledger had been replaced in the spots he had fill-ins before or after his death.  It just fit to me (though I'm a little confused on the order Gilliam used for the fill-in actors).

[MacGuffin]

New Trailer here.

[Kal]

Talk about amazing posters...