Munich

[Pubrick]

War Of The Worlds = Jurassic Park, Munich Olympics Movie = Schindlers List?

war of the worlds = the lost world, munich olympics movie = amistad?

War of the Worlds = Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Munich Olympics Movie = Always?

Munich Olympics Movie = Minority Report, War of the Worlds = Catch me if you Can?

war of the worlds = munich olympics movie, munich olympics movie = garden state?

[MacGuffin]

Spielberg thriller leaves Israeli spies in the cold

Steven Spielberg, famed for Hollywood blockbusters, is keeping mum about his latest project, a dramatization of tit-for-tat killings that followed the 1972 massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes by Palestinian guerrillas.

Such is the secrecy that even the Israeli spymasters who commanded the reprisals after the Munich Games have been left out in the cold.

Five retired Mossad agents, all of whom served in key intelligence posts during the hunt for Palestinian guerrilla chiefs in Europe and the Middle East to avenge the slaying of Israel's 11 sportsmen, voiced surprise at hearing of the film.

"I know nothing at all about this project," a former Mossad director who declined to be named told Reuters.

Entertainment reports say the film, provisionally titled "Vengeance" and due to reach cinemas in December, is based on a book of the same name whose account of one of the most painful chapters in Jewish history has been widely discredited.

Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy said the project had been comprehensively researched.

"This film has been built from many, many sources. One thing I can say is we expect this to be a balanced film," he said.

Best known in Israel for "Schindler's List," a Holocaust epic that ends with a pro-Zionist message, Spielberg was quoted as saying in a USA Today interview last week that the new film was a chance to explore his Jewish faith and fear of terrorism.

In the preface to "Vengeance," author George Jonas declares himself a supporter of Israel. But according to at least one member of Spielberg's cast, Daniel Craig, the screenplay is a less-than-flattering portrayal of Israeli tactics.

"It's about how vengeance doesn't ... work -- blood breeds blood," Craig told entertainment magazine Empire.

THIRTY YEARS OF SILENCE

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office, which oversees Mossad and its archives, said it had received no request for assistance from any film production on Munich or its aftermath.

It was not clear if help would have been forthcoming.

Israel has never formally claimed responsibility for the shootings, explosive booby-traps and cross-border commando raids that killed 10 Palestinians linked to Black September, the group that carried out the deadly attack in Munich's Olympic Village.

The campaign included the 1973 slaying in Norway of a Moroccan waiter mistaken for Black September's leader. Six members of the Israeli hit team were prosecuted for murder. Israel eventually paid compensation to the victim's family.

"That whole period is too sensitive, even 30 years on," said an ex-deputy Mossad chief. "No one really wants to discuss it."

But Zvi Zamir, who headed Mossad in the 1970s, broke his silence after "Vengeance," purporting to be an expose based on the confessions of a Mossad ex-assassin, was first published.

According to the book, Israel largely abandoned its agents mid-mission in Europe, where several were hunted down and killed by Palestinian counter-espionage teams -- an account not borne out by news reports nor the protocols of the Norwegian trial.

Zamir told the New York Times in 1984 that the version of events in "Vengeance" was "not true" but did not elaborate. While standing by his source, Jonas admitted that "certain details of the story were incapable of being verified."

Jonas's agent Linda McKnight told the Wall Street Journal last year that Universal Pictures, which is co-producing the film with Spielberg's Dreamworks, had exercised an option to make a movie based on the book.

[MacGuffin]

'War' over, Spielberg moves on
As his blockbuster takes theaters, he's wrapped up in the aftermath of the '72 Munich killings.
Source: Los Angeles Times
 
In "War of the Worlds," director Steven Spielberg contemplates an alien attack as a metaphor for today's terrorism. In his next film, already in production, the director eschews allegory and focuses on real terrorism and its consequences — specifically the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September and the Israeli response.

Spielberg has been nurturing the project for five years, although it is still going under the unwieldy title of "Untitled 1972 Munich Olympics Project."

Long shrouded in secrecy, the production was pushed back once, in part to accommodate the schedule of "Angels in America" playwright Tony Kushner, who was brought in last summer to rework a script by Oscar-winner Eric Roth ("Forrest Gump" and "The Insider").

As crowds line up to see "War of the Worlds," the 58-year-old director is in Europe filming the movie, which stars Eric Bana and Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush and is slated to come out at Christmas.

According to Spielberg's representative Marvin Levy, the film is "inspired by true events" and based on "multiple sources."

Spielberg is focusing on one of the signature events in the modern history of terrorism, a bloodbath that played out on TV, bringing the Middle Eastern conflict into American living rooms. The attack also dealt a blow to Israel's confidence with the message that there was no place in the world where its citizens could be safe.

After the massacre, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir instructed Israeli intelligence agents to hunt down the terrorist perpetrators and kill them, in a counterterrorist campaign that was called "Wrath of God." Ultimately, 10 terrorists linked to the massacre were killed, although Israel has never formally claimed responsibility.

It remains a very charged topic in Israel. In recent days, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office, which manages the Israeli intelligence service and its archives, reacted to the start of the film with a statement that it had received no request for assistance.

Spielberg's back-to-back films are a virtual replay of 1993, when he fed the masses with "Jurassic Park" during the summer and then released his serious and ultimately Oscar-winning film "Schindler's List" at Christmas.

In its opening day of release, "War of the Worlds" looked on track to join the pantheon of blockbusters by Spielberg, the most commercially successful director of all time.

According to distributor Paramount, the film grossed $21.3 million, which is a career best for both Paramount and star Tom Cruise but not, as it turns out, Spielberg, whose opening day best remains "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," which took in $21.6 million on a Friday, May 23, 1997, according to box-office tracking firm Nielsen EDI Inc. (The record for the biggest Wednesday still belongs to "Spider-Man 2," with $40.4 million on June 30, 2004.)

It is unlikely that even the success of "War of the Worlds" will break the 18-week box-office slump, in which total grosses have been down compared with the same period the year before.

Although Spielberg established his reputation with thrillers such as "Jaws" and the alien movies "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," the director has in recent years begun to plumb recent history for more serious fare. He has focused on topics as significant as the Holocaust in "Schindler's List," World War II in "Saving Private Ryan" and slavery in "Amistad."

However, the "Munich Olympics Project" is only his second film to deal with explicitly Jewish subject matter. The director, who is Jewish, donated all his profits from "Schindler's List" to the Righteous Person Foundation and the Shoah Foundation, which collects videotaped testimony from Holocaust survivors and uses the histories for education and to combat bigotry around the world.

A documentary about the Munich Olympics massacre, "One Day in September," won the 1999 Oscar.

[MacGuffin]

Spielberg Braces for Controversy
Director's Munich/Mossad movie now filming.
 
Just as his new release War of the Worlds was hitting theaters, director Steven Spielberg was already starting principal photography in Malta on his next project, a fact-based terrorism drama sometimes referred to as Vengeance.

The Tony Kushner-scripted project recounts the "Black September" massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics, and the Israeli squad of Mossad agents sent to avenge the crime. The highly secretive project is already courting controversy, and could prove to be the sort of lightning rod that JFK was for Oliver Stone.

Both Reuters and The New York Times have published reports about the project, which stars Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Geoffrey Rush, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler and Ciaran Hinds. Filming will take place in Malta, Budapest and New York for a December 23rd release by Universal Pictures.

"It's about how vengeance doesn't ... work – blood breeds blood," Craig once revealed to Empire magazine. The Times, however, went further, saying Kushner's script "focuses on the Israeli retaliation: the assassinations, ordered by Prime Minister Golda Meir, of Palestinians identified by Israeli intelligence as terrorists, including some who were not directly implicated in the Olympic massacre. By highlighting such a morally vexing and endlessly debated chapter in Israeli history – one that introduced the still-controversial Israeli tactic now known as targeted killings – Mr. Spielberg could jeopardize his tremendous stature among Jews both in the United States and in Israel. ... Making matters more complicated, an important source for Mr. Spielberg's narrative is a 1984 book by George Jonas, Vengeance, based largely on the account of a purported member of the Mossad's assassination team, whose veracity was later widely called into question."

"This film has been built from many, many sources. One thing I can say is we expect this to be a balanced film," Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy advised Reuters.

The notoriously secretive Spielberg is even more clandestine than usual with this project; he's turned down numerous interviews and has only issued a statement about the project:

"Viewing Israel's response to Munich through the eyes of the men who were sent to avenge that tragedy adds a human dimension to a horrific episode that we usually think about only in political or military terms. ... By experiencing how the implacable resolve of these men to succeed in their mission slowly gave way to troubling doubts about what they were doing, I think we can learn something important about the tragic standoff we find ourselves in today."

Not all experts agree with Spielberg's stated take on the events, according to the Times report. "I don't know how many of them actually had 'troubling doubts' about what they were doing," historian Michael B. Oren told the paper. Reuters inquired with a few ex-Mossad officials, all of whom were unaware of the project and reluctant to speak too much about the events portrayed.

Spielberg seems acutely aware of the potential powder keg he now sits on, and has reportedly sought the advice of various Washington officials and diplomats, including former President Bill Clinton. Reuters says that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office has not been contacted by the filmmakers for assistance.

[modage]

Very 70's Pics from the set...

http://gallery.di-ve.com/Spielberg_starts_filming_in_Rabat/

[Pubrick]

Very 70's Pics from the set...

cool. pic #4 is mislabelled, there is no bana in that photo.

did we already establish who spielberg is copying in this film? obviously he stole bana after his underrated HULK performance (or Chopper, whatever).

[MacGuffin]

Actor says Spielberg spy thriller good for Israel

An Israeli actress cast in Steven Spielberg's controversial new film about her country's counter-terrorism tactics said on Monday the Hollywood director intended to improve the image of the Jewish state.

Gila Almagor, the grande dame of Israeli drama, confirmed reports that the thriller is based on "Vengeance," a book about the Mossad intelligence service's assassination of Palestinian guerrilla chiefs in the 1970s that has been widely discredited.

That mission was mounted to avenge 11 Israeli athletes seized by Palestinian gunmen at the 1972 Munich Olympics and killed during a botched rescue effort. Several Mossad veterans have come out of the cold to question Spielberg's research.

But Almagor, who has been cast as the mother of a Mossad hit-man, called such quibbles "inappropriate, simply weird."

"It is so important for him (Spielberg) that the film do what it should do for Israel," she said in a radio interview.

Asked if this meant the thriller would help Israel's image, Almagor said: "I believe that is the intention."

At least one of Almagor's fellow cast members has disagreed with her take on the screenplay for Spielberg's film.

"It's about how vengeance doesn't ... work -- blood breeds blood," actor Daniel Craig told entertainment magazine Empire.

Spielberg, who is Jewish, is best known in Israel for his Holocaust epic "Schindler's List," which ends with Nazi death camp survivors starting new lives in the nascent Jewish state.

He has vowed the latest film will be sensitive. "Viewing Israel's response to Munich through the eyes of the men who were sent to avenge that tragedy adds a human dimension to a horrific episode that we usually think about only in political or military terms," Spielberg said in a statement.

Such sentiments raise eyebrows among Israeli security veterans who see the reprisals policy as best left undiscussed.

Israel has never admitted responsibility for the shootings, explosive booby-traps and commando raids that killed 10 Palestinians linked to the attack in Munich's Olympic Village.

The campaign included the 1973 killing in Norway of a Moroccan waiter mistaken for a wanted Palestinian guerrilla. Six members of the Israeli hit-team were prosecuted for murder.

According to "Vengeance," Israel left several of its agents to be hunted down and killed by Palestinians -- an account not borne out by news reports nor the records of the Norway trial.

Author George Jonas said the book was based on recollections of an Israeli purporting to be a former Mossad assassin and that "certain details of the story were incapable of being verified."

Zvi Zamir, who headed Mossad in the 1970s, broke his silence upon hearing that the Spielberg film draws on "Vengeance."

"I am surprised that a director like him has chosen, out of all the sources, to rely on this particular book," retired spymaster Zvi Zamir told Israeli newspaper Haaretz last week.

Israel still has a policy of tracking and killing Islamic militants suspected of planning suicide attacks -- a feature of the Palestinian revolt that erupted in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in 2000. But it has suspended such operations since a shaky ceasefire with militants took hold in February.

[MacGuffin]

Spielberg Picks a Title
His Munich Olympics thriller has a name.

Universal and DreamWorks have announced that director Steven Spielberg's current project has been officially titled Munich. The film is a dramatization of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of 11 Israeli athletes and the Mossad's subsequent mission to eliminate the Palestinian terrorists behind it.

The project had been unofficially referred to as Vengeance, since it is based in part on the controversial George Jonas book of the same name.

Munich is now filming for a December 23, 2005 release. Pulitzer, Tony and Emmy winner Tony Kushner (Angels in America) penned the script.

The cast includes Eric Bana as the lead Mossad agent, as well as Daniel Craig, Geoffrey Rush, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler and Ciaran Hinds.

[Kal]

Simple, yet I like it... Lets see what he does

[rustinglass]

Spielberg Enrages Hungarians
Director Steven Spielberg has infuriated the residents of Budapest, Hungary with his disrespect of their daily lives, while filming new movie Munich. PageSix.com reports fuming locals have faced an array of irritations since Hollywood came to town, including having their cars, which were in Spielberg's way, towed with barely any notice, endless traffic jams and severe warnings should they attempt to take pictures of the proceedings. And city-dwellers are particularly amazed by the Americans' arrogant attitude - as they assume Budapest should be honored to be the Oscar-winning director's chosen location. A source tells PageSix.com, "The best part is (Spielberg's people) keep saying, 'This is the biggest thing ever to happen to Budapest,' which is true if you discount the whole Roman and Ottoman Empires, World Wars I and II, the fall of communism and the European Union's accession."

[Pubrick]

A source tells PageSix.com, "The best part is (Spielberg's people) keep saying, 'This is the biggest thing ever to happen to Budapest,' which is true if you discount the whole Roman and Ottoman Empires, World Wars I and II, the fall of communism and the European Union's accession."

dude that's still pretty good if spielberg comes next on that list.

[modage]

PageSix.com reports fuming locals have faced an array of irritations since Hollywood came to town, including having their cars, which were in Spielberg's way, towed with barely any notice,

NOTICE?  dude, do they KNOW the RELEASE DATE?!?

[MacGuffin]

Spielberg's 'Munich' miffs Palestinian mastermind By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - The Palestinian mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympics raid, in which 11 Israeli athletes died, said director     Steven Spielberg should have consulted him about a new film on the episode to be sure to get the story right.

In an irony worthy of a John le Carre novel, Mohammad Daoud echoed veterans of     Israel's Mossad spy service in questioning the sources used for "Munich," a thriller chronicling the massacre and the Israeli revenge assassinations that followed.

"I know nothing about this film. If someone really wanted to tell the truth about what happened he should talk to the people involved, people who know the truth," Daoud told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location in the Middle East.

"Were I contacted, I would tell the truth," Daoud said.

As planner for Black September, a     Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) splinter group, Daoud sent gunmen to abduct Israeli athletes at the 1972 Games. Two hostages were killed in the raid, another nine during a botched rescue by German police.

Daoud blames Israel and West German authorities for the deaths.

Reeling from the loss of its countrymen -- particularly on what had been the staging ground for the Nazi Holocaust -- Israel retaliated with shootings, booby-trap bombings and commando operations that killed at least 10 PLO men and drove their comrades into hiding.

SENSITIVITIES

Daoud, who survived a 1981 gun attack in Poland which the PLO blamed on the Mossad, said Israel targeted some innocents and he hoped that would also be portrayed in the film.

"They carried out vengeance against people who had nothing to do with the Munich attack, people who were merely politically active or had ties with the PLO," he said.

"If a film fails to make these points, it will be unjust in terms of truth and history."

Spielberg is best known in Israel for his Holocaust epic "Schindler's List," which ends with a stirring scene of survivors seeking new lives in the nascent Jewish state.

He has vowed that "Munich" will be sensitive to all sides.

"Viewing Israel's response to Munich through the eyes of the men who were sent to avenge that tragedy adds a human dimension to a horrific episode that we usually think about only in political or military terms," Spielberg said in a statement.

An Israeli actress cast in the film confirmed press reports that it is based, at least partly, on "Vengeance," a book on the reprisals campaign that has been widely discredited.

"I am surprised that a director like him has chosen, out of all the sources, to rely on this particular book," retired Mossad chief Zvi Zamir told Israel's Haaretz daily in July.

The ex-spook's view was supported by ex-guerrilla Daoud.

"I read 'Vengeance'. It is full of mistakes," he said.

[MacGuffin]

Munich Poster Online
One-sheet for Spielberg next arrives.

The somber theatrical poster for what is likely to be a somber film, Steven Spielberg's Munich, has emerged online today. The one-sheet features actor Eric Bana, gun in hand, posed contemplatively in front of a window.

The film, which has been shrouded in secrecy, is a dramatization of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of 11 Israeli athletes and the Mossad's subsequent mission to eliminate the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the attack.

Eric Bana stars as the lead Mossad agent. The cast also includes Daniel Craig, Geoffrey Rush, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler and Ciaran Hinds.

The script for Munich was penned by Pulitzer, Tony and Emmy winner Tony Kushner (Angels in America). The story is partially based on the controversial George Jonas book, Vengeance.

Munich goes into limited theatrical release on December 23. It opens in theaters everywhere on January 6, 2006.

[modage]

i hope this is great.  my instinct is that it will be good and there will be problems, mostly due to how rushed this production must've been.  had they just settled on next xmas it probably would've been better.  hopefully i'm wrong.