British-American actor Andrew Garfield landed the much-coveted lead role as Peter Parker/Spider-Man for the upcoming and still untitled Spider-Man movie.  The 27-year old actor will take over the reins as the Marvel superhero Spider-Man in the franchise reboot to be directed by Marc Webb.

The Peter Parker/Spider-Man role was previously played by Tobey Maguire in three blockbuster movies.  It was Maguire, three-time Spider-Man director Sam Raimi, and Sony Pictures who decided that the storyline be rebooted in a scaled-back configuration starting 2010.  However, Maguire and Raimi backed out amid story and scheduling issues over a fourth movie.

The fourth Spider-Man film by Sony Pictures is reported to focus on a younger Peter Parker, at the time when he was in high school, and how he grapples with contemporary human problems and the crises that come with being a super-human. Spider-Man is a Marvel Comics superhero who gained his superpowers after getting bitten by a radioactive spider. The fourth Spider-Man film will start production in December with a screenplay written by James Vanderbilt.  The movie will be produced by Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin.  This action-adventure film will be shot in 3D and is expected to hit the 3D and 2D theaters on July 3, 2011.

According to Spider-Man producer Avi Arad, Garfield is “the perfect choice” for the role of Peter Parker who is sensitive, smart, and cool.  It was reported that Garfield bested other actors like Jamie Bell, Aaron Johnson, Logan Lerman, and Josh Hutcherson for the role.

In an interview with Garfield, he revealed that he has been ready to play the role of Spider-Man for over two decades.  According to him, he has been wearing the Spider-Man costume every Halloween since he was four years old.

Garfield’s career has been steadily gaining momentum ever since his appearance in the three Red Riding films released in the United Kingdom in 2009.  He also starred in the critically-acclaimed British dramas Boy A and Lions for Lambs.  He was also seen in Heath Ledger’s film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus last year.  This 2010, Garfield starred in I’m Here, a film by Spike Jones that was released at Sundance.  This September, he will be seen in theaters in a lead role in Fox Searchlight’s drama movie Never Let Me Go.  He is also in the film The Social Network, a film about the founding of the popular networking site Facebook, which is set to hit theaters on October 1.

When New Moon, the second installment of the Twilight series, was filmed in British Columbia, the producers were reported to have called in the Canadian Mounties to protect its lead star, Robert Pattinson, from the barrage of female fans. Constables Brandon Builziuk and Brendon Baillant were enlisted to make sure that the filming went without a hitch.

The two cops are said to have encountered many overzealous teen fans while on assignment.  They were said to be tasked to keep the fans off the set.  Part of New Moon was filmed in the tiny island of Tofino on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.

According to the two constables, the fans were annoyed with them because they won’t allow them to get closer.  Moreover, the constables said that the fans’ spirits lifted when Pattinson’s co-star, Kirsten Stewart, came over and posed for a few photographs with them.

The money donated by the New Moon producers, amounting to more than $3000 because of the service rendered by the two Mounties while the crew was filming, was used to purchase for two local school’s sporting equipment.

It has been reported that female fans kept on visiting the set even though it had been raining hard the whole time.  On the other hand, the producers are said to have loved the rains because it helped make the scenes gloomier.

Robert Pattinson is an English actor, musician, model, and producer who started out with his career portraying the role of Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  He eventually landed the leading role as the vampire Edward Cullen in the film adaptations of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Novels and gained international fame.

Pattinson has been cited as one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood and one of the biggest movie stars in the world.  This year, Forbes has ranked him as one of the most powerful celebrities and is one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People In The World.”  He has also been named as “Best Dressed Man” of 2010 by both GQ and Glamour and included in the People’s list of “World’s Most Beautiful.”

In 2009, Pattinson was one of the “Sexiest Men Alive” by both People and Glamour.  He was also included in the “Top Hollywood Earners of 2009.”  In the same year, he was also named by Vanity Fair as “the most handsome man in the world.”

Pattinson already has a wax statue of him in Madame Tussauds collection both in New York City and London.  He will be seen in his upcoming films Water For Elephants, Bel Ami, Unbound Captives, and the parts 1 and 2 of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.

Hollywood actor Michael Douglas appeared Tuesday night on Late Night and talked about his stage-four throat cancer in a candid interview with host David Letterman.  The two men hugged each other at the end of the interview.  The 65-year old movie star only discovered he has a late-stage throat cancer three weeks ago.

Looking gaunt but remarkably good-spirited, Michael Douglas looked healthy considering his condition.  He announced his condition last August 16.  He just completed his first week of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.  According to him, his cancer remains above the neck area and it has not metastasized to other parts of his body so he is still optimistic that he can still be cured.  Moreover, he said that expectations are good with at least 80 percent chance of recovery.

His wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, expressed her frustration that doctors were not able to diagnose the cancer months ago.  Douglas is said to have complained of a persistent sore throat and ear pain earlier this summer and saw the doctors about it but the test he underwent failed to find a cause.  So he and his wife went ahead on a planned summer vacation traveling to Russia and Spain with their two children, 10-year old Dylan and 7-year old Carys.  Since Douglas’ condition did not improve upon his return, the doctors did a biopsy of a tumor they found at the base of his throat.  The biopsy results revealed that Douglas has a stage four throat cancer.

According to Douglas, his unhealthy lifestyle and recent personal problems may have contributed to the disease.  He admitted that he smoked and drank.  He also acknowledges stress due to his son’s, Cameron, imprisonment on drug charges and the demand of his ex-wide, Diandra, to have half of his Wall Street salary.

According to the National Institutes of Health, the use of either alcohol or tobacco puts a person at risk for developing throat cancer.  The combination of the two is said to increase the risks.  Moreover, men, especially those who are older than 50 years old, are more likely to develop throat cancer than women.

Douglas starred in blockbuster hits like Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct.  He won an Oscar for his role as the greedy Gordon Gekko in the 1987 film Wall Street.  He is currently promoting  Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, a sequel directed by Oliver Stone.  The film is set to be released in September 24.

Disney-Pixar’s 3D computer-animated film, Toy Story 3, topped the list of the top-earning movies released for summer 2010 and became the first animated movie to pass the $1 billion mark and became the seventh film to do so at the worldwide box office.   Toy Story 3 is the third film of the Toy Story series produced by Pixar Animation Studio and released by Walt Disney Pictures.

Toy Story 3 is said to have earned more than the combined earnings of Toy Story 1 and Toy Story 2.  It is also the second film from Walt Disney Pictures to reach $1 billion in a year, after Alice In Wonderland, and marked the first time for a studio to have two billion-dollar films within just a single year.

Despite the reported 6% fall in summer 2010 movie ticket sales as compared to the same time in 2009, a number of movies released this summer managed to make good in the box office.  This decrease is seen to be due to the shorter industry season this year, having only 18 weekends compared to the 19 weekends of summer 2009.

Running in second place is Shrek Forever, the fourth installation in Dream Works Animation’s Shrek movie series.  This final Shrek movie is said to be the worst performing of the four Shrek movies in the United States but the movie got its much needed boost from its overseas ticket sales.  The overseas ticket sales of Shrek Forever is said to comprise around 64% of its total earnings.

At third place is Summit Entertainment’s The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.  Though expectations were high for this installment of The Twilight Saga series, Eclipse failed to surpass the earnings of its predecessor, New Moon.  Still, it took in respectable earnings and Summit has already announced the release dates for the next two installations if this very popular Twilight series for November 2011 and November 2012.

Marvel Studios’ Iron Man 2, the second in the planned Iron Man trilogy, is at fourth place in 2010’s summer box office.  This Iron Man sequel succeeded to surpass the earnings of the first Iron Man movie released last 2008.  The film was distributed by Paramount Pictures.

Time Warner Studio’s Inception is at the fifth rank, a science fiction action film by Christopher Nolan.  Inception is the only movie in summer 2010’s top 5 movies that was not a sequel of an already successful franchise nor was it based on a book, an old movie, or a known character.

Paris Hilton once again had a brush with authorities when she was arrested in Las Vegas shortly before midnight last Friday for suspicion of felony cocaine possession. She was subsequently released according to her lawyer on Saturday.

Hilton’s lawyer David Chernoff appealed to the public to let the issue be settled in court and not on the media. He also voiced his encouragement for people not to quickly judge his client until all the pertinent facts have been dealt with by the court.

Hilton, the 29-year old controversial celebrity, socialite, TV and movie celebrity, and singer was with his boyfriend, Cy Waits when the incident occurred. Waits is night club mogul and the manager of a club inside the Wynn Las Vegas. The two were aboard a black Cadillac Escalade SUV owned by Waits when they were apprehended by the police at around 11:30 p.m. last Friday.

A police officer was alerted by the smoke wafting from the SUV boarded by Hilton and Waits. The police officer followed the smell and suspected it as the odor of marijuana.

When Hilton pulled out a tube of lip balm from her purse, a bindle of cocaine inside a plastic bag is said to have fell out of her purse. She was then arrested because of suspicion for felony cocaine possession. Hilton’s boyfriend, Waits, on the other hand, was charged with driving under the influence.

Both Hilton and Waits were booked into the Clark County Jail. Sources close to Hilton said that the purse where the police found the cocaine was not hers.

This is the second instance when Hilton was arrested on allegations of drug possession. A few months ago, she was detained in South Africa after a soccer match during the World Cup on suspicion of marijuana possession. South African authorities dropped the charges against Hilton earlier this summer after the local police said that a friend accompanying Hilton to the soccer match was the one in possession of marijuana.

Hilton was charged with alcohol-related reckless driving in 2007 and was sentenced to 45 days in jail. She also spent three weeks in a jail in Los Angeles as penalty for her violation of her probation in the said case.

Paris Hilton is a hotel heiress being a great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, the founder of the popular Hilton hotels. She herself runs her own multimillion dollar business including wine, fragrances, and clothing line based on her name.

It seems that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is not that keen about the Facebook movie entitled The Social Network scheduled to premier next month in the New York Film Festival.  The movie is about the founding of the very popular social networking site Facebook.

The movie is based on the 2009 book by Ben Mezrich, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal.  The movie The Social Network will focus on how Facebook was created by friends Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin in 2004 when they were still undergraduates at the Harvard University, how they rose to fortune and fame, and how their rift led to many lawsuits and the fight for hundreds of millions of dollars.

In July 2009, the script was leaked on the internet.  In September of the same year, actor Jessie Eisenberg was chosen to play the role of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and the youngest billionaire at 26 years old.

Facebook is dismissing the movie as a mere fiction but the movie’s producers said that the “conflicting truths” of the controversial beginnings of Facebook are revealed in the film.

The movie is said to portray Zuckerberg as having built Facebook to get girls and as having screwed his early colleagues and partners.  Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes dismissed as crazy the portrayal of Zuckerberg as having created Facebook to gain power and to get girls.  Another co-founder of the said popular social networking site, Dustin Moskovitz, said that contrary to what was depicted in the movie’s trailer, a lot less sex and a lot more work characterized the company’s beginnings.

Zuckerberg and his colleagues, wary of the damage that may be caused by the movie, are said to have struggled with the movie’s producers behind closed doors.  Though producers made some minor changes in the movie to appease them, they did not give in to make the bigger ones the Facebook executives asked for.

Due to various complaints made by Zuckerberg and company about the film, Scott Rudin, one of the producers of The Social Network, clarified that the movie tells about the two differing stories that were told in two court cases, involving Zuckerberg and his colleagues, which ended in settlements.

The film was written by award-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher.  The movie is scheduled to be released on October 1 by Sony Pictures and is going to be distributed by Columbia Pictures.

Avatar 2, sequel to the very successful James Cameron film, Avatar, is underway with writer/director/producer James Cameron still at the helm.  Avatar fans have been anticipating a sequel since December 18 of last year, the opening day of the first Avatar movie.

The resounding success of the first movie spurred James Cameron to seriously explore the possibility of doing an Avatar Trilogy.  In February of this year, he even announced that he will be doing a novelization of the Avatar story and take a look at the different backgrounds and facets of the main characters of the film.  According to sources, some elements of the pre-production stage for Avatar 2 were already started as early as December last year.

The first Avatar movie raked in over $2.7 billion worldwide.  It is the highest grossing movie of all times, overtaking Titanic (also by James Cameron) which held the record for quite some time.  This movie will be re-released this August 27 and the new version will feature the integration of the extra nine minutes that was not included in the film’s first release.

All in CGI, the nine additional minutes will include a lot of materials not included in the first cut like a hunt sequence, Na’vi counterattack after the destruction brought about by the bulldozer, the humans’ reaction to the imminent war, and a lot more. Moreover, Cameron assured that every frame of the 20-second glade love scene, also not included in the first release, will be restored.

Cameron’s affinity for the ocean is expected to manifest in the sequel movie with its focus on the underwater life of the oceans of Pandora’s fictional moon.   Cameron hinted that he wanted to create a different environment for the sequel which will be a different setting within the planet Pandora.

If the first Avatar movie took about five years to finish, many fans expect Avatar 2 to hit theaters by 2011 or 2012.  However, in an interview early this year, Cameron announced that fans should not expect Avatar 2 to be shown earlier than December 2013.  It has also been reported that fans of Avatar 2 would only be able to see it either in IMAX 3D or Digital 3D.

Since no contract is in place yet with Fox, Cameron said that there is no significant movement yet on Avatar 2.  Aside from this, other major film projects also await Cameron like the much anticipated Battle Angel, The Dive, and At The Mountains Of Madness.

Daniel Craig (James Bond)

Quantum of Solace starts barely hours after Casino Royale ends. Barely hours after escaping his death, Bond is once more on another mission to save the world.  Still hurting from the betrayal of Vesper, his lover, it is difficult for Bond to keep this mission professional.

After catching Mr White, Bond and M interrogate White who tells them about the organization that blackmailed Vesper to steal Bond’s casino winnings. It turns out the organization if much more sinister and treacherous than could ever be imagined.

When an M16 traitor is linked to a Haitian bank account, Bond meets the typical Bond girl – the beautiful, but tough Camille. Camille is on her own mission of revenge and takes Bond to Dominic Greene, a cut throat business man and a major player within the crime organization Quantum.

The mission takes them through Italy, Austria, South America and finally to Bolivia. Greene’s intent is to take over one of the most important natural resources in the world and he is dealing with the devil, the exiled General Medrano.

Quantam of Solace

Greene’s ruthlessness leads him to use his criminal associates, and control his CIA and British government contacts with promises to depose Bolivia’s current government. His plan is to install General Medrano as Bolivia’s leader in return for a barren piece of land.

What seems to be a barren piece of land though is the very heart and soul of South America, the site of its main water supply. The usual Bond minefield of deceit and treachery has Bond turning to old friends to help him reveal the truth.

Bond must stay one step in front of CIA agents, M, and the terrorists to get to the truth and to stop Quantum in its tracks.

This is a story of revenge rather than the normal Bond love story. Bond again has become an action packed hero rather than the agent with an attitude. But this film is the 22nd in the series, is action packed, filmed in breathtaking locations and should leave Bond lovers satisfied.

Please leave any comments below. did you like the movie? Can you add any thing for others to learn more about this movie. Is Danial Craig holding his own as James Bond?

Romantic comedies survived WW2 and the 20th Century nicely, becoming the staple entertainment items of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Cary Grant alone has made enough romantic comedies to last us for a while… THE AWFUL TRUTH, HIS GIRL FRIDAY, HOLIDAY, THE GRASS IS GREENER, OPERATION PETTICOAT, THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, MY FAVORITE WIFE, HOUSEBOAT… the list goes on and on.

Starting in the late 50s and continuing through the 60s, we have the Pillow Talk genre of rom-coms. Who can forget the Doris Day and Rock Hudson magic? It was great while it lasted.

Zoom ahead to our day, what do we have? Has anyone watched a good romantic comedy since the monumental achievement of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY (1989) and SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE (1993), both written by Nora Ephron, and the latter also directed by the same?

YOU’VE GOT MAIL (1998) was one time too many Ephron tried to create the same Sleeples magic. As gifted a writer and director as she was, even Nora Ephron could not pull the rom-com rabbit out of her hat whenever she wanted. And I’m afraid it’s getting harder by the day.

How can we have true comedy, and especially romantic comedy, when the world seems to be exploding at the seams? With all these wars, international terrorism, global warming, nuclear proliferation, unheard of pandemics, who has the heart to celebrate the innocence of a romantic comedy?

One alternative is to recombine rom-com with other genres, like the rom-com-action-thriller experiment MR. AND MRS. SMITH (2005). I give that genre-saddling approach another ten years and then perhaps we may have to do with rom-com-horror and rom-com-sci-fi anomalies masquerading as the original thing.

Buckle your seatbelts, kids. Romantic comedy could be a rough ride in the years ahead.

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Ugur Akinci, Ph.D. is a Creative Copywriter, Editor, an experienced and award-winning Senior Technical Communicator specializing in fundraising packages, direct sales copy, web content, press releases, movie reviews and hi-tech documentation. He has worked as a Technical Writer for Fortune 100 corporations since 1999. He is the editor of PRIVATE TUTOR FOR SAT MATH SUCCESS web site http://www.privatetutor.us

In addition to being an Ezine Articles Expert Author, he is also a Senior Member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC), and a Member of American Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI).

A true movie fan since he was a child, Akinci provides FREE MOVIE PLOT IDEAS every day of the year at SCRIPT BOILER. Visit http://scriptboiler.blogspot.com today. You are most welcomed to visit his COPYWRITING WEB SITE http://www.writer111.com for more information on his multidisciplinary background, writing career, and client testimonials.

The Great Train Robbery was a film made in 1903 and was the first American film that had a story to tell its audience. It was made by Edwin S. Porter and it lasted for eight minutes. This was a silent movie and had a “cops and robbers” plot, like a lot of films that followed it. Printed subtitles were eventually added to the silent movies in 1912. These subtitles were flashed together with the action scenes to help the audience understand what was happening. In order to add more drama and excitement to the scenes, an untiring pianist would play throughout the movie. He would switch from fast music for exciting or dramatic numbers to a more sentimental and slow music as the mood of the picture changed.

In April of 1914, the first large theater was built for the sole purpose of showing films. This theater was able to hold 3000 people. The building of this grand scale theater inspired the age of magnitude and splendor in motion pictures.

In 1915, David Wark Griffith produced a 3-hour film entitled The Birth of a Nation. The movie was about the American Civil War and the Reconstruction or the rebuilding of the South. This movie was a great advancement in the film industry. This was not only because of its controversial topic, which was a story that was told from the perspective of the defeated South, but it introduced a much more developed and refined camera technique. The movie used a series of close-ups and long shots in combination with very unique editing, which is the arrangement of the shots. This camera technique was able to bring the historical setting to life and immerse the audience in the epoch. Griffith also added a full orchestra in the theater pits. The orchestra played an especially composed musical score and added the sound effects. The music together with the camera technique mesmerized the audience. The Birth of a Nation was the first epic of American cinema.

Before long motion pictures were made, “flickers” as long as 20 minutes were shown in small stores called Nickelodeons. However, in the advent of large-scale motion pictures, these Nickelodeons expanded into larger theaters. When they did not have motion pictures to show, they had showed “serials”. These serials were divided into 20-minute episodes. One episode was shown every week and it would always end with the hero and heroine facing another dilemma. The term “cliffhangers” came from these serials because the hero or the heroin was often left hanging dangerously over a cliff at the end of the episode. The audience would have to wait until the next week to see what would happen to them. This strategy secured a continuous and interested audience.

Earlier, films were made by small independent producers. But with the birth of the large theater, silent movies had become a booming business in the span of 20 years. The films were now produced by companies of producers or studios. Some of these companies were Paramount, Warner Bros., Universal and United Artists. As a consequence of World War I, most of these the big-shot producers moved to California. The center of the production of American films became Hollywood, which is an area within Los Angeles. It was not long until Hollywood acquired its reputation for glamour and made it a famous name around the world. This status of Hollywood is true even today.

Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Movies