Disney Channel’s premiere of the musical Descendants 3 drew 8.4 million total viewers in Live+3 ratings to rank as the top show across all of television on Friday night. It also was cable’s highest-rated program since 2017’s Descendants 2 in several key young demos.
The threequel — which was dedicated to the memory of its star Cameron Boyce, who died last month — ranked No. 1 on Saturday in every demo Disney Channel tracks. Per Nielsen, it was the top-rated telecast on all of cable in two years among kids 6-11, tweens 9-14, girls 6-11 and girls 9-14.
In July 2017, Descendants 2 premiered to 8.6 million total viewers for Disney Channel and 21 million across six Disney-owned networks including ABC in L+3. The original Descendants did even better for its July 2015 bow. All three pics in the franchise soared in L+3 over Live+same day.
Revolving around...
The threequel — which was dedicated to the memory of its star Cameron Boyce, who died last month — ranked No. 1 on Saturday in every demo Disney Channel tracks. Per Nielsen, it was the top-rated telecast on all of cable in two years among kids 6-11, tweens 9-14, girls 6-11 and girls 9-14.
In July 2017, Descendants 2 premiered to 8.6 million total viewers for Disney Channel and 21 million across six Disney-owned networks including ABC in L+3. The original Descendants did even better for its July 2015 bow. All three pics in the franchise soared in L+3 over Live+same day.
Revolving around...
- 8/8/2019
- by Erik Pedersen
- Deadline Film + TV
Disney Channel’s Descendants 3 just got more villainous. The cable net said today that Cheyenne Jackson is set to play Hades, the underworld ruler from Disney’s 1997 toon Hercules, rounding out the cast of the telepic threequel set for 2019.
Production on the live-action musical; is set to begin shortly, Disney Channel said. Watch the “Who Is Hades?” announcement video below.
Jackson, an American Horror Story player for the past few seasons who also appears in the upcoming Paramount Network comedy American Woman,
He is the latest franchise newcomer to join the cast along with Jadah Marie as Dr. Facilier’s daughter Celia, Jamal Sims as Dr. Facilier and Christian Convery and Luke Roessler as Smee’s sons Squeaky and Squirmy, respectively.
Returning Villain Kids Dove Cameron as Maleficent’s daughter Mal, Cameron Boyce as Cruella de Vil’s son Carlos, Sofia Carson as the Evil Queen’s daughter Evie,...
Production on the live-action musical; is set to begin shortly, Disney Channel said. Watch the “Who Is Hades?” announcement video below.
Jackson, an American Horror Story player for the past few seasons who also appears in the upcoming Paramount Network comedy American Woman,
He is the latest franchise newcomer to join the cast along with Jadah Marie as Dr. Facilier’s daughter Celia, Jamal Sims as Dr. Facilier and Christian Convery and Luke Roessler as Smee’s sons Squeaky and Squirmy, respectively.
Returning Villain Kids Dove Cameron as Maleficent’s daughter Mal, Cameron Boyce as Cruella de Vil’s son Carlos, Sofia Carson as the Evil Queen’s daughter Evie,...
- 5/21/2018
- by Erik Pedersen
- Deadline Film + TV
With the third installment of Disney’s Descendents about to commence filming, it has been revealed that Thomas Doherty and Sarah Jeffrey will back to reprise their roles in the feature.
The highly-anticipated third movie in a trilogy about the teenage sons and daughters of Disney’s most infamous villains will see Jeffrey return as the Beautiful and prim Audrey, the daughter of Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty).
Related: Descendants 2 Interviews with Thomas Doherty, Booboo Stewart and Kenny Ortega.
Thomas Doherty and Dylan Playfair will reprise their roles as Harry and Gil, members of Uma’s pirate crew, joining Dove Cameron as Mal, Cameron Boyce as Carlos, Sofia Carson as Evie, Booboo Stewart as Jay, Mitchell Hope as King Ben and China Anne McClain as Uma.
Directed by Emmy® and DGA Award-winning Kenny Ortega, Descendants 3 is written by Sara Parriott and Josann McGibbon who, with Kenny Ortega and Wendy Japhet,...
The highly-anticipated third movie in a trilogy about the teenage sons and daughters of Disney’s most infamous villains will see Jeffrey return as the Beautiful and prim Audrey, the daughter of Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty).
Related: Descendants 2 Interviews with Thomas Doherty, Booboo Stewart and Kenny Ortega.
Thomas Doherty and Dylan Playfair will reprise their roles as Harry and Gil, members of Uma’s pirate crew, joining Dove Cameron as Mal, Cameron Boyce as Carlos, Sofia Carson as Evie, Booboo Stewart as Jay, Mitchell Hope as King Ben and China Anne McClain as Uma.
Directed by Emmy® and DGA Award-winning Kenny Ortega, Descendants 3 is written by Sara Parriott and Josann McGibbon who, with Kenny Ortega and Wendy Japhet,...
- 4/23/2018
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Sarah Jeffery will return to Descendants 3 as Audrey in the Disney Channel threequel, and Thomas Doherty and Dylan Playfair also will be back to reprise their roles.
Directed by Emmy-winning Kenny Ortega, Descendants 3 is the third movie in a trilogy about the teenage sons and daughters most infamous villains. It’s set to begin production next month for a 2019 premiere.
Jeffery originated the fan-favorite role of Audrey, the daughter of Princess Aurora, in 2015’s Descendants. The character is referenced in last year’s sequel, although she does not appear.
Doherty and Playfair return to reprise their roles as Harry and Gil, each members of Uma’s pirate crew in Descendants 3, joining Dove Cameron as Mal, Cameron Boyce as Carlos, Sofia Carson as Evie, Booboo Stewart as Jay, Mitchell Hope as King Ben and China Anne McClain as Uma.
Sara Parriott and Josann McGibbon who penned the screenplays for the first two Descendants movies,...
Directed by Emmy-winning Kenny Ortega, Descendants 3 is the third movie in a trilogy about the teenage sons and daughters most infamous villains. It’s set to begin production next month for a 2019 premiere.
Jeffery originated the fan-favorite role of Audrey, the daughter of Princess Aurora, in 2015’s Descendants. The character is referenced in last year’s sequel, although she does not appear.
Doherty and Playfair return to reprise their roles as Harry and Gil, each members of Uma’s pirate crew in Descendants 3, joining Dove Cameron as Mal, Cameron Boyce as Carlos, Sofia Carson as Evie, Booboo Stewart as Jay, Mitchell Hope as King Ben and China Anne McClain as Uma.
Sara Parriott and Josann McGibbon who penned the screenplays for the first two Descendants movies,...
- 4/20/2018
- by Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
Wendy Japhet has joined Gale Anne Hurd's Valhalla Motion Pictures as president. Anne Teixeira is joining the production company as a creative executive.
Reporting to Hurd, Japhet, who most recently served as Endgame Entertainment's president of production and development, will oversee acquisitions, development and production of Valhalla's projects.
Japhet served as exec producer on Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There"; "The Brothers Bloom," starring Rachel Weisz and Adrien Brody; and the upcoming Sony Pictures Classics release "An Education."
Before that, she was Paramount senior vp, production, supervising "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," and also ran production and development for De Line Pictures, serving as exec producer on "Without a Paddle" and "The Italian Job."
Teixeira also worked as a production exec at Endgame. Prior to that, she worked at Paramount and at Nickelodeon Television in production and development.
Reporting to Japhet, Teixeira will work with creative exec Ben Roberts...
Reporting to Hurd, Japhet, who most recently served as Endgame Entertainment's president of production and development, will oversee acquisitions, development and production of Valhalla's projects.
Japhet served as exec producer on Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There"; "The Brothers Bloom," starring Rachel Weisz and Adrien Brody; and the upcoming Sony Pictures Classics release "An Education."
Before that, she was Paramount senior vp, production, supervising "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," and also ran production and development for De Line Pictures, serving as exec producer on "Without a Paddle" and "The Italian Job."
Teixeira also worked as a production exec at Endgame. Prior to that, she worked at Paramount and at Nickelodeon Television in production and development.
Reporting to Japhet, Teixeira will work with creative exec Ben Roberts...
- 7/7/2009
- by By Gregg Kilday
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Lindsay Sloane has been cast as one of the female leads in A Good Old Fashioned Orgy.
The Endgame Entertainment comedy stars Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte and Leslie Bibb and follows a 30-year-old man who is forced to grow up when his parents decide to sell the family vacation home and enlists his friends to throw one final party: an orgy.
Sloane will play a high school teacher who has found religion and is trying to get her friends to go to Bible study but ends up going to the orgy.
Peter Huyck and Alex Gregory are directing Orgy, which is being produced by James Stern and Wendy Japhet.
Sloane, repped by Endeavor and Thruline, is in production on She's Out of My League and will next be seen in the upcoming in The Six Wives of Henry Lefay. She recently starred in The TV Set.
The Endgame Entertainment comedy stars Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte and Leslie Bibb and follows a 30-year-old man who is forced to grow up when his parents decide to sell the family vacation home and enlists his friends to throw one final party: an orgy.
Sloane will play a high school teacher who has found religion and is trying to get her friends to go to Bible study but ends up going to the orgy.
Peter Huyck and Alex Gregory are directing Orgy, which is being produced by James Stern and Wendy Japhet.
Sloane, repped by Endeavor and Thruline, is in production on She's Out of My League and will next be seen in the upcoming in The Six Wives of Henry Lefay. She recently starred in The TV Set.
- 5/27/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Endgame has acquired The Hungry Rabbit Jumps, a spec by Robert Tannen. Tobey Maguire is producing via Maguire Entertainment.
Plot details are being kept under lock and key, though the script is described as a dark, character-driven thriller.
Endgame's Jim Stern is also producing as is Gordonstreet Pictures' Ram Bergman.
Endgame's Wendy Japhet is exec producing while Lucas Smith is acting as co-exec producer.
Mark Ross oversees at Maguire Entertainment.
Endgame is a production and a co-financing company, with credits including Hotel Rwanda, "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" White Noise and the upcoming thriller The Brother Bloom starring Rachel Weisz and Adrien Brody. The company has a financing arrangement with Louisiana which sees a number of their pictures shoot in the state.
Tannen, repped by Features Artists Agency and Shuman Co., wrote 2006's Even Money, starring Kim Basinger and Danny DeVito.
Maguire next stars opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman in Jim Sheridan's Brothers. On the producer side, he is developing a live-action adaptation of the anime classic Robotech and is teaming up with Neal Moritz to adapt comic book Afterburn for Relativity Media.
Plot details are being kept under lock and key, though the script is described as a dark, character-driven thriller.
Endgame's Jim Stern is also producing as is Gordonstreet Pictures' Ram Bergman.
Endgame's Wendy Japhet is exec producing while Lucas Smith is acting as co-exec producer.
Mark Ross oversees at Maguire Entertainment.
Endgame is a production and a co-financing company, with credits including Hotel Rwanda, "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" White Noise and the upcoming thriller The Brother Bloom starring Rachel Weisz and Adrien Brody. The company has a financing arrangement with Louisiana which sees a number of their pictures shoot in the state.
Tannen, repped by Features Artists Agency and Shuman Co., wrote 2006's Even Money, starring Kim Basinger and Danny DeVito.
Maguire next stars opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman in Jim Sheridan's Brothers. On the producer side, he is developing a live-action adaptation of the anime classic Robotech and is teaming up with Neal Moritz to adapt comic book Afterburn for Relativity Media.
NEW YORK -- Peter Sarsgaard, Carey Mulligan, Alfred Molina and Emma Thompson will star in the 1960s coming-of-age drama An Education.
Writer Nick Hornby (About a Boy) adapted the screenplay from a memoir by Lynn Barber, published in literary magazine Granta. Endgame Entertainment and BBC Films are financing the film.
Danish director Lone Scherfig will helm the story of a 17-year-old girl (Mulligan) living in the quiet London suburbs. As the swinging '60s culture emerges, her world turns upside down after she meets a 35-year-old sportscar-driving Brit (Sarsgaard). He courts her with chic dinners, clubs and foreign trips, charming her father (Molina) but putting her future at Oxford University in jeopardy. Thompson plays the disapproving headmistress of her school.
Finola Dwyer (Backbeat) and Amanda Posey (Fever Pitch) are producing. Endgame CEO James D. Stern, Wendy Japhet, Douglas E. Hansen and BBC Films' David M. Thompson are executive producing. Principal photography is set to begin in late March in London.
The film will be Hornby's second produced screenplay after Pitch.
Writer Nick Hornby (About a Boy) adapted the screenplay from a memoir by Lynn Barber, published in literary magazine Granta. Endgame Entertainment and BBC Films are financing the film.
Danish director Lone Scherfig will helm the story of a 17-year-old girl (Mulligan) living in the quiet London suburbs. As the swinging '60s culture emerges, her world turns upside down after she meets a 35-year-old sportscar-driving Brit (Sarsgaard). He courts her with chic dinners, clubs and foreign trips, charming her father (Molina) but putting her future at Oxford University in jeopardy. Thompson plays the disapproving headmistress of her school.
Finola Dwyer (Backbeat) and Amanda Posey (Fever Pitch) are producing. Endgame CEO James D. Stern, Wendy Japhet, Douglas E. Hansen and BBC Films' David M. Thompson are executive producing. Principal photography is set to begin in late March in London.
The film will be Hornby's second produced screenplay after Pitch.
- 2/12/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
- What do you get when you combine a critically acclaimed writer/director with one of the hottest properties to cross the Pacific in recent memory? A film that is set to 'Bloom' like the lilies of the leads native land. Adrien Brody and Rinko Kikuch (Babel), in her first role since getting a nod from the Academy as Best Supporting Actress for her role as “Chieko”, are tapped to lead in The Brother's Bloom an edgy crime drama set for a 2008 release. The pair will work with Rian Johnson, who is a relative newcomer to the scene, but won critical acclaim for his 2005 double shot Kikuchi, who has had a string of hits in her native Japan, has taken the West by storm following her Oscar nomination. The actress turned heads in Tinsel Town with her incredibly believable performance as a deaf mute in the flick, exhibiting the fact
- 2/6/2007
- IONCINEMA.com
Jim Sheridan has signed on to direct gangster movie Locked and Loaded for Paramount Pictures and MTV. The film, which stars rapper 50 Cent, is the first to fall under a three-year, first-look deal the studio struck with Interscope Geffen A&M chairman Jimmy Iovine and Eminem manager Paul Rosenberg. Interscope and MTV will be producing with Iovine and Rosenberg producing and Wendy Japhet overseeing for the studio. Locked and Loaded tells the story of an orphaned kid who turns away from crime and lands a successful musical career. The Sopranos scribe Terence Winter penned the script. "A movie starring 50 Cent and directed by an acclaimed talent like Jim Sheridan is exactly what audiences have come to expect from MTV Films," said MTV Films president Van Toffler. "We're thrilled to be working with our old friends at Interscope and these two amazing artists." Van Toffler is producing along with executive vp David Gale and Heather Perry, Eminem, Dr. Dre and Chris Lighty. Sheridan most recently directed In America, his semi-autobiographical tale of growing up in a colorful tenement building in New York filled with weird and wacky underground characters. He has also signed on to direct a remake of Ikiru. Sheridan is repped by CAA.
- 10/17/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Insomnia scribe Hillary Seitz has sold a pitch to Paramount Pictures for an undisclosed sum. Former Imagine Entertainment executive Steve Crystal will produce, with Wendy Japhet, Paramount's newly appointed senior vp production, overseeing for the studio. The thriller pitch takes a reverse approach to one of Paramount's hit films from the '80s -- though the studio is attempting to keep the exact details under wraps in order to prevent competitors from stealing the concept.
Wendy Japhet has been named senior vp production for the Motion Picture Group at Paramount. A former production executive at De Line Pictures, Japhet will be rejoining Donald De Line, who was named Motion Picture Group vice chairman and Paramount Pictures president this year. Japhet is charged with acquiring, procuring and developing material for feature film production. "I have had the pleasure of working with Wendy for many years, and she has never ceased to amaze me with her passion, hard work and creativity," De Line said. "She is a brilliant development executive, and I am thrilled to continue to work with her as part of the Paramount team."...
- 3/30/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
With Paramount confirming that vps production Brad Kessell and Danica Radovanov are leaving their posts, is there anyone who will fill the void? Sources said the studio is in talks to bring in Wendy Japhet and Andrew Haas, formerly of De Line Pictures, the production shingle that used to be run by Paramount's new production topper, Donald De Line. De Line joined the studio in December. With the names of others who might come or go swirling around town, it seems that spring cleaning has started early at the studio.
Opens
Friday, May 30
"The Italian Job", a 1969 comic caper about a cunning plan to steal a gold shipment from the streets of Turin, gets translated into a muscular present-day actioner under the assured direction of F. Gary Gray. If the first film was big on quirky charm and heart -- it starred Michael Caine, Noel Coward and Benny Hill -- the new version opts for high-gloss style and forward momentum.
Scripters Donna Powers and Wayne Powers borrow two story elements from the original and run with them: the idea of creating a traffic jam in order to pull off a heist and the crucial use of a fleet of three Mini Coopers as stunt characters par excellence. This time around, the microcars are not only characters but a full-fledged marketing tie-in. Times have changed.
Less giddy and more cohesive than the original, the film doesn't waste time, plunging almost directly into a spectacular heist of $35 million in gold bullion that six men, working with digital precision, pull off in a Venice palazzo. The subsequent speedboat chase through the canals, the first of several sequences featuring vehicles performing only-in-the-movies feats, sets the bar for the film's power-propulsion sensibility. On the heels of the "X-Men" and "Matrix" sequels, this more earthbound adventure, with its appealing cast, will be a strong pull for summer audiences seeking high-velocity action.
The plot twists begin when, after a mountaintop toast to their success, five of the men fall victim to a double-cross on an icy road through the Alps, with their sour accomplice Steve (Edward Norton) stepping forward as the bad guy and killing the group's elder statesman, John Donald Sutherland). In a visual homage to the first film's cliffhanger ending, the men's van teeters on the edge of the road before plunging into a lake, where the remaining men share diving equipment to stay alive while Steve shoots away as though at fish in a barrel. Believing they're all dead, he takes off with his conspirators and the loot.
A year later, the gold bricks, marked with telltale Balinese dancers, surface in Los Angeles, and the group's leader, Charlie (Mark Wahlberg), enlists the help of John's daughter (Charlize Theron) in getting them back. Stella, who has inherited her father's knack for cracking safes but works with the law rather than against it, gives in to the desire to avenge John's death. Besides being a skilled safe technician, she's a menace with a Mini, pushing her little red car to extremes through everyday traffic, a talent that will come in handy during the final heist.
The group assembles in L.A. and organizes a scheme to steal the remaining gold from Steve's hilltop mansion. Gray and the writers keep psychologizing to a minimum, with the team's back stories neatly encapsulated in insta-sketches, providing rooting interests and comic relief: Lyle (Seth Green) is the slightly goofy computer genius; explosives expert Left-Ear (Mos Def) is a gentle, charming aesthete with a taste for first editions; Handsome Rob (Jason Statham) is the wheel man and smooth womanizer; and Wahlberg's Charlie, a born thief and strategizer, is the mastermind who holds the group together. There are glimmers of his attraction to Stella, but he's generally so stolid and blank that their nascent romance has little resonance, and he barely registers as an individual.
Even if there's little question that the good thieves will triumph, the film generates a good share of tension, especially in scenes that place Stella and her father's killer face to face. Plan A falls through in a terrific twist, and, as Steve Says to Charlie with a nasty smirk, the game starts up again. It culminates in engineered gridlock and a cat-and-mice chase between Steve, in a malignant black helicopter, and the three heroic Minis -- red, white and blue, as in the original -- tearing through Hollywood and plunging into dark Metro tunnels.
Franky G, Olek Krupa, Boris Krutonog and Gawtti make impressions in supporting roles, while the likable central ensemble gets the job done with straight-ahead work. But the most compelling reason to see the film, besides its high-wire action, is Norton, whose Steve is a villain to remember not because he's outsize in any way but because he's quite the opposite -- an unsettling calculation of quiet self-loathing and predatory instincts.
The accomplished technical package serves the action well, from the widescreen lensing, pulse-quickening editing and propulsive music to the production and costume design, which never call attention to themselves, and the slick Cartesian computer models used throughout. Gray pays tribute to Caine, the original Charlie, in a fleeting glimpse of "Alfie" on the villain's big-screen TV.
THE ITALIAN JOB
Paramount Pictures
De Line Pictures
Credits:
Director: F. Gary Gray
Screenwriters: Donna Powers, Wayne Powers
Based on the film written by: Troy Kennedy Martin
Producer: Donald De Line
Executive producers: James R. Dyer, Wendy Japhet, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
Director of photography: Wally Pfister
Production designer: Charles Wood
Music: John Powell
Costume designer: Mark Bridges
Editors: Richard Francis-Bruce, Christopher Rouse
Cast:
Charlie Croker: Mark Wahlberg
Stella Bridger: Charlize Theron
Steve Frezelli: Edward Norton
Lyle: Seth Green
Handsome Rob: Jason Statham
Wrench: Franky G.
John Bridger: Donald Sutherland
Yevhen: Boris Krutonog
Mashkov: Olek Krupa
Skinny Pete: Gawtti
Running time -- 111 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Friday, May 30
"The Italian Job", a 1969 comic caper about a cunning plan to steal a gold shipment from the streets of Turin, gets translated into a muscular present-day actioner under the assured direction of F. Gary Gray. If the first film was big on quirky charm and heart -- it starred Michael Caine, Noel Coward and Benny Hill -- the new version opts for high-gloss style and forward momentum.
Scripters Donna Powers and Wayne Powers borrow two story elements from the original and run with them: the idea of creating a traffic jam in order to pull off a heist and the crucial use of a fleet of three Mini Coopers as stunt characters par excellence. This time around, the microcars are not only characters but a full-fledged marketing tie-in. Times have changed.
Less giddy and more cohesive than the original, the film doesn't waste time, plunging almost directly into a spectacular heist of $35 million in gold bullion that six men, working with digital precision, pull off in a Venice palazzo. The subsequent speedboat chase through the canals, the first of several sequences featuring vehicles performing only-in-the-movies feats, sets the bar for the film's power-propulsion sensibility. On the heels of the "X-Men" and "Matrix" sequels, this more earthbound adventure, with its appealing cast, will be a strong pull for summer audiences seeking high-velocity action.
The plot twists begin when, after a mountaintop toast to their success, five of the men fall victim to a double-cross on an icy road through the Alps, with their sour accomplice Steve (Edward Norton) stepping forward as the bad guy and killing the group's elder statesman, John Donald Sutherland). In a visual homage to the first film's cliffhanger ending, the men's van teeters on the edge of the road before plunging into a lake, where the remaining men share diving equipment to stay alive while Steve shoots away as though at fish in a barrel. Believing they're all dead, he takes off with his conspirators and the loot.
A year later, the gold bricks, marked with telltale Balinese dancers, surface in Los Angeles, and the group's leader, Charlie (Mark Wahlberg), enlists the help of John's daughter (Charlize Theron) in getting them back. Stella, who has inherited her father's knack for cracking safes but works with the law rather than against it, gives in to the desire to avenge John's death. Besides being a skilled safe technician, she's a menace with a Mini, pushing her little red car to extremes through everyday traffic, a talent that will come in handy during the final heist.
The group assembles in L.A. and organizes a scheme to steal the remaining gold from Steve's hilltop mansion. Gray and the writers keep psychologizing to a minimum, with the team's back stories neatly encapsulated in insta-sketches, providing rooting interests and comic relief: Lyle (Seth Green) is the slightly goofy computer genius; explosives expert Left-Ear (Mos Def) is a gentle, charming aesthete with a taste for first editions; Handsome Rob (Jason Statham) is the wheel man and smooth womanizer; and Wahlberg's Charlie, a born thief and strategizer, is the mastermind who holds the group together. There are glimmers of his attraction to Stella, but he's generally so stolid and blank that their nascent romance has little resonance, and he barely registers as an individual.
Even if there's little question that the good thieves will triumph, the film generates a good share of tension, especially in scenes that place Stella and her father's killer face to face. Plan A falls through in a terrific twist, and, as Steve Says to Charlie with a nasty smirk, the game starts up again. It culminates in engineered gridlock and a cat-and-mice chase between Steve, in a malignant black helicopter, and the three heroic Minis -- red, white and blue, as in the original -- tearing through Hollywood and plunging into dark Metro tunnels.
Franky G, Olek Krupa, Boris Krutonog and Gawtti make impressions in supporting roles, while the likable central ensemble gets the job done with straight-ahead work. But the most compelling reason to see the film, besides its high-wire action, is Norton, whose Steve is a villain to remember not because he's outsize in any way but because he's quite the opposite -- an unsettling calculation of quiet self-loathing and predatory instincts.
The accomplished technical package serves the action well, from the widescreen lensing, pulse-quickening editing and propulsive music to the production and costume design, which never call attention to themselves, and the slick Cartesian computer models used throughout. Gray pays tribute to Caine, the original Charlie, in a fleeting glimpse of "Alfie" on the villain's big-screen TV.
THE ITALIAN JOB
Paramount Pictures
De Line Pictures
Credits:
Director: F. Gary Gray
Screenwriters: Donna Powers, Wayne Powers
Based on the film written by: Troy Kennedy Martin
Producer: Donald De Line
Executive producers: James R. Dyer, Wendy Japhet, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
Director of photography: Wally Pfister
Production designer: Charles Wood
Music: John Powell
Costume designer: Mark Bridges
Editors: Richard Francis-Bruce, Christopher Rouse
Cast:
Charlie Croker: Mark Wahlberg
Stella Bridger: Charlize Theron
Steve Frezelli: Edward Norton
Lyle: Seth Green
Handsome Rob: Jason Statham
Wrench: Franky G.
John Bridger: Donald Sutherland
Yevhen: Boris Krutonog
Mashkov: Olek Krupa
Skinny Pete: Gawtti
Running time -- 111 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
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