James Bond star Pierce Brosnan's sacking as agent 007 was a stunning "body blow," he revealed in an
interview Tuesday, as the hunt for his successor as the suave superspy
reportedly drew to an end.
PHOTO: AP
Brosnan's comments came as news reports in Britain said the year-long search for a new Bond had ended with the selection of 37-year-old British actor Daniel Craig as the first blond Bond.
But Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which holds the lucrative Bond franchise, declined to comment on the growing rumors that Craig had been cast in Casino Royale, which is set to begin production in January.
"The studio has no comment at this time," spokesman Steve Elzer said.
PHOTO: AP
Brosnan, 52, who incarnated the British secret agent in four screen outings that reaped US$1.45 billion in ticket sales, said he was stunned and disappointed over the decision to dump him.
Big screen superstars Brad Pitt and Edward Norton are teaming up to
produce a new television mini-series about famed US explorers Lewis and Clark, producers said Monday.
But the pals and co-stars of 1999's Fight Club will not act in the 10-part HBO television adaptation of Stephen Ambrose's book about the 19th century journey of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark across the American continent.
Norton and Pitt will instead act as executive producers of the series, while Norton will also direct at least one of the episodes of the show to be co-produced by National Geographic and HBO, HBO confirmed.
"Lewis and Clark's expedition is as great a story as you could ever hope to tell, and like so many people, Brad and I have both been drawn to it for years," Norton was quoted as saying by Daily Variety.
And Oscar-winning US superstar Al Pacino is taking on the role of a college professor who doubles as an FBI forensic psychologist in a new crime thriller called 88 Minutes, the industry press said Monday.
Pacino, 65, will be joined by co-stars Leelee Sobieski, Alicia Witt and Neal McDonough in the movie that is scheduled to begin production in the Canadian city of Vancouver today.
The film is to be directed by Jon Avnet, the maker of the hit 1991 comedy-drama Fried Green Tomatoes starring Kathy Bates, according to Daily Variety.
In the new movie, the 30-year-old Witt, who had roles in Two Weeks Notice (2002) and Vanilla Sky (2001) starring Tom Cruise, will play a teaching assistant who falls for Pacino's character.
Sobieski, 23, will play one of Pacino's students, while Minority Report star McDonough will play a death row inmate Pacino's character suspects is orchestrating his murder.
North Korea is commonly portrayed as the world's bad guy in Hollywood, but the country's movie-buff leader Kim Jong-Il is striking back by opening up Pyongyang's film industry to foreign participation.
The policy is aimed at reviving the fortunes of the Stalinist state's once thriving movie business and will also enable North Korean films to reach overseas, according to Chinese
filmmaker Piao Zun Xi, the director of the first foreign feature made in the
reclusive country.
"North Korea is willing to participate actively in co-production activities," Piao told a meeting at the Pusan
International Film Festival in South Korea's southern Busan city.
"Kim Jong-Il is well known to be an avid film lover. (North Korea) wants to learn from other countries what is going on in the film sector," he said.
"If such co-operation takes place there will a lot of interest worldwide and in Asia," he told the gathering of film industry professionals.
Meanwhile the US film industry is also worrying about its future as a new survey shows teenage boys and young men lead disillusioned US movie-goers in staying away from cinemas as ticket prices rise and the quality of home entertainment soars.
As Hollywood wages an epic battle against falling ticket sales, the poll revealed that one of the industry's most crucial audience groups, males aged between 13 and 24, are opting to stay home to watch DVDs and play video games.
Boys and young men in the key demographic group reported watching a whopping 24 percent fewer films in the all-important summer cinema season this year than they did over the same period in 2003, consumer research firm Online Testing eXchange (OTX) said.
"The perception among young male moviegoers that there wasn't much to see his year was a difficult barrier to overcome, regardless of price," said Vincent Bruzzese of OTX.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50