Warner Bros scraps 3-D plans for next "Harry Potter"

Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.

NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.

Powered by WizardRSS | Full Text RSS Feeds

Michelle Williams to play Marilyn Monroe in movie

LOS ANGELES | Fri Oct 8, 2010 2:23pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Michelle Williams will play Marilyn Monroe in a new movie based around the iconic actress's 1956 film shoot in London opposite Sir Laurence Olivier, producers said on Friday.

Williams, 30, who earned an Oscar nomination for her 2005 role in "Brokeback Mountain" and also appeared in "Shutter Island", stars as Monroe alongside a British cast that sees Kenneth Branagh as Olivier, Julia Ormond playing actress Vivien Leigh and Judi Dench in the role of British screen veteran Dame Sybil Thorndike.

"My Week with Marilyn" chronicles a week in the life of Monroe as she escapes her Hollywood routine and is introduced to the pleasures of 1950s Britain by an assistant on the set of "The Prince and the Showgirl".

British actor Derek Jacobi, and young stars Dominic Cooper and Emma Watson of "Harry Potter" fame, will also appear, with Simon Curtis directing.

Work on the co-production between BBC Films, Trademark Films and the Weinstein Company has already started at Britain's Pinewood Studios, producers said.

The movie is the second planned film treatment of Monroe -- still one of the world's best-known sex symbols more than 40 years after her death.

Australian Naomi Watts is due to play Monroe in the Hollywood movie "Blonde" based on U.S. writer Joyce Carol Oates' 2000 fictional biography of the star. "Blonde" is expected to start shooting in early 2012.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Powered by WizardRSS | Full Text RSS Feeds

Yoko Ono says still getting over Lennon's death

By Birna Bjornsdottir

REYKJAVIK | Fri Oct 8, 2010 12:47pm EDT

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - Artist and musician Yoko Ono said on Friday she was still getting over the death of her husband John Lennon, who was gunned down in New York nearly 30 years ago.

Speaking ahead of what would have been the ex-Beatle's 70th birthday on Saturday, Ono, 77, was in Iceland for the re-lighting of the Imagine Peace Tower that she created in memory of one of the world's must influential songwriters.

"Well, it was very hard because it was a sudden thing that happened, he wasn't ill for a long time or anything, it's just, we were talking before that you know, and, it was very hard," she told Reuters, recalling the moment Lennon was shot outside his apartment building in New York on December 8, 1980.

"I think I am getting over it in a kind of way, in my own unique way, but it's still lingering," she added.

The Imagine Peace Tower, consisting of searchlights reflected upward high into the sky, is located near Reykjavik in Iceland, and was unveiled in 2007 by Ono to symbolize wisdom, healing and joy.

The event in Reykjavik is one of several being organized around the world to mark the anniversary on October 9. Internet search site Google paid tribute to Lennon with a hand-drawn logo and mini-video based on his hit "Imagine".

"It's very interesting, you know, that songs like 'Gimme Some Truth' mean a lot now, and of course 'Give Peace a Chance'. ... 'Imagine'. All his political songs really have a lot of meaning right now for people," Ono said on Friday.

Before earning acclaim as a solo artist after The Beatles broke up in 1970, Lennon was also part of one of the 20th century's most successful songwriting partnerships alongside Paul McCartney.

The pair were responsible for a string of seminal hits, including "She Loves You," "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "A Hard Day's Night."

"MORE HONEST" POST-BEATLES

According to Ono, Lennon's music during and after the Beatles was of equal quality, but his later work was more sincere.

"Of course musically there was no difference in a sense that neither was inferior (to) the other," she said, when asked to compare the two phases of Lennon's musical career.

"I think that his direction changed a little ... I think he was more honest to himself after The Beatles."

Japanese-born Ono believes Lennon, who became a symbol of the anti-Vietnam war movement, would still be politically active were he alive today, but that after his death it was up to her to carry on his message of peace.

"We were partners and it was almost like we were in a battleground, really struggling you know, for peace, for world peace, against all odds.

Powered by WizardRSS | Full Text RSS Feeds

Johnny Depp makes surprise school visit in pirate gear

LONDON | Fri Oct 8, 2010 4:19am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Hollywood star Johnny Depp took "show and tell" to a new level at a London school when he turned up in full pirate regalia after a fan wrote to him seeking help stage a "mutiny," according to media reports.

Beatrice Delap, 9, wrote to Captain Jack Sparrow, Depp's character in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, asking for help with an uprising against teachers at Meridian Primary School in Greenwich, south-east London.

"We are a bunch of budding young pirates and we were having a bit of trouble mutiny-ing against the teachers, and we'd love if you could come and help," Delap wrote to Depp.

Depp, who is in south-east London filming the fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie "On Stranger Tides," gave the school 10 minutes notice on Wednesday that he was on his way.

The school quickly called an assembly and Depp walked in to gasps from the students, according to People magazine.

Depp, holding the letter, called Delap up to the front and hugged her but he dashed any thoughts of a rebellion.

"Maybe we shouldn't mutiny today because there are police outside monitoring me," Depp, a father of two, was quoted as saying.

(Writing by Elaine Lies, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

Powered by WizardRSS | Full Text RSS Feeds

Zuckerberg takes staff to see "Social Network"

By Lindsay Powers

Fri Oct 8, 2010 2:27am EDT

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Mark Zuckerberg ended up seeing "The Social Network" after all.

The Facebook cofounder and CEO took his staff to a screening, a company spokesperson confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.

"To celebrate a period of intense activity at Facebook, we decided to go to the movies. We thought this particular movie might be amusing," the spokesperson said.

After the film, the group indulged in apple martinis, the same drink Jesse Eisenberg, who plays Zuckerberg, and Justin Timberlake (Napster's Sean Parker) drink in the Columbia Pictures film, wrote UsMagazine.com, which first reported the story.

Zuckerberg had said he wouldn't watch the movie, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher. But he called the film "fun" in an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to promote his $100 million donation to New Jersey schools (announced the same day the flick premiered at the New York Film Festival).

On Thursday, the "Social Network" cast landed in London to promote their movie ahead of the Oscars and U.K. BAFTA Awards. There, Timberlake admitted he "would have kicked the door down" for a role in the movie.

He also described a run-in with Parker. (He's the only cast member to have met his real-life alter ego.)

"I was coming out of a bar. He was going into one in New York," Timberlake said. "At the time I hadn't landed the part, so it was a bit awkward because he'd read on the Internet I was going to do it. I had to sheepishly tell him I hadn't been told if I had it yet or not."

Powered by WizardRSS | Full Text RSS Feeds