Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
It seems like Salmon Fishing in the Yemen flew mostly under the radar this year, so there was plenty of surprise when it received 3 Golden Globe nominations – most notably, for our purposes, best actor in a comedy or musical for Ewan McGregor.
McGregor is up again Jack Black (Bernie,) Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook,) Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables,) and Bill Murray (Hyde Park on Hudson.)
The Golden Globes nominations are, per usual, very slight on genre.
The Episode VII frenzy has finally slowed down a bit as we wait for news of a director and confirmation of the Kasdan rumors – or maybe it’s just the upcoming holidays – but there are still a few things floating around.
Alumni. We already heard from him way back on D-Day, but Ewan McGregor reiterates that he’d be happy to come back “if they need me.” Samuel L. Jackson is up for it as well/ “I can come back as one-armed or a one-handed Jedi that’s still around that didn’t actually die,” he told E!
Directors. It was briefly speculated that The Prince of Egypt’s Brenda Chapman might be a dark horse in the director’s race, but the tail end of a recent profile in the Daily Record reveals that she’ll be returning the Dreamworks in the new year. Meanwhile… Peter Jackson?
Distribution. It was big news last week that Netflix and Disney had signed a pretty big agreement, but is Star Wars included? Well, distribution rights to the first six films remain with 20th Century Fox, but the Netflix deal doesn’t start until 2016 – so look for Episode VII to air on Disney’s current partner, Starz, first.
Box office. Here’s a little more kissing cousins competition for Episode VII – the Fantastic Four reboot.
I got a chance to drive this today. I’m more a vintage car and bike man, but…… was pretty cool! Dutch. ‘Spyker.’ twitter.com/mcgregor_ewan/…
— Ewan McGregor (@mcgregor_ewan) May 9, 2012
It was nice knowing you, ladies
You’ll need to find another source for regular Ewan-gazing, Wantons. HBO has declined to pick up the adaption of Jonathan Franzen’s bestseller The Corrections, which starred Ewan McGregor, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper and Dianne Weist.
Ewan McGregor spoke to /Film about his latest movie, Salmon Fishing in Yemen, his Oscar-winning Beginners co-star Christopher Plummer, the upcoming Jack the Giant Killer and, of course, the prequels:
Well I like them. I mean I saw them when they came out and I haven’t seen them since, but I was happy to be in them. I felt that it was great to be part of that huge legend of STAR WARS and you know I never involve myself in the discussion about it or the criticism of them or not. They are what they are and fortunately to the moment they’ve re-released the first one and there’s a whole generation of kids now who weren’t around when we released them before. Children love them, regardless of what the die hard STAR WARS fans from the 70’s think, kids love them to bits and I’ve always really enjoyed that with my discussions with them, you know when people’s kids who I haven’t met before come up and they see Obi Wan Kenobi. They’ve always got nice questions to ask and stuff.
He hasn’t seen The Phantom Menace 3D due to filming on The Corrections, but he hopes to go soon – and “take my kids along.”
From the maker of forty inspirational speeches in 2 minutes, for the mush-lovers
GQ breaks the news. It sure seems like Ewan McGregor will be everywhere this year, but apparently the guy’s been so busy that it seems the first he’s heard of The Phantom Menace 3D is from the folks at the magazine. “They’re actually going to rerelease it into the cinema?” he asked GQ. “Well, that’s interesting.” Yeah, can’t say we’d be wildly enthusiastic to find out that our (hypothetical) rat-tail would be in three dimensions either. In other straight-from-1999 news, the Pepsi tie-ins are back.
Hobson profiled. Chicago businesswoman and Good Morning America contributor Mellody Hobson, perhaps best known to us as George Lucas’ girlfriend, is the subject of a brief profile in Forbes. She and Lucas will be featured on the January 15th episode of Oprah’s Next Chapter.
Gaming. The Old Republic might be coming to Mac. Nice try, folks.
Lucasfilm. George Lucas has big plans for a new digital technology facility at Grady Ranch, but some folks in Marin County aren’t exactly welcoming it with open arms.
Yet another reason to get HBO. Obi-Wan actor (and favorite of many in Club Jade) Ewan McGregor will play the role of Chip in The Corrections. The show is based on the award-winning 2001 novel by Jonathan Franzen, which was a best-seller and early pick of Oprah’s Book Club. (Franzen was the author who was infamously less than thrilled for his book to be chosen by the talk-show host.)
While the article states this is McGregor’s first television series, it’s technically not true — one of his first jobs was starring in the UK series Lipstick On Your Collar.
Not that we’re obsessed, or anything.
Records. The Guinness Book of World Records has named Samuel L. Jackson the world’s highest-grossing actor. His films – which include not only the prequels but other blockbusters like Jurassic Park, The Incredibles and Iron Man 2 – have brought in a staggering $7.42 billion dollars.
Strange saberfellows. Noel Gallagher of the band Oasis was a neighbor of Ewan McGregor when he got the part of Obi-Wan – and he was the first to teach Ewan how to fight with a lightsaber. “I just happened to have two of those lightsaber toys, so I said, ‘Come on – in the back garden.'”
Uh-oh. Peter Serafinowicz – the original voice of Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace – told Digital Spy that he didn’t think the film was very good. “”But it was certainly an extremely exciting thing to be a part of,” he goes on to say.
Technology. Learn a little more about Prime Focus, the company doing The Phantom Menace’s 3-D conversion, from India’s Economic Times
I heart prequels: What makes the prequels so great? International House of Geek picks their top ten great things from the Star Wars prequels, from the Jedi Order to the score to battle scenes to Ewan McGregor. Not quite sharing the love (though sharing a few favorites), one of Tor’s bloggers picks five great things from the prequels, and five classic trilogy fizzles. Over at Big Shiny Robot, Bryan makes the case that Episodes I-III are more liked than is generally thought.
The soft side of the Force: Check out these plush Star Wars characters and these crochet granny square TIE Fighters.
This Artoo unit has a sweet motivator: Two times the R2-D2! Check out this remote controlled LEGO Artoo and place an order for a custom knitted R2-D2 sweater.
The planet that it’s farthest from: A war photojournalist visits some of the Star Wars filming sites in Tunisia this summer, and comes across the Mos Espa set, Owens farm, Jawa rock and more.
Making the lists: General Grievous pops up in io9’s list of computer generated characters that actually look cool, Darth Vader is on Total Film’s list of horrible movie bosses (Hey, if your boss chokes you on the job and you die, there’s no workman’s comp claim!). And of course, Jabba the Hutt makes Andrew Liptak’s list of sci-fi gangsters not to mess with.
Who’s scruffy looking? Ewan McGregor’s facial hair in Revenge of the Sith (along with the beards of Harrison Ford, Samuel L. Jackson and Ian McKellan) gets rated on The Men of Whisker Wars Rate Famous Screen Facial Hair.
Speaking of beards, Sunday is the Star Wars Day at the San Francisco Giants ballgame, where the cool giveaway is a three-sided statue of Brian “Fear the Beard” Wilson in carbonite, a more traditional Han Solo in carbonite and a Giants / Star Wars logo.