Category: News & Rumors

Bryce Dallas Howard and Xavier Samuel – Eclipse

Bryce Dallas Howard and Xavier Samuel, Taylor Lautner’s new co-stars on “The Twilight Saga’s Eclipse”, have filmed a kissing scene for the highly anticipated vampire drama flick, which will be released in U.S. theaters on June 30, 2010. Filming their scenes for the movie, Bryce and Xavier were snapped locking lips on its set in Vancouver, Canada on Thursday, August 20.

During the filming, both of them were seen wearing black costumes. On the movie, Bryce portrays vampire vamp Victoria, which was initially played by Rachelle Lefevre on “The Twilight Saga’s New Moon”. Australian actor Xavier, in the meantime, stars as “newborn vampire” Riley, a good-looking college student who teams up with Victoria to murder Kristen Stewart’s Bella Swan. And since Riley has an inexplicable weakness, he is corrupted by Victoria.

Off screen, Bryce Dallas Howard and Xavier Samuel are going on really well. They were snapped on Sunday, August 23 hanging out together in Vancouver. Also joining them were the 28-year-old actress’ husband Seth Gabel and son Theodore Norman Howard Gabel.

Van Sant Drama is a Family Affair

The casting process of Columbia and Imagine’s untitled Gus Van Sant drama is keeping with the project’s familial theme.

The feature, on which Bryce Dallas Howard is teaming with father Ron Howard to produce with Brian Grazer, is opening its arms to Dennis Hopper’s son Henry Hopper, who will star opposite Mia Wasikowska.

Schuyler Fisk, daughter of Sissy Spacek, also is boarding the movie.

The drama revolves around a teenage boy and girl who share a preoccupation with mortality.

Terminator cast just gets better

The cast of Terminator Salvation just keeps getting better. Helena Bonham Carter is in talks to play the “lead villain” in the next installment of the franchise, according to AccessHollywood.com.

If all works out, she’ll do battle with Christian Bale (John Conner) and Bryce Dallas Howard (John’s wife, Kate Conner).

McG (Charlie’s Angels) will direct the upcoming Terminator, which is set in post-apocalyptic 2018 and follows John Connor as he leads the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators.

Bonham Carter is no stranger to playing the villainess; she last appeared as the meat-pie-making murderess Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and will reprise her role as the witch Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

In talks to be in Terminator 4!

Bryce Dallas Howard is in discussions to replace Charlotte Gainsbourg in McG’s Terminator sequel, reports claim.

Gainsbourg, who starred alongside Heath Ledger in I’m Not There, had been set to play the wife of John Connor (Christian Bale), leader of the human resistance in Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins but has been forced to withdraw from the project due to a scheduling conflict.

And according to the Hollywood Reporter, The Village star Howard is in negotiations to take the role.

The daughter of actor and director Ron Howard, she recently completed filming opposite Chris Evans and Ellen Burstyn in Jodie Markell’s The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond.

Gainsbourg’s departure has been provoked by the potential for an actor’s strike as the Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG) has failed to reach an agreement with Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) regarding remuneration over redistribution of their work on DVD and other media.

Were a strike to happen, shooting would be postponed temporarily, raising the possibility of clash for Gainsbourg between Terminator Salvation and a French comedy to which she is attached.

McG, helmer of both Charlie’s Angels features, is to follow in the footsteps of James Cameron and Jonathan Mostow in directing Terminator Salvation: due for release on May 22nd 2009.

While the plot of the fourth film has been largely kept under wraps, it is believed it could be the start of a three-picture exploration of the human battle for survival after much of the Earth has been obliterated by Skynet – the computer that controlled the machines – in a nuclear holocaust.

‘The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond’ films scenes in Donaldsonville

Bryce stood patiently in the middle of Railroad Avenue awaiting her cue to walk past mingling jazz musicians and antique automobiles early Saturday morning.

The star and the crew of “The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond” were in Donaldsonville’s historic district filming scenes through the night Friday and into the morning Saturday. Three separate scenes were shot in locations along Railroad Avenue. The crew set up base camp at the American Legion Hall on Veterans’ Boulevard.

The final scene set up the avenue to look like Memphis’ Beale Street in the 1920s. Extras from Marksville, several antique automobiles and horses and carriages were used in the night scene. The entire block of the avenue was secured for filming and the exteriors of the buildings were adjusted to reflect the period.

Written by Tennessee Williams, “The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond” is the story of Fisher Willow (Howard) the disliked debutante daughter of a plantation owner. After returning from studies overseas, she falls in love with Jimmy (Chris Evans), the down-and-out son of an alcoholic father (David Strathairn) and an insane mother who works at a store on her family’s plantation. She tries to pass him off as an upper-class suitor to appease her spinster aunt (Ann-Margret) who controls her family’s fortune. When she loses a diamond, it places their tenuous relationship in further jeopardy.

Actress Lindsay Lohan was set to play Fisher but was replaced by Howard, who is the daughter of actor-director Ron Howard. Jodie Markell will be making her feature directorial debut with the film. The crew also filmed scenes at Nottoway Plantation in nearby White Castle and in several other locations in Louisiana.

Howard, Kline and Molina Star in Branagh’s “As You Like It” on HBO

Branagh will set the famous Shakespeare comedy in 19th century Japan. The film is slated to debut on HBO Aug. 21 at 9 PM (ET).

For his fifth Shakespearean screen adaptation, Branagh employs a cast that feaures Brian Blessed (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – RSC, “I, Claudius”) as Duke Frederick/Duke Senior, Romola Garai (Calico, “Vanity Fair”) as Celia, Bryce Dallas Howard (Public’s As You Like It, “Spider-man 3”) as Rosalind, Kevin Kline (King Lear, “A Fish Called Wanda”) as Jaques, Adrian Lester (Company, “Hustle”) as Oliver, Janet McTeer (A Doll’s House, “Tumbleweeds”) as Audrey, Alfred Molina (Fiddler On The Roof, “Spider-man 2”) as Touchstone and David Oyelowo (RSC’s Henry VI, “Five Days”) as Orlando.

Also included in the cast are Richard Briers as Old Adam, Jimmy Yuill as Corin, Alex Wyndham as Silvius and Jade Jefferies as Phoebe.

Branagh first got the idea of making a movie version of As You Like It while playing Touchstone in repertory in the mid-’80s. “As You Like It is a classic feel-good romantic comedy, and I’ve seen it have a delirious effect on audiences,” said the director-adaptor. “The combination of light and shade means that Shakespeare’s comedies are often as beautiful and moving as the tragedies.”

“By relocating the Forest of Arden to Japan, it would be possible to get audiences to experience the story in a new, different and exotic way,” stated Branagh in a release. “I felt the sublime landscape and fascinating culture could be an inspiring setting for this quintessential romantic comedy. With sumo, martial arts and cherry blossom, I hope that the drama and the joy can combine to produce a wonderfully enjoyable film.”

“People tend to feel that because the Forest of Arden is named in the play, it must be the place in Warwickshire. But Warwickshire isn’t mentioned, any more than the Ardenne in France (another suggested location). In fact, no place names are mentioned. So you could argue that the Forest of Arden is a mythical place, or if you like, a state of mind.”

“When you start working on an adaptation like this, I think you have to find the nuts and bolts of the story and then meet the difference between a 400-year-old text and a contemporary medium,” he revealed. “So, what do you leave out? How do you tell the story with pictures? And how do you strike the balance between presenting the story and finding a visual language that lets the words that remain sing out? It’s also about being bold enough – if you think there is a cinema narrative that is crying out to be followed – to sometimes abandon the structure of the play.”

HBO presents the film in association with BBC Films and A Shakespeare Film Company Production. “As You Like It,” adapted for the screen and directed by Kenneth Branagh, features a design team of Tim Harvey (production) and Susannah Buxton (costumes) Jenny Shircore (makeup and hair). The film also features music composed by Patrick Doyle.

For more information, visit hbo.com/films.

‘Bronte’ books its sisters

After Renee Zellweger as Beatrix Potter and Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen, three more American actresses are set to give purists the vapors by taking on the roles of the most famous sisters in English literature: Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte.

Michelle Williams, Bryce Dallas Howard and Evan Rachel Wood are lining up to star in “Bronte,” a biopic written and to be directed by Charles Sturridge, which is set to shoot in September.

Icon Entertainment Intl. has picked up foreign sales for “Bronte,” with ICM representing the project in North America. Alastair Maclean-Clark and Basil Stephens of AMC Pictures are producing. Sturridge’s screenplay is based on an original script by Angela Workman.

The Bronte sisters and their brother, Branwell, grew up in isolation on the Yorkshire moors, and went on to write some of the most enduring novels in the canon of English literature — Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”

As children, they created epic fantasy worlds to entertain themselves, led by the charismatic Branwell, but when he descended into alcohol and opium abuse, the sisters had to find their own way in a world dominated by strict patriarchal conventions. This initially forced them to disguise their identities by publishing under male pseudonyms.

Sturridge said, “My family come from Yorkshire and I grew up with five sisters, so this is a story I have always wanted to tell. We all remember the lost worlds of our childhoods, but these amazing girls never abandoned them and applied the same unique and uncompromising daring to their work as adults.”

Bryce to bump Lohan from role?

Bryce WILL replace Lindsay Lohan In ‘Teardrop Diamond’.

Whether she’s losing roles because she’s too busy, because she’s done with independents or because she’s unreliable, Lindsay Lohan is so known for dropping out of projects that some of us have coined the action as “pulling a La Lohan.” It isn’t a surprise now to learn that she’s being replaced in another film, The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond. You may remember the plot of the Tennessee Williams-penned film, which we told you about in November, as centering on a Southern socialite in 1920s Memphis. Lohan had been cast as that socialite, but now the role is being offered to Bryce Dallas Howard.

Shooting begins in May 2007.