Friday, May 23, 2008

Trailer & Website

Yes you heard right folks - after what seems like an eternity we finally have our first trailer for Benjamin Button...... in Spanish, LOL! Expect a HQ and English version to officially come through in the next couple of days. For now just enjoy the trailer and also check out the official website that has just launched.

EDIT - Here is the trailer in English and in higher quality!



Also check out some new ads that Fincher has made in this very productive period!

Apple - 3G iPhone commercial




Higher quality version at official Apple website.

There is also a new Stand Up To Cancer commercial shown at the Anonymous Content website.

Enjoy!

Monday, March 24, 2008

The Big Ass Update!

What's this? An update on the Benjamin Button blog? Yes it is true - after a year of being busy (and very lazy) I have decided to kick into gear and get updating on 2008's most anticipated movie - The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. Now enough with the foreplay lets get down to it!

I have read the script! I head to get that out there. No I can't trade it or give you a copy. If you want the script that badly I suggest doing a bit of doing around on some of the major movie forums. It isn't too hard to find. I read a draft dated back to 2002, credited to Eric Roth with a footnote crediting previous writer Robin Swicord. Without giving too much away I loved the script but I do think it needs some major revisions. The same draft was reviewed by movie site Collidier, but I think its safe to say the script used in the actual movie will be updated and trimmed down. You only have to glance at the IMDB credits to realise the scripts gone through major rewrites. I do think the script shares a lot in common with Forrest Gump, no doubt through the films sharing the same screeen writer. I think this is a good thing, Forrest Gump is a favourite of mine and I'm sure the future drafts of the BB script will Forrest Gump's level of social truth and humanity. My final words on the scripts - if a few minor changes are made to the films structures and a few scenes are trimmed out this is going to be a major film, one that finally lands the audience deserves. Also Pitt and Blanchett are a lock for Academy Award nominations and quite possibly wins.

The other big news concerns BB's US release date being moved back to December 19th of this year. Zodiac was delayed for what seemed like years so I wasn't suprised when this happend. We have to take into consideration the amount of post production work that will go into this movie. Plus releasing the movie in late December can only increase BB's award chances.

Tilda Swintong talks to MTV, she promises the effects will be amazing! By the way Tilda has an amazing cameo in the film. She should be a lock for a second consecutive nomination/award for best supporting actress.

Taraji P. Henson also has a great cameo role, after the movie comes we'll definetly be seeing more of her. Catch her talking to MTV here, and blackfilm here. I've always loved Jason Flemyng's cameo roles, here he has a few good words to say about Brad Pitt.

Like I mentioned earlier BB has a good shot at many Oscar noms and many potential wins. Even Variety is on the bandwagon.

I thought I was the biggest Fincher spruker around. But I have to admit Jefferey Wells beats me hands down. Read him hyping BB harder than me! His website is one of the best out there period. Here is a link to an interview he did with Fincher circa Zodiac's DVD release.

Now we know that Fincher is busy playing around with post effects and editing on BB but he has also been busy lining up future projects. I'm sure we all know about his long running involvement with trying to get Rendezvous with Rama up and that he has shown interest in directing the Torso graphic novel but that doesn't stop Fincher from getting involved with every 3rd project floating around Hollywood. First it was meant to be the French comic The Killer, then it was Charles Burns comic Black Hole and now it is a new animated anthology of Heavy Metal.

I know some of you out there just go crazy of the technical stuff, so head over to Studo Daily for your fix of Benjamin Button tech.

And finally we have photos from the movie. For so some behing the scenes shots of Cate Blanchett head over here. Below you can find the first two official shot from the movie.
Now that's all for now, I am promise I will keep this site updated as humanly possible from now until the film is released. I just hope the news keeps trickling in. In the meantime I am on the lookout for a new header design, I don't want to do it myself. So if you guys can come up with anything please email me on pinkpanther1586@hotmail.com. Also if you come by any news articles or if you were involved in the film please let me know!

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Fincher on New Orleans!

New Orleans is still in a state of recovery.

Let's take a look beyond the glitzy showbiz side of movie making and find out what the filming of the Curious Case of Benjamin Button means to the people of New Orleans. After four months of intensive shooting the movie is set to wrap in the flood ravaged city. The following extracts are from an excellent interview with director David Fincher:
On Brad Pitt:

"There's something amazing about him," Fincher said. "He can say horrible (things) and if he smiles at you, you say, 'Oh, OK.' "I trust him. When he says I've got to do this this way, you go, 'OK.' "
On what Benjamin Button is about:

"I think it's a story about death," he said, "to love somebody enough to be there when they breathe their last breath." Fincher said his father died two years ago at about the same time some of his friends were having their first child. "It's easy to have babies; it's hard to be there when somebody dies," he said.
On why New Orleans was picked as the location:
Fincher said he considered shooting the Victorian-era period piece in Baltimore, where the short story was set, but decided on the Crescent City instead. "We looked at Baltimore," he said. "It lacked a certain warmth. It lacked the sense of history and patina of New Orleans." Fincher praised New Orleans as a location, noting that both rural and urban sets were easily available. To realize the city's "enormous potential," as a movie-making magnet, Fincher said, "you need four or five large, workable sound stages, an influx of cash to make a real workable physical plant." Asked to discuss the complications of filmmaking in the post-Katrina environment, Fincher minimized the hardship. "The challenges of shooting after Katrina," he said, "were the same as for anybody moving back: getting labor, getting plywood."
Well done to the production crew for sticking with the location after th floods - the least this movie can do is restort some lost pride in the disaster stricken city.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Big Ass Update!

Zodiac is released - done, in the can, its a wrap. So that can mean only one thing - all the Fincher fanatics now move on to the next project - the massively hyped (and budgeted) - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button! Here is a low down on all that has been happening with this major production.

New set pics are up from our fave leading man - Brad Pitt! But he's in the arms of another woman! What will Angelina think? Head to Just Jared to find out more - and also see a cool video from the set. It's really interesting that Fincher made Zodiac which really was under the radar and had very little leaks from the set and now with Pitt on the scene every day represents paparrazi mayhem!

Picture courtesy of Just Jared.

While doing press for Zodiac Fincher's been talking about Benjamin Button and the huge scale and ambitious scope of the project. This taken from an excellent Esquire article where Fincher is talking about how they will make Brad Pitt age backwards (without using different actors!):

Instead of using different actors for Benjamin Button and asking the audience to make the mental leap, he will be played at almost every age by Brad Pitt, with his head put onto other actors' bodies. Fincher plays a demo scene, and it's a little freaky and utterly believable. A man sits at a table tapping a spoon, and then the head changes. Same scene, same body, but a new head, flawlessly switched. When Benjamin is aged and decrepit--or young and decrepit, in this case--the role will be played by a smaller actor. The same scene will be reshot with Pitt playing Benjamin. The movements of both actors' faces will be tracked, with Pitt's replacing the original. That's the plan at least. "I sure hope we're right," he says. "Or it's going to be terrible."

Another great insight into Fincher's creative juices comes via this interview with MTV's Kurt Loder:

Loder: How did you become involved with "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"?
Fincher: I read a script many, many years ago. It's a really beautiful story, but I didn't feel that it was makeable in that incarnation. I told Brad [Pitt] about it years ago, and then it was being offered to him, but they didn't have a director, so they brought it to me, then I worked on it for about four years, and now it's finally at a place where the studio wanted to throw the kind of money that it would take to execute it. So here we are in New Orleans, making it.

Loder: You obviously have an affinity for the serial-killer genre. I'd imagine you don't want to make a career of it, but you are considering making a film version of "Torso," aren't you?
Fincher: I'm interested in that. I'm not interested in the serial killer thing, I'm interested in Eliot Ness. I'm interested in the de-mythologizing of Eliot Ness. Because, you know, "The Untouchables" was only two or three years of the Eliot Ness story. There's a whole other, much more sinister downside to it. And so that's of interest to me. We want to make it the "Citizen Kane" of cop movies. I also want to make a CG animated movie. And I've been talking about doing a remake of a movie I really liked in the '70s, "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud." Ever see that? And there's a World War II movie that Robert Towne is writing that I really love. All kinds of stuff.

Looks like Cate and Brad will be in Montreal come the end of May - with 8 days of shooting scheduled - with producers planning to make a part of the city look like Moscow and Paris in winter, with the streets covered in fake snow. Whoa doesn't this film get more interesting by the day?!

Thats a wrap guys - the movie looks to well under way but don't hold your breath - keep in mind Fincher is a perftionist and will work on every single second of the frame before letting it out in the world, oh and don't forget those crazy digital special effects they have to be completed! The waiting game begins fans!

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Pitt + Fincher finally reunited!

It's what we've been waiting to see for over 6 years - Brad Pitt and David Fincher reunited, making a new movie. And here's the photograph to prove it.



Look at the boys having fun! Having watched Fight Club again this week I can't wait to see what film-making best duo since DeNiro & Scorcese have to offer us! Oh - also check out the set pics on the above link - is that meant to be old Brad?

Monday, December 25, 2006

Shooting updates

Merry Xmas to you all - I hope you had a happy and safe festive season!

Santa has some BB goodies for you - you won't be empty handed this year!

Button has stopped filming over the holiday season - but there is some good news when shooting resumes. Head over to this site to learn how you could be an extra in the movie. Now anyone around the New Orleans area who is a Fincher or even slightly a movie fan would be remiss to miss out on this opportunity, I know if I had the chance to do it I would!

Also for those of you too lazy to read the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story here's your chance to listen to it. Head over to Thought Audio to hear the story in MP3 format. Now there is no more excuses for not having the original text!

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Interview with the writer

ComingSoon.net has a very a fascinating with writer extrodinaire Eric Roth - who if you don't know by now is the writer of the Benjamin Button script, he has also written the excellent Forrest Gump & The Insider scripts and has also penned the soon to be released DeNiro directed Good Shephard. The interview is extremely interesting and not just for the fact he talks about Benjamin Button. I think it is really a shame that more script writers aren't given the credit and exposure that they deserve! But then again 90% of script writers are robotic monkeys who churn out more crap than a horse *cough* Akiva Goldsman *cough* so it's no wonder they are under appreciated - you're thoughts readers?
Anyway heres a quote from the interview:

CS: For that Fincher film, you came on board after a bunch of other
writers.

Roth: Well, "Benjamin Bunton" was slightly different, because I just took permission to start from scratch. I never read anything that anyone else did, and any resemblance would just be purely coincidental. The only thing that remains is the names of the people in the F. Scott Fitzgerald [book]. The heart of it is about a guy who's aging backwards, but other than that, I just went "Page 1, this happens" and none of it's from the story or anybody else. It's the same thing I did on "Forrest Gump," 'cause that had gone on for nine or ten years, people trying it and it not working. When they gave it to me, I just said I'm going to try this.

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