Tag: Christian Bale (21-30 of 39)

Feb 10 2012 12:40 PM ET

Natalie Portman joins Terrence Malick's 'Lawless' and 'Knight of the Cups'

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Image Credit: Jason Merritt/Getty Images

For a director who keeps his distance from Hollywood, Terrence Malick is certainly loading up on star power for his next two movies. A rep for Natalie Portman confirms that the Oscar winner is set to take her first post-Oscar (and post-baby) film roles in Malick’s next two projects, Lawless and Knight of Cups. (The news was first reported by Deadline.)

Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett will also pull double duty in both films, which are reportedly shooting back-to-back, while Rooney Mara and Ryan Gosling will join the troupe on Lawless. As usual for Malick’s movies, plot details for these projects are being kept totally under wraps. (Remember how nobody really knew what The Tree of Life was about before it came out? Or even after?) So your guess is as good as ours. Will Lawless be the long-awaited Lucy Lawless biopic? Is Knight of Cups a college comedy set at the World Series of Beer Pong intercut with wordless images of dinosaurs also playing beer pong? Probably not. But you never know. Hit us with your best theories in the comments.

Read more:
Terrence Malick directing Ryan Gosling-led ‘Lawless’ | Inside Movies …
 ‘Tree of Life’ visual effects guru talks ‘organic’ visuals — EXCLUSIVE …
Natalie Portman turns down ‘Adaline’ role | Inside Movies | EW.com

Jan 4 2012 08:41 PM ET

Christian Bale's 'Flowers of War' is a box-office smash in China

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Image Credit: Alice Zou

What’s the Chinese word for blockbuster? The historical drama The Flowers of War, starring Christian Bale and directed by Zhang Yimou (Hero, Raise the Red Lantern), has already collected $83 million at the Chinese box office in just 17 days, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

That makes Flowers of War the sixth-highest grossing film ever in China, behind such American exports as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($145.5 million) and Avatar ($204 million), the latter of which remains the country’s top-grossing movie. The film’s stellar box-office tally should come as a relief to producer Zhang Weiping, whose New Picture Company financed Flowers of War for $100 million — the largest budget ever for a Chinese production.

It remains to be seen how Flowers of War, which is set during the Nanking Massacre of 1937, will perform outside of China. After a brief Oscar-qualifying run last month in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco (and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language Film), distributor Wrekin Hill Entertainment has yet to announce when the film will return to theaters. The movie has so far received mixed reviews from American critics.

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Christian Bale blocked from visiting Chinese activist
Christian Bale should be embarrassed, according to China

Dec 21 2011 07:08 AM ET

Christian Bale should be embarrassed, according to China

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Christian Bale should feel embarrassed for trying to visit a human rights activist while he was in China to promote a movie the country has submitted for an Oscar, a government spokesman said Wednesday.

Bale was physically stopped by government-backed guards from visiting blind activist Chen Guangcheng who lives under house arrest in eastern China last week. A CNN crew he was traveling with recorded the scuffle.

Asked whether the publicity has been embarrassing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said he thought the actor should feel embarrassed, not China. READ FULL STORY »

Dec 19 2011 04:25 PM ET

'The Dark Knight Rises' trailer: Explosive. Scary. Political?

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Does Christopher Nolan’s final Bat-flick have more on its mind than just thrilling fanboys and filmgoers with sensational summertime escapism? You might wonder after taking a look at the latest official trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, which made its debut in theaters this past weekend with Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows and hit the Web today.

The preview sketches the film’s themes and conflict without ever spelling out the plot. SPOILER ALERT! The trailer begins with a boy launching into the national anthem at a football game. It’s a flourish that signals the beginning of a high-stakes game — and a drama about the current state of the union. As “The Star Spangled Banner” plays, we hear some dialogue about replacing Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) — he’s a “war hero” in a time of peace. And in perhaps the trailer’s most loaded moment (not counting the various beats of gunplay), we see Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle — a.k.a. Catwoman — hissing a line into the ear of fat-cat playboy Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) that suggests she’s been spending time with the unhappy campers at Occupy: Gotham City. “You think this is going to last. There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches because when it hits, you’re all going to wonder how you ever thought how you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.” As we hear this line, we see the sacking of an opulent home, and we get a lot of ominous imagery involving Thomas Hardy’s fearsome Bane and a small army of goons laying siege to Batman’s hometown. “When Gotham is in ashes,” Bane growls to an incapacitated Bruce, “you have my permission to die.” READ FULL STORY »

Dec 16 2011 02:45 PM ET

'The Dark Knight Rises' prologue: Big, brawny, Bane-tastic

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At last! The wait is over! The prologue to The Dark Knight Rises is finally here… just to ratchet up our already maxed-out expectations for the climactic chapter in director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy and make the wait for the whole thing (due July 20) feel even longer. The follow-up to The Dark Knight — set eight years after the Joker made a mess of Gotham City and a killing joke out of the caped crusader’s brand of vigilante justice — stars Oscar winner Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman, but the prologue (which actually represents the first several minutes of the three-quel itself) is all about Bane, a smart and seething brute with a mecha-malevolent mask played by Thomas Hardy (Warrior, Inception). If you’ve seen the prologue at select IMAX theaters showing Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, or if you’re planning to this weekend, we’d love to read your reactions in the message boards below. I hope you don’t mind if I get the conversation started with my thoughts about… READ FULL STORY »

Dec 12 2011 11:30 AM ET

New 'Dark Knight Rises' poster: 'The Legend Ends.' Will Batman die?

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On the rare occasions when blockbuster demi-god Christopher Nolan emerges from his bleak dream-cave to unveil non-revelatory revelations about next year’s The Dark Knight Rises, the director has worked overtime to explain that Rises will be a genuine conclusion to his version of the Batman mythos. A new poster for the film makes that idea explicit. Batman’s mask lies on the ground, broken. In the background, we can see apparently unintelligible villain Bane walking away. The tagline is simple: “The Legend Ends.” It’s an interesting, uncompromising sales pitch — it’ll be intriguing to see how Rises plays in the same summer as the candy-colored superhero bromance The Avengers. It also adds more fuel to the main question hovering over Rises: Could they actually kill off Batman? Check out the full poster below: READ FULL STORY »

Dec 12 2011 10:40 AM ET

'The Flowers of War' trailer: Christian Bale finds religion

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A new U.S. trailer for director Zhang Yimou’s The Flowers of War has arrived, light on details but heavy with striking images.

What we see is Christian Bale, trading in his vigilante cape and cowl for a priest’s robes, fighting to protect a group of women in 1937 war-torn China. The film’s subject matter is considerably dark, focusing on a bleak period of the Sino-Japanese War known as “The Nanking Massacre,” which saw the murder and rape of countless Chinese civilians. Watch the full trailer below. READ FULL STORY »

Nov 28 2011 12:59 PM ET

Christian Bale on 'The Dark Knight Rises': He's done with Batman, and he really really means it

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Image Credit: Stephen Vaughan

Christian Bale confirmed that next summer’s The Dark Knight Rises will be his last outing as the hoarse Caped Crusader. Again.

Recall that last November, he said as much to E!: “This will be, I believe, until Chris [Nolan] says different, the last time I’ll be playing Batman,” Bale said then. “Absolutely, we want to go all out with it.”

But the enthusiasm and anticipation for the third Christopher Nolan Batman film is such that when Bale recently told another reporter the same thing, the Internets buzzed anew. “I wrapped a few days ago so that will be the last time I’m taking that cowl [Batman hood] off,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer. “I believe that the whole production wrapped yesterday, so it’s all done. Everything’s finished. It’s me and Chris — that will be the end of that Batman era.”

Warner Bros. and Bale’s representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but it’s long been known that Bale had originally signed for three Batman films. And since he’s agreed to film two Terrence Malick films back to back, he might be busy for the foreseeable future. Better check the batteries on the Bat Signal. Bales doesn’t expect to be answering it anytime soon.

Read more:
The Knight Shift: The Men Behind the Cowl
‘The Dark Knight Rises’ trailer

Nov 8 2011 05:03 PM ET

'Flowers of War' to receive late-December Oscar-qualifying release

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Image Credit: Alice Zou

Flowers of War, director Zhang Yimou’s Chinese epic about the brutal Japanese 1930s invasion and occupation, will receive an Oscar-qualifying release in late December, a spokesperson for the film said. In the U.S., Wreckin Hill will distribute the movie, which premieres in China on Dec. 16 and is already that country’s foreign-language selection for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. The limited American run, however, will enable award campaigns for Best Actor and Best Director. In the film, Christian Bale stars as a stranded American who pretends to be a priest to protect himself and others from the Japanese army. It’s not the first time Bale has played a character in such circumstances: In Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, he played a boy separated from his family in China during the same Japanese assault.

Watch the trailer for the new film, which blends English and Mandarin speaking roles, below: READ FULL STORY »

Nov 1 2011 05:33 PM ET

Terrence Malick helming Ryan Gosling-led 'Lawless' and Christian Bale-starring 'Knight of Cups'

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There are so many stars in that headline, my computer itself is nearly lighting up. But talk about power players: FilmNation announced today that it will partner with The Tree of Life director Terrence Malick on two(!) new projects. The first, Lawless, will feature Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, and Rooney Mara. The second, Knight of Cups, reunites Malick and Bale (who starred in the filmmaker’s 2005 film The New World), and also stars Blanchett and Isabel Lucas.

Of course, both films are shrouded in mystery — don’t expect any plot descriptions anytime soon. (Some are still waiting for the plot description for Tree of Life.) FilmNation also has sales for the director’s next untitled film, headlined by Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams. The flurry of activity marks a strikingly prolific period for Malick, who prior to this year’s Tree of Life, had made only four films over 32 years.

Read more:
Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain to be campaigned in supporting categories for ‘The Tree of Life’
Secretive ‘Tree of Life’ director revealed in edges of Blu-ray doc — EXCLUSIVE VIDEO
Terrence Malick’s ‘The Tree of Life’ is part luminous evocation of boyhood, part cosmic woo-woo

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