Star Trek Into Darkness just finished its opening weekend with $70.6 million. Not a bad start—however, it was projected to make closer to $100 million, making this is a low number for Paramount. For more on why Into Darkness may have made a slow break from the gate read further here.
Benedict Cumberbatch has been cast as WikiLeaks website creator Julian Assange in the film The Fifth Estate. Cumberbatch’s recent roles include Sherlock Holmes in the BBC television show Sherlock, the new villain Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness, and the Necromancer in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy. Assange himself has reportedly denounced the script. For more on the film read here.
The Cannes International Film Festival opened last week on May 15 and will continue through May 26. The prestigious annual film festival screens and previews films from all over the globe. Some names to watch for this year: As I Lay Dying, a film adaptation of the William Faulkner story directed by James Franco; the Coen brothers’ latest, Inside Llewyn Davis; Otdat Konci (Bite the Dust), the first feature film directed by the promising 24-year-old Russian director Talsia Igumentseva; and Wolf Totem, another book adaptation helmed by Jean-Jacques Annaud (director of Two Brothers and Seven Years in Tibet) set in Inner Mongolia. For more Cannes updates and reviews, visit their official site.
Mel Brooks will receive the American Film Institute’s 41st Life Achievement Award, presented by Martin Scorsese. The ceremony will take place June 6th at black-tie gala held in LA’s Dolby Theatre. TNT will air the ceremony June 15th, and TCM will air it on June 24th along with past interviews with Brooks and showings of The Producers and The Twelve Chairs. Read more here.
