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"Get busy living, or get busy dying."
With his velvety smooth voice, wise eyes and confident, reassuring demeanor, Morgan Freeman has become one of the most popular and respected actors working today, imbuing any movie he appears in with class and gravitas. Freeman struggled to find steady work as an actor for decades before his breakout performance in the 1987 movie Street Smart earned him an Academy Award nomination, but he has appeared in one or more movies every year since then, save for 1999. This year will be one of his most prolific yet, with major roles in four movies — Oblivion, Now You See Me, Olympus Has Fallen and Last Vegas. In his career, he's played a pimp, a principal, a prisoner, a president, a procurer of Bat-gadgets and even God, but what is his best movie role? Help us rank the movies of Morgan Freeman.
Rate the Top 10 Best Morgan Freeman Movies >>
Posted 03.18.13 by BrentJS -
Comedian Jay Mohr has joined the cast of Clint Eastwood's next project, the supernatural drama Hereafter, according to Variety. Mohr, 39, was a recurring cast member on Saturday Night Live in the mid '90s and has also starred in the TV series Ghost Whisperer and Gary Unmarried.
The script for Hereafter was written by Peter Morgan, who also wrote the screenplays for Frost/Nixon and The Queen. The story is a meditation on death that follows the parallel stories ofthree people: Matt Damon, a factory worker with the ability to see the deceased; Belgian actress Cécile de France, a journalist who's had a brush with death; and a London schoolboy, yet to be cast.
Mohr will play Billy, the brother of Damon's character. Production is already underway, with shooting schedules in Paris, London, Hawaii, and San Francisco. DreamWorks has slated the movie for a December 2010 release, placing Hereafter at the heart of Oscar season.
The Oscars have be good to Eastwood as of late, with five of his last six movies earning at least one Oscar nomination. We'll find out if Invictus will continue that trend when the Oscar nominations are announced Tuesday morning. Eastwood won his second Best Director Oscar in 2004 for Million Dollar Baby, which also won Best Picture.
Posted 01.29.10 by reelz -
| Title | Weekend | Total | Analysis |
| The Princess and the Frog | $25.0M | $27.9M | Disney 2-D animated pic easily wins very slow box-office weekend. |
| The Blind Side | $15.5M | $150.2M | Audiences still crazy for this feel-good sports drama in its 4th week of release. |
| Invictus | $9.1M | $9.1M | Critically acclaimed pic starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon lands in theaters with a thud. |
| The Twilight Saga: New Moon | $8.0M | $267.4M | Vampire epic losing steam fast but now #5 earner for 2009. |
| A Christmas Carol | $6.9M | $124.5M | We're pretty sure this Jim Carrey X-mas pic has set some kind of record for number of weeks in Top 5. |
Bomb of the Week: Invictus is directed by Clint Eastwood, stars Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, and is being mentioned as a possible Best Picture contender, but the South African-based storyline is apparently turning off moviegoers as it didn't even make $10M in wide release.
Posted 12.13.09 by reelz -
Clint Eastwood's Invictus is out today, but the 79-year-old director is already at work on his next project. Bryce Dallas Howard is the newest addition to his Hereafter cast, according to Variety. Eastwood has already signed Invictus star Matt Damon and Belgian actress Cécile de France.
The script for Hereafter was written by Peter Morgan, who also wrote the screenplays for Frost/Nixon and The Queen. A meditation on death, the movie follows the parallel stories ofthree people. Damon will portray a factory worker with the ability to see the deceased, while France will play journalist who has a brush with death. The third character, a London schoolboy, has yet to be cast. It's unclear exactly what Howard's role will be.
Production is already underway, with shooting schedules in Paris, London, Hawaii, and San Francisco. DreamWorks has slated the movie for a December 2010, which means both Invictus and Hereafter will be at the heart of Oscar season. The Oscars have be good to Eastwood as of late, with five of his last six movies earning at least one Oscar nomination. He won his second Best Director Oscar in 2004 for Million Dollar Baby, which also won Best Picture.
Posted 12.11.09 by reelz -
Actors Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon recently spoke with MTV about their new movie opening this week, Invictus, but apparently that wasn't the only topic of conversation. MTV has been trickling out snippets of the interview, revealing that Christopher Nolan's Batman franchise was the subject on more than one occasion.
In a short video released Tuesday, Freeman said that he is sure that Nolan is already working on Batman 3. Freeman went on to say that, if he had his way, Catwoman would be one of the villains in the movie.
Now, MTV has released a new video featuring Damon discussing a missed opportunity to appear in The Dark Knight as District Attorney Harvey Dent/Two-Face, a role that ultimately went to Aaron Eckhart.
I couldn't [appear in The Dark Knight]. It was a scheduling thing. But, I never spoke to Chris Nolan. I'm a big Chris Nolan fan, I never spoke to him.Look, Aaron is a great actor, so the movie didn't suffer for it. Every once in a while you get [an acting opportunity] and you can't do it.
In Invictus, Damon portrays Francois Pienaar, the South African Rugby team captain opposite Freeman as South African President Nelson Mandela. Acclaimed filmmaker Clint Eastwood directed Invictus from a script by Anthony Peckham.
Posted 12.10.09 by BrentJS -
Invictus, the Clint Eastwood-directed sports drama starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, opens in limited release this weekend. And while Up in The Air is getting all the early Oscar buzz, Freeman did split The National Board of Review's Best Actor award with George Clooney.
"...Invictus, while it does have moments of stodgy uplift, is more fascinating — and intelligent, and moving — than it sounds."
— Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
"Invictus is a very good story very well told."
— Todd McCarthy, Variety
"A temperate, evenhanded perhaps overly timid film about an intemperate time in South Africa."
— Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter
"There's no disputing these events occurred, and yet Invictus consistently refracts them through a passably inoffensive lens that affords no room for interpretation, surprises, or electricity. It's just as one might remember those legitimately groundbreaking, heart-swelling events, only duller."
— Nick Schager, Slant Magazine
"Like every Eastwood production, Invictus is stately, handsomely mounted, attentive to detail right down to the Marmite adorning the team's breakfast buffet, and relentlessly conventional."
— Ella Taylor, Village Voice
Posted 12.09.09 by reelz -
In Invictus, Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman's latest teaming with multiple Academy Award-winning director Clint Eastwood, Freeman portrays anti-apartheid activist and former South African President Nelson Mandela. It is a role that Freeman said he always knew that he would play some day.
...it wasn’t necessarily this project, but I felt destined to do something about Mandela. I don’t know whether you know that in 1992, when he published his autobiography, he was asked who he would want to play him, if the book ever became a movie. And he named me. So, I was sort of the chosen one, as it were. Therefore, I expected that eventually I would play him, but we always thought it would be in a movie version of Long Walk to Freedom. It didn’t turn out that way, however.
Based on the John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation, Invictus tells the story of Mandela's efforts to draw the fractured nation together following the fall of apartheid by using the 1995 Rugby World Cub as a rallying point. To prepare for the role, Freeman said that he had read a great deal about the Nobel Peace Prize winner, but that to him "acting is believing."
That’s the way I learned it, and how I still think of it. So, in order to be true to any character, you have to believe that you are that character, and that you have his belief system working for you. That way, when you’re reciting your lines, you’ll be saying them from a place of conviction.
The adapted screenplay was written by Anthony Peckham, who also wrote the script for the upcoming Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes. Matt Damon also stars, as Francois Pienaar, the South African Rugby team captain.
Posted 12.07.09 by BrentJS -
| Title | Weekend | Total | Analysis |
| The Blind Side | $20.4M | $129.3M | Weepy ISD (Inpirational Sports Drama) turning into one of the better box office stories of 2009. |
| The Twilight Saga: New Moon | $15.7M | $255.6M | $255M on a mere $50M budget, this series is like an ATM. |
| Brothers | $9.7M | $9.7M | Holiday moviegoers apparently don't like their drama quite this drama-y. A definite disappointment. |
| A Christmas Carol | $7.5M | $115.M | This Jim Carrey Christmas pic has been in the Top 5 for 5 straight weeks. |
| Old Dogs | $6.9M | $33.9M | This dog is fading fast, but still cracks Top 5. |
Bomb of the Week: Everybody's Fine's opening was as unmemorable as its title, as the Robert De Niro holiday pic will be completely forgotten by Christmas.
Posted 12.06.09 by reelz -
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Warner Home Video is planning to release a comprehensive DVD collection devoted to Clint Eastwood. Entitled "Clint Eastwood: 35 Films, 35 Years at Warner Bros," the 19-disc set will be available in February and will include both Eastwood's acting efforts and directorial efforts, including recent projects like Gran Torino and Million Dollar Baby.
The set will also feature a documentary with commentary by noted critic Richard Schickel, who spoke with the press about the release.
I've known Clint for most of the time he's been at Warner Bros. I was fortunate to be able to wander around the Warner lot with him and hear his reminiscences. To be able to show him in the places where he works and lives and feels most comfortable is, I think, a unique opportunity.
As comprehensive as the collection is, it will still be out of date very quickly. Eastwood, who is almost 80 and still going strong, is releasing Invictus in a few weeks and is also at work on Hereafter. It doesn't look like he'll be slowing down his rate of one-two movies a year anytime soon, either.
Posted 11.30.09 by reelz -
Belgian actress Cécile de France has agreed to star in Clint Eastwood's Hereafter, according to Variety.
The movie, a meditation on death involving the parallel stories of three people, takes place in Paris, London, Hawaii, and San Francisco. France portrays a journalist who has a brush with death, starring opposite Matt Damon, who is also in Eastwood's Invictus.
Two months ago, Movie Line claimed to have obtained a copy of the script for Hereafter and described the plot in extensive detail. The site also referred to Damon's character as a "handsome, shy, soft-spoken" factory worker who can see the dead.
Production on Hereafter began last month, and Warner Bros. has slated the movie for a December 2010 release. Invictus is due this December, placing both upcoming Eastwood projects at the heart of Oscar season. No doubt a decision driven by Eastwood's recent Oscar success — five of his last six directorial efforts have received at least one Academy Award nomination. Strangely enough, the most financially successful of the six, Gran Torino, was the only shutout.
Posted 11.10.09 by reelz