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Oprah Winfrey didn't have the best year. The media mogul saw her yearly income decrease by $125M, but that's just a drop in the bucket because despite the reduction in pay, Oprah still topped Forbes's Highest-Paid Celebrities List.
Forbes estimates that Oprah earned $165M between May 2011 and May 2012. Just last week, Forbes included Oprah on its list of The World's Most Powerful Women (she came in 11th). Oprah outearned other Hollywood tycoons such as Transformer director Michael Bay, who came in second place with $160M, and Steven Spielberg, who thanks to two directorial efforts, The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse, earned a solid $130M.
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Aussie actor Chris Hemsworth was a relative unknown Stateside only a couple years ago, but he has become the go-to guy for roles requiring a handsome badass who fights inhuman threats. Hemsworth has battled Frost Giants in Thor and alien invaders in The Avengers as Thor — and Thor's wicked brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), in both movies — and trolls as the Huntsman in Snow White and the Huntsman, and it looks like he will soon be battling robots for director Steven Spielberg in Robopocalypse.
The three-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker has been trying to put together an adaptation of Daniel H. Wilson's best-selling novel of the same name since before the book was completed, and now it seems he's finally ready to start moving forward with it. According to Deadline, Spielberg recently met in secret with Hemsworth to discuss starring in the movie and has chosen him to lead the resistance against the artificial intelligence Archos, which seeks to annhiliate the human race.
what's Robopocalypse about? >> Posted 07.21.12 by BrentJS -
Fans of the Jurassic Park franchise get ready — a fourth installment may finally be happening.
Almost a year ago at the 2011 Comic-Con, director Steven Spielberg teased that Jurassic Park IV could be made "in the next two or three years," and it looks like he may keep to that promise. Deadline reports that Rise of the Planet of the Apes screenwriters and co-producers Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa have been hired to write the long-gestating sequel. Spielberg is expected to produce, but not to direct, much like he did on Jurassic Park III.
This isn't the first time Jurassic Park IV seemed to be finally in the works. Spielberg reportedly met with screenwriter Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend, Thor) last June to discuss story ideas, but whether that meeting ever led to a story that Jaffa and Silver will now write is unknown. Last December, Jurassic Park producer Kathleen Kennedy commented that a "great script is what it’s gonna take" to make a fourth Jurassic Park movie, and, hopefully, Jaffa and Silver are up for the challenge of reviving yet another movie franchise. Rise earned $481 million worldwide and a sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, is already scheduled to open in 2014.
Posted 06.22.12 by Ryan -
So far, our look at David Hughes" Tales from Development Hell: The Greatest Movies Never Made? has focused on movies that remained stuck in "Development Hell," never to see the light of day. In our fourth and final chapter, we examine Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, one of the rare examples of a movie that spent years in Development Hell, but somehow managed to break free and find its way to the big screen (though many die-hard fans of the franchise wish that it hadn't), where it earned a place in Hollywood history.
Sit back, grab a handful of popcorn, and prepare to have your mind blown as we journey to Development Hell in the final installment of Tales from Development Hell: The Greatest Movies Never Made?.
Part 4: Keeping Up with the (Indiana) Joneses >>
Posted 03.26.12 by BrentJS -
Those dinosaurs from Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park are back from extinction. Universal announced that it will re-release Jurassic Park in 3-D on July 19, 2013.
The studio also announced it was also changing the release date for Tom Cruise's Oblivion.
Of course, Jurassic Park is just the latest blockbuster Hollywood is blowing the dust off to convert into 3-D and re-release. As Moviefone points out, the movie grossed $914.6M worldwide and with the re-release could become Spielberg's first billion dollar movie. Last year, Spielberg talked about adding the third dimension to his dinosaur thriller.
The only movie that I would ever even consider retrofitting is the first Jurassic Park, which I think would look pretty spectacular in 3D. That's the only one of my films that I would consider doing in 3D.
So I guess we're not seeing E.T. or Schindler's List in 3-D.
more about Oblivion's date change >> Posted 03.16.12 by Chris -
It's no secret that Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg are looking to make a sequel to their 3-D, performance-capture animated The Adventures of Tintin, even before it opened last December and went on to gross $371 million in worldwide box office.
Last April, Anthony Horowitz (Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker) admitted that he was hired to write the sequel, which he said would be titled The Adventures of Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun and would have Jackson taking the director's chair from Spielberg. By October, Jackson confirmed that a Tintin sequel would be his next project after finishing work on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again, the two-part prequel to his The Lord of the Rings trilogy. In a recent interview with Total Film, Spielberg revealed that Jackson would launch immediately from The Hobbit to the Tintin sequel.
Peter [Jackson]’s doing it. I wanted to do it, but Peter has to because we made a deal. I said, "I’ll direct the first one, you direct the second one." And Peter, of course, is going to do it right after he finishes photography on The Hobbit. He’ll go right into the 31, 21 days of performance capture.
what will the sequel be based on? >> Posted 02.15.12 by Ryan -
The Adventures of Tintin opens today but that doesn't mean there isn't time for the release of a few more preview clips. Produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Steven Spielberg, the 3-D motion-capture animated movie is already a success overseas, where it's earned $239 million. The foreign box office isn't surprising given that the movie is based on the characters and situations created by the late Belgian author and illustrator Hergé. As Jackson told The LA Times, "The challenge we have is getting the people who don't love Tintin to see the movie."
The movie follows the intrepid young reporter Tintin (played by Jamie Bell) as he tries to solve a mystery that involves a unicorn, a scroll, and a poem written in Olde English, accompanied by his loyal dog, Snowy, and Captain Haddock (played by go-to motion-capture actor Andy Serkis). Spielberg "shot" the movie in 40 days using performance-capture technologies and then Jackson Weta visual effects team animated the movie, not unlike how the character of Gollum (again played by Serkis) was created for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Jackson says that Weta, or Tintin for that matter, wouldn't exist without Spielberg's Jurassic Park.
watch the clips >> Posted 12.21.11 by Ryan -
Flip on the television or head to the movies any time, and you’ll find a wide array of competent directing. But to be a great director you need to have something that really sets you apart. Quentin Tarantino has his reference-a-rama, Terrence Malick has his slyly edited nature documentary footage shoe-horned into big-budget features, and Steven Spielberg has his magic moments.
It’s hard to put a finger on what exactly it is that makes his moments different from the ones in everyone else’s movies. But it’s there nonetheless, and because of this, individual parts of his movies tend to stick with you, even when the rest of it isn’t necessarily his best work. So rather than making a list of our favorite Spielberg movies, which you can probably do yourself with less than two minutes thought, we decided to highlight some of his movies' most unforgettable moments.
Check out Spielberg's magic moments >>
Posted 12.15.11 by reelz -
Earlier this month, Daniel Day-Lewis was photographed enjoying lunch in a Richmond, Virginia, restaurant looking very much like Abraham Lincoln and sporting very Lincoln-esque facial hair. But for those thinking they had the first look spoiler of Day-Lewis as Lincoln from director Steven Spielberg's biopic Lincoln, think again. "That's not actually his Lincoln beard," producer Kathleen Kennedy recently told The Playlist. "That's just what he looks like right now. He wasn't in hair, makeup, wardrobe, or anything when that picture was taken. He had just gone out that evening, he was just having dinner, and someone snapped a photo of him. But doesn't he look like Lincoln in blue jeans? I had friends who called me going, 'Oh my God, oh my God, it looks like Lincoln!' It's pretty remarkable when you look at that photo, and you say, 'Oh my God, he really embodies Lincoln,' because he does."
A more thorough depiction of Day-Lewis as Lincoln was revealed in a set photo released by The Richmond-Times Dispatch which shows Day-Lewis in full costume as Lincoln while walking with Spielberg between takes. What was captured in the image may capture a rare look at Day-Lewis' "immersive" acting approach. "He's very immersive in his technique, in what he does," Kennedy said of Day-Lewis. "He speaks primarily to Steven, but he's a very serious actor and he takes very seriously the job of acting and what he does. We've all had a great interaction with him. He's been fantastic."
more from kennedy and spielberg about Lincoln >> Posted 12.15.11 by Ryan -
In the end-of-year rush to release Oscar-baiting pictures, the studios shift their patronage from summer blockbusters to the auteur driven films more likely to land them a gleaming awards statuette. And while many a critically respected director is more than happy to garner a few moments of cinema sun for their more awards-bound work, what the movie-goer may not know is that just because they get critical respect doesn't mean that they don't love a good slasher flick. In fact, a lot of the time many an acclaimed director's best work comes from their own spins on good old genre pictures.
Horror movies in particular have long been a draw for many of the great moviemakers. So, we thought we’d offer a list of some of our favorite horror flicks from directors who also happen to be gunning for a Best Picture Award this year.
Read Arthouse Directors Who Aren't Afraid of the Dark >>
Posted 12.07.11 by reelz