Nimród Antal 's latest movie, Armored, boasts an impressive cast for a relatively unknown director. Antal was born in Los Angeles, but he got his start working on movies in Hungary. His Hungarian movie Kontroll, which he wrote as well as directed, earned him international acclaim and the directing gig for Screen Gems' Vacancy, his first American movie.
Armored is Antal's second movie for Screen Gems, and he recently told Coming Soon that he accepted the job without a cast attached. Because of this, Antal was initially star struck by the talent assembled for Armored.
I can't speak for their reasons [for starring in the movie], but Matt Dillon ... to me Drugstore Cowboy was a huge movie for me when I was a young guy ... or a younger guy, and obviously, from all the Luc Besson films, Jean Reno was ... I mean, La Femme Nikita, when he shows up as the cleaner, that's forever embedded in my mind. And then Laurence Fishburne, who I could just go on and on about as a person and as an actor. I so looked up to these guys, so to get the opportunity to work with them was just huge for me. I was a little bit freaked out on Day 1, but interestingly enough, you kind of get into it and you start blocking the shots and doing your thing, and the process is just the same with them as it is with anybody else, so I was able to calm down eventually. But yeah, the Film Gods definitely smiled down on me with that one. It was incredible that I was able to secure a cast of that caliber. Even the young guys. Skeet Ulrich is going to blow your mind, he's going to blow your mind. No one is going to see him coming.
Antal said that he is "completely influenced" by directors like Quentin Tarantino and Michael Mann, but that he attempts to "keep it fresh" and not "monkey off" of their movies.
Antal prepared for the heist picture by doing research into the armored car business, but said that it wasn't very helpful.
... we definitely wanted to speak to some people. We even got in with one of the bigger armored car companies, and they were being very helpful for about four days, and then they got robbed. When that happened, they shut us down at that point.
And it was a little underwhelming. You kind of envision this complex system of checks and balances and hi-tech security gates and satellite links and things like that, but it's very much not that.
Posted 12.02.09 by BrentJS 
Mike Myers has created a new character for the silver screen, and this one doesn't wear velour leisure suits. The Love Guru will star Myers as a man who was left at an Indian ashram as a baby and then raised by gurus and must use his enlightenment to help a troubled couple, says Variety.
Jessica Alba (Fantastic Four,Sin City), Romany Malco (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Blades of Glory) and Verne Troyer (Austin Powers' Mini Me) will costar.
Variety is also reporting that the sequel to Steve Martin's 2006 The Pink Panther is under way. Pink Panther 2 will feature Martin again reprising his role as Clouseau. Jean Reno (The Da Vinci Code, Ronin) and Emily Mortimer (Match Point, Lovely & Amazing) will also return.
The script, which will be directed by Harald Zwart (Agent Cody Banks), has also attracted John Cleese (A Fish Called Wanda, Monty Python), Andy Garcia (When a Man Loves 
a Woman, Ocean's Thirteen) and Alfred Molina (Spider Man 2, Magnolia) to the cast. Pink Panther 2 will come out on February 13, 2009.
Finally, The Hollywood Reporter has more casting news on the still Untitled Adam Sandler/Anna Faris comedy about the outcast Playboy bunny who becomes house-mother to a lame sorority. Monet Mazur (40 Days and 40 Nights), Beverly D'Angelo (National Lampoon's Vacation), and Colin Hanks (Orange County) are all joining the cast.
Posted 08.09.07 by reelz