Home   What's On   News   Article

My Movie Week... with Mike Shaw

Benedict Cumberbatch.
Benedict Cumberbatch.

Cinemas across the country are increasingly getting in on the burgeoning interest in West End performances on the screen.

Multiplexes in Kent have been showing the Royal Opera House’s performances for a few years now, and the National Theatre’s 2011 production of Frankenstein, starring Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch, was seen by approximately 100,000 people when it was broadcast globally as part of NT Live.

Some people get a bit sniffy about theatre in the cinema, but I think it’s an excellent idea.

It brings people who don’t usually watch movies into local cinemas where they can then be sold into forthcoming releases, while non-theatre fans can see that stuff on the stage isn’t boring, in a familiar environment. Also its cheaper.

Now, interest is such that even smaller cinemas are taking part, with the latest being the Odeon in Canterbury which is screening The Audience starring Helen Mirren on Thursday, June 13. The performance begins at 7pm, lasts for three hours, and tickets cost £12.50.

Expendables 3 rumour #567 – Mel Gibson is in talks to play the bad guy. I can’t think of anyone better.

Remake woe! Sony and Fast & Furious producer Neal Moritz have secured the English-language remake rights to A Prophet.

The excellent, Oscar-nominated 2010 original saw Tahar Rahim as Malik El Djebena, an illiterate French-Arab teen locked-up for six years and initiated into the prison’s criminal underworld where he quickly learns how to rise up the ranks.

Why is it being remade? Who knows? Jacques Audiard’s original is superb, with the location and social issues surrounding the characters a part of its DNA. Does the world really need a version set in LA, with wrongly-accused, rough-diamond Vin Diesel taking the lead? Nope.

Even if this US remake takes a more respectable approach, with a talented cast and a storyline that casts a harsh light on America’s rocketing prison population and troubled penal system, why drag A Prophet into it?

Is it such a well-known film with English-speaking audiences that it will have a ready-made audience? Nope to that too. What a stupid, stupid decision.

DC Comics has announced that the comic-book series Fables is being given the movie treatment. The comic-book follows a group of fairytale figures including Snow White and the Big Bad Wolf who have been ejected from their fantasy land, and find themselves in New York.

Harry Potter producer David Heyman is developing the project, with Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair) in the director’s chair.

Fables has nearly escaped the confines of comic-book stores twice already, once in 2004 when Warner Bros attempted to make it with the Jim Henson Company and again in 2008 when ABC was keen to adapt the comic as a TV series. Fingers crossed this new endeavour enjoys better fortune. Fables is a great series, and with the success being enjoyed by Game of Thrones, now may be the best time to tackle a similarly ‘medieval’ tale. The sprawling storyline and subplots probably make it better suited to TV, so perhaps the movie is a launching pad for that.

The Great Gatsby. Picture: PA Photo/Warner Bros.
The Great Gatsby. Picture: PA Photo/Warner Bros.

Lots of young actresses want to be Hilary Rodham Clinton. Not in real life, of course, but in a new film by director James Ponsoldt (Smashed). Rodham will follow the young Hilary Rodham as a lawyer on the committee that oversaw Richard Nixon's impeachment and her struggles to balance a successful career with her feelings for future president Bill Clinton.

Over the last couple of weeks the likes of Jessica Chastain, Emma Stone and Scarlett Johansson have all been connected with the role, but now it appears that Ponsoldt really wants Carey Mulligan. An Education and Shame proved she can do heavy drama, and The Great Gatsby and Drive showed that she can convincingtly pull off American accents, and it'd be great so see a British actress taking on the role.

Close This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies.Learn More