Charlize Theron Confirms 'Mind Hunter' With David Fincher Still Developing At HBO; Matthew Lillard's Directorial Debut Will Feature Music By Pearl Jam's Mike McCready & More
While Monday's Gotham Awards honored the films of the past year — especially "Beginners"– the winners and nominees were already focused on what the next year or two will bring. We caught up with them at the festivities and they shared what will be keeping them busy.
David Cronenberg, who received a career tribute just in time to promote "A Dangerous Method," told The Playlist that he was skipping out on the rest of awards season so he could spend the time finishing "Cosmopolis."
"This isn't a criticism, but when you're making movies and being creative, you're not making movies to fit in awards season," he said. "It's a parallel universe, and sometimes those universes kind of intersect, but I'm going to run away and hide from all that. I'm going to Paris, and I won't be in the awards, I'll be happily in my new movie."
Cronenberg said he's finishing the sound mix in France because the film is financed as a Canada-France co-production. "The movie will be done sometime in January, but it won't be released for about a year, this time next year," he projected. "Robert Pattinson is brilliant in it." No word whether or not Cronenberg means the film won't be released theatrically or hit the festival circuit until next fall is unclear, so we'll just have to wait and see.
After that, Cronenberg would like to turn to "Eastern Promises 2" — "Viggo [Mortensen] wants to do it, I want to do it, Focus wants to do it," he said. "There's a wonderful script, but this being in essence another indie film, you never know, but it's looking good." He declined to share the plot, because he wants it to be a "surprise," and he also didn't want to share what might have been in his rejected sequel for "The Fly," other than to say this: "It wouldn't have been a sequel or a remake exactly, but more like a meditation."
Although Terrence Malick wasn't present to accept his award for Best Feature for "The Tree of Life," his producers Sarah Green and Bill Pohlad were — and they were also able to clear up at least one of the mysteries associated with Malick's follow-up project starring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams: It is not called "The Burial. "We don't know what 'The Burial' is," Green said. "Somebody else attached that name, but there is no movie that we're working on called 'The Burial.'" ("Lawless" and "Knight of Cups" are still kosher titles, luckily).
"The Tree of Life" star Tye Sheridan has already wrapped his next project — "Take Shelter" director Jeff Nichols' next movie "Mud," co-starring Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Michael Shannon, and Sarah Paulson. "He's not little a tyke anymore, he's gotten tall!" Paulson said. "I play his mom, and my character is at a crossroads, trying to figure out if she should leave her husband."
Turmoil at home causes Tye's character to seek new friends, "trying to find an example of love," Nichols said. "So he and his friend find this man who was out on an island in the Mississippi River — Matthew — and they start to help him out. It's a love story, more or less, even if it's a dark love story."
Another unlikely older man-teen friendship forms the core of actor-turned-director Matthew Lillard's first effort, "Fat Kid Rules the World," starring Jacob Wysocki from "Terri." "He's incredibly talented," Lillard enthused about the Gotham Breakthrough Actor nominee. "I think he'll blow your socks off and will change your stereotypes about what you see when you look at him. Regardless of size, weight, color, you'll judge the performance for what it is."
"In the first give minutes," Lillard went on, "our hero tries to kill himself, and is saved at the last moment by a guitar savant, so the two of them start a punk band. It's very reminiscent of 'SLC Punk.'" Music for the movie was written by Pearl Jam's Mike McCready. Breakthrough Director winner Dee Rees also has future business with Focus, with her "Pariah" follow-up "Bolo," which she described as a thriller set in the South. "We'll see a world we haven't seen before, and see characters we don't usually get to see," she said. Rees is also developing an untitled HBO half-hour series with Viola Davis, which would involve corruption at a private school, as seen through the headmaster's eyes. "I'm really looking forward to working with her," Rees said. "She's amazing."
Also developing a show with HBO — Gotham career tribute honoree and "Young Adult" star Charlize Theron is still working on a new show called "Mind Hunter." "David Fincher and I both came across this in our research, him on 'Zodiac,' and me on 'Monster,'" she said. "There's this guy [John Douglas] who profiles serial killers, and he's a really interesting guy, and his life is really interesting, too. At the end of the day, I'm a storyteller, and I just look for good stories."
Aren't they all? Mike Cahill, director of "Another Earth," offered up possible scenarios for a sequel — as a joke. "What if the main character goes to the other Earth, meets his other self, and they have a showdown? We could call it 'Another Earth 2: Earth Harder.' Or 'Another Earth 2: Die with a Vengeance,'" he teased. "Or we could follow Brit Marling on the other earth, in the same time period. We should write this together. How about it? Let's do it!"