I’ve called around for some backstory on why Warner Independent chief Mark Gill has been relieved of his duties….zip. All we know for sure is that March of the Penguins weren’t enough to make things right. David Poland says that WIP’s business model amounts to “fiscal folly.” Variety says it’s because Gill’s style “was said to clash with that of Warner production prexy Jeff Robinov, [who] said in a statement that Gill “has done a very good job of establishing Warner Independent.” The inference (it’s always what’s left unsaid that tells the true tale) seems to be that Robinov doesn’t think Gill has done a good job of maintaining or growing the division. Anyway, it’s too bad. I mean, it’s always a bit of a bummer when relationship don’t work out. Variety says Warner Bros. exec up of production Polly Cohen is in talks to fill Gill’s shoes. I mean, in a manner of speaking.

A brilliant move on the part of the ad guys who put together the new Casino Royale trailer: they start it off in black and white, thus signifying this 007 flick won’t be following the usual pattern. And yet the snippets of high-octane action and sex scenes that follow suggest that it will be, more or less, the same old thing…so who knows? Daniel Craig‘s James Bond, described by Judi Dench in the trailer a “a blunt instrument,” seems like the most Sean Connery -like of all the Bonds because he has within him (and particularly in his boxer’s face and buff physique) shades of the primitive brute. At the same time I think we all recognize that Jason Bourne has overtaken James Bond as the definitive espionage-action figure of our time. Matt Damon‘s Bourne is cybered and fibered into the here-and-now; 007 has always been (and always will be) a throwback to the martini-sipping sexual ethos of the early to mid ’60s.

If this Screen Daily review is indicative of general critical reaction, poor Ed Burns has struck out again as a director-writer with his latest film, The Groomsmen. Apparently a kind of I Vitteloni-ish, stag-party psychological meltdown drama, it costars Burns, John Leguizamo, Britanny Murphy, Jay Mohr, Matthew Lillard and
Donal Logue. Burns’ continuing failure to re-generate or improve upon the dramatic gravity in his debut film, 1995’s The Brothers McMullen, has become a cliche, as these final two lines from reviewer Dan Fainaru suggests: “A decade or so ago [Burns] was regarded as a possible suburban answer to Woody Allen, albeit younger and better looking. But while he is certainly more handsome than his model, it is not quite enough.”

As I did in my review, Variety‘s Todd McCarthy has remarked how under-utilized Phillip Seymour Hoffman is as the big baddie in Mission: Impossible III. “Hoffman’s involvement hasn’t been fully exploited [as] this picture denies Hoffman a chance to fully express his character’s personality, to show a little nuance, a mentality behind the evil, some humor or self-awareness behind the malevolence, or to toy with Ethan beyond the simple threat…if you have an actor like Hoffman on board, you’d think it would behoove the writers to cook up at least one big scene to let the man loose to really do his thing.” One wonders if Hoffman might have had one or two such scenes in the shooting script, only to see them trimmed in order to favor the star. As I put it on 4.19, “[Hoffman] kicks ass with the lines and scenes he’s been given, but somebody wanted this to be Tom Cruise’s film.” Threatening second leads have been put in their place before. I’m told by a friend who was close to the backstage action on Sydney Pollack‘s Absence of Malice that Sally Field‘s role as a ruthless journalist was modified and/or reconfigured when it became apparent that she was generating more wattage than star Paul Newman. It also allegedly happened to Jennifer Jason Leigh when her performance in Barbet Schroeder‘s Single White Female seemed to be overtaking that of the presumed star, Bridget Fonda.