Eight “special presentations” — seven world preems and a North American debut — have been slotted for the 31st Toronto Film Festival. The films are Tony Goldwyn‘s The Last Kiss (a remake of Gabrielle Muccino‘s 2001 Italian-language original) with Zach Braff; Marc Forster ‘s Stranger Than Fiction with Will Ferrell; Leon Ichaso‘s El Cantante with Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony (yipes!); Mark Palansky‘s Penelope with Christina Ricci and The Last King of Scotland‘s James McAvoy (a modern-day fairy tale produced by Reese Witherspoon…proceed with caution); David Von Ancken‘s Seraphim Falls, a Civil War-era drama with Pierce Brosnan and Liam “whatever happened to that Steven Spielberg/Abraham Lincoln movie I was supposed to star in?” Neeson which promises to be visually arresting at the very least due to the work of cinematographer John Toll; Roger Michell‘s Venus, from a Hanif Kureishi script about septugenarian sex, romance and parenting with Peter O’Toole, Jodie Whitaker, Leslie Phillips, Richard Griffiths and Vanessa Redgrave; Kenneth Branagh’s The Magic Flute with a fantasy-trip World War I backdrop; and Darren Aronofsky‘s emotional, finely rendered The Fountain with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz.

The honorable Roger Michell will not direct the next Daniel Craig 007 film (a.k.a. “Bond 22”) for caretaker producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli due to “creative differences.” This could mean anything, but Michell told a London reporter he wanted Craig’s Bond to have “an element of cruelty” and there’s speculation that Wilson-Broccoli — who time and again have blocked fresh ideas and innovations from filmmakers regarding the 007 character, and are regarded industry-wide as total stooges and creative “stoppers” — were against this. This Dark Horizons story blends the original Nicole LaPorte/Michael Fleming Variety story with a Michell quote provided by the Daily Mirror‘s Ryan Parry, to wit: “I think there has to be an element of cruelty [in the Bond charatcer]. Certain things he does should be questionable. I think you should go, ‘Fuck, that’s not nice’. He is an assassin.” Wanted: technically talented go-along director in need of a sizable paycheck who doesn’t want to mess with the formula too drastically.

World Trade Center didn’t exactly rock the U.S. yesterday with $4,499,000 haul in some 2803 theatres, or about $1605 per print. (A friend went to a 5 pm showing in a big L.A. plex yesterday in a 400-seat theatre, and there were only about 25 people there.) And I can’t imagine that today’s liquid-bomb news from London is going to help. WTC will do less today — figure $3.6 or $3.7 million, maybe a bit more — and the prognosis is that it’s looking like a push to bring in $20 million over the coming three-day weekend.
The five-day tally may be closer to the mid 20s rather than the vicinity of $30 million, which is apparently what some analysts projected. (A piece by critic Glenn Whipp mentioned a possible $31 million haul a few days ago.)
The reviews were (68% on Metacritic), the conservative patriot crowd didn’t manifest as strongly as hoped, and the same cowards who stayed away from United 93 held to form yesterday. World Trade Center is a heartfelt, very well made film and I’m sorry, but the numbers are in, there’s not a whole lot of heat under the pot and it’s probably fair to say there’s not a lot of joy floating around the Paramount lot this morning.
MCN’s Leonard Klady is reporting a slightly higher Wednesday figure — $4.7 to $4.9 million.

Let’s presume that by the time everyone travels to the Toronto Film Festival a little less than four weeks from now, the airlines won’t be prohibiting carry-on luggage out of London or anywhere else. Today’s news from London about a coordinated plot to blow up airliners traveling between Britain and the United States (the 21 British Muslim suspects intended to build bombs in mid-flight with liquid explosives and detonators) means that normal air-travel misery levels have worsened dramatically. If there’s a carry-on luggage ban when it’s time to fly to Toronto, that’s it — no computers means no Toronto and no coverage. I’m not uninterested in or unaware of the greater potential horror, but that’s an obvious area of concern for me and hundreds of other journalists and distributors.

Roddy McDowell‘s “Antony lives no more!” speech from Joseph L. Mankiewicz‘s Cleopatra (’63) — one of the few really good moments from an otherwise tiresome and pretty much discredited film.

The drop-dead perfect final lines from Billy Wilder‘s Double Indemnity (45), a remastered version of which Universal Home Video is releasing on 8.22. It looks improved — richer, crisper tones and fewer speckles than on the old cruddy version that Uni issued in ’98 — but so many scenes are shot in shadowy darkness it can’t possibly gleam like shiny silver. Great audio commentaries and retrospective doc, though.

Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson in Double Indemnity

The news was unofficial 9 or 10 days ago about Werner Herzog‘s Rescue Dawn playing at the Toronto Film Festival — now it’s official. Earlier today a big-time distributor told me he’s seen it and “between this and Grizzly Man, Herzog is enjoying a real rennaissance these days. It’s Herzog going back upriver and into the jungle…it’s really good. Perhaps not the most brazenly commercial film but what do you expect from Herzog? Christian Bale really goes for it, really out on a limb…and Steve Zahn is also good because he’s fairly restrained.”

Indiewire says the 50th London Film Festival (which runs in late October) will open with Kevin Macdonald ‘s The Last King of Scotland …big deal. It’ll also show at the Telluride Film Festival in early September, and then at the Toronto Film Festival a week or so later. Scotland is that Idi Amin movie with Forrest Whitaker and James McAvoy.

Okay, hold up there on that Disney-dumping- Apocalypto thing. At least until you consider the view of another connected distribution guy who called back this afternoon and said he hasn’t heard anything about Mel Gibson‘s film being quietly offered to other distributors, and “you’d think I’d be hearing something.” But then you never know with Disney, he added, because “they’re so crazy.” He emphasized, in any case, that it would be awfully expensive for Disney if they tried to get rid of Apocalypto because Icon, Gibson’s production company, is “very tough” and would insist upon Disney paying very heavy financial penalities if they pulled out. Take this with another grain.

Hollywood Wiretap had the link first, but columnist Jim Hill (of Jim Hill Media) is reporting that “studio insiders who have actually worked on the Pirates sequels are saying that — thanks to all of the elaborate FX sequences in Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End — the combined production costs of these two films is now well north of $600 million.
“And let’s keep in mind that we’re just talking about production costs [and] not the additional $100 million that a studio typically has to spend in order to properly launch a summer blockbuster. That $600 million was supposedly spent on just producing those two motion pictures, not on their promotion and marketing.
“And let’s not forget that [director] Gore Verbinksi hasn’t actually finished shooting the third Pirates sequel yet. Sets are being built on the Burbank lot right now for [certain] At World’s End scenes [and] according to studio staffers that I’ve spoken with, it’s going to take Gore at least six more weeks of shooting before he gets everything that he needs to complete At World’s End. Which means — in essence — that the meter’s still running on this incrediblyexpensive project. And that the final combined production costs of these back-to-back “Pirates” sequels could eventually reach as high as $650-$700 million.

Okay, it’s true — Robin Williams has gone into rehab. Anyone who faces up to a problem and tries to do something about it deserves respect and support. Presumably he’ll be out and jazzed when he starts doing publicity for Man of the Year (Universal, 10.15), which is said to be his best film is a while. Barry Levinson‘s too.