Avengers star Hiddleston would step into the role left by the late Bradon Lee in Relativity’s reboot

Moving from super villain to superhero, Tom Hiddleston is in early talks to play Eric Draven in Relativity Media’s reboot of The Crow, according to individuals close to the project, report TheWrap.

Ed Pressman of Pressman Film, and Keving Misher of Misher Films, are producing the film, with Relativity CEO Ryan Kavanaugh and Jeff Most Executive Producers are Dan Farah, of Farah Films, and Relativity’s Tucker Tooley.

Hiddleston recently had dinner with the producers and sent them a makeup test that he did on his own in London. In the coming days he will undergo a proper makeup test, as the character appearance is an important feature for the fans of the franchise.

Production could start as early as this autumn, with Spanish filmmaker F. Javier Gutierrez directing, from a script by Cliff Dorfman – though it’s possible other writers will be credited as well.

Based on a comic book series written by James O’Barr, The Crow was previously adapted as a 1994 Miramax movie, staring the late Brandon Lee, and follows a man who returns from beyond the grave to avenge his death.

O’Barr wrote The Crow to initially help him get over the death of his girlfriend, and it was the story’s powerful emotional component that set this comic series apart from other comic properties. Hiddleston appealed to the producers who were enamoured with his ability to portray and project both a light and dark side. He has also gifted physical talents as well as an impressive dramatic flare as shown in the acclaimed indie film, The Deep Blue Sea.

Hiddleston has worked with top directors , such as Spielberg on War Horse, Woody Allen in Midnight In Paris and Jim Jarmusch in Only Lovers Left Alive.

[TheWrap]

Related articles

• Tom Hiddleston as the next Eric Draven? (atharchive.wordpress.com)
• Tom Hiddleston Could End Up Playing THE CROW (geektyrant.com)
• Tom Hiddleston in Early Talks for ‘The Crow’ Remake (slashfilm.com)
• The Crow Remake Heats Up with Tom Hiddleston in Talks to Portray Eric Draven (dreadcentral.com)

Dir. Gavin O’Connor
(2011, PG-13, 140 min)

Surprisingly, three men share writing credit for Warrior: Cliff Dorfman, Anthony Tambakis, and director Gavin O’Connor. Not a single moment of its 140-minute running time contains original content. It’s constructed exclusively of cliches, and the cliches are so old and threadbare it’s foolish to assemble them this way for any reason but parody. As I watched, I started to keep count. SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW, if you can consider them spoilers. Can you spoil a rerun?

#1 – Brother vs. Brother. Siblings Brendan (Joel Edgerton) and Tommy (Tom Hardy) have been estranged ever since Tommy and his mother left their abusive father and Brendan stayed behind. They blame each other, for various reasons that will be settled in the ring during an epic mixed martial arts tournament. Called Sparta, the tournament is established by an unimportant character for unimportant reasons; sixteen of the top fighters from around the world are chosen to compete, which made me wonder how Brendan, a former middle-of-the-pack UFC competitor who now teaches high school physics, and Tommy, an AWOL military hero, are selected among the best in the world. How are we to believe that they could become legitimate contenders so quickly? Simple …

#2 – We’re gonna need a montage! Brendan and Tommy, both rusty after much time out of the ring, must get back in shape for the main event, which they do during a minute or two of cross-cutting and split-screen footage of jogging, sparring, and working out. And how do we know, by the end of it, that Brendan is ready to rumble? Because of the clip where he runs up a hill just a little bit faster than his training partner, who happens to be training for, you guessed it, Sparta! Team America put it best: “Show a lot of things happening at once / Remind everyone of what’s going on / And with every shot you show a little improvement / To show it all would take to long / That’s called a montage!”

Nick Nolte, as Paddy

#4 – A devoted wife who made him promise to stop fighting and refuses to watch him get hurt again. The thankless role is played by Jennifer Morrison. She doesn’t want him to return to a life of getting punched and kicked for a living. He resolves to do it anyway for the sake of the family (see above), but if he does, she warns, he’ll have to do it alone. Take a guess: Does she surprise him by showing up at the big fight just in time to give him the moral support he needs?

#5 – The rogue military hero. Tommy is hailed as a hero for ripping the door off a tank to save drowning soldiers. But he refuses to accept praise and shuns the spotlight. Naturally, there’s a secret, shameful part of his military service he feels he must atone for. And naturally, the shameful past is not nearly shameful enough to override his heroism, but provides him with heroic guilt so that the audience may root for his redemption.

#6 – The abusive, alcoholic father struggling to make amends. Brendan and Tommy were scarred as children by their dad, Paddy (Nick Nolte), but he has been clean and sober for a thousand days and wants nothing more than to make amends for his past mistakes, if only his sons would let him. Paddy allows the screenplay to fill three cliches for the price of one, for he also provides …

#7 – The grizzled old trainer and #8 – The reluctant dad who shows up in the middle of the final match/dance recital/musical solo just in time to support his child’s dreams.

#9 – The unbeatable Russian opponent. Oddly, Warrior revives this dusty relic of Cold War movie-making in the form of Koba (Kurt Angle), who has never set foot in the United States – until now! He scowls through scenes without speaking (perhaps to avoid the American Angle doing a silly Russian accent), and if the Iron Curtain were still up he might be very intimidating. During his match with one of the brothers – you already know who wins, because the brothers must inevitably meet in the finals (#10) – a pair of irritating color-commentators talk of a “miracle” underway; O’Connor previously directed 2004′s Miracle, a better film than this, about the 1980 US hockey team that defeated the dreaded Soviets, so in this case at least the director is borrowing from himself.

Warrior received fairly good reviews when it was released last fall, but it underperformed at the box office, perhaps because of how closely it followed 2010′s The Fighter, another make-a-comeback sports movie, which I didn’t think was very good either, but it contains more of interest than this one. Since then there was also Lights Out, a short-lived boxing series on FX with roughly the same subject, but in thirteen episodes it was able to flesh out its cliches, add human dimension to its formula. Warrior, however, never rises above the feeling that it’s all been done before.

“Anonymous” by John Orloff (Sony)

“The Artist” by Michel Hazanavicius (The Weinstein Company)

“Beginners” by Mike Mills (Focus Features)

“Bridesmaids” by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig (Universal)

“Cars 2″ by Ben Queen; Story by John Lasseter, Brad Lewis and Dan Fogelman (Disney)

“Coriolanus” by John Logan, from the play by William Shakespeare (The Weinstein Company)

“The Debt” by Matthew Vaughn & Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan (Focus Features)

“The Descendants” by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash, based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings (Fox Searchlight)

“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” by Steven Zaillian, based on the novel by Stieg Larsson (Sony)

“Hanna” by Seth Lochhead and David Farr; Story by Seth Lochhead (Focus Features)

“The Help” by Tate Taylor, based on the novel by Kathryn Stockett (Dreamworks)

“The Ides of March” by George Clooney & Grant Heslov and Beau Williman (Sony)

“The Iron Lady” by Abi Morgan (The Weinstein Company)

“Jane Eyre” by Moira Buffini, based on the novel by Charlotte Bronte (Focus Features)

“Machine Gun Preacher” by Jason Keller (Relativity Media)

“Margaret” by Kenneth Lonergan (Fox Searchlight)

“Margin Call” by J.C. Chandor (Rope of silicon website)

“Martha Marcy May Marlene” by Sean Durkin (Fox Searchlight)

“Moneyball” by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin; Story by Stan Chervin, based on the book by Michael Lewis (Sony)

“My Week With Marilyn” by Adrian Hodges, from the book by Colin Clark (The Weinstein Company)

“Pariah” by Dee Rees (Focus Features)

“Shame” by Steve McQueen and Abi Morgan (Fox Searchlight)

“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” by Bridget O’Cconnor & Peter Straughan, based on the novel by John le Carre (Focus Features)

“War Horse” by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo (Dreamworks)

“Warrior” by Gavin O’Connor and Anthony Tambakis & Cliff Dorfman (Lionsgate)

“Win Win” by Tom McCarthy; Story by Tom McCarthy & Joe Tiboni (Fox Searchlight)

Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte), a recovering alcoholic nearing his one thousandth day of being sober, found his younger son, Tommy (Tom Hardy), sitting on his porch. They hadn’t seen each other in fourteen years. But the reunion couldn’t be colder. Tommy, an ex-Marine, despised his father and claimed that the only reason why he showed up was because he needed a trainer for Sparta, a middleweight championship for mixed martial arts, where the winner would receive five million dollars. Meanwhile, Brendan (Joel Edgerton), Paddy’s eldest son, felt extreme financial pressure. As a physics teacher, he and his wife (Jennifer Morrison) didn’t make enough to pay for their mortgage. They were given a couple of weeks until their house was to be taken by the bank. So, Brendan joined the tournament, completely unaware that his younger brother, who he also hadn’t seen in more than a decade, was participating. Directed by Gavin O’Connor, “Warrior” was equally spellbinding when the characters were inside and outside of the ring. The brothers hated their father for the way he treated them and their mother when they were still growing up. The writers made a smart decision in showing us Paddy as a man on the way to recovery but never as an abusive parent. It became easier to sympathize with him. It was unnecessary to show us the latter because the psychological and emotional damages were painfully apparent in the adult Tommy and Brendan. Tommy became a pill-popping, reticent, angry figure while Brendan strived to be everything his father was not to his own wife and children. Interestingly, they shared only one scene before the tournament. It was beautifully executed and completely heartbreaking. As one inched closer to one another, their animosity and frustration became palpable and suffocating which served as a great contrast against the open space that surrounded them. I was at the edge of my seat because I almost expected them to resolve their problems by throwing punches long time coming, outside of the competition with no referee to force them to stop. However, the most powerful scene was between Tommy and Paddy. While sitting in front of a slot machine, Paddy approached his son to express that he was proud of him. Tommy responded bitterly, comparing his father to a beggar who was desperate for his sons’ affections, blind to the fact that the only thing his two sons had in common was they no longer needed him, and his decision to become a good father was years too late. The camera was nicely placed very closely in front the actors’ faces as to savor every negative emotion. In addition, it was easy to see how much their characters restrained certain words, especially the father, out of fear in regretting it later. It was like watching someone attempting to tiptoe around broken glass accompanied by a force that propelled him forward in rate he wasn’t comfortable with. “Warrior,” based on the screenplay by Gavin O’Connor, Anthony Tambakis, and Cliff Dorfman, went beyond the pain experienced in body slams, direct punches to the face, and heavy kicks to the stomach. We rooted for both Brendan and Tommy because we understood what winning meant for them personally–something worth more than half a million dollars.

Here is the script for Warrior provided by myPDFscripts. This script was written by Gavin O’Connor, Anthony Tambakis and Cliff Dorfman.

There are some days when I like to watch more than one movie, some days that ends up being a crappy decision, like yesterday when I watched A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (which I gave a D+ to) and Seven Days in Utopia (which I graded a C-), but then there are some days when you watch two films and both of them are amazing and all you want is to watch a third one to follow the streak of great films. Today was one of those days. I saw Contagion earlier in the day, a truly terrific film from Steven Soderbergh and then when deciding what to follow it up with for the night slot I settled for Warrior, the new film from Gavin O’Connor, the director of Miracle. And I was just expecting a good time with Warrior, guessing I would get our typical sports movie full of clichés but more than willing to give it a shot because of Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton in the lead role, even if I wasn’t really expecting all that much from it. And boy was I in for a surprise, because, yes, Warrior does have all those typical clichés but it also has an incredible amount of heart that doesn’t make them feel all that corny, and the fight sequences were just awesomely executed, and, most of all, it had some first-rate performances that really elevated it to great heights.

It’s really something that a movie as corny and clichéd as this one can also be as sincerely exceptional as it was. Seriously, look at the plot: two estranged brothers, one who was a Marine over in Iraq who comes home for reasons not immediately apparent and the other an apparently regular physics professor, as kids they both had to deal with an alcoholic father and as grown-ups they enjoy practicing non-pro mixed martial arts, and, oh coincidence, they both get to be finalists in this huge championship and, well, you probably know how it’s all gonna go. But I mean, it’s just so incredibly well done that it totally transcends all of that inherent corniness it had in it and finds its footing quickly enough and becomes this tremendously gripping film about family relationships. And it’s really all because of the job that Mr. Hardy and Mr. Edgerton do as the brothers, Brendan and Tom, and because of the performance Nick Nolte, in a career-reviving kind of role (not unlike the one Mickey Rourke gave in another fighting film, The Wrestler), gives as the now-sober father, Paddy.

Warrior is unapologetically clichéd though, it wears the conventionalities of its genre proudly on its sleeve, because it’s like it knows that it has the material to use them to its advantage, whether it’s having this trio of alpha male actors portraying the story of a pair of brothers working out their issues with the recovering alcoholic dad or whether it’s just having a film that looks fantastic, shot on-location in Pittsburgh that gives it this terrific naturalistically gritty aesthetic aided by some pretty neat editing, this move just worked on so many levels. So yeah, it’s all about that for this film, embracing it’s standard genre conventions but employing them in a film that’s skillfully made and convincingly acted, that’s what sets this one apart so much, and it’s what makes this one achieve a great deal of well-earned compassion once it reaches its predictably schmaltzy climax.

This is the man-weepfest the likes of which we haven’t seen in quite some time. You have Mr. Hardy playing Tom, who’s now taken on whiskey and arrives at the doorstep of his father’s home, whom he hasn’t seen in fourteen years. If you’ve been watching him then you know Mr. Hardy is an amazing actor, and he’s now finally becoming a star, after rising to prominence in Nicolas Winding Refn’s spectacular Bronson, he got his big break last year in Christopher Nolan’s Inception (which I ranked as the 3rd best film of 2010), with whom he’ll reunite in next year’s hugely anticipated The Dark Knight Rises, Mr. Nolan’s final entry in his Batman trilogy, and this year he has this film and the upcoming Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy which looks great. But yeah, the point I’m trying to make is the guy’s very good, and he’s certainly amazing here, he uses his towering physique (and those who have seen Bronson know how well he can do this) to just embody all this kinds of rage and bitterness towards life, towards his father. Not to mention that it makes him kicking so much ass really believable.

Then there’s Mr. Edgerton as Brendan, and he’s another guy who’s just bound to follow Mr. Hardy’s footsteps and get a huge breakout sooner rather than later, he first came to my attention last year in the stunning Animal Kingdom (which I gave an A to and ranked as the 19th best film of 2010) and is headlining the upcoming prequel to The Thing and taking on the role of Tom Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming adaptation of The Great Gatsby alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan, so yeah, he’ll be big in no time. But anyways, he plays the more functional kind of brother, a teacher and former UFC contender, but he’s still been deeply scarred by his father. His wife, played by Jennifer Morrison, tells him he can’t fight any more, so he tells her he’ll work as a bouncer on some nights to bring in some needed extra cash, but of course he’s fighting, because that’s what pays better.

These two actors are amazing, though it is ironic that these sort of hugely American roles of scarred male egos are played by a Brit and an Aussie. Mr. Hardy is especially riveting, he plays this small boy who has had his life marked by his father but is now trapped in the body of a huge grown man, his is a performance that has to do a lot with physicality and looks and not so much with dialogue, what he does inside the ring does just as much as the few lines of dialogue he also rocks at delivering. And Nick Nolte as the father is stunningly good, whatever Oscar buzz he’s been garnering is well deserved, just a perfectly cast role, Mr. Nolte’s gravelly voice adding a lot to the character, a man who’s truly broken, feeling guilt in every inch of his body and not being able to turn to his alcoholic drink of choice to find solace.

Warrior is a long film, but it makes the most of its running time, really, you have the clichés in the story lines and in the split-screen training scenes but it’s so well-acted that none of it matters. And once the movie enters its second act a lot of it takes place in the tournament and Mr. O’Connor shows us the violence of mixed martial arts in all of its bloody splendor, presented in a vicious way that makes these fights really exciting to watch. And what’s best is that the violence never feels gratuitous, it’s like an extension of what these two brothers are feeling, these fighting scenes are the ones that show the most soul in this film, you really get Tom’s lust for some sort of vengeance and spiritual redemption, you really get Brendan’s desperation for giving his family economic stability, and you get that the ring is the only place where they can really communicate with each other. This was a surprising film to me, it had soul, emotions and a trio of powerhouse performances that will leave you a wreck.

Grade: A-

CONTAGION
“Nothing Spreads Like Fear”

Directing:   Steven Soderbergh
Writing:   Scott Z. Burns
Starring:   Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston

If you want to kick off the cold and flu season with a cinematic celebration of a lethal pandemic rapidly sweeping the globe; then you’re in luck!

Price of Admission will get you about two hours of A-List Hollywood actors running around without make-up trying to pass for average ol’ ugly folks, wide-scale panic and the inevitable total breakdown of society. Fun Times!

Running Time · 105 min
Rated · PG-13

WARRIOR
“Family Is Worth Fighting For”

Directing:   Gavin O’Connor
Writing:   Gavin O’Connor, Anthony Tambakis, Cliff Dorfman
Starring:   Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Morrison

The flurry of fall movies trying to catch the attention of the Academy wouldn’t be complete without one of these inspirational underdog sports stories. Remember The Fighter from last year? What about The Wrestler from a couple of years back?? Well, this year all that touching heart-to-heart dialogue about the importance of family takes place inside a caged octagon!

Price of admission will get the answer to whom the toughest man on the planet is! The War Hero or the Physics Teacher!? …Who will it be!?

Running Time · 140 min
Rated · PG-13

BUCKY LARSON: BORN TO BE A STAR
“There Are No Small Actors. Just Small Parts”

Directing:   Tom Brady
Writing:   Adam Sandler, Allen Covert, Nick Swardson
Starring:   Nick Swardson, Christina Ricci, Don Johnson, Stephen Dorff

Buck-toothed dimwit decides to go to Hollywood to seek fame and fortune in the adult film industry after he learns his parents are former porn stars.

Price of admission will get you an hour and a half of uninspired ‘tiny penis’ and ‘ugly people are stupid and gross!’ jokes.

Running Time · 96 min
Rated · R

Reservoir Dogs star Harvey Keitel , Couple’s Retreat’s Malin Akerman , Heroes’ Milo Ventimiglia and The Green Mile’s Michael Clarke Duncan are also among the cast of the movie about a troubled boy’s rise from the ghetto to criminal kingpin, Variety reports.

Gary Oldman will star in Criminal Empire For Dummys

Writer Cliff Dorfman, who worked on Entourage, is making his feature directorial debut from his own script on the project, due to start shooting in late March in New Orleans.

Milo will play the charismatic lead who relates the rules of running a criminal empire through a flashback to his own escape from a tragic childhood to becoming head of a multinational drugs cartel.