'Thor' poised to overtake weekend box-office

As Freddie Mercury might say, this weekend’s box-office contenders are waiting for the hammer to fall. Thor: The Dark World will likely assert its dominance over the domestic market when it bows in 3,841 locations tonight. Many are predicting the sequel to 2011’s Thor will gross approximately $95 million, earning slightly less than fellow superhero flicks Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man and Superman, which all debuted to upwards of $100 million. Last weekend, The Dark World made headlines when it opened to a tuneful $111 million overseas. Basically, everyone knows who the winner of this weekend’s sales race will be, the question is, by just how much will Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Natalie Portman and team outstrip the competition?

The Avengers effect, the box-office theory that posits solo vehicles for those characters that appeared in 2012’s The Avengers will experience a boost in sales thanks to that film's popularity, proved true for Iron Man 3 and will probably factor into The Dark World’s success.  That Thor’s mighty earning potential is already being treated as a foregone conclusion is great news for the ever-expanding cinematic Marvel universe, though less so for everyone else, like last weekend’s No. 1, Ender’s Game. It’s looking as if the young adult adaptation will slip a couple of spots this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Bad Grandpa is holding strong, and so is the critically denigrated if fan darling Last Vegas – they’ll likely land at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively. That leaves Ender’s Game to keep warm the oft-overlooked No. 4 slot. The film may have been groomed to spawn a franchise, but such a large dip in popular interest its second weekend out of the gate doesn’t bode well for executive interest in Ender’s Game 2.

Another movie about the forces of good matching against the embodiment of evil, The Book Thief, will also open, in four locations in New York and LA, tonight. The Nazi-era adaptation of Markus Zusak’s young adult novel of the same name recounts the childhood of Liesel Meminger, the titular literary robber whose love for books sees her through trying social, political and personal conditions. The film is tracking a solid 67% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and with its light though not particularly inventive treatment of the source material will also likely do solid business.

Continuing with their rollout strategies, About Time, 12 Years A Slave and Dallas Buyers Club will all expand to more theatres this weekend. The Richard Curtis rom-com About Time had a disappointing opening last week, earning less than $1.1 million from 175 locations. Universal isn’t expecting much from its sophomore outing: the film is tracking at about $5 million.

On the other hand, 12 Years and Club have proven themselves fierce competitors in both the awards-season race and arthouse market. Steve McQueen’s incredibly well-received slavery drama will open wide in 1,144 theatres, while Matthew McConaughey’s Oscar hopeful will expand to 35 locations.

What's going on with 'Jane Got a Gun'?

There have been many signs of trouble on Jane Got a Gun, a western starring Natalie Portman, which has seen a number of cast and crew drop out. The question is why.

The first person to jump ship was director Lynne Ramsay, who left shortly before the first day of filming. The director behind We Need to Talk About Kevin and Ratcatcher reportedly was feuding with producers, while others whispered that she was displaying erratic behavior. The production itself was also in disarray because Michael Fassbender had to drop out before production started. Joel Edgerton, a less familiar name, replaced him, and that led to problems with investors. Whatever the reason behind her departure, Ramsay is now off to Cannes, where she will be a
judge at the 2013 film festival. That sounds like an apt reward after all
that drama.

After Ramsay left, it set off a chain reaction. With Ramsay out, Jude Law quit. He was replaced by Bradley Cooper. Then Cooper dropped out, because the Boston bombings delayed the wrap of the production of American Hustle, his upcoming David O. Russell feature. Ewan McGregor will now play the role of the villain, the third person to be cast in that role.

The new director is Gavin O'Connor, who helmed the well-received Warrior, which starred Edgerton. The screenwriter of Warrior, Anthony Tambakis, co-wrote Jane Got a Gun, which adds to the connection--and maybe explains why Ramsay was so quickly replaced. McGregor also has a connection to the cast, appearing in the Star Wars movies with Portman.

The only non-moving part in this production is Portman. Her role sounds juicy, which may be why she's stuck around. She will play a woman whose outlaw husband (Noah Emmerich) returns home ridden with bullets. She turns to her ex-lover (Edgerton) for help defending her homestead from the villain (McGregor) and his gang, which she predicts will soon be at their doorstep. Presuming production actually starts and finishes without another hitch, this one should show up in theatres sometime in 2015.

Female-driven western 'Jane Got a Gun' secures financing

Since her Best Actress win for Black Swan in 2010, Natalie Portman hasn't played another meaty role, instead appearing in blockbusters like Thor, the romantic comedy No Strings Attached, and the stoner comedy Your Highness. She's wrapped work on a Terrence Malick project, but chances are that
performance won't be seen for some time. Her next big appearance may be in Jane Got a Gun, a western that will film early next year. Portman would both star and produce. The production just secured financing, and the sales agents will be looking for buyers at the Toronto Film Festival in a few weeks.

Portman would play a woman who has to ask her ex-lover for help in order to save her current husband, an outlaw. The husband comes home riddled with bullets, almost on his deathbed, and a gang of Confederate soldiers is after him to finish the job. That forces Portman's character to seek out her ex, who can help her defend the family farm. It had been reported that Michael Fassbender was considering playing the role of the ex, but those rumors were later squashed.

Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin) is directing, making this truly a female-driven picture. There really aren't many films to draw on for comparison. Civil War and farm-set Cold Mountain comes to mind, but I see more differences than similarities. Though the western genre has long since passed its heyday, the right kind of project can bring people back, like 3:10 to Yuma or the more contemporary No Country for Old Men, for example. With a farm wife starring in what's normally a cowboy picture, Jane Got a Gun may be just that.

'Black Swan' meets 'A Tall Dark Stranger' at the Toronto Film Festival

By Sarah Sluis

FJI contributor Eriba Abeel reports from the Toronto Film Festival.

Well, it's kind of a brand new Toronto Film Festival this year. The whole show, in this chilly, windy 35th edition, has shifted from the tony Yorkville/Bloor Street area to downtown Toronto in the freshly minted Entertainment section. At its axis looms the almost-completed TIFF Bell Lightbox, an impressive glass complex ten ye.ars in the making. This one-stop cinephile's paradise will house screenings, gallery shows, exhibitions, workshops, multi-media events and more. Best of all for the harried journalist, everything, from screenings, to panels, to pressers, will be centralized. You need only to step out of your hotel in the morning and full into the lap of cinema.

Those of us resistant to change approached the relocated fest with trepidation, some of it justified. The temporary venue for screenings is a behemoth called the Scotiabank Theater, a giant concoction of Rubiks cubes on acid. Riding the four-story elevator to the theaters induces nausea and vertigo, not helped by walls with disco balls and wavy lines that appear to undulate. The place is free of anything resembling healthy food and offers only a few bathrooms for upwards of two thousand souls. The 'hood around my hotel is a work in progress, too, featuring Jerk and Swarama joints, a Hooters, mind reader and tattoo parlor.

As for the lineup this year, it contains fewer Must-Sees than in past editions and a dearth of offerings from undisputed masters. Still, by Day 3 I've seen a couple of entertaining and original, if not great films. After

queuing up on on a dizzying ramp, I made it into Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. Since opening Venice the film has generally divided critics. While it's at times preposterous, even laughable - and a few audience members found it risible - Black Swan seduces you with its dark glamor. After The Wrestler, the specialized world evoked here is that of a New York City ballet company, with its driven, competitive ballerinas and exacting ballet master suggestive of George Balanchine. Aronofsky has created resonant parallels between that old warhorse of a ballet, Swan Lake, with its two swan queens - one white and pure, the other dark and wicked - and the ambitions of aspiring prima ballerina Nina (Nathalie Portman) to dance both roles. He's come up with an audacious concept and with only a few missteps Aronofsky thrillingly carries it off.

Virginal, mentally fragile Nina lives with a ferocious "ballet mama" (Barbara Hershey) who projects her own failed dreams of stardom onto her daughter. But Nina's lack of sensuality and mania for perfection shackle her performance of the black swan role, which should sizzle. In an effort to access her inner black swan, Nina dutifully responds to the caresses of ballet master Vincent Cassel, and more ardently to the real or imagined advances of her uninhibited, high-living rival (Mila Kunis). But Nina's ambitions bring her to the brink of madness in a darker, more erotic reprise of The Red Shoes.

To prepare for the role of Nina Nathalie Portman (already tagged as Oscar bait) reportedly studied ballet for ten months. But as a former dancer myself, I can tell you that no actress can create in ten months the body and movement style that dancers shape over ten years. DP Matthew Libatique's camera work cleverly cuts away whenever Nina has to actually dance, rather than just undulate her arms and make like a swan. But even there Portman's merely impersonating a dancer, and not all that convincingly. The great Bolshoi ballerinas had famously superb upper body carriage and hyper-extended arms that few non dancers could reproduce. However, I'm told by my colleagues that only balletomanes will notice. More critically, Portman's limited range as an actress confine her to an expression of pained anxiety.

Vincent Cassel, himself a former dancer, is far more commanding as a creature of the rehearsal hall. He steals every scene in which he appears. As Nina's mom, Barbara Hershey not only goes over the top -- her surgicalized face contributes to the film's ambience of horror. Why do American actresses do this to themselves? Overall, though, Aronofsky has nailed the ballet world, with its paranoia, isolation from the larger community, and near-masochistic physical demands. (Peter Martins of the New York City Ballet once told me that when he was a dancer he was continually in pain.) And Tchaikovsky's familiar, soaring score is of a piece with the film's otherworldly allure of a fairy tale set in New York's Lincoln Center.

With You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger Woody Allen is in terrific form -- in fact, the best in years. With the usual white titles on black, oldie "When You Wish Upon a Star" tinkling on the soundtrack, you relax back in your seat and happily surrender to Woody-land. A voice-over instantly takes charge to relate a story of two London-based couples with adulterous itches. Josh Brolin is bashing away at a new novel

without much success, while wife Naomi Watts works for elegant art gallerist Antonio Banderas. Brolin has the hots for neighboring guitarist Freida Pinto, while Watts covets her boss. The kinks and twists in the characters' destiny amuse without flagging. You will love the scene in which Watts does her damndest to convey her attraction to Banderas, who maddeningly refuses even to acknowledge that she's coming on to him. It's a brilliant new addition to Woody's gallery of miscommunicating couples.

Yet another story concerns a senior, Anthony Hopkins, who has dumped his wife to pursue fitness and who eventually marries a hooker. Easy laughs and Viagra jokes here, but Hopkins lends them gravitas. Of course, this being Woody-land, Hopkins has been prompted to alter his life by a vision of eternity yawning before him, impelling him to live it up NOW. (Cue Larry David in Whatever It Takes who wakes up at night exclaiming "the horror, the horror.") Who but Woody can make fear of death so consistently entertaining? Meanwhile, Hopkins's abandoned wife has fallen prey to a fortune teller who believes in reincarnation. By film's end the lives of the characters are pretty much in a shambles. With one exception: a character who has bought peace and fulfillment by abandoning reason and living entirely in illusion. A sardonic denouement, but delivered with the lightest of touches.

Early Oscar Buzz: Natalie Portman for Best Actress in 'Black Swan'

By Sarah Sluis

Since Black Swan debuted at the Venice Film Festival, the movie has been getting pretty consistent raves. It's no Toy Story 3, with a 99% Rotten Tomatoes approval rating, but the divisiveness engendered by the film seems to mostly fall in the "quibble" category, or evidence of serious engagement with the movie. And five out of six reviewers gave it a positive review at the festival.

Natalie Portman's acting in the movie has received the most buzz. Her "bravura performance," according to Kirk Honeycutt at The Hollywood Reporter, serves the kind of intensely psychological role that the Oscars love to reward. She has delusions, scratches nervously until she bleeds, and deals with a creepy, domineering mother (Barbara Hershey, who I'll always remember for her role in Boxcar Bertha). She also studied ballet for months for the part, which is almost enough to put her in that "physical alteration for-the-win" category. It worked for the fattened, uglied Charlize Theron in Monster and Nicole Kidman with a fake nose piece in The Hours!

It's also worth noting that the director, Darren Aronofsky, helped both Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei land acting nominations for his last film, The Wrestler. At this point, no one is screaming "Oscar" for the film itself, although it could be a contender depending on the competition.

As an actress, Portman has received one nomination before, for Closer--a so-so movie, in my opinion. She's shied away from light,

poufy roles (the closest she's come to a romantic comedy is Garden State and Where the Heart Is, both of which are more romance-comedy-dramas). Besides Closer, she starred in last year's Brothers, a would-be awards film that never took off. She may be getting to the point where an Oscar is due to her if she keeps making such serious, well-acted films.

If Portman doesn't win an Oscar for Black Swan, it looks as if her performance may line up other Oscar-worthy roles for her. Alfonso Cuaron reportedly wants her to replace Angelina Jolie in Gravity, a 3D space movie that would involve her spending long periods of time on screen alone, like Tom Hanks in Cast Away.

Black Swan opens December 1st through Fox Searchlight.

High concept adaptation: Christie's auction meets rom-com, Pitt and Portman

By Sarah Sluis

Perhaps I shouldn't be saying this on a film blog, but it is a fact universally acknowledged that, most of the time, the book is better than the movie. There are certainly exceptions, even among prize-winning literature--I just finished No Country for Old Men and found the movie to be much better than the book. I also count the dramatization of action-packed pulp novels as a one-up over the writing of John Grisham or Dan Brown. Michael Crichton's work reads as well as it adapts, and the CGI spectacle of Jurassic Park gave me nightmares for literally years. What can be great in print often fails on the screen, and let's mark Watchmen as the latest example.

I'm also a little mixed when it comes to using books as a jumping-off point. He's Just Not That Into You, a romantic comedy based on the comedic self-help book, took two hours to work its way through the romantic couplings of nearly a dozen people. It barely kept the tone of the book (probably a good thing, as the book was kind of like when a friend says something cruel to you, then follows it up with "just kidding"), but at least it helped at the box office, giving the movie the benefit of being a vaguely recognizable property.

I bring this up because of the announcement that this book, Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry (page through it here and here), will be made into a romance. A romantic comedy, specifically. The book by Leanne Shapton, art director for the NY Times, looks like a Christie's auction catalog, and documents a couple's four-year relationship by putting their possessions on display. It's rather archaeological, has that ever-popular element of ironic detachment ("behold exhibit A, a love letter"), and

requires a little bit of detective work and imagination to enjoy, which will certainly make the book popular among snoops, a category I suspect the author belongs to. (Her previous book, Was She Pretty?, is a fictional exploration of a boyfriend's ex-girlfriends, facilitated by the girlfriend's examination of his diaries.)

What I appreciate about (the potential) for this project is how much will be left unsaid. So often, it's "five years later" in movies and stories without a sense of anything meaningful having happened during the

interim. Being able to convey a sense of history, and the sense that characters have many stories left untold--a tone this book excels at simply through its structure--makes for a much richer project. As an added bonus, telling a story through objects allows for easy manipulation of chronology, and, again, that indie sense of irony that comes from explaining a relationship only through objects. Because the book is modeled after a Christie's auction catalog, the project seems very tied to New York and I see a bit of Annie Hall and When Harry Met Sally... in the idea, which has yet to attach a writer.

Most promisingly, Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman would play the couple in the project, which was auctioned off to Plan B productions (Pitt's production company). If

you think about it, Portman has a bit of that Angelina Jolie look, so I

suppose that makes their coupling plausible. Less plausible, however, is the idea that the movie will be made in the near future. With seventeen titles in development, Brad Pitt's slate is filled to the brim. Perhaps it's time for him to hold an auction of his own.