Pick your indie: 'Pawn Sacrifice' or 'Nancy and Danny'

Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan both star in The Great Gatsby, which recently moved from a December 2012 to a summer 2013 release--much to my chagrin. The movie was a meeting point for the two stars--one on the rise and the other on his way back up (Maguire took a pay cut from his seven-figure salary in the original Spider-Man franchise). Director Baz Luhrmann's projects, when they're good, can yield both critical acclaim and box-office success, so the project was a strategic career choice for both of them.

Now both Maguire and Mulligan are lining up indie projects that will probably end up releasing sometime in the wake of Gatsby.

Mulligan has signed on to a thriller that's been described as similar to To Die For, the project that made Nicole Kidman a breakout star. Perhaps Mulligan also hopes this role will launch her further into the stratosphere? In Nancy and Danny, she would play Nancy, a woman who has failed at making it in the big city. She returns home and manipulates a former classmate into helping her in a get-rich-quick scheme she also hopes will help her land her former high school crush. James Marsh, whose documentary Man on Wire won the Best Documentary Oscar, will direct. Between Mulligan, Marsh, and the story, which seems like a thriller version of Young Adult, there's a lot in this project that looks good.

Maguire is teaming up with Ed Zwick for his indie, Pawn Sacrifice. He'll play chess great Bobby Fischer, a boy wonder who turned into a recluse.  Zwick (Love and Other Drugs) is pursuing this project while he waits for financing to come through for The Great Wall, a supernatural project he is set to helm. Zwick is actually taking the reins from David Fincher, who was attached at one point. If Maguire is cast as Fischer, that could lend a clue about what the biopic is going to cover. Maguire is 37. Fischer was 29 when he won the famous 1972 match against Soviet Boris Spassky. After that, he lived in near-obscurity for close to twenty years. It seems likely that the project would focus less on Fischer as a boy wonder and more on what led him to be both the most legendary chess player and a recluse--a bit of a Howard Hughes role, it seems, like that of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Aviator.

Both of these projects seem like worthy follow-ups to the roles of Nick Carraway and Daisy Buchanan, but only time will tell if they are are as promising as they appear.

First look at Baz Luhrmann's 'The Great Gatsby'

The most important thing about a Baz Luhrmann movie is seeing it. Although a few cast photos circulated of Carey Mulligan in '20s gear, that's nothing compared to the visual feast that's present in the trailer for The Great Gatsby. Warner Bros. has high hopes for the adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, giving it a prime Dec. 25 release date. As a big fan of Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, it looks like there will be plenty more sumptuous costumes, extravagant party scenes, and emotionally charged moments. Though the online trailer is in 2D, the film itself will release in both 2D and 3D. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway, and Carey Mulligan as Daisy.

I love how Luhrmann's vision of the '20s isn't real, but hyperreal. Times Square is covered with more neon than the actual Times Square, an achievement in itself. It's also worth noting that, in a historical nod to the Harlem jazz clubs that were so popular during Prohibition, he includes black faces in his tale--too often historical pictures are lily-white.

The Australian-born Luhrmann is coming off a flop, Australia, but that film didn't have the supercharged visuals of his previous hits, Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet. I have a feeling that this film will be a megahit--and become a popular shortcut for high school students ducking their sophomore reading list.

Here's the trailer:

Tobey Maguire focuses on 'The Details'

By Sarah Sluis

Tobey Maguire will star opposite Elizabeth Banks in The Details, a dark comedy. Filming will start later this summer in Seattle, before Maguire goes off to shoot Spider-man 4. Jacob Estes, the writer and director, previously took on the dual role in 2004's Mean Creek, which took place one state south, in Oregon. It earned a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and has some thematic similarities to the described plot of The Details.

In Mean Creek, a bully and his friends decide to punish a boy by humiliating him out in the Oregon wilderness, but the actions escalate out of their control and the stakes suddenly become life-or-death. In The Details, Maguire and Banks will play a couple bickering about infidelity and the strength of their marriage, and who must deal with the added annoyance of pesty raccoons destroying their backyard. They have a disagreement over how to get rid of the animals, which (like in Mean Creek) spins out of control and results in death (apparently by bow-and-arrow). Laura Linney will play an "eccentric" neighbor, and Ray Liotta, Anna Friel (Land of the Lost), and Dennis Haybert ("24," "The Unit") are also on the cast list. While Mean Creek was more serious, this is being billed as a "dark indie comedy"

Over the past year, Elizabeth Banks was in one release right after the other (Zack and Miri Make a Porno, W., Role Models, The Uninvited), which really highlighted her versatility (or just her willingness to pick up anything and everything). Tobey Maguire is stepping into the role previously held by James McAvoy, who left due to scheduling problems. With its high-profile stars, and prolific producer Mark Gordon (who was nominated for an Oscar on Saving Private Ryan), The Details certainly has the potential to take on an awards-season sheen. Or, perhaps, be another War of the Roses.