Read Mel Gibson's Cause of His Approaching Judah Maccabee Movie

In the event you thought the entire planet happen to be absorbed with the Onion upon reading through through what is the news that Mel Gibson is arranging a movie about Jewish religious leader Judah Maccabee (!) with Joe Eszterhas writing the script (!!), you almost certainly weren't alone. On first, second and fifteenth blush, the idea remains difficult to believe, a great deal to make sure that the truly amazing folks at Vulture have develop an opportune parlor game you'll be able to fuss about this slow Friday mid-day. ("Mel Gibson Writing a Jewish Hero Movie Is Similar To Who Doing What?" fave suggested answer: Tracy Morgan starring in 'The Normal Heart.') For Gibson, however, the Judah Maccabee film can be a passion project he's been wanting to produce for a while. In the just-launched interview with the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg -Body completed previously, Goldberg states, incorporated in research with an approaching book he's covering Maccabee -- Gibson revealed no less than his thought process behind the project. "Someone stated [Book of Maccabees I and II] once i was teen, which is amazing. It's similar toInch -- here, he clicked up my digital recording device, held it to his mouth, and spoke in the portentous movie-announcer voice -- "They profaned his Temple. They destroyed his father. They... an array of stuff. When faced with great odds for something he supported" -- here he switched from movie-announcer voice -- "Oh, my God, the probabilities they faced. The armies they faced had tigers! How film is! Even Judah's father -- what's his title? Mattathias? -- you kind of appreciate this guy who virtually is trying to avoid the whole factor, but he just reaches an area where had enough, which he just clicked on!" The story of Judah Maccabee includes certain cases of crude circumcision and general genital violence, like the worry: per the 2010-old interview, Gibson mentioned he'd leave that out. Much less he doesn't use a joke for your occasion. "Hey, do you realize they'll use foreskins for altering eyelids?" began the embattled star. Click towards the Atlantic to determine the punchline. (Or even don't.) [with the Atlantic]

Early B.O.: 'Contagion' weakens 'The Help'

'Contagion'After three No. 1 weeks at the weekend domestic box office, "The Help" looks like it may have to cede the throne to Warner Bros.' "Contagion."While estimates are very early, B.O. observers are putting the Steven Soderbergh disease thriller's weekend take somewhere in the $18 to $20 million range. "The Help" was expected to drop by about half from last week, putting it somewhere close to $10 million."Warrior" doesn't look to be tracking much differently from yesterday, and early numbers suggest the Lionsgate sports pic will pull in somewhere between $7 and $8 million this frame.Observers are putting "Bucky Larson" under $4 million, but it's early -- the Adam Sandler-produced comedy could pop with nighttime auds. Contact Rachel Abrams at Rachel.Abrams@variety.com

Nike Likely to Announce 'Back towards the Future'-Style Self-Lacing Athletic shoes Thursday (Video)

The near future as predicted at the spine towards the Future Part II is originating a small step nearer to reality as Nike is anticipated to announce they're delivering self-lacing Air Mag athletic shoes, as worn by Michael J. Fox within the 1989 movie. To the near future executive producer Frank Marshall suggested in the announcement on Twitter on Wednesday, writing, "Something large is originating soon. Can't say anything yet. Nobody ought to know an excessive amount of regarding their own future. #BTTF" Then Nike sent invites to some press conference on Thursday. Based on the shoe news site NiceKicks the invitation showed up together with a box of ྌs chocolate, a bottle of Pepsi circa 1985, a DVD of To the near future plus some silver wraparound shades as worn by Doc Brown within the movie. Furthermore, a teaser video was published online entitled McFly's Closet and showing rows upon rows from the footwear. Nike had registered a patent for instantly lacing footwear this past year. The development of the athletic shoes means reality has beat fantasy with a good 4 years -- To the near future Part II happened in 2015. Not sure on any Hoverboard or self-drying out jacket bulletins, sadly. Michael J. Fox

Rankings: Sons of Anarchy Season 4 Debut Sets Series High

Sons of Anarchy Sons of Anarchy's 90-minute Season 4 debut grew to become the series' most-viewed episode, bringing in 4.94 million audiences, a 20 % increase within the third-season premiere, based on Nielsen figures. Of this viewership total, some 3.22 million Tuesday evening -Up 15 % -- were within the marketer-coveted 18-to-49 age bracket. Is Sons of Anarchy in your Watchlist? Add it as well as your other favorite shows now and not miss a chapter "Last night's rankings are suggestive of the passion the crowd has with this wonderful show," Forex Leader John Landgraf stated. "Kurt [Sutter, the series creator] has crafted probably the most compelling series on tv, using the raw, blow-your-hair-back energy of the wide-open Harley and also the subtle complexity of the great book." Sons of Anarchy Season 4: Is SAMCRO failing? The prior full of viewership for Sons came for that Season 2 finale (4.32 million on 12 ,. 1, 2009). Fall Preview: Get scoop on all of your favorite coming back shows On broadcast TV, in which the summer time months are ending, America's Got Talent outdrew its competition, calculating 11.43 million people. From the NBC show, repeats of NCIS: La finished second with 8.95 million and 7.04 million audiences.

Seth Rogen and Will Reiser Discuss '50/50' and If It's Too Soon for a Patrick Swayze Joke

Seth Rogen understands why someone may initially question his starring appearance in another "my friend has cancer" movie after already doing so in 2009's 'Funny People.' The thing is, Rogen's new film, '50/50' was actually conceived first. Oh, also, as Rogen explains: written by his friend and former 'Da Ali G Show' colleague Will Reiser -- it's nothing at all like 'Funny People.' (And he's right.) Rogen co-stars as Kyle, best friend to Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who is diagnosed with a rare form of spinal cancer early in the film. At times funny, at times heartbreaking, '50/50' is based on Reiser's actual experiences with cancer. Moviefone spoke to Rogen and Reiser about the fine line between humor and the serious subject matter, Reiser's real-life experience with cancer, whether it's too soon for a Patrick Swayze joke (Rogen's character lists Swayze as a cancer survivor to inspire Adam) and, also, to deliver a quick message to Rogen from his former director, Kevin Smith. Moviefone: I just finished an interview with Kevin Smith. He wanted me to tell Seth, "Hi," and, "Thank you for introducing me to marijuana." Rogen: [Laughing] He has to get in line for that. Reiser: Seth has done that for many people. Rogen: Exactly. It's a lot of people's first and last weed smoking experience. I either get you started or I retire you. Will, based on your experience with cancer, was there anything difficult for you to watch in this film? Reiser: Is there a specific scene watching it? Yeah, I think the stuff with the mom is always the hardest. [Angelica Huston plays Adam's onscreen mom.] It's the stuff that hits home. Just the scene in the doctor's office when she tells Adam that she's going to an outreach support group for parents of children with cancer. I think that always kind of hits home and always reminds me of my relationship with my mother and what our experiences were like going through that together. But I should say that the movie is "inspired by" -- it's fictionalized. So it's not like I'm watching my real life. I think like with almost any audience member, I connect with that in a certain way. Seth, was it weird for you knowing that you had to be funny but -- considering the content -- also conscious of where to draw the line? Rogen: I think people who have had experience with cancer realize how -- and it's not something I really realized until Will got sick -- kind of how sensitive towards it you become when you are engaged in it. You know? It isn't a taboo subject anymore when you or your friend is living with it every day. And I think what you're willing to say about it just becomes a lot more explicit in a lot of ways. And I think we just knew that as long as we didn't feel like we were doing anything that wasn't real, we could kind of say whatever we want -- for the purposes of the characters trying to make jokes. I think that makes it OK; the character is trying to be funny -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not successfully. But I think as long as it feels like something someone would actually do, we just knew it wouldn't be offensive. You know? Not being based 100 percent on a true story, what's the biggest difference between Adam's life and Will's life? Reiser: Well, I did not undergo chemotherapy. It's all fictionalized. I just drew from my experience to inspire me with bits and pieces of things that happened and turned them into this movie. Like the scene where the doctor says the word "cancer" for the first time and all of a sudden Adam zones into an echo chamber. Did that happen to you? Reiser: Definitely. I think a lot of what the doctor said -- both the surgeon and oncologist -- was taken from real experiences, for sure. I definitely drew upon what happened and what my real experience was like for writing those scenes. Seth, when this first came to you, did you worry at all that it was too similar to 'Funny People,' in a one sentence, "Seth Rogen has a friend who has cancer," kind of way? Rogen: No, not at all. This movie actually existed conceptually before 'Funny People' did. And, honestly, I remember Judd telling me about 'Funny People' -- I mean, we had no idea how long '50/50' would ultimately take to get made. But it was kind of the other way around, oddly enough. I remember Judd telling me about 'Funny People' and I told him, "Well, I have this other movie that we're making with Will about what he went though." And it just seemed different enough. It seemed like they were telling different stories. Tonally they were kinda different. Scale-wise they were much different. So it really didn't bother me and it didn't bother anyone making the movies. I mean, it's not surprising that there's ultimate comparisons, but I've accepted that no matter what I do, everyone is always going to say that I'm doing the exact same thing. [laughs] I think after people see '50/50,' no one will compare these two movies. Rogen: OK, I hope not. But if they do! There's a Patrick Swayze joke in '50/50.' Is it too soon for a Patrick Swayze joke? Rogen: Oh, man, I don't know! [laughs] Reiser: We debated that. We definitely debated it. But I think sometimes you just have to go for it. Rogen: If you imagine, we shot that joke over a year ago. I remember saying that if people don't like this, we'll take it out. Like, we are not trying to impose this joke on people. It was not something we felt strongly about and we were like, "If people think this is funny, we'll leave it in. If not, there's a very good chance that we should not have this in the movie." But people seem to like it. It's almost an oddly cathartic joke for people in a way. Reiser: Yeah, it never came up when we tested it or when we showed it to friends. It was always something that people laughed at. Rogen: Yeah, to us it was scary. No one else really ever pointed it out, though. The director, Jonathan Levine, mentioned you improvised quite a bit on set. Was there anything you improvised that you immediately said, "Wait, I was just messing around. Don't use that"? Rogen: [Laughs] That... is a good question. I don't know! Nothing off the top of my head, to be totally honest. The character, again, is someone who is trying to be funny. You know? So you're given a certain luxury, I think, as a performer when, literally, the person who you're playing is trying to make jokes all of the time. So, I don't know. Honestly, our attitude is if it makes you think we can't do that, that's the exact thing we should be trying to do. The scene that stood out to me the most is right after Adam has chemo for the first time and is walking out of the hospital stoned. Where did that come from? Reiser: We initially had like a dream sequence. And it was way too expensive for us to shoot. And it involved Adam being chased by a giant, bald, fat man wearing a shirt that said, "cancer." It was really absurd. But we wanted to so something that really captured that. Rogen: Yeah, in the script it turned into a Fellini movie for around ten minutes. Reiser: Exactly! I wrote that when we were in pre-production and decided that we couldn't shoot that initial scene. So that was something that we all kind of sat around in our production office and just kind of just pitched ideas: Just a stoned walk and the gallows humor of it all. Rogen: That was the first scene that our editor actually cut together. And I remember when we saw it, I remember thinking, Now that's the movie! This is what the tonal benchmark for the whole thing should be. It's funny and real and sad and somewhat audacious in how it's treating the subject matter. But at the same time it feels very honest. And I remember looking at that while we were very early in shooting and thinking, this is what we need to try to be achieving. For Adam, the chemo treatment almost made him sicker than the actual disease. I know it was a different treatment, but what was your experience? Reiser: Look, I was a wreck. Rogen: Oh, yeah, Will looked really bad leading up to him finding out he got sick. I talked to Sacha Baron Cohen the other day; we were literally just talking how like when we were working on the show, every time Will would leave the office we would look at each other and be like, "There is something f*cking wrong with that guy." Reiser: I was not in good shape. I was losing weight, I was having these horrible night sweats where I would wake up drenched. I was having dizzy spells and bad acne. It was horrible. It was not good. It was not a good time in my life. And I had convinced myself that I was diabetic because I had gone on Web MD and diagnosed myself. Rogen: We thought it was just the stress of 'Da Ali G Show.' Why didn't you go to the doctor? Reiser: Because when you're that age, you're not thinking. Rogen: I remember you started eating tons of salt. And you thought that would help you. Reiser: I thought I was a diabetic and my mom was telling me to eat lots of salt. That's my mom's cure for everything: to eat lots of salt in everything. She thinks that's the cure. But when you're 24 years old, you don't think, Sh*t, I might have cancer. What 24-year-old do you know who talks about having cancer? Mono -- I mean, that's the worst you're going to get. The scene most people have seen is the one where Seth's character shaves Joseph Gordon-Levitt's head. Will, did you actually shave your head and, Seth, did you feel a lot of pressure shaving Joseph's head and getting that scene right on one take? Rogen: You didn't actually ever shave your head? Reiser: No, never due to illness. Rogen: Right -- just for fashion. That was literally the first day of shooting. And it's tough with a scene like that because you want it to feel real and loose, but you can really only do it one time. And we did literally improvise the entire thing -- which, in retrospect, might have been the stupidest thing we ever did. Reiser: We sat there coming up with a list of 40 names of bald men. Rogen: Like Michael Stipe. If we had a giant list -- please let some of these be funny. But I think we did improvise all of that stuff. I don't even know if there was dialogue for that scene in the script. Reiser: There was some loose dialogue. Rogen: The scene was literally written as "They shave his head." I don't think it was ever a heavily written scene. Reiser: And that was one of the last editions to the script, too. Rogen: Yeah, that's true. I really just thought logistically it would be way too hard for it to have him shave his head -- then we realized that we could do it. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter. Follow Moviefone on Twitter.

New Martha Marcy May Marlene Trailer

And poster! If you are within the mood for something rather less apparent, a bit more independent, you will find there's treat for you personally today. Here's the brand new worldwide trailer and poster for Martha Marcy May Marlene, the Elizabeth Olsen-starring, Sean Durkin-directed Sundance sensation. The film has received lots of attention for Olsen on her astonishing performance like a youthful lady getting trouble reconnecting together with her family after running a cult. Broken by her encounters there (and, indeed, in advance, or she might possibly not have became a member of a cult to begin with), she struggles with haunting reminiscences as well as an unhealthy dose of paranoia. Olsen will get great support from Sarah Paulson, Hugh Dancy, Brady Corbet and Winter's Bone's John Hawkes. It's all regulated because of hit United kingdom movie theaters at the start of 2012, so keep eyes peeled for this once the year turns.

Steven Soderbergh talks about his Hunger Games involvement

A few weeks ago, a now deleted tweet from a crewmember suggested that Steven Soderbergh was at work on the set of Gary Ross' The Hunger Games.Naturally, this sent the interweb's rumour mill into overdrive, suggesting that Soderbergh could be taking over, directing a sequel or retiring from directing to become a real-life participant in the games (maybe).Well, in a chat with Moviefone, Soderbergh has cleared up the whole business, clarifying his exact involvement with the movie frequently being dubbed 'the new Twilight.'"I show up in North Carolina, a crewmember tweets, 'Steven Soderbergh's here.' And immediately the f*cking firestorm starts. 'Why is he here? What's going on? Is the movie in trouble? Is he directing footage from the second one?' All of this crazy-ass speculation. People just spinning off."He went on to explain, "The story is really simple. Back in April, [director] Gary [Ross] - who is a close friend of mine [who] I've exchanged creative favors with non-stop over the last 15 years - when he got the boards for the shoot in April called me and said, 'Hey, first week of August, I got these two days of second unit. Is there any way you can come down and help me out? Because I'd rather have you do it than hire somebody who I don't know.'"I said, 'Actually, that works out.' We'll just be finishing Contagion and prepping Magic Mike and, yeah, it could be fun."Cut to two months later, and I show up to do this thing. Of course the whole design of it and what's fun about it, for me, is my job is to come in and duplicate exactly what Gary and Tom Stern, the [cinematographer], are doing. To mimic as closely as I can to their aesthetic. And that's what I attempted to do."But if I've done my job properly, I hope I did, by design, you won't be able to tell what I did. Because it's supposed to cut seamlessly into what they're doing. That's the whole point. That's why he asked me to come down, because he knew that I would be rigorous about matching what they were doing."You know, he showed me stuff on either side of the area in which I was going to be shooting stuff and we talked at length. And I thought, 'OK, I see what you guys are doing. I know what the tool kit is. I know what the rules are.'"And it's fun in a way. I found it much more nerve-wracking than when you're shooting for yourself. Because I was constantly thinking, 'Oh, I hope that he likes this. I hope he likes that.'"The Hunger Games opens on 23 March 2012.

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