GENIUS (June 10)
Maxwell Perkins was editor and friend to some of the 20th century's most brilliant, hardest-drinking novelists. F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway make appearances here, but "Genius," with Colin Firth as Perkins, is about his life-changing personal and artistic collaboration with Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law).
The writer John Logan ("Skyfall" and the series "Penny Dreadful") has been wanting to make the film for more than 15 years. With his first check for screenwriting, for "Any Given Sunday," he bought the rights to A. Scott Berg's biography, "Maxwell Perkins: Editor of Genius." Even then he knew it might take time to get the characters' nuanced connections right, and even longer to get such a literary movie made.
Summer Movie Preview
- Interactive: Watch trailers and read more about the coming crop of films[7]
- A Movie Summer of Few Sure Things[8]
- 'Captain America: Civil War' a nd Superhero Identity[9]
- 'Ghostbusters': Paul Feig Gets Funny Women[10]
- The Terribly Touching Voice of Florence Foster Jenkins[11]
- Movies by Month: A Busy May[12]
"It' s not the greatest pitch in the world: '1930's book editor and relation with unknown author Thomas Wolfe,' " he said.
Steeped in a love of words and books, "Genius" is the first film from the theater director Michael Grandage (whose work includes Mr. Logan's "Red"). The story begins in 1929 when a gigantic manuscript lands on Perkins' desk. Soon its young, impassioned, poetic author shows up, and together they wrangle into being what would become Wolfe's masterpiece, "Look Homeward, Angel."
In some telling scenes, Wolfe has a cruel, dinner-party argument with Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce) and Perkins has a heart-to-heart with Hemingway ( Dominic West). Nicole Kidman plays Wolfe's possessive lover, the set designer Aline Bernstein. Laura Linney is Perkins's practical wife, Louise, who puts up with his devotion to his authors and his eccentricities. He always wears a fedora, even when he's in his pajamas.
Mr. Logan cheerfully said of his own passion for the story, "I ruined my eyes reading Thomas Wolfe, which is why I wear glasses now." —C.J.
FREE STATE OF JONES (June 24)
This Civil War drama unearths a believe-it-or-not episode of American history, a rebellion against the Confederacy deep in Mississippi. Matthew McConaughey plays Newton Knight, a poor farmer who isn't keen on fighting a war against the United States to defend the interests of rich slaveholders. His small company of yeoman farmers and slaves fights off the Confederate army in muddy battles, and they hoist a star-spangled banner, declaring Jones County to be the Free State of Jones. Knight later had a common-law marriage with a former slave, and they raised a family as he worked for the rights of freed slaves.
"So much of this era is starting to come to light, especially about Reconstruction and the struggle of African-Americans in the years after the war was over," says Gary Ross ("Seabiscuit," "The Hunger Games"), who directed and wrote the film, based on his own three years of research.—D.S.
THE LEGEND OF TARZAN (July 1)
In this new iteration of Edgar Rice Burrough's story, Alexander Skarsgard plays John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, first seen politely sipping tea in London. It is 1889 and diplomats are urging him to go on a goodwill mission to the Congo. His credentials? He was reared there by friendly apes before taking up his seat in the House of Lords.
Samuel L. Jackson plays an American Civil War veteran who accompanies Clayton to Africa so they can expose slavery there. Lady Clayton, a.k.a. Jane ( Margot Robbie) tags along. Christoph Waltz plays a Belgian villain who hopes to trade him to a tribal chief for diamonds.
Mr. Skarsgard's is the most civilized in a long line of screen Tarzans, stretching back to silent-movie days. Johnny Weissmuller played the role in a dozen films in the 1930's and 40's;[13] their condescending attitude toward Africans is likely to make viewers cringe today. Christopher Lambert's version in "Greystoke" (1984)[14] went back to his grandfather's estate in England but couldn't quite master good table manners.
Today's model is 21st-century buff, an action hero with a political conscience, but eventually Mr. Skarsgard does what every Tarzan must: swing shirtless from one vine to another.
The film was directed by David Yates, who directed the last four Harry Potter movies and the upcoming "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" (from a J.K. Rowling book). The stakes are high for "Tarzan," which will be released in standard, 3-D and IMAX[15]. [16] It is loaded with expensive special effects, including a scene of stampeding wildebeest; the budget is a reported $180 million. —C.J.
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC (July 8)
Despite its superhero title, this indie is about a family living in solitude, parents and six children who have renounced modern living. By day, they train, running strenuous circuits. By night, they're drilled on the classics. They eat what they grow and catch. No cell phones, no soft drinks, no school. No Christmas, either— Noam Chomsky's birthday is the family's big holiday.
In writer-director Matt Ross's film, patriarch Ben ( Viggo Mortensen) raises a small army of anti-consumerist elites. They're as musical as the von Trapps, as functional as the Bradys, as savvy as the Robinsons. But when tragedy knocks the dream out of balance, Ben is forced to pile the children onto the family bus and ride into civilization, where their whole way of life will be challenged. Near the end is a sing-along evocative of "Tiny Dancer" in "Almost Famous." [17] —L.F.
CAFE SOCIETY (July 15)
ENLARGE Woody Allen's latest comic romance, the opening-night feature at this year's Cannes Film Festival, takes him once again into the past: the 1930s. Jesse Eisenberg stars as a smart Bronx boy who heads to Hollywood, where he works for his uncle ( Steve Carell), an agent, and falls for his uncle's already-taken assistant, Vonnie ( Kristen Stewart[18]). Fleeing back home, he is employed by his mobbed-up nightclub-running brother ( Corey Stoll) and takes up with a high-society beauty (Blake Lively). Unsurprisingly, there is jazz, angst, philosophizing and one-liners. ("Unrequited love kills more people in any year than tuberculosis.") Amazon Studios, where Mr. Allen is developing an unrelated TV series, paid a reported $15 million for the rights. Lionsgate will release the film before it streams on Amazon.—C.J.
EQUITY (July 29)
Women are still a minority on Wall Street, but they are thoroughly in charge of creating the new financial drama "Equity." Anna Gunn ("Breaking Bad") plays a high-powered investment banker who has hit a rough patch and can't afford for her next IPO to fail. Two of the film's stars, Alysia Reiner ("Orange is the New Black") and Sarah Megan Thomas, had the story idea and founded a company, Broad Street Pictures, to produce it. They brought in Amy Fox to write the screenplay with them, and Meera Menon to direct (both relative newcomers). And they enlisted more than a dozen Wall Street women, current and former executives at financial companies including Barclays and Citigroup, to invest their own money in the movie (which was modestly budgeted).
Ms. Gunn's character, Naomi, is surrounded by colleagues who might suddenly become foes. She is having an affair with a man on the trading side of her firm ( James Purefoy). Ms. Reiner's character is an assistant U.S. attorney suspicious about some of the company's deals. Ms. Thomas plays an ambitious younger woman on Naomi's team. She faces one of the few problems in the film specific to her gender: hiding her pregnancy from her bosses for as long as she can. The film does deliver one strong message about equality: In the world of big business deals, women can be just as cutthroat as men. —C.J.
BEN-HUR (Aug. 19)
lt's all relative to say that this summer's "Ben-Hur" will be a more modest take on the story. Both the 1925 and 1959 versions—adapted from an 1880 novel—were the most expensive movies ever made at the time. William Wyler's wide-screen '59 epic employed 7,000 extras and 40,000 tons of imported sand. It ran three-and-a-half hours, won 11 Oscars and is said to have saved MGM.
"We don't have the 7,000 extras," says director Timur Bekmambetov, who nevertheless has spent about three years on the new film. Co-produced by Paramount and MGM, the budget is estimated at under $100 million. It stars Jack Huston ( John Huston's grandson) as Judah Ben-Hur, the Judean prince cast into slavery by Messala ( Toby Kebbell), a Roman official who was Judah's childhood friend. Mr. Bekmambetov is known for a slick visual style and sometimes frenetic editing. He gained recognition in 2004 with the Russian-language "Night Watch," featuring vampires and violence. This year he produced "Hardcore Henry," a motion-sickness-tempting sci-fi movie about a cyber-man shot entirely from a first-person perspective. In between he's directed stylish fantasies "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" and "Wanted." His "Ben-Hur" will bring some of his modern touch, trading the monumental scale of prior adaptations for intimacy with characters. Hand-held and GoPro action cameras were used for parts of the chariot race, which took a grueling 45 days to shoot.
"I'm not trying to be theatrical. It's very realistic," says Mr. Bekmambetov, who expects to keep his film's running time under two hours. "But I don't think the length is what makes the 1959 movie outdated. The 1959 mov ie was about revenge. I decided to make this movie about forgiveness. The original book is by a Civil War general [ Lew Wallace] who felt guilty, and he wrote about how we can learn to forgive each other." —D.S.
WAR DOGS (Aug. 19)
Among the summer's fact-based movies, this may be the strangest true story. In 2007, two friends in Miami—stoners in their 20s turned small-time arms dealers—win a $300 million contract from the Defense Department to supply weapons for the war in Afghanistan. They are in so far over their heads that deceit and subterfuge on a massive scale are their only hope for pulling off that deal.
Jonah Hill plays the calculating but not-so-bright instigator of the plan. Miles Teller is his more earnest childhood friend, sucked into the scheme. Todd Phillips, of "The Hangover" movies, directs this take on private greed and government bloat. The film's working title, "Arms and the Dudes," from last year's book of that name by Guy Lawson, suggests its characters' laid-back approach to business, bromance and gunrunning. —C.J.
References
- ^ ENLARGE (graphics.wsj.com)
- ^ CANCEL (www.wsj.com)
- ^ Biography (topics.wsj.com)
- ^ < a href="http://twitter.com/lucy_feldman" target="blank" class="author icon twitter" name="readabilityFootnoteLink-4">@lucy_feldman (twitter.com)
- ^ lucy.feldman@wsj.com (www.wsj.com)
- ^ 0 COMMENTS (www.wsj.com)
- ^ Interactive: Watch trailers and read more about the coming crop of films (graphics.wsj.com)
- ^ A Movie Summer of Few Sure Things (www.wsj.com)
- ^ 'Captain America: Civil War' and Superhero Identity (www.wsj.com)
- ^ 'Ghostbusters': Paul Feig Gets Funny Wom en (www.wsj.com)
- ^ The Terribly Touching Voice of Florence Foster Jenkins (www.wsj.com)
- ^ A Busy May (www.wsj.com)
- ^ Johnny Weissmuller played the role in a dozen films in the 1930's and 40's; (www.youtube.com)
- < sup>^ Christopher Lambert's version in "Greystoke" (1984) (www.youtube.com)
- ^ IMAX (quotes.wsj.com)
- ^ 1970 -2.36 % (quotes.wsj.com)
- ^ Near the end is a sing-along evocative of "Tiny Dancer" in "Almost Famous." (www.youtube.com)
- ^ Kristen Stewart (topics.wsj.com)
