As strange as this might sound, I watched Brokeback Mountain for the first time. No, not the first time since what is considered one of the best 2000s movies came out back in 2005, but the first time ever. For a variety of reasons, namely being a 17-year-old when Ang Lee’s heartbreaking epic about unrequited love first came out, I didn’t see it back then, and I’ve put it off more times than I can count since.

With the 20th anniversary rerelease of Brokeback Mountain right around the corner (it opens for a limited run on Friday, June 20th), I decided to finally go back and watch the magnificent Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal movie. While I was initially a little ticked off at myself for waiting all these years, upon reflecting, I’m really glad I waited until I was a 37-year-old father of three opposed to being a foolish high school senior. Here’s why…

I Don't Think The Inner Turmoil Of Ennis And Jack's Relationship Would Have Hit As Hard

Above all, Brokeback Mountain is a movie about love, loss, heartbreak, and the enduring human spirit despite living in a world that won’t accept you for who you are. Being a teenager, who a) didn’t know nothing from nothing, and b) had never experienced true heartbreak, I think the inner turmoil of the core relationship wouldn’t have hit as hard. I honestly don’t think I would have fully understood everything these two cowboys with hard exteriors and tender hearts were going through over the course of the movie.

Honestly, watching Heath Ledger’s Ennis and Jake Gyllenhaal’s Jack attempt to hide their true nature from their wives, children, bosses, and society as a whole while putting up a facade of standard heterosexual roughnecks was heartbreaking. It was only on Brokeback Mountain that the two felt they could be themselves and be happy.

The Passage Of Time And Its Effect On Relationships Resonated So Much For A Man Approaching His 40s

At its core, art forces you to reflect on your past, your present, and what brought you here, and Brokeback Mountain did just that. Watching Ang Lee’s dramatic take on Annie Proulx’s transformative 1997 short story in the New Yorker, with its depiction of the passage of time and its effect on relationships, was nothing short of masterful. The agony and ecstasy of life and love are explored in great detail as Ennis and Jack go from two strangers on a sheep drive together to star-crossed lovers who just can’t quite make it work, while also not being able to quit each other either.

With my 40s quickly approaching (time seems much faster these days), this aspect of the movie resonated with me a whole lot, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since the credits rolled. At the same time, this is something that I think would have been lost on me way back when. Again, having not gone through love, heartbreak, and rebirth at the time the film came out, I don’t think the messages and themes of this heartbreakingly poignant movie would have been lost on me.

I Also Found Myself Wrapped Up In The Drama Of Ennis And Jack's Families

Though the main focus of Brokeback Mountain is on the decades-long relationship between Ennis and Jack, I can’t sit here and claim that this was the only aspect of the movie. Everything about the two leads’ respective lives off the mountain was just as interesting, especially as the two separate worlds become entangled and increasingly more complicated, especially as the two main protagonists marry, have kids, and attempt to build lives for themselves away from Brokeback.

Though I’ve never had to go through an experience like Ennis and Jack, I found myself getting wrapped up in the ups and downs of their respective marriages and trials and tribulations through parenthood. Being married and having children of my own, I oftentimes find myself being torn between who I was and who I am now, and I can only imagine how difficult it had to be for two people who couldn’t admit to their families (or the world) that they weren’t with the one they loved. Heartbreaking, to say the least.

Brokeback Mountain Requires Patience, Empathy, And Restraint, All Of Which I Didn't Have Back Then

The thing about Brokeback Mountain is that it’s a long movie. Though not the longest movie I’ve ever seen, the pacing of the film makes it so that you need a great deal of patience while taking it all in. The same can be said about the story, as you need to be patient while Ennis and Jack’s relationship slowly blossoms into something so powerful. I don’t know how I would have been able to handle the slowness of the epic back then, but as a 37-year-old, it was absolutely stunning and created a slow and meditative experience.

The movie also requires a tremendous amount of empathy from its audience. If you aren’t able to put yourself in the shoes of the main characters, or even their families at times, this is a hard film to watch. It also takes a surprising amount of restraint at times, especially when it comes to Jack’s heartbreaking death, which is left ambiguous after recalling a story Ennis told earlier in the movie. Like patience, my empathy and restraint back in 2005 weren’t what they are today, though I still need to work on all three.

Also, I Don't Think I Could Have Handled Brokeback Mountain's Complexities As An Immature 17-Year-Old Boy In The South

I make no claims of being a perfect human being these days, but I am a much better person than I was at 17 years old, and I don’t think I’m alone. Here’s the thing: I don’t think I could have handled the complexities, the nuances, or even the emotions at the core of Brokeback Mountain way back when.

This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t have liked the movie, as I probably would have enjoyed it all the same. I just think that an immature teenage boy from the South wouldn’t have been as open to everything that unfolded. Times change, and so do people, and I honestly think waiting so long to watch this gem was the right choice. However, I’m still kicking myself for missing out on such a lovely story.

All in all, watching Brokeback Mountain was a profound, emotional, and delightful experience, and no, it's just because I can now enter the conversation about it getting snubbed at the Oscars.

Filmmaker Ang Lee has had a wildly successful career, including acclaimed films like the endlessly rewatchable Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hulk. He's also behind the acclaimed drama Brokeback Mountain, which had some trouble being made. As that title reaches its 20th anniversary, the director explained how it helped him find new passion for his career, and prevented him from an early retirement.

The 2005 movie is on of the best LGBTQ+ movies ever, and was universally acclaimed upon its release. Lee spoke to Deadline about the movie's life, and revealed that he wanted to retire after the long and grueling filming shoots of both Crouching Tiger and Hulk. But shortly before his late father died, he made him promised him he wouldn't retire early so he might set a good example for his child. Ang Lee shared the power of Brokeback on his life, saying:

Talk about an emotional impact. As the filmmaker shared, the last two movies he worked on took a serious physical toll on him. This is far beyond the normal exhaustion that comes with film sets, so it's understandable that he might have considered giving up directing altogether. But in the end the tragic tale gave him a new lease on life and work.

While Brokeback Mountain didn't win Best Picture, it was universally acclaimed upon its release. It was a huge risk for its stars, with Jake Gyllenhaal facing stigma for playing a queer character. In the same interview he spoke about the power the film had, offering:

In the end, there are a ton of people who ultimately saw the movie, which was made with a modest $14 million budget and earned $178 million at the box office. Stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger formed a strong bond, and their performances were given a ton of praise. And this was in a time where it was very rare for leading men in Hollywood to play gay characters.

While reflecting on the difficulty of bringing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to life, Ang Lee spoke the outlet about how much he learned bringing Brokeback Mountain to life. In his words:

In the end, the he would be given a new passion for filmmaking, and still hasn't retired to this date. Lee brought something new to Gemini Man, and is attached to another upcoming movie titled Thrilla in Manila. And we've got Brokeback Mountain to thank for his ongoing film career.

Thrilla in Manila is still in development, so it's unclear when it will arrive in theaters. we shouldn't expect it as part of the 2025 movie release list, but hopefully more information comes sooner rather than later.

Do you know what movie should have won Best Picture? Brokeback Mountain, and I’m still upset about that loss to Crash. But, do you know what other movie, that also happens to be directed by Ang Lee, should have won Best Picture to the point where I'm still bothered by its loss today? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, as it’s still amazing, even after all these years.

It might be hard to fathom if you were too young to remember it, but there really was nothing else like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in America back in 2000, and really, nothing else like it since (even though we did get a few other wuxia movies after it, such as 2002's Hero, and 2004's House of Flying Daggers).

That said, I still think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is the best movie I’ve ever seen in the medium, and also the best movie of 2000. Here’s why.

First, It Is One Of The Most Beautiful Movies That Has Ever Been Nominated For Best Picture

I love a good musical. In fact, 10 musicals have won Best Picture, and I want to say that I love a majority of them. Musicals, in many ways, are beautiful. I love how emotions are often expressed through song and dance, and how the stories and music coalesce. In every way, musicals are theatrical (I mean, hey. You can’t have a movie theater without the actual “theater” can you?).

Do you know what else I find beautiful? People kicking each other in the face. Or rather, I enjoy martial arts movies. People expressing themselves through choreographed violence can often be just as beautiful (and balletic when it comes to many Jackie Chan movies) as even your greatest musical. So, why then don’t martial arts movies get the same respect as musicals then?

Well, it might be because the storylines are usually secondary to the actual combat (For example, the story of Tom-Yum-Goong, a.k.a. The Protector, can pretty much be summed up as a boy and his elephant). However, that’s not the case when it comes to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, as the story is the centerpiece, and the actual martial arts buttresses the narrative.

Essentially a love story, CTHD is based on the novel of the same name, which is part of the Wang Dulu, Crane-Iron series. In the story, a warrior (played by Chow Yun-fat) gives his sword, Green Destiny, to somebody he secretly loves–another warrior, played by Academy Award winner-Michelle Yeoh, but it’s stolen by yet another warrior named Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi).

Now, this might sound silly on paper, but the unrequited love story between Chow Yun-fat’s character, Li Mu Bai, and Yeoh’s character, Yu Shu Lien, elevates the tale. Add in the gorgeous wirework, the beautiful cinematography (which won an Oscar), the lush music (which also won an Oscar), and the stellar art direction (which ALSO won an Oscar), and you probably have the most artistic martial arts movie of all time.

It Would Have Been The Only Wuxia Martial Arts Film To Ever Win Best Picture, Giving The Genre Even More Legitimacy

Do you want to know what I think? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon walked (On a tree branch) so that Everything Everywhere All At Once could run. What I mean is, I really don’t think a movie with so much martial arts love and appreciation as EEAAO would have won Best Picture if not for a movie like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which made it “okay” for martial arts to be viewed as, well, art.

That might be a reach (especially since EEAAO is more of an absurdist comedy than a martial arts movie), but I honestly can't see a film with so many martial arts elements getting the widespread acceptance that it got if not for CTHD.

Which bugs me all the more so. If Crouching Tiger had won Best Picture, it could have potentially created a whole wave of prestigious martial arts movies getting produced overseas, and also stateside.

Yes, we've gotten some stellar martial arts movies ever since CTHD, with The Raid: Redemption, Kill Bill, and Ong-Bak being notable releases in the genre. But, none of those were ever going to be nominated for Best Picture.

No. I think if CTHD had won Best Pic, it would have possibly ushered in a whole string of art house martial arts movies to the masses. Alas, that's not the timeline that we’re currently living in.

The Acting, Across The Board, Is Top Of The Line

A lot of people likely think back to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and immediately remember the floaty martial arts, and yes, that is a highlight. But, as I said earlier, it's not the whole movie.

Before Michelle Yeoh won the Academy Award for her performance in EEAAO, she was the master swordwoman, Yu Shu Lien, in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She lends a subtlety to the role, as she cares for Li Mu Bai, but also feels a commitment to her fiance who died before they could wed (This commitment is tied to her fiance since Li Mu Bai was his best friend). In that way, there’s almost a sort of sadness to her performance that resonates the more times that you watch it.

Chow Yun-fat, who I was used to from high octane John Woo movies like The Killer, and Hard Boiled, plays a very different role here as Li Mu Bai. Yes, he’s a master swordsman, but he’s one who shows restraint and poise. Given that he’s retiring, you get a sense of just how tired he is, even though he is vengeful once his master’s muderer, Jade Fox, reappears on the scene. Chow Yun-fat walks this tightrope of both anger and exhaustion expertly, and it's an amazing performance.

Lastly, Zheng Ziyi plays the role of the thief to perfection. Her character, Jen Yu, detests that she is not taken seriously since she is a woman, even though her skill surpasses those of her male counterparts. I once wrote an article about Asian female characters who kick ass in recent movies, and I definitely would have included her…if CTHD was a recent movie. What's great though is that she showcases a toughness, but also insecurity, which must have been difficult to pull off.

All in all, the characters make this martial arts movie work, and it wouldn’t have been as good as it is without the excellent acting (amd directing!) behind it.

It Would Have Also Been The First International Film To Win Best Picture, Beating Parasite By Almost Twenty Years

I once–wrongly–said that Parasite was one of the best Oscar-winners in the 2010s. And, I only say “wrongly” since it wasn’t one of the best. It was the best (I’m sorry. I just really loved Birdman).

That said, I’ve only come to this conclusion quite recently upon a rewatch. Parasite was definitely the movie that should have won back in 2020, and I love that it’s the first foreign language film to do so.

Even so, I really lament that CTHD didn’t win it all the way back in 2000, because could you imagine all of the other International films that would likely have been considered for Best Picture if the international, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, had taken home the trophy?

And, I’m mostly saying this as a genre-fan. I know we’ve gotten movies like Drive My Car, Past Lives, I’m Still Here, etc. nominated for Best Picture. But, if a distinctly martial arts movie could win Best Picture, couldn’t anything possibly win?

Honestly, I’m still just bitter that Godzilla Minus One wasn’t up for Best Picture. But, who knows? If an often overlooked genre like martial arts could win Best Picture, who’s to say that a Kaiju movie couldn’t win Best Picture as well? Think about it!

Lastly, It Was Arguably Better Than Gladiator

Finally–and most importantly-I just think CTHD was a much better movie than Gladiator.

I know a lot of people love the Ridley Scott epic, but I’ve just never been a fan. And, as the years have gone by (and a sequel was released), I’ve liked it even less.

I mean, the other nominees-Chocolat, Erin Brockovich, and Traffic (Especially Traffic)-were all good movies (that I think are better than Gladiator), but none of them felt as special, innovative, or unique as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

In fact, it’s hard for me to look back at any Best Picture winners that is as special, innovative, or unique as CTHD, except for maybe Everything Everywhere All At Once, which I’m still kind of shocked won Best Picture. CTHD just has everything I could ever want out of a movie, and it still bothers me to this day that it lost to Gladiator, which I just find so mid.

But, what do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Okay, so hear me out. I do not hate the movie Crash. And I mean the 2004 Paul Haggis film. Not the identically titled movie by David Cronenberg. I know it’s popular to dogpile on Crash, especially since it won Best Picture. But, I honestly kind of like it.

Is it one of the best movies to ever win Best Picture? God no. Is it heavy handed as all hell? Absolutely. That said, I don’t think it’s a bad movie in any way. However, I’m still upset that it beat Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture, even after all these years.

Because after rewatching Brokeback, I think I love it now even more than when I initially saw it. So, here’s why I’m still a little pissed that Brokeback Mountain didn’t win Best Picture back in 2006.

Heath Ledger And Jake Gyllenhaal Were Fearless In Their Performances, And These Roles Are The Highlights Of Their Respective Careers

Brokeback Mountain isn’t my favorite Jake Gyllenhaal movie. That would be Nocturnal Animals. It’s also not my favorite Heath Ledger movie. That would be The Dark Knight.

However, in both of their respective careers–Jake Gyllenhaal’s long one, and Heath Ledger’s relatively short one–I still think that these were the bravest, most fearless roles that either of them ever did. It’s little wonder that both of them were nominated at the 76th Academy Awards, with Ledger up for Best Actor, and Gyllenhaal for up Best Supporting Actor (Which neither of them won, unfortunately).

The story of two cowboys who fall in love between 1963 and 1983, Brokeback Mountain was a landmark film, and honestly could have been the death of either actor’s career, even back in 2005. But honestly, it seems like neither of them cared. Scenes of them having sex or passionately kissing were rather explicit, but it’s not like it was banging us over the head with its themes.

On the contrary, it was all quite elegant. Their vulnerability was palpable, and it made their romance feel both irresistible, but also dangerous, which it was. In that way, Brokeback Mountain wasn’t heavy handed like Crash was with its themes of racism. It was actually quite subtle, which likely wouldn’t have been the case without Ang Lee’s Academy Award-winning directing (The one major award that this film did win), or Gyllenhaal’s and Ledger’s superb acting.

In every way, these were the performances of a lifetime, and if the film couldn’t pick up Best Picture, I would have liked it if either Gyllenhaal or Ledger had nabbed one of the Best Actor awards. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t meant to be.

The Story Is Still Beautiful, Haunting, And Relevant

Jack Twist, played by Gyllenhaal, and Ennis Del Mar, played by Ledger, love each other. That said, they can’t fully love each other. That’s because even though they want to, society dictates that they shouldn’t, and, more importantly, that they can’t.

Yes, they make excuses to see each other, but over the years, they grow apart and both of them get married to women and have children. Their love for each other lasts for years, and neither of them are truly happy with their lives since they miss each other so much, and wish to be together.

And, God Almighty, is that heartbreaking, or what? This isn’t a Romeo and Juliet story, and yet, it kind of is. Both of their respective families look upon their relationship with disgust, and it’s almost like the Montagues and the Capulets in a way, with their wives being the stand-ins for the parents.

That said, it’s society itself that is keeping them apart, because if they were born later or lived in a different part of the country, perhaps they could have lived out their dreams. And, that’s the true tragedy of the film, but also what makes it incredibly relevant. Because while same-sex relationships are still frowned upon in certain corners of the country, it’s accepted in many others.

The setting is important though, and why we ranked this film as one of the greatest westerns of all time. Because who knows? If this story were set in San Francisco, it might have had a different outcome. But, it’s because it takes place in a part of the country where homosexuality might be seen as a sin that it still feels relevant today.

That Said, It Still Feels Like A Time Capsule

Though it didn’t make the list of best LGBTQ+ movies on Rotten Tomatoes, I still feel like Brokeback Mountain is an important film, and mostly because it’s such a time capsule.

Just think, same-sex marriage became legal in all 50 states by 2015. That’s a whole decade after Brokeback Mountain came out, which is kind of mind-boggling. In fact, if Brokeback Mountain came out today, I guarantee that it would still be up for Best Picture.

That said, even though its story is still bold and ambitious, I don’t think it has the same potency today that it had back then, and that’s because we’ve actually come a long way since 2005. In a lot of ways, Brokeback Mountain walked so that a movie like Moonlight could run, as the idea of a film about two gay lovers doesn’t really seem all that revolutionary anymore.

Which is great! Brokeback Mountain kind of broke the mold by taking two very popular actors at the time and putting them in a movie like this. It wasn’t a film that hid from its premise, but rather, embraced it, which makes it feel all the more important.

And, while I’m not for awarding a movie just because it’s important, I do feel like Brokeback Mountain was more important to the zeitgeist than a movie like Crash, which seemed like it had a lot to say, but didn’t really say anything (You mean that racism is bad, and that we shouldn’t judge people on one encounter alone? Really? I didn’t know that).

So, in that way, Brokeback Mountain is still relevant, but it’s also a time capsule to a bygone era, and one that I feel should have been awarded for Best Picture. But, there’s one other major reason why I think it should have won.

It’s Absolutely Better Than Crash

I haven’t beaten around the bush when it comes to this article: Brokeback Mountain is, quite simply, a better movie than Crash. The acting is better. The direction is better. The story is better. Pretty much everything is better.

And again, this is coming from somebody who actually likes Crash. So much so that if Crash came out another year, I really don’t have a problem with it winning, as shoot, Driving Miss Daisy won. Hell, Green Book won Best Picture, and I actually think Crash is better than that film.

However, Crash is not better than Brokeback Mountain, which still holds up today. In a lot of ways, Brokeback kind of feels like the Facebook movie, The Social Network, in that it perfectly represents a time and a place.

Crash could have represented a time. But, it really just feels like a stew of events that is all stirred up together, which isn’t bad, per se, but it doesn’t (and didn’t back then, even) feel worthy of beating Brokeback Mountain, which was both about the time presented in the film, but also about the time when it was released.

That’s why after rewatching Brokeback Mountain, I’m still of the opinion that it really should have won, and it stands as one of the most egregious losses in all of the Academy Awards history.

But, what do you think? Do you agree that Brokeback Mountain should have beaten Crash for Best Picture? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Nowadays we’re so accustomed to seeing numerous superhero movies every year that it's hard to remember a time when Marvel adaptations were not commonplace. Among the Marvel movies not associated with the MCU was 2003’s Hulk directed by Ang Lee and starring Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott and Josh Lucas. When Lucas recently reflected on the Marvel movie as it soon turns 20, he recalled its director being “frustrated.” 

Hulk was the first movie adaptation of the Marvel Comics character following Lou Ferrigno previously playing the hero in the ‘70s and ‘80s for television. When Josh Lucas spoke about his time playing Glenn Talbot in the movie with The Playlist, the actor said this: 

Ang Lee is an incredibly talented filmmaker who was hot off his epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon when he made Hulk. The 2003 movie was among the top 20 highest-grossing movies of 2003, per Box Office Mojo, and it was praised by critics for its ambition and style, however, it never became a favorite among Marvel fans. Lucas continued: 

Lucas brings up a valid point about early Marvel movies when speaking about Ang Lee. The technology to show off superhuman abilities like Hulk just wasn’t there yet. One can imagine if you want to bring to screen a character as great as Bruce Banner, but CGI wasn’t in the right place yet, you’d feel like Lee did too. Though, the late Stan Lee, who co-created the character actually felt the reason why the first two Hulk movies didn’t work was because they made Hulk “too powerful.” 

Lee wouldn’t go on to continue the Hulk franchise, even though he had an idea lined up for the sequel. Marvel would go on to give the whole thing a remake with Edward Norton’s The Incredible Hulk in 2008 before recasting the role for 2012’s The Avengers with our MCU Hulk, Mark Ruffalo. Apparently, Norton and Ruffalo joke about the Hulk role too, with Ruffalo once saying they think it’s “our generation’s Hamlet” and it’s sure to be remade again. And, I mean it kind of was with the great MCU series, She-Hulk, but that’s a whole other comic book hero of course. 

If you’re feeling nostalgic for another time in Marvel movies, you can check out 2003’s Hulk with a Hulu subscription. And, we’ll keep you updated regarding what’s next for Hulk in the MCU here on CinemaBlend. 

There’s been a ton of conversation over the past few years about the power of onscreen representation, and it seems like Hollywood is becoming a more diverse place. But there was a time when telling a queer story was a risk, like with Ang Lee’s acclaimed drama Brokeback Mountain. And the Academy Award winning filmmaker recently spoke about the “friction” between stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. What’s more, he reminisced about how the late actor was a “natural cowboy” while filming one of his most iconic roles.

Brokeback Mountain was a groundbreaking movie when it was released in 2005, with both of its leading actors receiving universal praise for their portrayal of gay cowboys in the 1960’s. While they brought their characters’ complicated relationship to life on screen, filmmaker Ang Lee admitted that there was a bit of conflict during the process. As he explained to Empire in a recent interview,

Pretty interesting stuff. In the end this give and take created something explosive on camera, and actually mirrors the way that Jack and Ennis’ relationship plays out throughout the course of Brokeback Mountain’s 134-minute runtime. The movie ended up being a critical darling and Awards Season favorite, although it famously lost to Crash for the Best Picture Oscar. 

Ang Lee’s comments about Brokeback Mountain obviously have more weight given the passing of Heath Ledger. His legacy is tied to the lengths to which he went to transform into his characters, including his Oscar- winning work as Joker in The Dark Knight. And while working on the queer western drama, he clashed with the actor playing his closeted lover, while tending to Michelle Williams who played his wife. 

Later in that same interview, Ang Lee also explained the way that Heath Ledger was able to instantly snap into character when it came to Ennis’ cowboy vibes. Namely because he was comfortable around animals like horses, as Lee shared:

In the end Heath Ledger earned a ton of nominations for his work in Brokeback Mountain, and became the ninth-youngest Academy Award Best Actor nominee at the time. While he didn’t win, he’d end up getting the Oscar posthumously for his Joker. 

Ang Lee’s next movie project Thrilla in Manila is currently in development, with his last movie being Will Smith’s Gemini Man. In the meantime, check out the 2023 movie release dates to plan your trips to the theater in the New Year. 

It feels like Will Smith and Ang Lee's Gemini Man has already been forgotten just two weeks into its release. If it's going to break even, or make a couple of pennies to rub together, it will need a lot of help from China and the rest of the international box office.

Gemini Man opened in third place in North America last week with only $20.5 million, which was even less than the modest initial estimates. This weekend it had to settle for #5 at the domestic box office with $8.5 million, a drop of 58.5%. It's still playing on 3,642 screens but it only has a $2,334 per-screen average.

(Compare that to $9,499 for this weekend's #1, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, or even the $37,616 per screen average for Parasite, which is only playing on 33 domestic screens.)

Here are Gemini Man's numbers, per Box Office Mojo, as of Sunday:

Gemini Man just opened in China this weekend. According to Forbes, Gemini Man made $8 million in China on Friday, the opening day there. Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk earned $30 million there three years ago, which may be a hopeful sign.

Gemini Man cost roughly $138 million to make, before marketing costs. THR had a story back in 2014 about soaring marketing costs, with some studios spending another $100 million to advertise blockbusters around the world. Without knowing the exact marketing money, it's hard to gauge how much Gemini Man will need to make to break even, but at least $300 million worldwide? Will it reach whatever threshold it needs with help from international fans?

You can already see that Gemini Man is getting a lot more help from foreign markets than here in the U.S. and Canada. Will Smith usually does big business overseas, and Gemini Man has two of him. Smith just had his best box office win of all time in Aladdin, which topped $1 billion with $695 million of that coming from foreign markets. Suicide Squad had an almost even split -- $325M domestic and $421M foreign.

Lately, Will Smith has been making smaller movies like Collateral Beauty and Concussion, to mixed critical and commercial success. Will Smith in an action thriller sounded like a major hit, but it's not being shown how director Ang Lee intended, and it got lousy reviews from critics -- even though the initial reactions sounded more positive.

Fans have mostly ignored Gemini Man to this point, but the people who have seen it gave it an 84% Rotten Tomatoes audience score and a B+ grade on CinemaScore. But if more people were actually watching the movie, it wouldn't be in these dire financial straits.

Part of the point of Gemini Man, according to Will Smith, was Ang Lee trying to give fans an experience that was ideally suited to theaters rather than home viewing. Sounds like that has not worked so far.

Have you seen Gemini Man yet? If so, did you enjoy it? If not, any desire to see it in the theater or will you wait for it to start streaming on Netflix or wherever?

Director Ang Lee isn't just an accomplished and talented director of people in his movies. He's also a big fan of the technology used to bring those movies to life. Both of his last two movies, Billy Lynn's Halftime Walk, and the just in theaters, Gemini Man, have pushed the envelope of what is possible from a film production standpoint. Unfortunately, it looks like Gemini Man may have pushed things a little too far, as apparently no theater in America can actually show the movie in the way Ang Lee shot it.

To see Gemini Man the way Ang Lee wants you to see Gemini Man, you'll need to view the film at 4K resolution,at 120 frames-per-second, and in 3D. Seeing the movie in 3D is, of course, no big deal, most theaters have that capability today, but both of the other two are hurdles. There are only a handful of theaters in America capable of showing the movie at 120 frames-per-second, and none capable of showing the movie in 4K 3D.

The question is, if you can't see the movie the way you're "supposed" to see it, will that potentially keep people away. If we're all forced to deal with a less than optimal viewing experience, how many people will just skip that experience entirely?

If you see the movie today in HFR (high frame rate) in the U.S. you're watching the movie at 60 frames-per-second. Still well above the normal 24 frames-per-second of film, but half of the 120 that Ang Lee shot the movie in. Here (via Polygon) is the full list of 120 frames-per-second capable theaters in the U.S., meaning you can see the movie almost as Lee wants, simply at 2K resolution rather than 4K.

There was apparently, a single showing of Gemini Man in the US that was able to use the full spec. The World Premiere of Gemini Man at the TCL Chinese Theater brought in a special projection system, but apparently the facility didn't get to keep it.

There will be a few theaters in Asia capable of seeing the movie at full spec, but those are the only places in the world where it will be possible.

4K movie theaters are actually fairly common, the problem comes when you add 3D into the mix. Since you're dealing with two images to create the 3D efffect, and both need to be in 4K resolution, you need a projector capable of 8K resolution and 3D in order to create a 4K 3D image. Oh, and it also needs to be able to produce more than four times the standard number of frames per second to make Ang Lee happy.

As somebody who recently saw the 60-frames-per-second, 3D, 2K version of Gemini Man, I can certainly vouch that you're getting a very different viewing experience then you would get with a standard screening. At the same time, I'm certainly curious what the full spec version, or even the 120 frames version, would look like.

How do you feel about seeing Gemini Man at a sub-optimal resolution or frame rate? Let us know in the poll below.

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Gemini Man is a sci-fi and action film that intends to show the world something it's never seen before, with Will Smith’s dual roles fighting each other for their lives. At the helm of this ambitious undertaking is none other than director Ang Lee, the man who pushed boundaries with action movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and his foray into the early world of modern comic films with his Hulk.

Yet, there’s a difference between those films, and this most recent work; and during the press day for Gemini Man, CinemaBlend’s own Jeff McCobb spoke with Ang Lee, discussing the following reasons why this film’s action is unlike any of the other work he’s done to this point. And you can hear it for yourself in the video below:

As you heard above, Ang Lee’s concerns with the action in Gemini Man came from two different sources: the action choreography, as well as the fact that instead of watching a flat 2D fight, this film would ideally be seen in a full 3D context. Right there, you’ve got two pretty big bridges to cross, and that’s without the fact that Lee would be breaking out his High Frame Rate toys again, to create a 120 frames-per-second experience like he did in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

With Gemini Man already requiring the major effect/character that is Junior to be a full CGI creation, piling on concerns of more realistic action choreography might feel like a burden. Not for Ang Lee, as his mission statement to push clearer and more lifelike imagery required that the action be just as authentic as a young Will Smith walking around on the screen.

Since 120 frames-per-second action doesn’t allow for a lot of the usual pacing and editing that a traditional 24 frames-per-second image does, you have to get creative with how you do things. Ang Lee realized this when it came to two of the film’s most important action sequences between Henry Brogan and Junior: particularly the bike chase we've seen in the trailer, and the separate catacombs fight sequence.

Much like Gemini Man blessed the world with two different versions of Will Smith to fight each other to the death, we were lucky enough to also have been given a double dip of our own when it came to director Ang Lee. In addition to sitting down with the director during the TV press day, we were also able to sit down with Lee during a roundtable after an early screening of the film.

During this discussion, Ang Lee gave CinemaBlend some more details about how he really wanted to get that more realistic action in Gemini Man right for the big screen. Not only that, but as Lee spoke about the catacombs scene in particular, he mentioned that the action challenges of this film were one of the big reasons he took the project on in the first place:

Ang Lee wanted Gemini Man to have, what he calls a “messy fight” style to its action. Injecting near misses and a movement that, while choreographed, felt like an actual fight, Lee has been chasing this white whale of cinema for a while now. Gemini Man represented his chance at going for it yet again, as he explained in his continuing remarks:

Watching the fight between Will Smith’s Junior and Henry Brogan in the catacombs, you can definitely see that approach coming to life with impressive results. Throwing this ambitious fighting style, on top of the technical challenge of filming Smith’s two characters fighting this scene out, is exactly the level of artistry that you’d expect out of an Ang Lee movie.

If you're actually curious to see how that particular Gemini Man fight turned out, you can actually see for yourself, courtesy of the clip released by Paramount in promotion for Gemini Man's impending release. Henry and Junior's big brawl is just a taste of what you'll see on movie screens around the world this weekend. Take a look.

For those of you wondering about those other two reasons Lee wanted to direct Gemini Man, they were very complimentary to his work on making a unique brand of action: he wanted to make Junior a believable character, as well as push the boundaries of digital cinema aesthetic. In those respects, above all else, Gemini Man is a success story, as Lee’s off-kilter and gritty approach to a sci-fi action film helps ground the film in our reality; and will hopefully attract some butts in seats to see the results.

We'll see soon enough, as Gemini Man is in theaters tonight, with an early round of showings. Though if you’re interested in seeing the film in 60 or 120 frames-per-second 3D, you really should check your local listings. The technical specs of your local showings will vary, and you don't want to go in with the wrong expectations.

A common misconception that people seem to be pushing when it comes to director Ang Lee’s latest technical marvel Gemini Man is that the character of Junior is merely a second, de-aged version of Will Smith acting against his present day self. The truth is, the only way that Junior’s character could convincingly be shown in a film that’s meant to be seen in High Frame Rate 3D is if he was a total CGI creation.

There are a couple big reasons behind that necessity, but Lee’s greatest caveat was that in such an advanced film, it’s the only way the effect would have looked believable to the audience. I was in attendance on behalf of CinemaBlend for a roundtable with Ang Lee to talk about Gemini Man and its new methods of pushing the visual envelope that Lee loves to poke and prod at any chance he gets. In that discussion, he explained why Junior had to be a CG character in the following, and greater detailed, answer:

As Ang Lee filmed Gemini Man with a camera rig that not only captured the film at 120 frames per second 4K resolution, but also in a native 3D format, there was a level of bar raising on what the film was going to show its audience. With the increased lighting that is required for the High Frame Rate 3D experience, makeup shows on the screen much easier than it does under traditional lighting.

Instead of traditional methods that merely rely on hairstyling and really good makeup effects to do the heavy lifting, Lee and his team had to craft an entirely digital version of Will Smith that could be dropped into Gemini Man without the audience questioning the effect. Put that together with both a younger physical reference actor and Smith himself providing the performances that would be married together into Junior’s finished product, and you have a particularly impressive effect.

But past the technical pitfalls that required Junior’s completely CGI appearance, there was also another level to Ang Lee’s methodology that led him to believe that the younger clone of Smith’s Henry Brogan needed to be a cutting edge digital illusion. Once again, the subject turned to the aging process, as Lee continued:

Rather than take Will Smith’s face and digitally construct a sort of de-aging mask, much like a handful of Marvel Studios films like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 have done, the whole cloth creation of Gemini Man’s Junior was meant to truly resurrect a younger Will Smith.

Even in terms of Smith’s performance, Lee coached him to act more like his younger self. Combining those acting skills with reference materials from Six Degrees of Separation and Bad Boys-era Will Smith looks, Junior became more than just a composite current era Smith and his old school looks. It’s basically the next step in bringing virtual performers to living, breathing life; and with Ang Lee sworn to providing digital characters driven by real physical performances, the future of this sort of effort looks rather bright.

De-aging technology has certainly pushed special effects methods lightyears ahead of how flashbacks and clone stories like Gemini Man have been told in the past. Now, with Ang Lee’s CGI character work, combined with Will Smith’s physical performance, another big step has been taken in the name of believable spectacle. We’ll see if audiences buy into this next big thing when Gemini Man pits Will Smith against Will Smith this Friday.

Please note that if you’re looking to see the film in the High Frame Rate 3D format, it’s only available in select locations. So check your listings carefully before you head out, no matter what your preference may be.

It’s been quite the year for digitally animating Will Smith in movies. Following an initially controversial entrance as the blue Genie when Aladdin’s trailer first dropped, audiences since embraced his new take on the Disney character. Aladdin marked Smith’s most successful film to date, with an over $1 billion win. Coming up next, the actor will play against a cutting-edge digital version of himself in Ang Lee’s immersive action flick, Gemini Man.

Ang Lee has been pushing the envelope on digital technology in movies for years. It started with 2012’s Life of Pi and the 2016 box office failure Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, and will continue this weekend with Gemini Man. The filmmaker shot the movie in 120 frames per second, which is about five times faster than the typical 24 frames per second. The movie will be screened in multiple formats in theaters, including 2K, 4K and 3D. Lee explained why he's pushing these new mediums and technologies with these words:

The Life of Pi Oscar winner doesn’t want to wait until these technologies are the norm, per his interview with Deadline. He wants to be a leader and behind the breakthrough of it. He seems aware of the risk involved in making a movie such as Gemini Man, which cost $138 million. Being ahead of the game isn’t guaranteed to be lucrative, but Ang Lee is more interested in taking the leap.

Ahead of the film’s release, Gemini Man has already been recognized for its soaring technology advancements with an Entertainment Technology Lumiere Award by the Advanced Imaging Society. The movie is aiming to give audiences more of a reason to buy a movie ticket and provide an alluring experience you can’t find on your couch at home. Today, theaters compete with how accessible streaming services are these days.

While critics may be marveling at the visuals in Gemini Man, the movie has taken an early hit for its story. Since Gemini Man has been in development since 1997, the script does share some resemblance of action movies of the era. So while the technology of the film is leaps and bounds into the future, the script doesn’t seem to catch up to this innovation.

Gemini Man centers on a middle-aged hitman who must face off against a younger clone of himself. Along with Will Smith’s leading role, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen and Benedict Wong star.

Check out Gemini Man in theaters on October 11.

Facing down your past isn’t always the easiest thing to do; especially in Hollywood. While the industry still rewards innovation, it also treats the world of nostalgia quite well at the same time. Which brings us to how Gemini Man, a script that’s been kicking around for the past 20 years or so, has come to represent the crossroads of a classic Will Smith-style starring vehicle, and another showcase for director Ang Lee’s brand of technical marvels. Unfortunately, one side is served better than the other, leaving the entire film out of balance.

Gemini Man pits Henry (Will Smith) against Junior (Smith again, with Victor Hugo standing in as his on-set reference actor), a genetic clone created from his DNA 25 years ago by his shady ex-commanding officer (Clive Owen). Touted as a man with all of Henry's strengths, yet none of his emotional baggage, Junior is on the clock to kill his target after he decides to retire as a triggerman for the government. Which leads Henry to go on the run with friends old (Benedict Wong) and new (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).

In the beginning, Gemini Man starts to take on the form of a conspiracy thriller that feels very much in the vein of the Bourne franchise. Smith’s Henry starts unveiling something bigger than him when he decides to retire, and soon enough loose ends are being tied up in clandestine raids and easily covered deaths. Should the movie have continued down this path, we could have had the best “assassin with a conscience” adventure since 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy, with Smith very easily occupying the role of an unwitting Treadstone operative.

But eventually, the main thrust of Gemini Man’s more marketable premise has to kick in, which is where the younger Junior pops up and starts to ruin Henry’s life in retirement. It’s here that Gemini Man is supposed to really sell you, as the big sticking point of Ang Lee’s film is in how realistic the CGI constructed Junior looks, not only when compared to the highlights of Will Smith’s career, but also when compared to the man himself. This is a daunting visual hook on which to hang a project, but Lee’s technical prowess certainly shines in both the way the character of Junior is executed, and also in the film’s 120-frames-per-second exhibition.

While it’s not a perfect product, as there are moments where Gemini Man’s effects don’t hold up, the creation of a wholly digital young Will Smith does make for an impressive feat when it’s at its best. It also creates an amazing acting challenge for Smith, who brings his usual gravitas not only to the embattled Junior, but the worn and weary Henry.

As creative as the technical side of Gemini Man’s central duality is, it wouldn’t have been as effective if it wasn’t for the acting that Smith, and his younger body double Victor Hugo, puts in on both sides.

Performances only go so far in the world of Gemini Man, however, and even with a cast of talented supporting actors, the script’s obvious flaws are too huge to ever truly go away. With the curse of development hell leading to many hands being involved in various rewrites over the film’s 20 year history, the story at the heart of the movie never really gets to fully take root.

We barely get to know Will Smith’s Henry before he’s ready to abruptly retire, or settle into the backstory of his relationship with Clive Owen’s baddie, Clay Varis. But it’s not too long until Varis’s organization, Gemini, is mentioned as if it’s something we should just know is bad on the outside.

For a paramilitary force that’s dabbling in cloning, has been connected to various government sanctioned hits, and seems to always know where Henry is going at all times, it’s a pretty thinly developed adversary that we’re asked to follow, or even root against, in Gemini Man.

It’s the underdevelopment of the Gemini Man script that also robs co-stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Benedict Wong of some time to shine, as their limited chemistry with Will Smith works exceedingly well. Were this a classic Smith vehicle, especially under the auspices of this film’s producer Jerry Bruckheimer, there would have been some more time to really see this group working at its best.

We still get to see some sparks fly between the trio. Not only is Wong allowed to inject some much needed comic relief into the picture, but Winstead seems primed on a renaissance as an action lead, as she gets to kick some serious ass in this film. It also helps that Smith and Winstead have a hell of a lot of platonic chemistry together in the early acts, as they go from frenemies to compatriots in a quick, but effective, transition. If only the script had let either of their characters cash in a little more on those gifts.

Instead, what Gemini Man represents is a film that’s crossed the finish line, only to look back at what it could have been and sigh. While Ang Lee’s technical mastery is something you need to see to believe, the story that sits behind the stunning visuals is a little hollow and dated. Gemini Man is the ultimate catch-22. It's a story that would have worked so much better when it started development in 1997, but now includes current-era visual effects that best serve the spectacle Gemini Man sets out to achieve. In between those two lanes is where this movie rides, allowing itself to have some impressive moments of dazzling showmanship and intriguing action, but with very little message behind it.

Between the ever-expanding home video market and the rise of countless streaming services, studios in the modern era are constantly looking for ways to get people into movie theaters. One of the most famous examples of this is the rise of 3D, but in the decade since Avatar the market for that particular artistic tool/gimmick has dwindled considerably. Still, there is hope in the industry that the next big thing to reinvent the cinematic experience is right around the corner.

This is where high frame rate (or HFR) comes in. While most films are shot and projected at 24 frames per second – which is the minimum speed required for the human eye to comprehend fluid motion in stitched images – there has been increased experimentation in recent years by filmmakers who are curious about the aesthetic possibilities that go beyond that number. After all, movies look very different when the brain of an audience member doesn’t have to subconsciously fill in the blanks between frames (which is something that happens every time you sit down to watch a movie). Shooting at a higher frame rate serves to eliminate the motion blur created by that particular visual phenomenon, and it makes the picture appear smoother and more fluid.

A few years back, Peter Jackson tried to bring HFR into the mainstream by making it a part of the Hobbit experience, but now Ang Lee is making an attempt of his own to take the format to the next level. The director’s next movie, Gemini Man, is the latest big blockbuster to be shot at a higher frame rate – though Lee has taken things a bit further than his Kiwi colleague. While the second Middle-earth trilogy was filmed at 48fps, the new action movie starring Will Smith has nearly tripled that figure by shooting at 120fps, and having personally seen some footage from the feature I can tell you that it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

This past week I was part of a group of journalists invited to a special Gemini Man first look event at the Paramount Pictures lot in Los Angeles, and in addition to watching a panel discussion with Ang Lee, Will Smith, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer we all got to see a debut presentation of footage from the movie in its original frame rate. Three scenes in total were shown, equaling about 20 minutes, and it was honestly shocking to recognize just how different the experience really is.

As the lights in the theater went down and the scene began to play, the changed frame rate wasn’t immediately noticeable. While the photography appeared to perhaps be a bit brighter than your average modern action movie, the alteration from the norm wasn’t fully perceivable as a street level establishing shot of an apartment building cut to an overhead of Henry (Will Smith) inside lying still in bed. Everything changed, however, when a sound caused Henry to jolt up, and I noticed the complete lack of motion blur present. Suddenly I experienced what can really only be described as the sensation of a sort of light switch click in my brain as my eyes were forced to quickly adjust to what felt like a wholly new visual presentation. As Henry raced around the screen warning his friends (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Benedict Wong) about an impending attack by a character we later learn is a younger clone of himself, I practically had to shake my head while trying to acclimate myself.

One of the chief complaints about HFR in the past is that it can have the effect of making things look cheap, as the picture can be reminiscent of video-shot soap operas, but that wasn’t my read on Gemini Man. Instead, the chief takeaway in the moment is that it made everything appear hyperreal. Paired with 3D, I legitimately got the sensation that I wasn’t so much looking at a screen as I was looking through a window. Minus the sheen of film, everything looks vibrant and deep, and even certain elements – most noticeably explosions – had a completely different look than what we typically see in blockbusters. It added a particular visceral quality to the action as foot chases and shootouts played out on screen.

It was a fascinating preview overall, but one that also suggests that Gemini Man may have some unique issues when audiences get to see it in the fall. The first is the way in which the high frame rate interacts with the advanced visual effects used to create Will Smith’s younger self – who is named Junior in the movie. There are particular extra demands that the presentation requires from the digital artistry used to bring Junior to life, and the way in which HFR highlights detail in cinematography could perhaps ultimately be a bit too high a hurdle (there were some occasional moments where he looked a bit more like a video game character than perfectly lifelike).

How the HFR plays also seems to vary a bit based on the demands of a given setup in the story – which seemed to be something purposefully showcased in the footage that was shown. While the first scene was a day-set action sequence that had characters running around in open areas with lots of daylight, the second was set entirely in a dark skeleton-filled crypt, and the third was an emotional moment in brightly-lit office. Based on what I saw, the material that had the most amount of light looked better than that which didn’t, and for what should be obvious reasons, it was definitely a lot easier to adjust to the frame rate when people are just standing and talking instead of throwing punches.

Ang Lee has some personal history with 120 fps, as that was how he shot his last feature, 2016’s Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, but Gemini Man promises to be a very different kind of experience – particularly because of the influence of genre. Discussing how the two projects compare, Lee admitted during the panel following the footage that he was a bit out of his depth when working with HFR the first time, but that the chance to make this new movie with Will Smith allowed him to properly take advantage of its best properties this time around:

It’s a bold experiment, and it won’t be long until we see the finished result. Gemini Man, which stars Clive Owen in addition to Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Benedict Wong, will be heading to theaters everywhere on October 11th – and we’ll have plenty more coverage of the film coming your way between now and then, so be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend.

Ang Lee’s next project has quietly been coming together over at Paramount for over a year. At CinemaCon, the director revealed he is “in the home stretch” for Gemini Man, a high concept new thriller that will hit theaters later in 2019 starring Will Smith.

The general premise of the movie is that Will Smith plays Henry, an aging assassin who at one point gets cloned. Now, his 23-year-old clone is out to get him. Sounds fun, and the first footage looks fun, but Ang Lee says there was one problem with trying to film Will Smith as a much younger actor—he’s gotten much better at acting over the years.

Per the director,

Will Smith’s caliber of acting has changed over time and Ang Lee also revealed that it was an unbelievable challenge to get the actor to play both roles, one with experience and sophistication and one with youth and courage. He also noted:

Back in the days when Will Smith was a catchphrase machine and one of the most energetic presences in Hollywood, he maybe hadn’t fully honed his craft year. Now 50, the actor has honed his skills in the acting arena considerably. Most of the time this was great on the set of Gemini Man, but it also presented challenges given the dual nature of the nature, which had Smith acting as a man of his age but also a much younger clone.

It should be noted Will Smith’s own challenge related to Gemini Man seemed to have more to do with bugs than playing a kid in his twenties.

However, when the actor had to tap into the raw nature of playing a 23-year-old clone, things got tricky. At CinemaCon 2019, Ang Lee also reflected that getting Will Smith to the point where he could capably play a character with decades of less experience was “heartbreaking,” saying,

But Gemini Man is not just about Will Smith’s acting performance. Having seen first look footage from the movie, the de-aging CGI technology used to create two versions of Will Smith looks pretty fantastic.

Ang Lee is also notably using the 120 frame per second technology for Gemini Man. It’s a premise he attempted once before in 2016 with Billy Lynne’s Long Halftime Walk, the director’s follow-up to Life of Pi. Average films are shot in 24 frames per second.

Although Billy Lynne didn’t really resonate with audiences or some critics – many of whom did not enjoy the visuals -- Ang Lee is giving the high frame rate another go with the 3D Gemini Man. The studio, Paramount,

Ultimately Ang Lee said he was lucky to be able to sign on a busy actor like Will Smith for the role – he said “very, very lucky” actually – and audiences will get to see whether or not the 120 frame per second rate is the wave of the future when the movie hits theaters on October 11, 2019.

Check out the flick’s competition with our full movies schedule.

Gemini Man is one of those notorious Hollywood projects you hear about. While it sports a cool sci-fi premise, it has actually spent a full 20 years on a shelf, unable to ever make it through the development process. Now it seems that the industry is ready to take another crack at it, as Will Smith is now in talks to star.

The Hollywood Reporter has the scoop on this news, adding that Ang Lee is also currently in negotiations to take the helm of the thriller. The story, which originates from screenwriter Darren Lemke (Goosebumps) centers on an aging assassin who is ready to get out of the game for good. Unfortunately, this plan is interrupted by the fact that there is a clone of himself running around that wants him dead. Making matters worse, the clone is a full 25 years younger than him and at his peak strength.

Being 20 years old, Gemini Man has seen many actors attached to star - but originally the approach to making the film was very different. Unlike this new take, which will see Will Smith play both the aging protagonist and younger clone, the original idea was to have two different actors for the parts (a la Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis in Looper). At one time it was going to star Chris O'Donnell and Harrison Ford, and at another there was a vision of the project with Mel Gibson and Clint Eastwood.

While the film was originally set up at Disney, but it's been at Skydance since 2016 - with the production house believing that technology is now at a place where Gemini Man can be done properly with a single star. Now it looks like they've found that single star in Will Smith... and possibly a director in Ang Lee who has won two Academy Awards (Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi).

One curious thing about this project is how it will handle the age of the characters. Will Smith is currently 48 years old, so does that mean that his clone will be 23 years old? (think second season of Fresh Prince of Bel Air Will Smith). Or could it possibly age him up to 60 years old, and have him doing battle with his 35 year old self? (think Enemy of the State Will Smith). I wouldn't be surprised if the latter approach is taken - particularly in protection of the film taking a minute to get the gears moving.

Gemini Man sounds like an intriguing concept, and with the talent that is expressing interest, it definitely has our attention. We'll have more for you on this project and Will Smith/Ang Lee's potential deals as updates come in. Hit the comments section below with your thoughts on what you'd like to see from the film.

With his Academy Award nominated hit Life of Pi, and his current film Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, both making the most of the 3D format through their production and release cycles, it stands to wonder if director Ang Lee will ever make a film in 2D again. It's an important question, as fellow prestige directors Ridley Scott and Martin Scorsese have both experimented with 3D themselves, but don't seem to have committed to the extent that Lee has, especially on the technical end.

So wondering if he would return to a world of films without a third dimensional presence was a natural subject that came up while we were speaking with the director during the 2016 New York Film Festival's exhibition of Billy Lynn, and upon asking Lee if he was intending to stick to the 3D realm, he offered the following reply:

Much like fellow 3D visionary James Cameron, Ang Lee seems to be obsessed with the technical possibilities when it comes to 3D filmmaking. It definitely shows through Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, as the 120 frames-per-second / 4K 3D version of the film is extremely beautiful to look at. For those of you worrying that Lee will forgo his obsession with storytelling, merely in the name of playing with some exciting new toys, that most definitely isn't the case, especially when you hear the director talk about why he used the cutting edge format to tell the story of a young man returning from war, and how he sees the world.

While the 120 FPS format is beautiful, it definitely is a jarring experience for those who aren't used to the High Frame Rate format. The stark contrast of the extremely crisp imagery versus that of a typical 24 FPS film was an intentional effect that Ang Lee used to exhibit the following thematic elements:

Considering Lee's next film just might be the "Thrilla in Manilla" project depicting that very legendary bout between Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier, his technical and storytelling fascination with 3D films certainly doesn't look to be waning. Which is a good thing, as Ang Lee is one of the most visionary voices in the 3D filmmaking community to date, particularly with his envelope-pushing usage of the technology with Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. If 120 FPS / 4K 3D can make a personal story of war, heroism, and returning home to a world you barely recognize, then the action and drama in the Ali / Frazier biopic is a natural fit as one of the next steps to be taken in 3D films. Here's a clip of our conversation with Ang Lee:

You can judge for yourself this weekend, as Billy Flynn's Long Halftime Walk opens this Friday in New York and Los Angeles, in beautiful 120 FPS / 4K 3D. Stick around throughout this week, as we'll be running more content in anticipation of Ang Lee's latest cinematic event.

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is, without question, the most technically ambitious 3D film since James Cameron's Avatar made a major case for the format back in 2009. Additionally, it's the most ambitious experiment with frame rate increase since Peter Jackson's tentative experiment with 48 FPS during the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Put the two together, and what do you get? A very interesting step forward for the theatrical experience.

Which means that today's "To 3D or Not To 3D" is an extremely special experience, as we'll be evaluating the top shelf presentation of the film, which is shown in 120 FPS / 4K 3D. There's a lot of new technology involved in this presentation, and all of it changes the 3D experience from what we're normally used to. If you're looking for a review of the actual film itself, then you can go here to read our official ruling. But for now, prepare for Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, as we decide whether the film is worth the extra 3D money, or if you should put that money towards season tickets to the football team of your choice.

Most "personal stories" don't seem to be the most likely candidates for 3D presentations. Yet Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is an exception to that rule, as the story's intense focus on Billy and his story lends itself to a more personal mode of storytelling. Both the homecoming and actual heroism of Bravo Squad are fit to be told in the third dimension.

From the new camera technology and software to the re-designed theater screen that helps maintain the film's brightness, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk was a film that immersed itself in the world of 120 FPS / 4K 3D. Ang Lee planned to make the film in that very format, which added some time onto the production schedule in order to allow for the technology to work in favor of Lee's vision. The film was shot, tweaked, and born into this format.

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk has a lot of pretty impressive moments of visual assets popping off of the screen. With the many POV shots of Billy's line of sight, everything from random crowd members to the hands of his fellow soldiers pointing directly to him are thrust out of the screen. Even the occasional stray football manages to pop out into the audience, taking them by surprise.

Even more impressive is the depths of the "before the window" mechanics of the images shown in this film. While 3D conversions have done really good jobs of mimicking spatial reasoning on their best days, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk manages to maintain clear delineations of characters and objects throughout the film. One particularly impressive example is when Bravo Squad is in formation in front of the hotel they're staying at, which not only clearly separates the Bravos from the background they're standing in front of, but also allows their commanding officer plenty of room to pace back and forth in front of them.

Arguably the most impressive feat of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is the fact that Real-D's brand new Ultimate Screen improves upon the 3D experience by reinventing the screen that films are shown upon. Made from a new material, and with some special bells and whistles that separate it from the typical theater screens we see now, 85% more light is reflected off of the screen, and in such a way that sitting in almost any seat in the auditorium will do. The result is a MUCH brighter image that, while still slightly dimmed by the glasses, is colorful and crisp behind your facial furniture. Of course, your mileage will vary, as only two screens in the US will be able to show the full power of the Ultimate Screen

Taking off the glasses during the experience of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk showed a seriously healthy amount of blur. Interesting enough, with all of the new components to the process, this was one field that didn't really have to change all that much. With the glasses off, the blur was just as healthy as you'd expect from any other good 3D film. Yet the picture quality is much better in the 120 FPS / 4K presentation of 3D.

Unfortunately, there was one glaring problem with Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, and it involved certain sequences of fast paced camera movement and Humvee driving sequences. There is some serious eye wonkage when a Humvee is bumping along the desert, or if Billy's involved in some extremely fast and fancy visual action. For the most part, the film holds up well when it comes to the visual health component.

While the 120 FPS / 4K presentation of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is extremely limited, it's also extremely worth it if you can find your way to either of the theater's playing it. The advancements made in 3D technology, while not completely perfect or ironed out, still have quite a "Wow!" factor attached to them. With further work, and hopefully more allies trumpeting the success of such a worthwhile endeavor, this new format will grow and become something ready to take on even the most high profile blockbuster on the market.

For all of the technical gadgetry that Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk has brought to the field, it's easy to forget that there's an actual movie below the surface of such wizardry. Acting as even more of a contrast is the fact that the story of the film focuses on one man's viewpoint on both the war abroad and the campaign for hearts and minds at home. Yet for all of the bells and whistles that Ang Lee's latest film has piled on, the film we're ultimately given is still very much an affecting examination of the human spirit, and what we can do when faced with the most dire of circumstances.

Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn) is home on leave from his tour in Iraq, as he and his fellow soldiers of Bravo Squad are being shown off on a goodwill tour across the United States. This tour, celebrating the squad's heroism in the line of fire, is a means of boosting morale for the war, as well as selling the story of Bravo Squad as a major motion picture. Told throughout the last stop on their tour, a Thanksgiving football game in Texas, Billy's past, present, and future are all in question, as he remembers what came before and tries to figure out what comes next.

If you thought Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk was going to be a simple puff piece that dove headfirst into sentimentality, then I'm sorry to say that you're dead wrong. Rather, the adaptation of Ben Fountain's 2012 novel examines the Iraq War in its earliest days, with the 2004 setting providing a backdrop of political satire and personal grief that recalls a time when the war was at its most popular. Even the subject of Hollywood movies comes into the film's bluntly comic focus, as Chris Tucker's character of Albert, the agent who's trying to make the film deal happen for the Bravos, makes some well-timed cracks about how the movies don't always get the story right.

That isn't to say the film is without a heart though, as the story of Billy Lynn is carried by newcomer Joe Alwyn, who covers his English accent with expert effort, and sells Billy's story with all he's got. In particular, Alwyn's scenes with co-stars Vin Diesel and Garrett Hedlund are particular stand-outs, as some of the most important moments on his journey are with those two actors, and the chemistry is obviously there. In fact, the entirety of Bravo Squad show off just how much they've bonded, as the entire troop of actors form a very effective team of rabble rousing characters.

While Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk does work as a whole, there are some components that do stick out - especially if you're someone who's read Fountain's original novel. The relationships with both Billy's sister, Kathryn (Kristen Stewart) and his crush Faison (Makenzie Leigh) are not as developed in the film as they are in the book. Both roles are still played with maximum effort, but it's sad that we don't get as much time with either character as we do in the source material. Also, the fact that both the Dallas Cowboys and Destiny's Child factored so hugely in the book, only to be either completely excised or awkwardly retained (in that order) is a sore thumb in an otherwise well-played hand.

Ang Lee has tapped into the American psyche from over a decade ago, and produced a film that uses the past to teach us about the present. While the Iraq War isn't discussed as much, conversationally, as it used to be, the fact that the war, much like Bravo Squad's story, seems fleeting is commentary enough about how we've truly let down those we've sent out to fight. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is a tremendous show of the human spirit, which uses technical magic to heighten its reality and put us in the middle of the action. It is through our ability to identify with Billy that we can truly identify with our nation, and the end result is nothing short of impressive.

A couple of days ago, Academy Award winning director Ang Lee was reported to have passed on the opportunity to direct the live-action remake of Disney's classic animated film, Mulan. No real reason was given for the director's rejection of the opportunity to bring the tale of Chinese history to life, leaving the missed opportunity as a sort of burning question for those who would have thought him a natural match for such an opportunity. As it turns out, Lee has a perfectly good reason to pass up Mulan: he's returning to a project that he's already been developing for some time.

I had the privilege of speaking with Ang Lee this weekend, as part of the press tour for his latest film, Billy Lynn's Halftime Walk. Interestingly enough, the comedy-drama about heroism and homecoming during the Iraq War was the film that had originally prevented Lee from making a planned biopic involving the historic "Thrilla' in Manilla" boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. But based on his response as to why he passed on Disney's latest in a string of live-action reimaginings of their animated canon, it looks like that project is back on:

With Ang Lee's confirmation that this film was being developed before Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk landed on his desk, it's all but assured that the Ali / Frazier project is Lee's next film in line for production. An even more interesting development is the fact that this too is supposed to be a 3D film, as Lee is obviously enamored with the format. In fact, he's so into 3D that he's helped develop and deploy the 120 FPS / 4K 3D presentation that Billy Lynn will be enjoying in limited markets on its November release date.

Undoubtedly, Mulan could have been an extremely good fit with Lee's sensibilities, as his execution of the martial arts heavy Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, as well as more personal stories like Life of Pi, show that he can tackle both sides of the story's demanding equation. However, the historic bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier has been in Ang Lee's line-up for some time, and to push it off any further could potentially help kill the project in the long run. Though the bright side of the project's first delay is the fact that Lee can now further sharpen his 120 FPS / 4K 3D skills with the Ali / Frazier story, and if it looks as good as the format did with Billy Lynn's Halftime Walk, the sheer intimacy of the boxing scenes alone will be worth the price of admission.

Still, should Disney really believe that Ang Lee is the right person for the job when it comes to directing Mulan, then perhaps it'd be best to wait for his schedule to clear up. It doesn't sound like there's a lack of interest in directing the story, so much that Lee is more passionate about his boxing film that he's already had to delay in favor of another project. To be completely honest, I'm kind of hoping that Ang Lee will eventually somehow find himself in the director's chair for Mulan, if only to see him apply his unique vision, and his 3D wizardry, to the wonderful world of Disney. Here hs is answering our Mulan question:

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk will be in theaters on Veteran's Day, November 11th, and we'll have more coverage on the film between now and the weekend of release.

Disney's live-action Mulan was recently given a release date for two years from now, yet the project has already become one of the most talked about films in recent weeks. However, at least one major director wasn't interested. The search is on for both a star and a director and Disney would reportedly like somebody Asian to take the director's chair for their Chinese lead. Ang Lee has already been asked to take the job, but he decided to pass.

Ang Lee seems like a solid choice to direct a live-action Mulan. The two-time Academy Award winner for Best Director certainly has the reputation that you'd want to attach to a major film. In addition, his recent films like Life of Pi and Billy Lynn's Halftime Walk have been movies that focused heavily on technical achievement, something that would likely go well with Disney's attempt to bring another animated fairy tale to life. The Hollywood Reporter does not mention any reason why Ang Lee turned Mulan down, simply that he was approached but said no.

Mulan has been dealing with its share of controversy following the discovery that the script Disney purchased to base their new film on, was actually centered on a character other than Mulan. Fans were irate that the studio would apparently turn one of their most popular films into a simple love story between Mulan and a white guy, who was actually the protagonist of the film. However, sources have now claimed that the script was only meant as a starting point and that Mulan will lead the film, and none of the major characters are not Chinese. Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver from Jurassic World have been brought in to handle the rewrites.

The project is reportedly being shopped around to other directors, although no names are being mentioned. There are certainly some other names, both high and low profile, that Disney could approach. James Wan and Justin Lin both come to mind fairly quickly, although, both of them have been in very high demand and would seem to have their plates full for the next couple of years. Even if one of them was interested in directing Mulan it wouldn't seem that the scheduling would work. Lin is currently set to direct a Hot Wheels movie, while Wan is handling Aquaman for Warner Bros. Both of those films are looking at 2018 release dates as well, so juggling two films would be tough, if not impossible.

There is one other potential hurdle to Disney finding their director. Sony is also working on their own production of Mulan. While the Sony version likely wouldn't come out for years after Disney, the word is they are also looking for their director, and anybody that Sony signs would seem to be off-limits to Disney. Who would you suggest to direct Mulan? Let us know your thoughts below.

As technology evolves, so does art. Movies went through revolutionary changes when sound was added, and again when color became the norm. For director Ang Lee, simply making one major change for his next movie isn’t enough. Lee’s next film Billy Lynn’s Halftime Walk will be shown next month for the first time in its intended way. This means that it will be seen in 3D, with a 4K HDR resolution, and at 120 frames per second.

While 3D in cinemas has become a fairly standard occurrence, your traditional movie theater projector creates the three-dimensional image by producing each of the two necessary images in an alternating fashion. At the Future of Cinema Conference in Las Vegas, where Billy Lynn’s Halftime Walk will be shown, video manufacturer Christie will be providing a dual laser projector which will allow for a significantly brighter image than a standard projector. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the four thousand lines of resolution with high dynamic range at 120 fps will be provided via 7th Sense servers.

4K resolution has been around in movie theaters for several years, long before the resolution became popular on home television screens. High dynamic range imaging, a process by which the eye is able to register more subtle gradations of brightness, has also been around for a long time but has recently begun to find more favor among television and film viewing.

Probably the biggest shift that Ang Lee will be showing off in movie making is the 120 frames per second filming. Most movies are still shot at the cinema standard 24 frames per second. While some filmmakers have experimented with different film speeds, as Peter Jackson did with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which could be seen in some theaters at 48 fps, the 120 fps speed is significantly faster than even that.

Each of these technologies on their own has the potential to make a significant change to movie watching in a theater. All of them combined could be a tectonic shift in the industry. Different filmmakers seem to have very different feelings regarding technology. Some are open to embracing whatever new thing comes along, to see how they can use it improve their movies. Ang Lee is about as far from Quentin Tarantino as you can get when it comes to filmmaking. While Lee is embracing every possible technological advantage, Tarantino’s last movie used camera lenses that hadn’t been used to make movies for 40 years. Both, however, make their approaches work to their advantage.

It will be interesting to see what the reaction to those in attendance at the Billy Lynn’s Halftime Walk screening are. The film has a phenomenal cast, and may be a great movie, but it’s possible people will be talking more about how it looked than anything else. If the response is positive, we may see many more people moving to these new techniques. Do you think new technology adds to the viewing experience, or does it all just get in the way of great movies?

Not to call your character and integrity into question, but a lot of people out there have fibbed or at least stretched the truth when it comes to our resumes. I know I certainly have. And it turns out we’re not alone, as celebrities lie about their applicable skills as well. Anne Hathaway perjured herself just a bit in order to land one of her biggest roles, in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain.

Out interviewed the Oscar-winning actress, and other key players, as part of a ten-year retrospective on the groundbreaking movie. Talking about how she got the part of Lureen Newsome Twist, the unknowing wife of closeted cowboy Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), Hathaway recalled a critical juncture in the audition process. She said:

Again, how many of us have tailored our resumes in a similar fashion, adding a skill in a job listing that, maybe, we don’t posses, but that we totally know we can master when we need to? It’s a good thing that Hathaway’s parents taught her how to lie, and that thinks quickly enough on her feet that she was able to conjure that fabrication out of thin air.

However, if you’re shocked and appalled at Anne Hathaway’s lack of transparency and honesty in the casting process (it’s a cutthroat business after all), don’t worry, karma came back to bite her in the ass, at least a little bit. In the time between her audition and production, Hathaway may indeed have learned how to ride a horse to back up her bold-faced lie. However, when she got to set the horse she was given, unbeknownst to her, only responded to verbal commands, and she was unable to figure out how to ride such a beast. So, upon going to a rehearsal, which took place in front of 300 extras, many of whom had a background on farms and in rodeos, she couldn’t get her horse to do a damn thing. Take that, Anne Hathaway.

Sure, she may have been the slightest bit deceitful when it came to getting the part in Brokeback Mountain, but her comeuppance seems to fit her crime. In the end it all worked out for the best, as she’s wonderful in the movie, and she probably should have landed the role anyway, horse skills or no.

Nearly a decade after a successful theatrical release, Brokeback Mountain remains a groundbreaking drama in the public consciousness in several aspects. Certainly, one of its unique dramatic elements was brought by Anne Hathaway’s character, the scorned wife, Lureen Newsome. Interestingly enough, Hathaway’s audition for the role was apparently not particularly inspiring.

In an interview with Variety reflecting on the historical status of Brokeback Mountain, director, Ang Lee discusses the rather awkward audition that nevertheless landed Anne Hathaway with her crucial role. According to Lee:

The image of Hathaway rushing into an audtion, decked out in a set of fancy digs from 2004’s The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement is actually rife with hilarity and is even ironic in a certain sense. (Take a look at the picture below to get an idea of the parade outfit she was allegedly wearing.) While the well-known premise of Brokeback Mountain’s secretive same sex romance between cowboys Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) portrayed a tragic fatalism, it was also an examination of how the "normal" lives they each constructed with wives and children disintegrated. Consequently, the roles for which a princess-decked Hathaway auditioned was anything but jovial and majestic.

The depiction of Hathway’s character, Lurleen, was one of the rather unsung tragedies of the film. We first met her as a strong-willed, liberated young woman who was unafraid to grab the things she wanted in her career and personal life. In this case, it was the affections of rodeo enthusiast Jack Twist. However, as we saw their relationship evolve from courtship to years of marriage, the true nature of Jack’s affections eventually left her a broken, cynical, middle-aged woman, who seemed rather unsurprised or indifferent to the vague circumstances of her husband’s demise. To put this in perspective, Anne Hathaway auditioned for THAT role, dressed as a princess.

Perhaps, the anecdote also proves itself to be apropos regarding the dramatic turn that Hathaway’s career was soon to take. Her role as Lurleen in Brokeback Mountain, despite its supporting nature, was an example of emotional turmoil that depicted the dramatic descent of a woman who once showed herself to the world as a formidable force. With Hathaway coming into the audition dressed as the very princess with which most audiences still associated her with, it was as if the transition from teenage comedy star to serious dramatic actress occurred quite literally in that very room in front of Ang Lee. In that sense, the Oscar-winning actress she is today came about from that insanely awkward audition.

Now that Mark Ruffalo has basically saved the Hulk character from the laughing stock that the last two big-screen attempts had left him, we can all look back on those less-than-stellar efforts to adapt arguably Marvel’s most famous character pre-cinematic renaissance. The good folks over at Cinema Sin can’t resists the opportunity to chastise, so it’s no surprise that they’ve now laid aim at Ang Lee’s horrific Hulk mis-fire. So sit back, and prepare to get very, very angry.

Even though Hulk makes error after error on its way to being one of the biggest superhero catastrophes to date, I still feel the need to declare that I love Ang Lee with all of my heart. In fact, it pains me that he ended up butchering Hulk. But butcher it he did, and Cinema Sins does a superlative effort highlighting the areas where things got away from the two-time Academy Award winning director.

First things first, Hulk’s two leads Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly fail to create a "single spark" between them as the film’s leads Bruce Banner and Betty Ross. Which, considering the acting credentials between these two obscenely attractive individuals, is a travesty. Luckily for the pair, the same can really also be said of Ed Norton and Liv Tyler’s patter in The Incredible Hulk, Marvel’s attempt to reboot Hulk. However, Mark Ruffalo eventually proved that you can depict the Hulk being in love with someone in a heartfelt and emphatic manner in The Avengers, thanks to his blossoming bromance with Tony Stark.

Cinema Sins also revels in pointing out just how lifeless and downright annoying Ang Lee’s attempt is to try and panel Hulk’s scenes so that the movie resembles a comic-book. This, I think we can all admit, was a wild lapse in judgement from the usually visually arresting and calculated director. Why movies felt that it was so necessary to remind viewers they were watching a comic-book film back then is beyond me.

Meanwhile, Cinema Sins also makes the point that the introduction of the Hulk dogs by Ang Lee is as big a movie-mistake as Batman & Robin’s introduction of the Bat-nipples. And their clip makes a pretty convincing case too, because just seeing the maniacal pooches reminded me how laughable they were.

But Ang Lee’s horrific Hulk is merely a distant memory now. Mark Ruffalo has now more than made the character his own, and you can catch up with his incarnation of the apoplectic beast from Friday when Avengers: Age Of Ultron is released this weekend.

Brokeback Mountain is now rightly regarded as one of the best films of the new millennium. But its lasting popularity and beauty wasn’t always so obvious. In fact, a number of directors, actors and studios flirted with the project before Ang Lee, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Heath Ledger took the plunge and actually made the film. One such name was Pedro Almodovar, who has now admitted that he was one of the directors who decided against adapting Brokeback Mountain for the big screen - but only because he didn’t believe his highly-sexualised version would be approved by a studio.

Almodovar, who is widely regarded as one of the most thought-provoking and visceral filmmakers to have ever stepped behind the camera, made his comments while talking to the Financial Times. The Spanish director admitted that he turned down the chance to direct Brokeback Mountain because of he still had his doubts about working within the constraints of a Hollywood studio. Almodovar stated that his film would have been drastically different to Ang Lee’s version, teasing that his incarnation of the film would have been much more physical and sexual than the feature that wound up being nominated for Best Picture in 2005. In fact, he admitted that he wanted to go beyond the characters sleeping together once. And even though the studio had promised him "total artistic freedom and final cut," he is certain that if he’d proceeded with his idea for the film they wouldn’t have let him release it in the way he envisioned

Pedro Almodovar hasn’t been enticed to make a Hollywood film, despite being courted by the studios for decades now. This was especially the case after the success of 1999’s All About My Mother and 2002’s Talk To Her, which landed him the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay, respectively. This led to him being offered Brokeback Mountain, and even though he had "many doubts" about making the film at the time, Pedro Almodovar admitted that he still isn’t sure if he actually made a mistake in turning it down.

Despite this revelation, Pedro Almodovar admitted that he still liked Ang Lee’s "version very much," before adding that he believed the Taiwanese filmmaker "went as far as he could." It’s safe to say that Pedro Almodovar’s hesitation was Ang Lee’s gain, because at the 2006 Academy Award ceremony Lee was presented with the Best Director award for his work on Brokeback Mountain. And while Ang Lee’s decadently romantic, yet still truly heart-breaking take on Annie Proulx’s short-story fully deserved this accolade, it’s hard not to be intrigued by Pedro Almodovar’s proposed version of the film. The idiosyncratic director’s films always perfectly blend melodrama and pop culture with themes of passion, desire and identity, all of which would have perfectly lent itself to Brokeback Mountain.But in the end, I suppose Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning version will just have to do.

There has been a lot of chatter online regarding the Hulk, and how the mighty member of Marvel’s Avengers needs another standalone movie, this time with Mark Ruffalo shouldering the load of Bruce Banner and his angry alter ego. Given the amount of times Marvel tried to get Hulk off the ground, though, you can understand why they are a little gun shy. Still, a sequel allegedly was discussed after Ang Lee’s attempt at The Hulk in 2003, and now we have an idea of what that movie would have been about.

Screenwriter James Schamus is credited with the story for Ang Lee’s Hulk, and reportedly was set to pen the sequel. In a conversation with BAFTA officials (shared via Film Divider), the Oscar-nominated scripter revealed that he had "a really cool idea" for the sequel, which never materialized. He said:

That’s right. The Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Eat Drink Man Woman, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Lust, Caution speaks like a Valley Girl.

Lust, Caution, also helmed by Ang Lee, was James Schamus’ next credited screenplay, so it’s possibly that which he moved on to from Hulk 2. But Ang Lee’s approach to the hero wasn’t necessarily what Marvel had in mind when cracking the code of bringing the green giant to the big screen. Lee’s movie has its defenders, for sure. I, for one, loved his use of comic-book panels in his visual communications. Eric Bana’s Bruce was a little to wrapped up in his "Daddy Issues," though, and the action – when it happened – wasn’t memorable. I can hardly remember Nick Nolte’s scenery-chewing turn as the villain who was supposed to evolve into the Absorbing Man. Boy, was that mishandled.

To Ang Lee and James Schamus’ credit, bringing the Hulk to the big screen has confounded multiple filmmakers, and it wasn’t until Joss Whedon figured out how to ease him into a team that we finally got the Hulk we’ve wanted in a movie. But it says something that while Thor, Captain America and Iron Man have enjoyed sequels, Hulk has been relegated to the Rumors section, content to be part of the Avengers whenever they assemble.

It’s fun, though, to imagine what Ang Lee’s Hulk 2 might have been about – and how different the comic-book movie landscape might be now had he been given the greenlight to pull it off.

Ang Lee is set to shuffle around his directorial work-load, which means that instead of overseeing a 3D take on Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier’s infamous Thrilla in Manila bout, he will direct an adaptation of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

It’s been close to 24 months since Lee wowed both audiences and critics alike with Life Of Pi, which was deemed so superb that he even landed himself the Best Director Oscar for his efforts. As you can imagine, his take on Yann Martel’s book meant that cinema-goers from around the globe soon began asking the filmmaker about his next project, and when he revealed that it would be another 3D film that revolved around the legendary 1975 boxing match, excitement over the movie immediately exploded. However, budget problems have started to disrupt pre-production, and Lee has become so incensed by the delays that he is now considering working on a smaller movie instead of the sports drama.

The Wrap now reports that Lee has chosen Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, which was written by Ben Fountain and was a National Book Award Finalist. Simon Beaufoy has adapted the novel, and the English screenwriter, who won an Oscar for his work on Slumdog Millionaire, is known for being able to sprinkle his scripts with the sort of ingredients that the awards season laps up with aplomb. This basically means the film has instantly become a front-runner for Academy Awards, Golden Globes, etc. just because of the potential participation of all involved.

According to Amazon, the synopsis for the film is:

But where does this leave Lee’s involvement on the Thrilla In Manila flick? It doesn’t look good. If Lee does decide to proceed with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and the boxing movie also goes ahead, then you can imagine that producers will leave the Brokeback Mountain director behind.

What makes the scenario even more complex is that there are other reasons why Ang Lee is to blame for the boxing film's delay, as he only wanted to go ahead with it when the technology was just right. Producer James Schamus told Screen Daily that Lee is "pushing the technology toward the absolute future of cinema, and pushing it even further than what you saw in Life Of Pi." He then explained that Lee wants to put the audience "in the ring with these guys," while also incorporating 3D technology that is able to enhance "horizontal fast motion [and] the close-ups"

It would be a real shame if Lee didn’t end up directing the Thrilla In Manila piece, because, from the sounds of things, he is perfectly in sync with the vision for the film. It also appears, though, that it could help to progress both the boxing genre and cinema as a whole. In conclusion: sometimes the movie business can make bad decisions. Fingers crossed Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk will make up for it though.

If you are somehow not one of the 51 million plus people who've liked Vin Diesel on Facebook, you should probably get on that. Aside from tweeting personal photos, heart-warming affirmations, and occasional set pics, Diesel occasionally answers questions from fans with his signature mix of openness and mystique. In one of these informal facebook Q&As, Diesel recently dropped some curious claims about the upcoming Kojak remake, suggesting Life of Pi helmer Ang Lee might helm:

Post by Vin Diesel.

Obviously, these three nouns aren't enough for us to say Lee is definitely on board for the project. It could be that he's in talks or just that he's on Fast and Furious star's wish list. But it's worth noting that Diesel has been known to drop real movie news on facebook before. Last January, he announced the trailer for Fast and Furious 6 would premiere at the Super Bowl. Long before he was announced as the voice of Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy, Diesel took to facebook to tell his fans he'd had a meeting with Marvel. So, could the cryptic message mean Lee is in being eyed for Kojak? Possibly.

Universal Pictures is producing the Kojak movie, inspired by the 1970s TV procedural that starred Telly Savalas as a lollipop loving New York City cop known for his catchphrase, "Who love ya, baby?" The studio behind the Fast and Furious franchise could well be willing to make Diesel happy by giving him some pull in this proposed project. And clearly he has a pick for the director's chair. But is this a helming gig Lee would want? Frankly, that's anyone's guess.

The Taiwan-born director began his career making touching dramas in his native land, like Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet and the Academy Award-nominated Eat Drink Man Woman. The last of these led his first entirely English-language production, the ambitious adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility. This won plenty of Oscar attention, as well as a screenwriting award for Emma Thompson. Then Lee followed it up with a chilling family drama set in 1973 Connecticut, The Ice Storm. And in 2000 he masterfully leapt into an entirely different genre with the awe-inspiring martial arts fantasy Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This led to him landing the showy superhero actioner Hulk, which he dizzyingly followed with the tender romance Brokeback Mountain. Then of course last year, he showed hacks what 3D could do with the breathtakingly beautiful Life of Pi.

All this is to say that Lee isn't a filmmaker hemmed in by genre or some established niche. It's entirely possible he could be intrigued by a Kojak movie. After all, it wouldn't be the first time he'd be making a movie of a popular TV series. Frankly, I'm pretty fascinated by the idea of Diesel and Lee teaming up for this property, which is being penned by Skyfall scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. Here's hoping that the above is more than Diesel's hopes, because this Kojak could be a pretty sensational feature.

Have we lost another great director to 3D experimentation? James Cameron seems to really only be making Avatar sequels so he can play with the 3D cameras he invented, and now Ang Lee is riding his Life of Pi success to another 3D effort, which seems to be less about the storytelling than the effects. Deadline reports that Lee's follow-up to his recent Oscar winner will be a look at the world of boxing in the 1960s and 70s, the era that included the famous "Thrilla in Manila" bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, along with the "Rumble in the Jungle" between Ali and George Foreman.

Before we get too concerned that the film will just be a bunch of disconnected boxing reenactments, Deadline says Peter Morgan is on board to write the script; the guy's credit like The Queen and the upcoming racing drama Rush prove he doesn't just know how to string a story, but how to craft one around true events. Deadline wasn't able to get too many specific about the story, but it sounds like it might be something similar to Michael Mann's Ali but with a focus on several of the major boxers of the era. Though boxing has now been eclipsed by MMA as a beloved sport about people beating the snot out of each other, the heroes from the boxing glory days remain large in the imaginations of filmmakers. Lee Daniels' The Butler star David Oyelowo agreed to star in a biopic about Sugar Ray Robinson, while the upcoming Grudge Match seem to be trading entirely on the legacies of Jake LaMotta and Rocky-- or, more specifically, Robert DeNiro and Sylvester Stallone, the men who played them.

Ang Lee has proved himself over and over again to be a master genre-hopper, and fresh off his second Best Director Oscar win he's clearly got the option to do whatever he wants, which means there's something in this boxing history that intrigues him. But forgive me for not seeing the appeal quite yet. Sure, scenes of boxing in big, beautiful 3D could rival Scorsese's Raging Bull scenes for beauty, and the intensity of boxing couldn't possibly be expressed in a better format. But when the entire point of a film is the visuals and the technology that made it, the story can become a toss-off-- just look at Avatar. I love that movie still, but Ang Lee has always been more of a storyteller than Cameron, and-- I thought-- less of a futurist obsessed with the next big technology. I worry he's been sucked in by the 3D bauble and will never return. Then again, the last time an Oscar-winning director took an unexpected dive into 3D, it was Martin Scorsese's Hugo. Ang Lee deserves at least that much trust.

Only Steven Spielberg could generate this much press without actually agreeing to direct a movie. The other day, we speculated about the Oscar-winning director possibly returning to the Jurassic Park franchise, only to learn that Safety Not Guaranteed director Colin Trevorrow would be helming the sequel instead. Because Spielberg had pushed back Robopocalypse, the director reportedly had a hole to fill on his production schedule. Now it sounds like he’s passing on another opportunity to fill it.

Deadline says Spielberg has “ended his long flirtation” with the Biblical epic Gods and Kings, and now Warner Bros. is approaching Ang Lee, hoping the Life of Pi director will attach his name to Michael Green and Stuart Hazeldine’s screenplay of the Moses story. WB is worried about a rival Moses project set up at Fox, which Sir Ridley Scott reportedly is circling and might dive into once he wraps The Counselor with Michael Fassbender and Javier Bardem. In Hollywood, movie subjects often come in twos, from volcano or asteroid blockbusters to this year’s two White House-invasion movies. Why not two Moses movies? We might be headed in that direction.

Deadline says that Lee is interested in the Moses story, but has yet to take a formal meeting about anything. Obviously, he’s in the best position possible, coming off of his second Best Director win at the Oscars for helming Life of Pi. Lee can direct virtually anything. Would you want to see him invest his time and talents into a Biblical drama? Or if Scott – the director of Kingdom of Heaven and Gladiator -- was looking to get into this field, would you just let him try his luck? Share your thoughts below.

With so much hubbub surrounding really silly stuff at the Oscars-- like Seth MacFarlane's "We Saw Your Boobs" musical number and Jennifer Lawrence's trip on the way to the stage-- it's become terrifyingly easy to overlook a very real issue behind the scenes. Near the red carpet on Sunday, but far from the cameras that were trained on starlets and their gowns, more than 400 visual effects artists were protesting the awards. When Life of Pi won for Best Visual Effects, winner Bill Westenhofer attempted to bring attention to the fact that his company is facing bankruptcy… and was cut off by the theme from Jaws.

It was a confusing situation, seeing those responsible for the effects in the mega-successful Life of Pi claiming bankruptcy, but it's a true and sobering fact about how your visual effects sausage gets made. As we explained writing about the protest, many visual effects jobs these days are outsourced overseas, and those that do get work in the United States are forced to bid against each other for work, often lowballing themselves and forcing their artists into miserable positions. If you want even more detail about how this works, check out this insightful piece on The Billfold, which reveals that the visual effects industry is the only film trade without a union to support the artists being mistreated by these policies.

And as happy as we are to see Ang Lee, who fought the studio to secure the big budget for Life of Pi's impressive effects, win the Best Director Oscar, he's not escaping this controversy. Speaking after the Oscars about the financial troubles faced by Pi's effects creators Rhythm & Hues, Lee said "I would like it to be cheaper and not a tough business… it's very hard for them to make money." Of course, a major reason that visual effects are so expensive are the salaries of the people creating things like Pi's CGI tiger, which is what inspired VFX artist Phillp Broste to write this open letter:

You can click over to Film School Rejects to read the rest of the letter, and keep coming back for more information on what's only becoming a bigger and bigger issue in Hollywood.

Photo Credit ©ABC

Forget who’s in. Let’s talk briefly about the directors left out of this year’s Oscar race.

The conversation swirling around this year’s Best Director category at the Academy Awards mainly has been about the omitted names. That’s not the best scenario for the Academy. To be fair, though, it’s rare when film lovers easily could put together a sampling of five overlooked directors – from Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow to Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan – and still come up with an equally strong alternate pool of Oscar contenders.

I mention the absences from the Best Director category for a reason. Because Affleck miraculously did not make the cut for this year’s Oscar race, and his film gradually became the frontrunner in the Best Picture race, I believe that Life of Pi director Ang Lee is the director to beat at Sunday’s Academy Awards.

Really, I’m reaching this conclusion through process of elimination … leaning on the fact that the Academy already eliminated a number of key contenders on the morning nominations were revealed. Michael Haneke likely isn’t winning for the foreign-language drama Amour, an actor’s picture that’s concise and deliberate but lacks the flair that wins a directorial Oscar. Ditto Beasts of the Southern Wild director Benh Zeitlin, who made his feature-film debut here and is going to have to prove himself to the Academy before they vote for him. I hate saying this, but in Zeitlin’s case, the nomination actually is the win.

That leaves three proven directors with Oscar history contending for this year’s prize. As much as I loved Silver Linings Playbook -- and can see David O. Russell’s visual fingerprints all over the aggressively stylized movie – I think that’s also an ensemble picture (noted by the four actor nominations doled out by the Academy) and I don’t see him taking the Director’s prize.

So it boils down to Lee versus Steven Spielberg, both previous Oscar winners in the Best Director category who will be looking for a win on Sunday. And when forced to choose between the two, it’s merely my opinion that Lee does more to realize the vision of Pi than Spielberg does to recreate Lincoln.

Lee’s adaptation comes with a laundry list of storytelling obstacles. It’s primarily shot in a lifeboat drifting out at sea. A primary character in Lee’s drama is a CGI tiger, whom the director and his creative team must imbue with an emotional heft if audiences are going to buy into the spiritual journey. I don’t think Life of Pi could exist as a Best Picture nominee if not for Lee's innovative and technical prowess, reaching back to his gravity-defying wizardry of Crouching Tiger to breathe life into Pi. There’s a short-list of filmmakers who could have made Lincoln, and probably made it well. Lee, I believe, delivered on the impossible with his spiritual effort. Fellow directors will realize his Herculean accomplishments and recognize him with the Oscar.

If I’m wrong, and it’s Spielberg’s night to win, I think you’ll start to see indicators of a possible Lincoln sweep early. Sally Field could upset Anne Hathaway. Tommy Lee Jones could take the Best Supporting Actor trophy. Tony Kushner might grab the Screenplay nod. These would be indicators that Spielberg and Lincoln are landsliding the Academy Awards, meaning significant wins in Picture and Director. But if Argo is destined or Oscar glory, the directors can and should honor Lee on Sunday night.

Ang Lee is very likely to get his third Best Director Oscar nomination tomorrow, and Life of Pi will probably scoop up a Best Picture nomination as well-- a nice comeback for the director who last made the little-seen comedy Taking Woodstock. And now that Lee is mulling his next project, he seems to be leaning toward making another project that's huge and high-profile, and that has lost several even huger directors along the way.

Producer Scott Rudin has been shepherding a Cleopatra since 2006, and the likes of David Fincher, James Cameron and Paul Greengrass have all considered it before departing. Now Lee tells The Hollywood Reporter that "I'm about to read the script," and that after all the other films he's done, "It just feels right." Lee continues, "What does it have in common with any of them? They’re all totally different! That’s what makes this perfect.”

Lee's right that his filmography is hugely varied, and he's probably feeling pretty good after the giant creative risk of LIfe of Pi paid off so well. With Jolie still attached to Cleopatra it should have no problem getting made as soon as a director commits, and Lee's recent buzz could probably make him just the director to do it. Can he finally help Cleopatra get off the ground and put Jolie in the role she was born for?

A year ago Martin Scorsese brought an unfinished film to the New York Film Festival and showed a group of jaded critics an entirely new possibility for 3D. Today Ang Lee may have done it again. Introducing this morning's screening of Life of Pi (in advance of tonight's Opening Night gala at NYFF), Lee focused on its story, how author Yann Martel handed the story to him, and how Lee was now handing the story to us, the audience. But while Life of Pi tells a satisfying yarn of survival and faith and human grace, it's the visuals-- both the spectacular CGI and the game-changing use of 3D-- that elevates it well above Martel's wildly popular book.

Like Scorsese did with Hugo, Lee uses Pi's simple story to spin off in bold visual directions, balancing on the razor's edge between fantasy and outright surrealism that provides some of the most gripping and gorgeous images on screen this year. And it's not all just glittery poetry like seen in the image above-- Life of Pi contains several sequences of sheer terror, including an amazing shipwreck scene, and like the Bengal tiger with whom our hero Pi (Suraj Sharma), you never know when it might rear back and devastate you.

The film's opening sequence, set at the Pondicherry zoo where Pi lives with his family, is a lyrical and beautiful introduction to the combination of CGI and real animals who populate the film, as well as the 3D effects, which are brilliantly sharp. We spend some time seeing Pi-- full name Piscine Molitor Patel-- grow up and experiment with following every religion he comes across, as well as get training in the dangerous life of a zookeeper-- especially to stay well clear of the tiger, incongruously named Richard Parker. When Pi is a teenager his family decides to sell the zoo and move to Canada, bringing the animals with them on a cargo ship to sell in North America. The ship sinks in a violent storm, and Pi is left as the only human survivor in a lifeboat that, at first, contains a hyena, an injured zebra, an orangutan… and Richard Parker.

Pi's story is initially introduced to us in a framing device, in which older Pi (Irrfan Khan) tells the story to a Martel-like author (Rafe Spall), but the framing drops out as soon as the ship sinks, leaving us alone with Pi and Richard Parker and the vast, often terrifying expanse of the ocean. Lee nimbly moves between the ocean's threats and its potential for beauty, sometimes in a single shot, like a humpback whale leaping gorgeously through the ocean's phosphorescence… and swamping Pi's raft in the process. And while the tale of a boy on a boat with a tiger sounds like a children's fable, it's Richard Parker's inborn viciousness, and Pi's constant fear of him, that provides the movie's tension, and makes the tale of survival and inter-species communication all the more meaningful.

But like I said, the story-- and especially the religious overtones that come to play in the end-- are far less important than simply being consumed by this world of Lee's creation. I don't know if the actual 3D effects make a film more immersive or if it's the physical fact of wearing those clunky glasses, but Life of Pi is uniquely gripping, its lush visuals sweeping over the screen and, yes, occasionally popping out at you. Lee takes constant gambles with the film's look, diving into Pi's mind and the deep ocean with a fantasy sequence in which fish turn into zebras, layering shots over one another to create montage, or depicting the ocean as clear and perfectly reflective, as if Pi and Richard Parker are bobbing among the stars. Everything in it looks fantastical but true, an incredible balance that can only be achieved by a filmmaker with confidence like Lee's, who has spent a career hopping genres and styles but managed, once again, to utterly surprise us.

Life of Pi will dominate in the Academy Awards's visual effects category, and it's not hard to imagine it making progress elsewhere-- like Hugo as well, it's a movie cinema lovers can rally behind and gawk at forever. Even though its story is hamstrung by the same tripped-up ending that deflates Martel's book, Life of Pi works wonders in its best moments. Early on Pi's tale is billed as one that will "make you believe in God." I'm not so sure about that. But it will certainly make you believe in movies.

Just yesterday the first official image for Ang Lee’s The Life of Pi came online. The picture featured a Indian teenager with a turban standing on one end of a lifeboat, with a roaring Bengal tiger on the other. For those that haven’t read Yann Martel’s novel, or are at least not familiar with the story, it could have been perceived as a very odd still. Luckily, I’ve just come back from watching the first footage from the film and I’m happy to explain what it’s all about.

As mentioned in my previous post about Neighborhood Watch, this morning’s big CinemaCon event was the 20th Century Fox presentation where the studio previewed every single one of their 2012 movies. While some of the material was old (all of the Prometheus stuff shown has already made its way online), but the event was concluded with the world premiere first look at The Life of Pi, which I’m more than happy to tell you about.

The footage opened with a giant boat sailing through a torrential downpour in the middle of the night as the Patel family, along with their zoo animals, make the trip from India to America. Excited about the idea of going out to be in the rain, the young Pi Patel (Suraj Sharma) tries to rouse his brother, who simply tells him that he shouldn’t tease the storm. Ignoring the warning, Pi heads to the deck where he has fun at first, but soon realizes that the ship is actually in grave danger and taking on water. Scared, he tries to return to the cabin but finds that the entire inside of the boat has been completely filled with water. Returning to deck, the crew is seen struggling with the lifeboat as animals like hawks, warthogs and monkeys scatter around the deck. As Pi gets on to the lifeboat, a zebra follows him causing the pulley system to fail and sending the lifeboat to the water below with only Pi on it. As he floats further and further away from the ship, he sees something swimming in the water and decides to throw it a life preserver…only to discover that the thing in the water is actually a ferocious Bengal tiger. Fearing for his life, Pi leaps into the water where he sees that the entire ship – with his family still on it – has sunk and is slowly drifting to the bottom of the ocean.

The second scene was a bit more lighthearted. Set during the day, the footage shows Pi still having a lot of trouble dealing with the large cat on his ship. He is then suddenly struck in the face by a tiny fish that has jumped aboard the lifeboat. Seeing an opportunity to try and calm the tiger down, Pi picks up the fish and attempts to throw it to the beast, but it turns out that the fish is actually a flying fish and it takes off. But flying fish travel in schools. Suddenly Pi and the tiger find themselves being attacked by a swarm of fish leaping across the boat, Pi trying to defend himself and the cat trying to catch the creatures in its mouth. When a giant, non-flying fish hops on-board, however, Pi and the tiger once again find themselves at odds, as Pi wants to keep the big fish for himself. Using a hooked staff, the boy is able to keep the tiger at bay and claim the meal as his own.

The first thing that struck me about the footage was its aesthetic beauty. Even in the chaos of both scenes it was impossible to ignore the magnitude and skill of the direction. When Pi leaps off of the lifeboat to try and return to the ship, he is silhouetted underwater against the bright lights of the sunken vessel and it’s a sight to behold (not to mention the tragic magnificence of an aerial shot that shows the lights on the ship flickering out as it sinks lower and lower). Only enhancing the scenes was the 3D, which was used extremely well in the second part, using depth to show Pi’s isolation in the middle of the ocean and making the fish attack more intense.

The Life of Pi opens in theaters on December 21st. To read more about the movie and see the first official image, head over to our Blend Film Database.

Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi was a huge bestseller several years ago, which inevitably made it a target for a Hollywood adaptation. But a series of directors came and went from the project, probably because the fantastical story includes a lot of filmmaking challenges, from incorporating flashbacks to showing a young man trapped on a lifeboat with a 450-pound tiger. M. Night Shyamalan and Jean-Pierre Jeunet were both considering the adaptation before Ang Lee came on board in 2009, and now we've finally got our first look at how Lee will handle the material, with this image from the film (via Criterion Cast). You can click on it for a larger version.

There are a lot of unrealistic and surreal things happening in that shot, from the size of the tiger to the stark cleanliness of the boat to even the serene colors of the sky (that's newcomer Suraj Sharma pictured as Pi, by the way). This picture still gives no indication of how Lee will be telling the story, but the look is intriguing, suggesting he won't be aiming for realism but a kind of subtle lack of reality that reflects the first-person narration of the book. Without spoiling too much about what happens in Life of Pi, the book asks you to believe a lot of things that don't quite seem real, and it's a real question how Lee will translate that kind of power of the narrator into a film, where we're generally told to believe what we see.

Life of Pi isn't the biggest or most Oscar-baity movie opening later this year, but it's bound to be one of the least predictable. The movie opens December 21, right in the thick of the holiday season alongside Tom Cruise's One Shot, Judd Apatow's This Is Forty, and Kathryn Bigelow's untitled Osama bin Laden movie.

Heigh Ho Silver, away! Ride like the wind to Dec., 21 2012, which is when Walt Disney intends to open Jerry Bruckheimer’s big-budget reboot of The Lone Ranger.

Armie Hammer, last seen playing twins in David Fincher’s The Social Network, saddles up alongside Johnny Depp’s Tonto for director Gore Verbinski’s production, which, according to the Hollywood Reporter, takes place in 1869 and focuses on a Texas Ranger who fights Western criminals with the aid of his trusty Indian sidekick. Verbinski, of course, directed the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films with Depp in tow. Earlier this year, the duo teamed for the animated Rango, a box-office smash that has taken in $241 million worldwide to date.

But Verbinski’s Lone Ranger will face some stiff competition during that holiday season. Peter Jackson’s first installment of a two-part Hobbit adaptation hits theaters a week prior on Dec. 14. Meanwhile, Ang Lee’s Life of Pi adaptation recently moved to Dec. 21 to avoid Jackson’s epic, but now will face Ranger, Relativity’s Hunter-Killer and an as-yet-untitled Judd Apatow comedy. The Ranger may need a lot more than his usual sidekick and six-shooter to beat out all that competition.

I read Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi about eight years ago and admit I don't remember it that well, but my salient memories are definitely about a young boy cast away at sea on a boat that also houses a Bengal tiger. With that in mind I can't quite figure out how the film version, which Ang Lee will direct, has already managed to include Gerard Depardieu, Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain and Tabu in the cast, along with newcomer Suraj Sharma to play Pi.

Now the biggest name of all has joined the cast, and I'm even more confused. According to Variety Tobey Maguire is on board to play a journalist who interviews the adult Pi (Khan's role) about his remarkable experiences on the boat. Given that the adult Pi section seems to mostly serve as a frame story it doesn't seem like Maguire's role will be particularly big, but it will reunite him with his Ice Storm director Lee, which may be part of the appeal.

For whatever reason Life of Pi will be shot in 3D, and it's set for a December 14 release this year. WIth the Sundance comedy The Details coming later this year, and the Baz Luhrmann-directed Great Gatsby still on the horizon, Maguire will be fairly busy in the coming months, a stark contrast to his recent post-Spider-Man years in which his only major screen credit was in 2009's Brothers. It's been long enough since Spider-Man 3 to forgive him-- not that the movie's problems were ever his fault to begin with-- and I'll be glad to have Maguire back onscreen where he belongs.

Though the cast of Taking Woodstock is crammed with acting veterans, from Broadway stars like Liev Schreiber and Jonathan Groff to screen talents like Imelda Staunton and Eugene Levy, at the center of everything is a complete newcomer, Demetri Martin. The stand-up comic plays Elliott, the closeted gay son of a pair of Jewish immigrants who provides the permit that makes Woodstock possible, and spends three days witnessing a historic concert that winds up changing his life.

Woodstock is Martin's first major screen role, and at the junket for the movie we talked to him about preparing for the role with Ang Lee, being part of giant scenes among thousands of extras, and having to pretend to take acid. Taking Woodstock opens today, August 28. Check out our interview below.

We've heard Ang Lee isn't really a hands-on director. How did you feel about that jumping in?

For me, it was all new obviously, so I was curious, a little concerned, but mostly kind of curious. Ang had a lot of very specific ideas for me. It wasn't that hands off. He had much more to do with specific performance details than I thought he would. If you look at the movie, there's a lot of scenes where I'm just walking across things, like up a hill. So I'd get to the set, and there would be this elaborate arrangement. Ang would walk me through it, like walk up here, look at the food and be surprised-- and I'd be like, 'OK, be surprised at the food.'

You had a three-week rehearsal period for this film. What was that like?

Each day I didn't quite know what scenes we'd be doing. [Ang] was doing a lot of different thing in those three weeks, but there would be pockets in the day, when they'd say, OK, Ang's ready for you. All of a sudden I'd be in a room with Ang Lee. So I'd do a scene, and he'd be like, do it again, but I want you to be really afraid the whole time. OK? Now do it very loud. I think he was just trying to see what i could do, how much I could give him in different directions.

When they contacted you for this, did you have an acting career in mind already?

Yeah. I realized at some point with stand-up that certain ideas I got were just not a joke. And then you start thinking, let me file that away, and that can be part of a scene, and maybe I can make a film, or a feature. And then I quickly realized, I have to be able to act if I want to do that.

You have something in common with your character, that you came from a family-owned business. What did you parents think when you decided to go into show business?

It's funny, that was really the only parallel that I could find. When I left law school, it was kind of a risk and disappointment to everybody who had raised me and cared about me. So I guess I could draw on that a little bit. The working with the family, I hadn't thought about that, I guess that's true. I worked at my family's diner against my will up until college. I always had to wriggle out of working at the diner. There's a similar thing there for Elliott, this tether to your family. It's part obligation and guilt and family history.

You're playing a simple character, and it's all the characters around you that are the colorful ones. What was that like?

Once I got into production I realized, oh, I'm standing around here a lot. I'm not going to get the ring or anything. I realized quickly, especially as a new actor, if I can just be believable in these scenes, then great, I got through it. It's fun to see these guys who have been there, like Liev. You have a front row seat to this performance, and then how it's different when it's on a flat screen and magnified.

What did you pick up from the variety of people on the set?

If I learned one general thing, it was that, if you're not speaking in a scene, it's so important to not only give to the other actor and stay present and connected, but to realize how much non-verbal communication there is in life. I guess I'm more of a verbal person. With this, each scene seems like a dance, where you have a partner, and you don't want to step on their feet or go too fast or have them dragging you.

Do you have to drop acid to be in that scene?

That was funny, because Ang hadn't dropped acid, and of course I hadn't. So we're standing there, we get to the day, we have all the props and everything, and it's OK, what the hell are we doing here. But David Silver, who was the historian on the movie, but apparently he was a colleague of Timothy Leary's. If he didn't drop acid, it's probably the closest you can get to it. As a comedian you're always taking the piss out of things, so it's funny to be in this honest scene. I hear from off camera "You should probably be worried about your limbs," so I'm like "Where's my arm?" If some of my friends could see me right now, they'd be like "Asshole!"

Liev Schreiber has a reputation as a serious actor. He's played Hamlet onstage, after all, and even in this summer's gloriously ridiculous Wolverine, he brought some depth to his role as Sabretooth. When he walks in for a roundtable interview he definitely doesn't seem like the brooding type, giving thoughtful and friendly answers even to a question about whether he'll be in a Wolverine sequel. But it's when we ask about the research he did to play the part of Vilma, the drag queen security guard in Taking Woodstock, and he gives a 10 minute answer that covers the entire history of drag queens in the 1960s, that that "serious actor" reputation really comes true.

In addition to drag queen history, and his mom's childhood friend named Silverbell, Schreiber talked about working with newcomer Demetri Martin, the spirit of camaraderie on Ang Lee's set, and how helpful it is to walk around in a corset. Read our full interview below. Taking Woodstock opens today, August 28.

How was working with Demetri Martin?

I thought he did great. He was under the misguided perception that, because I had done films before, that I would be able to help him somehow. It really was no more than saying, 'You have the incredible good fortune of making your first feature film with Ang Lee. So just relax, and go with it.' Film is such a bizarre vehicle for acting. It's such a bizarre experience. I don't think you ever really get familiar with it. If you do get familiar with it, you're probably not that good anymore.

There's a lot of attention to detail in the movie. Did you get that sense on the set as well?

Yeah, I think that's one of the things that really defines Ang as a director. He's a very careful observer, particularly in relation to period films, he's very good at that. In a lot of ways [the set] really mirrored the environment of Woodstock. That spirit of camaraderie and compassion really showed up on our set. People were taking care of each other. People knew who my character was, and they'd go "woo hoo!" when I walked by. If there was a problem on the set, it was like "Go Vilma!" because I was security.

If you were coming of age during the era, what would you have done at Woodstock?

I wonder if I would have had the gumption to go up there. I certainly would have loved to have been there, I just don't know if I would have been able to get off the couch and sit in traffic for a day to get there. It's not like me. I'm a typically lazy person. It is sort of characteristic of actors. Maybe I just speak for myself but as self-consumed as they can be, and narcissistic and needy and all those cliches, most of them are more observers than they are participators. If iI had went it would have been to watch. I probably would have been very self-conscious.

What kind of research did you do to play Vilma?

I did a lot of research. I got down to my fitting, and [costume designer] Joe [Aulisi] showed me pictures of drag queens, circa 1950 drag queens. I just hated it. Doing drag can really run the risk of being cliche. Also the script felt like it ran the risk of being farcical and hokey. Playing a character with such extremes was begging a kind of comedy that I thought could potentially be pretty shallow.

I did some research into what was going on in terms of the sexual revolution that was happening in the 60s in the gay community and particularly in the drag world. Before the 60s, guys doing drag would dress like their mothers or iconic Hollywood actresses. In the 60s you started to see guys incorporating much more artistic and much more imaginative characterizations. I thought trying to bring some of that element to this would be a good idea.

Also, I didn't really see Vilma as a drag queen. I saw Vilma as a gay man who liked to wear women's clothing. It was a lifestyle choice, it wasn't a drag choice. My mother had a friend, a guy named Silverbell, when I was little kid, who lived like this. He was 60 years old and had long silver beard and long hair and he wore women's clothing-- he didn't wear a lot of dresses, but he wore a lot of long, flowy silk pants-- and he had a beard and big rings and he would wear eyeliner. It just was uncomfortable for a 6'2 man to wear high heels, so he would often wear sandals, but beautiful sandals. He wouldn't bother shaving his face, because it was too much of a pain in the ass. And for me that was something very real from my childhood that I thought was fascinating, in terms of playing a character that represents contradictions. And the endgame of that is delivering a message about acceptance to Elilott-- if Vilma is comfortable i his own skin, anybody should be.

There's an interesting physicality to the character, since you've very big and muscular, but there's a grace to it. How did you work that out?

I think Ang liked the contradiction of a muscular man who wants to be a woman, or wants to live as a woman. Anything that involved contradiction was good for Vilma. But, when you've got a guy that old who wants to live in that way, you've got to assume that he's had some experience, so he's got to be good at it to some extent. Or at least he's gotten to a place where he's comfortable with it. So yeah, you've got to practice. you've got to watch the way you move. I spent a few weeks in a corset. I think walking in corsets really helped. The other thing is also, you put on a dress and it really does affect how you move. You keep trying on clothes until something inspires some movement.