Movie News & Gossip

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire," directed by Lee Daniels, is generating a large amount of Oscar buzz this season and getting a push from executive producers Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry.

Prior to this film, Daniels was best known for producing "Monster's Ball" in which he cast Halle Berry in the role of a downtrodden, small town waitress that saw her make history when she became the first black woman to win a best actress Oscar.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Invictus" screenwriter Anthony Peckham has been hired to work on the script for the DreamWorks Studios action project "Deep Sea Cowboys."

He will bring his take to adapting Joshua Davis' Wired article about a salvage crew trying to save a capsized Japanese cargo ship. The real-time action scenario will explore how a tight-knit crew races to save the ship's dangerous cargo and claim its reward.

LONDON (Reuters) - Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf won the Freedom to Create Prize on Wednesday, and dedicated his award to leading cleric Hossein Ali Montazeri and the popular opposition movement he supports.

Makhmalbaf, 52, is a respected film maker who won international acclaim with his 2001 Afghan picture "Kandahar."

LONDON (Reuters) - New Zealand's Peter Jackson takes a break from blockbusters with "The Lovely Bones," an adaptation of Alice Sebold's bestselling novel about girl who is brutally raped and murdered and who looks down on her family from heaven.

The film, starring Rachel Weisz and Mark Wahlberg as the girl's grieving parents, had a royal world premiere in London late on Tuesday attended by the Prince of Wales.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The narrative behind "The Princess and the Frog" is that Walt Disney Animation has rediscovered its traditional hand-drawn animation, which has been supplanted by computer-generated cartoons. But this misses the point about what allowed Pixar -- which Disney now owns -- DreamWorks and other CG-animation companies to upstage the one-time king of the animation world. It's a thing called story.

So "Princess and the Frog" really marks Disney's rediscovery of a strong narrative loaded with vibrant characters and mind-bending, hilarious situations. Under the direction of veterans Ron Clements and John Musker (the team behind "The Little Mermaid" and "Aladdin") and the watchful eye of Pixar guru John Lasseter, now chief creative officer of Disney Animation, "Princess and the Frog" celebrates old and new: It's a musical fairy tale that dates back to the days when Walt Disney was a person, not a brand. Yet it deftly mingles with the new sensibilities in animation where fairy tales must get fractured, settings must be fresh and humor must be pitched to many age levels.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Since they are old dogs, there are no new tricks in Walt Disney's "Old Dogs," a shamelessly predictable, overly broad comedy aimed at the family audience starting Thanksgiving weekend. One could debate whether John Travolta or Robin Williams have reached an age to be mistaken for grandfathers, but they certain don't shy away from jokes their grandfathers would have groaned about.

Apparently, the working principle is if it's old, let's use it. There is one mild -- really, really mild -- gag that hints we are in an age that doesn't freak out that gay people exist. That's about as bold as "Old Dogs" gets. The film, opening Wednesday (November 25), should play well this weekend for grandparents and youngsters, after which any staying power it demonstrates will be a tribute to the stars' names and the Disney brand.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer have been given the keys to "Uncharted: Drake Fortune."

Columbia Pictures has tapped the screenwriting duo to pen the adaptation of the video game.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Final box office figures for "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" showed the movie's ticket sales rising to $142.8 million from an estimated $140.7 million last weekend, the studio behind the film said on Monday.

"New Moon" opened on Friday as a sequel to last year's "Twilight." It enjoyed the biggest opening weekend of 2009 and placed third for the top opening weekend ever behind last year's Batman movie "The Dark Knight" ($158 million) and 2007's "Spider-Man 3" ($151 million).