anthony minghella
Academy Allows Four ‘Reader’ Producers — None Named ‘Scott Rudin’
6:30AM STV | We can officially cross one of this year’s must-watch Oscar subplots off our list, with the Academy announcing a rare exception of four producers for Best Picture nominee The Reader. More »
Kate Winslet Oscar Bait Doubles Overnight as Weinsteins Bump Up ‘The Reader’
4:10AM STV | The last news we’d heard about Kate Winslet’s post-WWII drama The Reader was less than reassuring: While the film ultimately got its first choice of leading lady after a pregnant Nicole Kidman backed out, the successive passings of co-producers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack left Scott Rudin on his own with the broke-arse Weinsteins to manoeuvre the Oscar push everyone had in mind. Then, as recently as last month, Defamer operatives whispered that The Reader wouldn’t make it to 2008 at all, instead landing somewhere of TWC’s choosing in 2009 — if it could afford to release it at all.Oscar-Winning Director Sydney Pollack Dead at 73
12:50PM Defamer Hollywood | Sydney Pollack, the director, producer and actor whose 1985 drama Out of Africa earned him that year’s Best Picture and Director Oscars, died today at his home in Pacific Palisades. He was 73. He had suffered from cancer for more than a year, completing his final film — the documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry — in 2005. Pollack worked at the helm of benchmarks in three decades including They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (for which he earned his first Oscar nomination), The Way We Were, Three Days of the Condor and Tootsie. He found his most significant acclaim after directing Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in Out of Africa, going on to work with Tom Cruise (The Firm), Harrison Ford (Sabrina, Random Hearts) and Nicole Kidman (The Interpreter) in the years that followed. More »
‘NY Mag’ Critic Manages Impossible Task of Compelling Sympathy For Harvey Weinstein
8:00AM Defamer Hollywood | Harvey Weinstein’s tough week didn’t get any easier today, with his Marley family squabbles and Star Wars-geek travails cycling back around this morning to the Anthony Minghella tragedy that started it all. Except that film critic David Edelstein had more than what you might call a moment of clarity in his New York Magazine blog entry slamming Harvey for the filmmaker’s artistic demise:
Minghella’s Hand-Picked Replacement Kapur to Take Over Unfinished Project
8:18AM Defamer Hollywood | Filmmaker Anthony Minghella is staying in the news a week after his death, with Defamer learning that Elizabeth director Shekhar Kapur will complete Minghella’s portion of the currently filming omnibus project New York, I Love You. A rep for the project confirmed that Minghella handpicked Kapur prior to undergoing the fateful March 18 operation to treat his tonsil cancer. “He knew he was going into surgery and was unsure of whether or not he would recover fast enough to be able to direct the film,” Defamer was told this afternoon. “The production team obviously all hoped Anthony would recover, but they were relieved he had chosen someone of his own to direct the piece he wrote. It worked out well for all the parties.” More »
Last Film Still Up In Air as Colleagues Remember Anthony Minghella
5:08AM Defamer Hollywood | Details regarding director Anthony Minghella’s sudden death early this morning are finally emerging, with the official cause of death now listed as a brain hemorrhage, which may have been a result of surgery he had several days ago to remove a growth in his neck. Harvey Weinstein, a longtime collaborator of Minghella’s who distributed all five of his theatrical features in the States (ultimately handling his final film, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, as a TV pilot with HBO and the BBC), issued a poignant remembrance to Variety: More »
