When it comes to Shakespeare's tragedies, King Lear never made the short list of personal favorites. Maybe it was Cordelia, one of the biggest doormats in dramatic history, or maybe a play about madness and aging isn't best served to high school students. But, as long as there are actors who want to sink their teeth into lines like, "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport", then the mad king will live on. The Guardian has now confirmed that Naomi Watts will be joining Keira Knightley and Gwyneth Paltrow as the 'daughters Lear' in the big-budgeted version of Shakespeare's classic play, also starring Anthony Hopkins.

The story of Lear centers on a mighty king dividing his estate among his three daughters: Cordelia (Knightley), Regan (Paltrow) and Goneril (Watts). When Cordeila is unable to blow enough smoke up the royal butt, she is disowned, and the lion's share of the throne goes to her sisters. But we all know about 'fatal flaws' in Shakespeare, and it turns out that Regan and Goneril are hardly the loving daughters they claimed to be.

The project was announced back in May at Cannes, with a projected budget of $35 million. Most of that is expected to go towards the epic battle sequences that occur when the kingdom descends into the family feud to end all feuds -- not to mention $35 million can buy an awful lot of tights.

King Lear is expected to start production early next year and should arrive in theaters in 2010.

William Shakespeare. He's the guy to go to for stories, either as old-English recreations or complete reimaginings. We've had a million tales of Romeo and Juliet and other classics like Macbeth, Hamlet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. We've gotten a stunning look into pulpy Will with Julie Taymor's Titus. We're still not getting a big-screen Coriolanus (argh!), but we are getting more King Lear.

The Telegraph reports that a new $35 million feature adaptation of the famous play has been announced at Cannes. Anthony Hopkins (who happened to play Titus in Taymor's film) will play King Lear, Keira Knightley is set to play his youngest daughter, Cordelia, and Gwyneth Paltrow has been tipped to become Regan, the middle sister. (Goneril, the oldest, hasn't been cast yet.) Talk about a sweet Shakespeare cast! This will pit Hopkins against Ian McKellen's work in a Channel 4 adaptation of the play (one that has Sir Ian in the buff), but I imagine he'll hold his own quite nicely.

If you need a Lear refresher -- this is the tale about King Lear's decision to divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters -- the size of each split determined by how wonderfully they praise their father. Cordelia refuses to continue the dishonest flattery, and gets disowned. Not surprisingly, her crappy sisters become cold to their supposedly cherished father, and Lear begins to see the error of his ways. The adaptation is said to feature "epic battle sequences" of the wars that follow.

I'm digging the cast so far, but who should play Goneril? Julianne Moore?

One of the many nice moments in Iron Man comes as techno-titan Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) is consulting with his artificial intelligence majordomo, Jarvis, about the fabrication of the newest version of the high-tech power armor Stark intends to use to stop evil and protect the innocent. Looking at a holographic simulation of the proposed design of the glittering, golden armor -- which enables its wearer to fly, lift cars, shoot energy beams, withstand bullets and includes many other clever bits of engineering -- Stark makes a brief request regarding the color scheme: "Why don't you throw a little hot rod red in there?" Stark seems to be saying Sure, it's fancy and expensive and technologically majestic and wonderful, but a little style can still go a long way. ...

And as it is with the Iron Man armor, so it is with the Iron Man movie. Marvel Comics' first foray into self-financed film making has movie stars and impressive effects and a script where every plot point you would expect meshes with its neighbors as precisely as the plates and pieces of Stark's armor do, but it's the touches of style that make it truly sizzle. Director Jon Favreau does not seem like a choice you would expect as the director of a comic-book movie; Robert Downey Jr. does not seem like a choice you would expect as the star of a comic-book film. Between the two of them, they give us something different from the comic-book movies we've come to expect; a little swagger, a little strut, a touch of self-mocking humor that never undercuts the pleasures of the thing being mocked. It's as if someone snuck a hefty slug of bourbon into your cherry cola; all of the sugar and flavor and fizz you expect from a well-made comic-book movie are there, but there's something a little more grown-up going on behind them.

Forget about all the fantastic action. Dismiss the disarmingly smart, wry screenplay, and ignore the phenomenal supporting cast. Feel free to overlook the dozen components that make Jon Favreau's Iron Man the most uniquely entertaining superhero movie in a long time ... I've got the one main reason that this flick is worthy of your two hours and ten bucks right here, and that reason is named Robert Downey Jr. Like many movie fans of my generation, I consider Downey to be sort of an old friend. We all wept when Jami Gertz noticed his odd demise in Less Than Zero, we loved watching his evolution in films like True Believer and Chaplin, and we all felt pretty great when the guy finally kicked his well-publicized drug addiction.

Downey is a survivor, no doubt, and he's also a refreshingly engaging actor to watch -- and boy was I thrilled when Marvel announced that this would be the guy to portray Tony Stark. To those who don't know the Stark character from the comic books, let me just make it clear: Downey is the perfect guy to play a smug yet charming, sarcastic yet likable, and perpetually womanizing multi-billionaire mega-genius with a bum ticker. We all know the guy can play sly, snarky, smart characters, so much of Iron Man's early stuff is light lifting for the actor -- but when he starts getting angry? Noble? Heroic? The guy is aces across the board. Bottom Line: Downey has paid his dues, he's been through a lot of hell, and now he's a freakin' superhero who delivers the best popcorn flick performance since Johnny Depp first played pirate. Sometimes Hollywood actually works.

I hope you appreciate the sacrifices I make for my job; having managed to successfully avoid anything even remotely 'spoilerish' about Iron Man (I was so anal I was even not watching all the trailers just in case they ruined any surprises), I finally cracked and watched four behind-the-scenes videos for the big budget comic book flick. Luckily for me there wasn't anything too revealing, although one of the videos gives you a preview of what it takes to get star Robert Downey Jr. into that suit (and let's just say it suddenly doesn't look so high tech when it takes four costume people to wedge you into the thing).

Despite starting its road to production as a low-budget comic book movie back in 1990, Iron Man has become one of the most anxiously awaited summer movies (and that is hard to do when your competition is Indiana Jones and Batman). These videos are just the latest in a series of trailers and teasers for the film, hell; there was even a VH1 satire on the Fabulous Life of Tony Stark. But all the marketing will finally come to an end, and I'm pretty sure it is going to be worth the wait. Iron Man opens in theaters on May 2nd.

Welcome back to another edition of Insert Caption -- the game Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow might be addicted to (we don't know them personally, but we definitely have a hunch)! Last week, we asked you to give us your breas ... er, best captions for a photo from the new movie Baby Mama, which hits theaters today. Congrats to all three of our winners; your captions were a real tit hit around the office.

1. "Careful, Kid, you'll suck your eye out" -- Ross J.

2. "Be careful! When you've got milk goggles on, every baby looks cute." -- Nathan T.

3. "This is cool and all, but why not just buy the milk?" -- Lou T.

See full image and all captions



Do you hear that? Smell it? Oh yes, it's summer -- and it's finally here (in movie form, that is)! This week on Insert Caption, we're gettin' our feet wet on a little film called Iron Man. You may have heard us talk about it once or twice before -- it's a small, character-driven piece about ... screw it -- it's friggin' IRON MAN! Now check this out: The 10 winning captions (yup, 10!) will fly away with one LG "the V" cell phone (pictured right, click to learn more) and one Iron Man poster. 10 phones. 10 posters. It's gonna be a BIG summer folks, so why not give away some equally-as-big prizes, right? We're exposing our round, shiny hearts to all of you in the hopes you'll reward us with humor in the comments below (we're such a cheap date) ...

Read the official rules for this contest

Ah, remember the days when The Onion was just a simple newspaper three of your friends kinda knew about? You'd sit, snicker and try desperately to convince people to read this free, fake funny thingy. Mmmm. Now The Onion has gone video, and the one above is just priceless. In case you were living under a truck for the past year, the Iron Man trailer debuted and took the world by storm. Now, looking to profit off the millions of folks who want to see more of the trailer, the studio has decided to adapt it into a full-length film. (Unfortunately, out of the 758 Iron Man trailers currently available online, they do not say which one will be getting the feature treatment. One assumes, however, it will be the seventh international teaser extended intro scene.)

Luckily, those crazy cats at The Onion were all over this story -- debating whether or not it's smart to extend what most people felt was an excellent trailer 179 more minutes. Good news is Robert Downey Jr. has decided to reprise his role from the trailer (fans would've freaked if they re-cast the character) and reporters from The Onion do hope they bring back that pretty red head played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Amen to that! Says The Onion, "The studio has tried to reassure the public that everything they love about the trailer will be incorporated into the movie, right down to the actual lines from the trailer."

Awesome. Could go either way here -- but what do you think: Would you pay to go see a feature-length trailer?

[via The Movie Blog]

The Amateurs (formerly The Moguls), the directorial debut of writer/director Michael Traeger, is an underdog comedy about a group of small-town losers who decide to raise money by making a porno film. It's got a wonderful supporting cast that includes Joe Pantoliano, William Fichtner, Tim Blake Nelson, and Lauren Graham. Cinematical recently attended a press junket with the film's stars -- Jeff Bridges and Ted Danson, who were interviewed separately. Needless to say, meeting The Dude and Sam Malone in the same day was kind of a big deal! First up was Mr. Bridges...

What attracted you to the The Amateurs and the role of Andy?

Jeff Bridges: Like most of the movies I get involved with, I resisted it as long as possible. I always try to figure out why I shouldn't do it, and with this one there were plenty of reasons not to do it. What attracted me to it in the first place is that it was so unusual. It put this porn aspect and this Frank Capra aspect together, and I thought that was really interesting, very ambitious. But I didn't know if this guy who had never directed a film would be able to pull it off. Also, I've done movies in the past that have a lot of characters, and I find them hard to follow and you wind up not caring about any of the people, and I thought that might be the case with this one. But my representatives kept telling me I should do it, so finally I said "Alright. I want you guys to organize a reading, and I want you to see that this thing's not going to work at all." So we had a table read, and it just flew, it was just great. I think it works very well.

When the release started to get delayed, did any of that old skepticism start to come back, like maybe something did go wrong?

JB: No, I didn't really get all the ins and outs of why it didn't get released, it's very convoluted and I haven't heard all the sides and the stories, but it wasn't because of the nature of the film or anything like that. I think it was more business type stuff.

According to the New York Daily News, Catherine Zeta-Jones will no longer co-star in Nine, the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, which itself was an adaptation of Fellini's classic film 8 1/2. Zeta-Jones would have played the role of Claudia, "the alluring muse of skirt-chasing director Guido Contini." The reason for the falling out is allegedly -- it's always allegedly with the Daily News -- because director Rob Marshall (the inexplicably Best Picture-winning Chicago) "wouldn't give in to her demand to beef up her role." The script is adapted by Michael Tolkin (The Player), and apparently the creative team wasn't willing to change the story around. A friend of Zeta-Jones told the Daily News "She was never 100% committed to Nine. She had a meeting with Rob. She'd love to work with him again. But she felt she'd done the same sort of role in Chicago. The script wasn't an issue."

Marshall has moved on and is looking for a younger actress to hop in and play Claudia. The list of possibles includes Natalie Portman, Liv Tyler, Keira Knightley, Kate Hudson, and Gwyneth Paltrow. (In what world is Gwyneth Paltrow a reasonable substitute for Zeta-Jones?) The cast of Nine, one of the more attractive bunches of actors in recent memory, features Javier Bardem as Guido, Sophia Loren as Guido's mother, Penelope Cruz as his mistress Carla, and Marion Cotillard as Luisa Contini. Reportedly (another word for "allegedly"), Katie Holmes was "heartbroken" when Marshall turned her down for a role. Who would you guys like to see in the part? We'll keep you posted on how this drama turns out.

Additionally, Variety has announced today that the Weinstein Co. has officially delayed production on Nine due to the script not being ready.

Almost two months after the domestic trailer for Iron Man popped up online, the international teaser has hit YouTube. This sucker is filled with all sorts of action and educational facts about changing trailers for international audiences. Apparently, they don't want beginning exposition, Robert Downey Jr.'s snark, and a build up to the explosions -- they want the big bang and Iron Man action right off the bat. Unfortunately, Black Sabbath doesn't get international love, which is a damned shame -- what's Iron Man without "Iron Man?" And finally, Gwyneth Paltrow gets more play overseas.

If you're an Iron Man fan, or a Paltrow fiend for that matter, you'll want to check this out. It's got a lot of the same scenes, but it focuses much more on the post-suit story instead of the lead-up to its creation. Tony Stark wants "to protect the people that I have put in harm's way!" Pepper Pots, meanwhile, is worried that he'll kill himself. It's the typical struggle between the desire to do good at the risk of oneself, and those that worry about the fearless hero. Sounds good to me.

Even still, the rest of the flick could be junk and I'd still see it. There's little Downey Jr. does that isn't, at the very least, decent. (Although I have no idea why he took a role in Lucky You; I've seen many people's faces contort in pain over memories of watching that.) But I still have one request -- they should make an "Iron Man" music video with RDJ as Ozzy for the DVD. That would be the perfect heroic cherry to this sundae.

[via Coming Soon]

It is always a curiosity when Hollywood families come together for a project. I love seeing the Estevezes (aka Sheens) appear together -- sure, even in Men at Work. And sometimes the Coppolas do well with one another -- Talia Shire in her brother's Godfather movies, for example. But often it is a bad idea to work with or cast family members. The most obvious case is Sofia Coppola (Shire's niece) being in her father's The Godfather: Part III. Just recently Jake Paltrow received a paltry reception for a movie he made featuring his sister, Gwyneth. Now, another new filmmaker is attempting a similar feat: According to Variety, Bruce Dern will make his directorial debut with Hart's Location, in which he'll appear alongside his ex-wife, Diane Ladd, and his daughter, Laura Dern. Written by Ashley Reed, the film will appropriately be about family estrangement. Laura will star as a woman seeking to regain custody of her son while also attempting to locate her father, who left when she was 3.

It is worth noting that Diane Ladd has been nominated for three Oscars, all for films in which her daughter also appears (Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore; Wild at Heart; Rambling Rose). The last of these even saw a nomination for Laura, as well, marking the first time a mother and daughter were ever recognized by the Academy for the same film. So, for the women, at least, Hart's Location seems to be a great idea. Maybe there's more Oscars in their future. On the other hand, it also seems to have a sort of novelty to it, like the badly-received It Runs in the Family, which featured a lot of the Douglases (Michael, Kirk, Cameron and Diana), in what appeared to exist just for the stunt-casting. Like that movie, Hart's Location also unites a real-life divorced couple (Dern and Ladd parted ways in 1969). Interestingly enough, though, Ladd has already directed her ex-husband, in 1994's little-seen Mrs. Munck. Hopefully Dern can do better in this reversal of roles. As long as he spends more attention on making a good movie rather than on working out his personal issues (he told Daily Variety that the project makes sense for them because it's about the things you wish you'd said to your family members), then I'll be looking forward to it. The film begins shooting in New Orleans in February.

If there was ever a song that had to be played in a specific trailer, it was Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" that had to be played in the spot for Paramount and Marvel's Iron Man. Well, Apple has the first trailer up -- apparently a good 12 hours earlier than planned -- with the appropriate tune and far more footage than I could have hoped for. For something called a teaser trailer, it shows us a lot: a fairly comprehensive montage of the first act; a battle scene in which Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) wears his first Iron Man suit; the final suit and a cool flight sequence in which it is showcased. Plus, there's jokes. Myspace jokes, gang sign jokes, Da Vinci jokes. It is obvious that Robert Downey Jr. was the right choice for the lead. Of course, as it is technically a teaser, we don't see more than a few quick shots each of Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard and Jeff Bridges (bald and Malovichy!). But I think they also accidentally slipped in a party shot from Downey's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

I have to admit for the umpteenth time that I never cared for Iron Man in the comics, but in the movie he looks pretty cool. For those of you who aren't familiar with the character, Tony Stark is a millionaire weapons maker who develops an armored suit, which he uses to fight crime as Iron Man. Paltrow plays Stark's secretary/love interest, Pepper Pots. Howard plays Stark's best friend and future superhero, Jim Rhodes (aka War Machine). As the villain, Bridges plays Stark's rival, Obadiah Stane. Also in the film are Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Hilary Swank, Ghostface Killer and, of course, Stan Lee. The comic book adaptation was written by Arthur Marcum & Matt Holloway and Children of Men scribes Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby and it was directed by Jon Favreau (Elf). Iron Man hits theaters May 2, 2008.

Update: It seems Apple may have realized their error in putting the trailer up too early, because the Quicktime pages no longer seem to be working. Check out tonight's episode of The Hills on MTV in order to see the trailer, or wait for tomorrow to see it online. Meanwhile, you can see some screen caps from the trailer on MajorSpoilers.com.

Update II: Forget the first update. Perhaps too much traffic is causing the Quicktime files some stress.

Since his 1994 debut, Little Odessa, filmmaker James Gray has been sparse with output. It took six years for him to deliver his follow-up, The Yards, and another seven years to give us We Own the Night, which premiered earlier this year at Cannes and opens in theaters on October 12. However, there won't be such a long wait for Gray's fourth film; titled Two Lovers, the film begins shooting in November with Gray regular Joaquin Phoenix and possibly Gwyneth Paltrow, who is in final negotiations. Two Lovers marks a third collaboration with Phoenix, who starred in both The Yards and We Own the Night. If there's a part somewhere for Mark Wahlberg, it could be a perfect reunion. Our own James Rocchi reviewed We Own the Night at Cannes, highlighting the performances of Phoenix and Wahlberg, who also co-starred in The Yards.

According to Variety, Two Lovers will star Phoenix as a Brooklyn man torn between two women. There's the family friend who his parents are trying to set him up with, and then there's the beautiful new neighbor who he prefers and with whom he falls in love. I'm going to go ahead and guess that Paltrow is being cast as the neighbor. The script is by Gray and Ric Menello, who wrote the Run-DMC vehicle Tougher Than Leather and who received a 'Thanks' credit for The Yards. It will be produced by Oscar-winner Donna Gigliotti (Shakespeare in Love) and Anthony Katagas (We Own the Night), while being overseen by 2929 Production's Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban and Marc Butan. If all goes well, Gray could have only a year between his third and fourth films -- we would have settled for anything fewer than five -- which will very good for his career if We Own the Night performs a lot better than his prior work.

While sporting some serious heels that looked like they might be able to give the Iron Man armor a run for it's money, Gwyneth Paltrow gracefully strutted into our interview and talked about her return to sci-fi, how she approached Pepper Potts, husband Chris Martin's acting in Extras, and her bone-breaking injury.

Click on Gwyneth to hear the interview, which includes highlights like:

• What it's been like working on Iron Man as compared to Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow.
• Exactly what happened to her leg. (Ouch!)
• She's been a been fan of both Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau, and signed on to play Pepper Potts even before reading the script.
• She used to watch Jeff Bridges in The Jagged Edge on Betamax when she was a kid, and loved working with him in this film, "He's the Big Lebowski!"
• Longtime Iron Man buddy Happy Hogan WILL be in this film, although she wasn't really allowed to say who will be playing him. Based on the love for Jeff Bridges that she kept mentioning, signs are pointing to the fact that it'll be him.
• "This is not just a movie for guys ... I think women will be happy to accompany their guys to it."
• She is "very organized" like Pepper Potts, but says she doesn't have a complicated relationship with a superhero. "Well, I kind of do," referring to hubby Chris Martin, of Coldplay.
• The idea of her children one day playing with a Pepper Potts action figure is, "Kind of weird."

You may have noticed that, about an hour ago, prominent movie website IESB.net came back to life after being down for an extended period of time. Here's what happened in a nutshell: After IESB posted some spy video and images of Iron Monger on the set of Iron Man, Paramount Pictures went ballistic and sent a legal letter to the IESB host demanding the site be shut down for copyright infrigement. That much was pretty much common knowledge, but I got a more detailed account today from IESB's Stephanie Sanchez. "We were not notified in any way, or asked to take it down," Stephanie says. "We were literally in the middle of posting a story and all of a sudden our server was gone. We called our hosting company, they transferred us to legal and we were forwarded the letter that was sent from Paramount on Friday that demanded the shut down. Note, this is a letter we were never sent and weren't given any warning about."

Stephanie continues: "Here's the kicker. The video and pictures that were in question were in no way property of Paramount. Both were shot from a parking lot of a 24 hour fitness center across the street from the Iron Man shoot that was taking place on a public street in Long Beach, CA. There was no violation of copyright whatsoever. After hours on the phone yesterday with Paramount reps (who had no clue about it) they completely apologized and said this should have never happened. It was the idiots in the Paramount legal department who did this." Stephanie also notes that after this ordeal, IESB has "lost respect for the studio, we lost out financially and most importantly it was just really a blow to our reputation." She also says IESB will be posting a letter to readers today giving more details, and thanks the online community for their support.