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Thursday, April 13, 2017

Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks and More Stars Remember Barack Obama’s Presidency in Moving Tribute

As President Barack Obama prepares to leave the Oval Office later this month, his administration compiled a moving tribute video, which was posted earlier this week on the official White House YouTube page.

In the clip, celebrities, politicians, and normal citizens all spoke about their “Obama Moment” from his eight years in office.

“Knocking on the Oval Office window, I would say. That was probably the peak of my entire existence,” comedian Jerry Seinfeld recalled of a sketch he did with the president for his web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

Others remembered his historic inauguration in 2008, with Scandal star Kerry Washington saying, “You felt those first three words of the Constitution, ‘We the people.’ It was one of those first times in my life that I felt I was really part of that ‘We.’”

“I never cried before, from an election result,” singer John Legend added.

Tom Hanks recalled Obama’s great strides with Cuba, saying, “When he just changed all the rules on the table in regards to Cuba with the most succinct motivation imaginable, which was, ‘What we’ve been doing hasn’t worked,’ which made all the sense in the world.”

And longtime climate change advocate and humanitarian Leonardo DiCaprio applauded the president for his work to help protect planet Earth.

Empire star and openly gay actor Jussie Smollett cited Obama’s public support for the LGBT community as his most memorable moment, specifically referencing Obama’s pro-same-sex marriage stance.

Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres kept things light, saying, “Dancing with Barack at his birthday party! He’s a good dancer. He should not get any flack for that.”

And record-breaking athlete Michael Jordan noted that Obama’s legacy will live on long after he leaves the White House, saying, “How often do we remember Jackie Robinson? Everybody does. To me, he would be the Jackie Robinson of politics from my standpoint.”

Watch the clip for more inspirational memories. And to see moments from the Obamas’ final days in office, watch the video below!


Go Inside President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama's Final White House State Dinner

Friday, October 30, 2015

Tom Hanks and Daniel Radcliffe to attend London film festival

Tom Hanks, Carey Mulligan and Daniel Radcliffe are among the stars attending this year's BFI London Film Festival, organisers have announced.

The event, which begins on 9 October, will show 234 fiction and documentary features including 22 world premieres.

Judi Dench and Steve Coogan are due on the red carpet for the gala screening of Stephen Frears' film, Philomena.

The festival will also unveil Steve McQueen's 12 Years A Slave, starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
Cumberbatch stars alongside Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender and Chiwetel Ejiofor in the historical drama based on Solomon Northup's autobiography of the same name, about a free black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery.

Hanks will open the festival with his latest film, Captain Phillips, directed by British Bourne Identity filmmaker Paul Greengrass.

The biopic tells the story of Captain Richard Phillips, who was taken hostage by Somali Pirates during the Maersk Alabama hijacking in 2009.

Saving Mr Banks, the untold story of how the Disney classic Mary Poppins made it to the screen - which also stars Hanks alongside Emma Thompson, will close the festival.

Other big hitters to be screened include the sci-fi thriller Gravity, starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, The Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis and the critically acclaimed lesbian drama, Blue is the Warmest Colour.

Thirteen films will compete in the official competition including Jonathan Glazer's Under The Skin starring Scarlett Johansson as a man-eating alien; Parkland, Peter Landesman's film about events in Dallas, Texas on the day President John F Kennedy was assassinated; and Starred Up from British director David Mackenzie.

The first feature category includes John Krokidas's debut, Kill Your Darlings, which stars Radcliffe as Beat poet Allen Ginsberg; and Sixteen, about a former child soldier in the Congo looking for a fresh start in London, starring Rachael Stirling.

The festival will host 16 international premieres and 29 European premieres. There will also be screenings of 134 live action and animated shorts.

The only world premiere is John Noel's The Epic Of Everest, which charts the famous 1924 Everest expedition.

High School Goes 'Big' to Get Tom Hanks to Attend Homecoming

One high school is rolling out the red carpet with a “Big” social media campaign in hopes of getting Hollywood A-lister, Tom Hanks, to attend their homecoming on October 9. 

“Our homecoming is huge. It’s a small town, about 14,000 people,” Margaret Nichols, the assistant principal at Kerman High School in Kerman, California, told ABC News. “Homecoming is a huge event for our whole community so each year we pick a theme. This year it’s Tom Hanks movies. And then everyone thought, ‘Well, let's try to get him here.’” 

And that’s exactly what they’re doing. The entire community has launched a huge social media campaign, creating Twitter and Facebook pages under the name and hashtag #TomHanks2KermanHC to try to get the actor’s attention. 

“Our pie in the sky dream would be for him to come be our Grand Marshal, but even a personal shout out on social media or a 15-second video would be great,” said Nichols. “Just for him to acknowledge us, the kids would be so excited.” 

The school coincidentally does have a connection to Hanks, albeit small. A former Kerman high school Principal is related to the Oscar-winner. 

“I grew up in Kerman. I’ve been here all my life and went to school here,” Nichols explained. “My principal when I was here is actually second cousins with him, but he hasn’t seen him in 30 years.”
The students have been busy creating banners and signs to place all over the school in celebration of their Tom Hanks-themed homecoming. They’re even using entertaining catch phrases to get Hanks’ attention. 

“Life is like a box of chocolates, and it will be even sweeter if you come to Kerman’s homecoming,” one student told local ABC affiliate, KFSN. 

“There’s no crying in baseball but there will be some crying in Kerman if you don’t show up to homecoming,” said another. 

So far the seniors have chosen to make a “Forrest Gump”-themed float, the juniors are doing a “Toy Story” float and the sophomores are working on a “Big”-themed float. The freshmen haven’t decided yet (because they were waiting on the seniors to decide first), but will know shortly. 

“The underlying idea was to bring our campus and community together to go towards one goal and it’s really happening,” Nichols said of their homecoming efforts. “The teachers are all really on board and it’s created a buzz and it’s just gone all over and you can just feel the excitement in the air.” 

More than anything, the entire community would love Tom Hanks to acknowledge the social media campaign to give these students the story of a lifetime. 

“Oh my gosh, I would be so excited for the kids,” said Nichols. “They’ve worked so hard and they’re very passionately attached to this campaign. Just to see their excitement would mean everything. We have a great student body and I’d love to see it happen for them. We’re trying to keep their hopes up but I also don’t want them to be crushed. If he could just acknowledge us at least, that would mean the world.” 

ABC News has reached out to Tom Hanks’ representatives with no response … yet.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Tom Hanks to play Captain Sully in Miracle on the Hudson movie

Riding high on the success of American Sniper, Clint Eastwood announced earlier this month that he’s developing a movie based on the story of Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberg, the pilot who successfully landed a commercial airliner in the Hudson River after its engines failed. Now it appears that Eastwood could have some serious star power lined up for the project, with two-time Oscar-winner Tom Hanks in the lead role.
Hanks is currently in talks to portray the celebrated pilot, according to Deadline, although nothing is official at this point.
The film will reportedly be based on Sullenberg’s 2009 autobiography Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters, which he wrote with Jeffrey Zaslow. The book covers the time leading up to and following the 2009 emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549, which lost power in both engines after a flock of Canadian Geese struck the plane shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Unable to reach a viable airport and descending rapidly, Sullenberg glided the plane into the Hudson River and supervised the evacuation of all 155 passengers, averting tragedy.

Eastwood has set up the film at Warner Bros. Pictures, the studio behind American Sniper, his award-winning 2014 film that has earned more than $547 million worldwide to date.
“I am very glad my story is in the hands of gifted storyteller and filmmaker Clint Eastwood,” said Sullenberger of the project when it was first announced in early June. “The project could not have found a better home than Warner Bros. Pictures. This is truly a dream team.”
No stranger to playing real-world heroes ripped from the headlines, Hanks portrayed Captain Richard Phillips in the 2013 movie Captain Phillips, which chronicled the hijacking of U.S. cargo ship MV Maersk Alabama in 2009. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards. Hanks himself has been nominated for five “Best Actor” Oscars over the years, winning two (for Forrest Gump and Philadelphia). He’ll next appear as attorney James B. Donovan in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies (pictured), which tells the story of Donovan’s efforts to negotiate the release of an American spy-plane pilot who was shot down over the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War.

Take A First Look At Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ New Movie

Bridge of Spies comes to theaters on Oct. 16

Academy Award winners Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ latest film Bridge of Spies is a dramatic thriller set during the tension of the Cold War.

The true story, by Matt Charman, Ethan Coen & Joel Coen, stars Hanks as James Donovan, a Brooklyn lawyer given an unenviable task by the CIA to defend a Russian spy discovered in the U.S. and negotiate the release of an American U-2 pilot captured on Russian soil.
The film also features Mark Rylance as Rudolf Abel, the Russian KGB agent defended by Donovan, Scott Shepherd as CIA operative Hoffman and Amy Ryan as James’ wife.
Bridge of Spies releases nationwide on Oct. 16.

Tom Hanks Biography

Former sitcom actor Tom Hanks is the much-beloved star of such Hollywood hits as Splash, Big, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Toy Story and many more.

Synopsis

Born on July 9, 1956, in Concord, California, actor Tom Hanks began performing with the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in 1977, later moving to New York City. He starred on the television sitcom Bosom Buddies, but became far more known when he starred in Ron Howard's Splash. He went on to star in many popular and acclaimed films and is now arguably one of the most powerful and well-respected actor in Hollywood.

Early Life and Career

Actor Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born on July 9, 1956, in Concord, California. Tom Hanks' parents divorced when he was 5 years old, and he was raised, along with his older brother and sister, by his father, a chef named Amos. The family moved frequently, finally settling in Oakland, California, where Hanks attended high school.
After graduating in 1974, Hanks attended junior college in Hayward, California. He decided to pursue acting after reading and watching a performance of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (1946), and transferred into the theater program at California State University in Sacramento.
In 1977, Hanks was recruited to take part in the summer session of the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Lakewood Ohio. Over the next three years, Hanks spent his summers acting in various productions of Shakespeare's plays, and his winters working backstage at a community theater company in Sacramento. He won the Cleveland Critics Circle Award for Best Actor in 1978, for his portrayal of Proteus in The Two Gentleman of Verona.

Big Break

By 1980, Hanks had dropped out of college, and after his third season with the Great Lakes festival, he moved to New York City. Many rounds of auditions later, he landed a small part in the 1980 slasher film, He Knows You're Alone. That same year, he was spotted by a talent scout for ABC, and was cast in the television sitcom Bosom Buddies (1980-82), as one of two advertising executives who dress in drag in order to rent an apartment in an all-female building.
The show was cancelled after two seasons, but it gave Hanks some exposure and led to his casting in guest roles on various episodes of popular shows likeHappy Days (1974-84), Taxi (1978-83), The Love Boat (1977-87) and Family Ties (1982-89). In 1982, Ron Howard, co-star of Happy Days, remembered Hanks from his guest stint on the show, and had him read for a supporting part in a movie he was directing. That supporting role eventually went to John Candy, and Hanks instead landed the lead role in Howard's Splash (1984), as a man who falls in love with a mermaid, played by Daryl Hannah. The movie became a surprise hit, and Hanks was suddenly a recognizable face.
A string of critically panned movies followed, most notably Bachelor Party(1984), The Man With One Red Shoe (1985), Volunteers (1985), The Money Pit (1986) and Dragnet (1987). Hanks managed to emerge relatively unscathed from these critical failures, as critics often pointed to his performance as the best thing about each movie.
In 1988, he was finally cast in a star-making role, in director Penny Marshall'sBig, as a 13-year-old boy transplanted overnight into the body of a 35-year-old man. His performance charmed both critics and audiences, and earned him his first Academy Award nomination for best actor.
With Big, Hanks established his reputation as a box-office draw as well as a talented actor. Over the next several years, however, his films failed to match the critical or commercial success of that film, although they did display Hanks's wide range, from light-hearted comedies (1989's Turner and Hooch, 1990's Joe Versus the Volcano) to more serious fare (1988's Punchline, 1990's Bonfire of the Vanities).

Blockbusters

In 1993, Hanks emerged with two huge hits: Sleepless in Seattle, a romantic comedy written by Nora Ephron that rematched him with his Joe Versus the Volcano co-star, Meg Ryan; and Philadelphia, co-starring Denzel Washington. In the latter film, Hanks played a lawyer fired from his high-paying firm because he has AIDS, delivering a courageous performance that earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor.
He followed up on that tremendous year with the release of Forrest Gump(1994), the sprawling story of an unlikely hero's path through late-20th century American history directed by Robert Zemeckis. The film was a phenomenal box office success, winning Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director. For his part, Hanks brought home his second straight Best Actor award, becoming the first person in 50 years to accomplish that feat.
In 1996, Hanks starred in another blockbuster, Apollo 13, a Ron Howard film based on the abortive lunar landing mission of the Apollo 13 spacecraft in 1970. The film was released in the IMAX format in 2002. Like Forrest Gump, the film made more than $500 million at the box office.
That same year, Hanks made his directorial and screenwriting debut withThat Thing You Do!, which enjoyed moderate success. He continued his behind-the-camera duties in the Emmy-winning HBO miniseries, From the Earth to the Moon, for which he produced, directed, wrote and acted in for various episodes.
In 1998, he starred in another groundbreaking blockbuster, Saving Private Ryan, a World War II drama directed by Steven Spielberg and filmed with gruesome accuracy. While the film was nominated for Best Director and Best Actor Academy Awards, and was a favorite for Best Picture, only Spielberg took home the Oscar.
In late-1998, Hanks also teamed once more with Ryan and Ephron, in the hit romantic comedy You've Got Mail.

A-List Accolades

Hanks soared to the top of the holiday box office in late-1999, as he reprised his role as the voice of Woody, the cowboy at the center of 1995's animated film Toy StoryToy Story 2, also featuring the voice of Tim Allen, surpassed all expectations at the box office, grossing a record-breaking $80.8 million when it opened over Thanksgiving weekend. He also starred in The Green Mile during this time, which shot to No. 2 at the box office, behind Toy Story 2, in its opening weekend. The film was set in a Depression-era prison and adapted from a story by Stephen King.
Hanks underwent a striking physical transformation to play a man stranded on a desert island in his next film, the long-awaited Cast Away (2000), directed by Zemeckis and co-starring Helen Hunt. His performance propelled the film to the top of the holiday box office, earning Hanks critical raves and yet another well-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
In the 1990s, Hanks compiled an imposing record of box office hits and has emerged as arguably the most powerful and well-respected actor in Hollywood. His accessible good looks and regular-guy charisma has earned him comparisons with screen legends of the past, such as Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda and Gary Cooper. In 2002, Hanks was honored with the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, the youngest actor ever to receive the award.

Continued Success

In 2002, Hanks produced the surprise hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding. His next producing projects include the drama Society Cab and the Imax space documentary Magnificent Desolation. In 2004, the actor starred in the Coen brothers' remake of the classic 1955 comedy Ladykillers. He later teamed with Steven Spielberg for the drama Terminal (2004), and starred in the family film The Polar Express (2004).
Hanks next starred in the highly anticipated The Da Vinci Code (2006), based on the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. It grossed more than $750 million worldwide. During the 2007 Christmas season, Hanks appeared as the lead in Charlie Wilson's War, a drama based on a Texas congressman's efforts to assist Afghan rebels in their war with the Soviets have some unforeseen and long-reaching effects. The performance earned Hanks a Golden Globe nomination for his role. In 2009, Hanks appeared in Angels and Demons, the long-awaited film sequel to The Da Vinci Code.
Hanks went on to perform voiceover work for the acclaimed TV miniseriesThe Pacific (2010, narrator), the film Toy Story 3 (2010) and star in such films as Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) and Cloud Atlas (2012).
In 2013, the actor made his Broadway debut in the 2013 production Lucky Guy. For his performance in the play, Hanks garnered a Tony Award nomination for best performance by an actor in a leading role in a play, but lost to Tracy Letts (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?). He later starred in the nautical thriller Captain Phillips (2013) that same year. Hanks also signed on to play Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks (2013), the biopic that shows how Disney convinced P.L. Travers, played by Emma Thompson, to give him the rights to make Mary Poppins a reality on the silver screen.

Personal Life

Hanks met his first wife, actress and producer Samantha Lewes (real name: Susan Dillingham), while he was in college. They were married in 1978 and had two children, Colin and Elizabeth, before divorcing in 1987.
In 1988, he married actress Rita Wilson, with whom he co-starred inVolunteers. Hanks and Wilson have two children, Chester and Truman.
Hanks recently revealed that he has been facing a health challenge. He admitted in October 2013 that he has Type 2 Diabetes. Hanks shared this information with late night talk show host David Lettermman on Letterman's program. "I went to the doctors and they said, 'You know those high blood sugar numbers you've been living with since you were 36? Well, you've graduated. You've got Type 2 diabetes.'"

Co-starring in a short-lived sitcom about cross-dressing friends generally isn’t the most direct path to superstardom, but there’s an exception to prove every rule — only one, though; sorry, Peter Scolari — and after racking up over $3 billion in domestic ticket receipts, winning a mantel full of awards (including back-to-back Best Actor Oscars), and starring in some of the best-reviewed films of the last 25 years, Tom Hanks has demonstrated that he’s pretty darned exceptional. With his latest project, the fact-based Paul Greengrass thriller Captain Phillips, arriving in theaters this weekend, we decided now was the perfect time to pay tribute to an impressive body of work by twirling the dials on the Tomatometer, making a list of Hanks’ best-reviewed films, and playing Total Recall! 90% 10. CAST AWAY If there was ever any doubt as to the strength of Tom Hanks’ appeal, it was thoroughly answered with 2000’s Cast Away, a movie that asked viewers to spend over an hour watching its star wander an island with little to do and only a volleyball for companionship. He didn’t just topline it, Hanks essentially was the film, absorbing a percentage of screen time that, in lesser hands, would have amounted to an endurance test for audiences. Happily, he proved up to the task, as attested by Cast Away‘s healthy $429 million worldwide gross — not to mention the scores of overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics like Margaret A. McGurk of the Cincinnati Enquirer, who praised Hanks for rising to the challenges of the script: “The challenge to the character is matched by the challenge to the actor; for most of the movie Mr. Hanks is the only human being we see or hear. He tackles the job with stunning confidence in a performance stripped of gimmicks and driven by need.” 92% 9. SPLASH Starring in a frothy romantic comedy as a man who falls in love with a mermaid may not seem like the surest path to starting a film career, but then, 1984’s Splash was no ordinary movie — in fact, it started a lot of things, among them an entire studio (Touchstone Pictures, created to allow Disney the ability to release more “adult” fare without sullying its name brand), a surge in the number of girls named Madison, and, supposedly, a name change for the Disneyland ride that eventually became Splash Mountain. Not bad for a movie featuring a pair of largely untested stars (Hanks was fresh from Bosom Buddies, and Hannah was known mainly for her role in Blade Runner) and a director most people still thought of as Opie Taylor (or Richie Cunningham). Nearly $70 million in domestic receipts (and one Academy Award nomination) later, and Hanks was on his way to stardom, thanks in part to positive critical buzz that has proven surprisingly durable; recently, Empire’s Ian Freer held it up as “the movie that really showed Tom Hanks’ promise as a deliverer of great comedy and heart-warming pathos.” 92% 8. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN American directors have been making movies about World War II since 1940, and even as early as the 1980s, it was a genre associated by many with Norman Rockwell revisionism and John Wayne machismo. By 1998, for a movie about the war to add anything new to the dialogue, it would have to be something truly special — but with Spielberg behind the cameras and a cast led by Tom Hanks, an actor as quintessentially American as apple pie, Saving Private Ryan was off to a pretty good start even before the first roll of film had been shot. The end result, of course, was one of the best-reviewed films (and biggest hits) of the year — a $481 million hit that arrived perfectly timed to coincide with a new wave of interest in what Tom Brokaw dubbed “The Greatest Generation.” Lauded for its sometimes shocking realism, Ryan was eventually nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and helped prompt Hanks’ involvement (along with Spielberg and many others) in HBO’s 10-part World War II documentary, Band of Brothers — an important film, in other words, and one that, despite a few dissenting opinions (Andrew Sarris called it “tediously manipulative”), earned a healthy 92 percent Tomatometer thanks to plenty of high praise from critics like Richard Schickel of Time, who applauded it as “a war film that, entirely aware of its genre’s conventions, transcends them as it transcends the simplistic moralities that inform its predecessors, to take the high, morally haunting ground.” 93% 7. THAT THING YOU DO! Some moviegoers who went to see That Thing You Do! expecting another “Tom Hanks movie” may have come away disappointed with his relative lack of screen time — his character, the slick A&R executive known as Mr. White, is the textbook definition of a “minor but pivotal” role — but if they paid attention to the credits, they saw that it had Hanks literally written all over it: he made his writing/directing debut with That Thing, which follows the speedy rise (and equally speedy fall) of a rock band in 1966. Though it wasn’t a huge hit, the movie did spin off a medium-sized hit on the pop charts (“That Thing You Do,” written by Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger and sung by future power pop demigod Mike Viola) and enjoyed highly favorable reviews from the likes of Desson Thomson of the Washington Post, who wrote, “first-time writer/director Tom Hanks stays about a half-beat ahead of the clichés with rim shots of boyish enthusiasm and deft comedy.” 95% 6. APOLLO 13 Hanks reunited with his Splash director, Ron Howard, for 1995’s Apollo 13, a dramatization of NASA’s aborted 1970 lunar mission that combined one of Hanks’ biggest personal passions — space travel — with Hollywood’s favorite thing: a blockbuster prestige picture. With a cast that featured a number of similarly prolific actors (among them Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Ed Harris, and Hanks’ Forrest Gump costar Gary Sinise), Apollo probably would have made decent money even if it had played fast and loose with the real-life details of the launch, but Howard and his crew strove for verisimilitude, going so far as to shoot portions of the film in actual zero gravity. The result was a summertime smash that restored some of space travel’s luster for a jaded generation — and made for an exceedingly good filmgoing experience according to most critics, including Roger Ebert, who called it “a powerful story, one of the year’s best films, told with great clarity and remarkable technical detail, and acted without pumped-up histrionics.” 96% 5. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN After closing out the 20th century as one of the most prolific — and arguably the most bankable — movie star in America, Hanks started to favor roles that either sublimated his much-ballyhooed Jimmy Stewart-style likeability, such as 2002’s Road to Perdition and 2004’s The Ladykillers, or left the heavy lifting to his co-stars, as with 2002’s Catch Me if You Can. Hanks doesn’t get the lion’s share of the screen time, but as Carl Hanratty, a fictionalized version of the FBI agent who pursued the infamous real-life con artist Frank Abagnale, Jr. (played here by Leonardo DiCaprio), he acts as the force that keeps his quarry (and therefore the story) moving — as well as a surprisingly sympathetic ear for the film’s ne’er-do-well protagonist. A Spielberg film with two huge stars and a Christmas Day release, Catch Me if You Can was virtually predestined to be a hit — and it was, grossing more than $350 million worldwide and earning a slew of positive reviews from critics who, although they were loath to rank it with Spielberg’s best work, nonetheless largely fell in line with the New York Observer’s Andrew Sarris, who called it “that rarity of rarities, a mainstream American feel-good movie with both charm and intelligence.” 97% 4. BIG There were a number of age-swapping comedies at the box office in the late 1980s, including Vice Versa (starring Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage as a father and son who switch bodies), 18 Again! (in which George Burns plays an 81-year-old millionaire who trades souls with Charlie Schlatter), and Like Father Like Son (Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron — ’nuff said). Big, released in June of 1988, came after all of them, but rather than being dismissed as excessively similar to a bunch of movies that hadn’t done all that well at the box office, it went down as one of the year’s most successful films, piling up over $150 million in worldwide grosses and earning Hanks some desperately needed box office mojo after his appearances in The Money Pit, Nothing in Common, and (shudder) Dragnet. Though it would be awhile yet before Hanks really found his stride as a leading man — he still had Joe Versus the Volcano ahead of him, after all — his sweetly comic performance here did not go unnoticed by critics like the New York Times’ Janet Maslin, who wrote, “for any other full-grown actors who try their hands at fidgeting, squirming, throwing water balloons and wolfing down food in a huge variety of comically disgusting ways, this really is the performance to beat.” 99% 3. TOY STORY 3 Cinematic history is littered with the corpses of once-mighty franchises that seemed destined for glory, only to stumble into ruin with their third installments, so when Pixar announced that Toy Story 3 was in the works, film fans held their breath. Of course, as we know now, we needn’t have worried: although it encountered a touch of critical dissent, the third Story was nearly as well-received as the first two, thanks to an action-packed, emotion-filled storyline that not only reunited much of the original cast (with the notable exception of Jim Varney, who sadly passed away in 2000), but sent them on a meaningful adventure in the bargain. “It’s sadder and scarier than its predecessors,” wrote Newsday’s Rafer Guzman, “but it also may be the most important chapter in the tale.” 100% 2. TOY STORY The mathematical incongruity of the movie’s key catchphrase notwithstanding, Pixar came awfully close to going “to infinity and beyond” with its maiden full-length voyage, both in terms of box office returns ($361 million on a $30 million budget) and, as the first all-CGI theatrical release, in its impact on animation in general. Hanks, riding high with audiences and critics after a remarkable three-year run that included A League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, and Apollo 13, was a natural fit for the role of Woody, the classic talking cowboy doll whose gentle Everyman appeal gave the film a human heart to match its computer-generated visuals. Critics were just as taken as audiences with Toy Story; the film’s 100 percent Tomatometer underscores its significance as not only a technically groundbreaking film, but one that has, in the words of Newsweek’s David Ansen, “something for everyone on the age spectrum.” 100% 1. TOY STORY 2 Given Disney’s overall cavalier attitude toward sequels in the 1990s, it should come as no surprise that the studio originally intended Toy Story 2 to be a direct-to-video release; it wasn’t until they got a glimpse of the work in progress — and realized they could get much of the original cast back — that the second Story was aimed at theaters. The rest, as they say, was history: the further adventures of Woody, Buzz, and the gang outpaced the original Toy Story on the money front, grossing roughly $125 million more than its paradigm-shifting predecessor — and, at 100 percent on the Tomatometer, it managed the unlikely feat of matching its critical performance. As has been the case with pretty much every other Pixar production, people went to see Toy Story 2 more for its visual appeal and technological innovations than its voice cast; still, without Hanks, Allen, and their co-stars, it wouldn’t have been the same film that inspired critics like Charlie McCollum of the San Jose Mercury News to say that it “not just matches, but actually surpasses a delightful original.”

The project is based on Dave Eggers’ novel about a college graduate (Vikander) who goes to work in an Internet monopoly called the Circle, which links users’ personal emails, social media, banking and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. Once there she meets h a mysterious older man (Hanks). James Ponsoldt adapted the novel and is directing. Hanks and Gary Goetzman’s shingle Playtone is producing along with Anthony Bregman’s Likely Story and Ponsoldt as well as Walter Parkes and Laurie Macdonald. Image Nation Abu Dhabi is fully financing, and will present the film in association with Parkes/Macdonald Productions. CAA and UTA are repping domestic rights.
The film has sold to Germany (Universum), the UK (Studiocanal), Latin America (Imagem), France (Mars), Italy (Good Films), Scandinavia (Mis. Label), Benelux (Paradiso), Australia (Roadshow), Switzerland (Impuls), Middle East (Selim Ramia & Co), Poland (Prorom), Czech/Slovak (Prorom) Hungary, Romania, ex-Yugo, Bulgaria (all Prorom), South Africa (Ster Kinekor), Taiwan (Catchplay), Hong Kong (Bravos), Greece (Spentzos), Portugal (Lusomundo), Thailand (JoynContents), Turkey (Aqua), Philippines (Pioneer), Indonesia (Cinema 21), Israel (United King), Asia PTV (Star TV) and Airline (Captive).
3 months
Alicia vikander u r good.
T.E.
3 months
What didn't you understand? I'm sure one of us can explain it to you.
Natalie
3 months
Ridiculous nonsensical script.
As opposed to some other sales agents, who have closed multi-territory studio deals for their higher-profile titles, IM Global has kept it entirely indie despite more than one multiple territory studio offer on the table. As one of the most keenly watched titles of the market, speculation had been rife that this could follow in the footsteps of Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals, which was acquired worldwide by Focus and Universal Pictures. Universal also acquired multiple territories on both Charlize Theron-starrer The Coldest City and Lenny Abrahamson’s Room. IM Global’s sales team, led by new president of international Michael Rothstein, made a concerted effort to keep this open for indie buyers. It remains to be seen whether a domestic deal will go to a studio or not, or indeed when. As of today, at least, a domestic deal was not expected to close during the fest.