jeezbee

There was a short press conference on Sunday, 2 March 2008 in the Sefton Hotel on the Isle of Man with the Me and Orson Welles director and producers Richard Linklater, Ann Carli and Marc Samuelson. They talk about how IoM managed to get the production onto the island and how the Gaiety Theatre is a really good location for it.

IoM Today has a very brief article about it here and the link to the original video is here. In the article there are also press pics with the producers and Zac but they are not really ‘relevant’ for the movie, so you have to get them directly there. For your convenience (and people who have problems with embedded Windows Media Player) here is the video of the press conference as YouTube video:

The Isle of Man Film has published a page about “Me and Orson Welles” on their website. It reveals that the IoM filming will take place in the Gaiety Theatre from 24 February to 14 March 2008. That will at least partly include filming on the weekend – at least one of the extras casting calls was scheduled for a Sunday. Zac has also been seen leaving LA on Sunday – most likely for London to do pre-production stuff. After the IoM part of the shoot, they are supposed to move to the Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire (close to London).

The website also has a longer synopsis of the movie:

New York, 1937: RICHARD SAMUELS (17) is bored with school and dreams of treading the boards on Broadway. After a chance encounter with a theatre company outside a derelict theatre, The Mercury, Richard soon finds himself inside chatting with Orson Welles, the Director of Broadway’s first Shakespearean production, Julius Caesar. Welles is a bullish, competitive character who is having an affair with the leading lady, MURIEL BRASSLER, despite his wife VIRGINIA’S pregnancy. Richard plays on Welles’ egotistical nature and manages to bluff his way into the role of Lucius; Welles swiftly couples him with the gorgeous production assistant SONJA JONES (20), to rehearse. Continue reading…

IoM Today had another article about the extras casting call on 31 January 2007. This time it specifically was for Zac’s movie. While it basically contains the same as the description from the extras casting agency I’ve posted about on 27 January, it does have a few new tidbits:

They need up to 800 extras: 240 people for all 3 dates (March 3, 4 and 9) and additional 390 people for March 9 (which makes it 630 extras total for that date).

Continue reading…

More news from Variety (dated 31 January 2008) on Zac’s movie “Me and Orson Welles” today. Production as well as casting news…

Upfront the casting news: Kelly Reilly, Eddie Marsan, Leo Bill, Imogen Poots and Aidan McArdle. While I have to admit I’m not familiar with them, I’m still impressed with the casting of Zac’s co-stars. Looking at their IMDb pages – many of them are award-winning (stage) actors.

Claire Danes joins Linklater film

‘Me & Orson Welles’ stars Zac Efron

By ADAM DAWTREY

Claire Danes has joined Zac Efron in the cast of helmer Richard Linklater’s “Me & Orson Welles.”

CinemaNX, the new production venture backed by the Isle of Man film fund, is producing and financing the project, which starts shooting later this month in England, the Isle of Man and New York.

Adapted by Holly Gent Palmo and Vincent Palmo Jr. from Robert Kaplow’s novel, the movie is a coming-of-age romance set in the New York theater world of the 1930s.

Efron plays a teenage student who stumbles into a minor role in the Mercury Theater production of “Julius Caesar,” directed by the 22-year-old sensation Orson Welles (played by newcomer Christian McKay).

Ben Chaplin, Kelly Reilly, Eddie Marsan, Leo Bill, Imogen Poots and Aidan McArdle round out the cast.

Marc Samuelson is producing for CinemaNX alongside Linklater and Ann Carli. Exec producers are Steve Christian of CinemaNX; John Sloss of Cinetic Media, who is handling North American sales; and Steve Norris of Framestore Features, which is co-financing the movie.

Odyssey Entertainment and Cinetic jointly handle international sales.

I’ve already started last night to put a post together on all the producers, financing and their connections but it’ll take me a while to finish that.. there are several links.

Update

Several other publications have also picked up the news in the meantime. It’s basically the same content, but I’ll post them here for completeness sake.

From the Hollywoodreporter (dated 1 February 2008):

New recruits sign on for ‘Orson Welles’

LONDON — Claire Danes, Eddie Marsan, Leo Bill and Imogen Poots have joined the cast of RIchard Linklater’s “Me and Orson Welles,” an adaptation of the period coming-of-age novel by Robert Kaplow.

They join Zac Efron and Ben Chaplin in the cast for the 1937-set movie, which centers on a high school student (Efron) who, while strolling the streets of New York, happens upon the yet-to-open Mercury Theatre and is noticed by its mercurial founder, Orson Welles.

He lands a bit part in “Julius Caesar,” the production that catapulted Welles to the top, and spends the next week learning about life and love.

Newcomer Christian McKay plays Welles, and Chaplin (“Water Horse: The Legend of the Deep”) has been cast as English film and stage actor George Coulouris.

The script was penned by Holly Gent Palmo, who worked on Linklater’s “Dazed and Confused,” and Vince Palmo, who is a long time collaborator with the director.

Ann Carli is producing the film, which is scheduled to shoot on the Isle of Man, London and New York beginning in February.

With backing from the Isle of Man Film Commission and Framestore Feature, the title is produced by Marc Samuelson (“Stormbreaker,” “Wilde”), Carli and Linklater with Steve Christian, John Sloss and Steve Norris taking executive producer roles.

Cinetic Media will handle domestic sales, and Cinetic Media and Odyssey Entertainment are jointly appointed to rep foreign sales on the project.

From ComingSoon.net (dated 30 January 2008):

Cast Rounded Out for Me & Orson Welles

Claire Danes, Kelly Reilly, Eddie Marsan, Leo Bill, Imogen Poots and Aidan McArdle have joined Zac Efron, Christian McKay and Ben Chaplin in Me & Orson Welles, reports Variety.

Directed by Richard Linklater, the drama starts shooting in England, the Isle of Man and New York in late February.

Adapted by Holly Gent Palmo and Vincent Palmo Jr. from Robert Kap-low’s novel, the movie is a coming-of-age romance set in the New York theater world of the 1930s.

Efron plays a teenage student who stumbles into a minor role in the Mercury Theater production of “Julius Caesar,” directed by the 22-year-old sensation Orson Welles (McKay).

It’s also in a whole bunch of other publications which I’m not going to post here. However, not surprisingly they can’t even make a summary/re-write of a news items without introducing some stupidity. Since when is a movie automatically a romantic comedy only because he contains a storyline where a protagonist falls in love with a woman?!?! Admittedly I haven’t read the book yet but from all the summaries I’ve seen, this is not a romantic comedy and that is nowhere mentioned in the original articles either. But I guess that would require those “magazines/websites” to use their brain and/or do a 5-second research which I assume is too much to ask.

There is now one more piece of evidence that Zac’s movie might change its name to “Seventeen Again”.

Comingsoon.net had a chat with Adam Shankman (who is producing the movie) about his upcoming project as director “Bedtime Stories” on the set of Zac’s movie. It seems that in the interview Zac’s film was referenced as “Seventeen Again”. A few websites (including the New York Times and comingsoon.net) have already updated their movie page with that name.

Also, comingsoon.net has a really nice and longish summary on their movie page:

*SPOILERS BEHIND THE CUT*

Continue reading…