Author: dpugh007

Leonardo DiCaprio‘s company Appian Way has optioned a script pitch called King Harald, with DiCaprio set to produce and (as these things go) possibly star. The film would be written by Mark L. Smith, with the focus on the Norse king Harald III, called Harald Hardrada (tough ruler). He was a mercenary and warrior, who while leading Norway invaded Denmark and, most famously, stormed the shores of England in 1066.

Harald is considered the last Viking king, and (spoiler!) his death in England effectively closed the viking age. A fitting subject for a film, then. But this film, suggests Deadline, may be based on an earlier point in Harald’s life.

In Harald’s youth, his half-brother Olaf strove to take the Norwegian throne from the Danish King Cnut (also a really fantastic, interesting figure), leading to Olaf’s death and years of exile in the pre-Russia land occupied by East Slavic tribes for Harald. After time there and some pre-Crusades adventuring around Constantinople, the borders of the Byzantine Empire, and Jerusalem, Harald eventually went home and took the Norse throne for himself. Deadline suggests there’s a Braveheart angle to the pitch, so it may be that exile and homecoming that serves as the center of the movie.

(In fact, Harald’s return to rule in Norway has a lot more to do with family ties, deal-making and politics than it does military prowess. It would make better TV than film, so if this is the period the movie focuses on, we could see some simplification of the chain of events. There’s a lot more action in Harald’s attempt to secure rule of Denmark.)

This project, in a way, goes back some time. Though the pitch is new, DiCaprio has eyed a film about the Norse figures for years. Once upon a time, Mel Gibson planned to make a film about Vikings, and Leonardo DiCaprio was a potential star. That didn’t work out, but perhaps this one will finally satiate DiCaprio’s desire to be a Viking.

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As we’ve seen in earlier stills, David O. Russell‘s American Hustle features some very good actors with some very bad haircuts. Now we finally have our first look at all of them in action with the first trailer.

Starring The Fighter‘s Christian Bale and Amy Adams with The Silver Linings Playbook‘s Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, the film follows the Abscam FBI sting of the 1970s, which ensnared everyone from mobsters to politicians. Watch the trailer after the jump.

The first trailer premiered on Good Morning America (via Bleeding Cool).

American Hustle has been on our radar for months, since the combination of Russell, that premise, and that cast is just too intriguing to ignore. The zesty first trailer really delivers on that promise. Sony obviously has sky-high hopes as well — studios don’t spend what must’ve been a small fortune for a Led Zeppelin song to promote a movie they expect to be a dud.

As Russ described it, the Abscam sting was “basically an FBI-backed version of the classic ‘Nigerian prince’ email scam where a supposed member of royalty seeks help getting his/her money out of the home country.” It ultimately led to the conviction of five US congressmen and a US senator, among others.

Bale plays Irving Rosenfeld, a New York con man forced to aid in the operation by an “unhinged” FBI agent (Cooper). Adams plays Irving’s girlfriend and accomplice, and Lawrence his wife. Renner, the only one of the five leads working with Russell for the first time, portrays a New Jersey mayor. Louis C.K., Alessandro Nivola, Elisabeth Rohm, Dawn Olivieri, Jack Huston, Michael Pena, and Robert De Niro round out the cast.

American Hustle opens in limited release on December 13 before going wide on December 25.

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Director Peter Berg‘s last movie was Universal’s gigantic Battleship. By comparison, his new movie, Lone Survivor, is really sneaking up on us. The first trailer for the film was released relatively quietly today, and it shows Mark Wahlberg in the role of a Navy SEAL on a mission to take out a Taliban figure. It’s a true story, based on the book Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10, by Marcus Luttrell. The actual tale has gone down as a dramatic moment in recent military history, and this trailer suggests that Berg is taking it very seriously.

Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch and Eric Bana are also part of the story, but as the title suggests, things don’t go super-well for some of them. Oh, and as soon as the trailer really kicks into gear it plays out to the tune of Peter Gabriel mournfully covering David Bowie’s “Heroes.” Check out the trailer below.

Lone Survivor will open for an Oscar-qualifying run in NYC on December 27, then go wide on January 10, 2014. Moviefone has the trailer.

“Lone Survivor” tells the harrowing true story of the four members of SEAL Team 10 — Marcus Luttrell, Mike Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch), and Matt Axelson (Ben Foster) — who, on June 28, 2005, were assigned to carry out “Operation Red Wings.” The mission was compromised, and three of the four men didn’t return home.

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