Yesterday, the Governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, announced that “Pirates Of The Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides” was going to be shooting in the tropical state this summer. It will be the first time a film in the series has been shot on the island, but with a new Disney resort set to open on O’ahu in 2011 we can feel the corporate synergy from here. But more interestingly, buried at the end of the official press release was a sidenote that Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants,” which was always slated to start this month, is already in pre-production stages and we’re guessing will starting shooting in a few weeks. As you might the recall, the film is a tragicomedy that centers on the story of an attorney (George Clooney) who finds his life at a crossroads after the death of his wife, and decides to take a trip with his two daughters to find the man she was having an affair with. There is no word yet on who the rest of the cast might be but for Clooney, who just wrapped shooting on Anton Corbjin’s “The American,” it looks like another step into a smaller indie film not unlike “Up In The Air.” It’s been six long years since “Sideways” and we’re glad that Payne is finally back behind the camera with a new feature to work on. That, coupled with the fact that we really liked the script, makes this one we’re definitely excited for.
In a pretty mind-blowing article in the NY Times about how CBS Films chief Les Moonves went in and “fixed” the truly terrible and exceedingly pedestrian forthcoming medical drama “Extraordinary Measures” (“He was incredibly hands-on and helpful,” said Michael Shamberg, one of the movie’s producers, “but his contribution on the ending was crucial” – we wonder if anyone ever said that about Harvey Weinstein) there is a quick note that among the films in the studio’s production stable is a feature film adaptation of “Gunsmoke.” Ugh, really? We kind of hope that the studio’s forthcoming slate of awfulness that includes the Jennifer Lopez rom-com “The Back Up Plan” and the Dwayne Johnson/Billy Bob Thorton action film “Faster” fail hard and put the kibosh on this, but considering that something like the “Karate Kid” is testing well we’re going to hold audiences responsible if it ever gets made.
Finally, while Ricky Gervais slayed hosting the Golden Globes on Sunday night — you can read our report and liveblog from the show — the best part of the show for us was the tribute to Martin Scorsese that ran just prior to his being handed the Cecil B. DeMille Award. It was a nifty montage (though, curiously bereft of a single scene from “New York, New York”) and at the end there was a thirty second or so trailer of sorts for “Shutter Island” that featured a lot of new footage. The full excerpt of Scorsese’s tribute is below. If you missed it, it’s worth a look.