Steven Soderbergh's "The Bitter Pill" is now rolling in front of cameras and it looks like the girl with the dragon tattoo is now the girl with a new haircut (or wig). Rooney Mara has been snapped walking around the New York City set with some new brunette-ish locks, and combined with a frumpy trench coat, it's a far cry from her previous Hot Topic look. [JustJared]
Being saddled with an unpronouncable name and the reputation as "the lowest grossing movie of all time" might be poison for some, but GoDigital has picked up the Katherine Heigl and Tom Sizemore thriller "Zzyzyx Road." Earning a paltry $30 on release thanks to a week run in a Dallas theater where it was only shown once a day (the bare minimum of SAG requirements), the film sooned earned the rep as being "Katherine Heigl's last independent film." "We love the story behind this film and are thrilled to be part of what we believe will be a happy ending, I am confident it will make us more than $30," said GoDigital Director of Marketing Barry Daffurn in a press release. Turning lemons into lemonade, they will release the movie on VOD this summer.
By now you've heard the back and forth about the ratings fiasco involving the documentary "Bully," aided no doubt by The Weinstein Company's relentless pursuit of press. But Harvey Weinstein insists it wasn't about marketing: "I am not being Harvey Weinstein, showman, I am not using the ratings system for publicity. Yes, I’ve done it in the past. Mea culpa for that [but] this is completely out of passion." Riiiiiiiiight. [New York Times via Movieline]
In case you weren't aware, the graphic novel prequel to Alan Moore's "Watchmen" is happening whether you like it or not and writer/artist Darwyn Cooke explained what his installment will be focusing on: "I'm working on 'Minutemen,' which were of course the original group of masked adventurers that appeared in the Forties [in the original 'Watchmen']. And while they aren't a focal point of 'Watchmen,' they're sort of a starting point for the story. We frankly don't see a lot of the Minutemen and for the most part, they're not fleshed out as characters [in the original book]. There's also quite a bit of speculation and mystery surrounding why they ended up disbanding and what happened to some of the members," he said. "The two things I'm doing are sort of addressing what their history and what it is that actually happened to bring about their demise, and I'm trying to look at them as people, as characters and engage the reader that way. We really get into who they are, their strengths and weaknesses. And I'm trying to keep in mind the fact that they all sort of come at it from different points of view, but in their own way, they're all trying to do something good. What we do know about the characters, some of it is not so good. We take the two of these things and put them into conflict with each other, I think it makes for a good story." [Rolling Stone]
Finally, Jennifer Lawrence is now an action figure. Mattel has unveiled a weird Barbie doll version of Katniss Everdeen from "The Hunger Games" so your young daughter can pretend that killing other people is like totally awesome. We can't wait to see the Katniss Dream House. And what? No Seneca Crane? [MovieWeb]
