“The Only Living Boy in New York” is the new movie from director Marc Webb, who made “The Amazing Spider-Man” and its sequel (as well as the cookie-cutter child-genius drama “Gifted”), and it’s the first film he’s directed since “(500) Days of Summer” — yes, eight years ago — in which you can really feel the prickly pulse of his sensibility. It’s like “The Graduate” recast as a glibly literate slacker comedy with an entangled kink or two.
The hero, Thomas Webb (Callum Turner), is a gently acerbic rebel preppie who is spending his life figuring out what he wants to do with his life. He’s a would-be fiction writer coping with a world in which highly personalized art is disappearing — at least, as a monetizable career. And it’s not like that’s the only thing on the wane. The general erosion of middle-class security actually influences the way you watch a movie like this one, since you can’t help but be aware of how much Thomas’s alienation is intertwined with privilege.
His father, Ethan (Pierce Brosnan), runs a publishing imprint he built from the ground up, and he keeps asking Thomas why he’s wasting his time living on the downscale Lower East Side. But the way it looks to us, Thomas gets to live on the Lower East Side (and, when he feels like it, to slum with his parents in their Upper West Side brownstone). He gets to attend tony literary parties and dither his way toward a profession. And when he’s out with Mimi (Kiersey Clemons), a tart-tongued beauty who’s already slipped into the let’s-just-be-friends zone, and he spies his father kissing a woman other than his wife, he gets to trail the mysterious mistress (Kate Beckinsale) like a stalker-detective, and then he gets to sleep with her. It all sounds a bit sordid (sharing a paramour with your dad!), but for Thomas it’s a way of acting out the resentment he feels toward the icy remote father who never respected his literary ambitions.
We’re not talking GoldenEye replays when we say that there’s going to be more Pierce Brosnan on AMC as the home of The Walking Dead today gave a second season pick-up to The Son. Coming just over a month after the Western series based on Philipp Meyer’s 2013 Texas oil county novel of the same name debuted, Season 2 of The Son will consist of 10 episodes and is scheduled to premiere in mid-2018.
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Relativity Media has set “November Man,” which stars Pierce Brosnan as a former spy, for an Aug. 27 release in the U.S.
Brosnan starred as the iconic spy in four James Bond films, the last of which, “Die Another Day,” was released in 2002.
“November Man” centers on an ex-CIA operative who is brought back on a personal mission. He finds himself pitted against his former pupil in an operation involving high-level CIA officials and the Russian president-elect.
Roger Donaldson directed “November Man,” which is produced by Brosnan’s Irish DreamTime and Das Films, in association with the Solution Entertainment Group, Merced Media Partners and Palmstar Media Capital.
The script was adapted from Bill Granger’s novel “There Are No Spies.” Producers are Brosnan’s longtime partner Beau St. Clair and Sriram Das. Michael Finch and Karl Gajdusek wrote the script.
Irish DreamTime announced “November Man” in 2012 at Cannes as the launch title in a multipicture financing and distribution deal with the Solution.
Despite the entreaties of Lousiana, North Carolina and Canada, Pierce Brosnan’s indie comedy “How to Make Love Like an Englishman” is shooting where it’s set — in Los Angeles.
The 25-day shoot started Oct. 14 with “Southland” star Ben McKenzie, Salma Hayek, Jessica Alba and Malcolm McDowell starring. Tom Vaughn is directing from Matthew Newman’s script.
Brosnan plays a university professor who finds a woman (Hayek) who forces him to reevaluate his life of hedonistic excess — after he gets her grad student stepsister pregnant.
“It’s set in L.A. so we shot it in L.A.,” said producer Beau St. Clair, Brosnan’s longtime producing partner in Irish Dreamtime. “We could have saved money if we had shot in New Orleans or Wilmington, but it would not have looked like L.A. So we thought it would be better to work with a lean lean budget and shoot here instead of trying to fake it in some place like Vancouver.”
St. Clair said the budget was $30 million when the project was first developed in 2006. “It’s a lot less now,” she added.
She also said 40% percent is shot in Malibu. According to the FilmL.A. permitting agency, shoots have taken place at Los Angeles Center Studios, a restaurant on Wilshire in Westlake South, a downtown loft and a private residence in the mid-city area along with downtown driving shots.
Besides St. Clair, producers are Richard B. Lewis and Kevin Frakes as part of a co-production between Palmstar Media Capital, Southpaw Entertainment, Irish Dreamtime and Envision.
The Solution will be selling international rights at the upcoming American Film Market.
Feature film production in Los Angeles jumped 19.5% in the third quarter, concentrated in small-budget projects such as Zach Braff’s Kickstarter-funded “Wish I Was Here.” FilmL.A. noted in that report that the activity level lags far behind the record setting numbers of 1996.
FilmL.A. reported Tuesday that the most active film last week was Jake Gyllenhaal’s thriller “Nightcrawler” with 18 permitted days. The movie is receiving a $2.3 million allocation from the California Film and Television Tax Credit Program.
Momentum has been gaining to improve the California Film and Television Tax Credit Program, which is far smaller than rival incentive programs in other states with a $100 million annual limit in credits and exclusion of features with budgets over $75 million. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti recently appointed Tom Sherak as film czar to address the runaway issue and several state legislators have announced plans to increase the scope of the incentive program.
HONG KONG – Production finally got underway today in Thailand on Bold Films’ action thriller “The Coup.”
Starring Owen Wilson, Pierce Brosnan and Lake Bell, the film centers on an American family who move to Southeast Asia and find themselves entangled in a violent coup in which merciless rebels attack the city.
John Erick Dowdle is directing from a screenplay he co-wrote with Drew Dowdle.
Producing for Bold Films are Michel Litvak and David Lancaster as well as Drew Dowdle. Andrew Pfeffer and Gary Michael Walters are executive producing with Chris Lowenstein of Thailand’s Living Films, co-producing.
The film was brought to market and substantially pre-sold at Cannes 2012.
For Lancaster “The Coup” is a speedy return to Thailand. He previously worked on Ryan Gosling starrer “Only God Forgives” which lensed in the country in early 2012.
“We welcome the production to Thailand. This once again shows that whether comedy, drama or high action, Thailand has the facilities and resources to provide the quality of teams and production resources that Hollywood demands,” said Ubolwan Sucharitakul, Director of the Thailand Film Office.
Including commercials and short films, Thailand has hosted over 500 foreign productions per year since 2009. This year inbound productions are expected to reach record levels and surpass 700.
Pierce Brosnan has been busy — and may have a new franchise in “November Man,” which is in post-production. It’s one of 10 titles that the Solution Entertainment Group is offering for foreign sales at the American Film Market, where Solution will unveil a new promo to buyers.
Brosnan’s production company Irish DreamTime announced the project last year at Cannes as the launch title in a multipicture financing and distribution deal with Solution. “November Man” centers on an ex-CIA operative who is brought back in on a personal mission and finds himself pitted against his former pupil in an operation involving high-level CIA officials and the Russian president-elect.
“After Pierce had finished with Bond, he wanted to do something edgier and darker, and Dino Conti, a longtime producer at MGM, had always urged me to get ‘November Man,’ ” said Beau St. Clair, Brosnan’s longtime producing partner.
The development money was raised last year through Solution, Myles Nestel and Lisa Wilson’s sales-financing banner. Das Films funded development and The Solution secured the financing.
Brosnan is working on another project for sale via Solution at AFM — the romancer “How to Make Love Like an Englishman.”
“It’s set in L.A., so we shot it in L.A.,” St. Clair said. “We could have saved money if we had shot in New Orleans or Wilmington, but it would not have looked like L.A. So we thought it would be better to work with a lean, lean budget and shoot here instead of trying to fake it in some place like Vancouver.”
St. Clair said the budget was $30 million when the project was first developed in 2006. “It’s a lot less now,” she added.
Brosnan is also shooting action-thriller “The Coup” with the Dowdle brothers in Thailand and then “I.T.,” in which he’ll play a successful book publisher pitted against a young disgruntled I.T. consultant.