Movie Muser

Even though it has seemed close to going into production, back in April 2013 New Line put an indefinite delay on its long-planned reboot of the Vacation franchise. However now it seems it’s getting back on track, with THR reporting that Chris Hemsworth and Charlie Day are in talks to star.

Ed Helms is still onboard to play as Rusty Griswold, the adult son of Chevy Chase’s Clark Griswold from the original Vacation movies. As you might expect, the new film involves another vacation involving Rusty and his wife (Christina Applegate).

Hemsworth will apparently play the boyfriend of Rusty’s sister Audrey, with Charlie Day as a river raft touring guide.

Last year both Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo were both signed on to reprise their roles as the older Griswolds, but it’s not clear if they’re still involved.

It seems the film will start shooting fairly soon, with Hemsworth squeezing it in between Avengers: Age Of Ultron and The Huntsman, which is due to start shooting in early 2015.

John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein are set to direct, working from their own script.

Hollywood likes to think of itself as very liberal, but while it likes to nibble around the edges of race relations in the US, any film that wants to tackle important aspects of the Civil Rights struggle faces a massive uphill battle to get funding.

That’s certainly true of Selma, which tells the story of one of the key moments in the fight for racial equality in America. Before making it to the screen it had massive problems getting cash, even when director Lee Daniels came onboard and lined up a star-filled cast .

In the end that version fell through and Daniels moved on, but thankfully it came back together under the direction of Ava DuVernay. Now the first images from the movie have been released, which you can see above and below.

The film focuses on the three marches that took place in Selma, Alabama in 1965. The first march planned to go from Selma to the State Capital, Montgomery, but was stopped after only six blocks by police and state troopers after Governor Wallace decided it was a threat to public safety (Wallace hated anything pro-desegregation and was one of the most powerful, vitriolic and visible forces against the civil rights movement). Protesters were them clubbed, gassed and whipped, with the TV footage of the violence shocking the US and galvanising support for civil rights.

A second, symbolic march took place two days later, led by Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo), which only went as far as the bridge where the previous protesters were stopped, because a court injunction prevented them going all the way to Montgomery. A week later the injunction was lifted and a third march set out, this time making it all the way to the state capital.

It was these marches and the public horror at the beatings of demonstrators that spurred Congress to start drafting laws that ended up with the Voting Rights Act, which for the first time explicitly gave African-Americans the right to vote.

In the pic above Oyelowo is joined by Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, while the image below features Tessa Thompson as Diane Nash, Omar Dorsey as James Orange, Colman Domingo as Ralph Abernathy, Oyelowo as King, André Holland as Andrew Young, Corey Reynolds as Rev. C.T. Vivian, and Lorraine Toussaint as Amelia Boynton.

An Oscar-bait Christmas US release in planned, with the film reaching the UK February 2015.

Steve Martin’s career started with Disney working at Disneyland in the 1950s, and the company has been a recurring theme throughout his career backing movies such as Father Of The Bride and Bringing Down The House.

Now Martin and Disney are reteaming for the comedy Magic Camp, according to THR. It really does take him back to his roots, as his Disneyland job included working at the Main Street Magic Shop, demonstrating tricks to potential customers.

In Magic Camp, Martin will play ‘a straight-laced banker who returns to Magic Camp, a camp he attended as a shy child. This time he is a counselor who makes it his mission to improve the lives of all the kids while keeping an eye on his ultimate prize, the top spot at the Golden Wand competition’.

Steve Martin wrote the most recent version of the screenplay alongside Stu Zicherman. No director is currently attached.

Richard Attenborough, the famed actor and director has passed away aged 90, it’s been revealed. His film career started in the early 1940s, and indeed even when he signed up to serve in the RAF in World War II he was soon seconded to the film unit, to help make British propaganda movies.

His biggest early breakthrough came in 1947, playing Pinkie Brown in the film version of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock, recreating a role he’d played on the stage on 1942. He was a popular British star through the 50s, 60s and 70s, starring in the likes of Private’s Progress (1956) and I’m All Right Jack (1959), The Great Escape (1963), The Flight Of The Phoenix (1965) and 10 Rillington Place (1971).

However in 1979 he decided to put acting to one side and concentrate on directing. He’d already had some success with the likes of Oh! What A Lovely War! (1969), A Bridge Too Far (1977) and Magic (1978), but it was his next movie that moved him to a new level, with Attenborough moving heaven and earth to get Gandhi (1982) made. The resulting film won eight Oscars, including a Best Director gong for David.

He later directed the likes of A Chorus Line, Cry Freedom, Chaplin and Shadowlands.

In the 1990s he became known to a new, younger generation when he agreed to return to the screen to play John Hammond in 1993’s Jurassic Park. It must have given him the bug, as through the 1990s and early 2000s he had several other on-screen appearances in the likes of The Miracle On 34th Street and Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet.

Sadly though he’d been in declining health for several years and sadly died on Sunday.