Big Gay Picture Show

Taking a look at the world of film through gay eyes - news, reviews, trailers, gay film, queer cinema and more

Taking a look at the world of film through gay eyes - news, reviews, trailers, gay film, queer cinema & more

First Pic From The Fifth Estate With Bendict Cumberbatch As Julian Assange

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fifth-estate-pic1The pro-Julian Assange lobby is already moving against The Fifth Estate, afraid the movie will be a hatchet job suggesting the Wikileaks founder is a power-mad, paranoid menace. We don’t know yet exactly what tone the movie will take, although as its based on a book by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who was once Assange’s right hand man but had a major ideological falling out with Julian, it’s probably not going to be 100% pro-Wikileaks.

Now the first image from The Fifth Estate, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange and Daniel Brühl as Daniel Domscheit-Berg, has arrived. Dreamworks has also set a November 15th, 2013 US release date (it should hit the UK around the same time), suggesting the studio is hoping for some Oscar love.

The movie follows Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Brühl), an early supporter and eventual colleague of Julian Assange (Cumberbatch), tracing the heady, early days of WikiLeaks, culminating in a series of controversial and history changing information leaks. The website’s overnight success brought instant fame to its principal architects and transformed the flow of information to news media and the world at large.

Director Bill Condon commented, “It may be decades before we understand the full impact of WikiLeaks and how it’s revolutionized the spread of information. So this film won’t claim any long view authority on its subject, or attempt any final judgment. We want to explore the complexities and challenges of transparency in the information age and, we hope, enliven and enrich the conversations WikiLeaks has already provoked.”

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Downton’s Dan Stevens Joins Dreamworks’ Wikileaks Flick

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Dan-StevensDan Stevens has had great success as the dishy Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey, and now Variety reports that he’s landed a film role in Dreamworks’ planned Wikileaks movie, playing a hacker friend of Daniel Bruhl’s Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who goes to work at the controversial website.

Benedict Cumberbatch will play WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in the film, which follows the rise and fall of the website. Bruhl (who recently replaced James McAvoy) is also onboard to play Daniel Domscheit-Berg, whose departure from the site in 2011 – due to major philosophical and journalistic differences – is credited as one of the main reasons that thousands of secret international cables were leaked, which led to massive international controversy.

Bill Condon is directing from a screenplay by Josh Singer, which is adapted from Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s book Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange At The World’s Most Dangerous Website and WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War On Secrecy by David Leigh and Luke Harding. Filming will begin next year.

The film is bound to prove controversial, as many see Domscheit-Berg as a turncoat who turned on his former friends and has been spreading disinformation to further his own agenda. Others believe he’s a hero who’s exposed the personality cult around Assange and the ethically dodgy way he handled the secrets leaked to him. Quite how the film will handle this isn’t known, although there are some who already believe it will be a hatchet job against Assange (whether he deserves it or not).

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Star Trek Into Darkness Teaser Trailer – Get a better look at Kirk and co.

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Last week we got an announcement teaser trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness, and now comes a longer version, which offers more footage and further hints towards links to Wrath Of Khan – including Benedict Cumberbatch’s dialogue and the hand touching at the end – although whether than means Cumberbatch’s ‘John Harrison’ is really Khan still isn’t known.

Eagle-eyed viewers also spotted links to a viral site, AreYouThe1701.com. At the moment if you click on the link it simply allows you to sign up with your e-mail address and birthdate, and promises to ‘tell you when the search begins’. Hopefully more will be revealed soon.

Here’s the film’s synopsis: ‘In Summer 2013, pioneering director J.J. Abrams will deliver an explosive action thriller that takes Star Trek Into Darkness. When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis.

‘With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.’

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Alicia Vikander Joins Benedict Cumberbatch In WikiLeaks Movie

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Alicia-VikanderDreamworks’ Wikileaks movie continues to come together, with Variety reporting that Anna Karenina star Alicia Vikander has entered negotiations to star in the movie for director Bill Condon.

Benedict Cumberbatch is set to play WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in the film, which follow the rise and fall of his controversial website. Alicia Vikander will play one of his co-workers and eventual love interest. Daniel Bruhl (who recently replaced James McAvoy) is also onboard to play Daniel Domscheit-Berg, whose departure from the site in 2011 – due to major philosophical and journalistic differences – is credited as one of the main reasons that thousands of secret international cables were leaked, which led to massive international controversy.

Bill Condon is directing from a screenplay by Josh Singer, which is adapted from Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s book Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange At The World’s Most Dangerous Website and WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War On Secrecy by David Leigh and Luke Harding. Filming will begin next year.

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Does New Star Trek Image Reveals Benedict Cumberbatch’s Character?

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There’s been a lot of speculation about who Benedict Cumberbatch would be playing in Star Trek Into Darkness, with many suggesting he’ll be a classic Trek villain. Director JJ Abrams meanwhile seems to have been having a lot of fun not telling us. However now the new image above has arrived, which gives us a name for the character in its caption.

So who is it? Well, the caption simply says, ‘(Left to right) Zachary Quinto is Spock, Benedict Cumberbatch is John Harrison and Chris Pine is Kirk in STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS from Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions.’

So who is John Harrison? Well, the recently official synopsis describes him as a ‘one man weapon of mass destruction’, but there are still those who believe John Harrison is either a ruse or pseudonym, and that this baddie is actually the legendary Khan. Knowing Abrams, he’s not going to say anything about this until after the film is release, but there is a fair amount of evidence that Khan will be involved, although nothing definitive.

The film hits cinemas May 17th 2013. Here’s the synopsis again in case you missed it, ‘When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.’

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Star Trek Into Darkness Announcement Teaser Trailer – Has the villain been revealed?

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Star Trek fans prepare to get excited, as your first look at the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness is here, with a brief announcement trailer. You can watch that above, along with a Japanese version below, which slightly different footage.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘In Summer 2013, pioneering director J.J. Abrams will deliver an explosive action thriller that takes Star Trek Into Darkness. When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis.

‘With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.’

From the trailer we discover that Benedict Cumberbatch is one angry man, wanting plenty of revenge and causing all sorts of trouble. However we still don’t have a name for his character, which has led to plenty of speculation that he’ll be a JJ Abrams version of one of the classic Trek baddies. There are some people already suggesting that the Japanese version, with its 15 seconds of extra footage, gives a major hint as to exactly which villain it will be, [SPOILER ALERT] due to a shot of Kirk and Spock touching through a pane of glass, which is reminiscent of Star Trek II. And that could mean that as long speculated, Cumberbatch is Khan Noonien Singh. That’s still not confirmed but it’s seeming increasingly likely. [SPOILERS END]

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Daniel Bruhl Replaces James McAvoy In The WikiLeaks Movie

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It’s only a few weeks since James McAvoy entered talks to star in Dreamworks’ Untitled WikiLeaks Project, but now the actor has dropped out, due to the fact he couldn’t work the film around his commitments to shoot X-Men: Days Of Future Past early next year. The filmmakers have moved fast to replace him with Inglourious Basterds star Daniel Brühl, according to THR.

Brühl will play Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who was the right hand man of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch). Domscheit-Berg’s departure from the website is credited as one of the many reasons why thousands of diplomatic cables were leaked in September 2011, which lead to Julian Assange’s (at least partial) downfall. Although Berg initially agreed with Assange’s mission to reveal things governements were trying to keep secret, he began to have major problems with the Wikileaks’ head lack of journalistic integrity and potentially dangerous actions.

Bill Condon is directing from an adapted screenplay by Josh Singer, based on Domscheit-Berg’s book, Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange At The World’s Most Dangerous Website, as well as WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War On Secrecy by British jorunalists David Leigh and Luke Harding. There were reports that Laura Linney was circling a role as a State Department official, but she is not in talks to join the project (although there is interest in her). DreamWorks has put the project on the fast track, with production to begin in January.

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Star Trek Into Darkness Official Synopsis Arrives

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JJ Abrams is a big fan of secrecy, and so it’s often difficult to get any information about projects he’s working on. With some, such as Cloverfield, he’s even tried to maintain secrecy after the film was released. However some info always slips out, and with a franchise as big as Star Trek, it’s little surprise the studio wants to give out at least a little info.

Now the official synopsis has arrived (via The Film Stage), which may not be a point-by-point breakdown, but certainly let’s us now the broad strokes. It says, ‘In Summer 2013, pioneering director J.J. Abrams will deliver an explosive action thriller that takes Star Trek Into Darkness. When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis.

‘With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.’

It’s slightly awkwardly worded, seemingly because they’re trying to give us info while not revealing anything about the villain themselves. All we know is they’re being played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

The film hits cinemas May 17th, 2013, with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg and Anton Yelchin all returning.

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James McAvoy Joins Benedict Cumberbatch In WikiLeaks Biopic

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Dreamworks’ planned biopic of Julian Assange already has Benedict Cumberbatch onboard to play the main character, and now the cast has gotten even better, as James McAvoy is in talks to star in director Bill Condon’s movie, according to Variety.

McAvoy is portraying Daniel Domscheit-Berg, whose book Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange At The World’s Most Dangerous Website serves as the basis for this biopic. Joel Kinnaman was rumoured to play Daniel Domscheit-Berg, although a deal never happened.

Julian Assange launched the WikiLeaks in 2006 and recruited Daniel Domscheit-Berg to join the site a year later, amidst promises that the duo would change the world. The site has come under fire from various authorities for releasing 1000s of classified files that have embarrassed many world leaders. Domscheit-Berg left the site due to Julian Assange’s lack of journalistic integrity. Of course Assange is now in the Ecuadorian embassy, where he’s sought asylum after the UK tried to deport him to to Sweden on rape charges.

Josh Singer is adapting the screenplay based on both Domscheit-Berg’s book and WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War On Secrecy by David Leigh and Luke Harding.

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Gemma Arterton & Benedict Cumberbatch Will Do Absolutely Anything

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Although you’d have expected a movie that promises to reteam the surviving Pythons (minus Eric Idle) wouldn’t have much difficulty getting made, Absolutely Anything has been in development for a long time. Terry Jones has been in line to direct for nearly two decades, and in 2010 he signed up Terry Gilliam, John Cleese and Michael Palin to voice aliens in the movie.

At that time, John Oliver was lined up to star, but things have been languishing, only now moving forward with the news, via The Wrap, that Gemma Arterton has signed on the dotted line to star in the film, with Benedict Cumberbatch in talks.

The film is based on a script from Jones and Gavin Scott, which is about a group of aliens who decide to give a teacher (Cumberbatch) the power to do absolutely anything – Bruce Almighty style – with just a wave of his hand. The site reports, ‘He can wipe out classrooms of badly behaving students and bring people back to life. But he experiences mishap after mishap as he tries to learn how to use these powers’. Robin Williams is set to be a talking dog named Dennis (to be voiced by Robin Williams) who understands more about what’s going on than anyone else.

The plan in to shoot the movie in the first quarter of 2013.

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