Universal Pictures’ The Five Year Engagement–a comedy reteaming director/writer/producer Nicholas Stoller and writer/star Jason Segel of Forgetting Sarah Marshall–has been selected to open the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. The premiere is set for Wednesday, April 18, and the Festival runs through April 29.
Beginning where most romantic comedies end, The Five-Year Engagement looks at what happens when an engaged couple, Segel and Emily Blunt, keeps getting tripped up on the long walk down the aisle. The film, also produced by Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin) and Rodney Rothman (Get Him to the Greek), opens nationally on April 27.
“When Jason and I met during the production of Undeclared, we couldn’t have imagined that one day we would write a comedy that would open such a prestigious film festival as Tribeca,” said Stoller. “We are so honored that the festival organizers have given us this platform to premiere the film. To be honest, this is all just a ploy to stand on top of a building with Robert De Niro and look out over New York City at dusk.”
The 2012 Tribeca Film Festival will announce its feature film slate on March 6 and 8.
Founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff in 2001 following the attacks on the World Trade Center, to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of the lower Manhattan district through an annual celebration of film, music and culture, the Tribeca Film Festival brings the industry and community together around storytelling.
The Tribeca Film Festival, now in its 11th year, has screened more than 1,300 films from more than 80 countries since its first edition in 2002. During its first 10 years, the Festival has attracted an international audience of more than 3.7 million attendees and has generated an estimated $725 million in economic activity for New York City.
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More