ENT Blog

For now, Edward Norton is keeping his anger in check.

The 40-year-old actor is noncommittal about returning as Bruce Banner a.k.a. the Hulk in another Marvel-produced outing.

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At 78, Robert Duvall is still determined to tell the stories that interest him. But does Hollywood want to listen?

The Oscar-winning actor, whose Get Low premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, tells Sun Media he’s hoping to produce two mini-series on the small screen - if he can find the backing.

The first is a project entitled The Border, which would concern the Texas-Mexico border. “We’ve been turned down, but I can’t get it out of my mind.”

And he is intrigued by the prospect of doing a production about The Pony Express, possibly with AMC, the cable network that made his Emmy-winning mini-series Broken Trail and now produces such acclaimed hits as Mad Men and Breaking Bad.

“It might be with AMC. We put them on the map with Broken Trail, but I don’t know, it’s never really payback time in this industry.”

Michael Douglas and Matt Damon are set to tickle each other’s ivories next spring.

Douglas confirms the duo will team for a Liberace biopic helmed by Steven Soderbergh, who co-produced Douglas’s latest, Solitary Man, and directed Damon in Friday’s whistleblower comedy The Informant!

Douglas will portray the flamboyant piano-playing entertainer while Damon will play Scott Thorson, who sued Liberace for palimony even though the superstar insisted he wasn’t gay.

“Matt’s going to be my young lover,” Douglas tells Sun Media. “Why not? God bless Matt. Hey, it’s easy for me - he’s in his prime. I said to him, ‘Matt, I love you, man. Boy, that Bourne (series) must really be going strong.’ But good for him. He’s right taking chances. All those young guys - (George) Clooney - they’re taking risks … It’s smart trying to mix it up a bit and maintain those franchises and still get to do a picture that turns you on.”

Douglas intends to spend the early part of 2010 preparing for the role after he wraps Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.

“I’m going to spend two or three months, just researching. I’ll get the voice and figure out the piano style. I’m just going to get really comfortable so it’s not a caricature,” he says, clearly intrigued by the challenge. “At this point and at my age, why not? It’s not all autographs and sunglasses.”

Eyeliner? Check. Earnest skinniness? Check. Pig’s blood? Check.

Such is the heart-and-liver-and-kidney-rending music scene in Jennifer’s Body. In the horror comedy, opening Friday, Megan Fox plays a high school cheerleader victimized by an emo band, led by The O.C.’s Adam Brody, who, in a pact with Lucifer, transform her into a flesh-devouring evil incarnate.

Screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno) admits she had plenty of inspiration for the brooding balladeers. “When I wrote this a couple years ago, there was this crop of very earnest, lovable emo-rock bands,” Cody says without naming names.

“And I thought to myself, they present themselves as so approachable and charitable, what if they were actually demonic - agents of Satan pretending to be good guys with their little eye-liner? That was the inspiration.”

Whether it’s Mad Men, Revolutionary Road or the Beatles Rock Band video game, the early 1960s are as groovy as ever. Add to this pop culture pile-up An Education, the bracing coming-of-age drama starring Carey Mulligan as a teenager in 1961 London.

“I always loved reading books that took place in that period,” says Danish director Lone Scherfig. “My early childhood is that period and it’s so nice I didn’t have to become an adult like they thought I would have to.”

In other words, she had more options than to be either a civil servant or a housewife - the grim choice most women had to face.

As for why the era of JFK and Marilyn Monroe still holds such appeal, Scherfig theorizes it could be because it helps people who weren’t born yet - or were just children - understand the world their parents came from. But the period is also close enough to the present-day that the situations are relatable.

“I like seeing movies set in the 15th century, but it’s hard to get emotionally involved. If things aren’t that far back, it’s easier to break the glass wall between the audience and the movie. I love Mad Men. They don’t run it in Denmark yet. And I loved Revolutionary Road.”

In fact, she loves Mad Men so much that when she learned during roundtable interviews that one of the nearby gifting booths - or swag suites - was doling out Mad Men DVDs, she went to get one for herself.

An Education meanwhile opens across Canada this fall, starting in select markets in October.