“GANGSTER SQUAD” Character Banners

Warner Bros. launched the new character banners for the crime thriller “Gangster Squad” from director Ruben Fleischer.

The banners individually feature the characters played by Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and Josh Brolin.

Under the direction of Ruben Fleischer (“Zombieland”), “Gangster Squad” is a colorful retelling of 1949 events surrounding the LAPD’s efforts to take back their nascent city from one of the most dangerous mafia bosses of all time.

Ruthless, Brooklyn-born mob king Mickey Cohen (Penn) runs the show in this town, reaping the ill-gotten gains from the drugs, the guns, the prostitutes and—if he has his way—every wire bet placed west of Chicago. And he does it all with the protection of not only his own paid goons, but also the police and the politicians who are under his control.

It’s enough to intimidate even the bravest, street-hardened cop…except, perhaps, for the small, secret crew of LAPD outsiders led by Sgt. John O’Mara (Brolin) and Jerry Wooters (Gosling), who come together to try to tear Cohen’s world apart.

Emma Stone plays Grace Faraday, Cohen’s moll and the object of Wooters’ attention.

Opening across the Philippines on Jan. 23, 2013, “Gangster Squad” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN” GROSSES P271.54-M, NO.1 IN PH FOR 2ND WEEK

Comic book hero Peter Parker triumphantly returned to Philippine cinemas, re-igniting the Spider-Man film franchise with a ten-day nationwide gross of a staggering P271.54-million for “The Amazing Spider-Man.” This was announced today by Victor R. Cabrera, managing director of film distributor Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.

Topping the local box-office for two weeks in a row, the “Spider-Man” reboot is now the second-highest grossing movie of the year, and on track to become one of the most successful titles of all-time.
In the US, the brand new “Spider-Man” spun itself a $65 million opening weekend and $140 million in its first six days at theaters, July 3 to 8. Overseas, it added $129.1 million, raising its international total to $201.6 million and worldwide haul to $341.2 million since it began rolling out a week earlier in some foreign markets.
Back in the Philippines, “Amazing” opened June 29 with the biggest rollout ever in the industry: 530 cinemas, including 90 Digital 3D and 4 IMAX 3D screens. SM Mall of Asia registered the highest box-office receipts with P21.58-M, followed by SM North EDSA with P16.81-M, and Trinoma at P13.70-M.

“THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN” Swings to Cinemas in 3D

Columbia Pictures' new action-adventure “The Amazing Spider-Man” was shot in 3D, and for the filmmakers, it is a key choice.

“3D isn’t right for every movie, but 3D was made for Spider-Man,” says producer Avi Arad. “It is another way we have of keeping the audience immersed in the storytelling. You see the world through his eyes and you feel like Spider-Man – the exciting moments are even more exciting. But what might be surprising is that 3D makes the intimate moments more intimate as well – I can think of some scenes that are quite emotional that are even more emotional in 3D. It’s a perfect choice for this movie.”

“We wanted to put people in Peter Parker’s shoes and Spider-Man’s shoes in this film, to let them experience the thrills themselves. What better way to do that to enhance the reality than through 3D,” notes director Marc Webb. “It’s the ideal format to allow the audience to viscerally experience the quality of moving through space, flying through the air, swinging through Manhattan.”

EMMA STONE is GWEN STACY in THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN

Fast-rising star Emma Stone plays Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker’s first love and more importantly, his first real connection to the world around him, in Columbia Pictures' new action-adventure, “The Amazing Spider-Man.”


It’s a very different relationship from the one that audiences might be more familiar with. “I feel like Mary Jane fell in love with Spider-Man. Gwen falls in love with Peter Parker,” Stone explains.

In the film, Stone’s Gwen -- a high school valedictorian, all-round brainiac and head intern for Dr. Curt Connors at OsCorp -- comes to the fore as the girl who helps Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker keep his feet on the ground even as his tremendous powers let him soar through the sky.
“She’s his confidante,” says Stone, who returned to her natural blonde hair for the role, a far cry from the redhead she’s sported through most of her movie career. “She’s the only one who knows that he’s Spider-Man, which is kinda great. And the nice thing is that Gwen falls in love with Peter first. She loves the boy, in spite of him being Spider-Man, rather than the other way around.”
And, as the romance between the high school sweethearts blossoms, Gwen, whose father, Captain George Stacy (Denis Leary) is the police chief charged with finding Spider-Man and bringing him to justice, finds that her life just may be in danger.
“Getting involved with Peter is the first irresponsible thing she’s ever done. She knows that this boy is dangerous and there’s probably some complex about her father having a dangerous job,” admits Stone. “It’s her first time really standing up to her father and doing something he wouldn’t approve of. She has her whole life planned out and Peter really changes that for her. You’re going to see Gwen experience being out of control for the first time.”

Director Marc Webb Talks about “THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN”

Given his surname, you might think that it’s inevitable that Marc Webb would end up directing a Spider-Man movie. But the 37 year old would be the first to admit that he’s something of a leftfield choice to oversee this latest iteration of the friendly neighbourhood webslinger, with The Amazing Spider-Man representing only his second film, following 2009’s hit romantic comedy, (500) Days Of Summer.


That movie’s wry humour, flashy setpieces and focus on characters, though, persuaded The Amazing Spider-Man producers, Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach and the late Laura Ziskin that Webb was their Spider-director. And Webb has risen to the challenge, with an earthy, grounded aesthetic that sees the webslinger’s legendary story take place in a very recognisable universe: ours.


We caught up with Webb in his Culver City editing suite, and talked to him about his decision to get involved with the project, the challenges of making Spider-Man swing, and finding Andrew Garfield...


How did you get involved with The Amazing Spider-Man?
I was meeting with these guys [Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach] and they brought up the idea. I was meeting with them on something else and I thought it was totally ridiculous. I said, I don’t make movies like that. They said, that’s why you should do it.

This is a new version of the Spider-Man story. How different is it?
There’s so much to tell in terms of who this kid is. My favourite thing about Spider-Man, is Peter Parker, the fact that he’s a kid from Queens who’s not a billionaire and he’s not an alien. He’s a kid who has the same problems we all do and that makes him intensely relatable. Spider-Man becomes wish fulfillment for that, flying through the air and beating up bad guys, but that all emanates from what Peter Parker would dream of, whether or not he was Spider-Man. To me, I wanted to start from a place where it felt like, if you walked into the theatre, that it was the same universe you lived in, and ground that both aesthetically and emotionally, which is difficult when you have a giant lizard running down the street.


How did you approach the scenes where Spidey is swinging through the city?
It was important for me to not just see Spider-Man swinging away from afar, but to be with him and feel that. We went to New York, near Columbia and Harlem and built a travelling rig system. We have motion capture elements that are there to create a sense of realism, weight and physical realism that we’re still working on and will be working on until the day before the movie comes out. It’s about expanding the universe, where you earn the spectacle of Spider-Man’s abilities.