Jesse Eisenberg In for “Oslo, August 31st” Director’s English Language Debut “Louder Than Bombs”

May 9, 2013 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting Leave a comment

Norwegian director Joachim Trier, known for 2011 drama “Oslo, August 31st”, is set to make his English language directorial debut on family drama “Louder Than Bombs” and he’s recruited Isabelle Huppert, Gabriel Byrne and Jesse Eisenberg to star in it.

Set to shoot this fall in the US and Germany, the film revolves around a late wartime photographer (Huppert) and the family she left behind. Three years after her death, on the eve of a retrospective of her work, her husband (Byrne) and two sons (Eisenberg being one of them) discover an unsettling secret from her past. Trier says his film, which he also co-wrote with long-time collaborator Eskil Vogt, “is a character-driven piece so I am obviously thrilled to have such incredible actors working with me on this. Isabelle, Jesse, and Gabriel are all actors I have wanted to work with for a long time, so having them play together as one family feels remarkable.”

Eisenberg, who earned an Oscar nomination for David Fincher’s “The Social Network”, was last seen in Woody Allen’s “To Rome with Love” and will next appear in magician heist thriller “Now You See Me.” He’s also wrapped shooting on Dostoyevsky adaptation “The Double” with Mia Wasikowska and eco-terrorist thriller “Night Moves” with Dakota Fanning.

Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Kruger and Emile Hirsch sign on to 1940s-set drama “Midnight Sun”

February 7, 2013 | Posted by Rebecca Lewis in Casting Leave a comment

Now here’s an interesting project with some talented actors. Jesse Eisenberg, Emile Hirsch and Diane Kruger are attached to star in 1940s set drama “Midnight Sun“.

It’s 1943 and two young postgraduates (Eisenberg and Hirsch) are “recruited by the US Government to work on a top-secret project in New Mexico. Along with one of the students’ new wife (Kruger), they drop their jazz-filled lives in New York and move to a secret community of scientists in the desert.”

Screen Daily report from Berlinale that Chris Eigeman has scripted the film and will also sit in the director’s chair. Production will begin this summer.

German actress Kruger first got our attention in Quentin Tarantino’s Oscar-nominated “Inglorious Basterds” and has since gone on to join high-profile adaptation “The Host”, which is due out late March 2013, indie romcom “5-7” with fellow rising actor Anton Yelchin, and young Lincoln biopic “The Green Blade Rises” with Brit Marling.

After a few years away from the big screen Hirsch recently won raves at Sundance Film Festival for “Prince Avalanche“, a David Gordon Green pic with Paul Rudd, and joined Peter Berg’s “Lone Survivor”, a chronicle of SEAL team members in Afghanistan.

Eisenberg, who broke out in “The Social Network” garnering an Oscar nominee for his performance, has been picking his roles carefully since but will next be seen in “Now You See Me”, a futuristic magic thriller.

Watch: Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco make futuristic magic in first trailer for “Now You See Me”

November 16, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Videos 1 Comment

The first trailer for magician heist thriller “Now You See Me” has been released via Yahoo! Movies and it is not at all what I expected. Sleek, high-tech and slightly futuristic, this Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco led actioner is being played out on a way bigger stage than I had anticipated.

The three, along with Woody Harrelson, are a group of world class magicians. For their final act, they tell the audience, they are going to rob a bank. They seemingly teleport a member of the audience into a bank vault, and then shower the audience with the money he brings back. This of course does not sit well with the FBI, led here by Mark Ruffalo and Melanie Laurent, and they are hot on the group’s trail. Meanwhile, Morgan Freeman believes the real trick up their sleeves has yet to be revealed.

Whew! Seems like there’s a lot of great action sequences and a complicated mystery to solve here, so count us in. Directed by Louis Letterier, “Now You See Me” has been set for release on January 18, 2013. The first trailer can be seen below.

Paul Dano and Rooney Mara out, Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning in for indie thriller “Night Moves”

August 13, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting 1 Comment

There will be no “Meek’s Cutoff” reunion after all. After nearly a year, Kelly Reichardt’s eco-terrorist thriller “Night Moves” is getting a bit of a cast makeover as it moves closer to production. Peter Sarsgaard and Paul Dano had been set to play the two male leads, while Rooney Mara was circling the female lead, but now Variety reports Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning will be taking over the roles vacated by Dano and Mara.

The trio of actors will play a group of eco-terrorists who plot to blow up a dam. Eisenberg will be the ringleader, Fanning the rich young girl who funds the project, and Sarsgaard the mastermind behind the plan. Sarsgaard spoke last year of his character’s motivations: “I can understand how my character gets to the point of wanting to blow up a dam. I never want to do this, but I can understand how someone can want to do that. We have a gun pointed to our planet. We see that the demonstrations are not working because they are being tackled with pepper [spray]… so you get the radical movement. I can understand that.” Production is scheduled to begin in October in Oregon.

Eisenberg has stayed busy since getting his first Oscar nomination in David Fincher’s 2010 masterpiece “The Social Network.” After a double dose of indies in “Why Stop Now” and “Free Samples”, Eisenberg starred in Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” follow-up, “To Rome With Love”, opposite Ellen Page. He’s currently filming “The Double”, a comedy based on Dostoyevsky’s novella, opposite Mia Wasikowska and will also soon be seen in magician heist thriller “Now You See Me” with Dave Franco. Fanning is currently filming coming-of-age drama “Very Good Girls” opposite Elizabeth Olsen and has wrapped on indies “Now Is Good” (which showed at Cannes and which we didn’t really care for) and “The Motel Life.” She’ll also have one last appearance as vampire villainous Jane in “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2″, out in November.

Watch: Video footage from the set of “Now You See Me” with Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco

April 13, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Videos Leave a comment

Today we have the first footage from the set of one of our most anticipated upcoming movies, as Entertainment Weekly unveiled some B-Roll and interviews with the cast of magician heist thriller “Now You See Me.” Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco are seen in action as big-scale, high tech magicians performing tricks that involve both high flying wire-work and traditional bunny-and-top-hat stuff. The three play members of an elite magician troupe who use their performances for corrupt businessmen to swindle their money and lavish upon the more deserving. “Like modern day Robin Hoods,” says Fisher.

Of course, noble as their intentions may be, it’s still high illegal, and hot on their trail is an FBI team led by Mark Ruffalo and Melanie Laurent, who appears to be seen in a brief chase scene with Eisenberg in the clip below as well.

Directed by Louis Letterier, “Now You See Me” has been set for release on January 18, 2013. The first video footage from the set can be seen below.

Woody Allen’s “To Rome With Love” starring Jesse Eisenberg and Ellen Page to Open LA Film Festival

April 12, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in General News Leave a comment

Ahead of its June 22nd US release, Woody Allen’s latest international ensemble rom-com “To Rome With Love” will open the Los Angeles Film Festival, it was announced via press release this morning. The festival will serve as the North American premiere for the film, while the world premiere will take place tomorrow in – where else? – Rome, Italy.

The film “is a story about a number of people in Italy — some American, some Italian, some residents, some visitors — and the romances and adventures and predicaments they get into.” Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Greta Gerwig and Alison Pill are joined onscreen by Allen himself, along with Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penélope Cruz and Judy Davis.

“I can’t think of a better way to kick off this year’s festival than with the original independent filmmaker himself, Woody Allen. It’s a true honor for Los Angeles to host the North American premiere of To Rome With Love,” said Festival Director Stephanie Allain.

The full press release is below.

Watch: Jesse Eisenberg caught between Greta Gerwig and Ellen Page in first trailer for Woody Allen’s “To Rome With Love”

April 3, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Videos Leave a comment

Some plot and character details are cleared up with our first look at the trailer for Woody Allen’s newest globe-trotting filmmaking venture, “To Rome With Love.” Allen himself is back on the screen in this one, about interlocking stories of love, infidelity, family, politics, fame and more. He joins Jesse Eisenberg, an American living in Rome with his girlfriend Greta Gerwig. When her newly dumped best friend Ellen Page shows up to stay a while, an instant love triangle is formed. Alec Baldwin plays his visiting father, while elsewhere in the city Alison Pill plays Allen’s daughter, dating an Italian her father disapproves of and Penelope Cruz plays the hottest prostitute that could only exist in the movies.

Typical of Allen’s films, the dialogue is sharp and funny and the situations playful and silly. Bring on Copenhagen. In the meantime, “To Rome with Love” opens on June 22nd and the first trailer can be viewed below.

First Look: Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page and Alison Pill in stills from Woody Allen’s “To Rome With Love”

March 22, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Images 1 Comment

After the massive critical and commercial success of “Midnight in Paris”, all eyes are on Woody Allen’s next stop on his globe-trotting tour of filmmaking. The recently renamed “To Rome with Love” (which you may have been familiar with under the titles “Bop Decameron” and “Nero Fiddled”) takes Americans – including Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Greta Gerwig, Alec Baldwin and “Paris” alum Alison Pill – to Italy this time, and now we have our first look at the characters and relationships, thanks to CinemaBlend and The Playlist.

Like “Midnight in Paris”, plot details are vague, but will somehow revolve around interweaving groups of people in Rome, tourists, residents, families, lovers – perhaps with some time traveling? We can only hope. From the images, we can discern that Baldwin and Eisenberg are probably father and son, while Eisenberg and Page seem to be taking over for Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams as the young visiting couple, and Pill may be finding romance with the locals.

“To Rome With Love” opens on June 22nd. See the first stills below.

First look: Jesse Eisenberg during rehearsals for criminal magician flick “Now You See Me”

March 6, 2012 | Posted by Rebecca Lewis in Images Leave a comment

Louis Leterrier’s “Now You See Me”, which revolves around a group of highly skilled magicians who pull off bank robberies during their performances, has just started filming in New Orleans – despite a promotional poster being released four months ago! – and now we have the first on-set pictures.

Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg stars as ATLAS, the leader The Four Horsemen, a magic super-group. In these first images Eisenberg shows off his skills of illusion, rehearsing on stage with soap bubbles that us mere audience members aren’t able to see! Other images show an audience of dummies, as well as the wire work involved in magic. All the pictures come from photographer-cum-director Alma Har’el at WhoSay.

The film stars a great selection of up and coming rising stars, including Melanie Laurent, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco, as well as Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine, and is set to open on January 18th 2013.

Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska see “Double”

February 1, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting 1 Comment

Mia Wasikowska and Jesse Eisenberg are teaming up to star in “The Double”, inspired by the novella of the same name by Dostoevsky, according to THR. The comedy will be director Richard Ayoade’s follow-up to breakout British coming-of-age tale “Submarine.”

Based on an original idea by Avi Korine and co-written by Korine and Ayoade, Eisenberg stars as an insignificant man who is driven to madness by the appearance of a doppleganger. The film “will reflect on loneliness and our need to love and be loved”, according to the director. Shooting will take place this spring/summer in the UK.

Eisenberg has had a busy year following his Oscar-nominated role in David Fincher’s “The Social Network.” He’s gone back to his indie roots to film “Predisposed” opposite Melissa Leo and “Free Samples”, and then traveled to Rome with Woody Allen for “Nero Fiddled.” He’s currently hard at work on “Now You See Me”, Louis Letterier’s magician heist thriller that’s one of our most anticipated upcoming projects. Wasikowska broke out after being chosen by Tim Burton to headline “Alice in Wonderland”, but proved she’s got serious acting chops to boot when she starred in indie fare like “The Kids Are All Right” and this year’s “Jane Eyre.” One of the most sought after young actresses around, she’s currently gracing the cover of Vanity Fair’s annual Hollywood Issue.

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