Paramount Steps Up to Contest for Oscars

Links (3)

The Circuitous Course of Benjamin Button
Published 9/29/2008 by Ryan Adams at Awards Daily 2008
... The zig-zag path from Fitzgerald short story to Fincher epic is outlined in the NYTimes, following The Curious Case of Benjamin Button across a minefield of interpretations (a comedy starring Martin Short!), as the property was passed many hands over the past two decades (Speilberg and Spike Jonz among the directors once attached.) It’s a rewrite history that began in the early ’90s with producer Ray Stark; stalled when the artisic demands could not be fulfilled until technology caught up; and re-ignited when Forrest Gump author Eric Roth’s script landed at ...

iW ROUND UP | Monday, September 29th
Published 9/29/2008 by eug (eugene@indiewire.com) at indieWIRE: Buzz / Rumors
indieWIRE's snapshot of news and views from around the web on Monday. Studios Hoping to Pick Up Oscar Slack Pegged to David Fincher's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," a look at studio prospects for Oscar season. [NYT] Weinstein Getting Into Oscar Race Daldry's "The Reader" set for '08 release, despite reported recent battle between producer Scott Rudin and Harvey Weinstein. [VAR] D-cinema Deal $1 billion to go to equipping 15,000 movie theaters with digital projection systems. [HR] ...

Old Man Brad Pitt Still Front-Runner as Oscar-Hungry Paramount Pushes 'Button' [Defamer Oscar Futures]
Published 9/29/2008 by STV at Defamer
... Which ultimately amounts to little more than succeeding without Steven Spielberg or Marvel's creative influence. But it will, as The NY Times reminds us, first depend on whether or not Grey can actually make people forget about Paramount Vantage less than a year after the label co-produced two Best Picture nominees before folding into the mother ship. How else to accomplish that, of course, but by courting both Oscar and audiences on the tenets of early 19th-century philosophy: ...