FUN FACTS FROM THE CAST OF INCEPTION

Marion Cotillard
-She’s the daughter of former mime and theatre director Jean-Claude Cotillard and actress Niseema Theillaud. She began acting in the early ‘90s in one of her father’s plays
-Was nominated as Best Actress in the same year Ellen Page was nominated as well, Marion won though :)
-Luc Besson cast Cotillard in her first big commercial role in the French box-office hit “Taxi.” Then, in 2003, Tim Burton introduced her to English-speaking audiences in “Big Fish.”
-Cotillard is the first actress to receive the Best Actress Oscar (as Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose”) for a non-English speaking role since Sophia Loren won in 1962 for “Two Women.”

Ellen Page
-Ellen considers Patti Smith her role model and Kate Winslet and Meryl Streep her favorite actresses.
-Ellen was in the running for the role of Natalie Keener in “Up in the Air,” but the part went to “Twilight’s” Anna Kendrick, who went on to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
-“I don’t really want to do the Hollywood thing. I think you ought to try to say something with your movies.”

Joseph Gordon Levitt
-Joseph attended but did not graduate from Columbia University, where he studied French.
-His first breakthrough was on the hit TV show “Third Rock from the Sun.”
-His maternal grandfather was Michael Gordon, who directed such films as the 1950 “Cyrano de Bergerac” and 1959’s “Pillow Talk.” Mike Gordon’s career was hampered after he was blacklisted in the ’50s. He became a professor at UCLA.

Tom Hardy
-He loves to drink coffee, Coke, fizzy water, fruit drinks, Red Bull, and tea.
-The British actor got his first big break in HBO’s “Band of Brothers.”
-“You don’t step on stage to eat, you go there to be eaten.”

Ken Watanabe
-Mostly cast as Japanese samurai warriors in his career, Watanabe incorporates the samurai’s values in his daily life by not amassing too many material possessions and by living his life with honor, pride and discipline.
-Watanabe, nominated for Best Supporting Actor in “The Last Samurai,” is one of seven actors of Asian descent nominated for an Academy Award. The others are Miyoshi Umeki, who won Best Supporting Actress for “Sayonara” (1957); Sessue Hayakawa, nominated for “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957); Mako, nominated for “The Sand Pebbles” (1966); Haing S. Ngor, who won Best Supporting Actor for “The Killing Fields” (1984); Pat Morita, nominated for “The Karate Kid” (1984); and Rinko Kikuchi, nominated for “Babel” (2006).
-The actor was diagnosed with leukemia in 1989. He is now fully recovered.

Dileep Rao
--Dileep holds an MFA from the American Conservatory Theater.
-He competed on “Jeopardy!” and won $34,400.

Cillian Murphy
-Murphy auditioned for the role of Batman in “Batman Begins,” which eventually went to Christian Bale. Director Christopher Nolan liked Cillian’s audition so much, however, that he gave him a role as Batman’s enemy, Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow.
-The Irish born actor greatly admires actor Liam Neeson and looks at him as a surrogate movie dad.
-Murphy was planning a career in law until he discovered the world of acting

Tom Berenger
-He graduated from the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism.
-Berenger claims that he had a few very bad years, from 1979 to 1981. The roles stopped coming, and he says, “I was just scraping by financially, and emotionally I was getting really defeated. I got to the point where I could hardly go on auditions anymore."
-Is a major world history buff

Christopher Nolan (technically not a part of the cast...?)
-Born in London in 1970, Nolan began making films at 7, using his father’s super 8mm camera and an assortment of male-action figures.
-Nolan is a big James Bond told writer/director David S. Goyer that his favorite James Bond movie is “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
-He considers Stanley Kubrick and Ridley Scott two of his primary influences as a director.

Kristen Stewart talks about choosing between Edward and Jacob

Is it hard to choose between Edward and Jacob?
It’s tough for Bella to be in that position, because she ignores the fact that there’s many levels of understanding between loving and caring for someone, and suddenly having the priority to choose someone makes her realize her mistakes, which have nothing to do with being grateful or hopeful about something. Clearly we can relate to her when she’s confused and says: “I don’t know anything”; she finds herself completely lost and doesn’t know the difference between loving and caring for someone.

You’ve grown up as an actress, from the beginning to now, what has that process been like?
Everyday I grow up and learn something, and in every movie that I’ve been in has given me new experiences. I’ve grown up a lot with Bella, because I feel like I’m projecting myself more with this character than with any other; I feel connected with her in a very personal way. That is how a person grows as an actor, movie by movie, or character by character. Of course, Twilight has been a long project that has changed my life in multiple ways, and it’s the set where I’ve met a lot of my best friends and have had great working relationships.

Jacob and Bella have something more than just a friendship. Is it possible for a man and a woman to be just friends?
Well, it’s very common that the friendship a guy and a girl have turns into something else, but I do think that a relationship that doesn’t go beyond friendship is also possible. But that can’t be determined by me or anyone else, it’s a decision made by the two people in that relationship.

"Inception" will air on TNT beginning in 2012

TNT, along with its sister-comedy network TBS, has signed a deal to beginning airing certain movies starting in the year 2012. Among those movies is Chris Nolan's Inception.

TNT has landed the TV rights to Chris Nolan's blockbuster Inception in a deal between parent company Turner and corporate sibling Warner Bros. that includes several other WB titles: romantic comedies Sex And the City 2 and Valentine's Day, action flicks Clash of the Titans and Jonah Hex and the upcoming Robert Downey Jr./Zach Galifianakis comedy Due Date. Inception, Clash of the Titans and Jonah Hex are headed to drama-focused TNT, while the 3 comedies, Sex and the City, Valentine's Day and Due Date will run on comedy-centered sister network TBS. All are expected to premiere between mid-2012 and early 2013. The licensee fee is believed to be in the standard 10-12% range of the movies' domestic box-office, depending on their performance. Inception, which is poised to cross the $100 million mark tomorrow morning, would certainly command a premium license fee of 12% and could go as high as $24 million if the thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio crosses the $200 million mark domestically. The deal for Inception comes on the heels of FX's acquisition of another hot summer action newcomer, the upcoming Angelina Jolie starrer Salt.

Inception Made $3 Million for the Midnight Showings

Moviegoers were wide awake last night for midnight screenings of Warner Bros.' "Inception," shelling out a healthy estimated $3 million at approximately 2,000 late night runs.

Pic opens wide today at 3,792 locations, including 197 Imax runs.

Directed by Christopher Nolan and toplining Leonardo DiCaprio, "Inception" is the story of a team of specialists hired to steal from a person's subconscious. Pic's late night tally reps a solid start to the weekend, with the film expected to perform tops.

The frames other wide release Disney's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" launched to a sleepy $3.9 million on Wednesday. Originally skedded to bow today, "Apprentice" moved up to benefit from tots on summer vacation, as well as to likely distance itself from Warner's "Inception."

Still, "Apprentice" showed some resilience on Thursday, grossing $3.2 million, down just 18% from the previous day.

'Beauty and the Beast (Diamond Edition)' Officially Dated for Blu-ray!

Beauty and the Beast is still one of Disney's best-loved and most-acclaimed films, so it makes perfect sense that when the studio was looking for a second "Diamond Edition" release to follow up on Snow White, they went with B&B. The film has been restored and polished for a high-def picture and 7.1 digital surround sound, and while the details as far as extras aren't available yet, based on the example of the Snow White Diamond Edition, you can expect to get everything and the kitchen sink. Which will be anthropomorphized and will perform a musical number for you.

As with Snow White, this release will first arrive as a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack and will list for $39.99 when it hits stands on October 5th. If you haven't upgraded but still want the latest version, you can wait until November 23rd for a two-disc set on standard DVD for 10 bucks less. But really, if you're not going to splurge to get the movie in the very best quality, just track down a cheap copy of one of the previous releases.

The Cover for the Blu-Ray:

Cinema boycott could send Alice in Wonderland down the rabbit hole

Alice in Wonderland should have enchanted cinemagoers this spring and earned tens of millions of pounds at the box office as the latest 3D blockbuster. Instead, the Disney film could disappear down the rabbit hole, as a boycott means that it may not be coming to a cinema near you.

A dispute between Disney and two of Britain’s biggest cinema chains, Odeon and Vue, means that the film will not be shown in about 40 per cent of cinemas. Today is the last day that a compromise can realistically be reached, though neither side is likely to break the impasse.

The dispute began when Disney stated that it would bring Alice out on DVD within 12 weeks instead of the customary 17 to try to stem the abrupt decline in DVD sales, traditionally the biggest earner for studios.

A shorter gap between the film’s launch at the cinema and on DVD would mean that advertising campaigns would be fresher in consumers’ minds and could also curb sales of pirate DVDs.

Bob Iger, the chief executive of Disney, believes that he must break cinemas’ insistence on strict DVD delays and has chosen Alice as his battleground. He knows that British cinemas are more powerful than their continental counterparts (they take about 60 per cent of box-office receipts compared with 50 per cent elsewhere in Europe) and is using a film that would be expected to perform well in Britain.

Directed by Tim Burton, Alice was partly shot here and features a British cast including Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman and Stephen Fry.

While other studios wait to see if Disney is successful before adopting a similar strategy, cinemas are outraged after spending millions of pounds on 3D equipment in the belief that studios’ terms would remain the same.

They are also irritated because, while DVD sales in Britain declined by about 10 per cent last year, cinema takings were up by 11 per cent. A senior cinema executive told The Times: “There is nothing wrong with our business model. [The studios] are coming to us and saying, ‘We’ve got a broken model on our side and we want you to pay for it.’ ”

Cineworld, a third British cinema chain, has angered rivals by refusing to join the boycott after a visit from Bob Chapek, Disney’s president of distribution, who reassured it that Disney wished to shorten the window for only two or three films a year. The DVD release for Alice was extended to 13 weeks.

Odeon issued a tart response, saying that it was dropping plans to show Alice “as a result of Disney’s insistence on reducing at short notice the theatrical window on a major 3D title”.

]Disney tried to shorten the window for Up, the Pixar animation, last year, but relented when cinemas said that they would drop Up and A Christmas Carol.

Disney declined to comment, but is understood to be resolute. A cinema industry source said it is prepared to risk about £10 million in lost revenue.

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"Shutter Island" storms North American box office

Director Martin Scorsese and his protege Leonardo DiCaprio beat out the weekend competition in the United States and Canada in the fright flick "Shutter Island," estimated figures showed Sunday.

The movie, the strongest opening for both Scorsese and DiCaprio, pulled in some 40.2 million dollars in its debut weekend, according to the tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.

Adapted from a book by Dennis Lehane, the movie is a police thriller with elements of fantasy and horror in which DiCaprio plays a US federal marshall investigating a disappearance at a psychiatric asylum in the 1950s.

The movie is the fourth collaboration between the Oscar-winning director and Di Caprio, following "The Departed," "Gangs of New York" and "The Aviator."

"Shutter Island" easily bumped last week's favorite, the star-studded comedy "Valentine's Day," from its top spot.

The romantic ensemble starring Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Biel, Jennifer Garner and Jessica Alba amongst others scooped up 17.2 million dollars in its second week.

In third place, still raking in mountains of cash, was science-fiction epic "Avatar," the highest-grossing film of all time with more than two billion dollars worldwide. In its 10th week on North American release, Canadian James Cameron's film made 16.1 million dollars.

The Oscar-favored movie is followed by mythological adventure-fantasy picture "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief," based on Rick Riordan's book and starring Pierce Brosnan and Uma Thurman. The movie earned 15.3 million dollars in its second week.

Fourth was "The Wolfman," a remake of the lycanthrope legend starring Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins, took a 9.8-million-dollar bite at the box office, followed by the romantic tearjerker "Dear John," an adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel, which pulled in 7.3 million dollars.

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