Defintely, We'll See, No Way

The Definitely
Jake will be attending the WonderCon convention on April 3 in San Francisco to talk about PoP.


The We'll See
If Jake will be at today's preview of Prince of Persia at ShoWest. ShoWest is the biggest gathering for the motion picture industry. It is a big day for PoP and it's not just for Jake but for director Mike Newell but Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney as well. PoP is Disney's tent pole so there is a lot riding on it. Very few movies are shown at ShoWest, and to close out the convention on the last day. They must be confident not only showing the movie there but letting it be the last impression the attendees take with them. They could have flipped it and had their sure thing Toy Story 3 close it for Disney but didn't, that says a lot.

And the No Way?
Well it came out in today's Ottawa Citizen that Source Code will not be filming at the Ottawa Train Station.
"...the stumbling block that caused the producers to back out appears to be the fee VIA Rail wanted for use of the Ottawa station. The amount is believed to be about $250,000, although neither VIA Rail nor a film company spokeswoman would confirm the amount.

"We will not be coming to Ottawa and we will not comment on the situation," Manon Bougie, the film's production manager said Wednesday.
She said a replacement location has been found in Montreal."

A little more PoP to finish off today.

Film Journal just released an interview with Mike Newell to coincide with today's first official look at the movie, the interview was several weeks ago.
About casting:

FJI: How did you come to cast Jake Gyllenhaal as the titular prince and Gemma Arterton as his love interest, Tamina?Newell: I know Jake's parents, so I've known him since he was a small child and I've watched him grow up to become a really wonderful, subtle, sensitive actor with terrific emotional range. That's what I wanted for this character, but at the same time I had to have an action hero. So I took a bet! Jake's a strong guy and he's immensely hard-working, so I knew that one of the things that would set him on his mettle was actually performing these stunts. A lot of the fighting in the movie is Jake and a fight routine has to be learned to the inch or people get hurt. What you have is this tremendously energetic and youthful man of action who also has a wonderful sensitive side under the surface.


I saw a lot of girls for the female lead; I looked at Iranian actresses, Israeli actresses and was about to go to India to look at Bollywood actresses. But Jerry kept pushing me towards English actresses because he had had such luck with Keira Knightley in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. As soon as Gemma walked in, I fell for her. She's very energetic and very feisty and very intelligent and she's wonderful at being the tough girl who can stand up to Jake's character.

And about difference of opinion and scenes left out.
FJI: Were there any scenes that you were sorry to lose from the final theatrical cut?

Newell: We cut very few actual scenes, but there is one scene that I always loved that involves a prince who gives his father a special gift: the heads of the rebels he's been fighting preserved in great basins of ice. I loved that and Jerry didn't, so we romped and rolled over it a bit and finally—guess what!—it's not in the movie. I also felt at times that we were taking out too many of the great big wide shots, but I think we've massaged those back into it. Overall, there was nothing in the process that was out of the ordinary. Directors always fall in love with certain scenes and shots, sometimes healthily and sometimes unhealthily. It goes back to that wise saying in filmmaking: Always be prepared to kill your darlings.

And about creating the look of PoP

FJI: Were there specific films or works of art that you drew on to craft the look of the film?

Newell: I was very anxious to give it a kind of modern-epic edge, so I knew I had to reference all of those George Lucas and Steven Spielberg films, particularly the Indiana Jones series. But I also hoped to take the audience further than that, further into an ancient world, and to try and make them believe what the people in that ancient world believed. The movie's story depends on that trick. It's all about myth made reality, which is so fascinating in a tale like this. And audiences these days are cynical; they know you can do almost anything with CGI. So you have to make them forget about all that and believe absolutely in the world and the characters that they're seeing onscreen. One of the things Jerry and I always agreed upon was that we wanted to take the audience somewhere they've never been before.



Seems like Mike and Jake were on the same path of Raiders. Jake telling Total Film magazine.

“Look, I know there is a legacy of these films. People who’ve done them and pulled them off and those who haven’t. Indiana Jones is one of my favorite films ever. That’s what I want to challenge, and that was the pressure I felt. It’s me everyday. I’m the guy.”

“The bad guys all had different powers, so I fight them in different ways,” he said. “There’s a great fight where one of them has these whips with blades on the end, then I fight another one with blades for hands, and another one who shoots spikes. And there’s some great chase scenes in the movie, involving sword-fighting and humor, which is the hardest part of action.”

And a page from PoP: The Ultimate Sticker Book. Can you imagine if any of other of Jake's movies had their own sticker book?