Box Office Slump 2011: Ticket Sales Drop to 16 Year Lows, Worldwide Amounts Increase

For Hollywood this year, it had been the very best of occasions and also the worst of occasions. Worldwide, the film business was flourishing: based on estimations, galleries gained $13.53 billion overseas this year, a rise of six to eight percent from 2010 along with a new all-time record. Regrettably, that success did not extend to U.S. shores: ticket sales dropped to at least one.28 billion this year, the cheapest total since 1995. Thank heavens for elevated prices and three dimensional taxes! Due to the greater costs, revenue this year is only going to dip 3.five percent where it had been this year ($10.2 billion from $10.58 billion), but that also does not show a business in certain distress. This is the seventh straight year that ticket sales have rejected because the a lot of 2003 (which was the entire year 'Lord from the Rings: The Return from the King,' 'Finding Nemo,' and 'Pirates from the Caribbean' ruled this area office). Based on the La Occasions, total box-office per film dropped some 13 percent this year, because -- as research signifies -- individuals are very likely to hold back for movies hitting DVD and video on-demand services. "More youthful those who are image-conscious don't wish to discuss movies which are per week old," stated Ben Carlson, leader of social networking research firm Fizziology towards the Occasions. "If you do not begin to see the movie at this first moment, then your need to view it starts to fall away." Obviously, the films themselves may be blamed. The very best seven films in the box office this year -- 'Harry Potter and also the Deathly Hallows Part 2,' 'Transformers: Dark from the Moon,' 'Breaking Beginning Part 1,' 'The Hangover Part II,' 'Pirates from the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,' 'Fast Five' and 'Cars 2' -- were sequels, while 'Thor,' 'Rise from the Planet from the Apes' and 'Captain America' rounded the list, films that could hardly be known as originals. Might U.S. audiences be revolting against unoriginality? Regrettably, it in all probability will not matter: with foreign grosses overflowing and ticket prices rising, it appears the domestic moviegoer is of less concern than in the past -- something the 2012 release calendar, filled with sequels, prequels and reissues, appears as one example of. Why did not put forth the films this season? What movies are you going to see together with your disposable earnings in 2012? Tell us within the comments below and be a part of our anticipation poll! What\'s Your Most Anticipated 2012 Movie?The Hunger GamesThe Dark Dark night RisesThe AvengersThe HobbitThe Amazing Spider-ManDjango UnchainedThe Great GatsbyThe Twilight Saga: Breaking Beginning Part 2Pixar's BraveOtherVote [via LAT, THR] [Photo: Warner Bros.] 5 Explanations Why You Aren't Visiting the Movies See All Moviefone Art galleries » Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook

Best Family Movies of 2011: From 'The Muppets' to 'Harry Potter,' the most effective 11 in '11

A minimum of, it was not difficult to find the best family films of year 2011 offered up an incredibly decent volume of worthier-than-usual animated and kid-friendly movies. Usually, a number of these are firmly inherited genre with PG or G ratings, with two notable (but necessary to include) exceptions. Listed below are our 11 favorite family movies of '11 the whole family -- along with the youthful in your mind -- can take advantage of. Best Family Films of 2011 <strong>11. <a href="http://internet.moviefone.com/movie/dolphin-tale/52009/primary">'Dolphin Tale'</a></strong><strong>10.<a href="http://internet.moviefone.com/movie/kung-fu-panda-2/38095/primary"> 'Kung Fu Panda 2'</a></strong><strong>9. <a href="http://internet.moviefone.com/movie/winnie-the-pooh/51435/primary">'Winnie the Pooh'</a></strong><strong>8. <a href="http://internet.moviefone.com/movie/puss-in-boots/38097/primary">'Puss In Boots'</a></strong><strong>7. 'The Adventures of Tintin' </strong><strong>6. <a href="http://internet.moviefone.com/movie/arthur-christmas/38972/primary">'Arthur Christmas'</a></strong><strong>5. <a href="http://internet.moviefone.com/movie/war-equine/10037190/primary">'War Equine'</a></strong><strong>4. <a href="http://internet.moviefone.com/movie/rango/35373/primary">'Rango'</a></strong><strong>3. <a href="http://internet.moviefone.com/movie/the-muppets/1390395/primary">'The Muppets'</strong></a><strong>2. <a href="http://internet.moviefone.com/movie/hugo-cabret/10035988/primary">'Hugo'</strong></a><strong>1. 'Harry Potter as well as the Deathly Hallows: Part II'</strong> See All Moviefone Galleries » [Top photo: Disney Warner Bros. Disney] Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook

Scarlett Johansson 'Without Makeup' in 'We Bought a Zoo,' together with other P-Glammed Stars

It's tough to visualize glamor-puss celebrity Scarlett Johansson acquiring kangaroo garbage, isn't it? Ultimately, audiences are conditioned doing driving male co-stars wild with skin-tight leather suits and raspy whispers, under her knees in grime trying to help keep lots of exotic animals happy. So, to help audiences wrap their heads round her role just like a zookeeper in 'We Bought a Zoo,' Johansson was adament about firming lower her fashion image. According to her recent Vanity Fair cover story, "Johansson will avoid searching as being a celebrity pretending to become zookeeper running on empty and fueled only by her devotion to her motley selection of large cats, zebras and kangaroos they rejected to use makeup for your film." An actress decreasing to use makeup can be a bold move -- particularly in today of up-close HD. Naturally, though, an actress's idea of 'no makeup' probably differs quite drastically within the average person's. It could mean forgoing cherry-red-colored-colored lipstick and mile-extended false lashes, while still piling around the liberal dollop of foundation, powder, blush and other things making an actress with superior genes look a lot more superior. There's much talked about Emma Stone's "makeunder" for summer season blockbuster 'The Help.' But despite curly hair and moderate makeup, Stone still looked excellent. Same is applicable to Halle Berry in 'Monster's Ball.' Sure, she wasn't as radiant and ideal as she usually looks, but she had been quite clearly above-average inside the looks department. It's good when beautiful stars really get completely ugly for just about any role. Nicole Kidman in 'The Hours' and Charlize Theron in 'Monster' are two of the very apparent good good examples. But they're only some of those who've ugged up for your silver screen. That may help you feel good than Hollywood goddesses, if possibly so to speak, we've come up with a gallery of stunning stars who considerably transformed their looks for employment. (And Scarlett sans lipstick is at there, too, permanently measure.) When Stars Dress Lower for just about any Role Scarlett Johansson in 'We Bought a Zoo'Vanessa Hudgens in 'Gimme Shelter'Angelina Jolie in 'Girl, interrupted'Cameron Diaz in 'Being John Malkovich'Mariah Carey in 'Precious'Robin Wright in 'The Conspirator' See All Moviefone Galleries » [Photo: last century Fox] Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook

'Lady' and also the champion

NY, NY - DECEMBER 13: Sophistication Gummer and Mammie Gummer attend the "The Iron Lady" NY premiere after party in the Royalton Hotel on December 13, 2011 in NY City. (Photo by Jim Spellman/WireImage) Abi Morgan and Phyllida Lloyd flank "Iron Lady" producer Damian Johnson. Meryl Streep provides her political platform. A film premiere is definitely an odd spot to launch a political career, but that did not stop "The Iron Lady" helmer Phyllida Lloyd from tossing her weight behind Meryl Streep. "Meryl for leader!" Lloyd excited prior to the film's Gotham premiere Tuesday in the Ziegfeld.Streep, who nailed Britain's polarizing Pm Margaret Thatcher, stated she favors to order her political ambitions for that bigscreen. "Over my dead body!" she quipped of Lloyd's suggestion. Still, if she did choose to have a run at office, the decorated thesp includes a unique platform: "My platform could be heels. I'd operate on platform heels. They are a lot better than stilettos."Film writer Abi Morgan summarized the film's appeal, particularly for that preem's female-heavy crowd, which incorporated trailblazers Billie Jean King, Gloria Steinem and Christiane Amanpour."Meryl and that i laugh and say it's 'King Lear' for women," stated Morgan. Meanwhile, revelers embarked 10 blocks towards the Royalton to have an after-party, in which the usual bloodstream pudding and meat pies were changed with shrimp, hamburgers and grilled vegetables. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com

Terrence Malick on 'The Tree of Life'

Malick'The Tree of Life'With "The Tree of Existence," filmmaker Terrence Malick recognized a extended-held dream. Collaborators recall discussions in regards to the project dating back some thirty years for the number of "Badlands," the American director's 1973 seminal feature debut about some criminal fanatics abroad.Simply because then, the infamously reclusive director, who not grant interviews, has completed four movies -- "Occasions of Paradise," "The Thin Red-colored-colored Line," "The " " New World " "" and "Existence" -- each suffused with Malick's now-trademark adoration for natural world, and Man's place there.If Malick features a singular and commanding authorial presence -- with "The Tree of Existence" feeling a great deal a lot more like one particular personal poem when compared to a collaborative artform -- people who make use of the Texas-based maverick suggest he's inclusive and greatly open to others' ideas."He's doing have a very strong vision from the products he desires to do and what he desires to accomplish," states producer Bill Pohlad. "There's however nothing demanding about his attitude. He's very inclusive and collaborative. Even when i had been in publish and speaking concerning the cuts" -- a longer timeframe that straddled one Cannes deadline after which it showed up at another -- "there's never a quarrel. We'd a very family-like atmosphere."But Pohlad while others say Malick's method appeared to become unique, constantly deviating in the set schedule and moving the crew across the small Texas capital of scotland - Smithville at whim to get shots because the light been right. As actress Jessica Chastain referred to following a film's Cannes premiere, "It's all about taking any kind of accident,Inch she mentioned. "He'd be shooting, and Kaira might be wonderful, after which it there'd be described as a woodpecker nearby and he'd use that. You can't plan whenever.InchInchHowever it's not as random as that," Pohlad states. "Terry's got an idea. But he executes it inside an easygoing way."EYE Round The Oscars: THE DIRECTOR Helmers hot to globe trotWoody Allen Stephen Daldry David Fincher Michel Hazanavicius Terrence Malick Bennett Burns Alexander Payne Jason Reitman Martin Scorsese Steven SpielbergIn this mix Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com

The British Film Institute to Create Film Fund Tsar; Film London Gets New Board Members

A concert featuring hitmakers Bush, Sublime, Social Distortion, 311, and Blink 182 sounds like a dream bill -- for 1999. But that was the topline on night one of this year's KROQ Acoustic Christmas, held at its regular home Gibson Amphitheater at Universal. A stark contrast to the 22-year-old fest's usual standard of lining up talent that's representative of the cutting edge of rock, it was also a somewhat depressing reminder of the aging demographic that actually still listens to rock music, with many in the audience downing large amounts of nostalgia along with their Bud Lights.our editor recommendsSee a Little Light: A Celebration of the Music and Legacy of Bob Mould: Concert ReviewMetallica India Concert Cancellation Leads To Chaos as Fans Trash Stage (Video)The Big 4: Concert Review The outlook's not enitrely cynical: many of these bands have major current hits and could handily sell out a show of their own at a similarly sized (or bigger) venue, an arbiter of strength that gave the show a once-in-a-lifetime (or, at least, every couple decades) feel. For what it's worth, the second night's lineup, scheduled for this evening, skews far more current, with major artists like The Black Keys and Florence and the Machine playing alongside retro-faves Jane's Addiction, signaling that all is not lost for those who choose a guitar over a turntable or drum machine. STORY:Outside Lands: A Rock Festival Fit For Foodies Still, by far the biggest thrills of this first night came in the form of singalongs to songs that are old enough to drive. "Glycerine," Bush's 1994 hit, found still-youthful-looking frontman Gavin Rossdale soaked to the bone with water and sweat (mostly culled from a marathon crowd-run a few songs earlier), leading the audience in a crescendo that erupted when he was joined by the rest of his band for a few headbanging bars at the song's climax. "Smoke Two Joints," Sublime With Rome's opening ska-rocker, was accompanied by the sound of hundreds of lighters getting to work, just as it would have been had the band been arena-sized when they recorded it, in 1992 (the band was a last-minute replacement for Incubus, who backed out due to a member's illness). And headliner Blink-182 bounced through near-oldies like "Rock Show," "What's My Age Again," and "Dammit (Growing Up)" as well as recent hits like the smarter-than-you'd-think "Up All Night," pogoing and making sex jokes that keep them perpetually in their early '20s, despite forehead-wrinkles that would suggest otherwise. A few of the bands worked at least a bit of holiday cheer into their sets: Blink played not just one but two Christmas-themed songs ("Happy Holidays, You Bastard" and the written-for-KROQ rarity "I Won't Be Home For Christmas"), and workhorse punk stalwarts Social Distortion claimed they were going to break into a Christmas jam, before covering "Ring of Fire" to close their set. But major points are due to openers New Found Glory, the only band to embrace the "acoustic" part of "Acoustic Christmas," via a fine singalong of "Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire." Elsewhere on the bill, the chuff-rock of Chevelle and 311's approachable reggae rock came off as somewhat pose-y, despite each band's energetic push to prove otherwise. The only newcomers on the bill, Irvine's Young The Giant, brought indie-rock to the caravan, but outside of their two hits, "Cough Syrup" and "My Body," the band's intricate arrangements and vocals were enitirely lost on an audience antsy for the youngsters to finish up so that they could get busy reliving their own youth. Photo by Jeff Kravitz,InsideCelebPics.com PHOTO GALLERY: View Gallery Dollars After Death: 12 Albums That Got Big Posthumous Sales Boosts

'My Week With Marilyn' Mystery: Was Colin Clark Being truthful About Marilyn Monroe?

It can't be Oscar season without among the challengers coming under some fire for that veracity of their narrative. This past year, both 'The King's Speech' and 'The Social Network' were trapped by claims the films' real-existence primary figures were not described within an honest light now 'My Week With Marilyn' is, once more, at the middle of a did-it-or-did not-it question regarding its titular clandestine relationship. Articles within the La Occasions on Saturday went deep in to the backstory from the new film, which is dependant on two works from Colin Clark (performed onscreen by Eddie Redmayne), another assistant director on 'The Prince and also the Showgirl,' who stated he spent an intimate week from the power grid with Marilyn Monroe throughout producing that film in 1956. Or, not. "It is a complete lie. It is a fantasy," stated Joshua Greene, the boy of Monroe's then-creating partner Milton Greene, a guy who themself allegedly were built with a fling with Monroe. "He would be a 4th-rate water boy. There is clearly no curiosity about attempting to make a genuine movie in line with the situation. Don't wallow in it and say this is dependant on a genuine story and never possess the decency to verify that the story holds true by visiting people who continue to be alive." Greene manages his father's archives. Not too director Simon Curtis is anxious relating to this latest round of attacks. "I've pointless to doubt Colin's version. Who's to express what went down in individuals sleeping rooms on individuals nights?" Not Michelle Williams, although the star and possible Oscar nominee is a little more skeptical than her director. "While you're reading each of his books, you need to do obtain the sense that he's writing with the benefit of hindsight, and he's put some awfully large words in the own mouth," she stated towards the La Occasions. "I believe he states within the book that Marilyn desired to have sex, but he stated, 'Oh, no!' And you are like, 'Oh, sure.' I am certain there is rapport there. As to the extent it had been consummated, I'm not sure." Captured, Vera Day, an actress who had a small sector in 'The Prince and also the Showgirl,' told The Daily Animal that they wasn't sure which kind of relationship Clark had with Monroe. "I did not witness anything between Marilyn and Colin Clark [as with the film]. I really don't remember him around the set whatsoever. There were not any rumblings of these being together on set. She was very, very into Arthur Burns, plus they were on their own honeymoon. Goodness me, no. Whatever he stated about this ... I am talking about, I can not accuse him of laying, however i greatly doubt there is anything happening there. She was with [Burns] constantly, so when she wasn't she was working, and that he was around the set constantly together with her.Inch Regardless of the situation, the debate has not goosed this area-office returns for 'My Week With Marilyn.' Through three days in limited release, the film has gained approximately $5 million. [via LAT] [Photo: TWC] Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook

AFTRA Reaches New Network TV Code Deal

Following a month of discussions, AFTRA has arrived at a tentative 3-year agreement using the Large 4 broadcast systems along with other producers for any new Network Television Code, which provides coverage for all programming except network scripted primetime series. The newest one-year extension towards the previous AFTRA Network Television Code expired on November. 15. The brand new agreement, which runs from November. 16, 2011 through November. 15, 2014, requires singlePercent rise in employer contributions towards the AFTRA Health & Retirement Funds upon ratification in addition to a 2% wage increase each year. This is actually the announcement with a lot more particulars: La (12 ,. 9, 2011) The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, AFL-CIO a national union in excess of 70,000 entertainers, recording artists and broadcast professionals today introduced that AFTRA people have arrived at a tentative agreement using the four major television broadcast systems (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) along with other producers on terms for any successor agreement towards the AFTRA National Code of Fair Practice for Network Television Broadcasting, also known as, the leading from the Book. Discussions started on November. 7, and were held in the offices from the Alliance of movement Picture and tv Producers in Sherman Trees, Calif. AFTRA people accomplished their primary objective within this settlement: singlePercent rise in employer contributions towards the AFTRA Health & Retirement Funds upon ratification, that will bring the entire H&R contribution rate to 16.5%. Upon ratification, the 3-year agreement will run from November. 16, 2011 through November. 15, 2014. Other highlights include: Increase wages by 6% within the term from the agreement (2% every year) for many groups Increase minimum hazard purchase Ballroom dancers from $80 to $100 daily, and from $100 to $125 per program The $37.50 overtime rate for Performers is going to be compensated beginning in the seventh rather than the ninth hour Increase the minimum workday for Stand-Inches who focus on primetime variety and award shows, which will raise the minimum daily rate by 20% to 67% Enhanced contract language to improve equal employment possibilities for union entertainers including a contract to include Gender Identity towards the Unions Paragraph 97 diversity report form AFTRA National Leader Roberta Reardon, who chaired the 25-member settling committee of working people from Local people round the nation, recognized the tentative agreement saying: Our settling committee of testing and background stars, promo announcers, freelance newspersons, stunt entertainers, performers, ballroom dancers and, obviously, stars, labored together effortlessly to provide a contract that guarantees increases and enhancements for those union people who work, or who'll work, under this contract. Reardon ongoing: I especially acknowledge the tremendous dedication and skill of Kim Roberts Hedgpeth and her terrific team of staff. AFTRA people are fortunate to become based on this kind of amazing number of professionals. AFTRA National Executive Director Kim Roberts Hedgpeth offered as Chief Negotiator for that Union, and was aided co-arbitrators Joan Halpern Weise, AFTRA Assistant National Executive Director of Entertainment Programming, and Stephen Burrow, AFTRA NY Local Executive Director. The Network Code Front from the Book may be the Unions biggest national collective negotiating agreement and creates a lot more than $250 million a year in member earnings. The Code covers programming in most television day parts (aside from scripted primetime programs around the systems and also the CW that are covered underneath the AFTRA Exhibit An agreement) and programming created for digital media. Covered programs include dramas in first-run distribution, morning news shows, talk shows, serials (cleaning soap operas), variety, reality, contest, sports and marketing bulletins. Current programs included in this contract include: Good Morning America, The Vista, The Cost is appropriate, The Youthful and also the Restless, Saturday Evening Live, Dwts, The Voice, Amazing Race, Nightline, Deal or No Deal, Late Evening with David Letterman and The American Idol Show among many more. Full particulars from the tentative agreement is going to be posted for approval into the AFTRA National Board on Jan. 28, 2012. Susceptible to it's approval, the agreement is going to be sent for ratification through the Unions membership. AFTRA has yet another national contract settlement to summarize prior to the finish of the season: the AFTRA Seem Tracks Code. In August, AFTRA people commenced negotiating with reps from The new sony, UMG, Warner, EMI, Disney and many of the subsidiary labels for any successor agreement into the AFTRA National Code of Fair Practice for Seem Tracks, the Unions second biggest national contract. AFTRA people are scheduled to go back to Seem Tracks Code discussions in NY on 12 ,. 14 and 15. The Seem Tracks Code is placed to run out on 12 ,. 31, 2011.

Michelle Duggar Suffers Miscarriage

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar Michelle Duggar learned Thursday she experienced a miscarriage throughout her second trimester, People reviews. Duggar, 45, and her husband, Jim Bob, were inside a routine check-around uncover the sex in the developing fetus when their physician was unable to choose a heartbeat. The little one might have been the reality TV couple's 20th. Duggars expecting 20th child "We'd been talking about baby names last evening and [the children were searching towards naming a boy or possibly a woman,Inch the 19 Kids and Counting mother notifies playboy. "It has been an authentic sad disappointment." Michelle states the household expects to title the little one once they uncover the sex after which it hold a memorial. "I appear like my heart broke telling the children,In . she notifies People. "They have all been so searching toward this baby and looking out toward April coming around and becoming a completely new child inside our arms. That was most likely probably the most difficult." Duggar baby No. 19 released within the hospital Sadly, this is not the initial miscarriage for your Duggars. Michelle miscarried throughout her second pregnancy. She was taking dental birth control in those days, and states this is probably the reasons she and her husband have since left the quantity of children they have "around God." The Duggars' youngest child, Josie, also experienced medical problems when she was produced three several days prematurely in December 2009.

'X Factor' Results: Who Makes Semifinals? (Video)

Laurence Cendrowicz/The Weinstein Co. Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Kenneth Branagh, one of the most revered stage and screen actors of his era, and not a bad writer or director either, about his remarkable life and career. (Scroll down to listen to audio of our conversation.) Branagh is probably best known for his work in the theater, but has, over the past 30 years, accomplished a great deal in the world of film, as well, most notably writing, directing, and starring in three of the finest adaptations ever made of William Shakespeare's Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), and Hamlet (1996). Branagh has four Oscar nods to his name -- for best director and best actor for Henry V (1989); best adapted screenplay for Hamlet (1996); and best live action short for Swan Song (1992) -- and may soon add a fifth, for best supporting actor, for his portrayal of Laurence Olivier, one of his greatest acting heroes, in My Week with Marilyn. Branagh rang me from Sweden, where he is now at work on his next film, and, over the course of 30 minutes, we discussed all of the above and more.our editor recommendsRalph Fiennes, Kenneth Branagh to Get Special Nods at British Independent Film AwardsKenneth Branagh to Get BAFTA Tribute Branagh was born in Belfast, Ireland into a working-class family. His father was a carpenter and his mother worked at the local fish-and-chips shop. When he was 10 years old, the family moved to Surrey, England, at which point Branagh undertook his first acting project: losing his Irish accent to avoid mockery in the classroom. By the age of 16, he was acting in serious school productions, and it was then that a teacher nonchalantly suggested to him that he possessed the talent to pursue acting for a living. The idea that he might be paid to do something that he so enjoyed made a profound impact on him, and became his greatest ambition. Just three years later, he was a student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and also made his big screen debut in a brief uncredited part in Chariots of Fire (1981), which went on to win the best picture Oscar, and by the age of 28 he had already accomplished enough to write an autobiography. In the early years of Branagh's career, in particular, he was frequently compared to the greatest actors of all-time, including and especially one of his own acting heroes, Sir Laurence Olivier.Of those sorts of comparisons, he says today, "Quite frankly, of course you can't live up to it, and you feel, sort of, overwhelmed and humbled by it." He didn't help to make them go away, though, when he elected to follow in Olivier's ambitious footsteps by adapting, directing, and starring in big screen adaptations of Henry V (Olivier in 1944, Branagh in 1989) and Hamlet (Olivier in 1948, Branagh in 1989); in-between those two, Branagh tackled the Bard's Much Ado Nothing (1993), as well. Branagh acquitted himself very well in those efforts -- so well, in fact, that many people have struggled to see him in any context but a Shakespearean one. ("I might have been boxed in by the association with Shakespeare or these kinds of parts," he acknowledges.) Consequently, his filmography since those movies has been less impressive than many expected it would be. His own take on Frankenstein (1994), Barry Sonnenfeld's Wild Wild West (1999), Chris Columbus' Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), his remake of Sleuth (2007), and Bryan Singer's Valkyrie (2008), to name a few projects, aren't all bad films... but they don't exactly sound like the sort of thing with which Olivier -- or "the next Olivier" -- would associate himself. So how was Branagh able to get out of this rut, of sorts? The solution came in the most unexpected but appropriate of opportunities: a chance to play Olivier himself in Simon Curtis' My Week with Marilyn, which centers around the brief relationship that developed between Marilyn Monroe and a young stagehand during the making of the 1957 film The Princess and the Showgirl, a troubled production that Olivier directed and in which he played the male lead. Who, after all, could be better qualified to play Olivier at the age of 50, in a bit of a career rut, but still one of the all-time greats, than Branagh, who currently fits precisely the same description. Branagh, who as a 19-year-old student at RADA exchanged letters with Olivier but never saw him in-person, says that he quickly embraced the opportunity to play the great actor, rather than run away from it, as many expected him to because it would inevitably reawaken those decades-old comparisons. He says, "I was grateful -- I felt as though I had, in some way, humbly earned the right to try and bring something to him." He goes on, "I did feel that I had a kind of understanding of the essence, the very particular and specific kind of effort, of entrepreneurial energy, and, you know, sort of, creative drive that would allow any actor to, you know, direct and play the title role in Hamlet or Henry V -- that takes a very particular, unusual set of circumstances and abilities." Above all, though, he says, "It felt like a sort of debt of gratitude... [I] felt totally, totally motivated to get it right for him." And so he set to work. Before My Week with Marilyn got underway, he visited many of the places that Olivier passed through during the making of The Princess and the Showgirl, and revisited that film and many of Olivier's others. Once the production got underway, he would arrive on set early each morning, have a cup of coffee with costar Michelle Williams, and then spend two-and-a-half hours in a makeup chair listening to Olivier's rendition of the Bible as prosthetics were applied to give him a cleft chin; makeup was used to reshape his eyebrows and heighten his forehead; and Brilliantine was slicked through his hair. Once on set, he learned to wear a monocle like the one that Olivier wore in The Princess and the Showgirl, and wore specially-commissioned shoes from the same shoemaker that Olivier used. And, now that the film has been completed and is out before the world, he hopes that it will have the same sort of rejuvenating impact on his professional life that The Princess and the Showgirl had on Olivier's. Branagh tells me, "This film, which was a glorious and joyous experience for me, leaves me wanting to have the same kind of bravery going into the next part of my career -- to jump in and be as brave, and courageous, and as artistically-adventurous as Olivier was." My Week With Marilyn

Exclusive: Absolutely Fabulous Special Can get Premiere Date

Absolutely Fabulous Mark your calendars: The Absolutely Fabulous 20th Anniversary Special will premiere Sunday, Jan. 8 at 10/9c on BBC America and Logo design design, TVGuide.com has learned exclusively.The special is among three the systems are planning with everybody's favorite drunken dynamic duo, Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley), who first embellished our screens when Ab Great first demonstrated in 1992.How Absolutely Fabulous! BBC America resurrects Ab FabWritten by Saunders, the special may have a homecoming for one of the gals, who's been away for just about any a long time and returns getting a rather frightening new nearest friend. Additionally, Bubble (Jane Horrocks) re-enacts the royal wedding.Are you currently presently excited for further Ab Great?

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes: 'Netflix Is Our Friend'

Blind Wink Productions, the transmedia company founded by filmmaker Gore Verbinski, has cut a deal with Microsoft to create interactive entertainment content exclusively for the company's variety of platforms, including Xbox 360. The pact's first collaborative project is an Xbox LIVE Arcade video game designed for Kinect for late 2012.our editor recommendsDisney's 'Lone Ranger' Close to Riding Again After Johnny Depp, Jerry Bruckheimer, Gore Verbinski Reduce FeesJerry Bruckheimer Breaks His Silence on Disney's $215 Million 'Lone Ranger' Compromise (Exclusive) Why 'Tintin' and 'Rango' Stand Out Among This Year's Animated Awards Contenders (Opinion) Future projects will engage other platforms and be distributed worldwide by Microsoft, whose Xbox 360game console has distribution deals with Netflix, Hulu and ESPN in addition to its downloadable gaming content. PHOTOS: 'Rango,' 'Beginners' and 21 Other Awards Contenders Featuring Animals "Audiences consume content very differently today," said Verbinski. "As an idea house, we at Blind Wink are looking forward to our partnership with Microsoft. Their various platforms give us access to new methods of distribution, allowing us to extend into emerging markets and connect more directly with the audience." Founded in 2008, Blind Wink's first production was the Paramount animated filmRango, which Verbinski directed for release earlier this year. The new deal is intended to bring cinematic qualities to the Blind Wink/Microsoft collaborations. "Xbox 360 gamers can look forward to innovative and creative games from the mind of Gore Verbinski that explore new and exciting gaming territory and take full advantage of our platforms," said Microsoft Studios general managerMatt Booty. Related Topics Microsoft Rango Video Games Gore Verbinski