Besides Sandra Bullock, the newly Oscar nominated Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close also stars Tom Hanks. Now he might not have had the best couple of years but he is still frigging Tom Hanks. The legendary actor, producer, writer, and director has been around for over 30 years, so quite a career. Since he is just as much an international star (and has been for a long time) we’re going to count his top 10 biggest box office hits worldwide, unfortunately unadjusted for inflation.

10. Catch Me if You Can (2002) $352.1 million – Directed by Steven Spielberg and also starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale Jr., a teen that successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks. Tom Hanks plays the FBI agent assigned to catch Frank. Catch Me if You Can is great film from start to finish, never boring, definitely worth your time.

9. Apollo 13 (1995) $353.5 million – Tom Hanks plays Jim Lovell in this Ron Howard film about the true story of the troubled Apollo 13 mission. Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Kevin Bacon and Ed Harris also star in this great movie.

8. Toy Story (1995) $362 million – The first big screen feature film of now famous animation studio Pixar, Toy Story is a wonderful movie that answers a simple question: What happens with your toys when there’s no one around? I was 8 when I first saw this in theaters and 23 when I last saw it at home. Still a great movie regardless of age. Tom Hanks voices the lovable cowboy Woody and two more equally fantastic sequels followed over the next 15 years.

7. Cast Away (2000) $429.6 million – “Wilson! Wilson!” Screams that, 11 years later, I still remember. Wilson is a Wilson Sporting Goods volleyball and Tom Hanks’ co-star in the movie Cast Away. It sounds crazy if you haven’t seen the film, I know, but Wilson really was for Tom Hank’s character, Chuck, what Friday was for Robinson Crusoe. This is obviously a castaway story and for fear of not spoiling anything else, I’ll stop here by saying that you simply must watch Cast Away.

6. Saving Private Ryan (1998) $481.8 million – A World War 2 epic set during the invasion of Normandy, it tells the story of a group of soldiers lead by Captain John H. Miller (Tom Hanks) and their search for private James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon), the last surviving of four brothers. Directed by Steven Spielberg, it’s one of the best war movies of all time, in my opinion.

5. Toy Story 2 (1999) $485 million – Often enough sequels don’t live up to expectations but that wasn’t the case with Toy Story 2, considered by some actually superior. Personally, I’m split here; it’s like having to choose between your kids. So again, Woody, Buzz and the rest of Andy’s toys return for a new adventure.

4. Angels & Demons (2009) $485.9 million – Based on the Dan Brown mystery novel with the same name, Angels & Demons is a prequel to The Da Vinci Code and a superior flick in every way. Ron Howard directs Tom Hanks again here.

3. Forrest Gump (1994) $677.4 million – A fantastic movie that won Tom Hanks his second Oscar, Forest Gump is based on the novel with the same name by Winston Groom. While not the smartest tool in the shed, Forest Gump lived quite a life, he taught a young Elvis how to dance, became part of the All-American Collage Football Team, meet John F. Kennedy, joined the army, fought in Vietnam, received the Medal of Honor, meet another president (Lyndon B. Johnson), played ping-pong for the US Army Team against China, meet yet another president (Richard Nixon) and so on. Directed by Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away), Forest Gump is a phenomenal movie that can’t be missed by anyone.

2. The Da Vinci Code (2006) $758.2 million – Now this is a movie you can miss. It’s the very definition of how to spoil a good premise with a mediocre and boring movie. Yeah sure, it’s controversial and stuff but is that enough? If so then go right ahead, The Da Vinci Code is not a bad movie but I’m certainly not one to recommend it.

1. Toy Story 3 (2010) $1,063.2 million – 11 years worth of expectations and Toy Story 3 did not disappoint one bit. The end of a trilogy and a series, at least until rumors of Toy Story 4 started circling. You know, Pixar hasn’t failed us yet, why start now, Cars 2 be damned.

Two Oscars and five Golden Globes later, there are many other noteworthy Tom Hanks movies that didn’t make this top 10 but only two of those have a special spot in my heart. One is The Green Mile, a superb film based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. The other is Sleepless in Seattle, a heart-warming film just as great now as it was 19 years ago. Now that I think about it, I really love Big also. So what’s your favorite Tom Hanks film? Comment below!

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Apart from a few set images in September we haven’t heard or seen much from the movie adaptation of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, which is being directed by The Wachowskis (The Matrix) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), and stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Keith David, Jim Broadbent, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, Hugh Grant and Susan Sarandon.

Well a new article by The New York Times takes a look at how the producers raised the $100+ million budget outside the studio system (the movie was deemed too risky by American studios to finance) with backing from China, Korea, Singapore and Germany. It also includes new details from the set, and interviews with Halle Berry, Warner Bros. executive Jeff Robinov, and UK distributor Victor Loewy.

The film follows six storylines ranging from the South Pacific in the 19th Century to California in the 1970s to a post-apocalyptic future, and most of the cast will be playing multiple characters, swapping race and gender in the process.

The article opens with a description of the set in Germany.

…craftsmen on Stage 15 in the Babelsberg studio were hard at work on a recent afternoon building a dystopian Korean slum, the thud of a nail gun and a whiff of sawdust in the air. Next door, Andy and Lana Wachowski, the American-born team behind the “Matrix” movies, were filming black-clad storm troopers from an imagined future…

Those familiar with Cloud Atlas will recognize this from the 5th tale of David Mitchell’s novel which follows Sonmi~451, a genetically-engineered clone (to be played by South Korean actress Doona Bae) who rebels against the capitalist totalitarian society that created and exploited her kind. It could be a movie in itself, but it’s a single (key) segment in the overall story.

Halle Berry was spotted filming scenes in Scotland with Tom Tykwer and Hugo Weaving in September, which confirmed she’d be playing Luisa Rey, a journalist in the 70s who discovers that a much hyped local nuclear power plant is not as safe as it seems. She will also play Meronym, a member of the last remnants of technologically-advanced civilization in the 6th tale, and Berry revealed to the NY Times that her third role will be “a Jewish woman in the 1930s”, which is likely to be a small part as Ben Whishaw takes the lead as penniless musician Robert Frobisher in that one.

In the article Berry spoke about the new experience of working with “two different film units and two different film crews and to go between the two from one day to the next”. She also said it became hard to recognize her fellow cast members due to the extensive make-up (yes, this is Hugh Grant).

“Some days I go into the trailer, I’ll be having a conversation — I won’t even know it’s with Hugh Grant until five minutes in,” Ms. Berry said.

“It’s sort of like guerrilla filmmaking in a way, even though there seems like there’s a lot of money, it’s not opulent. All the money’s going into the screen.”

While Warner Bros. will be distributing the movie in the US sometime next year, Warner Bros. executive Jeff Robinov admitted that taking on “the whole movie, given the expense, would have been a very risky proposition for us.” Earlier this year Tom Tykwer described Cloud Atlas as a “big-scale adult movie”, and with studios rarely putting big money behind projects that don’t attract the young 16-35 male audience it’s understandable why the producers had to find financing elsewhere.

Still, outside financing isn’t a bad thing as The Wachowskis and Tykwer will have a lot more creative control than if a studio was involved (Jim Broadbent said the running time may end up close to 3 hours, though in some places they’ll probably have to wait for the DVD to see the full version). The Wachowskis also got a positive reaction after showing six minutes of footage at the American Film Market in Santa Monica last month.

“It looks phantasmagorical,” said Victor Loewy, a seasoned international film distributor who bid on the United Kingdom rights after watching the clip. “It’s so unlike anything I’ve seen in 40 years in this business.”

I recommend reading the whole article over at The New York Times if you’re interested in how films are financed and made. We can expect to get our first look at Cloud Atlas sometime next year, and filming will wrap later this month.

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Warner Bros. has released the second official trailer for Stephen Daldry‘s adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer‘s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. The book was one of the first American novels to incorporate the September 11 events into the plot, and with Oscar regulars Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, and Daldry involved it may be a contender during the impending awards season.

Watch below:

Based on the acclaimed novel of the same name, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” tells the story of one young boy’s journey from heartbreaking loss to the healing power of self-discovery, set against the backdrop of the tragicevents of September 11. Eleven-year-old Oskar Schell is an exceptional child: amateur inventor, Francophile, pacifist. And after finding a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, he embarks on an exceptional journey–an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. As Oskar roams the city, he encounters a motley assortment of humanity, who are all survivors in their own ways. Ultimately, Oskar’s journey ends where it began, but with the solace of that most human experience: love.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close will have a limited release on December 25th, and will then open wide January 20, 2012.

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It’s been quite some time since we first saw Tom Hanks lead a group of soldiers on an emotionally gripping journey through Nazi-occupied France in Saving Private Ryan, and frankly it’s one of those rare films who’s haunting images still impact me today. Well, according to THR, Hanks and Gary Goetzman, along with the pair’s Playtone production company, will be teaming up with Universal to produce the pre-WWII drama, In the Garden of Beasts.

Hanks will also possibly be starring in the adaptation of Erik Larson’s non-fiction novel, which would mean a welcomed return for the star to the tradegic era of Hitler and the Nazis, as well as yet another return to historical dramas. With Hanks producing television mini-series such as The Pacific, Band Of Brothers, and John Adams and also starring in Charlie Wilson’s War, it’s safe to say that the star is quite the history buff.

Of course with a main focus on the early days of Nazi Germany before WWII, it seems In the Garden of Beasts may be more of a dramatic character piece and less explosive battle scenes, which would mean a star like Hanks would definitely provide the dramatic punch needed to bring an already captivating plot to sophisticated heights.

Here’s the official synopsis of In the Garden of Beasts:

The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha… Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance–and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition.

Those of you familiar with Larson’s novels may notice that he’s also the author of The Devil In The White City, a book also getting the film treatment with another notable actor/producer at the helm- Leonardo Di Caprio. So with a devoted fan-base and large popularity, In the Garden Of Beasts could no doubt use a big star like Hanks to give it a well-needed dramatic, and respectable, treatment.

Hanks has recently been working on the Wachowski’s Cloud Atlas and Paul Greengrass’ A Captain’s Duty, with the latter being Hanks’ next appearance, set to begin shooting in February 2012. This may actually provide with a big enough window in Hanks’ schedule, making the chances for him to star in the film pretty good. Only time will tell, though, once more announcements start to circulate, but until then keep your eyes peeled because we’ll keep you posted with each update.

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Apart from a few set images in September we haven’t heard or seen much from the movie adaptation of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, which is being directed by The Wachowskis (The Matrix) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run). Halle Berry broke her foot chasing a goat during the second week of filming, which caused some shooting to be delayed, but the cast have been in Berlin for the past month and will continue shooting at various places around the world until mid-December.

While promoting the DVD and Blu-ray release of Larry Crowne Tom Hanks said Cloud Atlas is a “beast” and is going to be “wild”. He also echoed what Tom Tykwer said earlier this year that it’s essentially a “big-scale adult movie”.

From Flickering Myth:

Boy, that’s going to be a beast. It’s going to be wild. Those guys are geniuses! I admire those guys’ films because they throw deep and long. Those are uncompromising movies that are forcing the audience to go on a very deep and different track. Very adult kind of journey. Quite frankly, I want to be tested like that. Then you match it up with the material of Cloud Atlas, which is pretty spectacular. And the screenplay is off the scale! I just want to be part of something that is much, much bigger than showing up and hitting the marks. I’ve had good experiences of being the guy in a movie, and in huge pieces of commerce, like the Robert Langton movies, and it’s part burden and part challenge. It’s part ‘Let’s just get the friggin’ thing done’, as well as how as artists do we make sure this beat is about something. And that is a little bit about what the Wachowskis are going to demand from Cloud Atlas, of me, and plenty of other people. It’s a big ensemble – so it’s not a vehicle for any one of us that are in it.

The movie, which also stars Hugo Weaving, Keith David, Jim Broadbent, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, David Gyasi, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon, Chinese actress Zhou Xun and South Korea’s Doona Bae, follows six storylines ranging from the South Pacific in the 19th Century to California in the 1970s to a post-apocalyptic future. Most of the cast will be playing multiple characters, and they’ll be swapping race and gender.

No release date has been set for Cloud Atlas, but Warner Bros. is expected to release the movie sometime in late 2012.

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With Ron Howard deciding against directing The Lost Symbol, the follow-up to The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, Sony has been searching for a new director over recent months, and according to Deadline they may have found one in Mark Romanek.

Romanek is best known for directing 2002′s One Hour Photo, and most recently directed Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley in Never Let Me Go. At the moment he isn’t said to be locked, but the director posted an image of producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on his Posterous account recently (presumably in a meeting), so negotiations should begin soon.

Tom Hanks is expected to return as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, but he hasn’t officially signed on yet. Dan Brown, the author behind the book series, was hired to write the script late last year which was previously worked on by Steven Knight (Eastern Promises).

Here’s the book’s synopsis:

As the story opens, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned unexpectedly to deliver an evening lecture in the U.S. Capitol Building. Within minutes of his arrival, however, the night takes a bizarre turn. A disturbing object —artfully encoded with five symbols—is discovered in the Capitol Building. Langdon recognizes the object as an ancient invitation . . . one meant to usher its recipient into a long-lost world of esoteric wisdom.

When Langdon’s beloved mentor, Peter Solomon—a prominent Mason and philanthropist —is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes his only hope of saving Peter is to accept this mystical invitation and follow wherever it leads him. Langdon is instantly plunged into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and never-before-seen locations—all of which seem to be dragging him toward a single, inconceivable truth

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Warner Bros. has released the first trailer for Stephen Daldry‘s adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer‘s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. The book was one of the first American novels to incorporate the September 11 events into the plot, and with Oscar regulars Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, and Daldry involved it may be a contender during the impending awards season.

Watch below:

Based on the acclaimed novel of the same name, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” tells the story of one young boy’s journey from heartbreaking loss to the healing power of self-discovery, set against the backdrop of the tragicevents of September 11. Eleven-year-old Oskar Schell is an exceptional child: amateur inventor, Francophile, pacifist. And after finding a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, he embarks on an exceptional journey–an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. As Oskar roams the city, he encounters a motley assortment of humanity, who are all survivors in their own ways. Ultimately, Oskar’s journey ends where it began, but with the solace of that most human experience: love.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close has a release date of January 20, 2012.

Read similar posts to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close trailer at Filmonic

Back in July, while talking about Cloud Atlas getting extra funding, Variety mentioned that Hugh Grant was among the cast, however I assumed the writer had a brain-fart and meant to mention Hugo Weaving instead who previously confirmed he’d play 6 roles in the film. But now a press release to mark the start of filming has been sent out, and Grant’s name is among those confirmed to star.

Here’s the full cast line-up, along with a new plot description:

Producers Grant Hill and Stefan Arndt announce that CLOUD ATLAS will begin filming on September 16th. The ambitious, independently financed film will be co-directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski, directors/writers of the ground-breaking MATRIX trilogy, and Tom Tykwer, director/writer of PERFUME and RUN LOLA RUN.

Academy Award® winners Tom Hanks and Halle Berry lead an all-star ensemble cast that includes Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, Keith David and David Gyasi. The film also stars Hugh Grant and Susan Sarandon, with Chinese actress Zhou Xun and Doona Bae from Korea rounding out the internationally acclaimed cast.

CLOUD ATLAS is an epic story of humankind in which the actions and consequences of our lives impact one another throughout the past, present and future as one soul is shaped from a murderer into a savior and a single act of kindness ripples out for centuries to inspire a revolution.

The Wachowskis and Tykwer co-wrote CLOUD ATLAS, an adaptation of the celebrated best-selling novel by David Mitchell. Their unique creative collaboration began several years ago and has resulted in a vision that involves simultaneous filming of two full units that will take them to Scotland, Spain and Germany.

Preparation for filming on the Spanish island of Majorca is under-way, and the Earl of Pembroke (an 18th century wooden barque tall ship built in 1945) was filmed at Port de Soller this weekend.

Shooting will also take place in Glasgow, Scotland on the 16th, with local residents and business being informed of street closures:

Douglas Street and St Vincent Lane are going to play an important role in the film as the main location for the climactic action sequence in one of the six story lines which is set in San Francisco in the 1970’s. Our scenes will involve a car crash and shoot out on Douglas Street (on the junction with St Vincent Lane) followed by a chase down St Vincent Lane.

No release date has been set for Cloud Atlas, but Warner Bros. is expected to release the movie sometime in late 2012. Filming will continue until December.

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Next week cameras will start rolling on the movie adaptation of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, which has The Wachowskis (The Matrix) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) co-directing.

While promoting his latest film 3, opening on limited screens September 16th in the US, Tykwer said Cloud Atlas was a “big-scale adult movie”, a type of film which is a “dying species” in today’s fanboy and merchandise-driven world.

From The New York Times:

The film is getting under way after many uncertain years in development, and Mr. Tykwer acknowledged that the opportunity to tackle such ambitious material is rare in Hollywood today. “The big-scale adult movie is a dying species,” he said. “Where are the ‘2001s’ and the ‘Lawrence of Arabias’? You go to all these studios, and you see their framed photographs, the films they’re so proud of, and you wonder: Where are the pictures this year that they want blown up with a nice expensive frame around it?”

He has worked closely with the Wachowskis to distill Mr. Mitchell’s synopsis-resistant book into a coherent and filmable screenplay. “It has so many layers that it’s good to have three pairs of eyes on it,” Mr. Tykwer said.

Tom Hanks, who will take on multiple roles in Cloud Atlas, has been king of adult fare over the years with movies such as Forrest Gump, Apollo 13 and The Da Vinci Code. His directing/writing/producing effort Larry Crowne made average numbers this summer with $52 million, but recent successes such as The Help prove adults will turn up when you have buzz and good reviews.

The Cloud Atlas team are aware of the risks, and are trying to keep the budget low (around $100m) by shooting mainly in Berlin where they’ve received tax breaks and extra funding. The movie, which also stars Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Bae Doona, Susan Sarandon, Ben Whishaw, Jim Sturgess and Jim Broadbent, follows six storylines ranging from the South Pacific in the 19th Century to California in the 1970s to a post-apocalyptic future.

The script I read was very long and very ambitious, and Jim Broadbent said in a recent interview with BBC Radio 5 that the movie may end up around 3 hours long, so adults may need extra padding for their butts when Warner Bros. releases it sometime in late 2012.

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While most of Cloud Atlas will be shot in Berlin starting later this month, The Wachowskis (The Matrix) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) will also be needing other locations for the movie, which follows six storylines ranging from the South Pacific in the 19th Century to California in the 1970s to a post-apocalyptic future.

Today STV reports that production will be heading to Glasgow, Scotland (which said goodbye to Brad Pitt and World War Z this week), and there is a casting call for extras in Majorca (a popular tourist island off the coast of Spain).

Generally news of shooting locations doesn’t interest me that much, but with the cast of Cloud Atlas playing multiple roles (mixing race and gender) this information is helping us to unravel who is playing who.

STV says Halle Berry and Tom Hanks will film in Glasgow between 16 – 18 September and on 26 September. This pretty much confirms Berry will be playing Luisa Rey, a journalist in 1970s California who discovers that a much hyped local nuclear power plant is not as safe as it seem (expect corruption, car chases and murder). Hanks could be playing a number of characters in this story, but he will likely be Joe Napier, a former cop who helps Luisa Rey.

Meanwhile the Majorca Film Commission has sent out a casting call looking for over 200 extras, with the first request asking for men, woman and children of all ages. This is likely for the sixth story which is set on the island of Hawaii in 2321 where life has reverted to the days of tribal living after most of humanity dies during “The Fall”. Zachry, a tribesman, is visited by Meronym (Berry), a member of the last remnants of technologically-advanced civilization.

They also request men between the ages of 25 and 45 with slightly long hair and scruffy beards to play sailors, as well as body doubles for Jim Sturgess and Jim Broadbent. This points towards the story of Adam Ewing in 1850, a lawyer visiting the Chatham Islands off the coast of New Zealand who witnesses the colonization and conversion of the Maori.

The ambitious Cloud Atlas doesn’t have a release date yet, but Warner Bros. will be aiming for a late-2012 or early 2013 release.

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