Unbroken obviously has major Awards potential. Laura Hillenbrand's previous work, Seabiscuit, was also adapted for the big screen and went on to score 8 Oscar nominations. There is every expectation that this, an even more dramatic and stirring story, will go in for equal or greater glory. The fact that the press announcement was made jointly by the co-chairmen of Universal together with the head of Walden Media, gives you an indication of the importance they attach to this film. It may emerge as their main Awards hopeful for whatever year it is released.
The highly dramatic and demanding role of Loius Zampirini has Best Actor written all over it and should attract a lot of top actors.
My picks:
Ryan Gosling or Andrew Garfield seem well suited to play the talented, rebellious, charismatic character in his younger athlete - soldier - prisoner years. But Gosling will be busy on his directorial debut while Garfield has the Spider-man sequel coming up in early 2013. Garfield may be free in the latter half of 2013.
In terms of physical resemblance, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Jake Gyllenhaal come closest and both seem to be available for a 2013 shoot.
Sean Penn could play the older Zampirini
Angelina could play Zampirini's wife, described as a "beautiful socialite"
Zampirini's advanced age (he is 95) gives the production schedule a sense of urgency. They'll have to work hard to meet a 2013 target start date for a 2014 release. A 2013 start will likely preclude other film commitments for Angelina given the prep work Unbroken will require. She'll reportedly be doing a pass on the Unbroken script and then has to choose her cast and crew and attend to all the myriad production details of an important studio film. At this stage, it'll probably be at least 6 more months before she can be ready to start filming after they get a final draft completed.
If Sony can get Salt 2 ready within the next few mpnths there is the slim possibility that she can squeeze it in. But they need to move very quickly as they still need a script and a director (Derek Cianfrance is my latest pick). Cleopatra will require a lot of prep and will be a very long and demanding shoot. Even though it seems they've been prepping Cleopatra for the last two years having already previously scouted locations in Egypt and had a casting call, its not something that can be rushed if she intends to do Unbroken this year.
- Fussy
From Production Weekly
“UNBROKEN” Feature Film 08-30-12
MATTHEW BAER FILMS
9889 South Santa Monica Blvd., Suites 207 & 208, Beverly Hills, CA 90212
PHONE: 310-284-5746 FAX: 310-284-8302
STATUS: Development
PRODUCER: Matthew Baer - Erwin Stoff - Mick Garris
DIRECTOR: Angelina Jolie WRITER: Richard LaGravenese - William Nicholson
WALDEN MEDIA 1888 Century Park East, 14th Fl. Los Angeles, CA 90067 310-887-1000 Fax 310-887-1001
3 ARTS ENTERTAINMENT, INC. 9460 Wilshire Blvd., 7th Fl., Beverly Hills, CA 90212 310-888-3200 Fax 310-888-3210
UNIVERSAL PICTURES 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, CA 91608 818-777-1000
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick
of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was
struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War. The lieutenant’s
name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to
ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics
and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed
flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown. Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and
starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity;
suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his
will. Based on the novel Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand.
Uploaded on Oct 29, 2010
The highly-anticipated new book from the bestselling author of SEABISCUIT.
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of Louie Zamperini, a young man from a defiant California boyhood and a former Olympic athlete.
UNBROKEN is the story of Zamperini's unforgettable journey into extremity-- a stunning testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of Louie Zamperini, a young man from a defiant California boyhood and a former Olympic athlete.
UNBROKEN is the story of Zamperini's unforgettable journey into extremity-- a stunning testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.
From memorieshop
Louis Zamperini, an Italian immigrant; Olean, NY and moved to Torrance, CA. He won a scholarship to USC and at age 19 participated in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin as a 5,000m runner and finished eight. Louie's room mate was Jessie Owens. It was here he shook hands with Adolf Hitler, then Nazi Chancellor of Germany. Two years later in 1938, Zamperini set a national collegiate mile record which held for 15 years. He was nicknamed the "Torrance Tornado".
World War II brought an end to the running career for Louis. He served as a bombardier on two B-24s. The first, which the crew named "Super-Man" was damaged and they were assigned the B-24D "Green Hornet" to conduct search and rescue.
They took off on May 27 1943 at 18:30 on a search mission [bound for Palmyra Atoll, a planned refueling airfield, after the search.] Over the search area, there was cloud cover down to 1,000' and the bomber dove to 800' to search. The No.1 engine experienced problems and died. The engineer accidentally feathered the No.2 engine, the bomber quickly angled to the left and crashed into the sea. This B-24 was reported as missing when it failed to arrive at Palmyra. The aircraft had crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Eight of the 11 crewmembers were killed except Zamperini, the pilot, Russell A. Phillips, and Francis McNamara, who managed to survive the crash and escape on a life raft. Only Zamperini and Phillips survived their 47 days adrift on the sea. When his plane hit the ocean, Louie heard nothing at all.
There were only soundless sensations: the plane tearing apart, his body hurtling forward, wires whipping around him, water over him, gravity dragging him under. He thrashed against the wires, and the plane carried him down. Louie was drowning. He struggled uselessly, sinking deeper and deeper, the water growing darker and heavier around him. He thought: Hopeless. There was a bolt of pain in his head, then nothing.
He woke in total darkness, sensing the plane still around him, still deep underwater, sinking. Inexplicably, miraculously, the wires had vanished. He groped along the wreckage, found an opening, and kicked through. He pulled the inflation cords on his life vest and felt it lift him. He burst into dazzling daylight and breathed.
The ocean was a jumble of bomber remains. The lifeblood of the plane—oil, hydraulic fluid, and hundreds of gallons of fuel—slopped about on the surface. Curling among the hunks of wreckage were threads of blood.Zamperini managed to grab the life raft and deploy it. Philips sustained a head wound during the crash. Repeatedly, they were set upon by ravenous sharks, monstrous sea creatures that grew more sophisticated over time in the manner in which they circled and lunged at their prey. They ate only sporadically, occasionally catching an albatross and fashioning its bones into a set of fake claws, which Louie fastened to his hand and used to clutch at the odd fish swimming just beneath the surface. "Then another week went by, another albatross landed on my head, and I grabbed him," Zamperini told Fox News. "And I'll tell you, that bird tasted like hot fudge sundae with nuts and whipped cream on it! We were laying back like the kings did, in the movies ... living high off the hog."
Fox News' Matt Silverstein
McNamera survived 33 days at sea then died. The survivors said a prayer and buried him at sea. After 47 days at sea, Zamperini and Phillips were captured by the Japanese Navy and taken prisoner.
When I took off my blindfold my brain and my eyes fluttered with the unreality of it all. After nearly two months floating under cast open skies and infinite seas, I found myself locked in a cubicle the size of a dog kennel. The instant claustrophobia made me want to scream, but I was too weak. Instead, I lay down and looked at my body. Just six weeks before I’d been a vigorous athlete who could run a mile in just over four minutes. Now I was fleshless, skeletal. All my life I had kept my emotions tightly in check when it came to my own troubles, but I could no longer help myself. I broke down and cried. (Zamperini, Devil at My Heels,)
The first place they were sent was Kwajalein Island, which Zamperini would come to regard as the worst time of his life. Confined to small hut-like cell, he observed the names of nine U.S. Marines carved into the wall; when he asked what had become of him, he was told they had all been decapitated. "That's what they do to all prisoners who come here," matter-of-factly explained a Japanese guard who spoke English. "Execution Island" was how Kwajalein came to be known to American soldiers.
The chief difference between the ordeal at sea and the POW camp, of course, was that at sea, Louie and his comrades mostly had to confront only the cruelties of the sun and the monsoon-like rains, the limits of hunger and thirst, the temptations of dementia and the ever-circling sharks. In the hands of the Japanese, however, it was the Americans' dignity that was assaulted, and they were forced to confront the ugly fact that man's cruelty to his fellow man far exceeds anything seen amongst the animals of the jungle or the creatures of the sea.
After spending a year of his life at Ofuna, Louie was sent to Omori, a manmade sand spit - between Yokohama and Tokyo - which housed hundreds of prisoners. In September of 1944, he met Mutsuhiro "The Bird" Watanabe. Watanabe was classified as a Class-A war criminal following the war for his abuse of prisoners of war (POWs) held by the Japanese military. Similar in age to Louie, the Bird was among the less distinguished members of an affluent Japanese family. The Japanese accountant at the camp, tracked down decades later, told that the Bird fixed upon Zamperini with singular fury, regarding him as "Prisoner Number One" and subjecting him to viciousness unmatched even by his brutal treatment of the other captives. Zamperini had nightmares on this Bird guy, for years.
Louie and the other POWs were rescued and repatriated. In his hometown of Torrance, Calif., Louie married a beautiful young socialite named Cynthia Applewhite. ...
When a Fox News producer asked Zamperini if he considered himself a hero, he bristled, explaining that men who return home from war missing a limb -- or more -- are the real heroes. After seeing just these kinds of men during a visit to a Veterans Affairs hospital, Louie returned home and made a decisive gesture. "I took all my medals and I put 'em in a drawer, and shoved 'em away, and I haven't seen 'em since!" A Fox News Contribution
View more at memorieshop
From Deadline
Universal Pictures To Finish Year With All-Time High Film Global Gross Record
| Thursday December 20, 2012 @ 5:32pm ESTBREAKING: Remember the bruising that Universal Pictures brass received over the summer when Battleship failed and when rumors were published that Comcast had courted DreamWorks partner Stacey Snider to return? Now, Universal’s Ron Meyer, Adam Fogelson and Donna Langley have reason to take a bow. The studio, which passed the record for Universal’s domestic grosses back in October, is now on course to blow past its global record, even before Les Miserables gets released on Christmas. Grosses aren’t profits, of course, but hits like Safe House and Ted certainly have created some momentum. Here is the official release:
UNIVERSAL CITY, CA, December 20, 2012—Universal Pictures today announced that 2012 will mark its best year at the worldwide box office in the studio’s 100-year history with global theatrical grosses exceeding $2.927 billion to date. Universal broke its domestic record ($1.127 billion) in October and the studio will surpass its international record ($1.716 billion) Friday, December 21.
Universal’s success has not been buoyed by a single traditional franchise film but, rather, a portfolio of diverse films that saw warm reception at the box office. Universal was the only studio in 2012 to have five non-franchise films gross over $200 million at the worldwide box office. The slate featured seven films that grossed over $200 million worldwide – more than any other studio (Safe House $209.1m, American Reunion $235.5m, The Bourne Legacy $276.3m, Battleship $307.8m, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax $349.7m, Snow White and the Huntsman $400.8m, Ted $502.5m).
Universal had six films claim the number one spot at the domestic box office in 2012. The studio also has one of the highest per film average grosses at $80.7 million.
Individual Film Records for 2012:
Ted became the highest-grossing original R-rated comedy of all time. At $502.5 million worldwide and counting, it is Universal’s highest-grossing film of 2012. Ted opened number one in the U.S. and was number one in 27 out of 62 territories where it was released. It was the highest grossing comedy of the year overseas and Universal’s all-time biggest opening in Australia and Austria. Ted remained in the top three films at the international box office for seven weeks.
Illumination Entertainment solidified its place as a leader in the family and animation space with the highest 3-day opening for an animated film of the year – Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax ($70.2 million). Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax also had the eighth highest domestic opening for an animated film of all time.
Safe House marked Denzel Washington’s second biggest opening of his career and his second highest-grossing film ever behind only one other Universal film, American Gangster.
Closing out this year’s slate, Universal has two highly-anticipated films: This Is 40, the latest comedy from writer/director/producer Judd Apatow which opens tomorrow, and Les Misérables, the motion-picture adaptation of the global stage sensation seen by more than 60 million people in 42 countries and in 21 languages around the world opening Christmas Day.
