1st Set pics

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Elle.com.au

Press release (via /Film)

Academy Award® winner Angelina Jolie directs and produces Unbroken, an epic drama that follows the incredible life of Olympian and war hero Louis “Louie” Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) who, along with two other crewmen, survived in a raft for 47 days after a near-fatal plane crash in WWII—only to be caught by the Japanese Navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.
Director Jolie began shooting some of the most dramatic and challenging scenes on Wednesday, October 16, on location far out at sea in Moreton Bay, Australia, with Zamperini (O’Connell) and his fellow airmen—Phil (Domhnall Gleeson) and Mac (Finn Wittrock)—having impossibly survived being adrift in the open Pacific for several weeks.
Working with cameras on a floating rig in choppy waters and braving the elements, with actors dieting for months to appear as depleted as their characters, Jolie completed a successful first day of a location shoot that promises to be rigorous and uniquely challenging.
Adapted from Laura Hillenbrand’s (“Seabiscuit: An American Legend”) enormously popular book, Unbroken brings to the big screen Zamperini’s unbelievable and inspiring true story about the resilient power of the human spirit.
Starring alongside O’Connell, Gleeson and Wittrock are Garrett Hedlund and John Magaro as fellow POWs who find an unexpected camaraderie during their internment, Alex Russell as Zamperini’s brother, Pete, and in his English-language feature debut, Japanese actor Miyavi as the brutal camp guard known only to the men as “The Bird.”
The film is produced by Jolie, as well as Matthew Baer (City by the Sea), Erwin Stoff (The Day the Earth Stood Still) and Clayton Townsend (This Is 40). Leading the accomplished behind-the-scenes crew is 10-time Oscar®-nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins (Skyfall).
Academy Award® winners Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men) rewrote the screenplay from earlier drafts by William Nicholson (Les Misérables) and Richard LaGravenese (HBO’s Behind the Candelabra).
Unbroken arrives in theaters on Christmas Day, 2014.

pajiba

First Look: Angelina Jolie Is Turning This Year's Best Book Club Book Into A Movie

By Joanna Robinson | Trade News | November 1, 2013

I say “this year’s best” but, in actuality, Laura Hillenbrand’s book, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption came out in November, 2010. AND IT’S STILL IN HARDCOVER. For a little perspective on how crazy popular this book has been, paperbacks come out one year after initial publication and the only time publishers break this rule is when they think a book is popular enough that you’d be willing to slap down the extra cash to get it. This money grab (can you blame the floundering publishers?) is usually reserved for juggernaut series books. Dance With Dragons? Just over two years. Catching Fire? Just under four years. Mockingjay? Still no sign. But it’s incredible that this harrowing true story of three men who, against all odds, struggled to survive for 47 days on a life raft after their WWII plane crashed into the ocean has been as popular as those of Dany and Katniss, the girls on fire.
Laura Hillenbrand, of course, wrote the fantastic book Seabiscuit and has a knack for making even the most foreign industries (horse racing? really?) fascinating. Her books read like gripping novels. So imagine how enthralling she made a life or death story like this. I loved the movie Seabiscuit but I have even higher hopes for this film, adapted by The Coen Brothers and Richard LaGravenese (Behind The Candelabra). This will be Angelina Jolie’s second time directing and her comment on the process is exactly the blend of intelligence and just a smidge of sanctimony we’ve come to expect from her. On shooting out on open waters: “On set, we started to joke and say, ‘Tomorrow will be easier,’ knowing full well that on this challenging shoot, there are no easy days. Anytime it gets tough, we think of the real men who lived through this, and no one complains. In fact, we all just feel honored to be here.”
The three young actors are relatively unknown: Domnhall Gleeson (Harry Potter, About Time), Finn Wittrock (All My Children), and Jack O’Connell (Skins). So, in case you’re counting, that two soap stars and a Weasley in a boat.  The movie is slated to be released next Christmas which means you have a whole year to do the reading.

I say “this year’s best” but, in actuality, Laura Hillenbrand’s book, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption came out in November, 2010. AND IT’S STILL IN HARDCOVER. For a little perspective on how crazy popular this book has been, paperbacks come out one year after initial publication and the only time publishers break this rule is when they think a book is popular enough that you’d be willing to slap down the extra cash to get it. This money grab (can you blame the floundering publishers?) is usually reserved for juggernaut series books. Dance With Dragons? Just over two years. Catching Fire? Just under four years. Mockingjay? Still no sign. But it’s incredible that this harrowing true story of three men who, against all odds, struggled to survive for 47 days on a life raft after their WWII plane crashed into the ocean has been as popular as those of Dany and Katniss, the girls on fire.
Laura Hillenbrand, of course, wrote the fantastic book Seabiscuit and has a knack for making even the most foreign industries (horse racing? really?) fascinating. Her books read like gripping novels. So imagine how enthralling she made a life or death story like this. I loved the movie Seabiscuit but I have even higher hopes for this film, adapted by The Coen Brothers and Richard LaGravenese (Behind The Candelabra). This will be Angelina Jolie’s second time directing and her comment on the process is exactly the blend of intelligence and just a smidge of sanctimony we’ve come to expect from her. On shooting out on open waters: “On set, we started to joke and say, ‘Tomorrow will be easier,’ knowing full well that on this challenging shoot, there are no easy days. Anytime it gets tough, we think of the real men who lived through this, and no one complains. In fact, we all just feel honored to be here.”
The three young actors are relatively unknown: Domnhall Gleeson (Harry Potter, About Time), Finn Wittrock (All My Children), and Jack O’Connell (Skins). So, in case you’re counting, that two soap stars and a Weasley in a boat. Here are a few early snaps courtesy of Entertainment Weekly. The movie is slated to be released next Christmas which means you have a whole year to do the reading.

Read more at http://www.pajiba.com/trade_news/first-look-angelina-jolie-is-turning-this-years-best-book-club-book-into-a-movie.php#imk5eK5QiUDgeH4u.99

The Playlist

by Kevin Jagernauth
October 31, 2013 3:33 PM

Meanwhile, the Oscar bonafids are already in play for Angelina Jolie's "Unbroken." WWII story? Check. Script from celebrated writers ie. Coen Brothers? Check. Christmas Day release date next year? Check. And Universal is getting the word out early, showing behind-the-scenes snaps of Jolie hard at work on the movie. What's it about? Well, it's an epic drama that follows the incredible life of Olympian and war hero Louis “Louie” Zamperini who, along with two other crewmen, survived in a raft for 47 days after a near-fatal plane crash in WWII—only to be caught by the Japanese Navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp. Jack O’Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund, Finn Wittrock, John Magaro, Alex Russell and Miyavi star.







EW

Angelina Jolie's 'Unbroken': First photos from set -- EXCLUSIVE

By Sara Vilkomerson on Oct 31, 2013 at 9:00AM

Earlier this month Angelina Jolie began production on her second directorial feature, Unbroken, due in theaters Christmas 2014. The film is adapted from Laura Hillenbrand’s bestseller of the same name and tells the true and incredible story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who, while enlisted during World War II, survived a plane crash into the ocean. And that’s just the beginning of the trials Zamperini faced: he spent 47 days adrift on a raft in the Pacific only to then be imprisoned in a brutal Japanese POW camp for over two years.

“On set, we started to joke and say, ‘Tomorrow will be easier,’ knowing full well that on this challenging shoot, there are no easy days,” Jolie says via email. “Anytime it gets tough, we think of the real men who lived through this, and no one complains. In fact, we all just feel honored to be here.”

In the photo above, Jolie is on set in Australia’s Moreton Bay. More exclusive photos, including one of Jack O’Connell as Zamperini and Finn Wittrock (with safety driver Carla Thexton), below:




Because production began with Zamperini (played by Jack O’Connell) and fellow airmen and raftmates Russell Allen Phillips and Francis McNamara (Domnhall Gleeson and Finn Wittrock) marooned at sea, the actors arrived on location in Moreton Bay starvation-skinny after an extreme diet protocol. “We’ve begun with the character’s lowest points, though, so I’m looking forward to when [Zamperini’s] in top form,” says O’Connell. “Perhaps the makeup will be less extensive so I might get a lie-in, compared to the current 3:30 a.m. calls.”

Kidding aside, the actor feels honored to be playing Zamperini, whom he’s met with twice. “Both times I came away feeling awe-struck,” he says. He has similar feelings for his director, whom he says he likes to think of as the World’s Best Boss. He’s not the only one impressed by Jolie. “She’s extremely bright and subtle-minded and absolutely devoted to getting it right,” says Hillenbrand, who speaks with Jolie regularly. “She wants every detail to be true. It’s easy to fudge things. It’s hard to be devoted to doing things right. She’s taking the hard path.”

As for Zamperini himself, now 96, Hillenbrand reports that he’s excited about the film — and its director: “He always says, ‘I volunteer to be in the movie as long as I can play Angelina’s boyfriend.”

Below: Jolie and first assistant director Joe Reidy (far left) watch over Domnhall Gleeson, who plays fellow survivor Russell Phillips.



See the original post at EW



Empire

First Look At Angelina Jolie's Unbroken
Bridge On The River Pi


31 October 2013  |  Written by Phil de Semlyen  |  Source: Universal Pictures

For Angelina Jolie's second directorial project, Unbroken, she's headed out into the Pacific to recreate the remarkable wartime exploits of downed US airman Louis Zamperini. It's a bold and potentially brilliantly conceived undertaking: an uplifting, against-all-the-odds tale of courage, disaster, endurance and survival. If that doesn't win your attention, it will have sharks. Lots and lots of sharks.

Happily, none of the toothy critters cameo in these first-look pics of Jolie and her cast and crew in action. Eschewing the old Hollywood maxim of never shooting at sea - and water tanks for a floating rig - Team Unbroken has been hard at work on location in Australia's Moreton Bay this month. In the rafts are Jack O’Connell as Zamperini and  Domhnall Gleeson and Finn Wittrock as fellow flyers Russel Allen 'Phil' Phillips and Francis 'Mac' McNamara. If they look gaunt, that's because they are: their director insisted upon a crash diet that left them physically resembling the starving aircrew as they drifted across the Pacific.

Gleeson is probably the most seasoned of the cast but Harry Brown’s O’Connell is the star of the show as Zamperini, an LA high school athlete who raced in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. During World War II, his Air Force plane crashed in the Pacific, leaving him without food and water for 28 days, enduring shark attacks, strafings and hunger. He finally washed ashore on a Japanese island behind enemy lines, where he was held as a prisoner of war for two years and tortured by his captors.

With a script that's been worked on by Richard LaGravenese, William Nicholson and the Coen brothers at different points, and Roger Deakins behind the camera, it's bound to look and sound amazing. Jolie's dedication to the story should ensure all these elements combine into something both rollicking and Oscary when it's released on January 16, 2015.

DailyMail

Brad Pitt gets down and dirty as he shoots tank scenes on set of new World War Two movie

By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 10:00 EST, 31 October 2013 | UPDATED: 10:36 EST, 31 October 2013


The actor has been shooting in the Oxfordshire countryside for upcoming World War Two epic, Fury.
The 47-year-old was spotted emerging from a tank in full military attire on Thursday.

Tank action! Brad Pitt was spotted filming in the Oxfordshire countryside on Thursday

The shooting of the action blockbuster, which involves a lot of heavy machinery, tents and extras, will be stationed on private land near Shirburn until the middle of next month, according to an earlier BBC report.

The website also said that rresidents had been warned to expect 'intermittent controlled gunfire and explosives' during the making of film.

Fury, which is scheduled to hit cinemas in November 2014, tells the story of a crew of a Sherman tank taking on a dangerous mission in the final weeks of the war.
Written by director David Ayer, the film sees the crew take on a desperate German division facing an almost hopeless predicament.

Power couple: Brad with Angelina Jolie, who is currently on the other side of the world filming in Queensland

Hard at work: Pitt and LaBeouf filming together earlier this month

Read the original post at DailyMail