Marlon Brando: Last News

Billy Zane made a stunning transformation into late film actor Marlon Brando.The 58-year-old appeared as a spitting image of Brando’s Don Vito Corleone from Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 mob drama, “The Godfather.” Zane is playing Brando, who died in 2004 at age 80, in the upcoming biopic, “Waltzing with Brando.”Zane looked unrecognizable as he wore a black tuxedo, a white button-up and cufflinks, as well as a rose pinned to his jacket. His gray hair was combed back, and he sported a mustache while he appeared as an uncanny version of Brando.His latest project will focus on Brando in the 1970s, when he starred in “Last Tango in Paris” and “The Godfather.” Zane is also serving as a producer on the film.“Waltzing with Brando,” directed and co-written by Bill Fishman, is based on Bernard Judge’s 2011 book.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor Traveling to Greece for the Thessaloniki Film Festival has not stopped Matt Dillon from voting in the upcoming U.S. election. “I voted before I came because I had to vote,” he told journalists at a press conference.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Kino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights to “Being Maria,” a French movie revolving around the controversial production of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1972 film “Last Tango in Paris.” Directed by Jessica Palud, the movie stars “Happening” breakout Anamaria Vartolomei as Maria Schneider and Matt Dillon as Marlon Brando. “Being Maria” had its world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it was the only female-directed film selected for the Premieres section. It’s now playing at the American French Film Festival at the DGA.

When I set out to see R.J. Cutler‘s new documentary, Martha, quite frankly I wasn’t focusing on it other than just another screening I had, and that it would be all about Martha Stewart. So I expected it would be mostly gardening, cooking, and setting the perfect dinner party table. Boy was I ever wrong, happily so, because this is simply a riveting, candid, and surprisingly warts-and-all look at the life and times of Stewart, someone very much in the public eye for much of her career, but until now guarding the image and the person behind what we thought we knew about her.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Billy Zane is set to make the trek to Italy’s Torino Film Festival which has secured the world premiere of hotly anticipated indie film “Waltzing With Brando” directed by Bill Fishman in which Zane plays Marlon Brando during the period when he was preparing to star in “The Godfather” and “Last Tango in Paris.” “Waltzing With Brando,” which is is based on a memoir by the iconic actor’s architect, Bernard Judge, is the tale of how Brando plucked Judge, who was then an idealistic Los Angeles architect, from his stable existence and convinced him that he should build the world’s first ecologically perfect retreat on the tiny uninhabitable Tahitian island of Tetiaroa. The bulk of the film was shot on Tetiaroa, where Brando and Judge tried to spearhead sustainable architecture and practices.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Ron Howard’s survival thriller “Eden,” starring Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby and Sydney Sweeney, has been set as the opening film of Italy’s Torino Film Festival with the director in tow. “Eden,” which follows a pair of high-minded Europeans, played by Law and Kirby, who are seeking a new life on a previously uninhabited island in the Galápagos, will be having its international premiere in Torino after world premiering at the Toronto Film Festival in September.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large SPOILER ALERT: Details follow for Season 12, Episode 4 of “The Masked Singer,” “Sports Night,” which aired October 16 on Fox. In the Year Two Thousand (and 24)… Andy Richter will be eliminated as Dust Bunny on “The Masked Singer.” The “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” “Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” and “Conan” sidekick — plus “Andy Richter Controls the Universe”/”Andy Barker P.I.” star — managed to stump the “Masked Singer” panelists, as no one got it right. Panelist Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg said it was John C. Reilly.

The Masked Singer is back!

Lise Pedersen Kicking off the 12th edition of the International Classic Film Market (MIFC) in Lyon, France, guest speaker Cassandra Moore, VP Mastering and Archive at NBC Universal, discussed her company’s vast catalogue and restoration techniques. The MIFC runs alongside the Lumière Film Festival, a nine-day event dedicated to heritage cinema, featuring an impressive screening program of over 150 films, mostly classics but also some contemporary titles. Among them is Steven Spielberg’s “The Sugarland Express,” which NBC Universal restored in time for its 50th anniversary.

Al Pacino has revealed that studio bosses wanted the likes of Jack Nicholson and Robert Redford to take the lead role in The Godfather ahead of him.The star said in an extract from his new book Sonny Boy (via The Guardian), which came out last week, that Paramount were not interested in him taking the role and the likes of Warren Beatty and Ryan O’Neal were also ahead of him on the list.“Paramount didn’t want me to play Michael Corleone. They wanted Jack Nicholson. They wanted Robert Redford.

Marta Balaga Documentary “Shadowland” – which has its world premiere at Los Angeles’ Beyond Fest on Oct. 5 – was supposed to be a “happy story” set in the French Pyrenees, a place known for its mysteries. Embracing magic and witchcraft, spiritual “seekers” from all paths of life settle there, hoping to find the greatest treasure – the Holy Grail – or experience supernatural encounters.

Katcy Stephan Rob Marshall is rockin’ the boat! The “Chicago” director is in talks to helm the remake of “Guys and Dolls” for Sony’s TriStar Pictures. Marshall and John DeLuca will write the script with John Requa & Glenn Ficarra. John Goldwyn, Marc Toberoff and Marc Platt will produce alongside Marshall and DeLuca, while TriStar president Nicole Brown and Shary Shirazi will oversee the project for the studio.

This one has taken awhile, but maybe Lady Luck finally has turned for an updated movie musical of Guys and Dolls. TriStar Pictures has teamed Chicago helmer Rob Marshall to direct a new film adaptation of Frank Loesser’s box office smash hit musical. Marshall and John DeLuca will team with John Requa & Glenn Ficarra to write the script.

Naman Ramachandran For producer Barry Navidi, Johnny Depp‘s directorial comeback “Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness” marks a full-circle moment in an unconventional career. Navidi’s first time working with Depp nearly 30 years ago on the 1995 project “Divine Rapture” ended in disappointment when the production was shelved. But on Tuesday, the two will celebrate a high with the world premiere of “Modi” at San Sebastian Film Festival.

EXCLUSIVE: Billy Zane has joined the cast of supernatural indie thriller The Evilry.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor For Karla Sofía Gascón, the star of “Emilia Pérez” who can make Oscar history as the first trans actress ever to be nominated, she’s proud of what she executes in the high-energy musical. “It is a very complicated character, which is at the stature of the huge Hollywood characters — a kind of character Marlon Brando, or Meryl Streep, or Javier Bardem would play,” Gascón said via an interpreter during an interview at the Variety Studio, sponsored by J.Crew and SharkNinja, at the Toronto International Film Festival. “It was a huge challenge to put myself in the skin of such a layered and complex character.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Every great screen performance expands the medium in its own way, giving audiences something to respond to, while offering fresh ideas to future actors. A select few can be said to have redefined the craft entirely: Orson Welles in “Citizen Kane,” Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront,” Toshiro Mifune in “Rashomon” and Gena Rowlands in “A Woman Under the Influence.” Rowlands died Wednesday at age 94, half a century after “A Woman Under the Influence” premiered at the New York Film Festival in 1974.

Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor Jay Kanter, agent to superstar Hollywood clients including Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly, died Tuesday at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 97. His son, Adam Kanter of Independent Artist Group, remembered his father as someone who conducted his entire career with “integrity and kindness.” Kanter also inspired Jack Lemmon’s character in Billy Wilder’s classic comedy “The Apartment.” Jay Kanter served in the U.S.

WARNING: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN CLAIM TO FAME SPOILERS!

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Eddie Murphy revealed on The New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast that Marlon Brando told him that “acting is bullshit, when Murphy’s star profile was on the rise in the wake of “48 Hrs.” Murphy was a known comedian at the time thanks to his stint on “Saturday Night Live,” but “48 Hrs.” was his first movie role and started his ascent as a film star. “Trading Places” and “Beverly Hills Cop” followed and cemented his status. “I was having these famous people that I grew up watching on television wanting to have a meal with me,” Murphy remembered about becoming famous in Hollywood.

the New York Times’ podcast “The Interview,” the “Trading Places” actor detailed the time he was invited to the late actor’s home following his first-ever film role, in 1982’s “48 Hrs.”“This is how long ago it was: He was going, ‘I can’t stand that kid with the gun.’ I was like, ‘What kid with the gun?’ He said, ‘He’s on the poster!’ ” Murphy called.“I was like, ‘Clint Eastwood?’ ‘Yeah, that guy!’ He was calling Clint Eastwood ‘that kid,'” he added.Despite calling Eastwood a “kid,” Brando was just six years older than the “Million Dollar Baby” star.Elsewhere, Murphy recalled the very first time he hung out with Brando, who died at age 80 in 2004.Brando picked up Murphy at a rooftop restaurant at the L’Ermitage luxury hotel in Los Angeles, before inviting him over to his home.“He came and picked me up at the hotel. But there was a time mix-up, and I came down like a half-hour late — he was waiting for me in the car,” Murphy recalled.“We went to his house on Mulholland,” he shared, adding that he “was just going on and on” about Brando’s 1972 film “The Godfather.”Brando, who played Don Vito Corleone in the hit film, brushed off the praise.“He was like, ‘Eh, The Godfather.’ Not just ‘The Godfather’ — acting,” Murphy recalled.