Stars include: Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman, Shia LaBeouf and Mia Wasikowska. It’s a story about love, betrayal, violent, organized crime and the characters driving the reality. Director John Hillcoat (The Road and The Proposition) is a Sergio Leone fan, Cave loves violence, classic love stories and sentimentality.
Killing Them Softly is a film noir starring Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta, Garrett Dillahunt, James Gandolfini, Sam Shepard and Bella Heathcote . The crime drama is written and directed by Andrew Dominik and is an adaptation of George V. Higgins 1974 novel Cogan’s Trade. Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) is an enforcer, a hit man. He is called in to ‘take care’ of the people responsible for a heist that takes place during a high stakes Mob sanctioned poker game.
Will the combination win a Palme D’Or? Even if it doesn’t Megan Ellison has won high praise for her audacious foray into the high stakes Hollywood arena.
Other titles in the Annapurna Pictures line up:
Annapurna Pictures has some other exciting films in the lineup including: two future installments in the Terminator franchise and two new films from Paul Thomas Anderson.
Inherent Vice by writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson is an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s crime novel of the same name. Robert Downey Jr. will star. Anderson has also written and will direct The Master, a movie based on the legendary Ron Hubbard about a cult similar to Scientology starring Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Zero Dark Thirty – Co-directed by Mark Boal & Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) — is a controversial film about Bin Laden’s killing.
Catch.44 is written and directed by Aaron Harvey and stars Malin Akerman, Reila Aphrodite and Kevin Beard. It is a high action drama about an attempted double cross on a drug deal gone bad.
Finally, on the list of Annapurna Pictures is a martial arts extravaganza The Grandmaster by the great Chinese director Wong Kar-Wai. The story is about Ip Man, the great martial arts master who trained Bruce Lee. Wong Kar-Waiis also at Cannes this year promoting his restored version of the 1994 classic Ashes of Time Redux.
Bravo Megan Ellison!
Moira Romano