Cate Blanchett to star in Lucille Ball biopic written by Sorkin

[JoeySanJoaquin]

16 hours ago, Mot Morenzi said:

A little Vitametavegamin would be handy right now. 

Amen... with a shot of SOMETHING with it!!

[Luvsbway]

More photos. The suit Nicole is wearing matches to one in photos of Lucy on Miami Beech in 1941.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9519759/Nicole-Kidman-Javier-Bardem-Lucy-Desi-set-Ricardos.html

 

[Sdolginoff]

https://hollywoodlife.com/2021/04/29/nicole-kidman-red-hair-lucille-ball-biopic-new-photos/

Much more accurate hair for a 1940s flashback!

 

[Luvsbway]

15 minutes ago, Sdolginoff said:

https://hollywoodlife.com/2021/04/29/nicole-kidman-red-hair-lucille-ball-biopic-new-photos/

Much more accurate hair for a 1940s flashback!

 

Don't know why we could get this style first. 

[Luvsbway]

Twitter just blew up enough to generate an article about casting.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/nicole-kidman-lucille-ball-reactions-190132305.html

[rickylu]

My biggest concern is the research the actors did or did not do. I hope more was involved than primarily binging on ILL. Its the actors and production team time to do their jobs. We the public will do our jobs once it's released and judge for ourselves whether it's a hit or a turd. I hope it will be fantastic. Lucille and Desi deserve a well-acted and accurate portrayal especially after the previous attempts.

[Luvsbway]

27 minutes ago, rickylu said:

My biggest concern is the research the actors did or did not do. I hope more was involved than primarily binging on ILL. Its the actors and production team time to do their jobs. We the public will do our jobs once it's released and judge for ourselves whether it's a hit or a turd. I hope it will be fantastic. Lucille and Desi deserve a well-acted and accurate portrayal especially after the previous attempts.

I agree with everything you said. The devil is in the details and that's accuracy and research. What many of us fans have been doing for years. 

[Mot Morenzi]

5 hours ago, Luvsbway said:

I agree with everything you said. The devil is in the details and that's accuracy and research. What many of us fans have been doing for years. 

Very true. It’s not so much about appearance (Jessica Lange looked/sounded nothing like Joan Crawford but still gave a good performance) but more about commitment. None of Nicole’s interviews so far have given the impression she’s truly committed herself to this, but perhaps that’s a misleading take. I don’t want to jump to conclusions without seeing the finished product.

Of course, the Debra Messing trolls are in full force on Twitter. SHE doesn’t really look like Lucille either, and she got her chance with that W&G episode. However, I will admit I wish Cate Blanchett had been available. Not only is she a stronger physical and vocal match, I personally prefer her as an actress. Not to cast aspersions, but Kidman’s never been a draw for me; I’ve never seen a movie just because she’s in it. But I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. (Max was briefly a teacher of hers back when she was in school, believe it or not.)

What I’m curious about is all these 1940s set scenes. What happened to “one production week”? Unless they’re doing recreations for on-set photographs, this implies there will be flashbacks, which is entering “Before the Laughter” territory. But I’m sure if that’s the case, they’ll be better written here.

[Sdolginoff]

4 hours ago, Mot Morenzi said:

Very true. It’s not so much about appearance (Jessica Lange looked/sounded nothing like Joan Crawford but still gave a good performance) but more about commitment. None of Nicole’s interviews so far have given the impression she’s truly committed herself to this, but perhaps that’s a misleading take. I don’t want to jump to conclusions without seeing the finished product.

Of course, the Debra Messing trolls are in full force on Twitter. SHE doesn’t really look like Lucille either, and she got her chance with that W&G episode. However, I will admit I wish Cate Blanchett had been available. Not only is she a stronger physical and vocal match, I personally prefer her as an actress. Not to cast aspersions, but Kidman’s never been a draw for me; I’ve never seen a movie just because she’s in it. But I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. (Max was briefly a teacher of hers back when she was in school, believe it or not.)

What I’m curious about is all these 1940s set scenes. What happened to “one production week”? Unless they’re doing recreations for on-set photographs, this implies there will be flashbacks, which is entering “Before the Laughter” territory. But I’m sure if that’s the case, they’ll be better written here.

I believe they’ve stated there will be flashbacks to the past, sprinkled within the “production week”—the extent and length of these remains to be seen, of course.  

[Mot Morenzi]

34 minutes ago, Sdolginoff said:

I believe they’ve stated there will be flashbacks to the past, sprinkled within the “production week”—the extent and length of these remains to be seen, of course.  

Thanks for clarifying. It’s interesting, given Lucie’s disdain for “Before the Laughter”, that this film may be taking a similar structural approach: A limited timeframe in the present with periodic flashbacks to the past. However, I’m guessing these flashbacks will be briefer and far less salacious than the TV movie ones.

[Luvsbway]

I just wonder why Cate dropped out of this project. I vaguely heard scheduling conflicts. But that seems dodgy. She does lots of theatre, especially in London. Theatre is still on hold.

Tv and film is obviously shooting with strict guidelines so I'm unclear if they are up to pre-covid capacity in how much stuff is in production.

And if they waited all these years with Cate on, they couldn't wait a few months more for her to finish a project and also hopefully shoot under less strict covid protocal?

[Mot Morenzi]

18 minutes ago, Luvsbway said:

I just wonder why Cate dropped out of this project. I vaguely heard scheduling conflicts. But that seems dodgy. She does lots of theatre, especially in London. Theatre is still on hold.

Tv and film is obviously shooting with strict guidelines so I'm unclear if they are up to pre-covid capacity in how much stuff is in production.

And if they waited all these years with Cate on, they couldn't wait a few months more for her to finish a project and also hopefully shoot under less strict covid protocal?

Good points. 

[Sdolginoff]

4 hours ago, Luvsbway said:

I just wonder why Cate dropped out of this project. I vaguely heard scheduling conflicts. But that seems dodgy. She does lots of theatre, especially in London. Theatre is still on hold.

Tv and film is obviously shooting with strict guidelines so I'm unclear if they are up to pre-covid capacity in how much stuff is in production.

And if they waited all these years with Cate on, they couldn't wait a few months more for her to finish a project and also hopefully shoot under less strict covid protocal?

My three guesses——she predicted fan backlash and thought it was a lose/lose proposition; or truly didn’t care for the finished script; or pre Covid there was a true scheduling conflict that was no longer the case by the time filming happened—but she had already withdrawn.   

[Justin]

I'm looking forward to this although I expect this to be pretty flimsy as most direct to streaming projects have turned out to be mostly underwhelming.  It'll satisfy typical joe public but I doubt it'll come close to Lucy and Desi A Home Movie. Very eager to be wrong.

[Sdolginoff]

4 hours ago, Justin said:

I'm looking forward to this although I expect this to be pretty flimsy as most direct to streaming projects have turned out to be mostly underwhelming.  It'll satisfy typical joe public but I doubt it'll come close to Lucy and Desi A Home Movie. Very eager to be wrong.

It’s a feature film, produced by Amazon Studios.  Not direct to streaming.  At least, that was the original plan.   Hopefully, by next year when it is scheduled to be released, it will be in theatres.

[HarryCarter]

Linda Lavin says she'll be playing Older Madelyn in scenes that lead to flashbacks. I wasn't expecting that.

 

[Mot Morenzi]

That’s curious news, indeed.
I wonder who Robert Pine will be playing. Interesting they snagged someone who once worked with the actual Lucille. 

[Mot Morenzi]

https://www.thewrap.com/lucille-balls-daughter-pushed-to-remove-scenes-that-werent-accurate-from-aaron-sorkins-biopic/
 

Lucie has tried to have certain scenes removed for inaccuracies. 

[HarryCarter]

1 hour ago, Mot Morenzi said:

https://www.thewrap.com/lucille-balls-daughter-pushed-to-remove-scenes-that-werent-accurate-from-aaron-sorkins-biopic/
 

Lucie has tried to have certain scenes removed for inaccuracies. 

Lucie said in a subsequent interview the scene she objected to had Lucy being fired from RKO (or MGM, but in period that was supposed to be RKO), which is something that did not happen. She was right to call them out on this. 

[Luvsbway]

2 hours ago, HarryCarter said:

Lucie said in a subsequent interview the scene she objected to had Lucy being fired from RKO (or MGM, but in period that was supposed to be RKO), which is something that did not happen. She was right to call them out on this. 

Yes. It's a big deal because Lucy was never fired from a studio. That's one of the things she sited during Life With Lucy, she was never fired. I don't count Columbia dropping their stock company as being fired. That had nothing to do with Lucy and her talents.

In 1942 her RKO contract was up and MGM had her come over there. It was leaving for a better opportunity.  Lucy left MGM on good terms and was going to go freelance but Easy To Wed did so well they wanted her back and when she renegotiated a new contract she asked for a lot more money and they gave it to her. When she finally left MGM again on good terms and she went on to do some fine films with Bob Hope and the Columbia ones (not Magic Carpet). And then My Favorite Husband comes at that time. So this notion of she was some washed up movie actress who couldn't get a job and had to resort to radio is a pile of crap and doesn't make her look good. She was making movies and doing radio at the same time.  I don't understand why they had to change it except they needed some BS drama. I guess to make it look like that when TV came about she didn't have any other prospects and it was all or nothing to make the show a success. UGH. 

[HarryCarter]

My biggest pet peeve is when people try to minimize her success as a movie star or make it seem like she was washed up prior to television.  That is ridiculous. I’m very happy Lucie spoke up about this and I hope this scene ends up on the cutting room floor. 

[Luvsbway]

50 minutes ago, HarryCarter said:

My biggest pet peeve is when people try to minimize her success as a movie star or make it seem like she was washed up prior to television.  That is ridiculous. I’m very happy Lucie spoke up about this and I hope this scene ends up on the cutting room floor. 

Me too. And another good thing that she is the TCM star of the month for us to see all her wonderful film work and make it visible and known. 

[Mot Morenzi]

19 hours ago, HarryCarter said:

Lucie said in a subsequent interview the scene she objected to had Lucy being fired from RKO (or MGM, but in period that was supposed to be RKO), which is something that did not happen. She was right to call them out on this. 

She was absolutely right to call them on this! Not even the TV movies resorted to that one. Thanks for clarifying what the matter was about, and I concur that the scene should be cut.

[Mot Morenzi]

16 hours ago, Luvsbway said:

Yes. It's a big deal because Lucy was never fired from a studio. That's one of the things she sited during Life With Lucy, she was never fired. I don't count Columbia dropping their stock company as being fired. That had nothing to do with Lucy and her talents.

In 1942 her RKO contract was up and MGM had her come over there. It was leaving for a better opportunity.  Lucy left MGM on good terms and was going to go freelance but Easy To Wed did so well they wanted her back and when she renegotiated a new contract she asked for a lot more money and they gave it to her. When she finally left MGM again on good terms and she went on to do some fine films with Bob Hope and the Columbia ones (not Magic Carpet). And then My Favorite Husband comes at that time. So this notion of she was some washed up movie actress who couldn't get a job and had to resort to radio is a pile of crap and doesn't make her look good. She was making movies and doing radio at the same time.  I don't understand why they had to change it except they needed some BS drama. I guess to make it look like that when TV came about she didn't have any other prospects and it was all or nothing to make the show a success. UGH. 

Exactly. How many MFH episodes end with Bob LeMond saying, “Lucille Ball will soon be seen in the Columbia picture...” or something like that. For anyone to think she wasn’t still getting film work is ridiculous. 

[Luvsbway]

Amazon has confirmed that the Being The Ricardos Trailer drops tomorrow. 

I'm so mixed with emotions right now. It's gonna be a rough Tuesday.