The first trailer for My Week With Marilyn has gone online. Based on the memoirs of Lawrence Olivier’s assistant Colin Clark, the film details a week in the life of Marilyn Monroe as seen through the eyes of Clark. The trailer looks pretty great, and Michelle Williams looks to be going all out for the role of Monroe. It’s impressive to see her play the dichotomy of the public Marilyn and the private Marilyn, and Williams seems to be holding nothing back. I like the character-centric plot, and I’m interested to see where the overall arc of the film goes.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer. The film also stars Kenneth Branagh, Dominic Cooper, Julia Ormond, Judi Dench, Emma Watson, and Eddie Redmayne. My Week With Marilyn opens on November 4th.

We’ve got a couple new posters for you today. First up is the stunning first poster for My Week With Marilyn. Based on the memoirs of Lawrence Olivier’s assistant Colin Clark, the film details a week in the life of Marilyn Monroe. Michelle Williams stars as the titular Marilyn and she looks absolutely perfect in this stellar one-sheet. The film also stars Kenneth Branagh, Dominic Cooper, Judi Dench, Julia Ormond, Emma Watson, and Eddie Redmayne. My Week With Marilyn opens in limited release November 4^th.

Additionally, we have the first poster for the thriller Texas Killing Fields. Based on a true story, the film centers on the tracking of a sadistic serial killer who dumps his victims’ bodies in a Texas marsh. The impressive cast includes Sam Worthington, Jessica Chastain, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jason Clarke, and Chloe Dean Moretz. The film also has a new release date, as Texas Killing Fields will open in select theaters October 14^th.

This year’s festival season continues to take shape as the full line-up for the 2011 New York Film Festival has been revealed.  Roman Polanski’s Carnage will open the festival, Simon Curtis’ My Week with Marilyn will be the “Centerpiece Gala Section”, there will be special gala presentations of David Croneneberg’s A Dangerous Method and Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In, and Alexander Payne’s The Descendants will close out the festival.  Other noteworthy films playing are the Cannes’ sensations The Artist and Melancholia, the hit Sundance films Marcy Martha May Marlene, Martin Scorsese’s documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Abel Ferrara’s 4:44: Last Day on Earth, and Wim Wenders’ 3D film Pina.

Hit the jump for the full line up.  The New York Film Festival runs from September 30 – October 16th.

The Weinstein Company has announced release dates for seven upcoming films including Halloween 3D (you know you want another entry in that franchise…right?), Scary Movie 5 (insert previous parenthetical here), Coriolanus, The Iron Lady, The Artist, The Bully Project, and Michelle Williams and Emma Watson’s Marilyn Monroe biopic, My Week with Marilyn. Here is a bulleted breakdown of the dates in chronological order:

• My Week with Marilyn – 11/4/11 – Stars Michelle Williams and Emma Watson
• The Bully Project – 11/11/11 – A documentary from director Lee Hirsch
• The Artist - 11/23/11 – Stars Malcolm McDowell and John Goodman
• Coriolanus – 12/2/11 – Stars Ralph Fiennes (who is also directing) and Gerard Butler
• The Iron Lady – 12/16/11 – Stars Meryl Streep
• Scary Movie 5 - 4/20/12
• Halloween 3D - 10/26/12

In addition to these dates, Relativity has also pushed back its horror pic House at the End of the Street, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Elisabeth Shue, from February 3rd, 2012 to April 20th of the same year. Hit the jump to see which films these projects may be going up against assuming they keep their most recent release times (which is certainly no guarantee).

One of the many films to premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was director Lee Tamahori’s The Devil’s Double.  The film’s loosely based on the life of Latif Yahia and his interaction with Uday Hussein (Saddam Hussein’s son).  Yahia is rumored to have been Uday’s body double and supposedly had plastic surgery to make his appearance even more realistic.  In the film, Dominic Cooper plays both Hussein and Yahia and he does an incredible job playing both characters and brings each to life in a unique way.  While the story of Latif Yahia was never proven to be true, Tamahori has taken the premise and created a new type of gangster film.  The constant in every gangster film is eventually the cops will get involved.  But in this story, Hussein is the son of the man who runs the country, and he literally has the freedom to do anything he wants.  The other thing to know about Hussein in The Devil’s Double is that he’s a raging psychopath that tortured and raped young women, killed people without warning, and treated everyone around him like play things that were there for his amusement.

Again, if you’re looking for a factually accurate film about the fall of Iraq, this isn’t it.  But if you’re a fan of gangster films, excessive violence, and a crazy story that’s never been told on screen, I definitely recommend The Devil’s Double.  I thought it was great.

Anyhow, a few days ago I sat down with Dominic Cooper here at Sundance to talk about how he got involved in the film and what it was like to make it.  We talked about the challenges of playing two characters, the really high production values (the film looks like a big budget Hollywood film), what it’s like being at Sundance, can he watch himself on screen, what he wants to do in the future, his role as Milton Greene in My Week With Marilyn, and so much more.  Hit the jump to watch:

The first shot of Emma Watson in Simon Curtis’ My Week with Marilyn has gone online.  In the film, Emma plays the small but important role of Lucy, an assistant in the wardrobe department at Pinewood studios in 1956.  The film is based on the memoir of Laurence Olivier’s assistant, Colin Clark.  Olivier (who is played in the film by Kenneth Branagh) became a close confidant of Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) during the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl.

Hit the jump to check out the image.   My Week with Marilyn is Watson’s first live-action feature film role outside of the Harry Potter franchise.  Click here to check out her interview with Steve where she talks about the film.

A new image of Michelle Williams as the titular character in My Week With Marilyn has been released, proving more and more that she was a superb choice to play the one and only Marilyn Monroe. The photo exudes the grace and ease that made the original bombshell so beloved and famous. The film is based of the memoirs of Colin Clark, an employee of Sir Laurence Oliver, who experienced firsthand Monroe’s and Olivier’s tumultuous relationship during the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl in 1956. This film boasts of some of Britain’s finest actors, with Kenneth Branagh as Olivier, Dominic Cooper, Julia Ormond, Judi Dench, Emma Watson, and Eddie Redmayne as Colin Clark.  Williams told the Daily Mail that she didn’t immediately want the role, but was pulled in by Monroe’s depth:

“I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist, eventually. Physically and vocally, everything about her is different from me. I’ve kind of gone to school and had teachers help me understand Marilyn, so I could project an essence of her. When I first approached the part, I thought that there were three, even four parts to Marylin.”

For more quotes and information on the film, continue after the jump.

With Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 getting released in a few days, Warner Bros. held a big press junket this weekend in London and I got to fly across the pond to attend.  While there I managed to talk with a lot of the cast, director David Yates, and the producers.  You can expect a new Harry Potter interview to run everyday this week. And up first…Emma Watson.

During the intimate roundtable interview, Watson talked about literally everything: from how school is going (she’s at Brown), her new haircut and what her dad thought, what were her initial thoughts about Deathly Hallows being broken up into two movies, her new clothing line with Alberta Ferretti, what she took home from set, the reshoots she’s doing at Christmas, her next movie My Week With Marilyn, and so much more.

But I’ve left out the best part.  We were allowed to use flip cams!  So after the jump you can either read the transcript or watch the interview.  What are you waiting for?

My Week With Marilyn has begun principal photography and the production has released the first image of Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe.  The film centers on a week Monroe’s life in the summer of 1956 on the set of the movie The Prince and the Showgirl.  My Week with Marilyn is directed by Simon Curtis (Return to Cranford) costars Eddie Redmayne, Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Dominic Cooper, Emma Watson, and Julia Ormond.   Filming is scheduled to continue for the next seven weeks at Pinewood Studios and on location in and around London.  Hit the jump to check out the image of Williams as Monroe plus the full press release.

Eddie Redmayne (HBO’s upcoming The Miraculous Year) has been cast in the Marilyn Monroe biopic My Week With Marilyn.  Helmed by veteran television director Simon Curtis, the film is based in part on Colin Clark’s book The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me: Six Months on Set with Marilyn and Olivier.  The Playlist reports that Redmayne will play Clark, an employee of celebrated actor/director Laurence Olivier, whose published diary documents the tense relationship between Monroe and Olivier on the set of 1957’s The Prince and the Showgirl.

With shooting on the film set to commence in ten days, Redmayne joins a cast that already includes Michelle Williams (Monroe), Kenneth Branagh (Olivier), and Judi Dench (one of the stars of Prince, Sybil Thorndike).  For a better grasp on what to expect from My Week with Marilyn, hit the jump for a brief synopsis from Clark’s book.

Judi Dench has signed on to star opposite Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh in My Week With Marilyn, one of two Marilyn Monroe biopics in development.  This one takes place on the contentious set of 1957′s The Prince and the Showgirl, in which Monroe (Williams) sought respectability by working with lauded actor/director Laurence Olivier (Branagh); unfortunately Olivier came to loathe the blonde bombshell and treat her like “a naughty schoolgirl.”  , Dench will play fellow dame Sybil Thorndike, one of the stars of Prince.

According to The Daily Mail, Dench will start shooting her scenes on September 20th, two weeks prior to the primary filming schedule.  The accommodation resulted from Dench’s commitment to James Madden’s adaptation of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  Last we checked, Fox Searchlight was “reaching out” to Dench, Julie Christie, Tom Wilkinson, and Peter O’Toole.  This report confirms that Dench and Madden (Shakespeare in Love) are on board — I wonder how things fared with Christie, Wilkinson, and O’Toole.  Hit the jump for synopses of the books that inspired Ms. Dench’s projects.

Few men have had adapted the works of Shakespeare for the screen quite so passionately as Kenneth Branagh and Sir Laurence Olivier.  It is suitable, then, that the former is in talks to play the latter in the Marilyn Monroe biopic My Week With Marilyn.  Michelle Williams will star as the titular bombshell, with British TV producer Simon Curtis set to direct. My Week takes place on the set of the 1957 comedy The Prince and the Showgirl, where Monroe reportedly clashed with director/co-star Olivier.  More after the jump:

Marilyn Monroe is too big of a cultural icon to have just one more.  Deadline reports that two films centering the late model/actress are in the works.  The first up is from Andrew Bergman who directed the amazing The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Ford. [Correction: Andrew Dominik directed Assassination of Jesse James; Andrew Bergman is producing.  Movie is still amazing.] The film, Blonde, is based Joyce Carol Oates’ imaginary Marilyn Monroe memoir.  Filming is set to begin January 2011 with Naomi Watts playing Monroe.

But the Weinstein Company has its own Marilyn Monroe flick in the works. Simon Curtis (The BBC TV series Cranford) will direct My Week with Marilyn late this September.  The film is about the time Monroe spent in England shooting The Prince and the Showgirl opposite Laurence Olivier.  Michelle Williams will play Monroe in this biopic.  Ralph Fiennes was originally set to play Olivier but dropped out to direct and star in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.

So the question falls to you, dear readers: Who would make a better Marilyn Monroe—Watts or Williams?  Or is there another actress who would be an even better choice?  While you ponder that, hit the jump to check out my favorite photo of Monroe, taken by Richard Avedon.