Melbourne-made thriller I, Frankenstein hits screens

Aaron Eckhart filming at night in Melbourne’s Flinders Lane. Source: News Limited

 

Neala Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Remember that time supernatural forces fought a war for the future of the human race on the streets of Melbourne?

The first trailer for I, Frankenstein has been released, showcasing Aaron Eckhart as Adam, the monster of Mary Shelley's legend, locked in just such a battle.

Eckhart (The Dark Knight, Erin Brokovich, Olympus Has Fallen) and British star Bill Nighy joined Australians Yvonne Strahovski, Miranda Otto and Jai Courtney in Melbourne from February through to April 2012 to shoot the film with local writer-director Stuart Beattie.

The comic book adaptation will be released in Australia on January 23.Talking to News Corp Australia while shooting the movie, Eckhart called I, Frankenstein "a historically based movie that has nothing to do with history".

"It's gonna be a crazy movie," he added. In the story, Frankenstein's monster Adam is more than 200 years old. He is unwillingly drawn into Nighy's modern-day plot to build more monsters and wipe humans off the face of the Earth.

Courtney (who shot this film after working with Tom Cruise but before teaming up with Bruce Willis) transforms from gargoyle into man in the trailer. So too does Otto, who is on the side of the humans. Strahovski plays a scientist who works for bad guy Nighy, but gives aid - and perhaps a little romance - to Adam.

She tells Adam: "You're only a monster if you behave like one."

It's difficult to play 'Spot the Melbourne landmark' with the trailer, given the abundance of special effects and unremitting darkness of it all, but we do know that night-time scenes were shot in Flinders Lane and the long-empty Argus building.

The latter, on the corner of Elizabeth and La Trobe streets, appears to be the setting for an epic fight scene.

However most of the film was shot on-set at Docklands Studios.

Eckhart, who spent time in Sydney in his youth, immersed himself in the Melbourne lifestyle while making his first film Down Under."

I live right in the city so I'm able to interact always with people. It's the only way. It's a modern city," he said.

"I've got a car so I've gone everywhere from Sorrento to Bells (Beach), I've been to the Australian Open, I went to the F1, I went to see Pink Floyd ... Melbourne's just got so many cultural activities to offer, always there's something going on.

"But the self-confessed "low-maintenance" American said all he really needed to feel at home in the city was "good coffee and somewhere to sit".

I, Frankenstein isn't the only movie about the monster on the way - James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe begin shooting their Frankenstein with director Paul McGuigan in November. It's due for release next October.

Jai Courtney is an Aussie name you'll need to know

Jai Courtney and Bruce Willis at A Good Day To Die Hard. Picture: Splash Source: news.com.au

Alison Stephenson, news.com.au, reports

You may not have heard of Jai Courtney's name before, but chances are you'll soon know it well.

The 26-year-old actor is enjoying a stellar rise to fame after booking three big-budget Hollywood movies in a row and is hotly tipped to become Australia's next big Hollywood star.

The humble Sydneysider has already starred alongside Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher and is in town to promote his latest flick, A Good Day To Die Hard.

Courtney stars as Bruce Willis' son in the blockbuster film, with intense speculation that his role was set up to one day allow him to take over the Die Hard franchise.

Next up, he star's alongside Kate Winslet and Shailene Woodley in the highly-anticipated Divergent.

Courtney spoke to news.com.au about his rise to fame, his likeness to Bruce Willis' and the ironic piece of advice given to him by Tom Cruise and Bruce Willis in a video (follow the link below).

A Good Day to Die Hard has so far grossed $256.7 million worldwide. It opens in Australian cinemas today.

http://video.dailytelegraph.com.au/2352297516/Australias-next-A-lister

Australian actor Jai Courtney takes Hollywood by storm with starring role in A Good Day to Die Hard

Jai Courtney is making his mark in Hollywood, playing Bruce Willis's son in the new Die Hard film. Picture: Nicole Cleary Source: News Limited

Neala Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Twelve months ago, Jai Courtney snuck into the Australian F1 Grand Prix on his bicycle.

The red carpet rolled out for the Sydney actor this past weekend as he returned a movie star - co-starring with Bruce Willis in A Good Day to Die Hard.

"It was a very different experience, there was no corporate hospitality, that’s for sure," Courtney laughed of his previous Grand Prix adventure. "Next year, I’m going to put a little more pressure on them to get me in that celebrity race - that looked like fun."

Courtney, 26, is already in top gear on the big screen, facing off against Tom Cruise in January’s Jack Reacher and now playing son to Willis’s iconic Die Hard cop Jack McClane.

A Good Day to Die Hard has so far grossed $256.7 million worldwide. It opens in Australia on Thursday.

"It’s certainly opening up some more interesting opportunities for me,” said the now LA-based Courtney. “I don’t think life has changed dramatically, but it’s a great thing."

Courtney said the toughest part of following in Willis’s action hero footsteps was “how confusing things can be”.

"This film is in a sense one big action sequence - it’s like a 90-minute chase. So many times you’ll forget where it is you are. You might sustain an injury and then three weeks later you’re shooting the scene that immediately follows that and it’s like, ‘Hang on, didn’t I have a piece of glass in my shin?’

"It’s quite a chaotic thing to do."

Kate Winslet could be Courtney’s next co-star, with the Aussie confirming he has “jumped on board” the movie Divergent, based on a series of best-selling young-adult novels.

Jai Courtney reaches new heights in Jack Reacher

Jai Courtney stars in action thriller Jack Reacher. Picture: Supplied Source: National Features

Neala Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Long before he was trading punches with Tom Cruise and wisecracks with Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney was just another high school graduate with a dead-end job.

"I didn't see the point of going to uni to study something I wasn't really interested in," says the Sydneysider, 26.

"Although I didn't feel incredibly lost at the time, I just didn't really know what I'd do. It wasn't important ... it was all about going out with your mates. I've got friends who that is still their No.1 priority!"

Courtney's priorities changed when, a year out of high school, he was accepted into the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

"When I first arrived there I thought I'd made a huge mistake, I felt out of my depth. But I grew to love it."

After that, he says, came a "pretty natural evolution to want to succeed" in acting.

"I was always realistic about the fact I wanted to be involved with big films ... "

But work didn't come easily. He recalls auditioning for TV roles and ads in Sydney "that I had no shot of getting - I had mates who were more suited to the 'intellectual' type".

When the brief for US TV series Spartacus - shot in NZ - came to his agent, Courtney finally felt he was the right type: "Cool, a job that's actually looking for guys who are bigger and burly."

Courtney got the gig ... and fans still bemoan the fact his character, Varro, was killed off after only 10 episodes. Yet it gave him the opportunity to go to LA, where bigger, burlier Aussies - think Worthington, Hemsworth, Edgerton - are in demand.

"I didn't think, 'My inner action hero will blossom in LA given the opportunity'," says Courtney. "It was just it felt like a natural progression."

It took a couple of years of flying back and forth to LA for auditions before Courtney put a crack in the dam wall.

"At times you lose sight of that whole process and start to think it's impossible to actually get a gig through doing that," he says.

By the time the action thriller Jack Reacher came his way, he was just as relieved as he was excited: "It had been so long between drinks ... "

There is no big story to how Courtney got the job of No.1 bad guy in the movie, about an ex-army cop (Cruise) called in to investigate a seemingly random sniper shooting. He just put an audition on tape.

Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie (writer of The Usual Suspects) was in Pittsburgh prepping the film when his casting director sent a link to Courtney's audition.

"I watched Jai do a cold reading," the director recalls. "What's so interesting is how well he embodies such a despicable villain for somebody who has such a good soul. I mean, Jai is a truly unaffected person."

McQuarrie sent the audition to Cruise, who was a producer.

"Five minutes later Tom emailed back and just said 'Cast him'. It was so evident that we'd struck gold with this guy, there was no question."

Next thing he knew, Courtney was on set with Cruise pointing a gun at him.

While he admits "the little boy within was pumped" to play an action baddie, his reaction to being in Cruise's presence is far more reserved.

"When you're working with people you've seen in hundreds of films ... it's a bit crazy to step outside yourself for a minute and think, 'This is surreal.' But I try not to get too bogged down in that.

"Look, these people are colleagues, it's about getting down to business. I don't get too worried about the celebrity thing."

Courtney's first appearance as Charlie in Jack Reacher is bad-ass cool, but soon turns chilling as he aims his rifle at five innocent citizens.

"Everyone says, 'This guy's so nasty, he's ice cold.' " Courtney laughs. "I like to think that at the core of it there's some softness there. Maybe. Probably not."

The film builds inevitably towards a confrontation between Charlie and Reacher. They first lock eyes during a high-speed car chase.

"There's one particular part where we're slamming cars into each other and that's actually Tom and I (doing the driving)," Courtney enthuses. "It's always a little crazy when someone hands you the keys and you get to do things that you weren't supposed to do with your dad's car."

Then the pair face-off in the pouring rain. And that is when Courtney did worry, just a little, about his leading man.

"You don't want to throw a punch and land it on his chin, that's for sure," he laughs. "But, fortunately, nothing like that happened. We had a ball."

Shot in late 2011, Jack Reacher set Courtney on a roll. From Pittsburgh he returned home to shoot I, Frankenstein with Stuart Beattie. As soon as he wrapped in Melbourne he was on a plane to Eastern Europe to start blowing things up with Bruce Willis in A Good Day to Die Hard.

Courtney plays Jack, son to Willis's iconic cop John McClane, in the fifth Die Hard movie. Murmurs of "handing over the franchise" to the younger McClane (Willis is now 57) weren't just internet gossip, Courtney admits: "There was talk around that through the casting process ... We'll see what happens."

The "we'll see" approach is all Courtney will commit to at the moment. While he's now put his physicality to good use in three big films (as well as shooting Felony with Joel Edgerton in Sydney just before Christmas), he isn't convinced action is his niche.

"Look, some of that will be up to me and some of that will be up to the industry. Of course I want to shake it up a bit. But if there are particular strengths you play to, well, you've gotta honour that."

Besides, Courtney adds, this roll he's on could slow once people actually see the films he's been making. A Good Day to Die Hard releases in March; I, Frankenstein in September.

"Maybe I'll suck in everything and it's actually the end of my career," he says.

"We shall see."

-- SEE Jack Reacher opens today

Action no drag on Jai's run

Up and coming Aussie actor Jai Courtney (left) and Joel Edgerton (r) on the set of "Felony". Pic: Mark Rogers Source: The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph reports

He did three months playing a villain to Tom Cruise's go-to action hero and is tipped to be the one to take over the Die Hard franchise.

But Australia's newest Hollywood action hero and the movie biz's "man of the moment" Jai Courtney is keen to flex a different kind of acting muscle, telling Confidential last night that he hopes to one day play a woman.

The 26-year-old Sydney boy, who is red-hot on the back of a glut of major roles, premiered his latest in Bondi where he walked the red carpet for Jack Reacher in which he stars alongside Cruise.

"These movies all just came along at once so it was somewhat out of my control," he said of his impressive run. "But I don't want to box myself in to a particular genre and just do action.

"I want to dress in drag."

Courtney said he treasured working with ultimate action man Cruise (who shot the film several months before his split from Katie Holmes).

"I definitely wanted to sponge up as much as I could from Tom," Courtney said. "I spent a lot of time on set when I didn't need to because the atmosphere was so awesome. We had a ball."

The film's director Christopher McQuarrie said he had no qualms casting a young, inexperienced actor opposite such a celluloid force as Cruise.

"We knew from the start Jai was perfect," he said.

"He gave such a strong audition and without instruction too. He has a good presence."

McQuarrie said of Cruise: "At one point we were working seven days week, sometimes up to 24 hours a day.

"He's incredibly professional and will do whatever it takes to keep a movie on time and on budget. He works so hard."

Courtney, meanwhile, is rumoured to be poised to take over from Bruce Willis in the Die Hard franchise after playing his son in the upcoming instalment, A Good Day To Die Hard,

"I have heard that and I did play John McLean Jr," he said. "But there certainly weren't any whispers of that on set at the time. We'll have to see what happens."

Rising star's local gig

Jai Courtney

The Daily Telegraph reports

The impressive rise of Aussie actor Jai Courtney continues with the Melbourne thespian cast opposite Joel Edgerton and Tom Wilkinson in the cop drama Felony which is to be shot in Sydney next year.

Courtney will play a fresh-faced police detective who suspects Edgerton's character is lying about a hit-and-run case and gradually builds a criminal case against him.

Matthew Seville (Noise) is directing a script penned by Edgerton.

Courtney is set to appear as a bad guy in Jack Reacher opposite Tom Cruise and plays Bruce Willis's son in A Good Day To Die Hard - aka Die Hard 5.

Australian actor Jai Courtney cast to play John McClane's son in Bruce Willis's fifth Die Hard film

To play John McClane's son ... Actor Jai Courtney, pictured with Gemma Pranita, has been cast to star opposite Bruce Willis in 'A Good Day to Die Hard'. Picture: Julie Kiriacoudis Source: Herald Sun

The Daily Telegraph reports

Australian actor Jai Courtney has been cast to play opposite Bruce Willis in the next Die Hard movie, A Good Day to Die Hard.

Courtney, best known for his role as Varro in TV series Spartacus: Blood and Sand, will play everyman hero John McClane's son Jack in the fifth movie in the franchise, A Good Day to Die Hard.

The new film, which will be directed by John Moore, will be set in Moscow, Russia, where John McClane and his estranged son Jack take on the locals.

In a press release from 20th Century Fox, Courtney's character is described as "even be more of a hard-ass than his father".

A who's who of upcoming Hollywood actors auditioned for the role, but in the end it came down to Courtney and fellow Aussie Liam Hemsworth, who is starring in another action sequel The Expendables 2.

The film studio also released an image of Courtney's screen test with Willis.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who played McClane's estranged daughter in the last sequel, is not expected to be part of the new film, which will begin production in April, according to The Hollywood Reporter.