You can now order the 
DVD
of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE or
DOWNLOAD
THE MOVIE or the
CD
or
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THE ALBUM or
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EDDIE'S SONG!
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE DVD
Sony Pictures will release "Across the Universe" on DVD & Blu-ray February
5, 2008. The film stars Evan Rachel Wood, Dana Fuchs, Jim Sturgess, and Joe Anderson.
The DVD edition will have 2-discs. Extras will include: a "Commentary with Director
Julie Taymor & Music Producer/Composer Elliot Goldenthal," Five featurettes, and
"Two live performances of Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite."
EDDIE INTERVIEWS JULIE TAYMOR
Download the PDF (5.5mb)
Fan Review (Maria
K saw the movie at the Toronto Film Festival)
Well I have to say that I really enjoyed
the film. It brought back many memories (good and bad). I would recommend it as
a "must see" especially for folks that grew up in that era (like me). The Vietnam
scenes brought back a lot of bad memories as my brother was in that "war" and
luckily came home in one piece. He told me many stories of what went on over there
- not a pretty picture....and it seems we're doing it again. Do we never learn.
Unfortunately no sign of our man - Julie Taymor did show up and that was a bonus.
At the Q&A someone asked how Eddie got
picked for the part of Mr Kite as he spoke (not sang) the song - which was still
fantastic. She basically let him have free reign with ad-libbing throughout the
song. The young cast was excellent and Julie Taymor said that 80% of the songs
were not pre-recorded - so no lip-syncing - it was the real thing - that's a breath
of fresh air. The music and Beatles songs were fantastic - 33 songs in all. We
saw the Julie Taymor's version of Across The Universe and apparently all of the
production issues are resolved, according to her.
Across The Universe
Movie Trailer
By PETER SCIRETTA (slashfilm.com)
I’ve never been one to love musicals, but I’ve found that has begun to change
in current years. First came Moulin Rouge, than late last year Dreamgirls blew
me away. And now comes the movie trailer for Across the Universe. If you’re a
fan of the Beatles, you’re sure to love this.
This looks like it could be incredible.
Described as a “romantic musical” told through numerous Beatles songs performed
by the characters. A love story set against the backdrop of the 1960s amid the
turbulent years of anti-war protest, mind exploration and rock ‘n roll, the film
moves from the dockyards of Liverpool to the creative psychedelia of Greenwich
Village, from the riot-torn streets of Detroit to the killing fields of Vietnam.
The star-crossed lovers, Jude (Jim Sturgess) and Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), along
with a small group of friends and musicians, are swept up into the emerging anti-war
and counterculture movements, with ?Dr. Robert? (Bono) and ?Mr. Kite? (Eddie Izzard)
as their guides. Tumultuous forces outside their control ultimately tear the young
lovers apart, forcing Jude and Lucy ? against all odds ? to find their own way
back to each other.
From Academy Award nominated director Julie Taymor (Frida, Titus), Universe
stars Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Martin Luther, Eddie Izzard, Salma Hayek,
Bono, Dana Fuchs and T.V. Carpio.
On a side note, if you have yet to hear the cover of Across the Universe that
Fiona Apple did for the Pleasentville soundtrack, check it out HERE.
The music video is directed by Apple’s then boyfriend director Paul Thomas Anderson
(Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Punch Drunk Love). You may even notice a cameo from
John C. Reilly near the end. It’s actually an incredible music video.
Across The Universe hits theaters on September 28th, 2007.
Film Has Two Versions;
Only One Is Julie Taymor’s
By SHARON WAXMAN
Published: March 20, 2007
LOS ANGELES, March 19 — In Hollywood creative differences among moviemakers
often make for more interesting results on the screen. But rarely do those battles
escalate so much that a studio takes a movie away from an award-winning director.
Such is the case — for the moment — with “Across
the Universe,” a $45-million psychedelic love story set to the music of the Beatles,
directed by Julie Taymor, the stage and screen talent whose innovative interpretation
of the Disney animated film “The Lion King” is one of the most successful modern
stage musicals.
After Ms. Taymor delivered the movie to Joe Roth, the film executive whose
production company, Revolution Studios, based at Sony, is making the Beatles musical,
he created his own version without her agreement. And last week Mr. Roth tested
his cut of the film, which is about a half-hour shorter than Ms. Taymor’s 2-hour-8-minute
version.
Mr. Roth’s moves have left Ms. Taymor feeling helpless and considering taking
her name off the movie, according to an individual close to the movie who would
not be named because of the sensitivity of the situation. Disavowing a film is
the most radical step available to a director like Ms. Taymor, who does not have
final cut, one that could embarrass the studio and hurt the movie’s chances for
a successful release in September.
Ms. Taymor declined to be interviewed, but issued a carefully worded statement:
“My creative team and I are extremely happy about our cut and the response to
it,” she wrote. “Sometimes at this stage of the Hollywood process differences
of opinion arise, but in order to protect the film, I am not getting into details
at this time.”
Mr. Roth, a former Disney studio chief who proclaimed his ’60’s-influenced,
artist-friendly ethos in 2000 by naming his new company Revolution Studios, is
himself a director, of films like “Christmas With the Kranks,” “Revenge of the
Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise” and “Freedomland.”
He said that Ms. Taymor was overreacting to a normal Hollywood process of testing
different versions of a movie, something he has done many times before, including
with Michael Mann’s “Last of the Mohicans.” He called his version of “Across the
Universe” “an experiment.”
“She’s a brilliant director,” he said. “She’s made a brilliant movie. This
process is not anything out of the ordinary. Her reaction through her representatives
might be. But her orientation is stage. It’s different if you’re making a $12-million
film, or a $45-million film. No one is uncomfortable in this process, other than
Julie.”
And he warned that the conflict could hurt the movie. “If you work off her
hysteria, that will do the film an injustice,” he said. “Nobody wants to do that.
She’s worked long and hard, and made a wonderful movie.”
A spokesman for Sony Pictures Entertainment declined to comment, saying the
project was developed by Revolution.
“Across the Universe” stars Evan Rachel Wood as Lucy, an American teenager,
and Jim Sturgess as Jude, a British import, who fall in love during the turbulent
1960s. The movie, set to 35 Beatles songs, seems to spring from Ms. Taymor’s experimental
sandbox, combining live action with painted and three-dimensional animation and
puppets, and featuring cameos by Eddie Izzard, dressed as a freakish Mr. Kite;
Bono, singing “I Am the Walrus”; and Joe Cocker, singing “Come Together.”
Ms. Taymor has been editing the film for the better part of the last year,
after completing the shoot in 2005. An initial release date of September 2006
was pushed off.
Mr. Roth said he had been working with Ms. Taymor on and off during nine months
of editing, and that the problem was merely one of length.
Under pressure from Mr. Roth and after test screenings, Ms. Taymor trimmed
the film from an initial 2 hours 20 minutes. She told associates she considered
the film finished.
Fights between visionary filmmakers and studios are nothing new. Orson Welles
spent most of his career fighting with studios that took away his movies, editing
options and even limited his film stock. And those fights commonly focus on the
running times of movies, which, as critics have noted, seem to grow inexorably
longer.
But it is rare for an executive to step in and cut the movie himself. Ms.
Taymor was still making her own final edits to the film when she learned several
weeks ago that Mr. Roth had edited another, shorter version. That version was
tested last week in Arizona, to a younger audience than the more mixed test group
than saw Ms. Taymor’s cut in Los Angeles on March 8, according to an individual
close to the film.
Mr. Roth, who vowed never again to allow a director final cut after the disastrous
2003 Martin Brest movie “Gigli,” said that the various versions were testing well,
but that he had a responsibility to find the most successful incarnation. “It’s
‘show’ and it’s ‘business,’ ” he said.
Ms. Taymor has been showered with numerous awards, including a MacArthur “genius”
grant in 1991. The stage version of “The Lion King,” which currently has nine
productions worldwide, is notable for Ms. Taymor’s unusual staging and the use
of mechanical masks that make the actors seem like real animals. (Mr. Roth, who
ran Disney at the time, admitted to having been skeptical about the masks but
later told Ms. Taymor he’d been wrong.)
Ms. Taymor has had more mixed results in Hollywood. Her bloody Shakespeare
adaptation, “Titus,” bombed at the box office, taking in just $1.9 million. “Frida,”
in 2002, about the artist Frida Kahlo, was successful, winning two Oscars and
a moderate financial windfall.
Mr. Roth said he believed that the current tensions would be worked out, and
that Ms. Taymor would find the best, final version of the film somewhere between
his own and her last cut.
But those in Ms. Taymor’s camp were more skeptical, saying the director was
not inclined to make any more changes. Ms. Taymor herself struck a more conciliatory
note in her statement: “I only hope that we will be able to complete the film
we set out to make.”
TRAILER
The trailer can be seen in the movie theatres before the showing
of Dreamgirls.
EDDIE'S SCENE
(from an actor that worked with Eddie) "... I worked
on the movie late September, and we went up to a farm upstate in Somers, NY where
he sang "For the Benefit of Mr.Kite" which comes off the Beatle's Sergeant Pepper
album. We had a great time!"
MCLEAN MEETS HOLLYWOOD
McLean Avenue in Yonkers is the latest Irish American neighborhood street to get
the Hollywood treatment.
Katonah Avenue was in the spotlight recently after the filming of the Richard
Gere movie The Hoax inside the Mulligan family’s bar, the Fireside.
Now Hollywood on the Hudson continues in the Bronx. The Heritage bar was taken
over last week for the filming of Across the Universe, a romantic musical told
mainly through numerous Beatles songs performed by the characters.
The tale revolves around a young man from Liverpool who comes to America during
the Vietnam War to find his father. He winds up in Greenwich Village, where he
falls in love with an American girl who has grown up sheltered in the suburbs.
Together they experience the sweeping changes of America in the late 1960s.
U2 frontman Bono and transvestite funnyman Eddie Izzard are set to cameo alongside
star Evan Rachel Wood.
According to Hot Press, Bono is keen to make his acting debut in the film.
The filming on McLean Avenue was, however, strictly limited to lesser known actors
filming a bar scene for the movie.
Across the Universe is due out in 2006.
EDDIE AND BONO
U2 rocker BONO and transvestite funnyman EDDIE IZZARD are set to star alongside
EVAN RACHEL WOOD in new musical ACROSS THE UNIVERSE - a movie plotted around songs
by THE BEATLES. The film will chart the adventures of a young British man who
heads to America during the Vietnam war in search of his father. And Bono, who
sang alongside SIR PAUL McCARTNEY at the Live 8 charity extravaganza, is keen
to make his acting debut in the film. THE AVENGERS star Izzard, is similarly excited
about the project which has been created by the writers of 1980s British TV hit
AUF WIEDERSEHEN PET.
EDDIE GETS HIGH AS A KITE
Eddie Izzard is to star opposite Bono in a new film based on the songs of the
Beatles. The comic plays Mr Kite in the movie Across the Universe, now in production
in New York. It has been written by sitcom veterans Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais,
the duo behind Porridge, The Likely Lads and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. It is a romantic
musical, told mainly through Beatles songs, in which a young man from Liverpool
comes to America during the Vietnam War to find his father, ending up in Greenwich
Village. The film is directed by Julie Taymor, who was previously responsible
for the London and Broadway stage versions of The Lion King.
The project is expected to begin shooting in New York this fall.
