Henry Cavill finishes work on U.N.C.L.E. movie

Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer

Henry Cavill has wrapped up work as Napoleon Solo on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie and the fans who followed the movie the most closely got the word out on social media.

It began when Urban Food Fest, a U.K. food vendor for corporate events, today POSTED ON TWITTER photos of a party for the 30-year-old actor at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, the home base for the $75 million production.

That was quickly picked up by (in alphabetical order) Henry Cavill News, Henry Cavill.org and @laneyboggs2001 on Twitter, all of whom have kept a close watch on developments of the U.N.C.L.E. movie. The photos spread quickly via social media.

Cavill will now get some time off before beginning work on a Superman-Batman project that starts filming in early 2014 for a summer 2015 release. Meanwhile, the Guy Ritchie-directed U.N.C.L.E. movie is expected to complete filming early next month, with Armie Hammer, playing Illya Kuryakin, still having some scenes to finish up.

UPDATE: Another PHOTO SHOWED UP VIA TWITTER of a studio visitor pass related to the Cavill party today.

UPDATE II (5 p.m.): The Urban Food Fest post on Twitter was later deleted.

UPDATE III (5:50 p.m.): Luca Calvani, who plays the movie’s villain, POSTED ON TWITTER in response to Henry Cavill.org that he has one more week of work. “We wrap the movie on Saturday.” Presumably, that means production ends on Dec. 7.

The UNCLE film began principal photography on Sept. 6, meaning the shoot will have lasted almost exactly three months. By comparison, the most recent James Bond film, Skyfall, had a seven month shoot (November 2011 to June 2012). The UNCLE movie has a reported $75 million budget, less than half of Skyfall’s $200 million.

Quantum of Solace’s revisionist history continues

Marc Forster picked up A CAMERIMAGE AWARD last week in Poland. In AN INTERVIEW with Empire magazine, the subject of Quantum of Solace came up — and Forster’s comments didn’t exactly match up with what he said during production.

Excerpt from Empire:

So after that, Quantum Of Solace must’ve seemed like a walk in the park.
Not quite a walk in the park (laughs). Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson are great producers, the best I’ve ever worked with – fantastic. So you have a well-oiled machine and you’re in such good hands, even though you don’t have a script (laughs). It makes it easier, even when you only have half a script. That was the problem there. You had Casino Royale, which came from the best book by Ian Fleming, and three or four years to develop the script. You have Skyfall, another three years to develop a script. We were in the middle – ‘Here, three months, make a movie.’ And as a director you can only do as much as you have on the page.

In that case, why did you take it on?
Because I believed the script would come. But it never did! (Laughs). At one point I felt like pulling out but I didn’t. Barbara and Michael and Eon wanted to make the movie and I thought we’d pull it off.
(emphasis added to Forster quotes)

In 2008, Forster told a much different story to THE ROTTEN TOMATOES WEBSITE. Among other things, Forster said then that the Quantum script was mostly ironed out before a 2007 Writer’s Guild strike. “The good thing is that Paul (Haggis, the screenwriter) and I and Daniel (Craig) all worked on the script before the strike happened and got it where we were pretty happy with.”

In the same interview, Forster said there was a script when he first came on board, but he tossed it out and things started from scratch. Forster said he conferred with Haggis, “And I said to him these are the topics I am interested in this is what I would like to say.”

This, of course, isn’t the first instance or revisionist history with the 2008 James Bond film. Daniel Craig also drastically changed his tune in 2011 compared with what he said in 2008.

The main talking point now is that the 2007 writer’s strike damaged the production and everybody soldiered on as best as they could.

For Forster, that’s convenient because he can ignore his contributions to the problem — throwing out a script and starting over from scratch and his emphasis on “topics” rather than a story.

Forster didn’t specify the topics to Rotton Tomatoes. In another 2008 interview, NEW YORK MAGAZINE, he talked about sneaking political ideas past the Bond producers into the movie. “I question the role that these Secret Service agencies play today—is their role really to protect the country? Or the interest of a few?” Forster told New York five years ago.

Earlier posts:
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED WITH THE SCRIPT OF QUANTUM OF SOLACE? (December 2011)

DANIEL CRAIG, 2008 AND 2011 VERSIONS (December 2011)

QUANTUM OF SOLACE’S POLITICAL POINT OF VIEW (March 2012)