Brad features the latest cover of Ciak magazine (Italy). Thanks Anu. Could someone please provide scans for SB please? Cuz yum.

According to sources the interview is copy & paste thus unworthy to translate.

Comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres is coming home on March 10 to help Brad Pitt “Make It Right” in the Lower 9th Ward.

DeGeneres has signed on to host “A Night to Make It Right,” a gala that aims to raise enough money to finish Pitt’s goal of building 150 environmentally friendly houses in the neighborhood that was virtually wiped out after the levee breaches in 2005. Seventy-five ultra-modern homes are finished, and DeGeneres and her fans have raised more than $1.6 million, so far helping 300 people return home.

“I’m so happy I can be a part of this incredible foundation,” DeGeneres said. “Brad Pitt is amazing — not only for what he started, but also because, who else can make a hard hat look like a jaunty fall fashion accessory?”

Pitt probably will leave the hard hat at home in the French Quarter that night, when Mayor Mitch Landrieu serves as honorary co-chair. Details are still being worked out, but a press release promises the party will feature “a guest list of major entertainers, political leaders, corporate donors and philanthropists … a dinner menu celebrating the finest culinary traditions of New Orleans, and grand afterparty.”

Read more. Thanks Gabriella.

Red carpet arrivals at the world premiere of HAPPY FEET TWO on Sunday, November 13th at Grauman’s Chinese in Hollywood.

Attending From the film: Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Hank Azaria, Alecia Moore (P!nk), Sofia Vergara, Common, Benjamin “Lil PNut” Flores, Jr., and director George Miller. Celebrity guests to follow.

Date: Sunday, November 13, 2011

Crew Arrivals: 10:00AM
Celebrity Arrivals: 11:00AM
Screening: 12:30PM

Place: Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. 6925 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood

Thanks Gabriella. So unfortunately Brad will not attend. I am pretty positive he will attend the Moneyball premiere in Japan though, also in November. Thanks Yukko.

If you want to help out a lil and you can spare a few, please consider to donate to SimplyBrad.com. All donations are welcome and of course not obligated. All donations go straight into SimplyBrad.com.

Steve McQueen‘s adaptation of Solomon Northup’s autobiography Twelve Years a Slave continues to put together a damn fine cast. Underrated actor Chiwetel Ejiofor signed on in August to play Northup, an educated and married black man living in 1853 New York. Northup was approached by two men about a job offer in Washington D.C., but when he showed up he was kidnapped and forced into slavery. A couple weeks ago, Michael Fassbender signed on to the project and now Screen Daily reports [and the The Playlist confirms] that Brad Pitt has joined the picture.

Pitt has been producing the project for several years through his Plan B shingle, however there are currently no details on his acting role. A successful marketing campaign for Shame should help raise McQueen’s profile and therefore the profile of Slave, but getting a major star like Pitt on board is a major asset when it comes to picking up financing. The movie should have no trouble finding buyers when it goes to the American Film Market next month. Hit the jump for a synopsis of a Northup’s autobiography.

Read more.

Went a bit scan crazy going through my private collection. These are just random covers. Mostly old ones.

Again, thank you all so much for your heartwarming emails and comments, you guys don’t know what it means to me…

I never knew my website affected so many people and is part of your daily things to check. I honestly didn’t. It would never ever be an option to sell this place, SB is my baby, my pride and joy. I thought of closing because I cannot always keep up with Brad’s doings, I can’t be first and I can’t give you everything that is out there. I don’t have all the time, resources and money available. My previous post wasn’t a plea for anything, it was honestly my desperate last frustrated scream, if you will. I didn’t expect almost 50+ individual comments, emails etc.

When I started SimplyBrad.com back in 2005 with the help of a few very dear friends, I wanted to bring only real news, no gossip, no nonsense trash talk, I was so sick of such talk and websites, it always seemed to be the focus when you mention his name, unfortunately that hasn’t changed.

SB will only bring reliable respectful news, quality pictures, scans, videos and reliable information on the man, his work, passions and family. I stayed true to that. Just simply Brad.

Reading your comments the last days, I noticed that my focus with SB is obvious and appreciated by you all. I don’t speak out a lot because I hate forcing my opinion on subjects within my website, it’s not the focus. It is rare that I have to really speak up. But this time I had to show and tell you all that I am thankful for such mature, kind and respectful visitors. Making me see and feel that SimplyBrad.com is wanted and appreciated. Updates won’t change in great speed or size. I will stick with how I’ve run this website and update when I can and when I need to. Your help in any way is always appreciated. Your feedback brought me to this decision:

I won’t close.

Might just close this place. Other places are obviously better and faster in fulfilling the needs.

Robin Williams was easily the best part of George Miller’s animated penguin flick Happy Feet, but I’m starting to get the sense that Matt Damon and Brad Pitt are going to be stealing the show in the sequel. Together for the first time since 2007′s Ocean’s Thirteen, the pair plays Will and Bill, a couple of bottom-feeding krill just trying to make their way in the world. Don’t believe me?Just watch the new trailer, which has just been released.

Following the events of the first film, the new movie features Mumble (Elijah Wood) now with a son of his own, Erik (Elizabeth Daily). When it’s revealed that the young penguin has trouble dancing, he runs away and discovers someone incredible: a penguin named The Mighty Sven (Hank Azaria) who can actually fly. The movie also stars Pink, Sofia Vergara, Hugo Weaving, Anthony LaPaglia, Common, John Goodman, Ray Winstone, Ned Beatty and Frank Welker.

Read more. For the trailer, just scroll down, added it this week. Whatcha think? Will Will (Brad) and Bill (M Damon) steal the show?

“Needs more Morse.” That’s what a friend of mine said after a screening of Drive Angry 3D, which used the veteran character David Morse quite poorly. And that’s what you say pretty much after any appearance by David Morse, no matter how large or small his role is. He could star in a remake of 127 Hours, be onscreen every second, and I’d still probably think he deserved more screentime. He’s just that kind of actor.

Which is why it’s nothing but good news to learn that Morse is a late addition to the cast of World War Z, the sprawling zombie apocalypse drama currently filming with Brad PItt in the starring role. Deadline writes that Morse will play a prisoner living in an abandoned jail, presumably a jail abandoned when the zombie outbreak worsened and there was no one around to keep things running. Based on my fairly vague memory of World War Z I don’t remember any character like this in Max Brooks’s original book, but it sounds mighty similar to a sequence in Stephen King’s The Stand, a book I read at least 10 years ago but that has stuck with me indelibly.

Read more.

Michael Fassbender and Steve McQueen will be cementing their already strong actor-director partnership on McQueen’s next movie, “Twelve Years a Slave.”

Chiwetel Ejiofor (“Inside Man”) stars in the true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man who became enslaved, from a script by McQueen and John Ridley (“Red Tails”). Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment is producing the film, scheduled to start shooting in early 2012. The news of Fassbender’s casting was first reported in Variety.

The details of Fassbender’s “Twelve Years a Slave” role are being kept under wraps, but if the actor’s prior collaborations with McQueen are any indication, he’ll play a character with complex morals.

Read more.

Eighty five weapons stored in a warehouse intended for use in Brad Pitt’s “World War Z” film were seized by a SWAT team near Budapest in Hungary on Monday, because they had not been suitably modified according to the Hungarian law, authorities said Tuesday.

The weapons were discovered at a nearby duty free zone, which were shipped from London to Budapest’s Ferenc Liszt Airport near Pitt’s film set on Saturday, Janos Hajdu, who is the director of Hungary’s Anti-terrorism Center, said.

The paperwork accompanying the weapons, including machine guns, rifles and pistols, claimed they were non-functional, although they were in fact fully working military-style assault rifles. He said he could not confirm they were intended for Pitt film.

“It’s possible that all the weapons were brought in for the film, but this would not be allowed by Hungarian law,” as the weapons had not been irreversible and could still be used to fire live ammunition, Hajdu said on Neo FM radio. “This is a very complicated case.”

Read more.