Thanks Vaska & Lytton.
Jean Black, a makeup artist who never gives interviews, talks about working with Brad Pitt and his famous face for almost 30 years, and what it is that makes him so special.
You’ve probably never heard of Jean Black but she’s been behind the scenes with Brad Pitt for over 27 years, a quiet cog in the machine that is his career—and an integral part of his personal life. Black is a makeup artist who has worked with Pitt on about 30 of his films (they recently counted it up for fun), all of his editorial shoots, and all of his red carpet events. Needless to say, a working relationship like this in Hollywood, the most fickle of towns and industries, is very very unusual.
Black’s relationship with Pitt is endearing. She talks about him like he’s a real, true friend because, well, that’s exactly what he is. She’s camped with him on a boulder for A River Runs Through It, trudged through mud for Fury, and been with him throughout his incredible personal and professional rollercoaster of a life. She’s had the kind of experience with a celebrity that just doesn’t exist for most normal people. She’s the one in the trailer with him, she’s the one holding cold spoons to his eyes when he’s tired and looks it, she’s there when he’s falling in love, and there when he’s getting divorced. And she has something (many things) to say about why Pitt is so lovable. Furthermore, she’s the ultimate authority on what exactly it is about Brad Pitt’s face that churns us all into a frenzy. Reluctant to take too much credit for her life’s work, Black insists that Pitt’s appeal is largely due to his charm—to some kind of magical charisma that he himself is not aware of. We talked to her about some of his most iconic movies, what it’s like to be friends with the ultimate celebrity, and how working with Pitt is the easiest job in Hollywood.
As part of the deal, Adam McKay’s Dick Cheney movie will move to Annapurna, which is launching as a distribution arm with Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘Detroit.’
Plan B Entertainment, Brad Pitt’s production company behind the recent best picture Oscar winner Moonlight has signed a three-year production deal with Annapurna Pictures. Annapurna will handle marketing and distribution efforts for Plan B’s upcoming film releases and will be partnering on at least three films per year.
Led by Pitt and co-presidents Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, Plan B has produced such notable films as The Big Short, 12 Years a Slave, World War Z, Lost City of Z and Eat Pray Love.
“We’re excited and honored to be working with Plan B in this new partnership. We have always admired their taste and quality of producing since we met six years ago, and we could not be more thrilled for the possibilities ahead,” Annapurna’s founder and CEO Megan Ellison and president of film Chelsea Barnard said Thursday in a statement.
As part of the pact, Annapurna, which will release Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit as its first film as a distributor, has scooped up the rights to Adam McKay’s upcoming film about Dick Cheney that has Christian Bale, Steve Carell and Amy Adams in talks to star.
Summer is coming and, in America, that means it’s time to hit the national parks. So we took Brad Pitt and photographer Ryan McGinley tumbling across three of them: The Everglades, White Sands, and Carlsbad Caverns. Then we sat down with Pitt at home in L.A. for a raw conversation about how to move forward after things fall apart.
Brad Pitt is making matcha green tea on a cool morning in his old Craftsman in the Hollywood Hills, where he’s lived since 1994. There have been other properties in other places—including a château in France and homes in New Orleans and New York City—but this has always been his kids’ “childhood home,” he says. And even though they’re not here now, he’s decided it’s important that he is. Today the place is deeply silent, except for the snoring of his bulldog, Jacques.
Pitt wears a flannel shirt and skinny jeans that hang loose on his frame. Invisible to the eye is that sculpted bulk we’ve seen on film for a quarter-century. He looks like an L.A. dad on a juice cleanse, gearing up to do house projects. On the counter sit some plated goodies from Starbucks, which he doesn’t touch, and some coffee, which he does. Pitt, who exudes likability, general decency, and a sense of humor (dark and a little cockeyed), says he’s really gotten into making matcha lately, something a friend introduced him to. He loves the whole ritual of it. He deliberately sprinkles some green powder in a cup with a sifter, then pours in the boiling water, whisking with a bamboo brush, until the liquid is a harlequin froth. “You’re gonna love this,” he says, handing me the cup
After previously taking the film off its calendar, Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions look to be moving forward with a “World War Z” sequel, with David Fincher directing and Brad Pitt back to star, thanks to the studio’s new chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos, according to knowledgeable sources.
While Gianopulos has not officially official greenlit the movie yet, he is expected to do so in coming weeks. This will likely be among the studio chief’s first greenlit movies. Sources say that production would probably begin in the first quarter of 2018.
A spokesperson for the studio has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Variety first reported last summer that Pitt had been courting Fincher to direct the pic and that the director was intrigued by the idea. The plans had to be put on hold while Pitt dealt with his divorce from Angelina Jolie, and were put into question once the studio, then headed by Brad Grey, took the film off the calendar to consider whether or not to move forward with the tentpole.
Filmmaker James Gray has been expanding in scope over the last few years, from the brilliant and haunting period story The Immigrant to the adventure-tinged drama of The Lost City of Z, but back in February word came that Gray was gearing up to expand his horizons considerably by going full sci-fi. Gray co-wrote a film called Ad Astra with Ethan Ross that revolves around a slightly autistic engineer whose father left 20 years ago on a one-way mission to Neptune in order to find signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence. As an adult, he now sets out to travel the solar system to find his father and discover why his mission failed.
With Lost City of Z now hitting theaters, word came that Gray was eyeing Ad Astra—which has been in the works for a year—as his next film, with Brad Pitt potentially starring no less. So when Collider’s own Steve Weintraub spoke with Gray at the press day for Lost City of Z, he asked if Ad Astra is indeed his next project with Pitt in the starring role:
“Yes, yes, and yes. I’m terrified by it. The science-fiction genre is so tricky because there are elements of fantasy usually involved, and there are also fantastical elements. What I’m trying to do is the most realistic depiction of space travel that’s been put in a movie and to basically say, ‘Space is awfully hostile to us.’ It’s kind of a Heart of Darkness story about traveling to the outer edge of our solar system. I have a lot of hopes for it but it is certainly ambitious… It starts shooting July 17th, so not too far away. I’m filled with terror, but that’s fine (laughs).”
Los Angeles — Brad Pitt has made a somewhat rare public appearance since his split with Angelina Jolie by showing up at the Hollywood premiere of Lost City of Z.
The actor looked noticeably thinner when arriving at the Arclight Cinemas on Tuesday night. Although he was pelted with questions from reporters, Pitt gave a wave and said only, “Hi. Good to see you all.”
Pitt has kept a low-profile since Jolie’s divorce filing in September. He showed up at a few premieres last fall for his war drama, Allied, which turned out to be a box office disappointment. He also introduced a clip for eventual Best Picture winner Moonlight at the Golden Globes in January.
Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment produced Moonlight and Lost City of Z.
Plan B, which is coming off Best Picture Oscar winner Moonlight and has had as good a run as any production company in Hollywood over the past few years, is getting ready to move to a new home. It has been based at New Regency, where Plan B made the Best Picture-nominated The Big Short, but that pact expired in January.
We are hearing that Annapurna is the front-runner. Plan B, run by Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, has had multiple suitors, but what a statement move this would be for Megan Ellison’s production-financing-distribution company. Plan B still has a good relationship with Regency; that’s where it will make Ad Astra, the James Gray-directed picture that is expected to be Pitt’s next starring vehicle.
The production company’s output has been nothing short of staggering. Along with The Big Short, its credits range from Best Picture winners 12 Years a Slave and The Departed to World War Z and World War Z 2, the Netflix David Michod-directed Pitt-starrer War Machine, Beautiful Boy, Okja, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and, for television, The Normal Heart. No one is commenting until the move is made, but keep an eye on Annapurna; this is a deal that Ellison wants badly. Plan B is also producing with Gary Sanchez the movie about former Vice President Dick Cheney at Paramount, with Christian Bale to play Cheney, Steve Carell to play former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Amy Adams to play Lynne Cheney. Next up is the James Gray-directed The Lost City of Z.
“Most of us here will know Gen. McMahon as the man who kicked al-Qaida in the sack.” How’s that for an introduction. Here’s the first trailer for War Machine, the Netflix original film starring Brad Pitt as a four-star U.S. general who is tasked with leading the war in Afghanistan and his roller-coaster rise and fall. Part reality, part savage parody, it raises the specter of just where the line between them lies today.
Billed as “a film for our times” from writer-director David Michôd (Animal Kingdom), it follows McMahon (Pitt) as he leaps into the fray like a rock star to command NATO forces in Afghanistan — “Just finish this thing,” he is instructed — only to be taken down by his own hubris and a journalist’s no-holds-barred exposé.
“Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins will write and direct a one-hour drama series about the Underground Railroad currently in development at Amazon, Variety has learned. The series will be based on Colson Whitehead’s best-selling book, “The Underground Railroad.”
“Going back to ‘The Intuitionist,’ Colson’s writing has always defied convention, and ‘The Underground Railroad’ is no different,” Jenkins said. “It’s a groundbreaking work that pays respect to our nation’s history while using the form to explore it in a thoughtful and original way. Preserving the sweep and grandeur of a story like this requires bold, innovative thinking and in Amazon we’ve found a partner whose reverence for storytelling and freeness of form is wholly in line with our vision.”
Published by Doubleday, “The Underground Railroad” has sold over 825,000 copies in the United States across all formats. An Oprah’s Book Club 2016 selection, New York Times bestseller, and the winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction, the book chronicles young Cora’s journey as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. After escaping her Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad, Cora discovers no mere metaphor, but an actual railroad full of engineers and conductors, and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil.
With hundreds of historic acres and well-received wines, it was only a matter of time before Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie‘s French estate, Chateau Miraval—which they’ve kept despite their impending divorce—derived another agricultural product line.
Well, now the wait is over. Developed in partnership with the Perrin Family, the estate‘s own gourmet olive oil has been quietly available in France since early this month—but only in two small family-run boutiques (in Aix-en-Provence and Chateauneuf du Pape) and one website.
Though produced “in a very small amount” and currently limited to European delivery, a spokesman for the partnership tells PEOPLE plans call for it to be “available in the U.S. in a very few weeks.” It may still difficult to find, though: The first release was limited to just 10,000 bottles.
The extra-virgin oil is a high-quality and cold-pressed, a blend of seven organically grown variety types (Verdale, Pichouline, Tanche, Lucques, Aglandau, Cayon, Arboussane). While Miraval stretches over 1,100 acres, only 26 acres are employed in terraced olive grove production, according to vintner Charles Perrin. The finished product is described a “velvety oil with notes of almonds and hazelnut, pungent and spicy with a scent of fresh cut grass.”
