SOMEONE'S AFTER REBEL WILSON'S FAT AMY IN “PITCH PERFECT 3”

Rebel Wilson reprises her lovable Fat Amy role in Universal Pictures' Pitch Perfect 3, the next chapter in the beloved series opening in Philippine cinemas on Monday, January 8.

In Pitch Perfect 3, after the highs of winning the World Championships, the Bellas find themselves split apart and discovering there aren’t job prospects for making music with your mouth. But when they get the chance to reunite for an overseas USO tour, this group of awesome nerds will come together to make some music, and some questionable decisions, one last time.

Director Trish Sie catches us up on where Fat Amy has landed after college graduation: “Fat Amy has her own one-woman show she's trying to get off Broadway. So she's off of Times Square with her street performer set-up-complete with hecklers and hot-dog men interrupting her every day."

Wilson appreciated that the audience gets to learn so much about Fat Amy in this chapter. Always enigmatic, the character reveals more to her fellow Bellas than they ever dreamed possible (or true). "You find out a lot more about Fat Amy in this movie, which is cool," adds Wilson. "At the start of the film, she is trying to make it on Broadway. She's put together a little show called Fat Amy Winehouse, which is an amazing and hilarious one-woman show that she's performing on the street. But she keeps getting contacted by someone very mysterious..."

That mystery is embodied by award-winning actor John Lithgow, who portrays Fergus, Fat Amy's very sketchy father.


Producer Max Handelman gives us a bit of backstory: "Fat Amy ran away from her gangster father in Australia seven years ago, and she turned up at Barden University to escape him. He's a bad guy, so she tried to reinvent herself as Fat Amy, as opposed to her original name of Patricia. Now that she's left the States, he's tracked her down, and is trying to reconcile with her. Originally, seemingly in a positive way, but then his ulterior motives get revealed."


"If we're going to be moving forward in these girls' lives, we'd also need to deal with the past and have them resolve some of their own issues. I was always intrigued by the fact that we do not know anything about Fat Amy," shares Sie. "We've met Beca's dad. We've heard Aubrey talk about her father, but we don't know who Fat Amy is or why she came from Tasmania and landed at Barden.

Wilson gives us a glimpse into what to expect from Fergus: "You find out that her dad has tracked her down. He wasn't allowed in America because he's done some dodgy things, but when the girls go to Europe he's able to track Fat Amy down and meet for the first time in seven years."


When it came to her co-star, the performer echoes the lauds of her director. "I cannot talk highly enough about him," raves Wilson. "First of all when they told me your dad's going to be John Lithgow, I thought, 'He's crushed movies, TV, Broadway, and I grew up watching him on television.' To have him be my dad and for him to also learn the Australian accent in three days was incredible."


Pitch Perfect 3 stars Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Alexis Knapp, Hana Mae Lee, Ester Dean, Chrissie Fit, Kelley Jakle, Shelley Regner, John Lithgow, John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks.


Pitch Perfect 3 is distributed in the Philippines by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures.

Johnny Depp reinvents his cinematic look for "Into the Woods"

No one can do it better than Johnny Depp who re-invents his cinematic look for "Into the Woods". Johnny Depp stars as the The Wolf in Walt Disney Pictures' new fantasy adventure.

When director Rob Marshall approached Johnny Depp (“Sweeney Todd,” “Alice in Wonderland”) about bringing the predatory character of the Wolf to life, the actor was quick to sign on. Having worked with Marshall on “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” Depp shares a similar sensibility with the director, and says, “I’d shoot the phone book with Rob if he asked. He’s the real thing.”

In discussing the character of the Wolf, screenwriter James Lapine says, “The Wolf is the feral creature in the storytelling. He’s the unguarded, animalistic presence embodied, rather amazingly, by Johnny Depp, who we also see as seductive. It’s the seduction of the wild.”

Bringing the fairy tales into a realistic setting, which was one of composer Stephen Sondheim and Lapine’s original goals with “Into the Woods” was one aspect the Depp found very appealing. The actor says, “I loved the idea of taking all these fairy tales that we’ve grown up with and bringing them all to life in one large musical. We get to know more about them which turns out to be even spookier and funnier than imagined, so it’s just a brilliant idea. And it’s so beautifully put together.”
A long-time fan of Sondheim, Depp adds, “Stephen’s work is just magnificent…he’s a living legend.

His compositions and his ability to translate into song what the characters are feeling, is just miraculous. His material is very complicated to read and very complex to sing. If you’re not a trained singer you have to really dig in deep to find those things that help you feel and understand the meaning of each lyric. But there’s something very exciting about challenging yourself to see if you can get to that place.”

As for Marshall’s style of directing, Depp praises, “His approach is very pure, and his vision of the author’s work and the choices that he made were very beautiful and emotional. He has a fine understanding of subtext and a very unique way of approaching it, and he knows that sometimes what is not said is just as important as what is actually said.”
Right after “Into the Woods,” Depp recently wrapped production on “Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass.”

“Into the Woods” is a modern twist on the beloved Brothers Grimm fairy tales, intertwining the plots of a few choice stories and exploring the consequences of the characters’ wishes and quests. This humorous and heartfelt musical follows the classic tales of Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), Jack and the Beanstalk (Daniel Huttlestone), and Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy)—all tied together by an original story involving a baker and his wife (James Corden & Emily Blunt), their wish to begin a family and their interaction with the witch (Meryl Streep) who has put a curse on them.

Opening across the Philippines on January 28, 2015, “Into the Woods” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International through Columbia Pictures.

“INTO THE WOODS” JOURNEYS INTO THE BIG SCREEN

Twelve years ago, following the phenomenal success of the big screen adaptation of the Broadway musical “Chicago” (which won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture), director Rob Marshall sat down with Stephen Sondheim and expressed an interest in directing a film version of one of the legendary composer’s stage productions. At the top of Sondheim’s list: “Into the Woods,” one of his most acclaimed – and poignant – works, and one which he thought would be a perfect fit for Marshall.

Marshall and his producing partner, John DeLuca, had been fans of Sondheim and James Lapine’s landmark musical since it opened on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre in 1987. In describing the piece Marshall says, “The story seamlessly intertwines Sondheim’s emotional, funny and brilliant score with Lapine’s intricate and masterful book, which is a modern twist on several beloved fairy tales, and is entertaining, while examining complex themes like the consequences of wishes, the parent/child relationship, greed, ambition, loss, and, perhaps most importantly, unconditional love and the power of the human spirit.”

Then in 2011, on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Marshall heard President Obama addressing the families of the victims. In an effort to console them, Obama said, “You are not alone...No one is alone.” The phrase “No One is Alone,” which is also one of the most moving and memorable songs from “Into the Woods,” struck a chord with Marshall, and in that moment he knew that the time was finally right to bring the beloved musical to the screen.

“In many ways, I think ‘Into the Woods’ is a fairy tale for the 21st century post 9/11 generation,” Marshall says. “Sondheim and Lapine were way ahead of their time when they wrote it. The comforting knowledge that we are not alone in this unstable world gives us all that glimmer of hope.”

For Sondheim, “’No One Is Alone’” was written as a community song. “I believe Arthur Wing Pinero said that in writing a play, you tell the audience what you’re going to do, you do it and then you tell them that you’ve done it. If you tell them that you’ve done it, then it makes a package,” he says.

“’No One Is Alone’ tells them that we’ve done it,” Sondheim explains. “This is what the show has been about. No one is alone: we are all connected in some way and we are all responsible for each other’s actions. It’s something I believe firmly and it’s something that’s worth writing about.”

Marshall and DeLuca took their passion project to Disney, and immediately knew they had found the perfect company to bring the stage musical to life. “We were thrilled that the company embraced the project the way that they did,” says Marshall. “They were truly interested in expanding the definition of what a ‘modern fairy tale’ film could be.”

Producer Marc Platt, who joined the duo in making the film, says, “Disney is a company that historically tells the classic fairy tales, so moving forward it should also be the company that finds new, contemporary and unexpected ways to tell these stories.”

So after 27 years, the long-awaited classic was set to begin its journey forward. “The Woods of our story is universal, and can mean so many things,” Marshall says. “It is the place you go to find your dreams, confront your fears, lose yourself, find yourself, grow up and learn to move forward. It’s all part of life. So ‘Into the Woods’ we go, again and again...”

“Into the Woods” is a modern twist on the beloved Brothers Grimm fairy tales, intertwining the plots of a few choice stories and exploring the consequences of the characters’ wishes and quests. This humorous and heartfelt musical follows the classic tales of Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), Jack and the Beanstalk (Daniel Huttlestone), and Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy)—all tied together by an original story involving a baker and his wife (James Corden & Emily Blunt), their wish to begin a family and their interaction with the witch (Meryl Streep) who has put a curse on them.
The principal cast is led by Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine and Johnny Depp.

Opening across the Philippines on January 28, 2015, “Into the Woods” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International through Columbia Pictures.