The Cast That Sequels Together...

That Trainspotting sequel we’ve been talking about for years now?

Totally happening.

So get ready for T2: Trainspotting, kids – and also prepare yourself to be amazed everyone survived the heroin of the ’90s.

Ewen Bremmer, Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller (TV’s Elementary), and Robert Carlyle (TV’s Once Upon a Time) all have reunited with director Danny Boyle (pictured here with McGregor and Miller) to follow up on the lives of the characters they originated back in 1996.

And, obviously, you’re invited to check in on ’em, too, when the new movie comes out next February.

The ’90s are officially super-back!

Photo: Blog. ScreenWeek.it.

Sins of the Daughter

Well look at that: There Ewan McGregor goes.

The actor’s take on Philip Roth’s America Pastoral – which he headlines under his own direction (the project marks his debut as a feature-film helmer – is almost ready to be seen, since we have a trailer now.

Currently in theaters with Our Kind of Traitor, McGregor stars as Seymour Levov, a former high school star-athlete-cum-successful Jewish American businessman whose picture perfect upper middle class life shatters after his rebel-hearted daughter (Dakota Fanning) commits a deadly act of political terrorism. Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly and Emmy winner Uzo Aduba  (Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black) co-star (the former as McGregor’s wife).

American Pastoral is due out, in limited release, on Oct. 21.

Photo: Lionsgate Films.

The Fargo Twins

His Minnesotan accent must be on fleek.

Ewan McGregor has landed the lead(s) on the third installment of FX’s celebrated adaptation of Fargo.

The actor will pull double duty playing brothers Emmit and Ray Stussy in a story set much more close to the now. The former character will be known as the charismatic and successful Parking Lot King of the North Star State, while the latter will be the slightly younger cautionary tale, a parole officer who peaked in high school with a big ol’ chip on his shoulder.

Fargo’s new season is expected to premiere next year, with a whole bunch of people rounding out the cast.

Oh, who will they be....

Photo: Zimbio.com.

A Very Special Girl

It’s a tale as old as time that of the Beauty and the Beast.

And that is why Disney has remade its 1991 Best Picture Oscar-nominated Beauty and the Beast as a live-action musical directed by Bill Condon (Dreamgirls) and starring Emma Watson and Ryan Gosling Dan Stevens.

Herewith is the first teaser for the film, which is scheduled to be released next March 17:

Beauty and the Beast will feature Luke Evans (High-Rise) as Gaston, Audra McDonald as lady-in-waiting/wardrobe Garderobe, and Ewan McGregor as Lumiere, among others.

Jesus v Jesus

Ewan McGregor as Jesus?

Yes, please. I have been waiting for this for quite a bit now.

McGregor is starring in next month’s Last Days In the Desert, the new film by Rodrigo García (Albert Nobbs), an imagined chapter from Jesus’s 40 days of fasting and praying in the desert featuring the actor as the son of God and the son of the Devil.

Ciarán Hinds (HBO’s Game of Thrones), Tye Sheridan (X-Men: Apocalypse), and Ayelet Zurer (Netflix’s Daredevil) co-star.

Last Days In the Desert is set to open on May 13.

Photo: EW.com.

When Ewan Did Bowie (Again)

Back in the 2000s, Baz Luhrmann delivered the kinetic Moulin Rouge!, and one of its stars became a heartthrob of a rock star in my eyes.

That was Ewan McGregor, who won over the courtesan Satine (portrayed in an Academy Award-nominated turn by Nicole Kidman) as the penniless writer Christian, who, in turn, won us over by romantically singing his little longing heart out to the tune of Elton John, the Police, and David Bowie, among others.

The film’s show-stopping “Elephant Love Medley” included a tremendous, memorable take on the late Bowie’s “Heroes,” which the Jane Got a Gun star reprised last night at the Roxy in West Hollywood at a tribute to Bowie. And, of course, it looks and sounds like McGregor – who also showcased his singing ability in the underappreciated 2003 title Down with Love – did the Thin White Duke proud.

Check it:



:)

The Social Music Man

Right on!

Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis biopic, the film formerly known as Kill the Trumpet Player and now titled Miles Ahead, is finally ready to be released this spring.

Set in 1979 during a period of artist’s block for the legendary jazz man and co-starring Ewan McGregor as a persistent Rolling Stone reporter working on a comeback story, the film will chronicle Davis’ quest to retrieve a missing tape of valuable session music, as well as his told-via-flashbacks romance with dancer Frances Taylor (Middle of Nowhere’s Emayatzy Corinealdi).

Herewith, your first look at the film.

And I’m sold.

Photo: Cincinnati.com.

Do Not Mess with This Woman

It may have taken quite a bit for us to see how Jane Got a Gun, but it looks like the wait will have been well worth it.

Natalie Portman stars in the looong-in-the-making western, which she also set out to produce after winning her Oscar for Black Swan, as a woman forced to defend her home after a bunch of outlaws come a-knockin’ and lookin’ to kill her barely alive husband (Noah Emmerich).

The Gift’s Joel Edgerton turns up as the ex-boyfriend she turns to for help, while Ewan McGregor portrays the leader of the villains – a role that was originally Edgerton’s. Rodrigo Santoro and Boyd Holbrook (Netflix’s Narcos) are also on board.

Check out the movie’s first international trailer now.

Photo: MovieWeb.com.

Let There Be Lumiere

How fun, how great for Emma Watson: Ewan McGregor will be her Lumiere.

The Moulin Rouge! vet has been cast in Disney’s star-studded forthcoming live-action musical adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.

Loves. It!

Photo: LaineyGossip.com.

Update: Stanley Tucci has also boarded the production, as the grand piano Cadenza, a new character that is being introduced to the narrative to add a dash of masterful neurosis.

My, how lovely.

Ewan the Helmer

So Ewan McGregor’s not just going to star in the adaptation of Philip Roth’s American Pastoral.

The guy’s going to direct the gosh darn thing, too.

Indeed, the actor has stepped up and taken on the behind-the-camera task now that the original helmer, Phillip Noyce, has taken a bow. This will mark his directorial debut.

Jennifer Connelly is still on board, as is Dakota Fanning.

American Pastoral will concern itself with the story of how a successful Jewish American businessman’s (McGregor) picture perfect upper middle class life shatters after his daughter commits a deadly act of political terrorism.

Photo: JKAGear.com.

The Truth About Charlie Mortdecai

Charlie Mortdecai. He is one of those guys who just sounded so good on paper. However, as the subject of a movie, well...he flat-out suuucks.

Consider the pitch for Mortdecai, the movie based on the Kyril Bonfiglioli character: He’s an anti-hero art dealer on a race against the clock to recover a stolen Goya that’s said to contain the code to a lost bank account filled with Nazi gold.

What sets Lord Mortdecai apart – yes, he has a title to boot – from the lot is he’s a Brit-ccentric bon vivant (his quite elaborate and ridikolous mustache is the proof of it!) with a rather large...tax debt (gotcha!), and he is played by Johnny Depp.

What could possibly go wrong!

Everything, as it turns out.

There is nothing amusing about Mortdecai. The movie – directed by David Koepp, an esteemed popcorn screenwriter who now probably will be encouraged to stick with screenwriting – wears its Ocean’s-esque aspirations on its stylish sleeve. And yet, it fails, spectacularly, to reach the levity or smarts of the George Clooney vehicle, the poor thing.

Mortdecai, as it turns out, is the only person capable enough to recover the painting, which may have caught the attention of an international terrorist ring. And, natch, that of some Russian thugs, although I am not entirely clear on that part (I may have gone sleepy-bye-bye for a bit). The fact that MI5 comes to him for assistance should be, well, OK...you know how Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes is like, this necessary evil to the authorities on his show?

Well, Mortdecai’s more like, a really annoying evil. Should be fun – but he ain’t. At all.

Shame then that Depp proves incredibly tiresome and, worse, beyond-boring as the idiosyncratic character (he’s an amoral horndog...with a heart!). ’Cause if we know anything about the actor that’s that he commits to a role. Even worse, the movie is a thankless affair for his supporting cast, which includes a hammy Gwyneth Paltrow (she plays his posh wife Johanna), Paul Bettany as his devoted manservant, a fellow named Jock Strapp (yes, seriously), Ewan McGregor as the government agent who hands him his mission papers, and Olivia Munn as a nymphomaniac billionairess who has designs of her own on that Goya.

Mortdecai is an entertaining offering by all means, but, in actuality, it’s the opposite. Fingers crossed this will be the last time Depp’s allowed to play an amalgamation of tics passing as a would-be one-of-a-kind persona created for the screen for a while.

And, please, let this be a lesson for my girl G.P. If it’s too good to be true – and again, this did sound kinda foolproof – then, clearly, it could be.

That being said, Gwyn, if someone comes at ya offering you a part in a star-studded remake of an Academy Award-winning Argentinean film, uhm, do not pull out of that, by GOOPness gracious.

My Rating *

Photo: Lionsgate Films.

Sweet Whale Talker

And speaking of docs....

Know who else is getting his Morgan Freeman on?

Ewan McGregor.

The Mortdecai actor will be tellings us what is up in the upcoming Humpback Whales, a new underwater 3-D doc for IMAX and other giant screens that is coming out on Feb. 13.

Sold!

Photo: GettyImages.com.

Hot Jesus!

Makes me wanna pray!

Ewan McGregor is joining that sacred – by Hollywood standards, of course – company of actors who have played Jesus now that he’s starring in Last Days In the Desert.

The upcoming film is an imagined chapter from Jesus’ 40 days of fasting and praying in the desert, and will feature not only McGregor as the son of God but the Devil as well.

Wonder who they got to play that part....

Photo: UsMagazine.com.

Beyond the Painting

My girl Gwyneth Paltrow.

Ewan McGregor.

Paul Bettany.

Olivia Munn.

And Jeff Goldblum.

They’re all coming together for Johnny Depp as he launches a potential new franchise next February with Mortdecai, David Keopp’s take on writer Kyril Bonfiglioli’s Charlie Mortdecai series. The movie will follow Depp’s anti-hero art dealer’s race against the clock to recover a stolen painting believed to contain a code to a lost bank account filled with Nazi gold.

Check out the first teaser for the movie:



Mortdecai will be in theaters on Feb. 6.

American Pastoral Man

Ewan McGregor is heading to Pittsburgh.

The two-time Golden Globe nominee will move to the City of Bridges next spring to headline the film adaptation of Philip Roth’s 1997 novel American Pastoral.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning story concerns a successful Jewish American businessman, a former high school athlete whose picture perfect upper middle class little life comes undone when his daughter gets mixed up in a deadly act of political terrorism during the Vietnam War.

Phillip Noyce is set to direct.

Photo: JustJared.com.

Caught Between Good and Evil

Ewan MgGregor is pulling a Jake Gyllenhaal.

Meaning he’s about to pull double duty for a new movie.

My favorite Scot on Earth is gonna play both a holy man and a demon who must confront his fate after coming across a family struggling to survive a harsh desert environment in Rodrigo García’s Last Days In the Desert.

Mud breakout Tye Sheridan, Ciarán Hands, and Ayelet Zurer (Man of Steel) are set to co-star.

Photo: SpyHollywood.com.

A Scot the Way of Broadway Goes

Now that Big Fish has made it to Broadway, it is only fitting that the star of the Tim Burton movie, Ewan McGregor (who has no involvement with the based-on Great White Way musical) should follow suit.

The Scot is gonna make his Broadway debut in 2014, in a new production of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing.

McGregor will play Henry, the unhappy-in-love playwright whose real-life romantic woes mirror the ones in his play about a marriage on the brink of collapse. That the production within the production stars his wife only adds another layer of complication to matters.

Previews for The Real Thing will begin on Oct. 2 – so plan ahead! – and the play will open its limited engagement on Oct. 30, running through Jan. 4, 2015.

Photo: le0pard13.com.

August in September...at TIFF

It was just announced that the long-anticipated August: Osage County will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

The John Wells-directed adaptation of Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play is led by Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts and features performances by Abigail Breslin, Chris Cooper, Benedict Cumberbatch, Juliette Lewis, Margo Martindale, and Ewan McGregor, and Sam Shepard.

The buzzy George Clooney-produced film centers on the strong-willed women of the Weston family of Oklahoma, all of whom put their estrangements and judgments aside to come together in the house they grew up to mourn their secretive patriarch.

Check. Out. The film’s trailer.

The Dysfunction Alert is on high. And I think that’ll make for a fine time at the theater.

August: Osage County is due out on Dec. 25.

Photo: HuffingtonPost.com.

Cute Kilt, Ewan!

How cute and chuffed did a kilted Ewan McGregor look while being honored with his Order of the British Empire award at Buckingham Palace last week?

I know – very.

McGregor was recognized for his work on behalf of the dramatic arts and his charitable contributions around the world.

Photo: UsMagazine.com.

(Bad) Cowboy Take Me Away!

Jane Got a Gun...and some bad luck.

And poor Natalie Portman's gonna have one heckuva fun (not!) press tour when this troubled western of hers – about a woman forced to defend her home after a bunch of outlaws come lookin’ for her barely alive husband – finally sees the light of day.

Allow me a recap.

Michael Fassbender was supposed to play the gunslinging former lover Portman’s character reluctantly calls upon for help, right? But a scheduling conflict with X-Men: Days of Future Past saw that that didn't come to pass.

Joel Edgerton, who was already on board to play the head of the ne'er-do-wells, stepped up to play the hero, and Jude Law joined the project to play the movie's villain (a role already being played off-camera by the project's original director, We Need To Talk About Kevin's Lynne Ramsay, who simply blew off production on the day principal photography was to start two months ago; Warrior helmer Gavin O’Connor was hired as a her replacement).

As quickly as he entered, though, Law exited the messy situation.

Oh, and, evidently, Bradley Cooper was eyed at one point to gallop in and save the day, but he, too, went his way.

In the end, it seems wan McGregor will play the bad guy in Jane Got a Gun. By being a good guy, natch, and playing Portman and Edgerton’s foe.

That’s my Ewan!

Photo: Formistan.com.