Focus Features to Release the Bayona-Directed “A Monster Calls” In October 2016

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Juan Antonio Bayona’s Monster project will call on American audiences in October 2016…

Focus Features has announced plans to release A Monster Calls, the film directed by the 37-year-old Spanish filmmaker, on October 14, 2016.

Based on the award-winning children’s fantasy novel by Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls centers on a young boy who attempts to deal with his mother’s illness and school bullies by escaping into a fantastical world of monsters and fairy tales.

Ness wrote the novel based on an original idea by the late Siobhan Dowd, and he and illustrator Jim Kay won Britain’s prestigious Carnegie Medal and Greenaway Medal in 2012, presented to the year’s best children’s literature in the United Kingdom.

Ness is adapting the screenplay from his novel.

Bayona’s last project, The Impossible, earned him a Goya Award for Best Director in February 2013.

Bayona to Direct the Film Adaptation of “A Monster Calls”

Posted on March 10, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Juan Antonio Bayona has landed a monster project…

The 37-year-old Spanish filmmaker, whose most recent film The Impossible earned him five Goya Awards, including Best Director, will next direct the film A Monster Calls.

It’s a film adaptation of the children’s fantasy novel of the same name by Patrick Ness from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd.

Set in present-day England, it centers on a boy who struggles to cope with the consequences of his mother’s terminal cancer; he is serially visited in the middle of the night by a monster who tells stories. Dowd suffered from terminal cancer herself when she started the story and died before she could write it.

The film adaptation is already on course to begin production this fall for a 2016 release.

Ness adapted the script his Carnegie Medal– and Greenaway Medal-winning work.

The film is being financed by River Road Entertainment and Participant Media. Meanwhile, Focus Features has committed $20 million to release A Monster Calls.

While Bayona is separately attached to helm a sequel to the zombie saga World War Z this film will come first.

Pablo Berger’s “Blancanieves” Wins Big at the Goya Awards

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Pablo Berger’s Blancanieves has proven to be the belle of the ball at this year’s Goya Awards…

The 49-year-old Spanish director’s silent, black-and-white film, a retelling of the Snow White story, earned 10 statues, including the top prize for Best Film, at the Spanish Film Academy‘s annual awards show, Spain’s equivalent of the Academy Awards.

Maribel Verdu, who said she’s “grown to enjoy playing the bad guy,” won her second Goya for her role as the evil stepmother in Blancanieves. The 42-year-old Spanish actress edged out Naomi Watts, Penélope Cruz and Aida Folch for the award.

Blancanieves’ re-imagined Snow White, Macarena Garcia, was named New Actress. It’s the 24-year-old Spanish actress’ first starring role.

Paco Delagado, currently nominated for an Oscar for his costume design work for Les Miserables, won the Goya for his work on Blancanieves, which included the creation of 18 different costumes for Verdu’s character.

Meanwhile, Juan Antonio Bayona’s dramatic The Impossible, which has broken box office records in Spain, scored five awards, including the Goya for Best Director.

Bayona brought down the house when he left the stage after receiving his Goya to present it to Maria Belon, the mother of the real-life family that survived the 2004 tsunami upon which the film is based.

Here’s the complete list of winners:

Film
Blancanieves

Director
Juan Antonio Bayona for The Impossible

Actor
Jose Sacristan for The Dead Man and Being Happy

Actress
Maribel Verdu for Blancanieves

Original Screenplay
Pablo Berger for Blancanieves

Adapted Screenplay
Javier Barreira, Gorka Magallon, Ignacio del Moral, Jordi Gasull and Neil Landau for Tad, the Lost Explorer

Supporting Actor
Julian Villagran for Grupo 7

Supporting Actress
Candela Pena for Una Pistola en Cada Mano

Honorary Goya
Concha Velasco

Production Design
Sandra Hermida Muniz for The Impossible

Artistic Director
Alain Bainee For Blancanieves

Photography
Kiko de la Rica for Blancanieves

Special Effects
Pau Costa and Felix Berges for The Impossible

Wardrobe
Paco Delgado for Blancanieves

Editing
Bernat Vilaplano and Elena Ruiz for The Impossible

Sound
Peter Glossop, Marc Orts, Oriol Tarrago for The Impossible

Original Score
Alfonso Villalonga for Blancanieves

Original Song
No Te Puedo Encontrar from Blancanieves

New Actor
Joaquin Nunez for Grupo 7

Makeup and Hair
Sylvie Imbert and Fermin Galan for Blancanieves

New Actress
Macarena Garcia for Blancanieves

New Director
Enrique Gato for Tad, the Lost Explorer

Animated Feature Film
The Adventures of Tadeo Jones

Documentary Film
Sons of the Clouds, The Last Colony

European Film
Untouchable (France)

Ibero-American Film
Juan de los Muertos (Cuba)

Animated Short
Jaime Maestro for El Vendedor de Humo

Fiction Short
Esteban Crespo Garcia for Aquel no Era Yo

Documentary Short
Sergio Oksman for A Story for the Modlins

Bayona to Helm Space Film for Warner Bros.

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Juan Antonio Bayona has reportedly landed his next Hollywood project…

The 37-year-old Spanish filmmaker, who earned rave reviews for directing Naomi Watts to an Oscar nomination in The Impossible, has been set to helm the still-untitled space film from Forrest Gump scribe Eric Roth for Warner Bros., according to Deadline.com.

Bayona previously earned a Goya Award for Best New Director for helming The Orphanage.

He’s currently nominated for the Goya Award for Best Director for helming The Impossible, which was based on the true story of one family’s experience during the 2004 tsunami.

“Blancanieves” Earns 18 Goya Award Nominations

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Pablo Berger‘s silent black-and-white reinterpretation of the Snow White fable, Blancanieves, is this awards season’s Goya darling.

The 49-year-old Spanish director’s film, hailed as an homage to 1920s European silent films, leads the pack with 18 nominations for the Spanish Film Academy‘s Goya Awards, Spain’s equivalent to the Oscars.

Blancanieves, which recently debuted in the U.S. at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, received nominations in the best picture, best director, best original screenplay and best editing, best original music and best original song categories.

In addition, six of the films stars earned nods, including Maribel Verdú in the Best Actress category, Daniel Giménez Cacho in the Best Actor field and Macarena García in the Best Actress Revelation category.

“We are very, very happy. We ran for 18 possible nominations and we got 18,” said Blancanieves producer Ibon Cormenzana. “We’ve sold to many territories and in two weeks we’ll release in theaters in France. I think we’ve benefited from the success of the The Artist.”

Meanwhile, Alberto Rodriguez’s Unit 7 earned 16 nominations, Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Impossible received 14 nods and Fernando Trueba’s The Artist and The Model picked up 13 nominations.

The Impossible’s Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor will compete for lead actress and supporting actor thanks to a change in the Spanish Academy’s rules that allows non-Spanish speaking actors who participate in Spanish productions to compete for acting honors. That translates to Watts vying for the lead acting nod against Verdu’s evil step-mother from Blancanieves, Penelope Cruz from Volver a nacer and Aida Folch‘s muse-like performance in The Artist and the Model.

Blancanieves’ Cacho, Model’s Jean Rochefort, Unit’s Antonio de la Torre and veteran actor Jose Sacristan from The Dead Man and Being Happy will compete for the lead actor statue.

In Spain, Bayona’s film has broken box office records, where it is just about to hit the 42 million euro mark at the box office.

“Our objective is to sell more than 6 million tickets,” said Impossible producer Ghislain Barrois.

The Spanish academy will dole out the awards on February 17 at a gala ceremony in Madrid.

Caballero Receives Art Directors Guild Nod for “The Impossible”

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Eugene Caballero is earning praise from his peers for his work on Juan Antonio Bayona’s The Impossible, about the 2004 tsunami…

The 42-year-old Mexican production designer, who won an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Art Direction in 2007 for his work on Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, has earned a nomination from the Art Directors Guild (ADG) for Excellence in Production Design for a Feature Film.

Caballero is nominated in the Contemporary Film category. He’s up against the production designers on Flight, Skyfall, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Zero Dark Thirty.

The ADG’s black-tie ceremony announcing the winners in all nine categories will take place Saturday, February 2, 2013, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills with Paula Poundstone serving as host for the fourth consecutive year.

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Bayona’s “The Impossible”

Posted on November 17, 2012 by Tom Castaneda

The anticipation is building for Juan Antonio Bayona’s heart-wrenching film The Impossible…

The 37-year-old Spanish director’s film, a serious Oscar contender, tells the story of a family separated during the terrifying Tsunami in Thailand in 2004 and their efforts to survive and find each other, despite horrific injury and unspeakable devastation at the resort area where they were vacationing.

Starring Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor and Tom Holland, the film has already broken box office records in Spain. Summit will be releasing The Impossible on December 21 in the United States.

Here’s a look at the making of The Impossible, in a featurette that includes an interview with the real-life wife and mother who fights against all odds to be reunited with her children and husband again.

Bayona’s “The Impossible” Breaks Box Office Records in Spain

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Tom Castaneda

Juan Antonio Bayona has an impossible hit on his hands…

The 37-year-old Spanish filmmaker’s powerful recreation of the 2004 tsunami, The Impossible, has broken the all-time Spanish box office records for the biggest four-day opening, with 10.3 million euros ($13.3 million) and 1.4 million tickets sold.

Warner Bros. released Bayona’s highly anticipated film, a follow-up to his critically acclaimed The Orphanage, over a three-day weekend after receiving rave reviews at festivals in Toronto, San Sebastian and Sitges.

The film, which stars Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts as a British couple vacationing with their three children in Thailand when the natural disaster strikes, features some intense scenes that forced paramedics to wheel people out on stretchers at festival screenings.

“The Impossible is the proof that in Spain we can make films that compete with Hollywood,” said Telecinco Cinema CEO Ghislain Barrois. “At Telecinco Cinema, we are proud to have worked again with Juan Antonio Bayona, whose opera prima we co-produced. And to have partners like Apaches Entertainment with us in the adventure.”

Grossing $11.6 million in the first three days, Impossible looks poised to outperform previous first three-day record-holders, Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ($11.45 million) and The Da Vinci Code, ($11.38 million).

Lionsgate will release The Impossible in the United States on December 21.

Hispanically Yours

Celebrating the Latino Influence

Tag Archives: Juan Antonio Bayona