we all share THE SOCIAL NETWORK

Every age has its visionaries who leave, in the wake of their genius, a changed world – but rarely without a battle over exactly what happened and who was there at the moment of creation.

In Columbia Pictures’ The Social Network, director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin explore the moment at which Facebook, the most revolutionary social phenomenon of the new century, was invented -- through the warring perspectives of the super-smart young men who each claimed to be there at its inception.

One drunken night in October of 2003, having just broken up with his girlfriend, Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg hacks into the university’s computers to create a site that forms a database of all the women on campus, then lines up two pictures next to each other and asks the user to choose which is “hotter.” He calls the site Facemash, and it instantly goes viral, crashing the entire Harvard system and generating campus-wide controversy over the site’s purported misogyny, and charges that Mark, in creating Facemash, intentionally breached security, violated copyrights and violated individual privacy.

Yet in that moment, the underlying framework for Facebook is born. Shortly after, Mark launches thefacebook.com, which will spread like wildfire from one screen to the next across Harvard, through the Ivy League to Silicon Valley, and then literally to the entire world.

But in the chaos of creation comes passionate conflict -- about how it all went down, and who deserves recognition for what is clearly developing into one of the century’s signal ideas –conflict that will divide friends and spur legal action.

To forge a palpable sense of that fog of creation, of history still being written, Sorkin and Fincher collaborated on a carefully constructed, non-aligned storytelling style that intentionally does not choose sides. Instead, the film presents a consortium of equally tricky narrators – each of whom believes he is in the right and that his particular memories are the truth of the matter – while leaving the larger questions of what really happened entirely open for the audience.

Ultimately, Sorkin’s screenplay defies the notion that there can be a single truth and he fully intends for this to provoke debate. Sums up the screenwriter: “I’ll be delighted if people have arguments in the theatre parking lot over it. With The Social Network, we took a set of facts, and we made a truth. In fact, more specifically, we made three truths. If you think of the facts that aren’t in dispute as dots that you have to connect, we connected those dots and we made a picture. But in between those dots are a) character, and b) the fact that you get to decide what the truth is. We don’t tell you ‘this is the only truth there is,’ we posit a handful of truths in pursuit of a larger true thing: the conditions that made all this possible.”


Opening soon across the Philippines, The Social Network is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.

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TRON LEGACY banners released

Disney has just released new banner artwork for the eagerly-anticipated TRON: Legacy!

Directed by Joseph Kosinski, TRON: Legacy is a 3D high-tech adventure set in a digital world that’s unlike anything ever captured on the big screen.

In the film, Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), a rebellious 27-year-old, is haunted by the mysterious disappearance of his father Kevin Flynn (Oscar®-winner Jeff Bridges), a man once known as the world’s leading video-game developer.

When Sam investigates a strange signal sent from the old Flynn’s Arcade—a signal that could only come from his father—he finds himself pulled into a digital world where Kevin has been trapped for 20 years.

With the help of the fearless warrior Quorra (Olivia Wilde), father and son embark on a life-and-death journey across a visually-stunning cyber universe—a universe created by Kevin himself that has become far more advanced with never-before-imagined vehicles, weapons, landscapes and a ruthless villain who will stop at nothing to prevent their escape.

Presented in Disney Digital 3D™ and scored by Grammy® Award-winning electronic music duo Daft Punk, TRON: Legacy hits Philippine theaters soon, in Disney Digital 3D™ and IMAX® 3D.

The action-adventure is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International through Columbia Pictures.

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JOSH LUCAS plays third party in LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

Joining Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel in the wacky romantic comedy Life As We Know It is top actor Josh Lucas (Sweet Home Alabama) who further complicates the already messed up arrangement of the two lead characters.

In the film, Holly Berenson (Heigl) is an up-and-coming caterer and Eric Messer (Duhamel) is a promising network sports director. After a disastrous first date, the only thing they have in common is their dislike for each other and their love for their goddaughter, Sophie. But when they suddenly become all Sophie has in the world, Holly and Messer are forced to put their differences aside. Juggling career ambitions and competing social calendars, they’ll have to find some common ground while living under one roof.

Lucas plays the other man in Holly’s life, Sam. “There were Joshes everywhere on this film,” says director Greg Berlanti, referring not only to two of his stars, but also to Heigl’s husband, Josh Kelly, who occasionally came to set. “You threw a rock, you hit a Josh,” Berlanti jokes.

Sam is a recently divorced doctor who is interested in Holly. Sam’s role in the film is surprising and poignant. Lucas says, “He basically comes into the place where Holly works and orders the same sandwich over and over, trying to get the gumption to ask her out. But circumstances cause them to keep missing each other.”

The filmmaker loved what Lucas brought to the role. “Josh Lucas is so inherently charismatic and likeable. As a director, you’re looking at a situation where there’s another leading man who has been on screen for 20 minutes, and this new guy has to come in and compete for the affections of the leading lady. Josh Lucas could do that, and you believed it. Sam is really comfortable with himself and his place in life, which is something that Messer really isn’t yet, and that’s appealing.”

Josh Lucas recently starred opposite Jon Hamm in Stolen, released in select theaters in March, and in the independent film William Vincent, opposite James Franco, which premiered at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival. Lucas recently finished production on the independent films Red Dog, with Rachael Taylor; A Year in Mooring, with James Cromwell; Little Murder, opposite Terrence Howard; and Daydream Nation, with Kat Denning.

Opening soon across the Philippines, Life As We Know It is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

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MARK WAHLBERG is just THE OTHER GUY

Mark Wahlberg, the Academy Award®-nominated actor known for his tough-guy action movie roles, in a comedy opposite Will Ferrell? This can only happen in Columbia Pictures' new action-comedy The Other Guys.

“I’ve been looking to do a comedy for a long time,” says Wahlberg. “I just wanted to make sure I was in the right hands. There were comedic elements to certain performances that I’ve done, but to do a full-blown comedy I wanted to make sure I was protected and who better to work with than the funniest guys in movies in my opinion, Will and [director] Adam [McKay.] They invited me to dinner and said they wanted to do a movie. I was like, ‘You got to be kidding me.’ I said, ‘I’ll do whatever you want.’”

Ferrell added, “We – Adam and I – are such big fans of Mark’s. We always thought he would be great in a comedy, playing a character that maybe is similar in some ways to the role he had in The Departed, but to utilize that intensity he has and play it for laughs.”

In the film, it takes all kinds to fill a police force – you got your superstars, the guys who get the medals, your hot shots, glory boys, vets – and then… there are the other guys. Guys like Detectives Allen Gamble (Ferrell) and Terry Hoitz (Wahlberg) who never make the headlines. But every cop has his or her day and soon Gamble and Hoitz stumble into a seemingly innocuous case no other detective wants to touch that could turn into the city’s biggest crime. It’s the opportunity of their lives, but do these guys have the right stuff?

“My character is obsessed with what he thinks is real crime: drug dealers, vice, murderers, and anything that's going on in the street,” says Wahlberg. “Will’s character’s whole attitude and approach to police work is paperwork. That’s all it basically comes down to – paperwork and white collar crime. But I’m stuck with him because of a mistake that I made.”

Wahlberg describes the pure pleasure and problems keeping professional while working with Ferrell. “The biggest concern for me was just looking at Will’s face,” says Wahlberg. “He’s just so funny that every once in a while I’d burst out laughing. Finally I’d look just to the left of him or just to the right of him and still appear as if I’m looking at him and reacting to what he’s doing, just to keep from laughing.”

Ferrell adds, “It’s so funny to get to know someone like Mark, who has this reputation as a tough guy. He’s actually a sweetheart and was dying to kind of do comedy like this. He wasn’t thrown by anything.”

“Mark is not only a great actor. He’s also a family man and also the guy who could kick anyone’s ass in the room, but also a jovial, lighthearted guy who in no way wants to kick anyone’s ass,” says McKay. “It was very interesting watching him interact with Will, who, of course, is famous for his insane temper and grotesque ego.”

Opening soon across the Philippines, The Other Guys is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Find us on Facebook www.Facebook.com/ColumbiaPicturesPH and join our fan contests.

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DUE DATE character posters

Warner Bros. releases the character posters of its upcoming blockbuster comedy “Due Date” starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Zach Galifianakis as two unlikely companions who are thrown together on a road trip that turns out to be as life-changing as it is outrageous.

The individual posters feature Downey as Peter, Galifianakis as Ethan, the Dog and curiously...the Can (that contains the ashes of Ethan's father).

In the film, Downey plays Peter Highman, an expectant first-time father whose wife’s due date is a mere five days away. As Peter hurries to catch a flight home from Atlanta to be at her side for the birth, his best intentions go completely awry when a chance encounter with aspiring actor Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis) forces Peter to hitch a ride with Ethan—on what turns out to be a cross-country road trip that will ultimately destroy several cars, numerous friendships and Peter’s last nerve.

Directed by Todd Phillips (“The Hangover”), “Due Date” also stars Michelle Monaghan (“Made of Honor”), Oscar® nominee Juliette Lewis (“Cape Fear,” “Whip It”) and Academy Award® winner Jamie Foxx (“Ray”).

Opening soon across the Philippines, “Due Date” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

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tracking the origins of Facebook in THE SOCIAL NETWORK

Columbia Pictures brings to the screen The Social Network, the controversial and acclaimed film detailing the Harvard dorm room origins of social media megasite Facebook -- the most revolutionary social phenomenon of the new century -- which is valued today at a staggering $16 billion.

On a fall night in 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg sits down at his computer and heatedly begins working on a new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm room soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication. A mere six years and 500 million friends later, Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history. But for this entrepreneur, success leads to both personal and legal complications.

What follows is a drama rife with both creation and destruction; one that purposefully avoids a singular POV, but instead, by tracking dueling narratives, mirrors the clashing truths and constantly morphing social relationships that define our time.

Drawn from multiple sources, the film moves from the halls of Harvard to the cubicles of Palo Alto as it captures the visceral thrill of the heady early days of a culture-changing phenomenon in the making -- and the way it both pulled a group of young revolutionaries together and then split them apart.

In the midst of the chaos are Mark Zuckerberg, the brilliant Harvard student who conceived a website that seemed to redefine our social fabric overnight; Eduardo Saverin, once Zuckerberg’s close friend, who provided the seed money for the fledgling company; Napster founder Sean Parker who brought Facebook to Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists; and the Winklevoss twins, the Harvard classmates who asserted that Zuckerberg stole their idea and then sued him for ownership of it.

Each has his own narrative, his own version of the Facebook story – but they add up to more than the sum of their parts in what becomes a multi-level portrait of 21st Century success – both the youthful fantasy of it and its finite realities as well.

Directed by the Oscar-nominated David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), The Social Network stars Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland) as Zuckerberg, Justin Timberlake (Shrek The Third) as Sean Parker, who became Facebook's founding president; and Andrew Garfield (Lions for Lambs, Spider-Man 2012) as Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook co-founder who fell out with Zuckerberg over money.

The film is written by Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men) based on the novel The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook -- A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich.

Opening soon across the Philippines, The Social Network is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.

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RYAN KWANTEN joins the PURE ONES

Popularly known as the amorous Jason Stockhouse in the HBO original hit series True Blood, Ryan Kwanten now provides the voice of wayward owl, Kludd, in Warner Bros.’ fantasy adventure in 3D, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.

The film follows Soren (voice of Jim Sturgess), a young owl enthralled by his father’s epic stories of the Guardians of Ga’ Hoole, a mythic band of winged warriors who had fought a great battle to save all of owlkind from the evil Pure Ones. While Soren dreams of someday joining his heroes, his older brother, Kludd, scoffs at the notion, and yearns to hunt, fly and steal his father’s favor from his younger sibling. But Kludd’s jealousy has terrible consequences—causing both owlets to fall from their treetop home and right into the talons of the Pure Ones.

Emerging as a rival sibling, Kludd envies Soren’s natural talent for flight and finds his enthusiasm for their dad’s tales of the Guardians tiresome. “When Kludd is taken by the Pure Ones, he quickly becomes enamored by the idea that he can be a great soldier for them, that he can be the more important brother now,” producer Deborah Snyder says. “He embraces their ways because he likes the attention, which starts him on this dark path. But Soren still wants to believe in Kludd’s salvation, that he can bring Kludd back around.”

“Kludd is sort of a tortured individual,” Kwanten comments. “He’s the oldest sibling, but he doesn’t have the natural abilities of his younger brother; he feels like he’s not living up to expectations. When he’s approached by the Pure Ones’ queen, Nyra, who praises him just for being a tyto owl, he’s vulnerable and easily manipulated into joining their efforts.”

Ryan Kwanten can currently be seen starring in the acclaimed series True Blood, based on the books by Sookie Stackhouse, for which he received a Screen Actors Guild Award® nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

He spent his hiatus from the popular Golden Globe-nominated show working on feature films, playing a police officer in the modern-day revenge western Red Hill, which debuted at this year’s Berlin Film Festival to rave reviews, and crafting the title role of secret agent and part-time superhero Griff the Invisible. He is currently in production on the film The Knights of Badassdom, alongside Steve Zahn. His other film credits include Don’t Fade Away; the title role in American Brown, which received the Audience Award for Best Film at the Montreal Film Festival; Liquid Bridge, nominated for Best Picture at the Australian Film Festival; and James Wan’s Dead Silence.

Kwanten appeared in numerous films and television shows while earning his business degree at Sydney University , gaining international notoriety when he joined the cast of his native homeland’s long-running popular Australian series Home and Away. Among his other credits are the critically acclaimed series “Summerland” and the ESPN original movie The Junction Boys.

An accomplished athlete, Kwanten qualified for the world Biathlon in Sweden in 2006 and Italy in 2007 after winning the Los Angeles Biathlon series two years running.

Opening across the Philippines on Friday, Sept. 24 in IMAX 3D, Digital 3D and regular format, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

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