- Notes provided by Universal Pictures. -

JAMES McAVOY (Atonement, The Last King of Scotland), MORGAN FREEMAN (Batman Begins, Million Dollar Baby) and ANGELINA JOLIE (Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) tell the tale of one overlooked nobody's transformation into an unparalleled enforcer of justice in Wanted. In 2008, the world will be introduced to a hero for a new generation: Wesley Gibson.
Visionary director TIMUR BEKMAMBETOV (creator of Day Watch and Irony of Fate: The Continuation, the two biggest films in the history of Russian cinema) powers this twisted and visceral adventure of 25-year-old Wes (McAvoy), a slacker who hates his life-with good reason, because it sucks.
At work, his ballbuster of a boss lives to torment him in front of his fellow cube-dwelling drones. Back home, his skeezy girlfriend is a sexual magnet for everyone except him, including Wes' supposed best friend. No wonder this loser is on his 10th prescription for panic attack pills, which he downs like candy between cardboard meals of vegan tofu wraps.
Wes' pathetic excuse for an existence might just as well come to an end and save him a lifetime of prolonged misery.
Fortunately for Wes, his life is over-his old one, anyway...and all because of a girl. Enter hot Fox (Jolie), who crashes into Wes on the business end of a smoking gun. Seems Wes' long-lost and mostly forgotten dad was killed while working for the Fraternity-a centuries-old league of supersensory trained assassins pledged to carry out the unbreakable orders of fate. Their motto: Kill one, save a thousand.
Now it's Wes' turn to follow in his father's footsteps and release the caged wolf that's always lurked inside of him. Killing is in Wes' blood, and he trains under Fox and a motley-but-lethal crew that includes the Fraternity's enigmatic leader, Sloan (Freeman). The neophyte is forcefully pummeled into developing lightning-quick reflexes and superhuman agility. No one said becoming an assassin would be easy.
The former slacker is reborn as the golden boy of the Fraternity and Wes starts to relish his new life, even exacting some best-served-cold revenge on tormentors past. But soon, the sweet taste of power sours when he realizes that the intentions of his deadly associates aren't as noble as first presented. As he wavers between newfound heroism and soul-killing vengeance, Wes will come to learn what no one-neither cold-blooded father nor steaming-hot assassin-could ever teach him: He alone controls his destiny.
The film also stars TERENCE STAMP (Star Wars: Episode I -The Phantom Menace, The Limey) as Pekwarsky; THOMAS KRETSCHMANN (King Kong, Resident Evil: Apocalypse) as Cross; and COMMON (American Gangster, Smokin' Aces) as The Gunsmith.
Universal Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment present the visually stunning world of Wanted, based on the series of comic books by MARK MILLAR and J.G. JONES. The screenplay for Wanted is written by MICHAEL BRANDT & DEREK HAAS (3:10 to Yuma, 2 Fast 2 Furious) and CHRIS MORGAN (Cellular, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift), with a story by Brandt & Haas.
Wanted is produced by MARC PLATT (Broadway's Wicked, the Legally Blonde series), JIM LEMLEY (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Red Eye), JASON NETTER (television's Wolverine & the X-Men, the upcoming The Red Star) and IAIN SMITH (Children of Men, The Fountain). Executive producing are ADAM SIEGEL (The Perfect Man) and MARC SILVESTRI (The Covenant) and Spyglass Entertainment's ROGER BIRNBAUM and GARY BARBER (Eight Below, Bruce Almighty).
The filmmakers have assembled an international team of sterling behind-thecamera talent, including director of photography MITCHELL AMUNDSEN (Transformers, Transporter 2), Oscar®-winning production designer JOHN MYHRE
(Memoirs of a Geisha, Chicago), Academy Award®-winning film editor DAVID BRENNER (Independence Day, Born on the Fourth of July), costume designer VARYA AVDYUSHKO (Day Watch, Night Watch) and composer DANNY ELFMAN (Spider-Man 2, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).

BEFORE THE PRODUCTION
From Comic Book to Screen
"Cool as hell," "unique," "experimental," "ironic" and "creative genius" are just some of the words used to describe Russian-born director Timur Bekmambetov, who hails from the city of Guryev in Kazakhstan. Bekmambetov's vision has landed him his first English-language film, in collaboration with astute producers and an award-winning cast and crew, all under the aegis of a large American movie studio.
Just how did that happen? Perhaps a little background...
The year 2004 saw the release of Bekmambetov's film Nochnoy Dozor (or Night Watch). The film was budgeted at $1.8 million but grossed more than $16 million in Russia alone, making it more of a hit in his own country than The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The sequel to Night Watch (the first installment of the trilogy), Day Watch, was released in Russia in early 2006. Again, the film was considered low budget (costing just $4.2 million) and became a juggernaut-grossing nearly $40 million in Bekmambetov's home country.
About the same time, executives at Marc Platt Productions had come across Mark Millar and J.G. Jones' first issue of their comic book series "Wanted" and immediately thought the dark and inventive tale had huge cinematic potential...but the subject matter (a covert band of super villains who has split up the world into factions) needed an offbeat spin. They sought an exciting, creative new filmmaker who thought beyond limits and, after seeing Night Watch, they knew they'd found their man. If Bekmambetov could create such a visually stunning movie on such a low budget, producers reasoned, there would be no holding back the auteur's energetic point of view and dark sensibility when given a large-scale budget and the vast resources available to a studio-made film.
Producer Marc Platt comments, "The cinematic experience of Timur's work and the visual language employed by him are so unique, eye-popping and extraordinary, I knew his was a voice that had to be heard. I had never experienced visual images in that way. I thought by matching him and his ability to create a completely new world with this material, we could create something exciting, experimental and yet accessible for audiences all over the world."
Bekmambetov's producing partner, Jim Lemley, adds, "We spent two years getting from the first draft of the script to the shoot. It was important for us to push through a comfort level of what had been seen on film before and come up with ideas- no matter how outlandish they seemed on paper-that could visually blow the audience away."
Regarding his trust in the director's unique vision, Lemley concludes, "You could put three people in a room, give them the same camera and ask them to take the same shot. Timur's image would be amazing."
Of his thoughts on visual imagery, Bekmambetov remarks, "It is like 100 ideas are going on inside my brain, all fighting to come out. What happens is this makes a new style, maybe something that no one has seen before. I want to put the audience in the action-in the middle-so that they go on a journey with the character, not just sit and watch."
The director's mantra seems to be a fantastic realism on each of his projects. He believes there should be a realistic base to every action, every emotion, no matter how outlandish the circumstances. As a director, his attention to detail gives him something on which to focus-a solid way into each scene.
"Making my first film in English is not so different from my other movies," claims the director. "I just try to communicate with the audience, fall in love with them in a way and make a good movie for them-be a good storyteller for them."
The director's approach to filmmaking and skewed tone hardly changed with his move to an American-studio and English-language production. Platt adds, "Bekmambetov brings a very strong sardonic sense to his work, which was very present in all of his previous films. Not in a silly, broad way, but in a dark, comedic way that constantly undercuts the earnestness of the proceedings. It is the irony that he brings to the project, both narratively and visually, that gives Wanted a very unique tone."
That black humor is also present in the project's source material, Millar and Jones' graphic novel of the same name (originally published as a six-issue limited series). More than just acquiring the property that was one of the best-selling independent comic books of the last decade, the filmmakers were also keen on obtaining the blessing of the original creators.
At the time Millar had sold the movie rights to Universal, he and Jones were only up to the second issue. So, while Millar was finishing the series, the studio had almost finished the first draft of the screenplay.
With two parties writing independently, both projects took on separate lives. Millar comments, "I was relaxed about this, because the comic book and movie were two distinct entities. Regardless of what they changed, my book would be untouched. But I was pleased to see them going back again and again to the source material, and once they had my entire book in a complete form, subsequent drafts by other screenwriters incorporated pretty much all of the main material. They dropped the super villain backstory I had in the original book, but everything else works very well."
Before advancing on separate paths, both the graphic novel and graphically violent screen version of Wanted started in the same place (the first one-third of the screenplay mirrors the first two chapters of the series...but then diverges). The comic writer feels that although the stories take place in very different places, the tone, the characters and basic narrative remain the same in both versions.
Millar observes, "The first 40 minutes of the film are pretty much identical, scene for scene, to the book, and I was pleased with that. This wasn't the case with the first draft, but once Timur was attached, he really just embraced many of the darker aspects of the material. I thought they might drop some of the slightly more edgy material, but captions, voiceovers, dialogue and entire sequences were lifted straight from the book. I was so pleased to see that. One of my favorite scenes that was transplanted was the opening scene where, suddenly, this guy sees a dot on his head, takes out his guns, jumps out the window and starts chasing after these assassins. It's beautiful that the way it's actually shot is almost panel for panel like the comic book."
Not only was the writer impressed by the filmmakers' attention to detail, but by how the screenwriters and Bekmambetov expanded upon key scenes from the first two chapters in his series. Says Millar, "There were a few scenes where I only had a couple of panels to play with, because you don't really have a lot of room in a comic book. Timur and the guys fleshed them out and made them into cool scenes with gigantic chase sequences." As a nod to die-hard "Wanted" comic aficionados, Millar acknowledges, "There's all these little 'Easter eggs' that fans of the book will be able to pick up on. The second chapter, for example, is called 'F--k you,' and Timur had a little laugh with this by incorporating the words on a computer keyboard flying toward us when the main scene was brought to life in the movie."
Producer Platt adds, "Mark really embraced Timur. The comic is fantastic and gutsy and it has a real edge to it, and that's what we wanted to build into our script. We didn't want to make something run-of-the-mill...We wanted to roll the dice and try for something special. Where the script follows the comic book, we didn't change a word of it. But, of course, the movie is its own thing. Millar backs it, and that's important to us as filmmakers."
Not only was it important for the director to honor the inventiveness of the source material, he intended to respect Wesley's search for reality in a world of deceit. "This is really a story about truth," sums Bekmambetov. "Wesley is trying to escape from a world where people lie and find people who tell the truth. Along the way, he finds you can't do anything about fate, but you can destiny. You choose and you steer your destiny. Something everybody is trying to do."
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Wanted's Cast Pledges the Fraternity
Wanted is very much Wesley's story, and at its outset, he is about as far from a comic book "hero" as you can get. He's miserable, a doormat for the world-punching the clock until his pitiable day comes to its end...hardly the stuff of a towering, square-jawed, steroid-sized, classic leading man. And yet, the character undergoes a remarkable metamorphosis, from pathetic to powerful, embracing his legacy and allowing his inner strength to push aside the weakling.
Bekmambetov explains, "We watch Wesley grow up-he finds his abilities and his intelligence. He starts out as a weak boy who everybody thinks is a loser. That is because he does not believe, and he does not know what is in his genes. Because he is different. He is unique. Once he finds that, he grows. He becomes a man, a killer. And then he starts to see that there are lies in his world. So he has to choose-to go back to believing what is told to him, that's a fake truth. Or go his own path and find a real truth."
It took young Scottish actor James McAvoy a while to sink his teeth into the idea of playing Wesley: "I'm not used to seeing someone like myself in these roles. As a movie lover, I do complain frequently that I'm fed up with seeing 6' 5" alpha males in these roles. I'm glad they cast someone like me, not in terms of what I can bring to the role as an actor, but more because I'm not an obvious choice."
Bekmambetov says, "I knew James was a different kind of actor for Wesley, but I wanted a real actor. We needed someone people will identify with. Somebody who kind of looks like an everybody. Wes changes a lot, on the inside, on the outside. And James can do that-we believe his changes. I wanted somebody to bring humor to the story, because I think it's impossible to create a believable fantasy world without humor. He is skeptical and ironic-and when he believes, the audience believes."
Platt comments, "It was essential that we found an actor who was accessible to an audience." The filmmakers wanted someone "who could exist in a world that was heightened, but who could communicate with enough emotional truth that his reality became our reality. James is very smart about his character, even down to his movements and his action. He wants to know everything about what his character is doing and why he's doing it, otherwise it's just not believable for him. Watching the character's transformation has been a palpable, visceral experience as interpreted through James' great creative mind and ability."
Bekmambetov remembers, "Early, we were trying to find some ways to make the change in Wesley, like hair or costume. Then, we had a test in London before shooting. And suddenly, without costume or makeup or anything, James did it himself. Right in front of us. First, he was this silly boy and then, a totally different character, almost like a superman. It was unbelievable. Then we understood that we didn't have to do anything, that James could do it himself."
The Scot was drawn not only to the character of Wes and his arc, but also to the world that the Russian director was creating: "I like action movies that don't take themselves too seriously-I like them when they have fun," McAvoy provides. "Sometimes, I was quite shocked at what Bekmambetov asked me to do, but generally, it was for the best and elevated the material. He really does think differently than most directors. I think he's a mad, evil genius and his work is incredibly cool and strange. Even on big, emotional, sincere things, he undercuts it with a very strange angle...which I respond to very well."
Author Millar found the character of Wes particularly interesting as he transits from geek world to underworld: "The idea of a young, geeky office worker going through this transformation to become the ultimate super-powered killer was really more interesting to me than the big, super villain stuff. I've always been interested in secret societies...there's a romantic notion about a secret society. I like the idea of a super cabal of bad guys who are running the show, and the Fraternity was my version of that. Seeing Morgan Freeman bring this idea to life as the head of the organization was really quite thrilling."
Like any strong organization, the Fraternity finds unity in and lives by its mission: to preserve balance in the world by eliminating those who are predicted by the Loom of Fate to disturb this balance and to cause harm.
And "Loom of Fate" is not just a metaphor...the Fraternity is, indeed, an ancient fraternity of weavers, whose headquarters contains the enormous Loom that weaves the destiny of those targeted into the fabric it produces-the tapestry's flaws are translated into a decipherable, binary code. Literally, when someone's number is up, a member of the Fraternity is dispatched to carry out the subject's execution. They consider themselves operatives of fate, instruments of destiny.
Per Bekmambetov, "In many world mythologies-in Greece, in Iran, in China, in France, in Russia-weaving has a mystical context. So weaving and deciphering the future are the same business in our movie. It's a balance between good and evil...or between chaos and an organized world."
Much as the Fraternity recruits Wesley, filmmakers were choosy when it came time to pick the versatile and talented actors who would comprise the covert society's membership. The widely ranging characters are an unlikely bunch, each of whom has a specific talent and a unique personality...and yet each also happens to be a lethal assassin.
The head of the Fraternity is the same man who reads the will of the Loom: Sloan. Having already played God twice, it wasn't a stretch to see Oscar® winner Morgan Freeman as the master architect of an ancient society.
Freeman says, "I've been in many, many films, and so I'm always looking to find something different to try. As an actor, you don't want to do the same thing ad nauseam. When I read Wanted, I thought the concept was compelling, and Timur's a very interesting filmmaker. Combine that with the rest of the cast-and the fact that I haven't done too many action movies-and I was eager to participate."
Producer Platt comments, "Morgan, as both a human being and as an actor, possesses such integrity, such a strength of character that I'd believe anything he would tell me. He's someone you would want to be your father, which in our story is very important for Wesley. There is a strength and force that emanates from Morgan without him even trying. We needed someone who could also articulate the mythology of the Fraternity in such a way that the audience would follow and accept it."
"As a person, Morgan Freeman is very levelheaded and very noble," says Bekmambetov. "We must believe what he says. He is a businessman, and the head of the Fraternity. He is able to engage Wesley, and so us. That was most important for Sloan."
"Something that really impressed me," says Freeman, "is the depth and detail that Timur has provided. There is a whole history of the Fraternity, an actual handbook with their philosophies, their codes, their legacy as weavers, weaponry, abilities, hierarchy- hardly any of which the audience will be privy to, but as actors, and for the crew, it's a great tool for us to use when we're building our characters and creating this world.
Something like that is a luxury that doesn't come along all that often when you accept a film role. He just has such a creative mind."
In the Fraternity, the woman who sits at Sloan's right-hand is named Fox. There are few actresses who have the strength and skill to believably portray one of the world's best killers while, at the same time, possessing the talent to inject that assassin with emotional strength, a no-nonsense attitude and an all-encompassing commitment to the Fraternity, its Code and its way of life (which actually revolves around taking life). As far as the filmmakers were concerned, there was only one actress in mind: Angelina Jolie.
Platt reflects, "Fox is an incredibly powerful, strong-minded, singularly willed person who has overcome obstacles in her life to become this great assassin. She becomes Wes' mentor who watches him, trains him and helps him through the difficulties of accepting and understanding what's happening to him and the grueling physical nature of what he has to overcome. Angelina was the dream choice for this role."
Per producer Lemley: "Fox is stoic. She's a soldier in search of a cause, and with the Fraternity, she's found it. The Fraternity has shaped her life and character, and Fox has become a fully formed assassin who takes her job very seriously. And she kicks ass, too."
Angelina Jolie takes her job of inhabiting her character on screen seriously: "Fox is a believer in the Code," Jolie offers. "I like the fact that she's quite flat, in a way; she just believes in getting on with it and doesn't really show any emotion. However, let's not get too serious about this film-it's supposed to be a fun movie, but the idea of assassinating one person to save thousands is very interesting."
For an actress who throws herself into her work, one of the things that appealed to Jolie was that she had input on her character's look. She adds, "Fox has binary codes on her arm, which is part of a reading of the fabric from the Loom of Fate. She has 'know your rights' in different languages and 'toil and tears,' which is from a Churchill speech. It's things like that that the audience won't notice or pick up, but giving Fox all these tattoos is symbolic of somebody who lives by a certain code of honor."
The director says, "We were very lucky-and very happy-to get Angelina. She is just so solid, and such a nonconformist. She's also a perfectionist, so in everything she does she wants to be the best. She is deep and talented, grounded and specific. She knows, every second, what she wants to do in the scene. Her viewpoint is very strong, and so you have to understand it. We worked with her on her dialogue, and she really helped to make it stronger. When we first met, we talked about her character. From then on, she was always trying to keep everything in line with what we discussed. A very focused actor."
While on paper, the subject of Wanted sounds dark and dire, Bekmambetov injected his wry and decidedly off-kilter sense of humor into the narrative. Jolie comments, "I like that this film doesn't take itself too seriously...It's a little more nutty and has a sense of humor about itself. It doesn't pretend to be too cool and there is something textured, European and a little funky about it. Timur is a very focused, deep-thinking guy, and it's cool to see him in the middle of a big Hollywood movie, bringing something to it that is unusual."
Bekmambetov is quick to point out, "My humor is not dark. It is life that is dark-the humor is just in a dark context. When things are dark, people turn to humor to survive. To keep your mind. In the middle of all this violence, humor helps the characters-and the audience get through."
A true survivor (and one of the more unusual, ex-officio members of the Fraternity) is Pekwarsky-an expert who fashions ammunition discharged by the fighters' magnificent array of custom firearms. And such a gun would require more than just over-the-counter bullets. Pekwarsky's bullets are themselves tiny works of art, emblazoned with intricate designs and ominous messages (like "Goodbye"). These works of art are lethal, called upon to enter a target from a curved trajectory or to stop an adversary's bullet by ricocheting off and deflecting the oncoming slug.
Esteemed British actor Terence Stamp plays Pekwarsky, and this isn't Stamp's first time to work in a motion-picture adaptation of a comic book. He etched a menacing and memorable performance as General Zod in 1978's Superman and the 1980 sequel. And his earlier film Modesty Blaise was based on a comic strip of the time. So while source material may play into an actor's choice of project, sometimes word of mouth can also play a part.
Stamp recounts, "I was having dinner with Morgan Freeman, and he said he was working with this great Russian director. And I don't know if they were considering me at the time or if Morgan said something, but after I got the script and read it, I just really wanted to be a part of it. And he was right about Timur; he's a really inventive director. He gives us some leeway to work on character. But on the point of direction, he's very mindful of structure, of emotions, so you can't get away with just doing anything."
Pekwarsky isn't the only member of the Fraternity who is more than meets the eye. The icy Cross' original role within the organization was to carry out the kill orders given by the Loom of Fate and interpreted by Sloan. But after his betrayal of the Fraternity and attack on Fox and Wesley just seconds after the two have met, Cross proves himself a worthy target of the same company he used to keep. After Wesley's induction into the Fraternity, his assignment is to dispatch Cross.
Thomas Kretschmann fit perfectly into the role of Cross, even signing on to the project before reading the script. The actor muses, "Cross is touted as the greatest assassin alive. Being German, I'm usually thought of as the bad guy, right? Well, that's the nature of the beast. My character has to appear as cool, precise and confident, so there's no drama involved in what I'm doing-in an acting sense. We're taught to keep acting simple, and I always try to explain anything I can with as few words as possible. In this film, I barely talk at all. It can't get more simple than that."
Grammy Award-winning and platinum-selling musical artist Common has made recent inroads into films, with roles in two 2007 actioners that had plenty of firepower (American Gangster and Smokin' Aces); this perhaps made him a logical choice for the role of The Gunsmith. But like Kretschmann, he was entirely ready to come aboard. Common offers, "For me, coming from a musical background and being cast in a film with James and Morgan and Angelina was unbelievable. When I heard their names, I knew I had to be part of it. Being among these people, these great actors, just being able to watch and learn...it is an invaluable experience."
In talking about his character, Common offers, "The Gunsmith is a master at weaponry, guns in particular. He knows everything there is to know about guns-how to create them, assembly, new shooting techniques. Despite that, he has a good heart and is incredibly serene and focused.
Weaving the Design:
A Brave New World

In both the comic book and the screenplay of Wanted, the characters move about in a world that, at first glance, resembles ours-but on closer look, that world is tweaked, askew, just this side of real. The characters in it don't just move, they inhabit it in a powerful, superhuman way.
To help realize this vision, filmmakers turned to a double Oscar®-winning production designer, who is quite familiar with creating an on screen version of heightened, "just this side of real" reality: John Myhre.
Myhre offers, "I was seduced by Bekmambetov in about 15 seconds-he's just one of the most creative people I've ever met. It's so fulfilling to talk to another filmmaker and have them so enthusiastic and so full of good ideas...he'd have 3,000 ideas for everything, and they'd all be great."

Shooting in Prague
Although the film takes place in Chicago, Prague was chosen as the site of Wanted's principal photography. Multiple reasons played into the choice. Because of the amount of filming taking place in Chicago at the time production was slated, space was tight. To make up for that shortfall, an inordinate amount of construction would have been necessary to build interiors, and this simply did not make financial sense.
Platt comments, "Although it's been somewhat of a challenge to shoot a film like Wanted in Prague-to re-create bits of Chicago-it was the best place to film. Shooting space was plentiful, and its proximity to Moscow-where our effects were being done- was a bonus. We simultaneously shot in Prague and completed effects in Moscow. We'd shoot and cut, and then dispatch it to Russia for effects."
Bekmambetov had worked in Prague for two years before returning to shoot Wanted, so he was exceedingly familiar with the choices of locations available-another benefit. The look of the Chicago interiors/exteriors was to be post-industrial, a mixture of steel beams, rivets, girders and basic solid architecture and brickwork, all of which needed to be combined by Myhre and his team of talented artisans into a homogenous whole. Per locations supervisor MICHAEL SHARP: "We needed a space with a minimum of three stories to house the Loom, but we also needed to shoot as many of the interiors as possible in that one space. We ended up in an old sugar factory that was built in 1914 and closed as a plant in 1956. It had quite a neutral architecture to suit the different stages that the film goes through, but we also had the great depth and adequate space to use it as five different locations, including the magnificent Loom of Fate set. Every piece of floor in the factory was shored up and strengthened underneath, so that we could still play with two-and-a-half tons of equipment and toys to suit the sequences- without having to change the look from the top."
Reproducing bits of Chicago in a Belle Époque sugar factory provided Myhre with a few challenges: "We did a little shifting and pulled some of the story inside, so we could be smart and economical when it came time to shoot in Chicago. Bekmambetov wanted the film to have a very American feel about it, while also embracing some European sensibilities, which shooting in Prague provided. We were able to synthesize a bit of a hybrid and take the best of all worlds, again, mixing the old with the new, a theme that runs throughout the whole of the movie."
As Bekmambetov wished to shoot and create effects in short order, it was even more important for the art and visual effects department to stay in sync with constant communication. Visual effects producer JON FARHAT explains, "We really tapped into the talents and resources of John Myhre and we tried to let his designs drive the look for our visual effects, drive the modeling and the creation of our Fraternity, the monastery and the look of all of the interiors."

The Loom of Fate
As mentioned, one of the most prominent sets in Wanted is the centerpiece Loom of Fate. At its heart, the Loom is a very simple structure, but the threads that it weaves determine the fate and destiny of the citizens of the world.
Bekmambetov and the screenwriters fashioned a mythology as background to the group of assassins and how they function-tapping into global mythologies that contain symbolism and imagery of weaving. In the world of Wanted, centuries before we meet Wes and the Fraternity, weavers of fabric started to decipher a code within their work, messages that spoke to the state of the world. A flaw in the fabric signaled a flaw in the world. Eventually, these flaws became the dictates to the earliest member of the Fraternity. Fate designates that someone must be killed in order for the world to carry on in a balanced way-an assassin is chosen to carry out the order of the Loom, theoretically correcting the path of the world and restoring its balance.
Fabric is woven with perpendicular threads, the weft (vertical) and the warp (horizontal, woven back and forth on a shuttle). The flaws on the Loom's weave result from a skipped thread-these mistakes are counted and form a binary pattern, which is converted into text, and that text spells out a death order.
Production designer Myhre admits, "I always love learning something new, and the whole world of textile factories and looms was completely new to me. The way that thread is manipulated to create infinite numbers of fabrics is astounding."
The Loom of Fate plays such a pivotal role in the movie that Myhre co-opted the theme of "weaving," subtly incorporating it into the overall design: "The idea is that everything is woven together from the very beginning. Wesley's office is one of those horrible places comprised of lots of little cubicles with woven fabric on the walls. Outside the Fraternity the telephone lines are crisscrossed, like tumbles of spiderwebs. It's all the way through the film, just in a very unobtrusive way."
Platt comments, "In the Old Testament, there is a whole system of numerology where words are prescribed numbers and those numbers represent a code. In many ways, the mythology created for this film is no different."
Production took inspiration from the more than 100 different textile factories within a two-hour ride from the center of Prague. Field trips were taken to view the looms and study how fabric is manufactured. Looks from different plants were combined and reproduced, and the Loom of Fate is a final amalgam of several of these plants' looms.
The physical Loom itself was assembled together from rentals and newly constructed pieces, and the combination of black metal, worn wood and spare brass fittings ends up resembling a machine from the turn of the 20th century (appropriate, as the Fraternity's current headquarters is said to have been built in Chicago at that time). In keeping with the film's subtle and overall mix of old and new, the art department also added some offbeat, modern touches, such as magnifying glasses around the edges of the Loom to refract light to the tables underneath.
More looms, but on a lesser scale, were incorporated into the design of the Fraternity's shop floor (in addition to being the group's headquarters, it is also a producing textile mill). Myhre comments, "The shop floor looms are partially threaded from the ceiling overhead, and they form these huge fantastic shapes-when you put a couple of them together, you start getting a very Gothic-looking arch. It gives the feel of an old church or a castle, and this castle feel is evident in the Chicago Fraternity. The building is fronted by two enormous wooden gates; to enter, you have to drive over a bridge over a small moat."

Jumping and Derailing Trains
As Bekmambetov is a believer in augmenting the action with visual effects-not wholly creating action with CG-the special effects team under supervisor DOMINIC TUOHY was interpolated into the Prague/Moscow system of production. Tuohy comments, "Timur looks at and approaches things in a very different way, which is great for a movie like Wanted. I have no idea how he comes up with the things he does, but I hope that we translated them from his vision to the audience."
Nowhere was this synergistic production effort more needed than in the film's awesome train sequences. Myhre recalls, "When we initially read the script, there was a parkouring sequence [manuevering through city architecture like an obstacle course], but we thought we could ratchet up the action somehow. When we visited Chicago, Bekmambetov looked up at the elevated trains and came up with the idea of trying to do something special on top of the train."
So, several tops of full-sized "L" trains were constructed on a green-screen stage with the actors doing their own stunts on what, in effect, are 'real' trains. Tuohy adds, "This sequence plays a big part in the end of the film, so it was important to link everything together while trying to exploit the practical and physical effects as much as possible."
To add to the scenes' pace and heighten the impression of movement, Tuohy designed (in conjunction with the art department and director) the set piece of a bridge that actually traveled over the top of the train set pieces, while the train itself remains stationary. "We moved the bridge with computerized winches, so that we knew exactly where it was and at what speed it was traveling," supervisor Tuohy says. "By doing that, we gave confidence to the artists doing their own stunts-three meters up in the air-by ensuring that each take would be the same, repetitive move."
Bekmambetov simplifies, "The train was too big to move, so we moved the bridge instead!"
In addition to the "L" train sequences, the script calls for a breathless chase through a Pendolino (a high-speed train that tilts on the track as it takes bends and turns-much as a motorcycle leans into turns). The sequence reaches its climax with a train car plummeting to the bottom of a deep gorge.
To facilitate this, the Pendolino car was constructed on a gimbal equipped with hydraulics that could not only rotate the set 360, but also tilt the train to a 32 angle...and all of that could be done within a matter of seconds. During filming, the train car was spun almost as quickly as it would have if plummeting down a gorge. Again, Tuohy: "In the sequence, the train derails itself and, from that point on, we used our train carriage that tilts and rolls to simulate a crash. We actually saw all of the stunt crew inside, rolling around inside this train, as well as our actors, who did every scene themselves. It was rough for the actors and crew, but it makes the scene far more interesting when you actually have real people trapped behind chairs or getting flung around. Our actors said they felt like they were in a tumble dryer, poor guys."

Costumes and Makeup
BAFTA Award-winning FRANCES HANNON was brought onboard to design the hair and makeup for the film. The passage of time and the transformation taking place in Wes needed to be realized on screen-the office drone grows into the sharpened assassin. Hannon explains, "The main challenge I faced was how to take the character of Wesley from A to Z while keeping the changes subtle and believable. He not only changes how he looks, but how he is inside, and we wanted to show that visually, too."
That transformation didn't come without its share of bruises...literally. During Wes' training period, he is subjected to several beatings-something Hannon knows how to show on screen, having worked on several thrillers and action films (including The Da Vinci Code and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life). But, as always, these choices were run past someone else first. She clarifies, "I had to discuss things with the director, like where on the face a hit will be, what type of hit it is and how long he wants it to last. I can't put a big, fat, black eye on an actor if we need to lose it the next day, so I'd maybe put on a small cut that could feasibly heal. Bekmambetov knew exactly what he wanted to see, where he wanted it and when he wanted it, although we often developed ideas on the move."
Costume designer Varya Avdyushko has previously worked with Bekmambetov on Night Watch and Day Watch and is used to his ever-flowing ideas. She says, "Bekmambetov generates a lot of ideas, sometimes up until two hours or even less before we're due to shoot a scene. However, because I have worked with him before, I am very used to this way of working. The fountain of ideas he has is very unique."
Upon receiving the script, Avdyushko broke it down to understand the characters-she created behaviors and habits for them, a detail that she hopes is reflected on screen. Per Avdyushko: "We tried to find a little quirk for every character, particularly the Fraternity. For example, The Butcher, who is a brutal bandit, wears bright yellow sneakers. He wraps them in cellophane to prevent blood from spilling on them. The Gunsmith would never require excess; he's very neat and precise. He only carries what he needs. The Exterminator deals with rats a lot, so on his belt we have jars and various tools he could use to carry his rats with him."
The costume designer also experienced a close collaboration with production designer Myhre: "He showed me the colors, textures and symbols he wanted to use in his sets, and we incorporated these into our costumes."
That creative theme of old and new carried throughout the film is also reflected in the clothes the characters wear. Avdyushko offers, "We used elements in the costumes from places like Mexico and modern-day America, but for small details such as buttons, we utilized antiques. They're an important part of the character, of who they are and how they live their lives."
A Killer Workout
In describing how the members of the Fraternity live their lives, you cannot overemphasize the importance of physical acumen. Their bodies are very much a part of their arsenal. Although the Fraternity of assassins are not superhuman, they do possess certain powers specific to their characters, which even the most regular gym-goer would be hard-pressed to mimic.
That necessitated quite a bit of physical training for the most active among the Fraternity, namely McAvoy and Jolie. McAvoy, in particular, had to do a convincing job of turning his body from that of a couch potato into a sleek, sinewy killer in record time.
Personal fitness trainer GLENN CHAPMAN, hired to ready the normally thin actor for his role as Wesley, explains: "The biggest challenge training McAvoy was the weight gain. I think he weighed around 62kg [137lbs] when we started training in London two months before the shoot, and we got him to 74kg [164lbs] at his heaviest point in Prague. The time we had to train was limited, and he needed bulk, so we did a combination of different types of training-sometimes weights, interval training and training at different speeds."
Even after signing on, McAvoy was fairly unaware of the physical work ahead of him, and he confesses: "I'd rather eat dog poo than go to the gym. The training was a big change for me-sometimes my trainer pushed me so hard that I was on my knees wanting to be physically sick. He made me eat really, really horrible food at bad times of the day, but it seemed to do the trick. It gave Wes the body he needed."
There was a dramatic change to McAvoy's body shape in a short period of time. Although his training program was rigorous and intense, it was never the goal to give Wesley an overly bulky physique. McAvoy says, "We needed to keep Wesley as a character the audience could believe went from a convincing geek with small muscles, through this transformation, to someone who is bulkier...but not so big that you couldn't hide it."
McAvoy's personal training underwent a necessary period of adjustment after he arrived for the shoot in Prague, as the sessions had to adapt around the shooting schedule. Fight training and kickboxing took away from his daily workouts, as he had to concentrate on learning the actual fight scenes for the film. McAvoy observes, "Size doesn't necessarily equal power a lot of the time. That really helped me in this movie. It doesn't really matter whether you look big or not; it's whether you can make that jump or lift yourself with the force and power of your thigh. As soon as we started doing the action sequences and I didn't have time to do my personal training at the end of the day, I could feel my muscles starting to disappear. My costumes felt a bit bigger on me than they did at the beginning of the shoot."
For McAvoy, who is in almost every scene of the film, Wanted turned out to be the most physically demanding movie on which he had ever worked. Despite that, he still insisted on doing his own stunts. The stunt coordinators found the actor willing to give into the physical work the job required, with McAvoy often stepping in for his stunt double. He reasoned that the audience expects it.
Of his many manuevers, there was one that particularly pleased McAvoy: "My favorite stunt was jumping over the "L" train, which I did completely by myself. I had a stunt double, of course, who did the more dangerous things and makes me look incredibly good...but jumping over the bridge was all me and it was incredibly cool to do."
His tutor would join him in much of the film's action. "There's one scene where my character, Fox, gets to beat up Wesley," says Angelina Jolie. "All of the stunt team kept telling me that James has the qualities of a stuntman when it comes to taking a punch and throwing himself onto the floor-and they were right. He's really great to work with. It's always fun to do a scene where you get to jump around and punch people, but you don't want to hit too hard, especially if you're wearing brass knuckles. It can be funny or strange or even dangerous, but it really comes down to working with someone as good as McAvoy."
Unfortunately for Wesley, it's not only Fox who gets to subject him to a beating...so do fellow Fraternity brothers The Repairman (played by British actor MARC WARREN) and The Butcher (actor DATO BAKHTADZE).
Bakhtadze went through two weeks of harsh, strict stunt training for his knife fight with McAvoy. Bakhtadze says, "I arrived in Prague about two weeks before I was due to shoot, and that wasn't a great deal of time for the fight coordinator to turn me into a killing machine! The stunt team helped me understand how to fight, not just with the weapon, but with emotion. It's not all about the knife swing or knife swirl; it's about what makes you want to do that move in the first place."
Producer Marc Platt adds, "Our actors, all of them, loved doing stunts, particularly McAvoy and Jolie. There was a lot of training for this film, especially with McAvoy, whose character has to literally transform. You'll be able to tell how much his training paid off in terms of making it a real and exciting experience for the audience."
Many of the stunts were shot at 150 frames per second, in quite super-slow motion. That meant that there was little for the cast members (stunt crew and others) to hide from the cameras. If a punch landed the wrong way or a fall looked awkward, it would have to be captured intact by Bekmambetov and DP Amundsen. Therefore, rehearsals would need to happen again and again...until each nuance was perfected.
One of Wanted's signature sequences is a chase in which Fox scoops up Wesley in a red Viper and hurtles across the city to escape Cross's pursuit via van. At the wheel of the Viper was Jolie as Fox. Stunt coordinator MIC RODGERS explains what was necessary to get the correct shots for his director (while Jolie hung on at 30 mph): "We rigged the viper for Angelina to hang off the side of it. She was in a harness, but we still spotted her. The camera was on the back of the Viper, where our camera platform is, and we chased it with the camera bike. Angelina as Fox did a head-on, near miss with an oncoming car, which throws her off to the driver's side of the Viper. Then she shot the crap out of Cross' truck."
For some actors, however, it wasn't so much the physicality of their roles that became a part of their characters, but their weapons. Supervising armorer RICHARD HOOPER had the task of introducing his guns to their new owners. He says, "We did some extensive training with the actors so they were all familiar with the weapons they used in the film. They were trained in two ways: the usual way in which anyone would use a weapon and in a specialist 'Fraternity' way that has evolved over the centuries, which enables the shooter to curve bullets around people and buildings so that they don't kill anyone by mistake. Each member of the Fraternity has a unique way of firing specific to that character. All of the actors paid good attention to the instruction and safe use of the firearms."
Thomas Kretschmann says, "The gun training was very tough for me. I was hired quite late in the game, so I was quite nervous about the fact that I didn't have much time to train. I had no earthly idea how I was supposed to turn myself into the world's greatest assassin in just one week. I felt like I needed at least six months to prepare. I want it to look good, and I'll still be nervous about it at the time the movie opens."
McAvoy was one of the first actors that Hooper had to train: "When we first meet Wesley, he knows nothing about guns, so we had to show a slightly clumsy, awkward and inexperienced character. In various stages of the training room, he starts to get better and better and eventually becomes the No. 1 top assassin."
Portraying The Gunsmith, Common studied the arsenal of weaponry as part of his preparation. He explains, "I went through a process of learning different things about guns that I wasn't familiar with. People always think of guns as something evil, but obviously, it's what a person does with a gun that makes it either bad or good. The Gunsmith uses the gun as an art form and tool to perform the will of the Loom."
The weaponry employed in Wanted is a combination of the very modern and very ancient-once again, echoing the overall design concept and grounding the story in a solid history. With it, the Fraternity carries centuries of customs, traditions, codes...and arms. There are approximately 200 various types of weaponry used in Wanted. As an ancient organization, the Fraternity has collected weapons throughout time, adopting a practice of adapting and modifying them, rather than replacing them. The process for developing these specialized props was a matter of design, redesign and then continuing with the evolution until they were finalized.
Hooper remarks, "Bekmambetov has a slightly curious view of this group of characters, and he likes to think outside the box. It was quite apparent from an early stage that he had a different take on what these guys could do, and he wanted the guns and knives to reflect that."
Myhre adds, "Modern guns aren't at all interesting to me, but Bekmambetov, with his fantastic way of thinking, started considering flintlocks [older gunlocks in which a flint strikes against steel to produce sparks that will ignite the priming on the piece], so we came up with the whole design concept of turning a flintlock into a semiautomatic weapon. We created a visual style and used it to adapt a lot of older weaponry-sort of like illuminating a manuscript. It was such an unusual style that we used it on the contemporary guns as well by carving into their barrels."
Once the art department started developing these beautiful engravings on the guns, the suggestion was floated to continue the design of the firearm as a tattoo on a hand-so when a Fraternity member picks up his or her weapon, the engraving effectively continues as a tattoo. Hair and makeup designer Hannon says, "It was supposed to be a trademark of all of the Fraternity members, but at the end of the day, it was decided it would be best to keep this beautiful effect for one person...and that person was Fox."
The paramount concern of any armorer is the safety of the actors and the crew. Not only do the performers have to learn how to use the guns and how to make their use look authentic-but also, they must be operated in a manner that ensures the safety of everyone involved. So it wasn't just the principal actors who received firearm training, but also the crowd extras. Hooper comments, "We went to great lengths to make sure that every extra was trained for each sequence, each take, each piece of action. They were rehearsed and rehearsed so that everyone knew exactly what it was they had to do."
So is there any possibility in modernizing ancient weapons or the physics of bending bullets around corners? Hooper laughs, "Oh, we're just having fun. It's pure fantasy, I'm afraid, but a bloody good one."
Lots of Shooting:
Bekmambetov Lenses Wanted

Another major factor in deciding to shoot in Prague was the availability of a panoply of architectural styles (from Beaux Arts to Communist Industrial) that could be utilized as locations. Such an array of structures could potentially offer up production-differing styles for each phase of the film (changing as Wes advances from the "real" world to the Fraternity world).
In addition to the dormant sugar factory, Prague provided such shooting sites as: the famous Strahov Stadium, the largest stadium in the world with seating for 220,000 spectators; K�ivoklát Castle, 40km west of the city, begun in the 13th century and reborn several times (now standing thanks to a 19th-century restoration); and other, less distinctive locales (e.g., a disused practice train track, an old wine factory).
One of the most spectacular sequences-the train crash and subsequent tumble of cars into a gorge-was actually filmed in Romania. Locations supervisor Sharp comments, "I've researched gorges from Norway to Chile to see which would suit the film best, given the color and the scale. The color and the texture of the rock in the gorge and in the tunnel had to be stone specific to Europe. We needed to distinguish where we were to give us a sense of Wesley's journey, to prove he's moved on and to make all the other pieces fit."
In order to anchor the story in Chicago, production moved from Prague (once principal photography had wrapped) to the Windy City, where exterior and action shots were filmed. Lensing with the main unit lasted two weeks, when the majority of the car chase sequences-Wes and Fox in a lightning-fast, red Viper versus police and other cars-were shot (and where production made use of the famous double-decker highway Wacker Drive, shooting on the ground level, or Lower Wacker). Images of Jolie, McAvoy and Kretschmann filming these car scenes were a regular feature on the local nightly news and splashed daily across the Internet.
Regardless of location, however, the view of the Wanted world is the same- usually through the eyes of Wesley. And that meant visually representing his thoughts, his feelings...and one particular problem.
In his former life, Wesley suffers, as many do, from anxiety and insecurity. This manifests itself to such an extreme that his heart races and he undergoes actual physical and physiological changes-he assumes all of this is due to a severe anxiety attack.
But after being reeled into the Fraternity by Fox, Wesley learns that this condition is actually genetic, passed on to him by his father...and it's not a curse-it's actually a gift. With his heart wildly beating, his system is flooded with a gargantuan amount of adrenalin, and as his inner world races, the outer world slows to a crawl.
Welcome to Assassin Mode.
This is a trait shared by all in the Fraternity. It enables them to see things more clearly than a normal person. With the world at a snail's pace, the assassin has more time in which to think, decide and act. While in the mode, the fighter can discern what is happening at any given moment with a jewel cutter's precision-thus making life-altering decisions with ease and clarity.
The Assassin Mode was a complex notion to try to achieve visually, and Bekmambetov wanted it to work within the Wanted bounds he had established: that every effect needed to have an emotional basis. Ergo, if Wesley was to be in Assassin Mode, the director wanted the audience to be in Assassin Mode as well, not merely looking at it as an observer. And although all Fraternity members have the ability to go into the mode, the audience would only see it from Wes' point of view.
McAvoy explains, "Within the mythology of the film, the senses of the assassins in the Fraternity become heightened as their hearts pump in excess of 400 beats-perminute. They're not supermen and they don't have superpowers, but they see things faster and clearer-but making a decision that quickly, compared to everyone else around them, might be seen as something superhuman."
Bekmambetov likes to push his boundaries-so how about defying the laws of physics? Why not? So he and DP Mitchell Amundsen fashioned a shot specific to the Fraternity that enabled them to bend bullets (again, to be augmented with visual effects). McAvoy explains the concept behind the technique: "The Fraternity members can bend bullets because they have non-rifled chambers and barrels in their guns-non-rifled means there's no interior grooving which causes the bullet to spiral as its fired. So, in our theory, that means that if I swing my wrist like I'm taking a tennis shot, the bullet arrives at your target but in a curved trajectory-not a straight shot. You can bend around objects. Instead of moving to get a target in sight, you just move your arm."
McAvoy and Bekmambetov spent a lot of time developing the actual on screen physical technique that would "bend bullets." Their goal was to create an action that looked "cool, but functional...seamless, rather than apparent." Several crew (from both Team Amundsen and Team Farhat) were also involved in quite a bit of research to create a move that-in both camera effects and visual effects-would look completely possible and completely within the grasp of reality. (Of course, don't ask a science professor or physics expert about the plausibility of this...)
Jolie comments, "I'm probably the only person that found the bending of bullets the most difficult thing to do in the movie. It's a little odd to try and talk about it seriously, but when Morgan Freeman's character is explaining how it works, and because it's Morgan saying it, you actually start to believe it."
Ultimately (and fully) dispelling the myth, McAvoy adds, "Oh, come on...It's all made up, I'm afraid. Kids, don't try this at home!"
Effects That Bend Bullets and Slow Time
Director Bekmambetov finds the idea of "fix it in post" a horrific concept-to him, visual effects are intended to take the shot further than captured in-camera, not to wholly create something that didn't start on the set.
Bekmambetov explains, "For me, it is the emotion that is important, not really the effect. It may be a little old school, but this is how I get what I need from my actors and crew. I don't use effects to make up for what is not there. If it's in the character, in his or her emotions, it will be on the screen."
Longtime collaborator/editor and second unit director of Wanted, DMITRI KISELEV, has worked with Bekmambetov in Russia for the last 10 years and is only just now starting to understand his friend's vision. Kiselev describes, "Timur breaks so many rules, but he is always looking for something natural, something real in a shot before he even contemplates using CG to complete it. He will create his visual effects around an existing shot."
Producer Lemley picks up: "When we were drafting the screenplay and developing the sequences, Bekmambetov would go away to his 'science lab' and come back with pre-visual sequences that illustrated exactly how he would shoot and what the focal point of each scene would be. That focus was always specific to the emotions we wanted the characters to convey and the impact those feelings would bring to the visual effects that completed the scene."
Visual effects producer Farhat adds, "He uses his pre-vis as a tool-he uses it to educate and discuss with those who are trying to capture the action, but he doesn't cripple people's visions with it.
"There is no bad idea with Bekmambetov," Farhat continues. "He knows there is more than one way to do something and he's very open to ideas, but as experienced as he is, he understands that ideas always need to be fresh."
The director has his own visual effects house in Moscow, Bazelevs (a production and postproduction/effects facility), which served as a "clearing house" for the effects created for Wanted. While not all of the effects were completed under its roof, Bazelevs maintained an overall watch on all out-of-house work.
Farhat says, "One of the biggest challenges making a film where you're using multiple facilities is keeping the continuity, the look and the style consistent all across the board. Bazelevs works not only all over Russia, but the world. The visual effects were split up among various facilities-some worked on modeling, others created texturing, others animating and so forth. So Bazelevs created this digital pipeline, a digital asset management system, where they could actually follow the progression of any shot and compare it to the progression of any other shot in a sequence or anywhere else in the movie. The separate houses really acted as one house-a virtual company."
One effect that stayed under the Bazelevs roof, however, was the creation of computer-generated stunt doubles. Even with Bekmambetov's insistence on shooting as much of the story as can be captured in the real world, there were certain things (the height of assassin mode and high-risk action sequences such as running on the roofs of moving trains) that could not be filmed-even with the help of the best stunt performers and the most advanced wire works. To complete those scenes, digital stunt doubles were created through cyber-scanning.
Think of cyber-scanning as an enormous 3-D copy machine, which rotates around the actor (for around 15 seconds) and creates a 3-D model of that person. The model is transferred to the computer in a CG mold, which then has to be "rigged" (inserting skeletal and muscular systems and texturing the exterior) and fitted with wardrobe (which has also been scanned). That rig then has to be "taught" to replicate the way the actor- and the actual stunt double-move. The result is a digital double that doesn't balk at engaging in the most life-threatening stunts imaginable.
In addition to high-end film cameras, Bekmambetov adapted a still technique for use in several sequences, particularly the "L" train chase. The director and cinematographer Admundsen employed a series of six synched 35mm cameras mounted on a special plate that could rotate 180 . The cameras' lenses angled to capture the horizontal top of the train as it drives through Chicago and overlapped frames to produce a contiguous all-around view. When seamed all together and matched with green-screen shots of the actors, the result is a scene with a cylindrical or spherical texture and a complete 180 view of the nonstop action atop the speeding "L."
Farhat concludes, "This technique really freed us up a lot. We've all seen tiled stills, where you take a series of stills and you match them end-to-end spherically, basically freezing the action and rotating the point-of-view. But in this case, we're doing it with moving footage. I'd say it was one of the toughest sequences in the show, because we're basically taking real actors and putting them in a world that doesn't really exist."
****
It might be said that creating a believable world that doesn't really exist is the specialty of Timur Bekmambetov-although he would be quick to point out that that world might bear a slight resemblance to our own, but just tweaked, skewed and heightened.
Producer Marc Platt offers, "Hopefully, audiences will enjoy the film and be marvelously entertained, but also see something original. They should have a reason to go out to the movies on a Friday night-to experience a thrill ride with great characters all under the very sure and deft hand of a truly visionary filmmaker. And that's exactly what we've done."
Angelina Jolie comments, "I think what's really cool is that with James as an action hero-he's not an obvious action movie star-but with him, it will be nice for people in the audience to actually relate to him...like, 'If that was me and I was working in my little cubicle and my life sucked, but I had skills and I didn't know what I was worth...could I do that?' James surprised me a lot. This movie will be more about Wesley's story, as opposed to him being some ideal action hero. But James represents the everyman, and that is very, very cool to see."
But how does the hero everyman feel? James McAvoy muses, "I don't see myself doing another action movie for awhile. The 14-year-old boy in me was very excited about doing Wanted and I'm very appreciative of the opportunity to play Wesley but, to be bloody honest, I didn't even have this much pain when I was 14. Maybe that's why a 14-year-old boy would be keen to do this kind of thing, you know? I really have enjoyed it, though. It was just amazing."
Timur Bekmambetov closes, "Wanted tells the story of an ordinary man who discovers this very different world...and all along this world was right next to him. Like in your neighborhood, but only two blocks away, and you never walked that way in all of your life. And one day, you walk differently and you find it. He just didn't know it was there. And now that he's there, what will he do?"
Universal Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment Present, In Association with Relativity Media, A Marc Platt/Kickstart Production, In Association with Top Cow: Wanted, starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Terence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann, Common and Angelina Jolie. The music is by Danny Elfman. The costume designer is Varya Avdyushko. The film editor is David Brenner, ACE; the production designer is John Myhre; and the director of photography is Mitchell Amundsen. The executive producers are Adam Siegel, Marc Silvestri, Roger Birnbaum and Gary Barber. The film is produced by Marc Platt, Jim Lemley, Jason Netter and Iain Smith. Wanted is based on the series of comic books by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones; the story is by Michael Brandt & Derek Haas; the screenplay is by Michael Brandt & Derek Haas and Chris Morgan. Wanted is directed by Timur Bekmambetov. (C) 2008 Universal Studios www.wantedmovie.com
"Everything they told you is a lie." -- Cross, Wanted, 2008

ABOUT THE CAST
JAMES McAVOY (Wesley Gibson) was born in the Scotstoun area of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1979 and is a graduate of the prestigious Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. In his short career, he has tested himself with a wide variety of work, on stage, television and film, and is regarded as one of the U.K.'s most exciting acting talents.
Although he cut his teeth with small parts in high-profile projects like the World War I drama Regeneration (alongside Jonathan Pryce and Dougray Scott) and the hugely successful HBO series Band of Brothers (produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg), McAvoy first came to prominence in the U.K. with the role of Josh in the Channel 4 adaptation of Zadie Smith's popular novel "White Teeth," with Geraldine James, John Simm and Naomie Harris. This brought McAvoy to the attention of Hollywood and, in 2002, he was cast as Leto Atreides II in the Emmy Award-winning massive hit miniseries Children of Dune, directed by Greg Yaitanes and co-starring Susan Sarandon and Steven Berkoff.
As McAvoy's body of work grew, the roles being offered to him grew more and more significant, and he soon found himself playing the role of Dan Foster in the BAFTA-winning BBC One political-drama series State of Play, with Bill Nighy, John Simm and Kelly Macdonald. Written by Paul Abbott and directed by David Yates, the series ran in the U.K. in autumn 2003 and on BBC America in 2004 and became one of the most successful U.K. television exports of recent years.
While impressing on the small screen, McAvoy also proved to be a hit on the big screen, when Stephen Fry's much anticipated comedy Bright Young Things was released in October 2004. The film had an all-star international cast, including Emily Mortimer, Dan Aykroyd, Peter O'Toole, Jim Broadbent, Richard E. Grant and many more. Bright Young Things was released in the U.S. in August 2005.
McAvoy's popularity in the U.K. grew with his portrayal of the car thief Steve in the BAFTA-winning Channel 4 series Shameless, which began in the U.K. in early 2004. Once again written by Paul Abbott, the series tells the story of the fortunes and misfortunes of a family living on a Manchester council estate. McAvoy was nominated in the Best Comedy Newcomer category at the 2004 British Comedy Awards for his performance.
In 2004, McAvoy took his first feature film lead role in Inside I'm Dancing (U.S. title: Rory O'Shea Was Here). Directed by Damien O'Donnell and co-starring Romola Garai, the film tells the story of Rory, a young Irishman with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, who leads his cerebral palsy-stricken friend in a fight for physical and emotional freedom. The film received great critical acclaim, with McAvoy's performance being especially noted; he received a nomination in the British Actor of the Year category at the 2005 London Film Critics' Circle Awards. The film was released in the United States in February 2005.
December of 2005 saw the long-awaited arrival of Disney's big-budget The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, filmed in New Zealand over the second half of 2004. McAvoy played Mr. Tumnus the Faun in this adaptation of the C.S. Lewis classic, directed by Andrew Adamson and co-starring Tilda Swinton. The film became a massive international success and is one of the 20 highest grossing films of all time. McAvoy won the Rising Star Award at the 2006 BAFTAs, and he was nominated in the British Actor of the Year in a Supporting Role at the 2006 London Film Critics' Circle Awards for his performance.
In the summer of 2005, James traveled to Uganda to take on the lead role in The Last King of Scotland, directed by the Oscar®-and BAFTA-winning Kevin Macdonald. The film tells the story of Nicholas Garrigan, a Scottish doctor on a Ugandan medical mission, who becomes irreversibly entangled with one of the world's most barbaric figures, Idi Amin, played by Forest Whitaker. McAvoy was nominated for a BAFTA, a European Film Award, a BIFA and a London Film Critic's Circle Award for his performance.
Upon returning to the U.K., McAvoy started work on his lead role in the adaptation of the hugely popular David Nicholls book, "Starter for 10," for HBO Films. The film was directed by Tom Vaughan and produced by Tom Hanks; McAvoy's costars included Alice Eve, Rebecca Hall, Benedict Cumberbatch and Catherine Tate. The film was released in the U.K .in October 2006 and premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival before a February 2007 U.S. release.
The actor's next project was Penelope, directed by Mark Palansky and co-starring Reese Witherspoon, Christina Ricci and Richard E. Grant. McAvoy played a man called upon to save a young woman cursed with the snout of a pig. Penelope began filming in London in February 2006 and premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival ahead of a February 2008 U.S. release.
In April 2006, the ever-busy McAvoy moved to Dublin to start work on Becoming Jane, directed by Julian Jarrold and co-starring Dame Maggie Smith and Julie Walters.
McAvoy played the brilliant and roguish Irishman Tom Lefroy, whose affair with Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) inspired her to write "Pride and Prejudice." The film was released in the U.K. in March 2007 and in the U.S. in August 2007.
From Dublin, McAvoy returned immediately to the U.K. to begin work on Atonement. An adaptation of the popular Ian McEwan novel, the movie is directed by Joe Wright and co-stars Keira Knightley, Brenda Blethyn and Romola Garai. McAvoy played Robbie Turner, a Cambridge graduate falsely accused of rape, who goes on to fight in World War II with the accusation hanging over him. Atonement had its world premiere at the 2007 Venice Film Festival ahead of the September 2007 U.K. and December 2007 U.S. releases. McAvoy received Golden Globe and BAFTA Best Actor nominations and won awards from the London Film Critics' Circle, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and the U.K. Regional Critics for the role.
In April 2008 James moved to Germany to begin filming The Last Station,a historical drama that illustrates Russian author Leo Tolstoy's struggle to balance fame and wealth with his commitment to a life devoid of material things; the film is directed by Michael Hoffman.
MORGAN FREEMAN (Sloan) won an Academy Award® in 2005 for his supporting role in Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby. Freeman is also the recipient of three additional Oscar® nominations, the first in 1987 for his chilling performance as a homicidal pimp in the drama Street Smart, which also brought him Los Angeles Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle and National Society of Film Critics awards for Best Supporting Actor, as well as an Independent Spirit Award and a Golden Globe nomination. He earned his second Oscar® nomination in 1989 for re-creating his award-winning Broadway role in Driving Miss Daisy and his third for Frank Darabont's 1994 drama The Shawshank Redemption.
Freeman's recent film credits include Luc Besson's Unleashed; Robert Redford's An Unfinished Life; Batman Begins; Lucky Number Slevin; the comedy Bruce Almighty and its sequel, Evan Almighty; Ben Affleck's Gone Baby Gone; Robert Benton's Feast of Love; the Academy Award®-winning documentary March of the Penguins, for which he provided the narration; and Rob Reiner's The Bucket List.
Among his upcoming projects are the next chapter in the Batman saga, The Dark Knight, and the crime drama The Code, both set for a 2008 release.
The Memphis-born actor began his career on New York stages in the early 1960s, following a stint as a mechanic in the air force. A decade later, he became a nationally known television personality when he created the popular character Easy Reader on the popular children's show The Electric Company. Throughout the 1970s, he continued his work on stage, winning the Drama Desk Award and the Clarence Derwent Award and receiving a Tony nomination for his outstanding performance in The Mighty Gents in 1978. He also won an Obie Award for his portrayal of Shakespearean antihero Coriolanus at the New York Shakespeare Festival.
In 1984, Freeman won another Obie for his role as The Messenger in the acclaimed Brooklyn Academy of Music production of Lee Breuer's The Gospel at Colonus and, in 1985, he won the Drama-Logue Award for the same role. The part of Hoke Colburn in Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Driving Miss Daisy, brought him a third Obie. His last stage appearance was as Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew at the New York Shakespeare Festival's Delacorte Theater with Tracey Ullman.
In 1993, Freeman made his film directorial debut with Bopha! and soon after formed Revelations Entertainment to develop entertainment products that enlighten, inspire and glorify the human experience. Its most recent production was the Brad Silberling comedy 10 Items or Less, in which Freeman starred with Paz Vega.
Freeman's earlier acting credits also include roles in Brubaker, Harry & Son, Teachers, Marie, That Was Then...This Is Now, Clean and Sober, Johnny Handsome, the multiple award-winning Glory, Chain Reaction, Kiss the Girls, Steven Spielberg's Amistad, Hard Rain, Deep Impact, Nurse Betty, Along Came a Spider, High Crimes and The Sum of All Fears.
TERENCE STAMP (Pekwarsky) was born in Bow, London. His motion picture debut was in Peter Ustinov's 1962 film adaptation of Herman Melville's "Billy Budd." Stamp's portrayal of the title character brought him not only an Academy Award® nomination, but also international attention.
After his success in Billy Budd, Stamp collaborated with some of the cinema's most revered filmmakers. He starred in William Wyler's adaptation of John Fowles' "The Collector," opposite Samantha Eggar, and in Modesty Blaise for director Joseph Losey and producer Joe Janni. Stamp reteamed with producer Janni for two more projects: John Schlesinger's adaptation of Thomas Hardy's "Far from the Madding Crowd," starring Julie Christie, and Ken Loach's first feature film, Poor Cow.
Stamp then journeyed to Italy to star in Federico Fellini's Toby Dammit, a 50minute portion of the Edgar Allan Poe film adaptation titled Spirits of the Dead. Stamp made Italy his home for several years, during which time his film work included Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema, opposite Silvana Mangano.
His subsequent film credits include Alan Cooke's The Mind of Mr. Soames; Richard Donner's Superman and Richard Lester's Superman II (as Kryptonian super villain General Zod); Peter Brook's Meetings With Remarkable Men; Stephen Frears' The Hit; Richard Franklin's Link; Ivan Reitman's Legal Eagles; Michael Cimino's The Sicilian; and Oliver Stone's Wall Street. The film Prince of Shadows, in which the actor starred for director Pilar Miró, was awarded the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Stamp began his fourth decade as an actor, wearing some of the choicest of Lizzy Gardiner and Tim Chappel's Academy Award®-winning costumes, for the comedy The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, starring with Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving for director Stephan Elliott.
In 1999, it was Stamp's lead role in Steven Soderbergh's The Limey (which debuted that year to widespread critical acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival) that once again made him popular to a whole new generation of moviegoers. For his performance, Stamp received nominations for Best Male Lead at the 2000 Independent Spirit Awards and for Best British Actor at the London Film Critics' Circle (ALFS) Awards.
Stamp can also be seen in George Lucas' global blockbuster Star Wars: Episode I -The Phantom Menace; Frank Oz's Bowfinger, opposite Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy; Red Planet, opposite Val Kilmer; the French romantic comedy My Wife Is an Actress, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg; My Boss's Daughter, opposite Ashton Kutcher; Disney's The Haunted Mansion, playing the diabolical butler Ramsley, opposite Eddie Murphy; and Elektra, playing Elektra's blind master Stick, opposite Jennifer Garner in the title role.
In 2008, Stamp will be seen in the Warner Bros. feature film remake of the famous television series Get Smart, playing Siegfried, spokesman for the infamous KAOS organization, opposite Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway. In 2009, Stamp will also star opposite Tom Cruise in Valkyrie for director Bryan Singer. The film is based on a real-life plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
Stamp recently wrapped production on Yes Man, playing opposite Jim Carrey; also for Warner Bros., the film is due out later this year.
In addition to his acting career, Stamp is an accomplished writer and author. He has published three volumes of his memoirs, including "Stamp Album" (written in tribute to his late mother), a novel titled "The Night" and a cookbook co-written with Elizabeth Buxton to provide alternatives to those who are wheat and dairy-intolerant.
THOMAS KRETSCHMANN (Cross) was born in a no-man's-land-a piece of land that has switched hands over the last 50 years...first Germany, then Poland, then Russia. In East Germany, where he trained as a teen to be an Olympic swimmer, he set numerous international swimming records, but instead he decided to pursue an acting career. At 20 years old, he was able to escape by foot through Hungary, Yugoslavia and Austria to West Berlin to begin a new life without the regimentation of communism- where he received political asylum. After three years of odd jobs and acting classes, he was invited to be a member of the Schillertheater (Germany's equivalent of England's Royal Shakespeare Company).
In 1991, he made his film debut in Der Mitwisser, which earned him Germany's prestigious Max Ophüls Prize as Best Up-and-Coming Actor for his performance. When he appeared in the World War II epic Stalingrad (made by the producers of Das Boot), his performance launched him into the international limelight. He went on to star in Queen Margot, Marching in Darkness, Dario Argento's The Stendhal Syndrome and Prince Valiant, to name a few of his more internationally known credits. American audiences were introduced to Kretschmann in Universal's U-571, directed by Jonathan Mostow. He then went on to star in Blade II, directed by Guillermo del Toro. He starred opposite Adrien Brody in the Oscar®-winning film The Pianist, directed by Roman Polanski. Peter Jackson's King Kong followed, as well as Lee Tamahori's Next.
Although Kretschmann has done limited television work, he did portray the title role in the telefilm Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II.
Kretschmann will next be seen in The Young Victoria, opposite Emily Blunt. He just wrapped shooting in Germany in the upcoming Tom Cruise film Valkyrie.
Kretschmann makes his home in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.
In 2006, the Grammy Award-winning artist COMMON (The Gunsmith) made his big screen debut as a musical performer in Dave Chappelle's Block Party. In January 2007, he made his acting debut co-starring opposite Jeremy Piven, Ben Affleck, Alicia Keys and Ryan Reynolds in Smokin' Aces for Universal Pictures and writer/director Joe Carnahan. In November 2007, he co-starred opposite Denzel Washington in American Gangster, directed by Ridley Scott. His most recent motion picture work was seen in David Ayer's Street Kings, starring Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker.
Prior to acting, Common rose to prominence as one of hip-hop's most poetic and respected lyricists, having recorded more than six albums: "Can I Borrow a Dollar?," "Resurrection," "One Day It'll All Make Sense," "Like Water for Chocolate" and "Electric Circus." In 2004, he partnered with Chicago native and rap music megastar Kanye West to produce "Be," which went on to garner four Grammy Award nominations. In July 2006, his video for the single "Testify" was nominated for two MTV Video Music Awards, including Best Hip-Hop Video.
On July 31, 2007, Common released his critically acclaimed seventh album, "Finding Forever;" it debuted at no. 1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart and went on to earn a Grammy. He's recently wrapped production on his latest album, "Invincible Summer," slated for a June 2008 release date.
In the last year, Common's launched his Soji hat line and the Common Ground Foundation, which gives back and allows our youth to realize their full potential. The Foundation is dedicated to the empowerment and development of urban youth in the United States.
Additionally, Common offers a younger generation a better understanding of self-respect and love, using the cultural relevance of hip-hop in the children's books he has written. The first one, titled "The Mirror and Me," teaches lessons of life, the human spirit and human nature. His follow-up book, "I Like You but I Love Me," was nominated for an NAACP Image Award; his third book, "M.E. (Mixed Emotions)," was recently released.
Academy Award® and three-time Golden Globe winner ANGELINA JOLIE (Fox) continues to be one of Hollywood's most talented leading actresses. Jolie's most recently released films were Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf and Michael Winterbottom's critically acclaimed A Mighty Heart, the dramatic true story of Mariane and Daniel Pearl. Jolie's performance in A Mighty Heart earned her nominations from the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, Broadcast Film Critics and Film Independent's Spirit Awards.
She recently completed filming Clint Eastwood's Changeling and was heard as the voice of Tigress in DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda, opposite Jack Black. Upcoming films include the long-awaited adaptation of Ayn Rand's seminal novel "Atlas Shrugged," to be directed by Vadim Perelman.
Jolie's previous films include The Good Shepherd, directed by Robert De Niro and co-starring Matt Damon; Mr. & Mrs. Smith, co-starring Brad Pitt; Alexander, directed by Oliver Stone and co-starring Colin Farrell and Anthony Hopkins; and the action/adventure Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, with Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. She lent her voice to the animated feature Shark Tale, directed by the creators of Shrek, which also featured the voices of Will Smith, Robert De Niro and Jack Black. Jolie also starred in the Warner Bros. thriller Taking Lives, also with Ethan Hawke. In 2003, she played the lead role in the action/adventure Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, the sequel to the 2001 box-office smash Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and portrayed a relief worker for the United Nations in the provocative drama Beyond Borders.
In 2001, she starred in director Simon West's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Original Sin, opposite Antonio Banderas for Gia writer/director Michael Cristofer. The previous year, she was seen along with co-stars Nicolas Cage and Robert Duvall as car thieves committing their final heist in the smash hit Gone in Sixty Seconds for producer Jerry Bruckheimer. She was also in the romantic comedy Life or Something Like It. Jolie's portrayal of a mental patient in Girl, Interrupted garnered her an Academy Award®, her third Golden Globe Award, a Broadcast Film Critics Award, ShoWest's Supporting Actress of the Year Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film, based on the true story by Susanna Kaysen, was directed by James Mangold and co-starred Winona Ryder.
Prior to that, she played a rookie police officer opposite Denzel Washington's veteran detective in the thriller The Bone Collector, directed by Phillip Noyce. She also co-starred in Mike Newell's Pushing Tin with Billy Bob Thornton and John Cusack. Playing by Heart earned her the National Board of Review's award for Breakthrough Performance; this character-driven drama, directed by Willard Carroll, featured an all-star ensemble cast, including Sean Connery, Gena Rowlands, Madeleine Stowe, Ellen Burstyn, Gillian Anderson and Dennis Quaid.
The HBO film Gia earned Jolie critical praise as well as a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of supermodel Gia Carangi, who died of AIDS. Jolie also received an Emmy nomination for her role opposite Gary Sinise in director John Frankenheimer's George Wallace, a period epic for TNT about the controversial governor from Alabama. The film earned Jolie her first Golden Globe Award and a CableACE nomination for her portrayal of George Wallace's second wife, Cornelia.
Jolie also co-starred with David Duchovny and Timothy Hutton in director Andy Wilson's Playing God. Prior to that, she starred in Hallmark Hall of Fame's four-hour miniseries presentation True Women; directed by Karen Arthur, it was based on Janice Woods Windle's best-selling historical novel. Jolie also starred in Annette Haywood-Carter's much-acclaimed Foxfire and Iain Softley's Hackers.
A member of the famed MET Theatre Ensemble Workshop, Jolie trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and has also studied with Jan Tarrant in New York and Silvana Gallardo in Los Angeles.
Jolie has also received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. She was the first recipient of the Citizen of the World Award from the United Nations Correspondents Association, as well as the Global Humanitarian Award in 2005. In February 2007, Jolie was accepted by the bipartisan think tank Council on Foreign Relations for a special five-year term designed to nurture the next generation of foreign policy makers.
Jolie is also a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She helped push through the Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act and founded the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children, an organization that provides free legal aid to asylum-seeking children.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
Kazakhstan-born writer/director TIMUR BEKMAMBETOV (Directed by) cowrote and directed the highest grossing film of all time in Russian cinema: 2006's Day Watch, the follow-up to his explosive 2004 international hit Night Watch, the fantasy/ thriller he also wrote with Sergei Lukyanenko.
Before he became a filmmaker, Bekmambetov studied at the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. He went on to graduate from the A.N. Ostrovsky Institute of Theatre Arts in Tashkent in 1987 with a degree in theater and cinema set designing.
After several years in the military, Bekmambetov began working in the field of advertising. For the next 15 years, he created and directed many award-winning television campaigns that would influence his distinct vision for film. Many of the ads received prizes and awards at both Russian and international festivals. In 2000, he became a member of the Russian Academy of Advertising.
Bekmambetov's film career began in 1992, when he collaborated with Gennadi Kayumov to write and direct Peshavar Waltz. The film was awarded with prizes for both Best Director and Best Cast at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic.
In 1999, the filmmaker produced and directed an eight-part miniseries for television, Our '90s. In 2000, he directed and co-produced (with Roger Corman) the feature The Arena. In 2002, Bekmambetov directed and co-produced (with Bakhyt Kilibayev) the film GAZ-Russian Cars.
Bekmambetov is currently producing the animated feature 9 for Focus Features. He also recently partnered with Universal to produce and distribute Russian-language feature films.
Writers MICHAEL BRANDT & DEREK HAAS (Story by/Screenplay by) are the force behind such engaging, fast-paced, colorful screenplays as 2003's blockbuster 2 Fast 2 Furious.
Most recently, Brandt and Haas wrote the remake 3:10 to Yuma, starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. The film is about a battle of wills between a rancher and the outlaw he's captured. Directed by James Mangold, the Lionsgate release opened no. 1 at the box office on September 7, 2007.
Brandt and Haas first met at Baylor University in 1989, where they attended both undergraduate and graduate school. At Baylor, Brandt received an MA in film and Haas graduated with an MA in English literature. The duo started writing screenplays together in the mid-1990s.
Their first produced work, Universal's 2 Fast 2 Furious, has amassed more than $236 million in worldwide box office. Brandt and Haas followed up with the children's film Catch That Kid for 20th Century Fox, starring Kristen Stewart and Corbin Bleu.
In addition to their thriving writing partnership, Brandt has recently been hired to direct his first feature film, Countdown (based on the Richard Matheson short story "Death Ship"), with Haas producing. Haas' first novel, "The Silver Bear," a thriller centered on the life of an assassin, will be published by Pegasus Books (distributed by Norton) in July of 2008.
CHRIS MORGAN (Screenplay by) was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He started screenwriting in college and his first produced credit was 2004's thriller Cellular, starring Kim Basinger. Morgan followed this up by penning Universal's high-octane actioner The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.
Morgan's latest project, Universal's Fast & Furious, reunites Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez and is currently shooting in Los Angeles.
Between keystrokes, Chris enjoys spending time with his two daughters, Maya and Chloe, and wife, Michelle.
MARK MILLAR (Based on the Series of Comic Books by) has written some of the most successful English-language comics of the last few years and has, for six years running, been the best-selling British writer working in America. His current projects are "Ultimates 2" with artist Bryan Hitch; "Ultimate Fantastic Four" with artist Greg Land; and "Marvel Civil War" with artist Steve McNiven. "Civil War" has been Marvel's bestselling series in over a decade and was featured on everything from CNN to MTV in June 2006, for the public unmasking of Spider-Man. Millar is also a senior writer/story consultant at Marvel Entertainment in New York and the creator of his independent Millarworld line of books. Millarworld was launched in 2004 as a means of generating new, creator-owned properties for comics, television and movies. The first of these titles was "Wanted."
Millar was born in Coatbridge, Scotland, on December 24, 1969. Growing up, he was into all the same time-wasting pursuits you were into and so, when the opportunity arose, he dropped out of university in the final year of his degree and became a full-time writer. After stints at 2000AD and DC Comics and a brief foray into British television, Millar's first real success was "The Authority" for Wildstorm Productions and a subsequent string of hits at Marvel. These started with the creation of "Ultimate X-Men" and "The Ultimates," before being followed by "Marvel Knights Spider-Man," "Ultimate Fantastic Four," "Wolverine" and "Civil War." Outside of Marvel, he created the bestselling "Superman: Red Son" graphic novel, "Wanted," "Chosen" and "The Unfunnies." The most recent wave of Millarworld books launched in February 2008 with "Kick-Ass," "the most violent comic in the history of the human race," where Millar reteams with John Romita, Jr., the artist on his smash-hit "Wolverine" run and co-creator of Frank Miller's "Daredevil: Man Without Fear."
He is currently writing two major superhero screenplays and acting as an executive producer on one of his creator-owned properties. In his downtime, he writes a monthly Millarworld column for his friends at SFX magazine and occasional pieces for a variety of British newspapers and magazines. He lives with his wife, Gillian, his small daughter, Emily, and a menagerie of pets, including two rabbits, two guinea pigs, a hamster and two goldfish. He has no plans on leaving Scotland ever, though he does like to travel and top up his tan.
J.G. JONES (Based on the Series of Comic Books by) does not like you. He has never liked you, and it wasn't he who sent that anonymous valentine card and rose. He wants you to stop throwing rocks at his window and stop calling and hanging up. Oh, and stay away from the basement, too.
Jones got a late start in comics after a career as a famous painter failed to materialize. He has always drawn pictures, beginning with the little-used medium of screwdriver on car door. Comics were just the first time folks were willing to pay cash money for his scribblings.
Jones has worked on titles such as "Shi," "Black Widow," "Marvel Boy" and "Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia," as well as the most recent special hardcover edition of "Wanted." He has also drawn and painted any number of covers, with extended runs as cover artist for "Codename: Knockout," "Y: The Last Man," "Wonder Woman" and the DC Comics weekly series, "52."
Jones grew up in Louisiana, where he learned survival techniques which translated poorly to life in and around New York City-in fact, some of these techniques can get you arrested. FYI.
Now a resident of the great state of New Jersey, Jones wants you to know that the Internet is not your savior, but, if you like, you can leave a message.
MARC PLATT (Produced by) is an independent producer whose company, Marc Platt Productions, produces feature films, television and theater.
Among the films Platt has produced are the smash hits Legally Blonde and Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, starring Reese Witherspoon (both of which have each grossed more than $150 million worldwide); Honey; Josie and the Pussycats; The Perfect Man; and The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising.
Also being released this year (in addition to Wanted) is Rachel Getting Married, for Sony Classics, which reunites Platt with Oscar®-winning director Jonathan Demme on the film starring Anne Hathaway and Debra Winger. Platt's upcoming film projects include Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, directed by Edgar Wright and starring Michael Cera, and Nine, with Rob Marshall directing.
Platt produced Broadway's blockbuster hit musical Wicked, which now has companies on Broadway, in London, Chicago, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Stuttgart, and on tour throughout the U.S., with new companies opening shortly in Australia and Holland. Platt also produced the Broadway debut of Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg's play Three Days of Rain, starring Julia Roberts, Paul Rudd and Bradley Cooper and directed by two-time Tony Award winner Joe Mantello. Additionally, Platt produced Matthew Bourne's ballet Edward Scissorhands, a smash hit in London, Asia and the U.S., for which Platt won his second Drama Desk Award.
Platt won the Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries for Empire Falls, starring Ed Harris, Helen Hunt, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Platt also executive-produced Once Upon a Mattress (ABC), starring Carol Burnett and Tracey Ullman and the Emmy Award-winning miniseries The Path to 9/11 (ABC).
Prior to establishing his production company, Platt served as president of production for three movie studios (Orion, TriStar and Universal). During his tenure as a studio president, Platt developed and guided the production of such films as The Silence of the Lambs; Sleepless in Seattle; Philadelphia; Rudy; As Good As It Gets; My Best Friend's Wedding; Jerry Maguire; American Pie; Out of Sight; October Sky; and The Mummy.
Platt is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and The Broadway League (formerly the League of American Theatres and Producers).
JIM LEMLEY (Produced by) is currently collaborating with fellow producers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov on the postapocalyptic animated epic 9, directed by Shane Acker and featuring the voices of Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly, for Focus Features.
Most recently, Lemley executive-produced the multiple Oscar®-nominated The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Based on the memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby, the film is directed by Julian Schnabel.
Lemley established his career at Icon Productions, working on such titles as Maverick, Immortal Beloved, Braveheart, 187, Anna Karenina and Payback. Lemley finished his decade-long collaboration with Mel Gibson in 2002 as executive producer on the Randall Wallace-directed We Were Soldiers.
Lemley's first move into independent production was the medieval romance Tristan + Isolde, which he executive-produced with Ridley and Tony Scott for 20th Century Fox. Lemley next partnered with Bonnie Curtis in 2004 to executive-produce Red Eye, directed by Wes Craven and starring Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy, for DreamWorks.
His upcoming projects include God Mode for Focus and The Red Star for Universal, both projects with Timur Bekmambetov directing; Vamped with producer Mindy Marin, to be directed by Kevin Reynolds; and the comedy Slanted and Enchanted with Chris Columbus' 1942 Productions and Warner Bros.
Kickstart Productions' founder JASON NETTER (Produced by) established the company in 1999 as a live-action and animation production company, one of the select few that has an experienced production background in all entertainment media. Kickstart has over 30 projects in active development, in addition to projects already set up with studios and networks.
With Netter as producer, Kickstart is currently in development on numerous motion pictures: The Red Star at Universal, Battle Chasers at Fox, Robotech at Warner Bros., The Boys at Sony, Major Bummer with John Wells Productions and The Couriers at Intrepid.
The company's slate of Netter-produced television properties includes Johnny Dynamite at NBC, The Preacher at HBO, Ms. Tree at Oxygen, the animated series The Pro at Spike and a telefilm for Nickelodeon titled Snowed. Kickstart/Netter's recently completed projects include the 22-episode series Painkiller Jane for the Sci Fi Channel; the ABC Family pilot/telefilm Nobody; the animated shorts series Happy Monster Band, just picked up for a second season on the Disney Channel; and the animated telefilm The Amazing Screw-On Head, also for Sci Fi. Kickstart is also currently in production on the animated TV series Wolverine & the X-Men for Nicktoons, Happily N'Ever After 2 for Lionsgate and the animated series Brave for Cartoon Network Europe.
IAIN SMITH (Produced by) was born in Glasgow in 1949 and graduated from the London Film School in 1971. He worked in London for several years before returning to his native Scotland to make My Childhood for the British Film Institute, the first of the award-winning trilogy by the late Bill Douglas.
He formed his own production company in partnership with Jon Schorstein and produced television commercials, documentaries, children's feature films and low budget dramas, and in 1978 managed the production of Bertrand Tavernier's Death Watch, starring Romy Schneider and Harvey Keitel. A year later he joined David Puttnam and Hugh Hudson to make Chariots of Fire, starring Ian Charleson and Ben Cross.
He went on to line-produce a variety of films for David Puttnam, including Bill Forsyth's Local Hero, starring Burt Lancaster and Peter Riegert; Roland Joffé's The Killing Fields, starring Sam Waterston and Dr. Haing S. Ngor; and Roland Joffé's The Mission, starring Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons. He also produced Brian Gilbert's The Frog Prince.
In 1987 he formed Applecross Productions and went on to co-produce Richard Marquand's Hearts of Fire, starring Bob Dylan and Rupert Everett, followed by Michael Austin's Killing Dad. In 1991, he co-produced Roland Joffé's City of Joy, starring Patrick Swayze and Pauline Collins, and in 1992 executive produced Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise, starring Gérard Depardieu and Sigourney Weaver.
In 1994, Smith co-produced Stephen Frears' Mary Reilly, starring Julia Roberts, followed by Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, starring Bruce Willis, which was produced by his company, Zaltman Films Ltd., for Gaumont. He then produced Jean-Jacques Annaud's Seven Years in Tibet (starring Brad Pitt) for Columbia Pictures, followed by Jon Amiel's Entrapment (starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones) for 20th Century Fox.
Following this, Smith executive-produced Spy Game for Universal Pictures and Beacon Communications, which starred Robert Redford and Brad Pitt and was directed by Tony Scott. He then executive-produced Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain, starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellweger, and produced Oliver Stone's sweeping Alexander, starring Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie and Anthony Hopkins. He subsequently produced Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain for New Regency/Warner Bros., starring Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz and Ellen Burstyn. He most recently produced Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men for Strike Entertainment and Universal Pictures.
Iain Smith is a board member of the UK Film Council and Creative Scotland. He has served on the Scottish Film Council, the Scottish Film Production Fund and the Scottish Film Training Trust and as a governor of the National Film and Television School. He is currently chair of the Film Skills Strategy Committee, deputy chairman of the British Advisory Group and a director of the Children's Film and Television Foundation.
In 2005, he was awarded a BAFTA Scotland for Outstanding Achievement in Film.
MARC SILVESTRI (Executive Producer) is the co-founder and CEO of Image Comics, Inc. and the founder and CEO of Top Cow Productions, Inc., which publishes Mark Millar and J.G. Jones' "Wanted" miniseries (on which the movie is based).
Silvestri is one of the top-selling comic book artists today, with a career spanning more than 20 years. He co-created Top Cow flagship properties "Witchblade" and "The Darkness," along with other fan favorite titles, such as "Cyberforce" and "Hunter-Killer;" he's also worked on "Uncanny X-Men," "Fantastic Four" and "Wolverine" for Marvel Comics.
Silvestri is also well known for spotting raw talent in artists and mentoring them until they achieve top status in the industry. These include Michael Turner ("Fathom"), Dave Finch ("New Avengers"), Billy Tan ("Uncanny X-Men"), Joe Benitez ("Supergirl"), Brandon Peterson ("Ultimate X-Men") and Michael Choi ("X-23: Target X").
Silvestri currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Bridget.
ADAM SIEGEL (Executive Producer), president of Marc Platt Productions, joined the company in 2000 after graduating from Connecticut's prestigious Wesleyan University. He was promoted to president of the company in 2006.
Upcoming Marc Platt Productions motion picture projects on which Siegel will serve as executive producer include Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) and starring Michael Cera (Juno, Superbad), and Drive, with Hugh Jackman attached to star and produce. In Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Scott (Cera) must defeat his new girlfriend's seven evil ex-boyfriends in battle. Drive follows a Hollywood stunt performer (Jackman) who moonlights as a wheelman and discovers that a contract has been put out on him.
ROGER BIRNBAUM (Executive Producer) founded the production, finance and distribution company Spyglass Entertainment with partner Gary Barber, where they share the title of co-Chairman and CEO. The company develops and finances all of its projects independently.
Spyglass Entertainment's box-office successes range from The Sixth Sense, with Bruce Willis, which earned $661 million in worldwide box office, to the smash hit Bruce Almighty, starring Jim Carrey, which earned $485 million. Also included in the Spyglass library are Oscar®-nominated favorites such as Seabiscuit with Tobey Maguire and The Insider with Russell Crowe and Al Pacino. In total, Spyglass has accumulated more than 26 Oscar® nominations, including three wins. Other company successes include The Count of Monte Cristo with Jim Caviezel and Guy Pearce; Keeping the Faith with Ben Stiller and Edward Norton; the dual hits Shanghai Noon and its sequel, Shanghai Knights, with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson; The Recruit with Al Pacino and Colin Farrell; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with Sam Rockwell and Mos Def; and the smash family film The Pacifier with Vin Diesel.
Spyglass also co-financed and executive-produced The Legend of Zorro, the sequel to The Mask of Zorro with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Antonio Banderas and directed by Martin Campbell, and Memoirs of a Geisha, the adaptation of the best-selling novel, directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago). Both films were released internationally by Spyglass and have each grossed more than $150 million dollars in worldwide box office to date. Memoirs of a Geisha drew numerous kudos and awards, culminating in three Academy Awards®.
In 2006, Birnbaum co-financed and produced the action adventure Eight Below, based on the true survival story about a group of sled dogs in Antarctica. The film had strong legs at the box office, with earnings over $120 million worldwide. Spyglass also produced and financed the crime thriller The Lookout, helmed by acclaimed writer-turned first-time-director Scott Frank. In the summer of 2007, Spyglass saw the releases of Evan Almighty, the comedy follow-up to Bruce Almighty, and Underdog, the live-action feature with Walt Disney Pictures, based on the beloved cartoon series.
In 2008, Spyglass is co-financed a bountiful roster of films, including the hugely successful 27 Dresses with Katherine Heigl, which Birnbaum produced; The Ruins,a horror/thriller in association with DreamWorks; M. Night Shyamalan's latest, The Happening, a paranoid thriller; and The Love Guru, a comedy co-written by and starring Mike Myers with Justin Timberlake and Jessica Alba. Spyglass is currently in postproduction on the holiday comedy Four Christmases, starring Oscar® winner Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn, which New Line has slated for release at the end of this year.
Prior to founding Spyglass Entertainment, Birnbaum co-founded Caravan Pictures, where he was responsible for such box office hits as Rush Hour, Six Days Seven Nights, Inspector Gadget, Grosse Pointe Blank, The Three Musketeers, Angels in the Outfield and While You Were Sleeping.
Before joining Caravan, Birnbaum held the title of president of Worldwide Production and executive vice president of 20th Century Fox, where he developed such films as Home Alone, Sleeping with the Enemy, Edward Scissorhands, Hot Shots!, My Cousin Vinny, The Last of the Mohicans, Die Hard 2 and Mrs. Doubtfire, among others. Prior to that, Birnbaum served as president of production for United Artists, where he developed the Oscar®-winning film and all-time cinema favorite Rain Man.
Earlier in his career, he produced The Sure Thing, directed by Rob Reiner, and Young Sherlock Holmes, which were presented in association with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment. For television, he executive-produced the telefilms Scandal Sheet, Happily Ever After, When Your Lover Leaves and the award-winning All the Kids Do It.
Born in Teaneck, New Jersey, and educated at the University of Denver, Birnbaum built a successful career as vice president of A&M Records and Arista Records before entering the film business to produce motion pictures. He is currently co-artistic director of the AFI Conservatory and serves on the advisory board for UCSB at the Center for Film, Television, and New Media. He is also a mentor to the USC Peter Stark Producing Program, as well as the UCLA Graduate Film Program.
GARY BARBER (Executive Producer) founded the production, finance and distribution company Spyglass Entertainment with partner Roger Birnbaum, where he serves as co-chairman and CEO.
The company's savvy production choices from the beginning led to the phenomenal box-office success of The Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis, which went on to gross more than $661 million worldwide and garnered six Academy Award® nominations. Further successes include The Count of Monte Cristo with Jim Caviezel and Guy Pearce; Keeping the Faith with Ben Stiller and Edward Norton; Shanghai Noon with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson and its sequel, Shanghai Knights; and the dynamic teaming of Al Pacino and Colin Farrell in The Recruit.
Barber executive-produced and co-financed two milestone movies: Bruce Almighty, starring Jim Carrey and Jennifer Aniston, which grossed over $485 million in worldwide box office and is considered one of the blockbuster comedies of all time, and Seabiscuit, the tale of a legendary racehorse, starring Tobey Maguire, Chris Cooper and Jeff Bridges, which received seven Oscar® nominations with its moving story of triumph over adversity.
Barber went on to produce The Pacifier and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The Pacifier, a family comedy starring Vin Diesel, earned approximately $200 million in worldwide box office, while The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, an adaptation of the Douglas Adams best seller, crossed the $100 million mark globally.
Spyglass also co-financed and Gary Barber executive-produced The Legend of Zorro, the sequel to the 1998 smash hit The Mask of Zorro, with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Antonio Banderas and directed by Martin Campbell, and Memoirs of a Geisha, based on the best-selling novel, helmed by Rob Marshall (Chicago) and starring Ziyi Zhang and Ken Watanabe. Memoirs of a Geisha earned Spyglass three Oscar® wins out of six nominations, bringing a total of 26 nominations to the company.
2006's successful Walt Disney Pictures' Eight Below was co-financed by Spyglass and executive-produced by Barber. In 2007, Spyglass produced and financed the releases of The Invisible and The Lookout (through Miramax Films and Touchstone Pictures, respectively). Last summer, Spyglass saw the releases of Evan Almighty, the comedy follow-up to Bruce Almighty, and Underdog, Walt Disney Pictures' live-action feature of the beloved classic cartoon series star.
This year is revving up to be a prolific year for Spyglass, with the out-of-the-gate winning release of 27 Dresses, which Barber produced and Spyglass co-financed, which was followed by the release of The Ruins, a horror/thriller in association with DreamWorks. Summer 2008 brought to theaters two major Spyglass releases (in addition to Wanted): M. Night Shyamalan's latest, The Happening, a paranoid thriller released by Sony, and The Love Guru, the latest comedy co-written by and starring Mike Myers, with Justin Timberlake and Jessica Alba co-starring. In the fall or winter, Spyglass will release the Barber-produced Flash of Genius, a drama based on a true story spanning three decades. Spyglass is currently in postproduction on Four Christmases, starring Oscar® winner Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn.
A seasoned veteran of the business, Barber has been directly responsible for operating companies in feature film production and distribution, foreign theatrical, video and TV distribution, exhibition, prerecorded music and music publishing. He was responsible for building these companies from the ground up.
Barber is a former vice chairman and chief operating officer of Morgan Creek Productions. During his eight and a half years at the company, he was in charge of all day-to-day operations for each of Morgan Creek's business entities, including feature film production, foreign distribution, music, exhibition and interactive.
Gary Barber has produced or executive-produced more than 60 feature films and television shows, including the 1994 hit that rocketed Jim Carrey to stardom, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and its highly successful sequel, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, as well as the 1991 blockbuster Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner.
MITCHELL AMUNDSEN (Director of Photography) has worked for director Michael Bay consistently since his debut film, The Rock, in 1996, having recently photographed the runaway blockbuster Transformers for the director. He most recently served as director of photography on the sleeper-hit 3-D documentary Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert.
Amundsen was the cinematographer on Luc Besson's Transporter 2, starring Jason Statham and Alessandro Gassman, and also worked on Martin Scorsese's recent documentary on the Rolling Stones, Shine a Light, as one of a select group of top cinematographers (which also includes Robert Richardson, Stuart Dryburgh, Robert Elswit, Tony C. Jannelli, Ellen Kuras, Andrew Lesnie, Emmanuel Lubezki, Anastas N. Michos and Declan Quinn) asked to shoot concert footage of the band's "A Bigger Bang" tour.
Amundsen has worked as one of the leading camera operators in motion pictures, television, commercials and videos for more than 15 years. Some of his credits as director of photography for second unit include Mission: Impossible III, Eight Below, The Dukes of Hazzard, National Treasure, The Bourne Supremacy, Seabiscuit, Bad Boys II, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Pearl Harbor, to name a few. Prior to that, he served as camera operator on numerous Hollywood hits, including Armageddon, Conspiracy Theory and In the Line of Fire.
JOHN MYHRE (Production Designer) won his second Academy Award® for his re-creation of early and mid-20th-century Japan in Rob Marshall's Memoirs of a Geisha. Myhre won his first Oscar® for his work on the award-winning screen version of the musical Chicago, in which Myhre perfectly captured the jazz era of 1920s Chicago while adding a touch of glitz and glamour for the unforgettable musical numbers. One of the most honored and successful movie musicals of all time, Chicago marked Myhre's first collaboration with director Rob Marshall.
Most recently, Myhre's work on the hugely successful film adaptation of the legendary Broadway musical Dreamgirls netted him his fourth Academy Award® nomination. The production designer received his first Oscar® nomination in 1999 for his depiction of 16th-century England in Shekhar Kapur's award-winning historical epic Elizabeth, starring Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I. Myhre also garnered BAFTA award nominations and was honored by his peers with Art Directors Guild Award nominations for Memoirs of a Geisha, Chicago and Elizabeth, winning the ADGA for Memoirs and scoring yet another ADGA nomination for Dreamgirls.
Myhre's other film credits include the hit comedy The Haunted Mansion, starring Eddie Murphy; Michael Mann's acclaimed biopic Ali, starring Will Smith; and Bryan Singer's blockbuster action film X-Men, to name a few.
For his production design for the hit television special Tony Bennett: An American Classic, Myhre was awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Art Direction for a Variety, Music or Nonfiction Programming (shared with Tomas Voth and Barbara Cassel).
The production designer recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Camerimage Film Festival and was named 2006 Production Designer of the Year by the Hollywood Film Festival.
DAVID BRENNER, ACE (Editor) is an Academy Award®-winning editor who has collaborated with directors as diverse as Oliver Stone, Adrian Lyne and Roland Emmerich. Brenner first met Timur Bekmambetov in 2005 when he consulted on the
U.S. release of Night Watch.
Most recently, Brenner edited World Trade Center for director Oliver Stone. His longtime collaboration with Stone earned him the Academy Award® in 1990 for Best Film Editing on Born on the Fourth of July. During this period, he also edited a series of other notable films for Stone, including The Doors, Heaven and Earth and Talk Radio. He also served as additional editor on Stone's earlier films Wall Street, Platoon and Salvador.
Brenner is also a frequent collaborator with Roland Emmerich, whose Independence Day won him the International Press Academy's Golden Satellite Award for Outstanding Film Editing. He also edited Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow and The Patriot.
Brenner has also worked with Adrian Lyne, for whom he cut Lolita and Unfaithful (serving as additional editor on the latter). He edited two films for James Mangold, Identity and Kate & Leopold, and also worked with Vincent Ward on What Dreams May Come, James Foley on Fear, Curtis Hanson on The River Wild and Irwin Winkler on Night and the City.
VARYA AVDYUSHKO (Costume Designer) has previously collaborated with director Timur Bekmambetov on four projects: the Russian box-office record-setting and international hit Day Watch, chosen as Official Selection of the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival; the explosive hit Night Watch, also an Official Selection at Berlin (2005); The Arena, starring Karen McDougal, Lisa Dergan and Olga Sutulova; and the Channel One Russia film Irony of Fate 30 Years Later.
Avdyushko has made a reputation for herself in Russian cinema by her hyperrealistic costuming, customarily culled from a variety of period-authentic sources, including secondhand stores and flea markets in such cities as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Paris and London, and in Jamaica. Her philosophy is that costumes are not about fabric, cut and pattern, but rather about plot and character; she adheres to this by eschewing cheap imitation and instead seeking out real, true-to-life clothing.
DANNY ELFMAN (Music by) is one of the movie world's most versatile, prolific and successful contemporary composers. Nominated for the Academy Award® for his original scores for Good Will Hunting, Men in Black and Big Fish, he is perhaps best known for his collaboration with director Tim Burton on 13 films, including Peewee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman (for which he won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental and a nomination for Best Score), Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (another Grammy nomination for Best
Score), Mars Attacks!, Sleepy Hollow, Planet of the Apes, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride.
Elfman wrote an original score for the Oscar®-winning film Chicago and scored the worldwide box-office smashes Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2. His other credits include Hulk, Red Dragon, Men in Black II, Proof of Life, The Family Man, A Simple Plan, Dolores Claiborne and the Grammy-nominated Dick Tracy, as well as Darkman, Sommersby, Dead Presidents, Black Beauty, To Die For and Mission: Impossible.
Elfman recently composed the scores for The Kingdom, Nacho Libre, Charlotte's Web, Deep Sea 3D and Meet the Robinsons and is scoring the upcoming films Hellboy II: The Golden Army and The Sixth Element.
-wanted-