Scarlett Johansson's Holiday: Obama Reelection, Extended Nap

Stars, they're similar to us! They are able to make Christmas lists and supply those to Santa Claus red-colored-colored-carpet reporters. Speaking with Hollywood Existence round the red-colored-colored carpet for your premiere of 'We Bought a Zoo' in Manhattan on Monday, Scarlett Johansson revealed what sherrrd like most this holidays: four more years for Obama. Also, some sleep. "I am hoping 2012 brings a reelection for Leader Obama," she mentioned. "Which year I've many userful stuff here about persistence and tolerance." On her holiday plans, Johansson told Hollywood Existence they wanted to relaxation until after New Year's Day. "I'm searching toward a extended winter's nap!" Noted! Johansson might be noticed in 'We Bought a Zoo' this Christmas. [via Hollywood Existence] [Photo: Getty] Scarlett Johansson in Pictures See All Moviefone Galleries » Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook

Antonio Banderas Code-Named 'Zorro' by Secret Service Agents During Obama's L.A. Visit

Multimillionaire Mitt Romney is again being accused of being out of touch with middle-class America after Saturday night's televised GOP debate in Iowa.our editor recommendsHollywood Stays Away as Mitt Romney Raises More Than $1 Million in Beverly Hills Rick Perry Presents Top 10 List on 'Late Show' in Wake of Debate 'Oops' (Video)Mitt Romney's 2007 'Meet the Press' Appearance Provides Fodder for Newt Gingrich Campaign (Video)Related Topics•Politics After rival Rick Perry claimed Romney had supported national healthcare reform in a passage in his book, No Apology, that had been removed in the paperback edition, Romney fired back. He brought in healthcare reform to Massachusetts as governor -- similar to President Barack Obama's national healthcare proposal -- but he denies ever saying his healthcare plan in one state could work nationwide. "Rick, I'll tell you what: $10,000 bucks? Ten thousand bet?" Romney said, extending his hand to shake on the bet. Perry paused before responding, "I'm not in the betting business, but I will show you the book." The bet became a huge topic online almost instantly. Within an hour, the Twitter hashtag #what10Kbuys, which had been started by the Democratic National Committee, was trending across the globe, according to ABC News. Meanwhile, pundits weighed in after the debate, and opted to focus more on Romney's audacity to wager such a nominal figure as opposed to the content of the bet itself. "For someone to go and throw around a $10,000 bet, just goes to show even more that he's not the same level as the people of Iowa or the country," Alice Stewart, a spokeswoman for another candidate, Michele Bachmann, told ABC. Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney's press spokesman, said the former Massachusetts governor was only trying to make a point, not make a serious bet. "I've made bets with friends and family for one million," Fehrnstrom said. He added that Romney only made the bet to prove that Perry wouldn't take it, saying, "This guy was wrong. It was a phony allegation." After Romney attempted to make the wager, his offhanded remark went viral online, with "#what10kbuys" trending on Twitter. "That's the language of Wall Street and not the language of Main Street Iowa," Robert Haus, co-chairman for Perry's Iowa campaign, told reporters after the ABC debate. "I don't know anybody that carries that kind of money around with them," said Iowa house majority leader Linda Upmeyer (Newt Gingrich's Iowa campaign chairwoman). "When I make a bet with somebody, it's usually for the five dollars I have in my hand and we lay it down and we bet." Bob Vander Plaats, a conservative leader from Sioux City, Iowa, who has previously criticized Romney's candidacy, echoed that sentiment to the Des Moines Register. "No matter what number he came up with, it just played into his image that he's in a realm that most Iowans can't relate to," he said. Another rival candidate, Jon Huntsman, who did not participate in the Iowa debate Saturday, created the website 10kbet.com after the debate. The site, complete with articles, videos and tweets, seeks to explain why "Mitt Romney Owes Rick Perry $10,000." Former Obama White House aide Bill Burton, spokesman for PrioritiesUSA, a group supporting Obama's re-election, also chimed in, via Twitter. "Not a lot of 99%'ers are out there making $10,000 bets," he wrote. Burton also told Reuters via e-mail: "It is predictable that Mitt Romney will slip up and let folks in on who he is from time to time. Corporations are people, joking about being unemployed and now this. Mitt Romney has no clue what pain the American middle class is feeling right now." Romney has failed to connect with some voters, partly because of his enormous net worth. While fundraising for the 2008 campaign, Romney reportedly spent $42 million of his own money. PHOTO GALLERY: View Gallery Box Office Politics: The Movies and Stars Dems vs. GOPers Love (and Love to Hate) Related Topics ABC Rick Perry Mitt Romney

Richard Curtis on 'War Horse,' Working With Steven Spielberg and the Prescience of 'Love Actually'

The guy who wrote 'Love Actually' and 'Notting Hill' might not be the first person who jumps to mind when thinking about 'War Horse,' but it's hard to imagine the touching new Steven Spielberg film working without Richard Curtis. After all, Curtis -- and fellow credited 'War Horse' screenwriter Lee Hall -- had one of the toughest jobs on the new film, an adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's young adult novel about a boy and his horse set against the backdrop of World War I: to tell a story from the point of view of a horse. Let's just say, Curtis took his position as screenwriter for Joey the horse to almost Method-like lengths: "I remember my girlfriend looking across from me and laughing at me because she said I started to whinny," Curtis told Moviefone, before admitting to "pawing" at his desk. Of course, Curtis's screenwriting gifts are the perfect compliment to 'War Horse's' epic nature; what starts as a family drama becomes an omnibus tale of friendship, sacrifice and the cost of war -- like 'Love Actually,' but with bombs and bayonets. Curtis spoke to Moviefone about writing 'War Horse,' working with Steven Spielberg and how 'Love Actually' has become a staple of the Christmas season. Now that you've seen the finished film, how do you think it compares to the script you wrote? It's better than what I wrote. Which is quite interesting to me. I found the cumulative emotion of the last half hour very interesting. It's what we intended, but it was impossible to write. If you write about a horse and a sequence of people and compassion and suffering -- by the end I really felt I wanted things to turn out well, and I didn't know how they would. So, every glimmer of hope made me happy. Were you nervous at all to write a movie where the main character is a horse -- and not a gimmicky horse that can talk like Mr. Ed? Well that is strange, isn't it? The book is from the horse's point of view and has words. The truth of the matter is that I did have very peculiar days, where I said to Steven [Spielberg], "I"m gonna be the horse for a couple of days." He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, we gotta take what the horse thinks is happening seriously." I remember my girlfriend looking across from me and laughing at me because she said I started to whinny. When you write, you do tend to say the lines the characters are saying, so I did a bit of pawing at my desk. It was quite interesting. I did think about it -- I did think about what was happening in the mind of a horse who has been very happy with a French grandfather and suddenly sees dead horses by the road; what would you think is happening? I did try to think from the horse's point of view. A lot of the year-end Oscar focus has been on 'The Artist' and your film, 'War Horse.' What's interesting to me is that they are both really silent films -- you're telling so much of the story from the horse's point of view. Did you ever think of it in those terms? I've written a lot of movies that were very dialogue heavy, where all the plot turns happen through something that someone says to somebody else. Certainly when I was working with Steven, it became very clear that a lot of the big turns would be done visually instead of through conversation. That was a great luxury; it was a wonderful thing. So, the moment when we re-meet Albert [Jeremy Irvine], about two-thirds of the way in, because a shell goes over from one of the German guns and lands in an English trench -- and you just see these eight one-second shots, and one of them is Albert. There's just a world of knowledge there; you think, "Oh God, he's grown up, he's joined the war, he's there, he'll be wondering what happened to Joey." All of that through a one-and-a-half second visual shot. Not a scene where he tells his mum that he wants to go off and he's recruited. It was a luxury for someone like me who is quite a literary writer to be working on something where the story is going to be told in pictures. The vignette structure of 'War Horse' seems perfectly suited for you -- after all, you wrote 'Love Actually' -- but did you have a favorite character to write for? Well, that was one of the things that Steven wanted me to do. He said write each of these sequences as though you were writing a whole film about them. Try to give us as much information as you can; try to fill in as much of the stories as you possibly can. That would mean when the horse arrives, they feel real, rather than feeling like a function of the story of a horse. So, huh. I don't know. I wonder if I did have a favorite. One of the things I enjoyed was the British soldiers. That's the first time you leave the family. You watch for a half-an-hour, you think it's going to be this film about this family, and, suddenly, they're gone. So, my first job was to try and make those soldiers interesting. It would have been easy to say Albert's dad is trading the horse and they go into battle. What I had to do was, very quickly, create a dynamic between the three soldiers; you knew they would have been in school together. You knew one person was serious and senior, but also a friend. That was when I first grasp what we were doing. We were trying to three dimensionalize every point of the story in order to make this strange structure work. What was Spielberg like to work with? Steven is a remarkable collaborator. Very fun. He was very decisive. When I first spoke to him I said, "I'm not going to say I'll do the job until I believe I can do the job." I said, "I'll come back in three weeks with 10 ideas, and if you like eight of them, I'll do it. If you don't, I won't." I think he liked seven. So that was all right. But he was very clear: yes, no, yes, no, yes. That was very satisfying. The moment you got a whiff of the movie he wanted to make, he was very fair. He's very -- not promiscuous, that would get us all into trouble. He's happy to have lots of ideas thrown on the table and reject them. Let's just say, we would say we need some second incident with the grandfather and the granddaughter. And I would say, "Well, what about if this happened, and they get a visit from another neighbor, who has had a terrible thing happen." And Steven would say, "Maybe that could work, but what about this?" Then he would come up with a whole idea. If I would say, "No, that's problematic." Instead of saying, "You solve it." He would say, "OK, how about this?" And he has this remarkable talent for imagining whole cinematic sequences off the top of his head. He would say, "Let's just say: he wakes up in the morning, there are trucks coming down. Lots of villagers! They swarm like locusts over the fruit field. The Germans soldiers!" Suddenly you would find that you had five minutes of movie that Steven just made up on the phone there. Sometimes he'd say ideas and they wouldn't be so perfect, but he wasn't the slightest bit offended if you said, "That won't work because of this." I found him a delightful collaborator. What you fear in a collaboration is when people look at you and expect you to be brilliant. Whereas Steven is brilliant and let's you take his stuff. You're probably best known for 'Love Actually,' which has become this beloved Christmas classic. What's the one thing you've never been asked about that film? [Laughs] I don't know. I'm so happy at this funny idea that it has become a sort of Christmas holiday movie. I was looking back at my old notes on the film, and it was only after I had thought of all the stories ... I literally found a note saying, "What about if I set the movie at Christmas?" If anybody should be able to write a movie about Christmas, it's me, because I love Christmas so much. It seems to me like such a gift that I should have written a film that might or might not have been popular anyway, and because of Christmas it suddenly has this annual thing. All I'll say is three cheers for Stacy Snider, who is the person who got me into this film. I remember coming out of the first screening, and she says, "You know we should take out the naked people. We'll get in trouble, there will be reviews, we'll lose the certificate we want." But she said, "You don't want that do you?" And I said, "No, I'll be very depressed." She said, "I'll never mention it again." God bless her. Now, the guy is the Hobbit! Right, Martin Freeman. You were ahead of your time with a lot of the cast members. One of the things I love about that movie is the fact that so many of the people have become so much more famous. In fact, the movie is not what I intended. Originally, when I made the movie, it was meant to be 50 percent unknown cast. But Martin Freeman is very famous. Keira Knightley is very famous. Chiwetel Ejiofor is very famous. Andrew Lincoln is doing 'The Walking Dead.' It looks like I was only casting famous people, which wasn't my intention at all. 'War Horse' is out on Christmas day. Check back to Moviefone for more on the film in the coming weeks. [Photo: DreamWorks] Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook

'Pain and Gain': The Rock, Mark Wahlberg and Michael Bay May Make a Movie Together (UPDATE)

The only reason there hasn't been a Michael Bay movie starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is because if such a thing did exist, the entire production would probably explode due to awesomeness (well, that and ego; mostly ego). However, it looks like the director is going to test those limits with his next film. According to Variety, Bay has been courting Johnson and Mark Wahlberg to star in his upcoming movie, 'Pain and Gain,' which is based on a 1999 article in the Miami New Times about a pair of bodybuilders caught in an extortion and kidnapping scheme. The film, which reportedly has an un-Bay-like budget of $20 million, was written by 'Captain America' writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. The duo have compared the dark comedy of 'Pain and Gain' to 'Fargo' (which is probably the first time a Michael Bay movie and 'Fargo' have been mentioned in the same sentence). Per Variety, neither star is signed and this might not happen due to scheduling. But, fingers crossed! (SFX: explosion.) You can see the Rock next in 'Journey 2: The Mysterious Island,' out February 10, 2012; Wahlberg's 'Contraband' is out January 13, 2012. UPDATE: According to Variety, Wahlberg has officially passed on the. Sorry, Rock! [via Variety] [Photo: Getty] Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook

War Horse Star Jeremy Irvine on His Biggest of Big Breaks

Drew Barrymore. Christian Bale. Bruce the Shark. It’s an elite class of young talent that has found launching pads in the films of Steven Spielberg. And while Jeremy Irvine is a little older than those actors who preceded him, you can go ahead and add the 21-year-old to the list thanks to his breakthrough in Spielberg epic Oscar hopeful War Horse. Irvine plays Albert Narracott, whose bond with a thoroughbred named Joey persists from hard times on his family farm (his parents are played Emily Watson and Peter Mullan) through the devastating conflict of World War I. It’s not only Irvine’s biggest film role to date — it’s his only role, with at least three more to come in 2012. He spoke with Movieline over the weekend in NY, just ahead of War Horse’s world premiere. Congratulations on surviving your first foray into press-junket madness. How are you feeling? Shattered. [Laughs] No, no. I was told a lot of stuff about how difficult doing this kind of thing is, but actually it’s all new and it’s all exciting to me. Maybe a few years down the line, it’ll be a terror. But for now, it’s new and exciting. It’s great. Fantastic. Is there a question you haven’t yet been asked about War Horse that you wish you had? Or something you’ve wanted to note about the experience but haven’t had the opportunity? [Pauses] God, I don’t know. I am totally putting you on the spot. Yeah, you are. But there are a few things. I mean, yes, we were making what was essentially quite a serious piece of work, but we had such a huge amount of fun doing it. There were so many funny moments. Like what? You know — trying to wind up other cast members. Robert Emms, who plays my rival, is a very good friend. And Steven Spielberg would come in with handwritten scenes every now and again. He’d maybe write it down in the car, and we’d get it and think, “Oh, OK, great, we’re doing this.” So we tried to get Peter Mullan, who’s very established in Britain, by writing a fake scene between him and Emily Watson, who plays my mum. we wrote a fake, raunchy love scene between them and tried to get Steven Spielberg’s assistant to give it to Peter in his trailer. We thought we could convince him that he was doing a love scene where we see them kiss through the barn doors, and Joey, the horse, nudges the barn door shut, blocking our view. We thought we got him; we thought this was brilliant, you know? That night we’re in the restaurant, and we go, “So, Peter, did you get the new scene?” He says, “Boys, haven’t you heard?” We go, “No, what?” He says, “Oh, well Steven’s gone ballistic. Apparently somebody forged his signature. They’ve got security down there; they’re trying to figure out who’s done this. Shit, whoever’s done this… It’s not funny. Someone’s gonna lose their fucking job.” And we’re shitting ourselves. “No, no — Steven didn’t know! It was us! It was us!” And Peter’s like, “Of course I knew it was fucking you boys! Who the hell else was it going to be?” [Laughs] So that was cool. Earlier today in the press conference, you claimed that you had no idea how or why you got this part. All modesty aside, how or why do you think you did you get this part? It’s quite true: I have no idea. I don’t know. I think that among my friends I’m known as being a hard worker; I think if you want to be an actor, there can’t be any compromise. You have to work all day, every day. It’s not a 9-5 job. There’s always something to learn. I’ve always been of the mindset of, “What if there’s someone working harder than me?” That means I have to work even harder. For me, I went to drama school for a bit; I thought, “This is great, but I’m with the crowd here. I want to get out of that. I want to be kind of graspy. I don’t want to wait for somebody else to be in control of finding me an agent; I want to do that myself.” I didn’t want to have to wait until I got a showcase. Instead, I got my best friend as a cameraman; I went out and I filmed and made my own show reel so it looked like professional work. I went to agents and was probably a little bit cheeky and told them it was professional work, but that worked. I put thousands and thousands of hours into it. That doesn’t mean that it should pull off; a lot of actors put vast amounts of work in, and it still doesn’t pull off for them. That’s obviously a huge risk. What did that kind of spirit or initiative come from in your background? I never particularly enjoyed school, and I think I was looking for a challenge. I didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing. I wanted to do something different. I had a great drama teacher, and he sort of made out drama school as this incredibly difficult thing to get into: 6,000 people apply every year, and some of the schools only have 12 places. It’s a phenomenally difficult thing to get into. And that excited me — I wanted that challenge. But you didn’t finish? No, I didn’t. I was offered to go back and do three years at different places, and decided… I just didn’t want to put that in the hands of other people. I wanted to be in control. I wanted to do it myself. Would you advise other young, up-and-coming actors to do the same thing? Yeah. Yeah, I would. You’ve got to get away from the crowd. If you stay with everyone else, then you’re just going to be another one. But there’s no set way. At the end of the day, what it all comes down to is being in the right place at the right time. And, I guess, being ready to deliver when opportunity calls. Yes. And you’ve got to be right for that part. In some respects, you’ve got to be the best you can be at that time. But you can be the world’s most amazing actor, and if you’re not there at the right time, and you’re not seen by that rot casting director, then it’s not going to happen for you. Another thing you mentioned earlier was getting accustomed to actually being on camera and the way moves are made. One frustrated director told me once that filmmaking doesn’t even feel like you’re creating art at a certain point. Did it ever feel that way for you, especially coming from the stage? No, never. And I think that if it begins to feel like that, then you’re doing something extremely wrong. Your job as an actor is to keep that [alive]— it’s solely up to you. No one else can do that for you. You have to keep present and be in that moment. If you lose that, at the end of the day you’re not going to be in character and what you’re doing is not going to be real. That’s going to show; there’s nothing to hide behind. And you already have a number of things lined up for the future, right? I’ve got a film called Now is Good, with Dakota Fanning, coming out in May. I’m filming the last couple of weeks on Great Expectations at the moment. Next year I’m doing The Railway Man with Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz, which I’m beyond excited for. Who do you play in that? I play Eric Lomax — Colin Firth’s character when he’s younger. We kind of split it. It’s one of the best scripts I’ve ever read. I can’t wait. Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.

ABC Originates Taxies Getting An Offer To Boost Its Back burners Audience In New you are able to city

After I've got a taxi I turn off the intrusiveTV screen around the rear from the motive pressure’s chair. However, many people don’t, which explains why they’re attractive to entrepreneurs — as well as the folks at ABC who just introduced that they may sell ads and offer clips of programmingto about 10,000 cabs that receive video from Creative Mobile Technologies. The agreement, that can take effect on The month of the month of january 1, includes 6,600 New you are able to city cabs and “significantly develops the expansion options ahead for that taxi TV programming and advertising business, states Dork Davis, Leader and Gm of WABC-TV in NY. The companies condition that “ABCs substantial and growing presence in Occasions Square will afford myriad complete options with CMTs in-taxi media.” (Uh-oh.) Cabs inside the The The Big Apple that receive programming from CMTwill offerlocal news and weather up-to-date four occasions every day, andnews-you-can-use features. The loop begins shortly afterthedriver movies the meter. The sale also covers CMT-affiliated cabs in Chicago, San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Anaheim, Might, Colorado, Columbus, and Charlotte now now. The companies condition the agreement will “lay the work for more expansion into new areas…in the arrival several days.” They didn’t disclose financial terms.