Larry King, move over! Martha Stewart would like to be the next big star interviewer in the TV industry, and she would love to interview up-and-coming male Hollywood stars.

Golden Lion winner denied the right to leave Iran to attend this year's festival despite being released from jail

The Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi has been denied the right to attend this year's Venice international film festival. Due to open the short film section of the festival with The Accordion, his request was refused by officials in Tehran.

Imprisoned earlier this year while making a film described by Iranian culture minister, Mohammad Hosseini, as "anti-regime", Panahi was released on bail in May following a two-week hunger strike and international outcry.

But his freedom does not appear to extend to the right to promote his work elsewhere. "Despite having been released, I am still not free to travel outside my country to attend film festivals," the director explained. "When a film-maker is not allowed to make films, he is mentally imprisoned. He may not be confined to a small cell, but he is still wandering in a larger prison."

This is not the first time Panahi has been conspicuously absent from international events. A member of the jury panel for this year's Cannes film festival, his seat was left deliberately empty by officials when incarceration kept Panahi from his duties. Accepting the best actress award for her role in Certified Copy, a film by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, Juliette Binoche condemned the Panahi's imprisonment: "His fault is to be an artist, to be independent." She described the government's treatment of Panahi as "an attack on art".

A winner of Venice's top film honour, the Golden Lion, for his 2000 film Circle, as well as the 1995 Camera d'Or at Cannes, Panahi is an active participant in international film dialogue. In a statement to festival officials, he expressed his gratitude to fellow film-makers: "In the most desperate moments of my imprisonment ... I drew courage thinking of myself as a proud member of this community."

Screened yesterday at Venice, eight-minute short film The Accordion explores the lives of two young street musicians. Filmed in Iran as part of UN-backed project Then and Now: Beyond Borders and Differences, Panahi's work was intended to promote ideas of tolerance and international dialogue.

• Jafar Panahi
• Venice film festival
• Iran

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A sequel to the superhero hit has been greenlit, according to the writer of the original comic book. But doubts have been raised over the film's production schedule

Kick-Ass was always rather nicely set up for a sequel, what with that open-ended denouement, so it's hardly surprising that Mark Millar, who wrote the original comic book, has been talking up a second film. Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Millar said the film's success on DVD in the US, where it sold 1.4m units in its first week, meant the project was finally greenlit.

"The estimate is that Kick-Ass will do 100 to 150m on DVD based on the American sales, so it'll end up making a $250m (£160m) on a $28m investment," said Millar. "So it should be OK. The sequel's greenlit, we can go ahead and do the follow-up now. The first made so much compared to what it cost, it would be crazy not to."

Millar's announcement, however, has been greeted with a degree of scepticism in the blogosphere, not least because Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn and screenwriter Jane Goldman are tied up with preparations for X Men: First Class. In a later interview with MTV, Millar said the film was "probably about nine months away from production starting, at the earliest".

He added: "Matthew's got to do X-Men: First Class. He just wants to get X-Men done next year, then hopefully we'll just go straight into Kick-Ass 2. That's the plan."

All of which sounds a little less concrete. And there's the small matter of Vaughn's comments immediately following Kick-Ass's release, when he seemed to indicate there would probably not be a sequel.

Could Millar, who clearly stands to benefit from a second film, be over-egging the biscuit? Probably. Having interviewed him, he's a refreshingly candid chap, saying that film-makers attempting to bring less well-known superheroes to the big screen were "fucked", following the arrival of Kick-Ass's postmodern take. And this is a man who works extensively for Marvel Comics.

The truth probably lies somewhere between the two positions. What we do know is that if Kick-Ass 2 does get made, it will likely centre on Dave Lizewski's encounters with a new breed of wannabe superheroes and supervillains, inspired by his adventures. The film will show Hit Girl struggling to lead a normal life, and I can't imagine there not being a prime role for Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Red Mist.

Millar said in March that he was planning on writing the second book in April. "The idea of Kick-Ass was: what would happen if people in the real world tried to become superheroes?" Millar told IGN earlier this year. "The second one is: what if people tried to be bad guys as a reaction to the superheroes?

Millar adds: "And it's just that simple: The same way these wee guys were contacting each other on Facebook and trying out superhero costumes, what if bad kids started to do this? You've got this horrible Clockwork Orange kind of scenario going on, where these kids are happy-slapping.

"They're out there with their mobile phones dressed up as villains doing horrible things to people, recording it and putting it online. And that becoming massively viral all over the world."

It's a vivid image that one can imagine working well for Vaughn, if the sequel does end up being made. For me, Kick-Ass was an enjoyably throwaway, fluid and vibrant slice of comic-book silliness, which made great viewing on the big screen. I'd very much like to see a sequel. They'd better get a move on though – Chloë Moretz won't stay 13 forever, and a grown-up Hit Girl would rather defeat the object, don't you think?

• Action and adventure
• Science fiction and fantasy
• Comics
• Jane Goldman

Ben Child
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A 24-year-old woman working on an apparent car stunt during a "Transformers 3" shoot in northwest Indiana suffered a serious head injury Wednesday night, according to various reports.

Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones says she has struggled watching normally tireless husband and Hollywood star Michael Douglas being slowed by the effects of his cancer treatment.

Morgan Creek Prods. founder James Robinson, who had eyed a role as a major investor in Miramax Films, along with construction magnate Ron Tutor and private equity firm Colony Capital, is out of the deal as is another investor, the LA Times reported.

Inside the jockeying for the top spot as CEO Jeff Bewkes hires a headhunter and talks to an outsider. Meanwhile, a new role is likely for Barry Meyer.

Inside the jockeying for the top spot as CEO Jeff Bewkes hires a headhunter and talks to an outsider. Meanwhile, a new role is likely for Barry Meyer.

According to The Hollywood Reporter despite modest ratings in its second season HBO has ordered another 10 episodes of Hung to be filmed in January.

Set in Detroit, the comedy stars Thomas Jane as a hard-up middle-aged basketball coach, who earns cash on the side as a male prostitute. Created by Dmitry Lipkin (creator of The Riches ) and co-starring Jane Adams, Eddie Jemison and Charlie Saxton, season three will air next summer along side the final season of HBO's Entourage .

Do you think it deserved another season, or should HBO have hung it up for good?

VL

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Thursday 2 September 2010

Video: Having taken home the best actress award at Cannes for her role in Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy, Juliette Binoche talks to Catherine Shoard about the importance of originality and the fallout from her acceptance speech, in which she highlighted the plight of Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who was jailed for criticising the state

Catherine ShoardHenry Barnes

While we've had plenty of manly man types added to the roster for director Brad Bird's Mission: Impossible 4, we've yet to hear of any female additions to the role call. Until now that is... It turns out that Paula Patton has joined the likes of Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg for more, well, impossible missions.

The actor, who has starred in the likes of Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire and Just Wright, will be playing the female lead but there isn't much in the way of details about the role yet - although according to Deadline, Patton will be playing a young operative who works as part of Ethan Hunt (Cruise)'s M:I team.

The production is getting ready to start filming later this year.

Interested? Let us know what you think...

Glen Ferris

>> Real the whole article | on Screenrush - Thursday 2 September 2010