Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.
Wired has published an extensive, untold history of ILM:
No one wanted Star Wars when George Lucas started shopping it to studios in the mid-1970s. It was the era of Taxi Driver and Network and Serpico; Hollywood was hot for authenticity and edgy drama, not popcorn space epics. But that was only part of the problem.
As the young director had conceived it, Star Wars was a film that literally couldn’t be made; the technology required to bring the movie’s universe to visual life simply didn’t exist. Eventually 20th Century Fox gave Lucas $25,000 to finish his screenplay—and then, after he garnered a Best Picture Oscar nomination for American Graffiti, green-lit the production of Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as Taken From the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars. However, the studio no longer had a special effects department, so Lucas was on his own. He would adapt, and handily: He not only helped invent a new generation of special effects but launched a legendary company that would change the course of the movie business.
Watch a rare interview with Howard Hawks from 1971:
Xavier Dolan is teaming with Vice’s i-D Magazine to launch an online film script competition, THR reports:
The project, branded #Magnifique, will be done in cooperation with ice cream maker Magnum. Unveiled at a press conference in Cannes Saturday, the project will see young would-be screenwriters submit short treatments, along with casting ideas, for short films of under 10 minutes. Three finalists will be selected by early September.
Watch the full Cannes press conference for Louder Than Bombs (our review):
El tren de #Silencio efectúa su salida. Primera claqueta! pic.twitter.com/5YAZMc8Ncc
— Agustín Almodóvar (@AgustinAlmo) May 18, 2015