RACHEL MCADAMS TRIES TO MAKE DOCTOR STRANGE HAPPEN
2015 has been a decent year for Rachel McAdam, with her appearing in the high profile second season of True Detective (mixed though the reception may have been) and being part of the acclaimed ensemble in Oscar contender Spotlight. Next year will see McAdams join the merry Marvel juggernaut in Doctor Strange, which has been shooting for the last couple of weeks. Who exactly McAdams is going to be playing has not yet been disclosed though, so you know, it’s probably Khan or Blofeld.
Seriously though, the speculation is that she’ll be playing Night Nurse from the comics, since Daredevil showrunner Steven S. DeKnight had said that was going to be Rosario Dawson’s part originally in the Netflix series until they received word that there were other plans for the character. All that aside, McAdams recently spoke at New York’s Gotham Independent Film Awards about being in the film for the first time, and it’s exactly as laden with details as you might expect for a role that hasn’t been revealed yet:
“I mean, I just love the director. I met with Scott [Derrickson] and loved his vision, he was so passionate. And the opportunity to work with Benedict was kind of a no-brainer. And Marvel makes amazing films, so it was a complete package.”
“It’s definitely not going to be like any of the other films.”
I’m just saying, if McAdams turns up in Doctor Strange stroking a cat and saying she’s the author of all of Benedict Cumberbatch’s pain, I called it.
IN TURKEY, HUMAN RIGHTS ARE THE REAL ‘PRECIOUS’
In ‘bizarre bummer’ news, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit director Peter Jackson has weighed in on the legal case of Turkish doctor Bilgin Çiftçi, who faces a prison sentence for allegedly posting pictures online comparing his country’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Gollum. Yeah. Turkish Lord of the Rings isn’t as much fun as Turkish Star Wars.
According to Turkish law it is illegal to insult the Turkish president and Çiftçi, already fired from the public health service, faces up to four years in prison. Çiftçi’s legal team’s defence is that the character isn’t actually evil and therefore the comparison cannot be taken as an insult. Jackson and co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens have made a statement on The Wrap to Çiftçi’s aid contending that the character in the pictures he used is not actually Gollum at all, but Smeagol. “If the images below are in fact the ones forming the basis of this Turkish lawsuit, we can state categorically: None of them feature the character known as Gollum. All of them are images of the character called Smeagol.”
I think we can all agree in a situation like this that Gollum and Smeagol are totally not the same character and that this comparison was clearly intended to show Erdoğan’s sweet and gentle nature and not, say, his love of eating raw fish heads. To be fair, the actual pictures used are definitely more Smeagolly moments and also, this is ridiculously thin-skinned so lots hope it all shakes out okay. The trial is currently adjourned as the chief judge has not seen any Lord of the Rings films yet.