A scan from the October 14 issue of US weekly has been added to the gallery, featuring a full page article on the recent making of “Into the Woods”. Besides a big spot for Meryl’s witch, there are more pictures of her co-stars Emily Blunt (who plays the Baker’s Wife), Anna Kendrick and Chris Pine (who play Cinderella and her prince) in costume. Click on the preview to view the article. Many thanks to Claudia for contributing the scan. The issue of US Weekly is on newsstands now.

The cast of August: Osage County will receive the Hollywood Ensemble Acting Award at the 17th annual Hollywood Film Awards, the first awards show of the 2013 season, on Oct. 21 at the Beverly Hilton, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. John Wells’ big-screen adaptation of Tracy Letts’ Tony- and Puliter Prize-winning play features a star-studded cast, including Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Julianne Nicholson, Juliette Lewis, Dermot Mulroney, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, Margo Martindale, Abigail Breslin, Sam Shepard and Misty Upham. August’s producers include George Clooney and Grant Heslov, who also produced last year’s best picture Oscar winner, Argo. Many thanks to Glenn for the heads-up.

Entertainment Weekly has a present for us today: She’s not nice, she’s just right, she’s the witch. Check out the first photo of Meryl Streep as The Witch in the upcoming film version of the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical Into the Woods. Rob Marshall is directing the film, which started production this week in the U.K. In the photo, Streep takes on a terrifying yet high-style version of the character, which was originated by Bernadette Peters on Broadway in 1987, complete with yellowing talon-like nails and a feathery frock.

But no one is alone. The musical is a twisted fairy tale featuring a number of classic characters including Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack (of beanstalk fame), and Little Red Riding Hood, all connected by The Witch’s powers. Streep joins Johnny Depp (as the Wolf), Anna Kendrick (as Cinderella), Chris Pine (as Cinderella’s Prince), and Emily Blunt (as the Baker’s Wife) in the film, which is scheduled for a Christmas 2014 release. That’s a lot of midnights away, but it looks like it will be worth the wait. Thanks to everyone for the heads-up.

Well, not the first names you imagine as favorite upcoming co-stars, but it gives “The Giver” a new dimension of attention. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Katie Holmes and Taylor Swift have closed a deal to join Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges in The Giver, a drama from The Weinstein Co. and Walden Media that’s being directed by Phillip Noyce. Brenton Thwaites is the young star of the sci-fi project, which tells of a society in which there is no conflict, racism or sickness. Thwaites plays a young boy who is selected for his life service as the Receiver of Memories and works with The Giver (Bridges), an old man who teaches the boy to use his unique gifts of the senses. Streep is the society’s Chief Elder, an authoritative and antagonistic woman who assigns the young their tasks. Holmes will play Thwaites’ mother, a strict obeyer of the laws that govern what is described as an antiseptic society. The movie, which is eyeing a budget of around $25 million, is being produced by Nikki Silver of Tonik Productions along with Neil Koenigsberg and Bridges. A shoot in South Africa is being planned, although it is likely that Steep will shoot her scenes in England, where she is filming Disney’s Into the Woods. Many thanks to Glenn for the heads-up.

A theatrical release date for “The Giver” has been set by the Weinstein Company, according to this source: Way back in 2008, David Yates was set to direct an adaptation of Lois Lowry’s children’s novel and Newbery Medal winner, “The Giver” after helming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but he instead decided to tackle the two-part finale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, setting the project back several years. Now the film is in the hands of The Weinstein Co. and director Philip Noyce, and the studio has just set an August 15, 2014 release for the feature. The Giver will star Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges and soon-to-be-star Brenton Thwaites whose 2014 not only includes this film, but a lead role in Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction and Maleficent opposite Angelina Jolie. The story centers on Jonas (Brenton Thwaites), a young boy aged 12, from a seemingly utopian, futuristic world, is singled out to receive special training from The Giver (Bridges), who alone holds the memories of the true joys and pain of life. Streep plays the story’s chief elder, the authoritarian charged with keeping order in the society, order which is disrupted when Jonas is chosen to receive details of the past, before society conformed to a level of “sameness”. Thanks to Frank and Glenn for the heads-up.

Over the past days, lots of news blips have been released for “August: Osage County”, “Into the Woods” and “The Giver”. First, the Los Angeles Times has interviews director John Wells and broke the news that the ending of the film might be changed for its theatrical release. Be aware that the article spoils both the original ending and the alternative one, so better not read it if you want to see the film un-spoiled (article here). Then, there’s an interview with Harvey Weinstein by The Daily Beast, in which he talks about the process of shooting “August: Osage County” and Meryl in particular.

The process of August: Osage County is an interesting one […] I started reading it and it was the most incredible dialogue I’d read in a long time, up there with Tennessee Williams. These people were desperate for money, and I think it was $500,000 or something… I wrote the check. The play went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and was a financial success at the box office, and they kept their word and sold us the rights to make it a movie. George Clooney was our biggest competitor, so I thought it was only fair that George produce the movie. Off-set, the cast loved each other. Meryl’s process is one of the most interesting ones. In order to do this role correctly, she was at Costco at two o’clock in the morning shopping like a homeless person. She becomes the role. She lives it. She is it. This is my sixth movie with her, and we’re about to do a seventh, and an eighth.

That being said, with the seventh and eighth film, Weinstein means “Into the Woods” as well as the upcoming “The Giver”, which will both be distributed by the Weinstein Co. BroadwayWorld reports that the first week of shooting in Pinewood Studios has been wrapped and relies on various cast member’s tweets (that’s how news are done today ;-): Filming on the first week of shooting for Rob Marshall’s eagerly awaited stage-to-screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s celebrated fairy tale-themed musical “Into the Woods” starring Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp is now complete and the soundtrack is already nearing completion according to Tweets by cast-members shared this week.

And Deadline has some casting news on “The Giver”: The Weinstein Co.’s lit adaptation The Giver has added 16-year-old Odeya Rush to its cast. The actress, seen in Disney’s The Odd Life of Timothy Green, joins Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, and Brenton Thwaites in the dystopian tale adapted from Lois Lowry’s novel about Jonas (Thwaites), a young man who is chosen to receive memories of life before emotion was wiped from society. Many thanks to Glenn for compiling these latest news.

Days after the film’s world-premiere at the Torono International Film Festival, a second theatrical trailer for “August: Osage County” has been released. It features quite a few new scenes and gives each player a deserving spot. Head over to the video archive to watch the new trailer.

Surprisingly, this trailer is even a bit more lighthearted and cheerful than the first one. Given the film’s darker theme and dysfunctional family setting, one would have guessed a darker trailer as well. Additionally, the new scenes from the trailer have been capped an added to the image library. Since they’re added to the already existing screencaptures album, the new additions start on page three.

The bad news first: Meryl Streep was a no-show at yesterday’s world-premiere of “August: Osage County” at the Toronto International Film Festival. But there are two good news as well. First, the Weinstein Company has put Meryl back in the Best Actress Oscar race (she was previously mentioned to be considered in the supporting category). And second, in the wake of TIFF’s reviews and news on the premiere, new pictures from the film have been released as well.

The reviews range from positive to mixed, but so far everyone seems to agree on Meryl mastering another meaty role. A selection of reviews is below, with many thanks to Glenn for collecting them.

The Hollywood Reporter (September 20, 2013) David Rooney

As Vi, Streep is every bit as mercurial, ferocious and funny as one would expect. Slapping on a brunette wig over a sparse crop of gray when she can be bothered, she careens from needling attacks to sneaky insinuations, from drugged-out incoherence to puddles of self-pity, often punctuating those shifts with a vulgar snort of a laugh. However, like her work in another recent screen adaptation of a Broadway hit, Doubt, she hits all her marks with brilliant technique but brings no element of surprise. As good as Streep is, the chewy part actually might have benefited from a left-field casting choice.

The Guardian (September 10, 2013) Catherine Shoard

Violet is a queen bitch with only the tiniest of chinks, a hybrid of Streep’s imperious Thatcher, Kristin Scott Thomas in Only God Forgives and, in cuddlier moments, Ricky Tomlinson in The Royle Family. Yet for all the sparks, the character can’t quite catch fire in these conditions. Such southern fried frankness might thrill those in the theatre but at the cinema we eat this sort of thing for breakfast.

The Telegraph (September 10, 2013) Tim Robey

A serial bully who fancies herself a “truth-teller”, Violet’s one of Streep’s most vituperative creations, pouring out a stream of invective so poisonous you wonder if the movie will ever quite recover, or succeed in topping it. With her badly chosen black wig and shades, she looks a little like Bob Dylan in a sour mood – there’s not much hair left beneath, because of the chemo she’s been taking to combat oral cancer, an ailment which seems the entirely natural product of letting your mouth emit a toxic spill every time you open it.

Cinema Blend (September 10, 2013) Sean O’Connell

Uniformly, the cast is fantastic, with Streep and Roberts serving as the expected scene-stealers. Streep, per usual, commands our attention. But it’s so much more than “here goes Streep again.” Every time she approaches a new role, she resembles a painter staring at a blank canvas, and she fills it with her inspiration. August is no different.

The Los Angeles Times (September 10, 2013) Glenn Whipp

“August: Osage County” might be the first movie to win more Oscar nominations than rave reviews. The movie, Tracy Letts’ adaptation of his Tony Award-winning play of family dysfunction and warfare, premiered Monday at the Toronto International Film Festival, earning an ovation from the audience (once the house lights were turned on to spotlight the cast members in attendance). Social media immediately lit up with Oscar buzz, which will happen when you have 17-time Oscar nominee Meryl Streep playing Violet, a pill-popping, cancer-stricken monster of a mother. The moment she stumbles on screen, face pale, hair shorn, voice slurred, you can picture academy members reflexively writing her name on their Oscar ballots. This is Acting.

The New York Post (September 10, 2013) Lou Lumenick

Meryl Streep rules as the mother of all dysfunctional screen moms in the long awaited screen adaptation of the Pulitzer-winning play “August: Osage County,” which had its world premiere Monday night at the Toronto International Film Festival ahead of its U.S. opening on Christmas Day. Wearing a black fright wig that scarcely hides the ravages of her chemotherapy for mouth cancer, her matriarch Violet Weston — a profanity-spouting, boozing, pill-popping harridan — terrorizes her three daughters and other kin gathered in her crumbling Oklahoma mansion for the funeral supper following the burial of her long-suffering, alcoholic poet husband (Sam Shepard, who puts in a beautiful cameo appearance at the beginning).

London Evening Standard (September 10, 2013) David Sexton

John Wells (E.R., The West Wing, Shameless) has filmed an adaptation of this powerful play by Letts himself with a stellar cast. Meryl Streep is Violet Weston, the drug-addled, cancer-stricken but still horribly acute and malevolent mother of the family, giving an all-out performance, slurring voice and twisting features, worthy of Elizabeth Taylor in her heyday, if not a nightmarish Edith Evans. Sometimes you think of a crazed Mrs T too. It’s all too easy to imagine this monster being diced up into telling little clips in the awards season.

As “August: Osage County” premieres next week at the Toronto International Film Festival, Benedict Cumberbatch is already there, promoting his other festival entry “The Fifth Estate”, in which he plays Julian Assange. In “August”, Cumberbatch has a supporting part as “Little” Charles – a role he says he was ready “to kill” for because of his love for the play and his admiration for the cast. “That was an amazing [dinner] table to sit around, with Meryl, because all of us were in awe,” he recalled at a panel discussion on Friday. “We just kind of forgot to act in character because we were in astonishment.” In fact, after watching Streep perform one particularly inspiring scene, he could not help but ask her for some advice.

I was about to do this movie,” the British actor explained, referring to The Fifth Estate, in which he portrays WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “I said, ‘Where do you start [with a character], because I was about to start with [Assange], and obviously I am not Australian. I do not have the same speech pattern as him, or the physical attributes. . . . She was doing this incredible tour de force, playing someone with esophageal cancer who is high on drugs, downers, who is getting drunk at her husband’s wake, who is turning vulnerable into attack into lost into knowing into sexy vampy. The gear shifts were sublime, and I just wondered how she was playing this orchestra of a performance.” Gobsmacked, he asked, “‘Chicken and egg, cart and horse; what [came first with that scene]?’ And she said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t really remember. This was different. This sort of all came at once. What about with you?’” “I said, ‘The fuck if I know.’”

August: Osage County premieres in limited release on Christmas Day in the U.S. Meryl Streep’s latest Oscar campaign, we imagine, will begin soon thereafter. The article was originally posted by Vanity Fair.

Various news outlets have reported on the filming of “Into the Woods”. Rehearsals for the film, which is being directed by Rob Marshall, began about 3 weeks ago at Shepperton Studios (where Guardians of the Galaxy is also filming). Now, according to recent casting calls, it looks like the movie will soon be filming on location in the coastal town of Dover, located in Kent, later this month. They are currently looking for people age 16 to 90 with “easy access to Dover or Canterbury”. BroadwayWorld has more news on the possible filming at Dover Castle. Given the location and its proximity to landmark Dover Castle, it appears Cinderella’s castle as seen onscreen – and as portrayed by Anna Kendrick – may very well have a real-life historical background. And the Belfast Telegraph has an interview with James Corden about rehearsing with Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt: “I’m shooting a film at the moment called Into The Woods with Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp, and we’ve started rehearsing, which is slightly terrifying. I’ve not met Johnny yet. But most of my scenes are with Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt. It’s thrilling, it’s brilliant.” Thanks to Frank and Glenn for collecting these news.