News

Focus Features has acquired Us distribution rights to London Has Fallen, the sequel of the 2013 box office hit Olympus Has Fallen. Star Gerard Butler will return for the sequel written by Creighton Rothenberger & Katrin Benedikt and Christian Gudegast. The film is being produced by Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel, Mark Gill, and Matt O'Toole. Avi Lerner, Trevor Short, Boaz Davidson, John Thompson, Christine Crow, and Focus Features CEO Peter Schlessel will executive produce. Focus Features plans to release the film nationwide on October 2, 2015.

Olympus Has Fallen was released on March 22, 2013 by FilmDistrict, the U.S. distributor led by Peter Schlessel prior to him being named CEO of Focus Features. The film earned over $98.9 million at the domestic box office.

Here's what Peter Schlessel had to say in a statement.

"Olympus Has Fallen took audiences by storm, and we're excited to raise the stakes with London Has Fallen as Gerard Butler returns in the lead.

Millennium Films and Focus Features are teaming up for a sequel to this spring's Olympus Has Fallen entitled London Has Fallen, with Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart and Morgan Freeman reprising their roles from the original.

The story takes the action to London, where U.S. President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) attends the funeral of the British Prime Minister with his Secret Service head Mike Banning (Gerard Butler). They must team up again to save the day with a British MI6 agent when a terrorist plot unfolds. Angela Bassett and Radha Mitchell are also set to reprise their roles as Secretary of Defense Ruth McMillan and Leah.

Olympus Has Fallen writers Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt are providing the screenplay, with Focus Features currently seeking a director. Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel, Mark Gill, Matt O'Toole and Danny Lerner are producing. Production is slated to begin on May 5, 2014 in London.

The original Olympus Has Fallen,...

DVD Review

Olympus Has Fallen

Directed by: Antoine Fuqua

Cast: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo, Dylan McDermott, Angela Bassett, Radha Mitchell

Running Time: 1 hr 59 mins

Rating: R

Due Out: August 13, 2013

Plot: After the White House is overtaken by terrorists, former secret service agent Mike Banning (Butler) is the only man left to save the president of the United States (Eckhart) and stop the terrorists from achieving their plot.

Who’S It For? While it’s by no means great, if an America loving, action-packed Die Hard riff sounds good, you could do worse than Olympus Has Fallen. Gerard Butler fans should also be pleased by the actor at his badass best.

Movie:

Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Olympus Has Fallen. It really doesn’t get much more American than this. The film opens with the title bearing the colors of the American flag, and there are...

Olympus Has Fallen was one of two attempts to tell pretty much the exact same story this year, the other being White House Down, turning it into a kind of battle of who could put together the better film involving terrorists taking over the White House and taking the president as a hostage. While this was the first of the two that came out, I actually saw the latter first, and while it had its fair share of problems, I found it hard to lower the hammer down on it completely. Having seen both now, I can even easily say that it did a much better job of conveying the story for some very obvious reasons. However, before we delve into all of that, let’s take a somewhat closer look at what we’re dealing with in terms of plot.

Olympus Has Fallen begins with the tragic death of...

Stars: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Finley Jacobsen, Dylan McDermott, Rick Yune, Angela Bassett, Melissa Leo, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser | Written by Creighton Rothenberger, Katrin Benedikt | Directed by Antoine Fuqua

For the last few decades there have been a number of action movies that followed the Die Hard formula. Films like Speed were successful enough to etch out their own place in the genre lore, while others were simple exercises in mediocrity. The latest example of this phenomenon is the action thriller Olympus Has Fallen. While it certainly won’t go down as a new high mark it is undoubtedly one of the better examples of how to take a classic formula and make it your own. By filling in the, “Die Hard in a _______”, statement with one of America’s most prestigious and scared locations–The White House it raises the stakes to a new level. Gerard Butler...

The year's first White House movie ahead of early estimates, but is it a bona fide box-office hit? Olympus Has Fallen, featuring Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart (neither of whom has been terribly lucky at the domestic box office of late), will be this March 22-24 weekend's no. 2 movie, behind only the 3D animated feature The Croods and easily surpassing early predictions. Antoine Fuqua, probably best known for Ethan Hawke / Denzel Washington's Training Day (which earned Washington a Best Actor Academy Award), directed the R-rated thriller should earn around $28 million on its debut weekend -- it opened with $10.4 million at 3,098 sites this past Friday as per studio estimates found on the web site Box Office Mojo -- thus boasting this year's second highest R-rated debut and providing relatively new distributing company FilmDistrict with its most impressive opening weekend to date. Early predictions by various pundits had the year's "first...

Antoine Fuqua has made quite a career out of directing gritty, intensely violent thrillers. Olympus Has Fallen makes his other films, like Training Day and Brooklyn's Finest, look like after school specials. Gerard Butler is ferocious as a disgraced Secret Service agent trying to rescue the President (Aaron Eckhart) from brutal terrorists. I think most audiences are going to be very surprised by how visceral this film is. We recently caught up with the cast and crew for some exclusive interviews. Watch as Antoine Fuqua comments on his no-holds barred take on the material. Gerard Butler discusses the rawness of hand-to-hand combat, and the loss of his high pitch because of a loose bone in his throat. The entire ensemble praises their director's vision, and each other in keeping things light after shooting such stressful scenes. Here's our exclusive chat with Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Dylan McDermott, Rick Yune, Angela Bassett and director Antoine Fuqua.

Los Angeles — In a week when North Korea posted a homemade video showing the U.S. Capitol building being destroyed by a missile, what more logical response could Hollywood offer than a macho thriller about a Secret Service agent who takes on North Korean terrorists who attack the White House? The first of two similarly themed action dramas set for this year ("White House Down" arrives in June), "Olympus Has Fallen" will put to the test the question of whether American audiences are ready, 12 years after 9-11, to watch, strictly as disposable popcorn entertainment, a film in which the United States and some of its most prominent landmarks are devastated by foreign terrorists.

The answer almost undoubtedly will be yes, as the tough-guy former agent played by Gerard Butler gets to kick a whole lot of badass butt while trying to rescue the president. Although this is the sort of...

Chicago – Antoine Fuqua’s “Olympus Has Fallen” (or “Die Hard in the White House”) is a stupid, exploitative movie that wants to be “Call of Duty: Black Ops” in film form but ends up more like one of its countless, ineffective rip-offs. There are moments of goofy, B-movie fun (certainly more of them than in the much-worse “A Good Day to Die Hard”) but not enough to get over the brutal nonsense that makes up most of this action flick. Extremely violent and insensitive given the attacks on Washington on 9/11, “Olympus Has Fallen” just isn’t as much as fun as the best “Die Hard” rip-offs and so it becomes just another loud, annoying wannabe.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is a loyal protector and friend not just to President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) but his entire family, including son Connor (Finley Jacobsen). When a severely tragic event scars Banning,...

Chicago – In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film with our unique social giveaway technology, we have 40 pairs of movie passes up for grabs to the advance screening of the highly anticipated “Olympus Has Fallen” starring Morgan Freeman, Aaron Eckhart and Gerard Butler!

“Olympus Has Fallen,” which opens on March 22, 2013 and is rated “R,” also stars Ashley Judd, Melissa Leo, Dylan McDermott, Angela Bassett, Radha Mitchell, Finley Jacobsen, Rick Yune, Cole Hauser and Phil Austin from “Training Day” director Antoine Fuqua and writers Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt. Note: You must be 17+ to win this “R”-rated Hookup.

To win your free “Olympus Has Fallen” passes courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, just get interactive with our unique Hookup technology below. That’s it! This screening is on Thursday, March 21, 2013 at 7 p.m. in downtown Chicago. The more social actions you complete, the more points you score and the higher yours odds of winning!

Director Antoine Fuqua and stars Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, and Rick Yune discuss Olympus Has Fallen in a brand new behind-the-scenes featurette. The filmmaker discusses Gerard Butler's intensive fight training, designed to make the hand-to-hand combat scenes look and feel as natural and real as possible in this upcoming action-thriller about a Secret Service agent trying to thwart a highly-organized attack on the White House.

Olympus Has Fallen - Featurette

Olympus Has Fallen comes to theaters March 22nd, 2013 and stars Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Finley Jacobsen, Dylan McDermott, Rick Yune, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Melissa Leo. The film is directed by Antoine Fuqua.

Based on the popular single-panel newspaper cartoon created by Brad Anderson and Phil Leeming, this is a live-action, kid-centric comedy about a huge, galumphing Great Dane and his hapless human family. It begins as workaholic advertising exec Phil Winslow (Lee Pace), his wife (Judy Greer) and their three children (Caroline Sunshine, Finley Jacobsen, Many/Milana Haines) make a cross-country move from Kansas to Orange County, California, where Phil works for demanding Don Twombly (William H. Macy), the president of an organic dog-food company.

“Marmaduke” is a loud and lowbrow talking-animal flick based on Brad Anderson’s 56-year-old comic. It’s difficult to imagine any but the youngest and most toilet-gag-friendly of audiences taking this CGI/live-action mongrel home from the pound.

Like Anderson’s iconic pooch, Marmaduke is a rambunctious, appetite-driven, affection-starved monster who alternately delights and infuriates the young, upwardly-mobile Winslow family. Unlike the old Marmaduke, this one speaks through digitally-enhanced jowls and has a painfully acute awareness of his own big-dog shortcomings.

Luckily, Marmaduke’s family is the most conspicuously even-tempered group of Midwesterners we’ve ever seen: Dad Phil (Lee Pace from “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day”) is a bright-eyed pleaser who never met a pair of pressed khakis he didn’t like; mom Debbie (Judy Greer, wasted) is the sensible type who spends her days gently rebuking Phil; and kids Barbara (Caroline Sunshine) and Brian (Finley Jacobsen) were...

Live Large! Now checkout new clips from 20th Century Fox's "Marmaduke" including a special screening for dogs. We have a total of 28 videos up for your viewing pleasure from the family comedy which unspools on June 4th Starring are Owen Wilson, Ron Perlman, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Judy Greer, Lee Pace, William H. Macy Caroline Sunshine, Fergie, George Lopez, Steve Coogan, Damon Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Emma Stone, David Williams and Finley Jacobsen. Marmaduke, the world's most lovable Great Dane, leaps from comic strip fame (appearing in 600 newspapers in over 20 countries) to big screen stardom. In this family comedy, the super-sized dog who never fit in, finally finds a place where it's okay to stand out. Now living large in Orange County, California, Marmaduke is helping his family make the big transition from the Midwest to The O.C. But he's also discovering that fitting in with his new four-legged friends isn't always...

Owen Wilson signs on to voice the Great Dane Marmaduke in Fox's adaptation of the famous long-running comic strip, joining Lee Pace and Judy Greer.

The strip, created in 1954 by Brad Anderson and Phil Leeming, is scripted by Tim Rasmussen and Vince Di Meglio. The story follows the Winslow family, who move from Kansas to Orange County with Marmaduke, their slobbering Great Dane who delivers chaos wherever he goes. Marmaduke winds his way into a volatile turf war between Mutts and Pedigrees while trying to gain the loving affections of a purebred and attempting to overcome his own fall from ordered grace.

Along with Wilson, Greer and Pace, the impressive cast of borrowed voices includes Amanda Seyfried, Ron Perlman, Jeremy Piven, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Steve Coogan, Stacy Ferguson, William H. Macy, Damon Wayans Jr., George Lopez, David Walliams and Finley Jacobsen.

The film, set to be directed by Shanghai Noon helmer...