Latest News from the Peter Weir Cave

February 5th, 2011:
        Peter Weir delivered the annual David Lean lecture in December and all the video – including a Q&A hosted by Mark Kermode – and audio are now available for free over at: BAFTA.

October 30th, 2010:
        Here's a link to the poster for The Way Back.

October 10th, 2010:
        The trailer for The Way Back is now up.

September 4th, 2010:
        The Way Back will debut at the Telluride Film Festival this week. (I am resisting posting reviews until there are a few out there.) Peter also discusses the film's production, the state of movie making and his future as a director in this extensive Directors Guild Association interview.

September 1st, 2010:
        An industry source with close ties to Peter Weir reports that the film is 'penciled' in for a limited Oscar run in late December 2010 before opening wide on January 21st, 2011.

June 30th, 2009:
        Reports from Times of India that The Way Back has now completed filming, with the final segment of production wrapping in India this month.

March 27th, 2009:
        After a seven year hiatus, the cameras are again rolling on another Peter Weir film. According to this article, production of The Way Back, featuring Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, and Saoirse Ronan, has now moved from Bulgaria to Morocco for the film's desert scenes.

January 10th, 2009: According to Variety, Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess and Saoirse Ronan are in final negotiations to star in The Way Back. Farrell will play 'a tough, tattooed Russian'; Harris an American; Sturgess a young Polish inmate; while Ronan will portray 'a Russian on the run who meets up with the fugitives'.

October 17th, 2008:
        Confirmation that Weir is set to film The Way Back, the new title for his movie based, amongst other sources, on Slavomir Rawicz's 2006 book. For more details, see Michael Fleming's article in today's Variety.

July 24th, 2008:
        Details of a new Peter Weir film To Light a Fire, based on Slavomir Rawicz's 2006 book The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom, chronicling the escape of a group of prisoners from a Siberian labor camp in 1942, have appeared in Variety. The director is looking at a possible fall (September-November, 2008) start to filming.

January 31st, 2008:
        Footage from an early Peter Weir documentary-satire What Ever Happened to Green Valley? has been made available for viewing on the ABC TV (Australia) website.

November 16th, 2007:
        Added trailers for The Cars That Ate Paris and The Plumber in the Theatrical Trailers section of the website. In other news, further confirmation that Weir has pulled out of Shadow Divers with no director being listed next to the film's title in an inventory of movies being made before the writers' strike. To see the list, follow this link.

October 23rd, 2007:
        An industry source with links to Peter Weir reports that the director will no longer be making Shadow Divers.

October 22nd, 2007:
        Added trailers for all of Peter's features (save The Mosquito Coast and The Cars That Ate Paris) in a new Theatrical Trailers section.

August 13th, 2007:
        A 16:9 (DVD, Region 2) version of Fearless was recently released in Germany, with an English language option in the audio menu. If you can speak German, (or want to try bluffing your way through it!) go to Amazon.de.

June 4th, 2007:
        The author of Pattern Recognition, William Gibson, suggests Peter will no longer be directing the film adaptation of his novel. For more details read Gibson's Blog.

June 4th, 2007:
        It's been a quiet few years on the Peter Weir front, hence the lack of activity or updates at this site. For this reason I have engaged the services of frequent site-contributor Andrew Witney to post any significant news, as well as making minor additions to other sections when possible. Then, when a new project does finally get the green-light, the site will no doubt be back to full speed again.

November 16th, 2006:
        Weir is in talks to direct the film Shadow Divers. For more details check out The Hollywood Reporter.

June 12th, 2006:
        The director has dropped out of Shantaram. For more details go to killermovies.com.

November 30th, 2005:
        News on another Peter Weir project, with the director in negotiations to helm Shantaram, a Warner Bros. adaptation of the Gregory David Roberts novel with Johnny Depp attached. Read the article in Variety. Looks like "Pattern Recognition" may indeed be a while longer in development (with The War Magician a while longer than that).

August 25th, 2005:
        Peter Weir (and David Arata) are working on a screen adaptation of William Gibson's novel Pattern Recognition. This could be his next project, although, in the words of the director, the script will spend a while in development. For more details check out this interview (11MB audio file) with Peter on dvdtalkradio.com (NB This interview also contains an interesting discussion regarding the special edition DVD releases of Witness and The Truman Show).

January 27th, 2004:
        Master and Commander is nominated for ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (for Weir). Other nominated categories include Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Costume, Film Editing, Makeup and Visual Effects.
          This is Peter's fourth best director gong, elevating him to equal 6th on the all time list of nominees in this category yet to recieve (or who never won) an Oscar for their work. The list reads as follows: Clarence Brown (6 nominations); Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman & Stanley Kubric (5 nomsinations); Sidney Lumet, King Vidor, Frederico Fellini & PETER WEIR (4 nominations).

September 4th, 2003:
        Peter Weir is in negotiations to direct WWII epic The War Magician for Paramount and producers Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner according to trade paper Variety.

November 5th, 2001:
        Talk of David Lynch, Peter Weir, and Roland Joffe (and possibly other filmmakers) planning on creating a mini-studio in Poland. Can't find anything concrete on it yet.

September 6th, 2001:
        More news on the upcoming Criterion release of The Last Wave on DVD. It will be released on November 13th and contains an interview with the director as well as the original theatrical trailer.

July 23rd, 2001:
        Prior to its release on Criterion DVD, it appears as if the newly remastered print of Peter Weir's 1977 film The Last Wave will have a theatrical showing at the 2nd Annual Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Festival in Hollywood. The screening will take place on August 25th at 5pm at the Egyptian Theater.

July 3rd, 2001:
        During his appearance at last year's Seattle Film Festival, Peter Weir mentioned that The Last Wave would be released on DVD. Criterion DVD has finally announced that the DVD will be released on November 13th of this year. No news yet on any extra features for the DVD release.

May 18th, 2001:
        Although the site has not moved an inch, the Peter Weir Cave now has its own domain name at www.peterweircave.com.

April 8th, 2001:
        Revamped the articles section. It now contains 29 different articles / interviews. Also, made some additions to "The Cars That Ate Paris" page, adding in a comparison between the two versions of the film.

April 7th, 2001:
        Still trying in vain to find a copy of Peter Weir's The Plumber? The entire film is now available to view for free from www.cinemapop.com. You will have to register with them to view any films, but after that you are able to view any films available in the FREE section. Just put "plumber" in the search box or find it (erroneously) in the Comedy section. If you have a cable connection you should be able to view the film full screen. It's rather pixelated that way, but looks great if you just sit back a few feet from your monitor. If you do check out the film, I'd love to hear your comments.

March 27th, 2001:
        It appears that Peter Weir is still preparing to film Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commander". According to a recent article, Weir has purchased the HMS Rose tall ship for the film.

September 22nd, 2000:
        Although there is not an actual site there yet, http://www.masterandcommander.com takes you to the Fox Movies web site.

September 9th, 2000:
        Added a Peter Weir mailing list to the web site.

August 10th, 2000:
        It appears as if Peter Weir's next project may be the adaptation of Patrick O'Brian's 1969 high-seas adventure novel "Master and Commander". For more details, check out Yahoo! News or Variety.

June 10th:, 2000:
        The Seattle Film Festival has come and gone. If you want to hear details from Weir at the festival, check out my experiences from the festival.

May 12th, 2000:
        The Seattle International Film Festival is hosting a Tribute to Peter Weir this year. On June 4th there will be "an entire evening devoted to a retrospective of Weir's career highlights, an intimate on-stage interview, and the screening of one of his most engaging works, Fearless. In addition, they will be screening a number of his other films. Check out the SIFF site for more details.

January 2nd, 2000:
        Did a major re-working of the Dead Poets Society pages. It is still being fixed up (the yearbook section leaves a bit to be desired) but there are some new additions, most notably a full dialog version of the final script as well as the full text (almost) of an earlier draft.

November 9th, 1999:
     The Mosquito Coast is scheduled to be released on DVD on December 14th. According to DVD Express, the DVD will feature the film in standard and widescreen format and also include the theatrical trailer.
            Been doing a major re-working of many of the movie pages, especially Witness, The Year of Living Dangerously, and Gallipoli. Too many of them were all in one messy page so I broke them up into sections and made a few additions here and there.

October 25th, 1999:
        Numerous changes to The Mosquito Coast page with improved cast details, reviews, etc. Also added a page for Weir's early short film Homesdale to the the films section.

October 23rd, 1999:
            Finally added a few memorable scene pages from The Truman Show. Hopefully more to come soon.

October 20th, 1999:
          Finished adding the various changes between the finished film of Dead Poets Society and an earlier draft of the script. Quite a number of interesting bits. Hear all of Knox's poem to Chris, Todd's unread poem, the origins of "carpe breastum", and a scene near the end where Keating joins the boys at the cave.

October 16th, 1999:
        Numerous minor additions here and there. The main changes of late have been to the Dead Poets Society section. This includes numerous DVD scans, an ongoing comparison between the film and an early draft of the screenplay, and the much delayed posting of responses to the various DPS questions.

September 19th, 1999:
        Anyone perusing the site recently may have noticed a few changes here and there as far as the images are concerned. A DVD player and a video capture card are allowing me to improve the images dramatically. I will hopefully get around to all of the pages very soon, adding / improving the images. For starters, I have added a number of cast images to the Gallipoli page and improved the existing images. (I will hopefully get around to improving the content soon as well.) You can also see a few basic scans of cast members from the hard to find Weir film The Plumber.
        Added DVD details to the Fearless page (along with a couple additions to the Memorable Scenes section.) Hoping to add DVD details for the remaining available Weir films soon.

June 2nd, 1999:
        A brief article on Peter Weir from The Brisbane Courier-Mail on April 28th:

Media violence and media overload can make children capable of acts such as the recent  US School Shootings, film director Peter Weir said in Singapore this week. Young people can lose the line between reality and unreality as "the terrifying result of exposure to ... constant [violent] imagery" he said. "When they wander about with guns, shooting, it's as if they are actors in a movie with no understanding of what they're doing".

Weir said irresponsibly graphic films could be dangerous but movies were only the tip of the iceberg in a 'toxic culture'. Parents should help their children comprehend physical reality by reducing the rapid-fire media images to which they were exposed, he said. "Switch the TV off, switch the computer off, switch the Internet off, pull the plug out of the Walkman," he said. "Let them be bored, let their own imaginations take over".

April 20th, 1999:
        The Year of Living Dangerously, which has been banned in Singapore since its initial release, was finally scheduled to be shown during Singapore's International Film Festival, which opened on April 17th. Peter Weir was scheduled to attend the screening. He was also to give a talk for the Singapore Film Commission's "distinguished lecture series."

April 12th, 1999:
        The BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) awards were given out yesterday. Peter Weir was given the David Lean Award for Best Achievement in Direction. The Truman Show also won honors for best original screenplay by Andrew Niccol and for Dennis Gassner's Production Design.
        In more DVD news, Fearless is now scheduled to be released on May 18th, 1999. Adding to the growing list ofWeir films available on DVD, both Gallipoli and Witness are scheduled for release on June 29th.

March 26th, 1999:
        Fearless will be released on DVD in North America on May 25th 1999. No word yet on whether there will be any extras included with the disc. Meanwhile, the Oscars have come and gone. Truman came away empty handed, Weir attended the show, Ed Harris didn't clap, and Jim Carrey had fun joking about his non nomination. Personally, I think that Shakespeare in Love was great fun but not in the same ballpark as Saving Private Ryan.

February 9th, 1999:
        A bit of a disappointing morning for those hoping The Truman Show would clean up at the Oscars. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards: Ed Harris for Best Supporting Actor, Andrew Niccol for Best Original Screenplay, and Peter Weir for Best Director. Most notably, the film was not nominated for Best Picture and despite his win at the Golden Globes, Jim Carrey was not nominated for Best Actor.

February 3rd, 1999:
        A somewhat belated addition to the news section. The Golden Globe Awards were given out on January 24th and The Truman Show took home three awards: Jim Carrey for Best Actor in a Drama, Ed Harris for Best Supporting Actor, and Burkhard Dallwitz and Philip Glass for Best Original Score. Weir lost out to Steven Spielberg in the Best Director category.
        Box office totals for The Truman Show total $125.6 million in North America and $122.3 million in the rest of the world for a grand total of $247.9 million.

December 17th, 1998:
        The nominees are in for the Golden Globe Awards and The Truman Show tied Shakespeare in Love for the most nominations at six each. Truman has been nominated for Best Drama, Best Director, Best Actor in a Drama (Jim Carrey), Best Supporting Actor (Ed Harris), Best Screenwriter (Andrew Niccol), and Best Original Score. Check out the full story at Mr. Showbiz.

   Here's a quick update regarding the box office stats for "The Truman Show" internationally. Figure in brackets represents position in charts if it is still listed in the top ten.
 

December 8th, 1998:
        The National Board of Review announced their winners and Ed Harris was named best supporting actor for his roles in The Truman Show and Stepmom.

November 22nd, 1998:

According to DVD Empire, the release date for The Truman Show on DVD is January 12th, 1999.
 

November 18th 1998:   Dead Poets Society is now available on DVD. Unfortunately, it does not appear as if it contains the extra scenes. Also, aside from being in widescreen format, there are no added features available. (No theatrical trailer, no commentary, no interviews, etc.)

 

October 27th, 1998:
    Finally got around to updating and fixing up the site a wee bit. I decided to get rid of the frames. They were fun for a time but I don't think they really served much purpose here. Besides, they posed too many problems when I was trying to design the pages.

    Picnic At Hanging Rock is now available on DVD. Its running time is 1:47 and the DVD also contains the original theatrical trailer.
    After racking up a total of $125.6 million in North America, The Truman Show is now coming to the rest of the world, live and 24 hours a day. So far, it has racked up $35.4 million in a few weeks overseas. As of October 11th, it was still number one in Italy with $7.5 million in three weeks. It debuted in the U.K. in first place with $3.7 million and grossed nearly $3 million in its first week in Australia. If you want to keep track of the box office stats yourself, check out ShowBIZ Data, Box Office Statistics, or Box Office Guru. (If anyone knows any better links, please let me know.)
 
 

September 15th, 1998:
        According to DVD Empire, Picnic at Hanging Rock will be available in DVD format on October 20th. Although it was not specifically mentioned, it appears as if this will be the director's cut which had several minutes trimmed from it. Currently, The Year of Living Dangerously is the only Weir film available on DVD. Gallipoli is listed as coming soon but no specific date is set. Meanwhile, DVD Express lists Dead Poets Society as being scheduled for DVD release on November 10th. No mention as to whether the extra scenes will be available or not for that.

        The Truman Show has now grossed $124,867,391 in North America. That temporarily places it as the 97th highest grossing movie of all time in North America. In the next few weeks it will be released in various countries overseas so I'll try to get figures for that when they come in.
 

 July 1st, 1998:
        Peter Weir's 1975 breakthrough film, Picnic at Hanging Rock, has been re-edited by Weir (seven minutes were removed) and is now being played theatrically in limited release. Also, the film is supposed to be available on laser disc. No word yet on any release on video or DVD yet.

    Recent interviews with Peter Weir regarding The Truman Show can be found in the June edition of Movieline (with Nicolas Cage on the cover) and the July edition of Premiere (with Uma Thurman on the cover).

    The Truman Show has made just over $100 million as of June 29th, making it Weir's most successful film at the North American box office. (Dead Poets Society grossed $95.8 million.)

    Witness and Gallipoli have both been released in widescreen format on video as part of a special Paramount promotion.