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The Score

Cast: Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, Marlon Brando, Angela Bassett

Director: Frank Oz (Bowfinger, In and Out)

Filming: started filming in Montreal on or around 5/31/00. They probably shot around 82 days. The Hollywood Reporter's production listings has the film wrapping the week of Oct 17-23.

Summary: Robert De Niro plays a master thief who owns a jazz club and is ready to retire from crime, until he is blackmailed by thief Edward Norton into doing one last heist, of a priceless scepter from 1600. Marlon Brando plays De Niro's fence, while Angela Bassett plays De Niro's love interest. The story itself is set in Montreal.

In Theaters: July 13, 2001.



DVD


The Score is available on DVD

Special features include:
-- commentary by director Frank Oz and director of photography Rob Hahn
-- making of "The Score"
-- additional footage
-- theatrical trailer

It is not yet available on Blu-Ray.

Soundtrack


If you're fond of the score by Howard Shore, the soundtrack is also available.
Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, Marlon Brando Edward Norton with gun
Score special screening

The Score Official Website

View The Score trailer!

Latest news

More articles Toronto Sun's Edward Norton knows The Score, Time magazine's How To Make A Score, New York Times's Seeking to Map Brando's Island, Associated Press's Marlon Brando Clashes with Frank Oz and L.A. Times article on Oz called All Joking Aside...

Another new EN interview, this time from the NY Daily News- It Takes a Thief

On the same night as the Baltimore Benefit Screening, there is also going to be a premiere held in L.A. to benefit The Music Center of Los Angeles County (More info).

A Montreal Gazette (7/2/01) article addresses the early rumors about The Score- Settling the Score stories

The Associated Press and Entertainement News Daily have both released new interviews with EN about The Score- AP's Ed Norton Sees 'The Score' As Classic and END's All-Star Game: Edward Norton on Brando, De Niro And `the Score',

A behind-the-scenes special called Making The Score premiered on Showtime on July 1 and will repeat a few more times. Check your tv listings.

Maxim magazine's July issue has a small section on The Score in their "Hot Zone" column.

Premiere magazine June 2001 issue included the following about the movie:

What do you get when you combine three of the most respected (and feared) actors of their respective generations? A very confident director. "These guys don't need things pulled out of them," says Oz (Bowfinger). "I'll whisper something to Bob or suggest something to Edward, but in general, I sat back and made choices, as opposed to directing them." The Score centers on a master thief (De Niro) who postpones his retirement when a young rival (Norton) blackmails him into one last heist. In order to fit the film into De Niro's schedule, production began before the script was finished. "I told the cast that this would be a workshop kind of thing," Oz says, "and I think they really enjoyed working on that edge."
An offer you can't refuse: Only a handful of Brando's ad-libs made the movie's final cut. Expect a fascinating DVD someday.

Entertainment Weekly "Summer Movie Preview" issue has some info on The Score. Read the EW info here

The movie preview (also called the trailer) for The Score is now playing before several different movies

The trailer is also available online at The Score Official Website. You can also see screenshots from the trailer at Rotten Tomatoes

More info

Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, Angela Bassett, and Frank Oz were present at a press conference held on 5/25/00 on the set of The Score. For more details, read De Niro to film movie in Montreal and Are you talking to us?

In an April 2000 interview with Charlie Rose, Edward Norton mentioned that The Score would be reminiscent of Michael Mann's Thief.

While showing Keeping the Faith at the Karlovy Film Festival, EN had this to say about The Score in a 7/15/00 interview - Hollywood's Soft-spoken Intellectual

"It’s been great. I’m about half way through. They are both terrific. Marlon has a fairly small part in it, but DeNiro is phenomenal. He is like breathing through oxygen, he is so good, so good, he’s real minimalist. He is all gesture-if he could get rid of the words, he would get rid of the words.

How did EN get along with Brando? In EN's Total Film interview, he said the following. "I've known Marlon for a little while before doing this - we have mutual friends - so I already knew that I liked him." A few years ago, EN was going to play Orson Welles opposite Brando as newspaper magnet William Randolph Hearst in RKO 281, a look at the battle behind the making of Citizen Kane. The planned big budget film was eventually scaled down into an HBO movie (More on RKO 281)

Oz said that De Niro, Norton, Brando and Bassett all provided their input on the script and there is some adlibbing by De Niro, Norton, and Brando.

An Montreal Gazette interview with Frank Oz includes more details on the production - Oz busts out of Muppet mold with The Score

Preparation

To date, not a lot has been said about how EN prepared for the role except for one sentence from a 9/13/00 BBC online article. EN stated, "I spent a lot of time going around with the LAPD burglary unit learning how to crack safes."

The Naked Truth

Gossip columnists couldn't ignore a movie with such a stellar cast. Thus began a rather strange rumor of Brando shooting his scenes naked from the waist down and refusing to work unless De Niro directed his scenes rather than The Score's director Frank Oz. Oz said that these rumors were "Bull---" in Variety's Archerd column. But doesn't a naked Brando seem like too weird a rumor to make up? Actually, Edward Norton (during his Total Film interview) revealed how this rumor probably originated when he was asked whether or not the rumor was true. Here's what he said:

No. [Laughs] That got kind of overcooked. It was just that we were working on soundstages that were very hot, so sometimes when they were moving in for the higher shots he was taking his trousers off and shooting in his underwear. It was more to keep cool than anything.

Changes

Both the Archerd: Oz settles 'Score" rumors article and EN's interview with Total Film have provided some important information. Early on, there were websites that posted two different negative reviews of "The Score" script (both on the 12/2/99 draft). From the Archerd article, it is apparent that some things have changed. As mentioned above, the actors have added their input to the script and there is some improvised dialogue, so there should be a significant difference between the finished product and the 12/2/99 draft. In the early script, the big heist centered around a Tarot Card collection on loan to the Montreal's National Library of Antiquities. Now, they are after a "priceless scepter from 1600", which has been impounded in a Montreal customs house. Another difference seems to be in Angela Bassett's character. In the 12/2/99 script, there is only one main female character, an ambitious reporter named Joe, who becomes romantically involved first with Norton's character and then with De Niro's in an effort to get an exclusive on the heist. Now, her character is De Niro's girlfriend and she doesn't want him to do the heist. Oz mentioned that there are no steamy sex scenes in the film- the early script had sex scenes between Joe and Norton's character.


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