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The hit musical "Annie" moves firmly into the 21st century in
a new film version where the star is a street-smart
African-American foster kid who rides New York buses, and her
savior is a black cell phone billionaire who will stop at
nothing to become mayor.
"Tomorrow" is still the signature song, but the "Annie,"
produced by a team that includes rapper Jay-Z and actor Will
Smith, is all about today.
Quvenzhane Wallis, 11, who two years ago became the youngest
person to win a Best Actress Oscar nomination, plays the foster
kid living a hard-knock life in the multiethnic version of the
Tony-winning 1977 Broadway musical that opens in U.S. movie
theaters on Friday.
Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks is transformed from a 1930s
industrialist into the workaholic telecoms tycoon Will Stacks,
(Jamie Foxx), while actor Bobby Cannavale adds a topical,
satirical edge as his scheming political campaign adviser.
The musical's famous songs get a pop music makeover, sprinkled
with the sounds of street jackhammers and trash can lids, and
Annie's fake parents are found in mass reality TV-style
auditions.
Cannavale said the updates bring the beloved musical "to a
contemporary American audience which is one of many different
colors, shapes, sizes and ethnicities."
"It is really exciting that kids can go and see themselves now
in this movie in a way they were not able to before," Cannavale
told Reuters
Cameron Diaz plays mean foster mother Miss Hannigan, as a
pill-popping, failed pop star.
"This is a woman who thinks that to be loved she has to be
famous, which is kind of an epidemic in our society right now,"
Diaz said.
Wallis made a big splash as an enigmatic child survivalist in
the 2012 independent movie "Beasts of the Southern Wild." But
like much of the rest of the "Annie" cast, she had little
previous experience as a singer and dancer and said she had not
seen the stage musical or any of its many TV or film remakes.
"I saw the musical after (filming) because they didn't want it
to interfere with the way I filmed it," Wallis explained.
The way director Will Gluck filmed it, however, has won scant
approval from U.S. movie critics. The Hollywood Reporter called
the film a "toxic mess," while Variety deemed it "overblown and
undernourished."
(Editing by Patricia Reaney)
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