Thus far, the marketing for Universal's upcoming Oscar hopeful "Les Misérables" has been spot on. Promising epic grandeur, emotional and exquisite production values, all with a top flight cast, excitement has been running high. And then there's this….
A couple new posters for the film has arrived and it looks like Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter just walked in off the set of a Tim Burton movie (or Bonham Carter might have fallen into some shrubbery before this photo was taken). The pair star as the Thernardiers, the "villains" of the film, who are tasked with looking after Fantine's (Anne Hathaway) daughter Cosette (Amanda Seyfried), but essentially treat her like dirt while favoring their own offspring Éponine (Samantha Barks), leading to rather tragic consequences. With Cohen and Carter in the roles, this could really go either way…meanwhile, the other one sheet showcases Cosette along with Marius (Eddie Redmayne), her love interest.
Anyway, we'll see the results when "Les Misérables" opens on Christmas Day. [Huffington Post]
I'm the rare person who has read Les Mis but never seen the musical. In the book, the Thenardieress is a huge fat woman, while Thenardier is short and slight, so I was surprised but the casting here. Still, I think Bonham Carter will nail the attitude.
A couple things should be kept in mind here: 1. While the Thenardiers are villains, they're not the central antagonist, which is Russell Crowe's Javert. 2. They are, and have always been, the central comic relief of the whole play, and their ridiculous unscrupulousness always makes them audience favorites–they always get the biggest cheers and whistles at the end of a performance. 3. "Master of the House" is a hilarious song detailing all Thenardier's petty innkeeper cheating and general unsavoriness, and it's probably the song most people come out with stuck in their heads.
….All that said, they do look a little weird and out-of-place on this poster, and I hope they feel well-integrated into the film as a whole.
I love Helena Bonham Carter ! She is always great at whatever she does.
Its probably kind of hard to not always look like you just stepped out of a Tim Burton movie when you're married to Tim Burton
Still no Eponine poster. I know Samantha Barks isn't exactly a household name yet, but Eponine is an incredibly famous character in the musical theater world. You'd think they'd have done something by now.
I'm supposed to root AGAINST the guy with muttonchops? Fuck that.
How is it possible that those posters are for the same movie? One is clearly a Tim Burton film and the other is some Nicholas Sparks type crappy romance.