Toni Collette will be attending the Sydney Film Festival this June to promote “The Way, Way Back”. The comedy will have its festival premiere on June 06. More information, as well as tickets, can be found on the SFF’s official website, a longer synopsis on the film is here: Funny, smart and uplifting, The Way, Way Back is a well-crafted coming-of-age comedy with winning performances by a stellar cast. Fourteen-year-old Duncan (Liam James) is forced to spend the summer vacation with his mother Pam (Toni Collette), her condescending boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell) and his mean-girl daughter. Constantly humiliated, Duncan struggles until he meets Owen (Sam Rockwell, in arguably his best performance), the manager of a somewhat disheveled Water Wizz water park. Rebellious, relaxed, and very funny, Owen pokes fun at Duncan, but at the same time gives him the confidence to stand up for himself and find his place in the world. Directors Jim Rash and Nat Faxon are the Oscar®-winning writers of The Descendents and both accomplished actors themselves – Rash in Community and Faxon in Ben and Kate. Here they have made a heartwarming, inspiring and hilarious film.

Today, the theatrical trailer for “The Way Way Back” has been launched and it looks really promising. The dramatic comedy, written and directed by Nat Faxon, Jim Rash, features an all-star cast including Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Allison Janney, Annasophia Robb, Sam Rockwell, Maya Rudolph, Rob Corddry, Amanda Peet and Liam James. “The Way Way Back” releases US theaters on July 5, 2013. You can watch the trailer in the video archive. Additionally, HD screencaptures from the trailer have been added to the gallery as well.

The film’s official website has been launched as well with a more in-depth synopis: THE WAY, WAY BACK is the funny and poignant coming of age story of 14-year-old Duncan’s (Liam James) summer vacation with his mother, Pam (Toni Collette), her overbearing boyfriend, Trent (Steve Carell), and his daughter, Steph (Zoe Levin). Having a rough time fitting in, the introverted Duncan finds an unexpected friend in gregarious Owen (Sam Rockwell), manager of the Water Wizz water park. Through his funny, clandestine friendship with Owen, Duncan slowly opens up to and begins to finally find his place in the world – all during a summer he will never forget.

According to Deadline, Toni Collette and Jean Reno are set to star in Hector And The Search For Happiness, a romantic comedy feature directed by Peter Chelsom that follows a psychiatrist as he searches the globe for the definition of happiness. The addition of Collette and Reno completes the casting and the film has just commenced principal photography. Collette and Reno join a stellar cast that includes Simon Pegg, who will play Hector, an eccentric London psychiatrist in crisis, Rosamund Pike, Stellan Skarsgård, Christopher Plummer, Desiree Zurowski and Jakob Davies. Chelsom and Tinker Lindsay wrote the screenplay, adapted from the novel of the same name by Francis Lelord. The film is produced by Judy Tossell for Egoli Tossell Film and Christine Haebler for Screen Siren Pictures. Jens Meurer and Trish Dolman are serving as executive producers.

Deadline reports that two-time Tony award winner James Naughton has joined the cast of the upcoming CBS drama pilot HOSTAGES. The actor joins previously announced cast member Toni Collette on the project from Jerry Bruckheimer TV and Warner Bros TV. Written and directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, the drama follows “Ellen (Toni Collette), a successful surgeon who is selected to operate on the President of the United States (Naughton) and thrust into The Middle of a political conspiracy when her family is taken hostage.” The Hollywood Reporter, Rhys Coiro of “A Gifted Man” has joined the cast as well. Coiro will play Kramer, the brother-in-law of Ellen’s husband Duncan (McDermott). Kramer’s involvement in the political conspiracy will test his loyalties and add another layer of complication and drama for Duncan.

DVD screencaptures of one of Toni’s more recent films, “Jesus Henry Christ”, have been added to the gallery. Filmed in 2010, it failed to win audiences (and a distributor) after its Tribeca premiere and has been released on DVD in the USA and Europe since. The film is indeed disappointing because it seems to reach for the heights but fails, I’ll be putting up a more detailed review soon. Still, it has Michael Sheen and Toni Collette, so it’s watchable of course. To launch the new pictures, just click one of the previews below. Additionally, a couple of new production stills have been added as well.

Also, three clips from the film have been added to the video archive (the trailer has been oline for a while as well). Have a look at the previews below.

There were plenty of breakout hits from the 2013 Sundance Festival earlier this year, but the one bought for the most money because of its potential mainstream appeal was “The Way Way Back.” Starring Sam Rockwell, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Maya Rudolph, Rob Corddry and more, the film was the directorial debut of Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, the writers of “The Descendants” which won a Best Adapted Screenplay award in 2012. Now the film has been dated for Fox Searchlight and will receive a July 5th bow. Summer counter-programming has seen positive success in recent years. Focus Features had a similar indie hit in the summer of 2010 with “The Kids Are All Right” and Searchlight themselves obviously had excellent reach this year with “Beasts Of The Southern Wild,” released at the end of June last year. They’ll be looking for similar success with “The Way Way Back”. News comes from IndieWire.