Happy New Year From ICM!

~Continuing The Year of the Grint~

When 2009 began, Rupert fans everywhere had dubbed it “The Year of the Grint” because Rupert had no less that three movies that would be seen. It started off pretty easily with a bang. In February Rupert attended the world premiere of Cherrybomb at the Berlin International Film Festival where all three showings of the film sold out quickly. It was a great time as staffers Jo, Karo and AJ were in attendance where we got a great interview with Rupert. (If you’ve missed it, you can check it out here.) And so began our quest around the globe to see Cherrybomb and have exciting exclusives as not only did the girls see and interview Rupert, but they got to know many of the people involved in Cherrybomb!

Next staffer Ivana jetted off to Dublin where the screening was sold out! We got an exclusive interview with Kat Kirk who plays Sharon in the film! We also were able to exclusively reveal that Cherrybomb would next be shown at Belfast for their film festival. This was an exciting time as I (Tao), my mom, Jo, Karo, and AJ all came together to not only see the film but had gotten an exclusive set tour! (You can read all about it here!)

Our next Cherrybomb stop was at the LA Irish Film Festival where my mom and I flew to LA to see the film once again along with long time (but rarely seen) staffer Lynn!

Sadly Cherrybomb news hasn’t always been roses. After Belfast we unfortunately heard that due to tough economic times they were having a hard time getting distributors interested. The Little Film Company, the sales company for the film, asked us to help them out in showing distributors that this was not a profit loss! And we did just that! We came together to write up a few petitions for different countries, made challenges to write into different entertainment outlets, and got the word out. The response has been terrific! Since the campaigns debut at the end of April, we have gathered over 12,000 signatures from fans wanting to see the film, urging the distributors in their countries to take a chance on it. Not only that but the campaign has made a big splash being talked about on The Independent, BBC News, Reelz Channel, Mashable, and even Perez! Many of which give shoutouts to the hard work that many on ICM displayed. It also lead to the awesome news that a major distributing company in the UK had bought the rights to distribute the film with a promising response that a U.S. deal would be on the way soon too!

Of course, in between all this mega news and globe trotting for Cherrybomb, Rupert was busy filming a little known movie called “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”. Because of all the out door scenes, we had a lot of onset pictures featuring Rupert in various outfits. Though none more exciting than when Rupert appeared with curly hair and a fake beard! (You can see these lovely images here.)

Then the furry of excitement started when the first of Rupert’s movies was finally released: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Between the clips, the interviews, the behind-the-scenes action, we were always kept busy with all sorts of different Harry Potter related material. Oddly though, the biggest news didn’t come from this, but from Rupert contracting Swine Flu in July!

But the best news was that Rupert was a big feature in the latest Harry Potter flick and the critics couldn’t have been more thrilled. His comedy, his depth, his ability to carry the movie was given such overwhelming response that our Rave Reviews section had to have two pages for Half-Blood Prince!

Then premiere time came. First up was London where our staffer Ivana got a chance to interview Rupert, in the rain! You can watch her interview here! And she got interviews out of many of the cast members talking about Rupert! Then came America’s turn. Jo and I got the chance to interview Rupert at the New York premiere and hung out with many of our ICM regulars: AJ (who again is a staffer), Nia and Evie! We also got to ask Warwick Davis all about Rupert (you can view the video here) and of course we had a chance to speak to Dan at the Today Show who was also had nothing but tremendous praise for Rupert!

And to top off the stream of interviews and premieres we are hit with Blag, Rupert’s first true styled photo-shoot and interview. It was like a breath of fresh air for the fandom because we would finally get to learn new and exciting information about him as a person and his goals and dreams for the future. Blag pretty much paved the way for what was to come. We were hit even harder with his heartfelt and intimate interview with the Daily Mail where he discussed personal lows and the highs and his fears of making it in the industry post Potter. We also got another photo shoot very distant from Blag, very edgy and sexy, something else that allowed him to shake off the Ron Weasley persona once more. It was also the first time the fans were really able to connect with him in such a way that we hadn’t before. It was in essence a major turning point for Rupert and his fans.

As we moved into the fall things somewhat died down, although we did get glimpses of him at various events including hanging out around his love for fast cars at the British Formula 1 race and two rallys, one of which is brother James was competing in! Rupert dressed up as Alex DeLarge for Halloween! He was also often caught on the golf course fully decked out in his golf gear playing some serious games!

Rupert also made the headlines in other non-Potter related news. He made a big splash when his homes that he had recently bought was revealed. He also made headlines when it was revealed that he purchased micro-pigs that are the latest celebrity craze in Britain!

He was also the subject of many rumors this year. The first one being linked to his Cherrybomb co-star Kimberley Nixon which of course was nixed right away. And he was also rumored to be considered to play Prince Harry in the upcoming biopic “The Spare” which incidentally be penned by Driving Lessons writer/director Jeremy Brock! Most recently though he has been rumored to be in another biopic called Eddie The Eagle” which is all about Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards, an olympic ski-jumper in 1988. However this one actually has a bit of merit! We were informed by his reps that Rupert was handed the script and that it was “in the very early stages”. On November 22nd it was revealed that Rupert would portray Eddie The Eagle Edwards in the $15 million dollar biopic directed by Declan Lowney. (However his agency says no final contracts have been signed!) This will be Rupert’s first project will he’ll have the staring role rather than sharing screen time with other (great or up and coming) actors.

During the year, Rupert was in many different polls for different categories including his first Relly award, his first Spike TV Scream Award nomination, and he beat out popular Robert Pattinson for favorite British actor of 2009 at Popsugar!

Rupert is not the only one who had a lot of big things come his way in 2009. Ice Cream Man itself has gone through a lot of changes and has brought the readers many exclusives, new sections of the site, and much, much more!

As touched up, ICM got to interview Rupert three times in 2009: Berlinale, London and New York. We also brought you an exclusive set tour of where Cherrybomb was filmed. But we had more than that. With Cherrybomb we brought you exclusive interviews with David Holmes (music score composer), Kat Kirk (Sharron (twice)), Helen Sloan (stills photographer), Robert Sheehan (Luke), Brian Phillip Davis (graphic designer), Stephen Hilton (Flykkiller), Gary Irwin (The Vendetta Suite), Inara George (The Bird and the Bee), James Smith (ExMagician), Robyn Shiels, Thierry Muller (Ruth).

We also launched several sub-sites of ICM this year. Grintastic which is our fanzine (created and maintained by staffers Ivana and Michelle), Press Archives (created and maintained by staffer Jo), Filmography (created and maintained by staffer Karo).

We also finally broke down and got ourselves a twitter. We’ve also set up the exclusive twitter site for Cherrybomb! And as we already touched upon, we did amazing stuff with the Cherrybomb petition getting well over 12,000 signatures worldwide!

So what could possibly be more exciting than what has happened in 2009? Well, plenty because 2010 promises to be much bigger!

With Wild Target trying to secure US distribution and has already grabbed distribution in many other countries, it will definitely be released in 2010. And of course with Cherrybomb slowly getting distribution with all the fantastic work from the fans it too will see a release in 2010. And of course Rupert will be seen in part 1 of Deathly Hallows closer to the end of 2010! And with the filming coming to a close of said movie, we’ll be sure to see and hear about Rupert taking all kinds of projects as his time won’t be taken up by the hard work put into the Harry Potter films.

ICM still has a few surprises to bring to you as well. We have a few more areas we’ve cooked up that will be released in the coming year. We’re sure to gather more interviews as well and more and more exclusives. So please stay tuned and have a very happy New Year! We hope 2009 was a great one like it was for Rupert and ICM and that 2010 is just as good!

PS: Thank you so much to Laura for putting together this gorgeous video highlighting the best of the decade all things Rupert and for the wonderful sweet messages from all of you fans to ICM. It means so much to us. Thank you guys. We promise to keep bringing you the best for 2010!

Check Laura’s awesome New Years Vid here.