Calendar:
23 May 2012 - Matt and John Krasinski to attend the People's History live readings in Pittsburgh (TBC)
7 June 2012 - Matt to attend the 'One Hundred Gala Event' for the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston
July 2012 - Behind the Candelabra to start filming
12-15 July 2012 - Elysium trailer expected to be released at Comic-Con
1 March 2013 - Elysium to be released

Currently filming:
Promised Land in Pittsburgh until 4 June

Promised Land is filming with a unique camera ratio format - details here.

Cinematographer Linus Sandgren is currently photographing a feature film using a format that is extremely rare, and possibly unique for a feature film. The film, titled Promised Land, is being shot on 35 mm using the full 4-perf frame, using Vantage’s 1.3x Hawk anamorphic lenses. The final aspect ratio will be 1.85:1. It’s believed that the technique may have been used previously on some commercials, but never for the big screen.

Director Gus Van Sant wanted the ability to capture and reproduce rich location details, and he noted his admiration for images made with Leica still cameras. Sandgren says that the additional image area of the 4-perf/1.3x anamorphic combination delivers. “For the look of Promised Land, we’ve been looking towards photojournalism from the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s,” he says. “I’m especially fond of the work of Steve McCurry, Mitch Epstein and Eve Arnold. Many of their reportage-style images were shot on 135 film cameras and Kodakchrome stock, which has characteristic contrast while carrying all the highlights and keeping the blacks dense, but soft."

Recent reports on the filming of Promised Land are at TribLive here and here.

Matt, Ben and John Krasinski are hosting a fundraiser for Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren in LA on 21 May - the details are here.

There may be a live event for The People Speak in Pittsburgh on 23 May, according to this post:

vph: So glad @MalcolmLondon able to join us in Pittsburgh for our May 23 event / shoot so he can share more of his poetry with Mr. M. Damon!

Matt will be attending the fundraiser for Massachusetts General Hospital's Cancer Center in Boston on 7 June - details here.

Matt and brother Kyle honored mother Nancy in a section on the Water.org site for Mother's Day - details here.

Happy Mother’s Day! Your love, support, and commitment to making the world a better place has shaped the person I am and the women my girls will become. You and mothers everywhere inspire me to work to end the global water crisis. Love, — Matt Damon

Dear Mom, Happy Mother's Day to a woman whose actions and ideas of love and justice continue to spread beyond your sons. I love you, mom. -Your #1 son — Kyle Damon

Promised Land continues filming around Pittsburgh. A media release announcing the start of filming is here. A photo of Matt with Worthington Pa mayor Kevin Feeney is at the Kittanning Paper and a photo and report of filming at Kistako is here. The film may be released later this year.

"Matt and I wanted to write a story about American identity," [John] Krasinski says. "In all of today's political and economic rhetoric, I feel people often lose sight of the deeper, core principles of what defines us as a country. We knew we needed to find a contemporary issue that would serve as the backdrop to the story but, more importantly, allow us to fully explore this idea."

Mr. Brody said, “Matt and John’s script is rich in Frank Capra-esque qualities, blending humor and heart while exploring the power of community in this day and age. An actor’s director like Gus will bring forth all the emotions in the story, which is a true passion project for everyone. We’re proud to be making Promised Land with Participant as our creative and financial partner.”

A newly released German interview for Zoo is here, but the interview was from December 2011.

The background to Matt's involvement in the recent poker movie is outlined in this article.

Water.org and Gary White were honored at an event by the World Policy Institute on Thursday, but Matt did not attend.

Matt is expected to be in Vancouver from May 11-24 for additional shooting on Elysium, according to Vancouver paparazzo pursuit23.

Promised Land starts filming in Pittsburgh on Monday - the latest cast member is Titus Welliver. Matt and John Krasinski have recently been in the area rehearsing with director Gus Van Sant. Emily Blunt talked about the project to Philly.com:

Although Emily Blunt - in theaters now in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, and in theaters soon with The Five-Year Engagement - won't talk about her personal life with The Office's John Krasinski, she's happy to talk about her husband's professional pursuits.

"John has a production company, and he has been quite an inspiration to me," the British actress says, by way of relating her own efforts to be "more assertive" and take control of her career, and the kinds of projects she gets to make.

"John has written this script with Matt Damon, and Gus Van Sant is directing it, and that's kind of amazing - for him to write his first screenplay, and for Gus Van Sant to say, 'I love it, I'm doing it!'"

The project, called Promised Land, is set to start shooting soon in the Pittsburgh area. It's about two corporate types - Damon and Krasinski - and the life upheavals that happen when they drop down on a small town. Rosemarie DeWitt, Hal Holbrook, and Frances McDormand also star.

Matt and Gary White recently met with journalists in Washington about water.org - a report is at the Washington Post. They were also interviewed by The Atlantic.

Matt Damon came to The Atlantic last week to have dinner with a few of us (this sort of thing happens all the time) and I had the chance to sit down with him beforehand and talk about the cause that consumes much of his life: the hard-to-sell-but-indispensably-important issue of water -- specifically, ways to get clean, affordable water to hundreds of millions of people across the globe who suffer, and sometimes die, because their water is disease-ridden or prohibitively expense, or both.

Damon is a co-founder, with the visionary water engineer Gary White, of Water.org, a leading NGO fighting for radical new ways to think about what is a solvable problem. (You can read about Water.org, and find some very alarming statistics, at its website, here. One such statistic: 3.5 million people die each year from water-related diseases, which of course is especially atrocious because humankind already knows how to make dirty water clean, and how to deliver water to large numbers of people. Water.org is not focused on digging charity wells, but on implementing market-based strategies to help poor people pool their resources in ways that would make utilities interested in serving their neighborhoods and villages.)

Damon, as many people know, supported President Obama the last time around, but has become a critic for a range of reasons. One of those reasons is what some people might call the Obama administration's incomplete devotion to the cause of poverty- and disease-alleviation in Africa and elsewhere. This was a main topic of our conversation, which was joined by Gary White and Chevanee Reavis, of Water.org, as well as The Atlantic's editor, James Bennet.

For more on water.org, the organisation's 2011 Annual Report has just been released, and includes one new photo of Matt and Gary in Haiti from January. It also includes a list of all donors, including Lucy and Matt.

Michael Douglas says Behind the Candelabra will film in July.

It should be a lot of fun," Douglas said, adding that he's looking forward to working with Matt Damon and director Steven Soderbergh when the biopic Behind the Candelabra begins filming in July. He also revealed that he'll be undergoing intense hair and makeup sessions each day to be transformed into Liberace.

Additional shooting on Elysium will start on 1 May, according to OLTV.

Promised Land will have a background issue of gas fracking, as discussed at the Huffington Post.

There's a Promised Land extras casting call in Pittsburgh today (Saturday) - details here. Details of the characters in the film, and Hal Holbrook's probable casting, are at The Playlist.

Matt, Gary White and water.org will be honored by the World Policy Institute at an event in New York on 3 May.

The We Bought A Zoo DVD has been released. A clip from one of the DVD extras is at The Uncool. There was a new interview with Colin Ford at J-14, including:

J-14: That sounds amazing! But did anything ever go wrong with all of the crazy animals running around all over the set?

Colin: In the movie, there's one scene where I accidentally let snakes loose and they go everywhere. During one of the takes, Matt's daughter, Alexia, hopped in the crate and when I went to let the snakes out, she jumped out and scared me. It was the scariest thing ever! It was even scarier then the snakes!

Matt attended a Bruce Springsteen concert at Madison Square Garden on Friday with Emily Blunt and John Krasinski.

There may be upcoming re-shoots for Elysium in Vancouver. From the Punkd Images Twitter:

Interesting News... Matt Damon and VanCity shot Elysium coming back for 3-4 wks of reshoots...

Matt narrated a documentary on Fenway Park which is currently airing on PBS - details here.

Matt's photo in Kate Winslet's book in support of autistic children is at Satisfythecrave tumblr.

Kate Winslet passed the hat quite literally after she founded a charity for autistic children.

She dug up a beloved and battered old trilby and sent it around to celebrity friends asking that they either don it or doff it — and take picture of themselves doing so.

Possible filming locations for Promised Land continue to surface, including a West Mifflin School, an orchard and the town of Avonmore. A call for extras and stand-ins (presumably legit) is here.

A report on Matt's quick trip to Boston last Friday is at People:

Massachusetts native Matt Damon recently sipped cocktails with friends at Alibi in Boston's Liberty Hotel. Over a few drinks in the hotel bar – which is set in the old "drunk tank" of what used to be Boston's Charles Street jail – the actor and father of four, 41, looked "relaxed," a source tells PEOPLE.

"He was just hanging out," adds the source. "He seemed very chill, and was in a great mood."

There are some new interviews with Matt at The Guardian and the Radio Times to promote the release of We Bought A Zoo in the UK. The Guardian interview and a separate one at Metro are from last September at the Venice Film Festival, and the Radio Times interview is from December 2011. A report on the Q&A with Benjamin Mee at the low-key UK premiere is at Filmoria.

Matt: When I was 15, 16, 17 we used to go backpacking across Mexico and Guatemala. We would begin by doing a language school course. They work by immersion therapy – you go to school for six hours a day and then you go home with a Mexican family. Spanish is the only language spoken. After a couple of weeks, we'd be ready to take a bus and travel around the country. I remember travelling on buses stuffed with chickens. Being from Boston, I'd never seen stuff like that and I'd never seen poverty like I saw there. The way people live out in the country. They are very poor, living in shacks – it's a type of poverty you don't really encounter in the north-east of America.

My wife is my soul mate. I can't imagine being without her. Being a parent, as any parent knows, is a lot of work whether you are together or not. Our 13 year old is terrific, and she's a big help, but with the other kids it's just non stop. We like to do a lot of the family stuff together, particularly when we get them to school in the mornings. It starts at 6.30am. Once you get them off to school there's always a sigh of relief. Then we have one hour where we can go and get a cup of coffee together.

Before I had kids I remember Don [Cheadle] saying to me that one of the great things about being an actor is that when you're not working you can be there in a way that most dads can't. And it's true you can be there 100% of the time – with everything.

We have a two-week rule – we can't be apart as a family for longer – and so far we haven't gone beyond a week. I am doing a movie in Vancouver at the moment and I get a red-eye flight Friday night then on Sunday night I catch the red-eye flight back so I get back to Vancouver at 1.30am. Then I sleep and go to work at 5.30am. It's brutal. The good news is that the kids know that I'm going to be home every weekend. As they are waking up on Saturday morning, I come through the door.

From an interview with Jeremy Renner about the Bourne movies:

Jeremy plays a new CIA operative in the film based on Robert Ludlum’s novels. He hopes that he will one day get to work alongside former Bourne star Matt Damon.

“Selfishly I dream of Matt and I actually doing one, being adversaries or whatever it may be,” he said. But there’s no talks or anything. This one has to do well, people have to like it and want to see another one.”

As for fight scenes Jeremy doesn’t see himself getting aggressive with Matt in real life. He believes the pair would get along famously.

“I think we’d rather get a beer than fight,” he laughed.

Matt and Gary White have made a new video in advance of World Water Day on 22 March, when a new partnership with Levi's will be launched. The video is at YouTube (still below), and more information about World Water Day is at water.org.

There's a new interview with Matt in the current issue of the UK's Radio Times. Part of the interview is at MSN:

Matt Damon says he felt under more pressure with his latest film - We Bought A Zoo - than he did making the big-budget Bourne movies.

He told the Radio Times: "It ends up being all on you.

"I remember being deep in the s*** with (director) Paul Greengrass in the last Bourne movie - no script, writing it as we were going along, but Paul would say, 'remember, coming up here is a little bish bash bosh'. There were these anchors you could count on. But there's none of that in this. If this movie tanks, it'll be very bad for me because it's hanging on me."

Matt said he'll feel a little strange when the new Bourne film, that he's not starring in, comes out this summer.

"The last one was by-the-seat-of-your-pants film-making and was too much; it took years off our lives," he said.

A Sky interview with Matt and Cameron Crowe is now online.

Rosemarie DeWitt has joined the cast of Promised Land.

From an interview with Elysium actor Jared Keeso at the Independent:

While he just finished filming a movie, Elysium, with Matt Damon (“stand-up guy and a hell of an actor”) in Mexico City, he counts a buckets-off, centre-ice hockey fight in the playoffs as one his best all-time experiences.

From an interview with Emily Blunt by Donna Freydkin at USA Today (photo is from the Critics Choice Awards in 2010):



Even though Blunt and Krasinski pal around with George Clooney and Matt Damon and his wife, Lucy (Blunt has something of a girl crush on Mrs. Damon: "I'm kind of obsessed with Lucy. She knows it. Everyone is obsessed with Lucy. She's the coolest chick in the world, literally"), Blunt says her life is about far more than her career.

Promised Land is now confirmed to start filming in Pittsburgh in late April. Initial details, including a crew call, are at the Post-Gazette.

Photos of Matt and Lucy arriving at Los Angeles airport on Sunday are at Zimbio. Update: Photos of Matt and Lucy leaving Los Angeles on Monday are also at Zimbio.

From a 2011 Zoo interview at Thesop.org:

Question: Did you ever get one great piece of advice when it comes to choices in life?
Matt: I`ve gotten great advice throughout my life from wonderful people. But the best ones always tell me, just take your time.

Question: What is the biggest high for you as an actor?
Matt: What makes me happy at the end of the day, is involving myself in projects that are exciting, where the work is fun and challenging, and where I`m not really worried about the results of it.

From a story at the Sydney Morning Herald:

The Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon was enjoying some incognito time looking at the pictures in the Art Gallery of NSW when he was collared by a total stranger.

"G'day mate," said the jovial Steve Peters, pointing at the baseball cap which was part of the movie star's disguise. "I'm a mad keen Boston Red Sox fan myself. Would you mind signing my duct?"

Amazingly Damon agreed, following Peters to the gallery's packing room which becomes a hive of energy for five days at this time every year for the annual Archibald Prize. Between Monday (March 5) and Friday (March 9) - the final day for entries - an expected 2,500 portraits will arrive at the packing room for judging.

Many will be delivered personally by artists hoping to win the $75,000 prizemoney (up $25,000 from 2011). And some of those artists will be invited to sign the packing room's air conditioning duct - something which has now become part of the Archibald tradition.

Peters initiated what has become the gallery's most unusual piece of contemporary art 15 years ago. The TV star Noel Ferrier was bringing a painting in and Peters asked for his signature. "But I'm always losing bits of paper. So I got him to sign the duct."

This will be the 21st year that Peters has chosen the Packing Room Prize, awarded to the portrait that most impresses his staff. Famously, the rules are undemocratic - Peters has 51 per cent of the voting rights.