Category: News

I’m not sure what to think of this news from Variety that James Franco has signed onto the David Gordon Green-helmed buddy film, Your Highness, opposite his Pineapple Express co-star Danny McBride, also by Green. (Before you ask, no it’s not about weed.)

Written by McBride and screenwriter Ben Best (and co-creator of McBride’s HBO show “Eastbound and Down”), Highness contains a classic buddy comedy plot: “[Two] spoiled and arrogant princes in a medieval fantasy setting. When an evil wizard casts a spell on their father and kidnaps the older prince’s fiance, they’re forced to go on a quest to save their family and the kingdom.”

This re-team-up this only serves to remind me of the greatest film buddy comedy duo of all time: Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. If you’ve never seen any one of the seven Road movies, you should put one on your Netflix queue right now. I’m not going to be a fanatical purist and say that there are no two American actors or comedians who can match Hope and Crosby for their sense of pure timing or improv skills, but… there really aren’t.

I mean, look what happened when they teamed up Billy Crystal and Robin Williams in the 1997 comedy Father’s Day (which was based on a 1983 French comedy called Les Compères). These two comedians who killed every time they did a host segment together at the Comic Relief telethons, but the film is only best-known for Kevin Costner’s cameo as a nipple-ring wearing leather daddy.

Anyway, I think I’m going to have to see more before I decide to give Franco and McBride any slack.

Related Post: McBride and Green Get High Again

I’m a nut for book-to-movie adaptations, and already I’ve given my tentative stamp of approval to Easy A as it’s written by playwright Bert V. Royal and directed by Will Gluck.

Now comes the news from Variety that newcomer Emma Stone (Superbad, The House Bunny) will take the leading role. As far as leading ladies are concerned, Stone isn’t a half-bad choice as she’s already got cred for being able to play younger and knows her way around comedy. She’ll next be seen in the Jennifer Garner/Matthew McConaughey romcom twist on A Christmas Carol, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, and Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch.

Easy A is set to start production “soon” in Ojai, Calif., so let’s see which other actors they cast against her.

Related Posts: Producer, creator Will Gluck earns a directorial Easy A

The Hollywood Reporter is calling the newest script buy from newbie screenwriter Chris McCoy a “novel twist” on the romantic comedy genre and I’d have to say I most definitely agree.

McCoy’s script Good Looking, which is his second sale to Dreamworks within one month, takes the concept of Internet matchmaking one step further by positing that in the near-future, a service arises where not only do you get that “soulmate compatability” that a site like eHarmony predicts through questionnaires and personal essays, but you can also know exactly what the person is doing at any hour of the day thanks to the integration of surveillance camera technology. The other “novel twist” of course comes when a man using the service rejects the person the service claims is perfect for him.

But let’s hear from the man himself:

“If someone could organize that information and know what everyone in London was doing and eating and who they’re dating and who they’re going home with [via the city’s existing surveillance camera technology], then that’s an incredibly powerful tool,” McCoy said. “I think I have an oddball brain or something, but then I started thinking about how all that stuff could be applied to matchmaking. It would totally subvert Match.com and eHarmony, (where) I think people lie about who they are or they say what they think people will want them to be. But Good Looking, my service, knows who they are and can put them together.”

The other script that was purchased is an untitled college comedy, and if the premise for that one is as inventive as this one, I’m definitely willing to find out more.

Well, okay, they’re not actually attempting to conjure up the Great Old One, but considering that Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment have just acquired the film rights to the Image Comics graphic novel titled The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft created by Jeff Blitz and Mac Carter, it is always a distinct possibility.

According to the Variety article, Universal tweaked to the GN because they thought it had a similar kind of sensibility to what they’re currently doing in reviving the classic Universal monster movies and re-introducing them to today’s audiences.

Strange Adventures takes the meta approach to storytelling, wherein the main character is Lovecraft himself whose encounter with a cursed book allows his feverish and horrific nightmare creatures across the dimensions from their world to ours.

The script adaptation will be done by Carter himself, who is apparently a commercial director. The other cool thing is that apparently Blitz and Carter are a film-making team who won a Bronze Lion at the Cannes advertising awards, but this info is only on Carter and Blitz’ website and has yet to be independently confirmed. They will also get executive producer credits, and Imagine’s Brian Grazer and Ron Howard with be producers.

In a move that made the Associated Press newswire, it was announced earlier this week that Zac Efron would no longer be in the Footloose remake.

The Wrap.com has the juiciest details from a protected senior member of the production team:

The team member told TheWrap that Efron had script approval on the movie and used a rewrite on the screenplay as the loophole to get out of his contract: “People had been working on this project since last July — we were all shocked.”

The other word is that Efron’s tired of the “cute song and dance man” persona that he and his management team have created for himself by being cast in the first three High School Musical movies and the 2007 movie adaptation of the Broadway play Hairspray (which itself was based on the original 1988 movie from John Waters.) So if he wasn’t going to be in that movie—which was being fast-tracked thanks to the HSM3 box office success—what is Efron going to be doing next?

Just last night, Variety reported that Efron is “in talks” to work with soon-to-be released 17 Again director Burr Steers on the film adaptation of a novel called The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud.

In the novel, St. Cloud is a young man whose even younger brother died in an accident, but with whom he still plays catch every evening after he finishes his work in the graveyard where his brother is buried. There are some weird twists and turns in the novel which you can read in the Publisher’s Weekly review on the above link, and if a strong female lead were cast against Efron, this would be a pretty amazing movie.

This is truly excellent for Efron, but I can’t help but feel bad for everyone on the Footloose production team. Here’s hoping they find a better male lead soon.

Though I was immensely surprised when actress Anne Hathaway sung and vamped her heart out during the opening number at the Oscars ceremony this year, I should not have been surprised that the next movie project announced for her would be tied to Broadway.

Variety reported that the Weinstein Co. has cast Hathaway as Judy Garland in the film and live stage versions of Get Happy, which is based on the eponymous 2001 biography by Gerald Clarke. VP of production and development Ben Famigletti was quoted in the article as saying that there’s a possibility that the film would and the stage show would be produced at the same time, with the film being released first. No word yet on who’s writing the adaptation for either, but apparently, just because of Hathaway’s announced involvement, people are lining up to take a crack at it—which is just as it’s supposed to be.

I think this is a perfect role for Hathaway, because she not only looks like triple threat star Garland (film actress in The Wizard of Oz, TV star with “The Judy Garland Show” and a Grammy-award winning singer) she’s got the serious chops to back up her looks, as evidenced by Hathaway’s Academy Award nomination for Rachel Getting Married.

Definitely looking forward to hearing more about this one.

Variety turned in a report about the recent changing of release dates for some major tent-pole flicks, and it’s hard not to read the schedule and this report from last Friday about how the studios may not have enough films to go around after 2011 and wonder.

From that report and today’s, check out which movies are moving when and which of the other mainstream movies they’ll be up against, courtesy of ComingSoon.net and IMDBPro.com:

June 19: The Proposal (moved from June 12)
Also scheduled for that date: Imagine That, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

November 5: Ninja Assassin
Also scheduled for that date: Nine, Old Dogs

December 11: The Princess and the Frog (moved from December 25)
Also scheduled for that date: The Lovely Bones

July 16, 2010: The Sorceror’s Apprentice
Also scheduled for that date: Inception

Proving that one can make a movie out of almost any kind of book, Variety reported that Paramount Pictures has acquired the rights to the Leanne Shapton photo book Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry which will star Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman.

The book details the rise and fall of the relationship between Pitt and Portman’s characters, a photographer in his 40s and a New York City food columnist in her late 20s, through the gifts and objects they acquired and gave to each other and which are now up for auction at the end of their relationship. It’s a terribly clever conceit and one that I’m pretty familiar with as I’m still not done auctioning off the toys I started collecting during my first relationship which started almost a decade ago.

The movie, however… I don’t know if even the uber-intelligent Portman co-producing with Pitt under their respective production houses will be be able to replicate the wonderous charm of being able to slowly watch the love affair unfold and then watch its demise as you do in the book. And if they tack on a cheesy Hollywood ending…? I think I’d have to hurl or cry.

In a truly saddening turn of events, actress Natasha Richardson has died after sustaining injuries in a ski accident that took place three days ago. She was 45.

Richardson, the daughter of British thespian Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richardson first gained fame in film for her role in as the eponymous Patty Hearst in 1998 but she also had a successful career on the boards in a revival of Anton Chekov’s “The Seagull.” I personally first saw Richardson in The Handmaid’s Tale, an adaptation of a Margaret Atwood novel when it was assigned to me in a high school English class, and I thought it was an amazing role and she was amazing in it.

A better summary of her work can be found here.

After she divored her first husband, she met and married her Nell co-star Liam Neeson. He and their two children have asked for privacy at this time.

The Game Plan and Race to Witch Mountain director Andy Fickman has been attached to another Disney film, this time working on an adaptation of a AiT/PlanetLar graphic novel called Monster Attack Network according to Variety.

The GN, which came out in 2007, is the brainchild of writers Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman and artist Nima Sorat and is the tale of a beefed-up animal control agency, but these animals are rampaging beasts on a balmy Pacific Island — à la Toho’s Monster Island.

From the Amazon product description: “Marvel at the Pacific island of Lapuatu, perfect in every way… except for the giant monsters. Thrill as Nate Klinger and his daring team of first-responders at the Monster Attack Network expertly deal with the frequent rampaging-beast-related crises. Wonder if the shady American industrialist who comes to the island bearing ‘gifts’ and the mysterious, gorgeous Lapuatuan ex-patriate are up to no good. Enjoy the hair-raising adventures of the noble men and the drop-dead sexy women of the Monster Attack Network!”

The two Hollywood scribes who have been attached to this project are newcomers Scott Elder and Josh Harmon, whose previous credits together include one episode of a Cartoon Network show I’ve never heard of called “The Secret Saturdays.”

No other details are out yet, but if this, Fickman’s third film from Disney just happens to star Dwayne Johnson I think I’m going to have to say that I smell a rat.

Or at least a Mouse.

I’m not normally a fan of movie-to-film er, TV-to-film adaptations, and yet, the latest one to be announced from New Line has me grinning in anticipation.

The Hollywood Reporter noted that Raffaella De Laurentiis, daughter of Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis and who seems to share her father’s eye for films, will be producing a feature film version of the 1980s hit TV show “MacGuyver” for her Raffaella Productions house, along with her stepmother Martha De Laurentiis and “MacGuyver” series creator Lee Zlotoff and her father as executive producer. No other firm details have been set.

What I loved about “MacGuyver” is what almost everybody seems to love about it: a really smart guy uses his smarts to get himself out of trouble and doesn’t have to kill anyone to do it. It didn’t hurt that series star Richard Dean Anderson was so cute and seemed to have a different girlfriend or kid sidekick every episode (remember, I was 8 when this series first started).

And this may sound too damn fuzzy liberal-minded of me, but I think I like the idea of today’s audiences being introduced or re-introduced to a hero who doesn’t have to torture people to get the job done or brutally kill maim everyone who comes after him—and I’m looking directly at you two, Jack Bauer and Jason Bourne.

The only reservation I have is: who would they get to play the “new” MacGuyver? I know absolutely nothing about actors who play under the age of 25 these days, and I think that in order to play to a mainstream audience, the character would have to be recast as younger with Anderson playing a cameo or minor supporting role—a gambit that worked very well in 1994’s Maverick.

When we last heard from director George Miller, he and his people were busy refuting rumors that he’d been kicked off of the Justice League movie and that — as we quote from the original Coming Soon article — “he’d like to work with Mel Gibson again [on another Mad Max film].”

Oh, what a difference three months makes!

For Thursday afternoon, Eric Ditzian at the MTV Movies blog scored an interview with Miller where he reveals that not only will Mel Gibson not be part of the next Mad Max film, it will be a 3D anime extravaganza, complete with its own video game.

From the site:

For the anime release, Miller isn’t looking simply to mimic Japanese-style animation but rather to adapt it for Western audiences. “The anime is an opportunity for me to shift a little bit about what anime is doing because anime is ripe for an adjustment or sea change,” he explained. “It’s coming in games and I believe it’s the same in anime. There’s going to be a hybrid anime where it shifts more towards Western sensibilities. [Japanese filmmaker Akira] Kurosawa was able to bridge that gap between the Japanese sensibilities and the West and make those definitive films.”

There’s something a little off about that statement, partially because the only “sea change” that’s coming to the anime industry is its dawning realization that the overseas fanbase doesn’t want to pay money to see it anymore. The plot will be recycled from the plot for the original fourth movie, which was to be made in 2003 but production was halted when financing became an issue. So when will this come out?

“I’ve got a couple of years left,” said Miller. “We’re in the early stages writing and designing. A really good game you need two and half years. And for good anime you need two years.

And there you have it.

After starring in the sleeper-hit of 2008 and taking the awards circuit by storm, what do you think former model-turned actress Freida Pinto would do for her next project?

Why, star in a film directed by Woody Allen, of course!

Mere hours after the stragglers came in from celebrating at the Oscars-after parties last week, Variety reported that the Slumdog Millionaire star would take the ingenue role in Woody Allen’s next unnamed ensemble picture.

Also joining the cast will be Naomi Watts, and announced later that week, Antonio Banderas, who will join previously announced actors Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins.

Hell of a sophomore effort by Pinto and her agents. Let’s hope that she continues to make good acting choices (I’m looking at you, Mira Sorvino).

I hope you have your calendars handy, for it’s movie release date updating time!

From Jeff Bock at ercBoxOffice.com comes a list of release dates for several Warner Bros. films, and which of the other mainstream movies they’ll be up against, courtesy of ComingSoon.net and IMDBPro.com:

December 25: Sherlock Holmes (moved from November 13)
Also scheduled for that date: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, The Princess and the Frog, an untitled Nancy Meyers romantic comedy

March 26, 2010: The Clash of the Titans
Also scheduled for that date: How to Train Your Dragon (an IMAX 3D film), Law Abiding Citizen

July 16, 2010: Inception
Also scheduled for that date: Thor

August 6, 2010: Jonah Hex

October 8, 2010: Suckerpunch

December 17, 2010: Green Lantern
Also scheduled for that date: The Smurfs

July 15, 2011: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II
Also scheduled for that date: The Avengers