Call Sheet: Sean Penn a GENIUS, Tom Cruise MI:4, Fincher casting DRAGON TATTOO plus Ethan Hawke, Will Ferrell, Jack Black, LITTLE FOCKERS, BABAR and Scarlett Johansson
Aug 10
There’s a lot to get through on this week’s Call Sheet casting wrap-up! Let’s get straight to it:
THR reports Sean Penn will play literary editor Maxwell Perkins in the biopic Genius. Perkins was the literary editor for such great authors as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe.
Vulture reports Tom Cruise has agreed to a reduced upfront payment for Mission Impossible 4, although he still has ‘points’ attached to any profit the film makes at the box office. The Mission Impossible 4 budget is set at a cosy $135 million. I don’t really care if he ‘star power’ or not, the guy should be in any Mission Impossible film while he still can. I bet he’s extremely happy this deal went through.
The newly-appointed director of (yet another) comic-book superhero movie X-Men: First Class, Matthew Vaughn, (who also directed this year’s Kick-Ass) has told Hero Complex that he accepted the offer from 20th Century Fox because he believes this might be his last chance to helm a big budget superhero movie. He (correctly) believes the audience will be getting sick and tired of all the comic book movies.
“It’s been mined to death and in some cases the quality control is not what it’s supposed to be. People are just going to get bored of it. I think [the opportunity to do one], it’s only going to be there two or three more times. Then, the genre is going to be dead for a while because the audience has just been pummelled too much. It is a crowded room. It’s too crowded.”
ComingSoon spoke to Vincent Cassel during the week and he revealed he’s returning to the character Kirill in Eastern Promises 2. When was the last time you heard of a sequel simply called ‘2’, with no sub-heading or creative plural included? David Cronenberg will be shooting this once he wraps A Dangerous Method.
Remember School Of Rock? That silly Jack Black comedy where he gets a bunch of school kids together to make a rock band? Yeah, well... THR reports the director Richard Linklater is collaborating with Black again on a film called Bernie. Legendary actress Shirley MacLaine is also attached to star as a widow Black (Bernie) kills and then “does whatever it takes to keep the illusion that she’s still alive.” So, it’s a sequel to Weekend At Bernie’s? Similar premise, similar titles… Oh dear.
Filmschoolrejects, reveals that Bryan Cranston (from TV’s Breaking Bad—a show I still need to catch up on) will star with Ryan Gosling in an adaptation of Drive , adapted from a book of the same name by James Sallis. Gosling plays a stunt driver by day and a getaway driver by night. Until Ryan Gosling gives me a reason to not watch anything he’s in, I’ll check out his flicks. Yes, even The Notebook.
News.com.au reckons Russell Crowe has signed on to star as fisherman Luther Fox in Phillip Noyce’s Dirt Music, based on the novel by Tim Winton. This is the role Heath Ledger was briefly attached to before he decided to play The Joker in some Batman movie.
Production Weekly confirms Sony is interested in Oscar winning actor Christoph Waltz (from Inglorious Basterds) playing a villain in the 3D Spider-Man reboot being directed by Marc Webb (that pun still makes me chuckle) and starring Andrew Garfield as the new Peter Parker.
Risky Business confirmed Will Ferrell will be starring in a Spanish-language comedy with English subtitles, titled Casa De Mi Padre (House Of My Father). The press release makes it sound like Ferrell has been forced to do the project in order to settle a lawsuit. Clever. Hopefully the film is, you know, actually funny.
“Ferrell’s participation is the result of “a closed-door settlement” of a pending lawsuit with the fictional Sanchez”
“NALA can’t comment regarding the circumstances surrounding why Will is attached to the project,” said Loquet. “We are just thrilled he is on board and are moving full steam ahead since we have one month to teach him Spanish.”
Sanchez himself merely remarked: “What comes around, goes around, Will Ferrell.”
Neither party would otherwise comment on the feud.
Yahoo reports Tim Blake Nelson has joined the cast of Everybody Loves Whales with John Krasinski, Drew Barrymore and Kristen Bell. It’s a true story about the 1988 rescue of a trio of California gray whales that got trapped under the ice of the Arctic Circle.
While we’re on sea mammals, how does a movie inspired by a true story about an injured dolphin named Winter who was rescued off the Florida Coast thanks to a boy who befriended her? It’s called Dolphin Tale and will star Harry Connick Jr., Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman, and will be shot in 3D… You don’t believe me, do you? Sorry to say, THR confirms it. Just… facepalm!
Now that he’s finished his Facebook movie The Social Network (yes, I will always refer to it as ‘the Facebook movie’) David Fincher is busy casting his next project, his take on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, based on late Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson’s first book in his Millennium trilogy. Deadline reports Robin Wright has signed on to play the character Erika Berger, publisher of crusading finance magazine Millennium and also the occasional lover of journalist Mikael Blomkvist, played by Daniel Craig. Stellan Skarsgard has also signed on to star. Sony insists they are adapting solely from the novel and not remaking Niels Arden Oplev and Daniel Alfredson’s popular Swedish film.
Writer/director John Landis sold the rights to his 1981 classic An American Werewolf In London to Dimension Films last year, and now 24 Frames reveals Dimension have hired Fernley Phillips (The Number 23) to write the remake screenplay. Apparently it’ll be a ‘huge departure’ from Landis’ original film, taking a modern approach. So we should expect it to be in 3D and pointlessly glossy like The Final Destination? Ugh. I dread what might become of this.
24 Frames believe Tony Scott is only “a step away” from directing Paramount’s adaptation of John Grisham’s The Associate, with Shia Labeouf attached to star. Both Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are in talks to have supporting roles.
Deadline reports Viggo Mortensen and Amy Adams have joined the cast of On The Road, based on the 1957 book by Jack Kerouac.
Vulture reported during the week that Little Fockers will go back into production for a week of pick-ups in September with Dustin Hoffman rumoured to come back as Bernie Focker. It’s all in an effort to ‘save’ the movie which, remarkably, hasn’t turned out as funny as director Paul Weitz had hoped. Principal cast, including Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro are all involved in the pick-ups. Sounds serious.
Kevin Smith has tweeted his next film Red State will star Michael Parks and production will start on September 22nd.
Variety notes Ethan Hawke has signed on to indie drama A Late Quartet, playing a member of a string quartet that whose members have performed together for 25 years and have to adjust to one of them retiring due to Parkinson’s disease. Sounds like that’ll be heavy viewing.
Deadline reveals producers behind The Twilight Saga, Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey, are working with the owners of the rights to the character Babar, in order to bring us a Babar family-friendly movie. More CGI cartoon characters mixed with live action footage, I suspect.
Unfortunately, Deadline confirms Paramount have hired Davis Guggenheim to direct a 3D feature biopic based on the life and story of Justin Bieber. Yes—Justin Bieber. It’ll apparently be similar to 8 Mile with Justin playing himself. Paramount, trust me, it’ll be nothing like 8 Mile. I’d rather that dolphin film, thanks.
Heat Vision reports Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later, Inception) will join Amanda Seyfried and Justin Timberlake in Andrew Niccol‘s I’M.MORTAL.
Finally, Vulture has it on good authority that Scarlett Johansson will star alongside Vince Vaughn in David O. Russell‘s Old St. Louis, about a travelling salesman who’s life as an absentee father suddenly drastically changes when his daughter becomes part of his life. Sounds thrilling, right? Never mind, here’s an obligatory pic of Scarlett to spark your brain back into action.
See you next week!
Call Sheet: Edward Norton is out, X-Men: First Class gets busy, Denzel Washington, The Hobbit, Kevin Smith, Christoper Nolan and James Bond
Jul 12
Call Sheet: A weekly run-down of movie casting news and rumours from around the web.
- A pile of X-Men: First Class casting filtered down from above this week, it’s been hard to keep track of. Aaron Johnson (star of Kick-Ass and Nowhere Boy) was rumoured to have been cast as Cyclops, but his people were quick to put that rumour to rest. That is where my interest in this film ends. For your benefit, here is, officially, who is cast: James McAvoy will play the young Professor X. Michael Fassbender is Erik Lensherr, who becomes Magneto. Alice Eve plays Emma Frost. Nicholas Hoult has been cast as Hank McCoy (aka Beast). Caleb Landry Jones plays Banshee, and Lucas Till was cast as Havok. Phew!
- While we’re still on comic books, Marvel have finally confirmed Edward Norton won’t be playing Bruce Banner/The Hulk in the upcoming Avengers movie. They’re gonna cast someone who better suits the character. Even though they’re right, that’s a real low-blow, Marvel. Low. Blow.
- I feel a bit silly reporting bits on The Hobbit because the film is far from getting started after director Guillermo del Toro left. It’s been a horrible mess since the beginning. Now, just to add to the drama, Gandalf himself Sir Ian McKellan is getting a fed up and has announced he won’t be waiting around for the production to get under way. Can you blame him?
- Deadline has it on good authority that Oscar winner Denzel Washington will return to the role of playing lead antagonist in the upcoming film Safe House, being directed by Daniel Espinosa. Denzel will play a dangerous criminal being transported to a safety by a young CIA agent after both are attacked in a safe house.
- Variety reports Virginia Madsen has joined Amanda Seyfried, Max Irons, Shiloh Fernandez, Gary Oldman, Julie Christie and Lukas Haas on Red Riding Hood, an upcoming Catherine Hardwicke project that is said to be a ‘gothic horror reimagining’ of the classic Grimm Brothers tale. No kidding.
- While spending her 90 days in prison, Lindsay Lohan doesn’t have to worry about missing out on playing Deep Throat pornstar Linda Lovelace in the bio film Inferno: A Linda Lovelace Story (gee, I hope that’s a working title…). LA Times caught up with the film’s director Matthew Wilder who says the project will wait for her to be released. I wish Matthew all the best in trying to direct Lindsay and get a suitable performance out of her.
- Robert Rodriguez talks a lot about projects that rarely come into fruition (much like his mate Quentin Tarantino, actually). He recently talked about Sin City 2 (again) which I’m still keen to see, and this perhaps this holds some water now that he finally made good on his promise of delivering Machete and producing Predators all in one year. Digital Spy got this reply when they asked about the much-anticipated sequel:
“We’re still working on Sin City, I want to do it so we’ll see. It’s just a matter of when… We have a script… a rewritten script that we still have to write and it’s just finding the right time slot to do it.”
- Collider took part in a round-table discussion with Kevin Smith where he revealed he isn’t looking for any A-listers to appear in his upcoming horror film Red State. I’ll let him try to explain himself:
“For the first time since Clerks I’m trying to go, not unknown, but actors who aren’t like, you’re gonna see them on screen and not know their name…it’s a weird kind of in between neither place that I’m reaching for. It’s not complete unknown and it’s not remotely fucking recognizable, name recognizable…It’s really tough to find actors whose name you don’t know. You know you can go to Law and Order and grab anybody from the cast and they’ve done five or six episodes and shit but you’d still recognize them and you’d be watching the movie and be like “that’s that dude, I’ve seen that dude on Law and Order!”
- James Bond and Christopher Nolan fans went collectively batshit-crazy when the director stated he would love to do a Bond film one day. Don’t hold your breath, though– that’s all there is to it: Nolan simply saying it’d be fun to do and he respects the Bond character. There’s no film, no deal, not much else to get excited about.
- Christopher Walken has joined Mickey Rourke, Javier Bardem and Jason Statham on Tony Scott’s Potsdamer Platz.
- We’ll finish with some pic of Mill Jovovich, hey? They’re not too racy– instead, they show off the exuberant costumes she’s wearing as Milady de Winter in Paul W.S. Anderson’s adaptation of The Three Musketeers. These (among others) were uploaded to her Twitter feed.
Two goofy movies get goofy new titles: FANTASTIC FOUR reboot and DIE HARD 5 renamed
Jun 10
Once upon a time, the Fantastic Four films were rubbish. Then, at the same time Disney acquired Marvel, a Jessica Alba-less Fantastic Four reboot was announced, to the delight of comic book fans everywhere. Heroes / Smallville writer Michael Green was hired to write the script (he also wrote the upcoming Green Lantern adaptation); Hancock / I Am Legend producer Akiva Goldsman is on board as showrunner; beyond that no personnel have been attached to the project, no release date or even title announced.
Now, however, the Fantastic Four reboot has (apparently) been named: Fantastic Four Reborn. Great! Sounds like the eponymous four heroes are going to find themselves shoved back into the womb and sternly told to think about what they’ve done and try again (er, symbolically, of course).
And what about that Die Hard 5 thing that’s supposedly happening? Why, it’s been titled Die Hard 24/7, of course! What common numerical parlance will they pillage next? Perhaps we’ll see Die Hard 666 (where Kevin Smith turns out to be the devil) next, and then Die Hard 747 (on a plane, of course), followed by Die Hard 815: The Dharma Initiative, and then maybe Die Hard 911. Then there’ll be a four-dimensional reboot called Die Hard X: Yippee-Pi-Irrational Numbers, Motherfucker. At least, that’s how it’d play out if I ran Fox.
Anyway, these titles come from a top-secret super-spy mole infiltrating the evil 20th Century Fox corporation, so take them with a grain of salt.
DIE HARD franchise refuses to die easily
May 06
Die Hard is the perfect encapsulation of the 80s action movie: a wise-cracking macho American tough-guy squaring off against a slimy European smarty-pants, and dozens of his inept minions, in a confined space. It’s hard to imagine a time when movies like this didn’t exist — probably because I’m not old enough to remember.
Die Hard 4, or Live Free or Die Hard as it was amusingly dubbed by its makers, came out a few years ago, did some moderate business (almost $400 million), and now makes a living inhabiting the Action section of your local video store alongside its more respected forebears.
The reason Die Hard 4 didn’t catch on fire was that Bruce Willis appeared to be getting too old for this kind of shenanigans, and bringing in Justin Long and Timothy Olyphant didn’t really help to freshen or contemporise the outdated story-telling style in any meaningful way. Also Kevin Smith’s cameo was just plain silly.
Nevertheless, 20th Century Fox thinks you deserve another Die Hard film, and they’re even getting a bloke named Skip Woods to write the script for you, so you don’t have to. Who is this Skip Woods? you ask, and what has he done for me? Well, he wrote Hitman and X-Men: Origins: Wolverine: The Prequel To The Franchise: The Beginning: Part 1, both of which were, by any definition, godawful wastes of time, money and (possibly) talent. Oh, he also wrote the first draft of Swordfish, and is responsible for all the words in the upcoming A-Team script, too, if that changes your opinion at all.
No word yet on a release date or storyline, but expect the words “Yippe-ki-yay” and “Motherfucker” to appear at least once each, and probably in that order.
From one extreme to the other, Kevin Smith’s RED STATE is green lit
Mar 25
I saw Cop Out with my younger brother and sister last week in a crowd that should have whipped the movie into a hysterical spin. It didn’t happen. Cop Out lived up to its unfortunate title and I left the cinema with my head low, unable to defend director Kevin Smith against those bashing his name at every given chance– because even a fan needs to admit at this point, the last batch of flicks have been below par.
So here’s a chance for me to give some credit back to the man, because I like the move he’s about to make in his career. His little indie-horror-film-that-could, titled Red State, has finally gotten a green light to start pre-production. I like this move as it gives Smith the chance to cover his tracks somewhat and go from one extreme to the other: a big studio buddy-cop film to an independent gritty horror. He’ll get to flex his muscles (or, erm, flab) again and maybe stumble on a genre he didn’t know was in him. The last time I recognized Smith as being in full swing was probably Chasing Amy. His films post Amy haven’t lived up to the potential shown in that 1997 indie standout.
Smith finished the script for Red State in 2007 and has been shopping it around since, with little luck until recently. The run of rejections from studios even spawned the idea that perhaps fans could contribute funds to get it made (as many were desperate to see the resulting product) a suggestion that quickly created a ruckus online and had the Smith camp having to squash it.
While Cop Out may not be Smith’s best work critically, it’s the most successful film he’s ever had at the box office. Goes to show what the studio system can achieve. I’d venture a guess that DVD sales won’t be the same as Smith’s other films, though. Most fans likely won’t feel the need to collect Cop Out for their personal collections. Hopefully Red State will find Kevin Smith in good form… it’s probably the last straw.
The Red State one-liner reads:
A horror film in which a group of misfits encounter fundamentalism gone to the extreme in Middle America.
OPINIONS COUNT