Jeremy Renner joins the cast of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 4
Aug 27
Deadline Hollywood reports that The Hurt Locker star Jeremy Renner has been cast in Paramount’s Mission Impossible 4, appearing alongside Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, and Ving Rhames.
Brad Bird is directing this third M:I sequel, which is being sold as a ‘reboot’, and Cruise is producing with JJ Abrams. Cruise also accepted to a hefty pay cut to ensure he would remain attached to the project. I’m guessing he would have done it for free if he had to– anything after the poor box office return of Knight & Day.
Renner also appears in Ben Affleck’s next directorial effort, The Town (trailer here) and will also play Hawkeye in 2012′s The Avengers, a superhero tentpole blockbuster for Marvel Studios. Seems starring the Academy’s Best Picture winner and being nominated for said role helps land some impressive gigs, no?
Trailer for CASE 39, a movie that came out nearly a year ago
Aug 20
Case 39, a thrillery sort of thing with Renée Zellweger and Bradley Cooper in it, was originally due to hit US screens on 8 August 2008. It was delayed, probably because of how terrible it looks. Somehow, we (as in, Australia) copped it around October last year: it flopped financially and flunked critically.
Two years past its due date, it’s finally getting an American release. Maybe Paramount reckons there’s some money to be had in releasing something with Bradley Cooper in it, now that he’s all popular and stuff?
Case 39 opens in the States on 1 October 2010. For a plot synopsis, watch the trailer; it gives most of it away.
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!
Stephen Sommers on board to direct GI JOE 2 — no surprises there
Aug 05
I liked GI Joe better than I liked Transformers 2 — that is to say, I hated GI Joe less than I hated Transformers 2. It was childish escapist prattle that somehow seemed harmless at the time, although my brain refused to talk to me for the following week.
Good (or bad) news, then: Stephen Sommers is back on board for GI Joe 2: GI Joer (note: probably not the real title). What, were you expecting David Fincher or something?
Given that GI Joe made $300m, it’s no big surprise that Paramount’s keen to kick the franchise along; it is something of a surprise that they’ve managed to secure the writing talents of Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who wrote the excellent Zombieland.
Will Reese and Wernick capitalise on the inherent funniness of an action movie about a man named Duke and his strained relations with the busty redhead at work? Probably not, but GI Joe beats Transformers at its own game, so I support Joe 2 more than Transformers 3 — that is to say, I oppose the idea of Joe 2 less than I do Transformers 3.
Call Sheet: THE AVENGERS at Comic-Con, Brad Pitt in WORLD WAR Z, Jim Carrey, Katherine Heigl, Guillermo del Toro, Tim Burton
Jul 26
Call Sheet: A weekly run-down of movie casting news and rumours from around the web.
Comic-Con 2010 is underway in San Diego leading the way with most headlines across the web this week. Amongst all the preview footage, panels, exhibitions and guest appearances, only a handful of casting news has trickled out of the convention.
Without a doubt the biggest casting news out of Comic-Con came when the cast of The Avengers movie gathered on stage, live, in person, causing fans to go into shock-gasm at the pure awesomeness of the occurrence. Or so I’m led to believe. I’ll get excited if the film itself actually turns out to be any good. On stage were: Clark Gregg as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Chris Hemworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Captain America, and then Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) showed up and announced Mark Ruffalo will indeed be playing the new Bruce Banner/HULK, and Jeremy Renner will be Hawkeye. I have no doubt these silly hero names are fucking awesome if one is aware of the comic.
News that I actually did get excited about was that of Brad Pitt attaching himself to star in the movie adaptation of the Max Brooks apocalyptic zombie novel World War Z. It was common knowledge that Pitt’s production company Plan B had purchased the rights, but now that it is official Pitt will be the leading guy, a distributor and green-lit script seems likely. Brooks himself told MTV of the news.
Disney released a statement, detailing how director Guillermo del Toro surprised the 6,500 fans gathered at his Comic-Con panel with the announcement that he is currently developing a new film based on the classic Disney theme park attraction, The Haunted Mansion. Apparently it’s going to be fun for the whole family, but still scary. So really, not scary. At all.
Heat Vision notes that Simon Pegg is in talks to likely return as his MI:3 character Benji Dunn in Mission Impossible 4, should Paramount decide to green-light it. Any day now.
Slashfilm landed the scoop from producer Roy Lee that Tim Burton will be directing Universal’s ‘adaptation’ of Monsterpocalypse. What the fuck is Monsterpocalypse, you ask? I had no idea either… Apparently it’s a kaiju-themed collectible miniatures board game that involves battles against a variety of enemy monsters that take place in a metropolis. Paint it black, Tim.
Cinemablend talked to Anchorman director Adam McKay who confirmed there will be no Anchorman 2. Thank fuck for that.
Shocktilyoudrop reports that Daniel Radcliffe will star in a 3D supernatural thriller adaptation of Susan Hill’s novel The Woman In Black. It’s being produced by Hammer Films, the same company behind Let Me In. So long as he doesn’t wear glasses, this shouldn’t be a problem.
Variety reveals that Sam Raimi will be direct and produce Earp: Saints For Sinners, a modern-day reimagining of the classic western hero, Wyatt Earp. It’s based on the graphic novel of the same name created by Matt Cirulnick (who is also writing the screenplay) and David Manpearl. So much for Oz: The Great And Powerful and World of Warcraft (for now).
Deadline reports that Larry Charles (Borat, Bruno, Religulous) has signed on to direct Jim Carrey in the comedy Pierre Pierre. Carrey plays an obnoxious Frenchman who transports a stolen painting from Paris to London.
Finally, THR notes actress Katherine Heigl will star in Andy Tennant’s Adaline, a film about a young woman, born at the turn of 20th century, who is rendered ageless after an accident. I suspect it’s a romantic dramadey and Katherine will look stunning.
OPINIONS COUNT