Wow, another big week of film news, and we have some juicy bits this time around. Gather round!
In this week’s “If it ain’t broke…Wait” story, Jimmy Kimmel will be reprising the role of host for next years Oscar show, and so will producers Michael DeLuca and Jennifer Scott. This is all the same people that were involved in the last Oscar show in which the wrong Best Picture was called.
Ok, if you think you can get it right the second time…
In this week’s “I KNEW there was something about him…” story, in an interesting casting move, Zan Efron has been cast in the role of notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy, in the upcoming film, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile. Gee, that’s quite a mouthful. Gonna need some marquee extensions, I think.
The film will be directed by Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory).
Michael Werwie wrote the script for the project, which is told through the perspective of Elizabeth Kloepfer, Bundy’s longtime girlfriend, who went years denying the accusations against Bundy but ultimately turned him in to the police. Only nearing his execution, when Bundy began talking about his extensive and heinous murders, did Kloepfer, and the rest of the world, learn the true scope of his numerous and grisly crimes.
The script earned Werwie the coveted Nicholl Fellowship first prize and landed on the Black List.
Principal photography is set to begin Oct. 9. Voltage will fully finance and is handling international sales. CAA and UTA represent domestic rights.
In this week’s “Orson times two” story, Netflix is developing a documentary about Orson Welles, with filmmaker Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom) at the helm.
Turns out, it’s the second project about Orson Welles that Netflix has in the works. Monday’s announcement of the untitled documentary comes two months after the service acquired global rights to Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind, to finance the completion of the director’s final film. The two pics will be released simultaneously next year.
Neville’s documentary will focus on Welles’ relationship with Hollywood, particularly on The Other Side of the Wind.
“The Other Side of the Wind has long been a ghostly legend in cinema history, but the story behind it is equally fascinating,” Neville said. “I’m excited to be able to tell the incredible story behind this film and to explore what made Welles such an enduring figure.”
Welles shot the film within a film between 1970 and 1976, and then worked on it until his death in 1985, leaving behind a 45-minute work print that he had smuggled out of France. Huston starred as a temperamental film director battling with Hollywood executives to finish a movie — much like Welles did throughout his career. The character portrayed by Huston was modeled after Ernest Hemingway following a fight between the author and Welles in 1937 — four years before the release of Citizen Kane — in which a whiskey-drinking Hemingway threw a chair at Welles.
That’s one for film nerds, for sure.
In this week’s “Coveted director’s film” story, Universal is doing a remake of Scarface and there are a few directors up for the job, including Peter Berg and David MacKenzie (Hell or High Water), and now you can add David Ayer to that list.
I’ve been skeptical of this remake, even though Scarface has been remade a number of times, but this script is being written by Joel and Ethan Coen, and is expected to star Diego Luna (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) in the lead, so, hence the ‘coveted’ part.
Ayer is in early negotiations to direct Scarface, but details beyond that are non-existent at this point.
In this week’s “Noir Western? Yes, please” story, Annapurna is getting on board director Jacques Audiard’s The Sister’s Brothers, a noir western film that has cast Jake Gyllenhaal and Joaquin Pheonix.
The indie label will produce and co-finance the film with Why Not Productions. Production begins this summer.
John C. Reilly and Riz Ahmed co-star in the film. It’s an adaptation of Patrick deWitt’s novel of the same name and follows two brothers in 1850’s Oregon who are hired to kill a prospector.
The Sister’s Brothers is director Audiard’s first project shot in English.
In this week’s “Ok, let’s check for plot holes” story, a new sci-fi adventure film is coming very soon. Time Trap, by Mark Dennis (writer/director) and Ben Foster (director), is premiering at Seattle International Film Festival. It sounds really intriguing.
Featuring a cast that includes Cassidy Gifford, Reiley McClendon, Brianne Howey, Olivia Draguicevich, Max Wright, and Andrew Wilson, Time Trap takes an already scary premise and bolsters it with some truly twisted riffs on time travel.
Per its official synopsis: “A sci-fi time travel adventure, Time Trap centers around a group of archaeology students who trace their missing professor to a mysterious cave where a rift in the space-time continuum causes time to pass differently underground than on the surface.”
Ok, I’m into this.
In this week’s “Can we wrap this up, please?” story, Netflix has announced that Arrested Development will return for a fifth season which will launch in 2018.
Original creator Mitchell Hurwitz is back, along with the entire series regular cast, including Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Will Arnett, Tony Hale, Portia de Rossi, David Cross and Alia Shawkat.
But, as loved as it is, will people keep tuning in? The last season wan’t as good as the first original two or three seasons, so if season five is weak, things will go badly. Perhaps they should make this the last season?
In this week’s “Back to the Future of DC films” story, It seems that director Robert Zemekis is in talks to direct the Warner Bros./DC film, The Flash.
Warner Bros. ain’t talkin’, though.
The Flash was originally set for a March 16, 2018, release, but Warner Bros. wants to get the film right and is not rushing the project, the insider said. Director Rick Famuyiwa left The Flash over creative differences last year.
Joby Harold has been tapped to do rewrite The Flash script. Harold’s credits for the studio include King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Robin Hood, as well as a Twilight Zone film. Kiersey Clemons is attached to play Iris West, and Billy Crudup will play Miller’s father.
Well, I can’t say I’m hopeful with those writing credits, but Zemekis is a pro, so if he directs this maybe he’ll set a higher standard? Maybe?
In this week’s “UPDATE the above story” story, there seems to be some confusion about Billy Crudup still being involved with the film.
First, according to Collider.com, Billy Crudup had dropped out of the Flash film. That would have been interesting, though, as Crudup already shot footage for his role for this November’s Justice League, But NOW, (as of Wednesday) , Crudup is still, in fact, appearing in the film, according to sources close to the film and Crudup’s people.
Also, apparently Sam Raimi was on the list of directors in talks to make The Flash, as was Matthew Vaughn, and Marc Webb. For whatever reasons, they also passed.
Oh, it’s all so vexing.
In this week’s “It was bound to happen” story, documentarian Michael Moore and producer Harvey Weinstein have joined forces again to make the Trump documentary, Fahrenheit 11/9.
Moore is currently directing the film — the title refers to the day Donald Trump was declared president of the United States.
Moore states: “No matter what you throw at him, it hasn’t worked,” said Moore of Trump. “No matter what is revealed, he remains standing. Facts, reality, brains cannot defeat him. Even when he commits a self-inflicted wound, he gets up the next morning and keeps going and tweeting. That all ends with this movie.”
In this week’s “Not that YOU know of” story, industry insiders say that, contrary to reports, there have been NO reshoots on the Justice League movie thus far.
“There has been no additional photography to date on ‘Justice League,’ we have planned and will shoot additional pickups early summer,” says one studio insider.
“Additional photography has always been planned like most pictures in general but certainly for a tentpole of ‘Justice League’s’ size and scope,” the source continued.
The report, which first appeared Wednesday morning on the website Splash Report, cites an anonymous source who claimed the Zack Snyder-directed tentpole has undergone “serious” reshoots, with more planned, that are so significant the film has essentially been “remade twice.”
Ok, fine, whatever you say, man…
In this week’s “Ok, do that thing where you pretend to be in a box” story, actor Jesse Eisenberg will portray mime and actor Marcel Marceau who was a part of the French Resistance in his youth.
Marceau, who joined the French underground in Limoges, where he would alter the ages on the identification cards of other Jewish teens in an effort to keep them out of the labor camps. He also hid Jewish children from the Gestapo, and even posed as a Boy Scout leader to smuggle them into Switzerland. Sadly, when he returned to his hometown of Strasbourg, he learned his father had been captured and sent to Auschwitz, where he was killed along with so many others.
Jonathan Jakubowicz is writing and directing the untitled drama, which will center on this time in Marceau’s life. The director is reteaming with his Hands Of Stone collaborators, Claudine Jakubowicz and Carlos Garcia de Paredes. Baptiste Marceau is serving as executive producer, and has been directly involved with research on the film. Production is slated to begin early next year.
Ok, that all sounds a lot heavier than I implied at first. My bad.
In this week’s “Holy amazing casting, Batman!” story, the one and only brilliant Tom Hardy has signed up to play the lead in Sony’s upcoming Venom movie!
Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, Gangster Squad) will be directing. Interesting, since Hardy is usually quite particular with his decisions to work with certain directors. Fleischer seems to be failing upward, with two flops in a row to his credit (30 Minutes or Less and Gangster Squad). But hey, maybe Tom Hardy sees something we don’t, or will simply ask for a new director?
Either way, Tom Hardy is an excellent choice! He is reportedly a big fan of the Venom character so that’s a plus.
Scott Rosenberg (Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle) and Jeff Pinkner (The Dark Tower) are writing the script for Venom, which is rumored to be R-rated, and things will surely get rolling soon, as Sony has already slated the picture to hit theaters on October 5, 2018.
In this week’s “More Kaiju for you” story, actress Sally Hawkins will reprise her role in Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
While plot details are being kept on a faraway atoll, the story has a family — played by Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga and Millie Bobby Brown — at its core. Other cast members include O’Shea Jackson and Ken Watanabe, the latter another returnee from the 2014 installment.
Michael Dougherty is directing King of the Monsters, which has a March 22, 2019, release date.
In this week’s “Weird Snow White” story, Chloe Grace Moretz and Gina Gershon will lead the voice cast of Korea’s animated film Red Shoes and the Seven Dwrarfs.
There’s a reason the title sounds like it’s made from combining other films; the film is a twist on the traditional Snow White story and sees seven vain and arrogant princes trapped in the bodies of the ugly dwarves. Ok then.
It’s produced on a budget of $ 20 million. The film, which also counts Kim Jin (Big Hero 6, Frozen) as lead animator, is expected to be completed in 2018. Finecut is showing first footage to buyers in the Cannes Market, part of the Cannes Film Festival.
In this week’s “Wait, this isn’t over?” story, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson was on the Tonight Show last night and was talking yet again about a presidential run.
Johnson said he has been amazed by the “surge and the groundswell” of attention he has received since mentioning he’d consider running in a GQ interview. He was especially surprised by one national poll that said he would beat Donald Trump in an election held today.
The Rock stated:
“I think it’s because, you know, a lot of people want to see a different leadership today — I’m sorry, not a different, but a better leadership today,” said the actor. “More poise, less noise.”
He added that he thinks he’s become a person that many people can relate to: “I get up early in the morning at a ridiculous hour, I go to work, and spend time with the troops, I take care of my family, I love taking care of people. I think that kind of thing really resonates with people, especially today.”
And as for a presidential run in 2020, he merely said he’s not ruling anything out.
“Three-and-a-half years is a long ways away, so we’ll see,” he said.
Actually, Dwayne, that’s NOT a long ways away.
In this week’s “Soul Murdering” story, according to a story over at Entertainment Tonight, Steve Harvey’s ex-wife, Mary L. Vaughn, is suing the comedian/TV personality for $ 60 million. Wow.
She states that during their marriage, which lasted from 1996 until their contentious divorce in 2005, she was allegedly subjected to “prolonged torture with the infliction of severe mental pain and suffering,” according to court documents obtained by ET.
The documents also claim that Vaughn “attempted suicide by self-medicating [in] an effort to stop the pain,” and allege that Harvey and his attorney caused “severe emotional distress” that led to a litany of medical conditions for Vaughn and her immediate family over the last 15 years.
Additionally, Vaughn is suing for alleged child endangerment, torture, kidnapping, breach of contract, conspiracy against rights, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and “soul murdering.” The lawsuit also makes further claims of harassment, brainwashing and theft by deception.
“Soul murdering”?…
Well, Harvey and his people are “vehemently denying all allegations”. Well, who wouldn’t?
Holy moly, what a week” Thanks for checking in, and we’ll see you next week! Unless you don’t. But please do.