Movie Of The Week: Recoil
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Tom Cruise is zeroing in on the 20th Century Fox action comedy "Wichita" as his next star vehicle.
He'll pair with Cameron Diaz in the James Mangold-directed film. That ends a serious courtship that the star had since January with some of the highest-profile projects in Hollywood.
According to sources, Cruise and Diaz have approved the script, and their deals are in advanced negotiations. While Fox has not officially dated the picture, sources said the studio is eyeing a summer 2010 release.
The script has been through many machinations, but the most recent drafts were done by Scott Frank, with Mangold currently fine-tuning the script with Laeta Kalogridis ("Shutter Island"). Two-hander has several action scenes.
Cruise will play a secret agent who pops in and out of the life of a single woman.
Since the opening of "Valkyrie," Cruise has been courted for and has shown serious interest in the Len Wiseman-directed DreamWorks thriller "Motorcade"; the Bharat Nalluri-directed Spyglass remake "The Tourist"; the David Cronenberg-directed MGM drama "The Matarese Circle"; the Universal/Working Title romantic comedy "Lost for Words"; and "The 28th Amendment," the Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck-directed Warner Bros. thriller.
The competition for the slot came down to "Wichita" and "Motorcade." It is possible that Cruise might do one of the other projects down the line.
Universal and Working Title Films have added Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader and Jane Lynch to the cast of "Paul."
The road trip laffer stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and will be directed by Greg Mottola.
Pegg and Frost, who wrote the script, will play two science-fiction fanatics on a road trip whose conspiracy dreams come true when they trek to Area 51 and encounter the title character, an escaped alien.
Rogen will provide the voice of the alien.
Working Title partners Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan will produce with Nira Park of Big Talk Prods. Shooting begins in June.
Pegg and Frost starred together previously in the Working Title-produced "Hot Fuzz" and "Shaun of the Dead."
Rogen last worked with Mottola on "Superbad." Hader also starred in that film, and just worked with Mottola and Wiig on "Adventureland."
Working Title and U most recently completed the Paul Greengrass-directed "The Green Zone," and the Richard Curtis-directed "The Boat That Rocked."
Al Pacino has been set to star in an HBO telepic about right-to-die champion Dr. Jack Kevorkian, to be helmed by Barry Levinson.
Pic revolves around Kervorkian's construction of his infamous "Mercy Machine," his first assisted suicide in the early 1990s and the resulting media frenzy.
Script was penned by Adam Mazer. Levinson, Steve Lee Jones, Lydia Dean Pilcher and Glenn Rigberg will exec produce.
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CANNES -- Two George Clooney projects are making news at the Cannes film fest. Focus Features has set Clooney to star in "A Very Private Gentleman," an adaptation of the Martin Booth novel to be directed by Anton Corbijn.
Rowan Joffe is scripting the pic, which shoots in Italy this fall.
Clooney will play an assassin who hides out in an idyllic Italian town before carrying out a final assignment. He resists his usual aversion to human interaction, and his friendships and romantic entanglements complicate his mission.
Clooney and Smokehouse partner Grant Heslov will join Anne Carrey as producer.
Separately, in the first major pickup of the festival, Overture has grabbed domestic rights to war comedy "Men Who Stare at Goats," featuring Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges and helmed by Heslov.
McGregor stars as a journalist who stumbles upon an ex-member (Clooney) of a secret U.S. Army unit that used paranormal tactics.
Peter Straughan adapted a nonfiction book by Jon Ronson.
"Goats" shot in Puerto Rico and was produced by Smokehouse and the BBC, with financing partner Winchester Capital. CAA repped the domestic deal, which was said to be in the $4 million range. Mandate sold foreign rights.
Upcoming for Clooney is the Jason Reitman-directed "Up in the Air," which Paramount releases at Christmas.
10 titles In Development before year 2012
* 2011 - Cache - Director (Optioned property)
* 2011 - I Heard You Paint Houses - Director, Producer (Optioned property)
* 2011 - The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt- Director/Producer (Script)
* 2010 - High and Low - Executive Producer (Optioned property)
* 2010 - untitled Elia Kazan documentary - Director/Producer (Status Unknown)
* 2010 - The Wolf of Wall Street - Director (rumoured), Producer (Optioned property)
* 2010 - untitled Frank Sinatra Project - Director/Producer (Optioned property)
* 2009 - Chaos - Executive Producer (Status Unknown)
* 2009 - The Last Duel - Director/Producer (Status Unknown)
* 2009 - The Long Play - Director/Producer (Status Unknown)
Films In Production or in Post (3 titles)
* 2010 - Silence - Director, Writer (screenplay)
* 2010 - untitled George Harrison documentary - Director/Producer (Post-production)
* 2009 - Shutter Island - Director/Producer (Post-production)
Martin Scorsese has added yet another film to his already overfilled plat of upcoming projects, but this one actually sounds like it could be all sorts of awesome. Universal Pictures and Mandalay Pictures have signed the Academy Award winning filmmaker to direct a biopic based on the life of Frank Sinatra.
Phil Alden Robinson is writing the screenplay, titled simply Sinatra. Robinson is probably best known as the writer/director of Sneakers and Field of Dreams, which he was nominated for an Academy Award.
The music rights have been secured and the Sinatra family has given its permission, which is not an easy get. Frank’s youngest daughter Tina Sinatra will be an executive producer, which would lead many to believe that the film would probably be on the less controversial side. However, Tina has told journalists in the past that she would “trust Scorsese implicitly” to “present the truth” about her father.
Peter Guber has been trying to get this project into production for years now, and now that all the pieces have fallen together. It is very possible that Scorsese might actually push to make the film as his next project.
Kevin Spacey is slipping into the shoes of disgraced Washington power broker Jack Abramoff.
Thesp will topline the true story-based thriller "Casino Jack," directed by George Hickenlooper from an original screenplay by Norman Snider.
Film, formerly titled "Bagman," stars Spacey as the once high-powered lobbyist whose bribery schemes and fraudulent dealings with Indian casinos ultimately landed him in prison.
Gary Howsam, Bill Marks and George Vitezakis are producing the film, which will begin lensing in Toronto this month. Richard Rionda Del Castro, Donald Zuckerman, Patricia Eberle and Lewin Webb are exec producing alongside Dana Brunetti for Spacey's Trigger Street Prods.
Hannibal Pictures is handling worldwide sales, excluding North America, and will sell the film at the Cannes Film Festival. E1 Entertainment has purchased Canadian rights. William Morris and Paradigm are handling U.S. rights.
Spacey most recently starred in "21" and HBO's "Recount," both of which he produced through Trigger Street. He will next be seen in "Shrink," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and will be released in July. Other upcoming projects include "The Men Who Stare at Goats" alongside George Clooney and father-daughter comedy "Father of Invention."
Antonio Banderas is set to star in "The Big Bang," a neo-noir detective story to be directed by Tony Krantz.
Richard Rionda Del Castro, Krantz and Erik Jendresen will produce the film, based on a script by Jendresen ("Band of Brothers"). Production begins in Spokane, Wash., in September.
Banderas stars as an L.A. private detective who's hired to find a missing stripper. The trail leads to the New Mexico desert, where the private eye finds a trail of bodies and contends with a brutal Russian boxer, three LAPD detectives and an aging billionaire looking to perfect the nuclear physics equivalent of the Big Bang.
Exec producing will be Patricia Eberle, Richard Salvatore and Ross Dinerstein.
Rionda Del Castro's Hannibal Pictures is financing and handling foreign sales at Cannes. U.S. representation is being handled by WMA and Endeavor.
Pic marks the first theatrical feature for Krantz, one of the few ex-agents to make that leap. Krantz, who spent 15 years packaging series at CAA and later heading Imagine TV, previously directed two Jendresen-scripted films -- "Sublime" and "Otis"-- that were designed to go direct to video through Raw Feed, a venture Krantz co-created.
Krantz now owns Flame Ventures, whose slate includes a NASCAR Imax film in 3-D that Krantz will direct, and "The Conversation," a series for AMC based on the Francis Ford Coppola film that is being written by Jendresen and Christopher McQuarrie.
Banderas most recently completed a starring role in Woody Allen's as-yet-untitled next film.
Robert De Niro and Edward Norton are attached to star in the indie psychological thriller "Stone," to be helmed by John Curran.
Story centers on a correctional officer (De Niro) who is seduced by the wife of a convicted arsonist (Norton) up for parole.
Angus MacLachlan ("Junebug") penned the screenplay.
"Stone" marks the debut film of Mimran Schur Pictures, a company formed earlier this year by private investor David Mimran and longtime music biz executive and former Geffen Records prexy Jordan Schur.
Holly Wiersma ("Bobby") is producing alongside Mimran and Schur. Avi Lerner, Rene Besson, Trevor Short and Danny Dimbort are exec producing.
Curran is prepping the Keira Knightley starrer "The Beautiful and the Damned."
De Niro is on board for the latest chapter in the "Meet the Parents" franchise, "Little Fockers."
Norton will next be seen in the indie "Leaves of Grass."
Twentieth Century Fox has begun development on "Deadpool," an "X-Men" spinoff that will be crafted as a star vehicle for Ryan Reynolds, who played the character in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine."
The character is one of the most popular in Marvel Comics' X-Men universe. Deadpool is Wade Wilson, a mercenary who, dying of cancer, submits himself to the Weapon X genetic alteration experiment and emerges as an indestructible semi-sane anti-hero. Reynolds seemed destined to play the character. In one reference in the Marvel Comics, Deadpool is described as a mix between "a Shar Pei and Ryan Reynolds."
In one of the "Easter egg" endings of "Wolverine," Deadpool is seen rising from the rubble and whispering "Shhh" to audiences.
The film will be produced by Lauren Shuler Donner and Marvel.
Fox is also in the formative stages of a "Wolverine" sequel that will encompass the samurai storyline that was hinted at as Wolverine sat in a bar in Japan as the film concluded (Daily Variety, May 4).
Separately, Fox is developing "Magneto," a film about the X-Men villain with a script by Shelton Turner, and "X-Men: First Class," which Josh Schwartz is penning.
Reynolds next stars with Sandra Bullock in the Anne Fletcher-directed "The Proposal," which Disney releases June 19. He also completed the Kieran and Michele Mulroney-directed "Paper Man."
Ken Watanabe and Tom Hardy are boarding Christopher Nolan's "Inception" for Warner Bros.
The story, which Nolan wrote, is a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind, with Leonardo DiCaprio as a CEO type. Watanabe will play the film's villain, a man who is blackmailing DiCaprio. Hardy is a member of DiCaprio's team.
The duo join a cast that includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page and Marion Cotillard.
Watanabe's deal reunites him with Nolan, with whom he collaborated on 2005's "Batman Begins."
Nolan and the studio are aiming for a summer shoot ahead of a 2010 release. Nolan and Emma Thomas are producing through their Warners-based Syncopy Films shingle.
Watanabe next appears in the Weinstein Co.'s September release "Shanghai" with John Cusack, Chow Yun-Fat and Gong Li. He is repped by Endeavor and ROAR.
Hardy, who is in negotiations for his role, next appears in "Bronson," playing a criminal who spent 30 years in solitary confinement. He is repped by CAA.