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In a predicted move, Universal has reunited with Seth MacFarlane and the team behind Ted to produce another R-rated summer comedy.
Given Ted‘s success, it seemed only a matter of time before Universal came on board with the team’s newest project — A Million Ways to Die in the West. EW has confirmed Universal’s announcement today that it would be co-funding the western comedy, giving it a May 30 release date for the summer of 2014.
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• Charlize Theron is attached to produce and star in a still untitled crime thriller for Paramount, which is reportedly going to be similar in tone to The Departed and End of Watch. The Killing‘s Dan Nowak is set to write the script. The Oscar-winning actress has been stacking up the projects lately, including the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road, Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places, and Seth MacFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West. [THR]
• The third Hemsworth has made good on his promise to restart his acting career. Luke Hemsworth will make his feature film debut in John V. Soto’s The Reckoning alongside Jonathan LaPaglia (brother of Anthony). The story will follow a cop on the search for teenagers who disappeared after capturing a murder on video. LaPaglia will play the cop, and Hemsworth will be the detective on the case. [Deadline]
• Have you heard of Brady Corbet yet? Get to know the name, if not — he already has a pretty stellar resume and doesn’t seem to be slowing down. The 24-year-old actor has appeared in Melancholia, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Funny Games, and Thirteen, and has just signed on to star opposite Benicio Del Toro and Josh Hutcherson in the Pablo Escobar pic Paradise Lost. Eat Pray Love and Life of Pi actor Andrea Di Stefano will make his directorial debut on the project, which is expected to begin filming in Panama this month. [Deadline]
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Fred Savage, the child star-turned-prolific TV director, has been tapped by Skydance Productions to helm their upcoming comedy Ladies Night, starring Charlize Theron.
Since moving on from his actor days when he played the wide-eyed grandson in The Princess Bride and Kevin on The Wonder Years, Savage has directed over 120 TV episodes for shows such as Modern Family, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Boy Meets World, but the Skydance project will be his second directorial endeavor for the big screen. His first time directing a film was 2007′s Daddy Day Camp. READ FULL STORY »
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Jennifer Lawrence didn’t just win the Oscar for Best Actress last month. She basically won the whole Oscars. (Apologies to Ben Affleck.) She charmed late-night hosts — and Academy voters — with a disarming blend of bawdy humor and compulsive oversharing in the weeks before the ceremony. She rocked the red carpets with a variety of gorgeous gowns. More importantly, she was the only nominee who arrived at the Dolby Theatre currently fronting a $400 million blockbuster franchise. Certainly, she was wonderful and deserving of the Academy Award for her performance as a dispirited young widow in The Silver Linings Playbook, but as she accepted the Oscar, there was also a palpable recognition that she is The Future: a young, beautiful indie-film queen who can also carry and sell an action franchise.
At only 22, with an Oscar and central roles in The Hunger Games and X-Men, Lawrence appears to be the right actress in the right movies at the right time. “Everyone wants to work with her, whether it’s another actor or actress or a director or a studio,” says David Glasser, COO of The Weinstein Company, which distributed Silver Linings. “I think everybody right now wants to find that great Jennifer Lawrence Project.” READ FULL STORY »
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An Oscar winner and three blockbuster stars have been added to this year’s Academy Awards slate. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today that Charlize Theron, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Daniel Radcliffe will all make “special appearances” at the ceremony on Feb. 24.
Theron won a Best Actress statuette for Monster in 2004 and was nominated again for North Country in 2006. Magic Mike star Tatum, Dark Knight Rises star Gordon-Levitt, and ex-Harry Potter Radcliffe, on the other hand, will be making their first Oscar appearances.
Image Credit: JOE KLAMAR/AFP/GettyImages
• Last time we checked on the film adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s best-selling novel Dark Places, Amy Adams was in talks to star, but the latest news is that Adams has fallen out and Charlize Theron is interested in the role. Flynn said of Adams last June that she “couldn’t dream of someone more fantastic.” Even though we had been looking forward to seeing Adams in the adaptation, Charlize seems like a perfect alternate for the character of Libby Day. [Deadline]
• Colin Farrell is in talks to join Anthony Hopkins in the supernatural thriller Solace, about an FBI agent who enlists the help of a retired doctor to help him solve a series of murders. Farrell will not, however, be playing the agent — he’ll be the serial killer. Brazilian filmmaker Alfonso Poyart (2 Rabbits) is set to direct the project. [Deadline]
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• Warner Bros. has acquired The Man From Primrose Lane with the intent of developing it into a feature for Bradley Cooper. Chad Feehan (Paranormal Activity 4) will write the screenplay based on James Renner’s novel about a true crime writer who decides to investigate the mysterious murder of a mitten-wearing, West Akron, Ohio recluse. [Deadline]
• Bradley Cooper is also currently in discussions to re-team with Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine) for his next project, tentatively called Chef and described as a “culinary comedy” about a disgraced Paris-based chef attempting to stage a comeback in London. Cooper can be seen alongside Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling in Cianfrance’s upcoming film The Place Beyond the Pines, out in theaters March 29. [Variety]
• Though they haven’t even begun work on Animal Rescue yet, Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace are currently in talks join Daniel Espinosa’s (Safe House) adaptation of the thriller Child 44. Set in Stalin’s Soviet Union and based on Tom Rob Smith’s novel — the first in a trilogy — is about a devoted war hero whose faith in the system is shaken when he is forced to investigate the death of a child. [The Wrap]
• Charlize Theron is in talks to star in Seth MacFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West, which has been described as a broad comedy in the vein of Blazing Saddles. As his first feature after Ted, MacFarlane is not only co-writing and directing the film — he’ll also star. [THR]
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First Oldboy, now Lady Vengeance.
Charlize Theron has been cast for years as fierce women warrior types, and she’s ready to take on another iconic role as the lead in Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, a remake of South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s acclaimed 2005 thriller Lady Vengeance, the third in Park’s vengeance trilogy, which also includes 2003′s Oldboy, currently being remade by Spike Lee.
Annapurna Pictures, Theron’s production outfit Denver & Delilah Films, and Asian company CJ Entertainment have partnered for the remake, with The Departed Oscar-winning scribe William Monahan writing the script, according to a press release Wednesday.
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Charlize Theron will narrate Billy Raftery’s documentary Angels In Exile about homeless kids in her native South Africa. [Deadline]
Liam Neeson is in talks to star in the crime thriller The All Nighter (previously titled Run All Night). Per The Wrap, the story follows an aging hit man who, in order to protect his family, must take on his former boss in one night. Neeson was last seen in Taken 2. [The Wrap]
Bruce McGill (Lincoln, TV’s Rizolli and Isles) has joined Ice Cube and Kevin Hart in the cast of Tim Story’s action comedy Ride Along. [Hollywood Reporter]
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The lives of war correspondents are ripe with both lulls and action, and they’ve been translated, both truthfully and stuffed full of fiction, onto film for decades.
Charlize Theron is in talks to co-produce a biopic of slain war reporter Marie Colvin, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The story is based on the Vanity Fair article “Marie Colvin’s Private War” optioned by producer Basil Iwanyk and Thunder Road’s Peter Lawson. Theron would not only be taking on the challenge of representing a real-life journalist in a believable yet cinematic way, but a female journalist, which brings added complexities.
