300 producer Scott Mednick is teaming with Academy Award-winning screenwriter David S. Ward (The Sting, Sleepless in Seatle) to develop a feature film about the secret women’s space program, based on Margaret A. Weitekamp’s book Right Stuff, Wrong Sex: America’s First Women in Space Program (Gender Relations in the American Experience). I’ve always been interested in stories about the space program, and the Woman in Space program is ripe for the big screen.
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In June 2009, I had the opportunity to visit the Vancouver set of Tron Legacy (you can watch our set visit preview video blog here). Over the course of the next couple days I’ll be posting a few of the transcripts of the roundtable interviews that we conducted on the set with the cast and crew, with a lot more to come in a few months. Yesterday we posted our interview with Jeff Bridges, who reprises his role as Kevin Flynn in the Tron sequel.
Today we have the transcript from our roundtable set interview with Steven Lisberger, the writer/director/creator of the original Tron, who is on board for Tron Legacy as a producer, writer, and actor (he has a small cameo in the film, in the scene seen above).
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20th Century Fox has hired Rupert Wyatt to develop and direct a prequel to Planet of the Apes. Wyatt directed The Escapist which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival to medium buzz and decent reviews. I wasn’t taken by the movie, but I know it was one of Alex from FirstShowing’s favorite movies of that year. The screenplay, titled Caesar (named after the ape who leads the rebellion against the humans in Conquest), was written by screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, The Relic).
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While there is nothing concrete, industry insiders and Deadline are speculating that Steven Spielberg might make Robopocalypse his next directorial feature film. DreamWorks Studios and Doubleday have acquired the property in November in a pre-emptive deal. Daniel H. Wilson’s unpublished manuscript (due in 2011), Robopocalypse tells the story of “the fate of the human race following a robot uprising.” Cloverfield screenwriter Drew Goddard has been hired to pen the big screen adaptation. Spielberg directing a film about the robot apocalypse written by Goddard? Consider me excited!
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Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I Love You Man) and Ed Helms (The Office, The Hangover) have signed on to star in The Duplass Brothers’ stoner comedy Jeff Who Lives at Home. The Duplass brothers, Jay and Mark Duplass are writing and directing for producers Jason Reitman via his Right of Way Films and John Malkovich via his Mr. Mudd shingle.
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After the success of Guy Ritchie’s reinvention of Sherlock Holmes, it seems like Warner Bros is digging through the archives for old properties or historical figures that could use a Hollywood tentpole revamp. In recent weeks the studio has announced a big screen adaptation of the popular arcade video game Space Invaders, a Guy Ritchie-directed Star Wars-like version of Arthur’s Excalibur scripted by Warren Ellis, a big screen remake of the 1960’s television series Gilligans Island from the producer of The Dark Knight, an action/adventure take on Marco Polo directed by I Am Legend helmer Francis Lawrence, and an action/sexified adaptation of The Three Musketeers from the producer of Sherlock Holmes.
And tonight it was revealed that WB is looking to turn famed Italian artist/inventor/engineer/architect Leonardo Da Vinci into an action/adventure hero. The treatment was penned by producer Adrian Askarieh. The studio is searching for a screenwriter to turn the idea into a fleshed out screenplay.
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Over the past month, every week there seems to be a new casting announcement for The Farrelly Brothers‘ comedy Hall Pass. And even though the comedy has already begun filming, this week isn’t any different. Variety reports that two more have joined the film, Richard Jenkins and Bruce Thomas (Kyle XY). Jenkins will portray Coakley, a man who never settled down, while Thomas plays a baseball player.
The cast includes Owen Wilson, Jenna Fischer, Jason Sudeikis, Stephen Merchant, Christina Applegate, Alyssa Milano, Larry Campbell and Vanessa Angel and J.B. Smoove. Last week we learned that Amanda Bynes left the project. Wilson stars as Rick, a husband in a dull marriage whose wife gives him a ‘hall pass’ — ie a license to engage in a week’s worth of extra-marital affairs. Sudeikis co-stars as Wilson’s best friend, who also gets a pass to get whatever ass he can. We have more details on the film’s plot, after the jump.
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You might recall that late last year, Arianna Huffington (co-founder of the liberal news website The Huffington Post) published a few tweets claiming that she was shooting a part in a secret Wachowskis Brothers film, a movie about the Iraq War, from the perspective of the future. We wouldn’t have believed it but Huffington posted photos from the set, one of which features Any Wachowski and Wachowski brother turned sister Lana Wachowski. Was it possible that the Wachowskis have actually sneaked their next film into production without anyone noticing? Or is this just part of a short film, commercial, or test footage for a potential future project? No one had any idea, and nothing more has been learned about the project until today.
Appearing on Tuesday’s episode of the Howard Stern Show on Sirius/XM Satellite radio, the professional wrestler turned actor turned governor Jesse Ventura dropped word that he just got done filming a movie for the Wachowskis. When asked if he missed acting and would ever consider returning to the big screen, Ventura dropped the bomb shell:
“I just did one with the Wachowski brothers…”
And if you think this is strange, it gets a lot stranger. More details follow below.
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Update: This story features a correction — Liev Schreiber has not yet read the screenplay.
Last week it was reported that screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie) has turned in a screenplay for Wolverine 2, and that a January 2011 start date decided for the comic book sequel. io9 reports that during that press conference for Repo Men, actor Liev Schreiber said he had dinner with Hugh Jackman last night, who has read the first draft of the sequel script. Schreiber, who played Sabertooth in the original film, says it is “still not clear whether or not Victor will be present in the Japan storyline.” Is Schreiber just playing coy or was he sent the script because Fox is considering adding his character to the next installment?
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Last month, after a screening of Avatar at the Writers Guild Theater for WGA members, James Cameron spoke with F. X. Feeney about his writing process throughout his career and in the creation of Avatar. I know a lot of people like to make the easy jokes, and write off Avatar for having an over-simplistic plot, but for anyone who really wants to delve deeper — you should really find time to listen to this one hour and ten minute interview/question & answer session.
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