Summit is pinning some hopes on Stephen Chbosky‘s adaptation of his own novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The project has been waiting for Emma Watson to be finished with Harry Potter so she can play a lead role, and also has Logan Lerman, Mae Whitman and Paul Rudd in the cast. (Logan Lerman is the titular wallflower.) Now Nina Dobrev is going to jump into the cast from The Vampire Diaries as a character named Candace. [Deadline]
After the break, Billy Bob Thornton goes to the disco, and Fox hires more cast for Chronicle. Read More »
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Last year, The Weinstein Company announced that it would partner with Miramax to make some sequels to titles in the Miramax library. One that was mentioned, and which has come up previous to that announcement, was Bad Santa 2. Billy Bob Thornton is often asked about the possibility of a sequel, and has said he’d be willing to do one.
Now that seems to be happening. as both Mr. Thornton and a spokesperson for The Weinstein Company says the actor is in talks to make the film. Read More »
We haven’t heard a great deal about Jayne Mansfield’s Car in the couple months since the first details came out. We know that Billy Bob Thornton is directing, and that he co-wrote the script with his One False Move collaborator Tom Epperson.
Now Robert Duvall has announced that he’ll be in the film, and he’s given up the fact that Billy Bob Thornton will also appear. (No real surprise there.) He’s also divulged a bit of story info. Read on for more details. Read More »
Faster has a hell of an opening. Dwayne Johnson — imposing, singularly determined and looking like The Rock for the first time in quite a while — is released from prison. On foot, he trucks over to an auto scrap yard containing a shrouded Chevelle. As the car is revealed, the song ‘Goodbye My Friend‘ by the De Angelis Brothers kicks in. The man, the car and this theme from a ’74 Italian police thriller called Street Law make as good a statement of purpose as any. The suggestion is that Faster will be a movie that plays like The Rock looks: muscular, mean and single-minded.
If only that were true. While the Rock cuts an impressive figure as a violent anti-hero, the movie around him is as misconceived as they come. There aren’t enough auto wreck metaphors to get across how thoroughly Faster demolishes a simple revenge movie premise. Read More »
Billy Bob Thornton hasn’t written and directed a film in almost ten years, and to hear him tell it, that’s in part because he’s a bit detached from the current film scene. But he and prior collaborator Tom Epperson (with whom he wrote The Gift and One False Move) have written a new script called Jayne Mansfield’s Car, which Mr. Thornton plans to star in as well as direct. In a new interview to promote Faster, he gives up the first details about the new project. Read More »
Billy Bob Thornton‘s directorial career has described an odd path. He broke out in a big way with his feature expansion of Sling Blade (from the short Some Call it a Sling Blade, directed by the late George Hickenlooper) and then went through the Weinstein wringer with All the Pretty Horses. His last film was Daddy & Them in 2001.
In the years since, he’s talked about possible new directorial projects. While promoting The Astronaut Farmer he mentioned wanting to make a documentary and expressed continued interest in making a biopic about Kentucky cave explorer Floyd Collins. (Also the subject of a critically-acclaimed stage musical in 1994.)
Now he says he’s got a script called Jayne Mansfield’s Car that he’d like to direct, and he also expresses lingering interest in a sequel to the vulgar and terrifically funny holiday comedy Bad Santa. Read More »
CBS Films hasn’t exactly been setting theaters on fire; the company has released Extraordinary Measures and The Back-Up Plan. The company is going for a much more action-oriented appeal with Faster, which stars Dwayne Johnson as a guy out for revenge after being released from prison.
The first teaser for Faster is out now, but does it offer more than just a straight-up revenge tale with a title screen that looks like it was borrowed from The Fast and the Furious? Well… Read More »
The casting news tonight is all over the place: First we have Billy Bob Thornton teaming up with Dwayne Johnson in Faster, a George Tillman Jr. (Men of Honor, Notorious) action drama vehicle. Johnson will star as Driver, an ex-con out for revenge following his brother’s murder. Thornton plays Cop, a (you guessed it) police officer tailing Driver. There’s also Killer, a hitman who’s after Driver for some reason (my god, maybe he killed Driver’s brother?!). The latter role remains uncast.
Read More »
