Well, it’s not nearly as good as Peter Weir going back to Master and Commander, but at least someone at Fox is interested in making a nautical thriller. Kind of. Tony Scott has signed to work with Fox once again as producer and director on a drug-running sub thriller called — seriously, this part isn’t a joke — Narco Sub. The title would seem to refer to crafts — once only semi-submersible but now fully submersible — that South American drug cartels sometimes use to smuggle cocaine into the United States. Colombian drug runners seem particularly fond of the little craft, which are adept at evading radar and sonar.
The script is by new hot screenwriter David Guggenheim, and the project overall is described as being reminiscent of films like Man on Fire and Crimson Tide. Read More »
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In early February 2012, we’ll see the thriller Safe House, which marks the studio debut of Snabba Cash director Daniel Espinosa. The movie is based on a hot-ticket script pitch from relatively new screenwriter David Guggenheim, and was shot this year with Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds in the lead roles.
We’ve seen no official images or video from the film until now. The first still has been released, and a teaser poster has also arrived. Check out both in full below. Read More »
Briefly: Early last year screenwrier David Guggenheim sold Puzzle Palace, a cop drama pitch to Summit. That sale came on the heels of Guggenheim selling Safe House, which has since been filmed by Daniel Espinosa with Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds in the lead roles.
Now Puzzle Palace is written, and it looks like the director will be McG. He’s just finishing This Means War for Fox — we just saw that trailer in the past couple weeks — and this could be his next film, though he’s also got some other projects and television developments to juggle. All we’ve got on the story in Puzzle Palace is this, from THR:
The story centers on the son of a veteran police officer who learns his father is framed for murder. When he finds out that there is evidence hidden that could free his father, he is determined to find it, even though it means breaking into One Police Plaza, the most secure building in all of New York City. He ends up being locked inside the police HQ with crooked cops on his tail.
David Guggenheim wrote Safe House for Universal — the film with Ryan Reynolds as an CIA agent transporting dangerous criminal Denzel Washington to a new safe house. Evidently that project, directed by Daniel Espinosa, went well, as Universal has bought into a Guggenheim pitch called 364. The writer brought it to Imagine Entertainment, and it already has Ron Howard attached to direct. This makes the fourth directorial attachment for Howard — that we know about — beyond The Dark Tower and Rush, which shoots in earnest soon. And this one is a superhero movie. Kind of. Read More »
Everyone know the jolt of fear that runs through your body when you think you’ve forgotten something in a taxi cab. Well imagine the jolt if, instead of a cell phone, it was your daughter left in the cab and you only had a few hours to find her. That’s the rough plot of Medallion, which will feature Nicolas Cage as former master thief, searching for his daughter, who has been taken hostage and locked in the trunk of a Medallion Taxi Cab in New York City. Read More »
The Black List has been released. The annual list is compiled with a poll of 300 (up from last year’s 250) development executives and high-level assistants, and contains a ranking of the hot screenplays making the rounds in Hollywoodland, which were written in, or are somehow uniquely associated with, 2010 and will not be released in theaters during this calendar year. Basically, the black list contains the hottest projects in Hollywood that you haven’t heard of yet.
Note: The headline is a slightly inaccurate, because a lot of these screenplays have already been acquired (six of the top ten listed), a bunch are in production now, and some have even finished production. One of this year’s top ten screenplays, J.C. Chandor‘s Margin Call, about the last 24 hours at now-defunct investment bank Lehman Brothers is already in the can and set to premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival with Chandor at the helm and Kevin Spacey and Paul Bettany star. The top screenplay om the list, College Republicans, already has Shia LaBeouf and Paul Dano attached to star.
Started in 2005 by a young executive at Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company Appian Way, who polled 90+ peers to send him their 10 favorite new unproduced screenplays to read over the holidays. The underground list was e-mailed around and quickly became a Hollywood phenomenon. To give you an idea, the top three entries of the 2005 list where Things We Lost in the Fire, Juno, and Lars and the Real Girl. However it should be noted that a warning appears at the beginning of the list:
“THE BLACK LIST is not a “best of” list. It is, at best, a “most liked” list.”
Also, it should be noted that many people in recent years have begun accuse participants for pushing their own/friends clients.
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Despite harboring ambitions to make a biopic about Salvador Dali, director Simon West is sticking with action for now. He’s got Jason Statham film The Mechanic, a remake of a Charles Bronson film, ready to release. He’ll next direct Dwayne Johnson in Protection. And now he’s being linked to The Medallion, a thriller produced by McG and written by Safe House writer David Guggenheim. Read More »
Briefly: It’s Ryan Reynolds day! There was just talk of Green Lantern sequels, Deadpool and R.I.P.D., and now there’s word that Reynolds is the ‘top choice’ to work opposite Denzel Washington in the thriller Safe House. Deadline says that Reynolds is the frontrunner in a giant pack of young actors that want the role. Shia LaBeouf, Taylor Kitsch, Chris Pine, Sam Worthington, Garrett Hedlund, Zac Efron, Channing Tatum, Chris Hemsworth and Jake Gyllenhaal are all said to be in contention for the part. Note that there’s no offer yet, so this is just talk for now.
Reynolds (or whoever gets the gig) would play a young CIA agent tasked with transporting a criminal (Denzel Washington) to safety. As we reported before, David Guggenheim’s story was snagged by Universal in a bidding war, and has Snabba Cash director Daniel Espinosa set to helm. The basic setup for the script goes as follows:
Set in South America, Safe House follows a young U.S. intelligence agent who must go on the run with a newly arrived prisoner (Denzel’s potential role) after his titular safe house comes under attack — think of a mix between Collateral and Three Days of the Condor.
