Katie Holmes Sashays to Broadway; Kenneth Branagh to Play Destroyer of U.S. Economy: Biz Break

Also in Thursday afternoon's round-up of news briefs, Breck Eisner is set to direct a live-action pic for Relativity and Hasbro. Specialty distributor Kino Lorber teams with Hulu for a portion of its titles; Australian thriller heads to the U.S. and all that rain has brought out the masses in U.K. theaters.

Breck Eisner to Direct Stretch Armstrong
Eisner (The Crazies, Sahara) will direct the live-action film, said developer Relativity. The company has partnered with Hasbro on the project which has a targeted April, 2014 release. The story will be a "gritty actioner introducing the character of Lucas Armstrong and the life-or-death consequences he will face after undergoing a transformation granting him superhuman abilities."

Specialty Distributor Teams with Hulu for Art House & Docs
Kino Lorber Films is curating select titles from its library on the ad-supported Hulu website as well as the Hulu Plus subscription service beginning today. 35 features and shorts ranging from classic, foreign, documentary and American independents will be available through the service.

Australian Thriller Wake In Fright Heads to U.S.
Drafthouse Films will release the feature in the States. Directed by Ted Kotcheff (Rambo: First Blood), the film tells the story of a British schoolteacher's descent into personal demoralization at the hands of drunken, deranged derelicts while stranded in a small town in outback Australia.

Around the 'net…

Katie Holmes Gets Hitched to Broadway
New New Yorker Katie Holmes will star in Theresa Rebecks' new play Dead Accounts, which will open this fall. Tony Award-winner Jack O'Brien will direct the film, in which Holmes will play the role of Lorna in the play that centers on corporate greed, small town values and whether family will always accept you, Deadline reports.

Kenneth Branagh Joins Jack Ryan
He's already set to direct the Paramount movie, but now Branagh will go in front of the camera to play the film's villain, Viktor Stazov, a financial genius who masterminds the destruction of the U.S. economy, THR reports.

Surprise: UK Wet Summer Sees Jump at the Box Office
IMAX cinemas and chain Odeon, which sells one-third of all tickets in the United Kingdom, all had jumps in ticket sales which have been attributed in part to unusually wet weather there this summer. Outdoor festivals have had the opposite experience, The Guardian reports.