Also in this Tuesday edition of The Broadsheet: Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy may team for ID Theft... G.I. Joe 2 signs up Walton Goggins... J.R.R. Tolkien heads to the big screen (sorta)... and more ahead.
After nabbing Oscar nods for their first collaboration, the 2007 indie darling Juno, screenwriter Diablo Cody (who won the Academy Award) and director Jason Reitman reprise their partnership in this December's Young Adult, the story of a YA novel author (Charlize Theron) who returns to her hometown to win back her now-married high school sweetheart (Patrick Wilson). After the jump, get your first look at Theron traveling in a slightly less glamorous getup than we're used to seeing.
When he's not giving weather reports, bemoaning the debt crisis, and directing Duran Duran concerts, David Lynch is making music. Oh, and the occasional movie. His latest effort, a 14-track solo album entitled Crazy Clown Time (of course) features "dark" electronic pop songs on which he plays guitar, sings, and produces, with guest vocals by the likes of Karen O; it'll be available in the U.K. and the U.S. on November 8. [Deadline]
According to Variety, Brad Pitt is negotiating to play the title role in the assassin thriller The Gray Man, adapted by Adam Cozad from Mark Greaney's 2009 novel. The role would see Pitt as Court Gentry, an ex-CIA operative known for his lethal skill who goes on the run after his last job goes wrong, with action taking place across the globe. Could this be Hollywood's next Bourne-style property?
It might have taken nearly a year, but United Nations leadership is finally aligning itself with The Whistleblower, the new film based on the experience of a peacekeeper who witnessed U.N. complicity in sex-trafficking in Bosnia in the late '90s/early '00s. And while Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon might not yet have clambered aboard the film's Rachel Weisz awards-season bandwagon, he's definitely paving its road ahead with an invitation for the film to screen at U.N. headquarters in New York.
Jonathan Levine has directed two feature films (The Wackness and next month's 50/50) since seeing his 2006 directorial debut, the indie horror pic All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, infamously go from a Weinstein Co. pick-up to a Weinstein Co. cast-off sold to Senator Entertainment, who then went out of business themselves. So what's the latest status of the Amber Heard starrer (which also features Anson Mount, Whitney Able, and Twilight's Michael Welch)?
You've already seen the first trailer for Martin Scorsese's 3-D adaptation of Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and now Paramount has released the first official photo from the movie that will give Jason Segel's Muppets reboot a run for its money (maybe) this Thanksgiving. Click ahead to check out the artwork and more importantly, rate the creepiness of the robot that holds Asa Butterfield and Chloë Moretz's attention.
Move over, Penn Badgley. The official biopic about late singer Jeff Buckley -- "official" because the untitled film is being executive produced by Buckley's mother Mary Guibert -- has found its young troubadour: Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark star and singer Reeve Carney. How come the relative newcomer wound up leading the highly anticipated biopic of the late singer?
The wonderful trailers for Jason Segel's Muppets movie already have me torqued for a reboot of Kermit the Frog's kingdom, but now consider me extra-amped: This new disc of Muppet cover songs featuring Weezer, OK Go, the Fray, and Rachael Yamagata is so solid and original that I can't believe an alternative version like it has never been attempted before. You can listen to the whole Green Album online now, but first, think: What are your favorite Muppet covers? And do these live up?
Illustrator/writer Lisa Hanawalt saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes over the weekend, and came away feeling a bit overwhelmed. "If there's one thing I've learned from this movie, it's that apes are CONSTANTLY jumping through glass windows. The shattering glass must feel good on their fur?" [The Hairpin]
Rock legend Patti Smith set the literary world on fire last year with her memoir Just Kids, a sensitive, longing look at her friendship with the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The book mostly chronicles their years in New York prior to her fame as a punk poetess from the mid-'60s to the mid-'70s -- before Horses revolutionized Ginsbergian rock. Now word is out that Smith is adapting the National Book Award winner into a screenplay with Gladiator scribe John Logan. Who should play the inimitable lady on the big screen?
Oscar-nominated director Gus Van Sant was once in the running to helm The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn before Bill Condon got the gig, but a July dinner outing with Taylor Lautner and Milk writer Dustin Lance Black had the gossip mill wondering if Van Sant was working on a new film with the Twilight star.This weekend the director and the erstwhile wolf boy were photographed taking in Cirque du Soleil's IRIS: A Journey Through the World of Cinema. What could Gus 'n' Tay-Tay have been talking about?
· The long gestating Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón's follow-up to Children of Men, has an Oscar-friendly release date, an all-star cast (George Clooney and Sandra Bullock), and now the blessing of Guillermo del Toro. "Amazing things," del Toro said to MTV when asked what he knows about Cuarón's progress. "What Alfonso was trying is so insane, and Jim [Cameron] said, 'You know, you're about five years into the future. It's too early to try anything that crazy.' They did it." Click through to watch del Toro gush about his friend, then stick around for more Buzz Break.
If you're getting bored of all the spy pics from the set of The Dark Knight Rises -- hello, Batwing! -- some good news: The Avengers began shooting on the streets of Cleveland earlier Monday morning (where rain almost forced the production inside), meaning Batman will have some company over the next few weeks. Click through for a look at how director Joss Whedon and his production staff will attempt to make East 9th Street in Cleveland look like Times Square. Hint: it involves yellow cabs!
Who knew that the No Country For Old Men poster would be so influential in 2011? A few months after the team behind the Fright Night remake appeared to borrow heavily from the one-sheet for the Coen Brothers' big Oscar winner of 2007, an eagle-eyed tipster points out another upcoming film's marketing debt.
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