Also in this Friday (finally!) edition of The Broadsheet: Jack Ryan gets a rewrite... January Jones announces surprise pregnancy... the Royal Wedding happened... and more ahead.
Big news for fans of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series: Summit is reportedly co-financing and distributing a live-action adaptation, to be written and directed by Wolverine helmer Gavin Hood. Card's 1985 novel, based on his own short story, sets up a futuristic Earth in which youngsters are trained in war games to battle enemy aliens; it spawned five sequels and an entire spin-off saga, which means one thing: It's time to get your casting hats on!
Deadline reports a deal in progress for Lionsgate to release the Drew Goddard-directed, Joss Whedon-produced horror pic Cabin in the Woods. Filmed back in 2009 and caught up in the MGM bankruptcy fiasco, the 3-D horror thriller languished in limbo and shuffled around the release calendar numerous times in the last few years. The wait, however, could benefit from the star power of Chris Hemsworth -- Thor himself! -- who shot the film before being cast as Marvel's God of Thunder.
Ben Kingsley will join Sacha Baron Cohen in The Dictator, a Paramount comedy by Seinfeld scribes Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer and Dave Mandel (and Cohen's frequent collaborator Dan Mazer) that "follows a heroic dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy never comes to the country he so lovingly oppressed." Kingsley is slated to star as one of two Middle Eastern characters who comes into play, and Jason Mantzoukas of The League is in talks for the other role. Personally, I'm still hurting from Kingsley's Oscar loss for Sexy Beast, so let's hope this unconventional story gives him the standing for a second statuette. [Variety]
Hint: Take a lucrative megafranchise, add a whole new superstar to the original cast, and then open opposite what's arguably the weakest wide-release competition of any tentpole this year. Next: Back up the Brinks truck and commence loading. Read on for a closer look at the weekend's box-office landscape -- Hollywood's last dress rehearsal before the summer movie season gets underway.
Best casting news of the day (that is not related to Hunger Games): Jeff Bridges is close to signing onto Universal's R.I.P.D. ("Rest in Peace Department"), the Ryan Reynolds-starring supernatural comedy about a slain cop who joins a squad of undead police officers to find the man who murdered him. The film is based on Peter Lenkov's comic and directed by Robert Schwentke (Red) and was originally supposed to co-star Zach Galifianakis. [Deadline]
Aimee Teegarden first caught Hollywood's eye as Julie Taylor, the coach's daughter on the critically acclaimed series Friday Night Lights, but in the five years since the show premiered she's done a lot of growing up -- and smartly so. This week Teegarden steps into her first starring film role by leading a cast of fresh-scrubbed high schoolers in Disney's Prom, but as she looks toward a burgeoning career as producer and carefully plots her acting choices (including a teen action series for Warner Bros. opposite Twilight's Jackson Rathbone) it's clear this teen idol has a long-term strategy in mind.
On Wednesday, Movieline reported a story about I Am Number Four actor Alex Pettyfer, who made important observations in a VMan interview about "s**tholes," "c**ts," and his cheeky crotch tattoo. Apparently the script over his junk doesn't read "Thank you," as he joked in the interview, but it makes quite a statement anyway! Enjoy the pensive pics.
There's that news van again. The ubiquitous Jeremy Renner will produce and star in an untitled biopic about late actor Steve McQueen. For those keeping score at home, this is the third movie Renner has attached himself to in less than a week, following The Bourne Legacy and Ice Age: Continental Drift. [THR/Risky Business]
The phrase "summer vacation" often has the inverse meaning for Hollywood's most bankable talent. While mere mortals pack up the station wagon for a week at the beach, A-list actors work triple-time to promote the tentpole production for which they were paid (and studios spent) handsomely. This summer though, some of America's favorite movie stars are taking a true summer vacation from the rigors of the multiplex. Let's review those few, and determine whether their big screen absence from May to August will make audience's hearts grow fonder.
Well, this is just awesome. Long before becoming one of the most influential directors of all time, Stanley Kubrick was a photojournalist. As the Chicago Tribune notes, "In the summer of 1949, Look magazine sent him to Chicago to shoot pictures for a story called 'Chicago City of Contrasts.'" Click ahead to see the recently unearthed photos taken by the then-21-year-old Kubrick.
The weekend is nearly upon us (shhh, let's not jinx it), and thus it's time to make some culturegoing plans. And Movieline's readers in New York are in for a special treat Friday night, when resident critic Michelle Orange will join Humpday director Lynn Shelton for a revival and discussion of her little-seen 2006 debut feature We Go Way Back.
Say what you will about Lionsgate's slow trickle of a casting roll-out, or director Gary Ross and novelist Suzanne Collins' choices -- Elizabeth Banks might just be the most perfectly chosen member of the Hunger Games cast thus far. Tweeting today to confirm her official involvement, Banks' enthusiasm leaped off the Twitter page as she quoted her soon-to-be onscreen alter ego, Effie Trinket.
Few details are known about Neill Blomkamp's Elysium, the science fiction follow-up to Blomkamp's Oscar-nominated District 9 that's currently in pre-production for a 2013 release. But Elysium co-star Jodie Foster, who'll star alongside Sharlto Copley, William Fichtner, and Matt Damon in the film, shared a few details of her character and the film's CG element with Movieline during a recent sit-down in Los Angeles.
· If we've said it once here at Movieline HQ, we've said it a thousand times: Thank goodness Jonah Hill decided to start using Twitter! The 21 Jump Street star has continually been a source of not just good humor, but production pics from his new film. The latest was even snapped by co-star Channing Tatum. Click ahead to check it out, then stick around for more Buzz Break.
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