This year is the 25th anniversary of the Ron Howard-Brian Grazer partnership, Imagine Entertainment -- which has yielded such massive box office hits as Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Nutty Professor and American Gangster to name five -- and in a lengthy sitdown with Movieline sister site Deadline, the two men reveal the exact moment their business relationship was galvanized: Splash.
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Also in this Tuesday edition of The Broadsheet: The Ides of March will debut in August... Guillermo del Toro is intrigued by Maleficent... Sylvester Stallone casts his daughter... and more ahead.
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Hollywood legend Warren Beatty caused quite a stir two weeks ago at the Los Angeles Times Hero Complex Film Festival when he teased the possibility of a sequel to Dick Tracy. "I'm gonna make another one," he said. Though maybe "another one" was simply code for another movie. For the first time since the disastrous Town & Country was released in 2001, Beatty has another film project in the works.
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On Friday, co-producer Orian Williams shot down a report that Gossip Girl star Penn Badgley would play late singer Jeff Buckley in a biopic Buckley's mother, Mary Guibert, has been planning for years. "Penn is not involved in the film at all," Williams told the Los Angeles Times. And he's still not! In that film. But Badgley has been cast as the iconic musician in Greetings from Tim Buckley.
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With Transformers: Dark of the Moon exploding into theaters at the end of June, what better time than now for GQ to take a look back at the career of Michael Bay. The complete oral history of Bay appears in the July issue of the magazine -- fingers crossed for some serious Bad Boys 2 coverage! -- and a new online excerpt reveals exactly why Megan Fox was fired from the threequel at the start of production last May. Hint: It had something to do with those Hitler comments.
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You know that report about Darren Aronofsky wanting to spend $130 million on an "edgy retelling" of Noah's Ark? Well, he's really serious! In a new interview with IFC.com, the Black Swan director gave a few more details about his biblical dream project.
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Before Twilight, Summit Entertainment was a small studio you never heard of; Open Road is hoping to follow the same path. The distribution company founded by AMC and Regal Theaters has acquired Stephenie Meyer's The Host, which has Saoirse Ronan already lined up as star in a dual-role. Andrew Niccol is set to direct. Twi-hards, get excited! [Deadline]
With Green Lantern out in theaters, interest in Robert Smigel's lost script for a comedic take on the ring-wearing superhero has begun anew. The former Saturday Night Live writer and hand behind Triumph, The Insult Comic Dog wrote the film with Jack Black in mind back in 2004, but Warner Bros. scuttled the planned adaptation -- perhaps, in part, because of fan outrage on the Internet toward a less-than-faithful take. Not that Smigel has any hard feelings.
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· How bad do the editors of The Onion want to win a Pulitzer Prize? So bad that they started a new nonprofit advocacy group to campaign for the award (Americans for Fairness in Awarding Journalism Prizes), and enlisted Larry Crowne star Tom Hanks to film a video for their cause. Hanx! Click through to watch the double Oscar winner's impassioned plea, then stick around for more Buzz Break.
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The L.A. Film Festival's "Coffee Talk" series -- where film professionals in the same occupation gather to discuss the job and upcoming projects -- enjoyed one of its most noteworthy moments of the season on Sunday with its "Screenwriters" meetup: Dustin Lance Black (of Oscar-winning Milk fame) and Diablo Cody (of Oscar-winning Juno and Movieline fame) spoke most, while Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFeely (The Chronicles of Narnia, Captain America) and Josh Olson (A History of Violence) also fielded questions, offered insights, and even deigned to make us laugh.
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The Internet was abuzz with speculation last week about what exactly Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was planning with the mysterious new website Pottermore. Another Potter tome? An encyclopedia? An online role-playing game? A theme park? Well, whatever Pottermore turns out to be, count Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe among those not interested in seeing more adventures of the Boy Who Lived.
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Sad news to pass along: TMZ reports that Jackass star Ryan Dunn was killed along with another passenger in a car accident in Pennsylvania early Monday morning. Dunn appeared in all three Jackass theatrical films, as well as Jackass 3.5. The 34-year-old tweeted a picture of himself seemingly out at a bar with friends in the hours before the crash. UPDATE: Police say excessive speed contributed to the crash. Said MTV in a statement: "We are devastated by the tragic loss of Ryan Dunn - a beloved member of the MTV family for more than a decade." [TMZ, NBC/Philadelphia]
Movie stars might be an endangered species, but don't tell that to the Warner Bros. marketing team behind the new poster for Crazy Stupid Love. All six of the film's big stars -- that would be Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon -- get prominent treatment on the one-sheet, which also manages to recall one of the most iconic big screen moments ever.
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Also in this Monday edition of The Broadsheet: Paul Thomas Anderson's new film has an old title... Magic Kingdom gets a famous writer... Meryl Streep's 2011 Oscar campaign starts in December... and more ahead.
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It looks like what Kate did is head to Middle-earth. Peter Jackson announced via Facebook on Sunday that former Lost star Evangeline Lilly has been added to the cast of The Hobbit. She'll play a new character, "the Woodland Elf, Tauriel," and while Jackson refused to elaborate further, he did write that Tauriel would not be a love interest for Legolas (Orlando Bloom). Barry Humphries (a/k/a Dame Edna) was also added to the cast, as the Goblin King. Congrats, you two! [Facebook/Peter Jackson]
