After today's big Rich Ross news, I can't pass up the chance to share a Rick Ross item. As in "Freeway" Rick Ross, the notorious '80s drug lord with ties to Iran-Contra/social networking guru/film producer who has a Nick Cassavetes-penned biopic in the works (not to be confused with Rick Ro$$ the rapper). It's early yet, but with Scarface producer Martin Bregman allegedly interested, the former drug kingpin gave Shadow & Act an update on the project.
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Filming is underway on the other period behind-the-scenes Alfred Hitchcock flick -- this one stars Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, Jessica Biel as starlet Vera Miles, Anthony Hopkins as Hitch and Helen Mirren as his wife Alma -- and the very first photo from the pic has hit the web. In it, buried somewhere beneath layers of prosthetics and make-up and balding hair, is Sir Anthony as the iconic auteur. Toby Jones, eat your heart out.
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Now here's a biopic I can get excited about: Blaxploitation icon Pam Grier is set to see her 2010 autobiography Foxy, My Life in Three Acts, adapted for the screen with Fresh Prince of Bel-Air/Living Single TV vet Eunetta Boone to script. Grier's story is full of sensational events -- just imagine that one Richard Pryor story, reenacted -- but also marks a turning point in the portrayal of strong, sexually-empowered women in Hollywood. That said, what young actresses out there can fill Grier's foxy shoes?
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I'm not quite sold on Clive Owen as Ernest Hemingway, Nicole Kidman as his war-correspondent third wife, Martha Gellhorn, or the sumptuous look of director Philip Kaufman's take on war-torn WWII-era Europe, but here's your first look at the May "epic motion picture event" Hemingway & Gellhorn.
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In 1865, actor and Confederate loyalist John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in the balcony of Ford's Theatre, committing one of the most notorious crimes in American history. In 2013, Fox News talking head Bill O'Reilly will team up with Tony and Ridley Scott for a two-hour National Geographic documentary exploring the events surrounding Lincoln's death, adapted from Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever, co-written by O'Reilly and Martin Dugard. But with so many previous Lincoln assassination projects in the ether, what new ground can O'Reilly and the Scott brothers tread in Killing Lincoln?
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I can kind of see a resemblance between Demi Moore and feminist activist/journalist Gloria Steinem, whom the former Mrs. Kutcher has been tapped to play in Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's Lovelace. But at this point the porn biopic -- the one starring Amanda Seyfried as Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace, to feature a cameo by James Franco as Hugh Hefner -- feels like it's turning into a bizarrely distracting hit parade-sideshow of stars/names playing real life Lovelace acquaintances. (Further evidence, just announced over the wires: Eric Roberts as... lie detector test administrator Nat Laurendi! For reals.)
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Not to be terribly negative at the start of the new year – because any year that gifted us the Fassboner had to be a pretty good year, amirite? – but there were a handful of recurring trends in the movies of 2011 that could stand a rest as we charge ahead through 2012. First let’s list the good ones, the motifs in otherwise disparate films, from a wide range of filmmakers indie and studio-backed, new and established, that were actually kind of awesome to marinate in this past year. (Goslingmania comin' atcha!)
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Phyllida Lloyd and Meryl Streep work a puny bit of flim-flammery in The Iron Lady: They turn Margaret Thatcher into a folk hero, a woman who, poor lamb, had to make sacrifices in her personal life in exchange for political power. This is a watery, artfully evasive picture, anchored by a stupendous feat of mimicry. Some people call that acting.
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Earlier this year producer Jerry Weintraub predicted Oscar gold for one of his upcoming pet projects, the Steven Soderbergh-helmed Liberace biopic. "I've got a great script, it's a great story, and they're great characters," he enthused to Movieline. "That's what I make movies about. It's going to win an Academy Award... for Michael Douglas." Well, not so fast.
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You knew it would happen sooner or later: Late Apple founder Steve Jobs will reportedly be getting getting the big screen biopic treatment, courtesy of Sony. The Social Network studio has acquired feature rights to Walter Isaacson's as-yet unreleased authorized book Steve Jobs, which culls interviews with Jobs and his close associates and family members and has been fast-tracked to hit shelves October 24. It should be an interesting match, considering Sony's tech division is a direct Apple competitor; imagine the cross-branding planning meetings! As for the film, fantasy casting is wide open. (Put your hand down, Noah Wyle.) [Deadline]
"It's an amazing story... what is quite clear is that her [Princess Diana's] life was an amazing life. She was a wagonload of monkeys but she was also an amazing, fascinating, ballsy woman." Producer Stephen Evans, talking to Screen Daily, explained why his $50M take on Princess Diana's life -- leading up to her divorce from Prince Charles, ending before her Dodi Al Fayed years -- is such a no-brainer. ""You don't often get a movie like this where you know, that if you can make it work, it is bomb proof." Classy! [Screen Daily]
Mixed martial artist, sometimes actor, and YouTube brawler Kimbo Slice may get the biopic treatment from none other than Entourage's Kevin Connolly. Slice's life is, admittedly, the stuff of crazy movie dreams: Born in the Bahamas, he matriculated in Florida, lived in his car after Hurricane Andrew, almost made it into the NFL, and worked as a bouncer for a porn company before finding stardom on the internet as a real-life street fighter; Connolly hopes Slice will play himself in the film, which is looking for financing. Brutal, dramatic, based on a true story... who else smells Oscar here? [The Wrap]
Lakers forward Ron Artest is arguably the most colorful player the NBA currently has; athlete, rapper, brawler, music promoter, stand-up comedian -- he's like the new Dennis Rodman. Naturally, Artest is also making a movie about his life, so when he popped up at the Young Hollywood Awards (airing May 26 on Ion Television at 9pm ET/PT) of all places, Movieline picked his brain: Who could play Ron Artest in the Ron Artest movie?
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Steven Spielberg went to town this week casting his upcoming Abraham Lincoln biopic, which already had Daniel Day-Lewis in place as Lincoln and Sally Field as his wife, Mary Todd. Joining them in the film, based on Pulitzer-winning biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, will be Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, John Hawkes, and a dozen other thesps. Who else will log time in Lincoln?
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Earlier today Movieline caught up with director/digital wunderkind Jon M. Chu, helmer of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, to follow-up on the recently announced Director's Fan Cut hitting North American theaters on Friday. While you wait with bated breath for the full chat, posting on Wednesday, find out why Chu pegged David Fincher's The Social Network to come home with Oscar gold this Sunday.
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