Digging into the rabbit hole of a mystery that is the inflammatory, anti-Muslim film Innocence of Muslims — the amateurish viral trailer for which set off protests and violent attacks in at U.S. embassies in Libya, Egypt, and other cities this week — Vice Magazine and Gawker have fingered the man they believe directed the project last year in California. Did industry veteran Alan Roberts (AKA Robert Brownell), a B-movie director and editor behind cult/softcore Cannon/Golan & Globus-era schlock Karate Cop, The Sexpert, and The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood, make the incendiary anti-Muslim screed?
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File under WTF, Out of Left Field, and Most Probably Not Happening, Like Ever: According to Deadline, rumor has it that Angelina Jolie, coming off of her directorial debut In the Land of Blood and Honey, has been in the unofficial running to join the 50 Shades of Grey adaptation -- not as Mrs. Robinson, not as some kinky bondage-enthusiast, but as... director.
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Well, it looks like Lionsgate has picked their pony in the Catching Fire directing race; I Am Legend director Francis Lawrence has reportedly been offered the job to helm the Hunger Games sequel, which is set to start filming on a tight schedule this August. Lawrence has three features under his belt, in addition to music videos for the likes of J. Lo and Britney Spears; he most recently directed Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon in Water for Elephants (but also made 2005's Constantine).
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According to an LA Times report citing an insider in the know, Lionsgate is looking at a few notable names to take the helm of the Hunger Games franchise for the series sequel Catching Fire. Among the "seven or eight names" -- all men, it's noted -- are David Cronenberg, Alfonso Cuaron, and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
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Gary Ross may have been an unexpected choice to direct The Hunger Games, but his quest for the gig was no less obsessive than the fervor of the novels’ fans; it took him exec-stalking across the Atlantic, involved elaborate custom-made storyboards, and inspired him to make a video of actual Hunger Games fans and their love for Suzanne Collins’s sci-fi series. (Besides, who else could’ve brought on Steven Soderbergh to direct second unit on one of the film’s big scenes?)
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20th Century Fox and star Bruce Willis have settled on a director for Die Hard 5: John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines, The Omen), who most recently helmed the 2008 shooter pic Max Payne. The John McClane five-quel will film in Russia with a rumored $100 million budget, according to Deadline, which reports that Moore is currently in negotiations. The real question is, with the 56-year-old Willis still going strong in action hero mode 23 years after he first cracked wise in the inaugural Die Hard, will these film ever truly die, hard or otherwise? [Deadline]
Music video director and celebrity progeny Adria Petty (daughter of Tom) has inked a deal to direct the horror pic Suffocate, about "a group of city workers who enter a hoarder's condemned brownstone and find it loaded with deadly traps and an unrelenting killer." If you've seen A&E's Hoarders, you know what a brilliant set-up this is. Beware the lady with the piles of crap and a family of stray cats living underneath stacks of newspaper clippings and Costco boxes! And hey, while we're on the subject of Petty's fascination with real-life horrors, what ever happened to that MTV-bought Paris Hilton doc she made, Paris, Not France? [Deadline]
