I still remember the day, nearly three years ago now, I received what was considered one of the holiest holy grail scripts of its day, the screenplay to Inglourious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino (the one he was robbed of an Oscar for last year). I flew through it in just a couple days and was completely blown away, so you can imagine my excitement last week when I found QT's latest screenplay, Django Unchained, sitting in my inbox, awaiting my perusal.
The Weinstein Company has won the worldwide distribution rights for director/writer Paul Thomas Anderson's upcoming untitled film. The film already has Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix attached to star. It's been four years since Anderson's last project, the Oscar-winning film There Will Be Blood.
It's being reported that Anderson is interested in several actresses for the project including Madisen Beaty (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Amy Adams (Doubt, Enchanted), Lena Endre (The Millennium Trilogy), and Laura Dern (Jurassic Park).
Here we have the first picture released from the upcoming adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. There's not a whole lot going on in the pic, but there's more than likely to be more interesting photos coming up as The New York Times has been granted an early set visit.
The film stars Benjamin Walker, Anthony Mackie, Dominic Cooper, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Robin McLeavy, Jimmi Simpson, Alan Tudyk, and Rufus Sewell.
It's being reported today that Universal, who has been planning a big budget adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower, may now be getting cold feet on the project.
The first obvious issue to crop up would be the project's budget which, when you consider that the studio wants to do three films and two miniseries to bridge the gaps between, would be quite immense. It is expected that Universal will decide in the coming days whether they want to put the project into turnaround and shop it to other studios, who could then partner on the project or take it over entirely. However, as of right now, Universal is moving ahead with the project.
It is being reported that director Steven Spielberg has chosen to film his upcoming biography about Abraham Lincoln in Virginia. The film is set to star two-time Academy Award-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis as the titular president. Sally Field will be playing the role of Mary Todd Lincoln.
The screenplay by Tony Kushner (Munich), based off of the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin examines Lincoln's presidency and the Civil War.
Deadline is reporting that Woody Allen wants to cast Italian actor Roberto Benigni in his upcoming film, The Wrong Picture. You may remember Benigni as the eccentric who walked atop the rows of chairs on Oscar night when he won Best Actor for Life is Beautiful, which also received Best Foreign Language Film and Best Music for its original dramatic score.
The Wrong Picture already has quite an impressive cast attached and includes Jesse Eisenberg, Penelope Cruz, Ellen Page, and Alec Baldwin.
Remember Piranha 3D, that silly movie about the killer piranhas from last year with tons of gore and a twisted sense of humor? Well, filming is already underway on the sequel and it's been announced that cast members Ving Rhames, Paul Scheer, and Christopher Lloyd will be returning.This is interesting for two of these characters mainly because of the fate of Rhames's character in the first film and the strange disappearance of Scheer's character (his character actually dies in a deleted scene). Lloyd is likely returning as the bizarre piranha expert.
Director Paul W.S. Anderson (Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil) will be re-teaming with Constantin Film and Summit Entertainment to bring us the period disaster film Pompeii. They previously teamed up for an upcoming 3D version of Dumas's The Three Musketeers which stars Christoph Waltz, Logan Lerman, Ray Stevenson, Milla Jovovich, Luke Evans and Madds Mikkelsen. So far, no actors have been cast for Pompeii, nor has a start date been set.
William Campbell, well-known for his guest spots on Star Trek, has died from natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Fund hospital in Woodland Hills, California at the age of 87.
According to Variety, Dean O'Gorman has signed on to replace Rob Kazinsky for the role of Fili in The Hobbit. Kazinsky has left the production for personal reasons.
Director/co-writer Peter Jackson has also announced that actor Lee Pace (The Fall, A Single Man) has been cast as the Elven King Thranduil. Jackson adds that "casting these Tolkien stories is very difficult, especially the Elven characters, and Lee has always been our first choice for Thranduil. He's going to be great. We loved his performance in a movie called The Fall a few years ago, and have been hoping to work with him since."
