As is to be expected in these cases of large all-star ensemble casts, I’m sure we’ll be devoting more articles than necessary to a movie that might turn out to be mediocre at best (see: “He’s Just Not That Into You”, “Valentine’s Day”, the upcoming “New Year’s Eve”). Just hours after Brooklyn Decker was announced to be joining the cast, Lionsgate reveals another new cast member for “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”. Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick is the latest to sign on, joining Decker, Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez as expectant mothers whose pregnancy stories interweave.
In the Kirk Jones directed film, Kendrick will play Rosie, who is reunited with an old flame in the midst of a turf war between their rival food trucks (what?). Needless to say, a one night stand results in a surprise pregnancy and they set off on an “emotional and poignant journey” towards parenthood together (sigh). Decker is on board as a trophy wife carrying twins who breezes through an easy pregnancy, Diaz will be a fitness guru a la Jillian Michaels and Lopez a woman who has trouble conceiving and settles on adopting a child from another country.
After over a year of no new projects aside from finishing up her commitment to the “Twilight” series in “Breaking Dawn”, Kendrick is back with a vengeance, with a nonstop stream of projects that include cop drama “End of Watch” opposite Jake Gyllenhaal, Robin Wright’s directorial debut “The Archivist”, the animated “ParaNorman” and horror comedy “Rapturepalooza”, which is set up at Lionsgate, the studio behind “What to Expect”. She also has Jonathan Levine’s cancer dramedy “50/50″ opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the can for release in September.
In a bit of expected news, Marvel has officially greenlit a sequel to “Thor”, the May superhero release that garnered over $400 million for Disney/Marvel worldwide. Deadline reports Chris Hemsworth will return to wield the hammer in the titular role of the Norse God turned Avenger, but director Kenneth Branagh is out. Branagh will most likely stay on in a producing capacity but the job of director is now available and sure to be hotly contested.
An official release date has already been set for July 26, 2013, opening three months after the May 6, 2013 release of “Iron Man 3″, which will see Robert Downey Jr return as Thor’s cocky, snarky teammate. Downey and Hemsworth are currently in New Mexico filming Joss Whedon’s all-star team up “The Avengers”, which is set for a May 12, 2012 release. Further setting up for that highly anticipated event is Chris Evans headlining “Captain America: The First Avenger”, releasing on July 22th. Presumably, if his solo film does well, he will get his own sequel too, and Marvel has not ruled out spinning off solo movies for Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk (though the tepid reception of the previous two attempts to bring The Hulk to the big screen should give them pause) and Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, who first made a cameo in “Thor”.
In any case, Hemsworth appears to be well tied up for the foreseeable future, committed to filming the titular role in “Snow White and the Huntsman” for Universal after “The Avengers” and recently signing on for black ops thriller “Shadow Runner” for Sony Pictures.
Be prepared to hate Brooklyn Decker even more than you already do. The gorgeous Sports Illustrated model turned actress has signed on as part of the ensemble cast of “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”, joining Jennifer Lopez and Cameron Diaz as expectant mothers who go through the trials and tribulations of pregnancy. Decker will play the perky trophy wife of a much older man who breezes through the world’s easiest pregnancy – while carrying twins. Needless to say, the other women in the film will be doing some loathing and seething with jealousy.
Kirk Jones directs the fictional adaptation of the international best-selling advice book, much in the same way “He’s Just Not That Into You” was adapted into an all-star ensemble romantic comedy. Lopez plays Holly, one half of a couple who has difficulty conceiving and eventually adopts a child from another country. Diaz plays a fitness guru in the mold of Jillian Michaels. With a total of five couples whose pregnancy stories interweave, there should be at least two more female leads to cast, in addition to all the husband roles.
Decker made her feature film debut earlier this year as Adam Sandler’s dream girl in “Just Go With It” and will also be seen in Peter Berg’s big screen adaptation of “Battleship”.
“What to Expect When You’re Expecting” has a July start date and is aiming for a May 11, 2012 release.
Things aren’t always what they seem in “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”, according to the newly released first trailer from the stylish, noirish espionage thriller. Set in the Cold War, the film is based on the 1974 British spy novel by John le Carré and centers around George Smiley, played by Gary Oldman, a veteran of the spy game who is forced out of semi-retirement to uncover a double agent working for the Soviets under MI6. The ensemble cast of shady characters are rounded out by Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Toby Jones and Mark Strong.
Fans of Swedish horror “Let the Right One In” will immediately recognize the heavy atmospheric tone set by director Tomas Alfredson, making his English language feature film debut. “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” releases in the UK on September 16th and in the US on November 18th.
Joel Edgerton, Taylor Kitsch and now Chris Hemsworth. We are still in the midst of a hot Hollywood fad, it appears, in the wake of the killing of Osama Bin Laden. THR reports the “Thor” star will follow in the footsteps of Edgerton and Kitsch in headlining an action thriller set in the Middle East, revolving around elite teams of special ops soldiers. “Shadow Runner” – unlike fact-based “Kill Bin Laden”, starring Edgerton for director Kathryn Bigelow and “Lone Survivor”, led by Kitsch and director Peter Berg – will be a fictional tale which will see Hemsworth as the head of a large troop of special ops commandos, tasked with carrying out dangerous and seemingly impossible missions. What those missions will entail is being kept under wraps.
Screenwriter Hossein Amini, who is currently re-writing “Snow White and the Huntsman”, which also stars Hemsworth, came up with the idea and is loosely inspired from an incident wherein a 17-person Israeli assassination team carried out a mission, killing a Hamas leader in a five-star hotel in Dubai. The film, however, will not recreate those events.
Hemsworth, who had a breakout moment starring as Captain Kirk’s father in JJ Abrams’ 2009 “Star Trek” reboot, really made audiences (and the industry) sit up and pay attention when he easily headlined comic book blockbuster “Thor” last month. He is currently reprising his role as the Norse God / superhero in Joss Whedon’s all-star team up “The Avengers”, where Hemsworth’s Thor will fight crime side by side with Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man, Chris Evans’ Captain America, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow and Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye. Hemsworth also has horror “The Cabin in the Woods” and a remake of “Red Dawn” awaiting release.
Today we have our first look at Jeremy Irvine in action on the big screen for the first time as the young star of Steven Spielberg’s sweeping wartime epic “War Horse”. The first trailer, which you can see below, doesn’t include much dialogue and instead montages long wide shots of the horse Joey running through various fields, trenches, barns and even a little girl’s bedroom. From the novel by Michael Morpurgo, Irvine is Joey’s owner, a young boy named Albert who is separated from his equine best friend when the horse is sold into the British cavalry and sent off to World War I. Albert is too young to enlist in the army, so he sets off on a dangerous and clandestine mission to go to the front lines in France to bring Joey home.
The supporting cast includes David Thewlis, Benedict Cumberbatch, Emily Watson, Tom Hiddleston, Peter Mullan and David Kross. “War Horse” will be released in theaters on December 28, 2011, right smack dab in the middle of Oscar season. It’ll follow an already strong awards precedent as “War Horse”, the play, has already garnered multiple awards in both London and New York, including the Tony for Best Play.
Joel Courtney has found his partner in crime. The young “Super 8″ star, who was cast as Tom Sawyer in a new adaptation of the Mark Twain classic last week, will be joined by Disney Channel star Jake T. Austin as the even more mischievous Huck Finn, reports Variety. The new film, “Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn”, was written and will be directed by Jo Kaster.
Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” centers around a young boy growing up in a small town along the Mississippi River in the 19th Century. Among other shenanigans that include tricking other boys into whitewashing a fence for him, crushing on Becky Thatcher, playing along when the town thinks he’s died (even attending his own funeral), the A plot revolves around Tom and his best friend, Huck, the disadvantaged and neglected son of the town drunk, witnessing a murder and having to decide whether to save themselves or do the right thing and tell the truth when the wrong man is put on trial.
Austin is best known for his long-running role as the youngest sibling of Selena Gomez on the Disney Channel’s “Wizards of Waverly Place.” The show has wrapped up its final season but a second feature length film is still in the works. He has also appeared on the big screen in “Hotel for Dogs” and is part of Gary Marshall’s large ensemble comedy “New Year’s Eve.”
“Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn” begins filming this August in – where else?! – Bulgaria.
Anton Yelchin and Imogen Poots are dressed to kill (vampires) on the first set of international character posters for “Fright Night 3D”, revealed today by Coming Soon. In the seemingly slightly less funny and more sinister remake of the 1985 horror comedy cult classic, Yelchin stars as Charlie Brewster, a newly popular high school senior whose great new life is thrown off track a bit when a mysterious neighbor, played by Colin Farrell, moves in next door and is so creepy that it’s inevitable he turns out to be a vampire. Poots is Amy, Charlie’s hot new girlfriend and Christopher Mintz-Plasse is also on board as Charlie’s former best friend. As the new posters indicate, despite the “killer” neighborhood, these kids are just “dying” to get their Buffy on and confront Farrell.
“Fright Night 3D”, with a script from “Buffy” scribe Marti Noxon and directed by Craig Gillespie, hits theaters on August 19th in the US and on September 2nd in the UK. See the posters featuring Yelchin and Poots below. Coming Soon has a few more, including Farrell’s sucky neighbor Jerry.
Carey Mulligan will be spending an extended period of time Down Under. Already attached to starring as Daisy in “The Great Gatsby” for director Baz Luhrmann, which is filming in Australia through the summer, the British rising star will follow that up with “Outback”, a sci-fi action film helmed by “The Hunger Games” director Gary Ross. Variety broke the news today.
Nissar Modi wrote the screenplay, but aside from being set in the Australian outback and involving some sort of science fiction action element, no further plot details are available. Presumably filming wouldn’t get underway until well into the fall, with Mulligan committed to “Gatsby” and Ross scheduled to shoot “The Hunger Games” through September.
Mulligan garnered an Oscar nomination in 2010 for her starring role in “An Education” and hasn’t slowed down since. She won raves again in Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go”, is starring opposite Ryan Gosling in the currently-winning-raves “Drive” and will next be seen opposite Michael Fassbender in Steve McQueen’s sex addiction drama “Shame.”
Fans of the “Twilight” saga won’t have to mourn too hard after “Breaking Dawn: Part 2″ wraps up the series in November 2012, as the big screen adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s next novel is following right on its heels. Open Road Films announced via press release today that Meyer’s alien actioner “The Host”, helmed by Andrew Niccol and starring young Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan, will hit theaters on March 29, 2013.
Niccol has long been attached to the project, writing the screenplay, signing on, dropping out and signing back on as director, while Ronan’s attachment was announced in May. The story centers around a post-apocalyptic world in which aliens called Souls have body-snatched and are occupying the majority of the human population. Ronan plays Melanie Stryder, whose body is taken over by a Soul named Wanderer. However, Melanie’s strong will to survive have the two consciousnesses fighting for domination and eventually becoming allies as they set out to find Jared, the man Melanie loves, and their small colony of human resistance.
Shooting is scheduled for February 2012 in Louisiana and New Mexico.
Los Angeles, CA, June 27, 2011 – Open Road Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights to “The Host,” the big screen adaptation of Twilight series author Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling novel. As previously announced, “The Host” will be directed by Andrew Niccol (“Gattaca”), who also wrote the screenplay, and will star Saoirse Ronan (“Hanna,” “The Lovely Bones,” “Atonement”). Open Road Films has set a March 29, 2013 release date (Easter weekend) for “The Host.”
“The Host” producers are Nick Wechsler, Chockstone Pictures’ Paula Mae Schwartz and Steve Schwartz, and Stephenie Meyer. Marc Butan, Jim Siebel, and Bill Johnson of Inferno Entertainment, which is handling international sales, are executive producers. Claudia Bluemhuber of Silver Reel, which is providing mezzanine financing, is also an executive producer. Roger Schwartz and Lizzy Bradford are co-producers.
Principal photography is scheduled to being in February 2012 in Louisiana and New Mexico, in anticipation of the wide release on March 29, 2013.
“The Host” is a riveting story about the survival of love and the human spirit in a time of war.
