by Ramses Flores Posted: December 1st, 2010
We’ve known this for awhile now, but Sony has confirmed
Jonah Hill (
Get Him to the Greek) and
Channing Tatum (
Dear John) will star in the upcoming adaptation of
21 Jump Street. Phil Lord and Chris Miller (
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) will be directing the film, which will be written by Michael Bacall
(Scott Pilgrim vs. The World). Hill came up with the story with Bacall and has described it as being “a John Hughes movie with ‘Bad Boys’ style action.” Emma Stone
was attached to star in the film, but recently had to drop out due to her commitment with the upcoming
Spider-Man reboot.
21 Jump Street is currently set to for a March 16, 2012 release date. You can hit the jump to read the press release.
CULVER CITY, Calif., December 1, 2010 – Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are set to star in a contemporary motion picture adaptation of 21 Jump Street, it was announced today by Doug Belgrad, president of Columbia Pictures. Hill and Tatum are executive producers on the project, which will be directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller from a screenplay by Michael Bacall based on a treatment from Hill and Bacall. Neal H. Moritz will produce the film with Stephen J. Cannell, who will receive posthumous credit.
Commenting on the announcement, Belgrad said, “Jonah helped create a smart and funny vehicle that is tailor-made for him and Channing. They are a perfect duo for this film and Phil and Chris have a terrific, accessible take on the material. We love how this movie has come together and are very excited to begin production this spring.”
Hannah Minghella and Jonathan Kadin are overseeing production for the film on behalf of the studio.
An early hit for Fox Broadcasting, “21 Jump Street” focused on young cops with youthful appearances who work undercover in high schools and colleges. The popular series starred Johnny Depp and several other young stars and hit home with the network’s key teen demographic from 1987-1991.
JONAH HILL starred opposite Michael Cera in the acclaimed hit Superbad, which grossed nearly $120 million at the US box office. He most recently starred in the Sundance Film Festival hit film Cyrus opposite John C. Reilly and Marisa Tomei and opposite Russell Brand in Get Him to the Greek. He also recently lent his voice to two films for DreamWorks Animation, Megamind and How to Train Your Dragon. Hill also appeared in Knocked Up, Funny People, The Invention of Lying, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and was heard in the animated film Horton Hears a Who!. He made his screen debut in I Heart Huckabees. Hill also produced Sacha Baron Cohen’s controversial comedy hit Brüno. Hill will next star opposite Brad Pitt in Columbia Pictures’ Moneyball and in David Gordon Green’s The Sitter for 20th Century Fox.
CHANNING TATUM most recently starred in the hit Dear John and will next be seen in a comedic turn in The Dilemma, which will be released on January 14, 2011 and will then star in the Roman epic adventure, The Eagle, directed by Kevin Macdonald and released on February 11, 2011. He is also starring in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire. He just wrapped production on The Vow with Rachel Mcadams. He is repped by UTA, Management 360 and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller & Hoberman.
Phil Lord and CHRISTOPHER MILLER most recently wrote and directed the animated hit Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs for Sony Pictures Animation. Among their television writing credits, Lord and Miller served as co-executive producers on “How I Met Your Mother,” the Emmy-winning primetime sitcom that began airing on CBS in September of 2005; and executive producers of both “Awesometown,” featuring the comedy troupe The Lonely Island, and the “Phil Hendrie” pilot. The team also worked as consulting producers on “Jake in Progress” and Cracking Up, supervising producers on “Method & Red” and “Luis,” and staff writers on “Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane.” The team also created, executive produced, and directed the MTV animated series “Clone High,” for which Lord also provided the voices of Principal Scudworth and Genghis Khan and Miller voiced John F. Kennedy and Mr. Butlertron. Lord and Miller also played the recurring roles of Bill and Cliff, respectively, in “Caroline in the City.”
http://www.collider.com/2010/12/01/jonah-hill-channing-tatum-21-jump-street/by Ben Garman Posted: December 1st, 2010
After his debut as a director in 2008 with the short film ‘
X‘, Josh Brolin seems to have acquired a taste for the job and is hoping to step behind the camera again to direct his first feature film: an adaptation of the highly-acclaimed play by Dominique Cieri,
Pitz & Joe. The Warner Bros. production is based on Cieri’s personal experiences, and is apparently a “two character drama about a young woman and her brain-damaged brother”. Although initial reports suggested that Brolin might also be writing the adaptation, according to
The Playlist, the screenplay will be penned by Maya Forbes (
Monsters vs Aliens) and will instead see Brolin starring in addition to directing. Hit the jump for more.
Cieri’s play was described by theatrical director Stephen Burdman as “a beautiful blend of the past, and how you work through the past to get to the future”. The story focuses on a divorced painter and her relationship with her junkie brother, who five years earlier was involved in a catastrophic motorcycle accident that left him severely brain damaged. The plot evolves through a series of flashbacks that explore the dramatic highs and lows of their lives prior to the event. Burdman sums it up: “The reason it’s so beautiful is that it’s deep set in true family love. To me, it’s about being alive.”
Hopefully, Brolin hasn’t bitten off more than he can chew. It seems like an almighty task for a first time actor-turned-director to be tackling such an emotionally wrought tale, particularly an actor so busy! Currently Brolin is shooting
Men In Black III, and working on thriller
Someone in the Dark alongside Kristen Stewart.
The No Country for Old Men actor is also soon to hit cinemas in another likely Coen Brothers hit,
True Grit, which opens December 22nd.
http://www.collider.com/2010/12/01/josh-brolin-pitz-and-joe/by Matt Goldberg Posted: December 1st, 2010
While doing press for his new film
The Fighter, writer-director David O. Russell talked about his upcoming movie: an adaptation of the popular video game
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. While the game centers on protagonist Nathan Drake’s search to find El Dorado (and killing a disturbing number of henchmen along the way), according to 24 Frames, O. Russell’s adaptation will “include Drake’s extended family — and put them in fraught, globetrotting situations with some of the world’s most influential people.” This coincides with an
earlier statement from Mark Wahlberg (who’s playing Drake) that they’re trying to get Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci to play Drake’s father and uncle, respectively.
Hit the jump for more on what O. Russell had to say about what attracted him to Uncharted.
So what drew O. Russell, who’s known more for his indie work than big summer blockbusters? The filmmaker tells
24 Frames:
“This idea really turns me on that there’s a family that’s a force to be reckoned with in the world of international art and antiquities … [a family] that deals with heads of state and heads of museums and metes out justice…. We’ll have the family dynamic, which we’ve done in a couple of movies now. And then you take that and put it on the bigger, more muscular stage of an international action picture, but also put all the character stuff in it. That’s a really cool idea to me.”
That actually sounds like an interesting take on the material. It’s not like the game is some story-rich adventure as much as a series of pretenses for murdering an ungodly number of bad guys. It will be interesting to see how much of the game O. Russell incorporates into his movie beyond the title and the main character.
by Ramses Flores Posted: December 1st, 2010
A couple of weeks ago, we reported that director Ang Lee (
Brokeback Mountain) had found the lead star for his upcoming 3D adaptation of Yann Martel’s
Life of Pi with seventeen-year-old
newcomer Surej Sharma. The highly acclaimed novel tells the story of a boy named Pi, who gets stranded at sea for 227 days with a tiger. Now, with production set to start in January, Ang Lee is looking to cast the boy’s parents in the film.
According to
TimesofIndia (via
ThePlaylist), Lee hopes to cast popular Bollywood actress Tabu in the role of Pi’s mother, while Bollywood actors Sushant Singh and Sonu Sood are up for role of Pi’s father.
By doing this, Lee will be following in the footsteps of Danny Boyle, who also chose to cast Bollywood actors in leading roles for
Slumdog Millionaire.
Life of Pi is set to open on December 14, 2012. You can hit the jump to read a plot synopsis for the novel.
Here’s a plot synopsis for
Life of Pi via
Amazon:
The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.
The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them “the truth.” After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional–but is it more true?
http://www.collider.com/2010/12/01/ang-lee-life-of-pi-tabu-sonu-soo/
David Magee’s script is adapted from one of the most beautifully well-written novels in the past ten years. Ang Lee alone choosing it to be his next film makes it a must see. But what is really attention-grabbing is the fact that he is choosing to film it in 3D. This is definitely not the type of story that one would immediately place in the “should be made in 3D” category. So, seeing how he accomplishes it is worth all the wait for the December 14, 2012 release date.
