Leonardo DiCaprio has committed to a new film but you won’t get to see him in it. The actor is getting animated for DreamWorks and will lend his voice to The Guardians, playing Jack Frost. The story is described as a contemporary fairytale based on existing fairytale characters including North (aka Santa), Bunnymund (the Easter Bunny), Tooth (the Tooth Fairy), and Sandy (the Sandman) who are also a band of superheroes. Then again, not being able to see George Clooney hasn’t hurt Fantastic Mr. Fox…
Just in time for the holidays: Paul Thomas Anderson and Philip Seymour Hoffman found religion this week. The There Will Be Blood director and the Capote Oscar winner will team up for an untitled period drama that Variety says is about the relationship between a charismatic intellectual – called The Master – who creates a faith-based organization and a young drifter who becomes his second in command. Anderson and Hoffman have previously worked together in the director’s Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love among others. The movie doesn’t have a green light yet but according to the trade paper, Anderson is looking to shoot next year.
Johnny Depp and Salma Hayek will take the auteur route with the next film from Emir Kusturica. Depp would play Mexican revolutionary hero Pancho Villa with Hayek as a co-star. The film’s I-dare-you-to-fit-this-on-your-marquee title is Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman With Six Fingers. The film won’t shoot until 2011 and will be in Spanish…Vale!
In what has been a rather slow news week on the casting front – everyone still nursing their Thanksgiving hangovers – one other notable role went to Gerard Butler. The 300, Law Abiding Citizen and Ugly Truth star is now the official film ambassador for the city of Glasgow in his birth country, Scotland. This is the first time the city has had such a position and Butler has two years to get folks saying “aye” to shooting in the area before his mandate runs out.
