[IMG:L]Aniston, Johansson Team Up for New Comedy
Jennifer Aniston will star in the ensemble comedy He’s Just Not That Into You, playing a woman in a long-term relationship with a boyfriend who will not commit to marriage. Great title. The project, which weaves story arcs dealing with the challenges of reading or misreading human behavior, is based on the best-selling social commentary about modern-day relationships. Scarlett Johansson also just came onboard, playing a Pilates instructor/aspiring singer having an affair with a married man who hopes he’ll leave his wife for her. Ah, the classic lament. Joining them are Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Connolly, Bradley Cooper, Justin Long, Ginnifer Goodwin and Drew Barrymore, who will also produce. Ken Kwapis (License To Wed) will direct. Sounds like a great cast and possible crowd pleaser—at least for the girls.
[IMG:R]Foxx Eyes New Musician to Play
Ray‘s Jamie Foxx returns to the music. The Oscar winner has signed on to The Soloist, a musical biopic that Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice) will direct. Based on a 12-part series of articles by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, the story centers on Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a homeless musician with schizophrenia who dreams of playing at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Homelessness and schizophrenia—I can see the Oscar clips now.
[IMG:L]Dawson Explores Comic Book Interests
Rosario Dawson is venturing into digital entertainment, agreeing to produce and star in The Gemini Division, a live-action/motion-capture animation online sci-fi series. She will play a New York cop whose investigation of the bizarre murder of her husband leads to the discovery of a global conspiracy involving the creation of simulated live forms that have assimilated with the unsuspecting public. That’s got to look cool. Dawson also is attached to star in and produce potential TV series, feature film and game versions of Gemini. Plus, she created the comic book Occult Crimes Taskforce and is developing a feature based on it with the Weinstein Co., to which she is attached to star and produce. No wonder comic book geeks like Quentin Tarantino (Dawson starred in his Grindhouse) and Kevin Smith (Dawson starred in his Clerks II) sing her praises. A hot chick who digs sci-fi and comic books? What could get better than that?
[IMG:R]The Young Guns, Part I
Superbad’s Michael Cera (seen here with co-star Jonah Hill) has joined Youth in Revolt, an adaptation of a novel that garnered a cult following throughout the world. C.D. Payne’s self-published novel led to a series of books featuring a teenager named Nick Twisp, who strives to balance out his budding sexual urges while remaining an intellectual teenager in a world of moronic adults. In the first novel, Twisp meets the girl of his dreams while on a family vacation and he turns his life and the lives of all those around him upside down in order to be with her. It has been staged as a play, broadcast over the radio and inspired countless fan Web sites. Cera is a huge fan of the book, having read it four times. “I have a copy signed by C.D. Payne. It’s my most prized possession,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. Watch out for Cera; there’s something very intuitive about this kid.
[IMG:L]The same goes for indie cutie Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Lookout), who has booked starring roles in back-to-back indie features. First up is Uncertainty, which revolves around a young couple faced with having to make an important decision. The film is split into two versions of the same Fourth of July holiday, presenting a new series of unexpected choices the characters make. Then Gordon-Levitt then will hop to The Frog King, a coming-of-age dramedy, in which he’ll play an educated wannabe writer slaving away as a peon at a New York publishing house. The one bright spot in his life is his girlfriend, whom he loses and then has to win back.
[IMG:R]The Young Guns, Part II
Chris Evans, Djimon Hounsou, Dakota Fanning and Camilla Belle are set to star in the supernatural thriller Push. The independently produced project revolves around a group of young American expatriates with telekinetic and clairvoyant abilities who hide from a U.S. government agency in Hong Kong. They must use their different talents and band together to try to escape the control of the division. Dakota Fanning is in this? Hmmm. Meanwhile, Nancy Drew’s Emma Roberts loves dogs. She has signed on to star in the live-action comedy Hotel for Dogs, which revolves around two orphaned teenagers who hide dozens of stray dogs in an abandoned hotel. Aw, that’s so cute. Finally, there’s Trucker, an independently-financed drama that stars Michelle Monaghan, Nathan Fillion, Benjamin Bratt, Joey Lauren Adams and Jimmy Bennett. Monaghan plays a female truck driver who lives a careless life with no responsibility until she has to take in her estranged 11-year-old son after his father (Bratt) is hospitalized.
[IMG:L]Mr. Big Is Back!
A Sex and the City movie would not be complete without Mr. Big. After weeks of speculation, Chris Noth has closed a deal to reprise his iconic character in the upcoming feature based on the hit HBO series. The four stars from the series–Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon–came aboard in early July. As we all may recall, the series finale of Sex ended with Mr. Big flying to Paris, professing his love for Carrie and bringing her home to New York. The last image of Carrie is of her walking the streets of Manhattan and getting a call from “John” on her cell phone, which she giddily answers and talks about his plans to come back to NYC from California. We’ve just got to find out if they actually made it or not.
[IMG:R]Wiseman Gets Ready to Escape
Live Free or Die Hard director Len Wiseman (Kate Beckinsale‘s main squeeze) is in negotiations to shoot the remake of Escape From New York. OK, if they must remake this, Wiseman is a pretty good choice. 300 star Gerard Butler is attached as anti-hero Snake Plissken, a role played by Kurt Russell in John Carpenter‘s 1981 film. The original was set in a futuristic 1997, when Manhattan had been turned into a giant maximum-security prison. The U.S. president’s plane crashed on the island, and Plissken–incarcerated for robbing a federal reserve bank–was coerced into performing a rescue mission. The script for the remake will inject fresh elements. Yeah, yeah, whatever.
