Damon and Affleck: Together Again
Best friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck may be back onscreen together for the first time in seven years in a yet-to-be-titled real-life legal drama film. The Good Will Hunting Oscar winners are in talks to play Michael Banks (Affleck) and J. Gordon Cooney (Damon), lawyers at a Philadelphia firm who took on a pro bono appeal that turned into a 15-year crusade. Banks and Cooney won nine stays of execution for the death-row inmate and finally got him exonerated of all charges. Now, that’s some determination. Damon should be able to give his friend some pointers having already played a lawyer in the John Grisham adaptation The Rainmaker.
Sandler and James Get Married
Adam Sandler and Kevin James are in negotiations to play firefighters who pretend to be a gay couple in an upcoming film comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Wedding Crashers director David Dobkin is attached to take the helm. The story–written by Alexander Payne and James Taylor, the Oscar-winning team behind Sideways and About Schmidt–centers on the two firefighters who pose as a married gay couple in order to receive domestic partner benefits. The Sandler/James union is finally giving this long gestating project a greenlight. According to the Hollywood Reporter, a parade of writers have hammered out drafts over the years, and various combinations of actors, such as Will Smith and Nicolas Cage, Smith and James Gandolfini and Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson have flirted with the movie. Although I think they hit the nail on the head pairing up Sandler and James, the film itself sounds a little iffy. I mean, the whole fish-out-of-water scenario with straight guys pretending to be gay guys is getting so very tired.
Ford Out to Catch Lincoln’s Killer
Harrison Ford is set to play the guy who catches President Abraham Lincoln’s killer, John Wilkes Booth, in the new movie Manhunt: The Twelve Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killers. The film focuses on the tense days in 1865 after Lincoln was shot in the head while attending a play. The New York Cavalry solves the mystery that eventually leads to John Wilkes Booth, uncovering a plot that threatens to plunge the nation back into war. Col. Everton Conger was in command of the troops when they tracked down Booth in a Virginia barn 12 days after Lincoln was shot. The film will probably be a hit, mostly because its intriguing, but Ford really needs to break out of this hero mode and try something different. His latest action thriller Firewall basically tanked because no one believes he’s Indiana Jones anymore (even if he’s doing a fourth Indy installment). If I were his agent, I’d tell him to take a step back, find a juicy little indie and maybe–gasp!–take a supporting role, just to hone his acting skills. Who knows, maybe there’s an Oscar somewhere out there waiting for ya, Harrison!
Moore, McAvoy Test Fate
Mandy Moore and James McAvoy, the kind-hearted faun Mr. Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, are in final negotiations to star in the indie dramatic thriller Twist of Fate. Moore plays Chrissie, a working-class girl in love with moody and intense Joe (McAvoy). Their lives irreparably change after a car accident kills the fiancée of a local young socialite, a crime that they do not report. Does the dead fiancée then turn into some homicidal maniac dressed as a fisherman, carrying a giant fishing hook? Oh, wait, that’s another movie–but you know, turning this into a horror movie may not be a bad way to go. The genre is hot, hot, hot these days! Singer/actress Moore, who hilariously played herself in the last season of HBO’s Entourage will next be seen opposite Hugh Grant in the American Idol meets American Psycho satire American Dreamz.
The Coens Are Back
Joel and Ethan Coen are in advanced talks to write, direct and produce an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel No Country for Old Men, with Tommy Lee Jones in negotiations to star. Jones will play contemporary Westerner Llewelyn Moss, an antelope hunter who discovers a pile of dead men along with $2 million and a sizable stash of heroin. Violence ensues when Moss decides to play finders keepers. Nice. Freshly minted Oscar nominee Heath Ledger had been in talks to co-star, but the actor, who withdrew his interest in the project, has said he plans to take “some time off.” Too bad for him. He’ll miss out on taking a wacky, twisty, bloody trip with the Coen brothers.
Boy, It’s Hot in Here
Colombian-born actress Catalina Sandino Moreno, who sprang from obscurity last year to land an Oscar nomination for her stellar work as a drug mule in Maria Full of Grace, has signed on to star with formerly homeless actor Mark Webber in the upcoming indie drama, The Hottest State. Ethan Hawke is directing from a screenplay he adapted from his own novel, with Michelle Williams, Josh Zuckerman, Sonia Braga and Laura Linney also in the cast. The story centers on a 21-year-old actor named William (Webber), who moves from Texas to New York and suffers through a wrenching heartbreak after a short-lived romance with a singer-songwriter named Sarah (Moreno). The film will feature new songs performed by Willie Nelson and Norah Jones as well as original music by songwriter Jesse Harris. Webber, whose previous credits include Broken Flowers and Storytelling, broke into acting after an impoverished childhood in which he and his single mother spent time living in cars and abandoned buildings in the slums of North Philadelphia. He and his mother are now outspoken advocates for the homeless. Now, there’s your movie.
Big Mac Attack
Bernie, baby, where you been? Comedian/actor Bernie Mac is back in the picture, after what seems to be a lengthy absence. The funnyman is in final negotiations star in his first big-screen drama, co-starring with Terrence Howard in PDR. “PDR,” or Philadelphia Department of Recreation, chronicles the real-life story of Jim Ellis (Howard), who in the 1970s transformed a group of troubled inner-city kids into one of the best swim teams in the country. Mac will play the janitor who, with Howard, fights the closing of a rec center and helps turn it into a vital community center. Oh, great. Another sports movie about underprivileged underdogs. Well, at least, the sport is different–although I’m sure how compelling watching people swim up and down a pool can be.
Jackson Changes His Tune
Samuel L. Jackson is set to star alongside 50 Cent in a forthcoming film, despite turning down the chance to appear in the rapper’s big screen debut. The two are starring in Home of the Brave, a film about three soldiers who return home after a lengthy tour in Iraq to find that re-entering “normal” life after the continued trauma of battle is not an easy task (of course it isn’t). But Jackson didn’t always have good impression of 50 Cent as an actor. Last year, when Jackson was approached to star in 50 Cent‘s semi-autobiographical Get Rich or Die Tryin’, he turned the role down because he didn’t approve of rappers becoming actors. Jackson said, “I like listening to 50 Cent and I can groove to his music but I don’t want to groove to him on screen, just yet. Maybe if he does five movies and he shows some talent.” Guess he changed his mind.
Until next week…
