Reid Is Being Honest, We Swear!
She’s cleaned up her act and wants to make movies again. That’s right, America Pie actress Tara Reid–who, after a rather unflatteringly stint with the public due to a) a bad reality TV show, b) botched plastic surgery and c) oops, there’s my boob in the photo–is attached to star in the indie romantic comedy Honestly, according to the Hollywood Reporter. British actor Vinnie Jones (X-Men: The Last Stand) and former NFL running back Eddie George (Into the Sun) are also attached to co-star in the film. Reid will play a hard-boiled private eye who works as a temptress to test the fidelity of philandering husbands. Then she meets her ultimate job challenge: Instead of entrapping her latest prey, she falls for a man who couldn’t possibly be as nice as he seems. Reid‘s brother Tommy, who directed the actress in the upcoming bowling comedy 7-10 Split, is set to take the helm. Hmmm, and Reid wants to make a comeback with this?
Paltrow Pumps Iron
Gwyneth Paltrow has joined the cast of Iron Man, the newest Marvel Comics superhero movie which will star Robert Downey Jr. as the armor-clad title character as well as his alter ego, billionaire industrialist Tony Stark. Zathura director Jon Favreau is taking the helm. Terrence Howard is already set to play Stark’s best friend Rhodey. Paltrow will play Stark’s personal assistant Virginia “Pepper” Potts, one of the few people in Stark’s life who can go toe-to-toe with him and who occasionally serves as his conscience. The pair also share a secret attraction to each other. Let’s just hope Paltrow doesn’t play it with cutesy spunk, like she did in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. That was almost too much to bear.
McGregor, Griffiths Lend Their Voices
Ewan McGregor and Richard Griffiths have joined the voice cast of Jackboots on Whitehall, a low-budget British spoof that uses action figures to imagine what would have happened if the Germans had won the Battle of Britain. McGregor will take the lead role as a heroic Scottish farmhand who leads the resistance against the invaders and wins the girl (Rosamund Pike). Griffiths will play Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering. The cast also includes Tom Wilkinson, Alan Cumming, Richard E. Grant and Timothy Spall. Producer Frank Mannion told the Hollywood Reporter the $2 million-budgeted movie was in the vein of Team America without the strings. WWII action figures? Now, this I’ve got to see.
The Battle of the Russian Spy
Johnny Depp is planning a film with Warner Bros. about the former Russian security agent whose poisoning in London has touched off an international mystery, according to Variety. But he’s not the only one. Director Michael Mann is also considering a similar film with Columbia Pictures, who agreed to pay $1.5 million for the film rights to a book about the former Russian agent, Alexander Litvinenko, being co-written by his widow and a close friend, Variety reports. Warner Bros., which was outbid for that book, acquired the rights to a book by Alan Cowell, a New York Times reporter, which is expected to be published next year by Doubleday, which Depp‘s production company, Infinitum Nihil, will produce and the actor could star in it. Meanwhile, Columbia envisions an espionage thriller “exploring the collision between the deep rooted Russian power structure enforced by the KGB … and the new wave of wild west capitalism” that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Litvinenko was an agent for the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB–an agency that replaced the KGB and was allegedly behind bombings at Russian apartment buildings in 1999 that killed more than 300 people. The Kremlin blamed the attacks on Chechen separatists. Litvinenko fled to Britain, was granted asylum and became a Kremlin critic in exile. The former FSB agent died in November, several weeks after falling ill with what was later determined to be poisoning by the rare radioactive isotope polonium-210. Before his death, he said he fell ill after meeting in London with an Italian security expert to discuss possible suspects in the killing of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya a month earlier. In her coverage of Chechnya, Politkovskaya was highly critical of alleged human rights violations by Russian forces and by Kremlin-backed Chechen officials. Litvinenko blamed the Kremlin for his poisoning. Russian officials have denied that allegation. British and Russian authorities continue to investigate his death. Wow, that’s some true story, eh? Whoever gets their movie out first has got it MADE.
Brosnan Is Biazarro
Leaving James Bond well behind him, Pierce Brosnan has teamed with Maloof Motion Pictures to turn Leonard Wise novel The Big Biazarro into a starring vehicle for himself, to be directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall (Sleeper Cell). The film is set in the high-stakes world of international gambling, and Brosnan will play an elusive veteran card player who mentors a headstrong but talented protégé. Wait, that sounds awfully familiar—to about a jillion movies like it. We need fresh material, folks!
Olyphant Takes Aim
Deadwood’s Timothy Olyphant has been cast in the lead role, Agent 47, in the Luc Besson-produced film Hitman, based on the videogame. Fox sees the film as having franchise potential, and Olyphant‘s deal allows for sequels. The Hitman videogame franchise is set in the world of Agent 47, a genetically engineered assassin. Well, of course he is.
Until next week…
