Jolie’s Back in the Saddle Again
Maternity leave? What’s that? Angelina Jolie is ready to go back to work after giving birth to her beautiful baby girl, Shiloh. First up, she’ll lend her vocal talents as a tiger in the upcoming kids film Kung Fu Panda for DreamWorks Animation SKG. The Academy Award-winning actress will supply the voice of Tigress, a martial-arts master who helps train the title character, Po the Panda, played by Jack Black, in the ways of kung fu. Very nice. Next, Ms. Jolie will star in a movie as the widow of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. A Mighty Heart, adapted from Mariane Pearl’s memoir of the same name, details Pearl’s search for her husband, who was abducted and beheaded by militants in Pakistan in early 2002. Jolie‘s boyfriend, actor Brad Pitt, will serve as a producer of the project. Apparently, that role was originally suppose to be played by Pitt’s ex-wife Jennifer Aniston, who got the rights to the book back when they were still married. But Pitt got the production company the two of them started, Plan B, in the divorce settlement, so basically, he can do what he wants with it. That’s gotta sting Jen just a little.
Speaking of DreamWorks Animation…
The DW gang have cast a small medieval kingdom’s worth of fairy tale characters who will appear in Shrek the Third, the next installment in the smelly ogre’s saga, set for release May 18. First, there will be an elite, ninja-like strike force of fairy tale princesses voiced by Saturday Night Live alums Amy Sedaris(Cinderella), Amy Poehler (Snow White), Maya Rudolph (Rapunzel) and Cheri Oteri (Sleeping Beauty). Organized by Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz), the ladies underground resistance movement fends off a coup d’etat by Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) and his band of villains in the land of Far, Far Away. Then, Shrek (Mike Myers) has to find a suitable heir or he will be forced to give up his beloved swamp to be the king of Far, Far Away. Recruiting Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss (Antonio Banderas) for a new quest, Shrek sets out to bring back the rightful heir to the throne, Fiona’s rebellious cousin King Arthur, aka Artie (Diaz’s boyfriend Justin Timberlake). Also joining the hit animated comedy’s cast are Ian McShane (HBO’s Deadwood) as Captain Hook, John Krasinski (NBC’s The Office) as Sir Lancelot, and Monty Python veteran Eric Idle as Merlin the magician. If it doesn’t get too convoluted, this Shrek could be fun.
Haggis, Vaughn Face Enemies
Looks like Vince Vaughn wants to stretch his legs. Crash’s Paul Haggis has tagged Vince Vaughn as the treasury secretary in his next hot-button political drama Against All Enemies, the film version of Richard Clarke’s Washington memoir. According to the Hollywood Reporter, no offer has been made to the Wedding Crashers star, but the Oscar-winning helmer has had discussions with Vaughn about filling the role of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. Enemies chronicles how the Bush administration handled the al-Qaida threat both before and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The former U.S. terrorism czar’s story offers an insider’s account of the nation’s security apparatus and the maneuvers of Washington power brokers. Of course, Clarke’s book has been criticized by the Bush administration, but his version of the administration’s security failures and its decision to go to war with Iraq has been backed up by testimony from O’Neill. Vaughn is also set to star in Sean Penn’s drama Into the Wild. One word, Vince: Psycho. Just remember, comedy is definitely your stronger suit—so don’t stray too far.
Danes, Collette Go Out for the Evening
Claire Danes, Vanessa Redgrave and Toni Collette are in negotiations to star in Evening, Focus Features’ screen adaptation of Susan Minot’s best-selling novel of the same name. Directed by Hungarian director Lajos Koltai, the movie centers on 65-year-old cancer patient Ann Grant Lord. While her two daughters try to come to terms with her impending death and struggle with their own issues, Lord reflects on a weekend in her youth when she met the love of her life. Minot and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham (The Hours) adapted the story for the screen. Oy, the weepy things they’ll do for an Oscar.
Jackson’s a Jumper; Liu, Murphy Play Detectives
Samuel L. Jackson teleports into the sci-fi thriller, Jumper, director Doug Liman‘s feature follow-up to last summer’s hit Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Based on the Steven Gould novel, the film follows a kid from a broken home (Tom Sturridge) who discovers that he has the ability to teleport. In his quest for the man he believes is responsible for the death of his mother, the kid draws the attention of the National Security Agency and another youth (Jamie Bell) with the same abilities. Jackson will play the NSA agent tracking the jumper, and may have ulterior motives for finding him. Sounds kinda cool. Meanwhile, Lucy Liu and Cillian Murphy are set to star in the romantic comedy Watching the Detectives, which centers on a film noir buff whose world is turned upside down when a beautiful, unpredictable femme fatale provides far more adventure than he ever experienced–and possibly more than he can handle. Aren’t they all?
Revisiting Babysitting; Goldblum’s Resurrected; Perabo Goes Viral
Raven-Symone, star of Disney Channel’s That’s So Raven, is attached to star in the Disney remake of Adventures in Babysitting. The original 1987 Babysitting, which gave Elisabeth Shue her first big break, followed a high school senior who gets stuck baby-sitting a bunch of kids. The dull night is interrupted when she gets a call for help from a friend stuck downtown, leading her and the kids into a night of misadventures. Yeah, I can see this getting redone. Then there’s Jeff Goldblum, who has signed on for the title role in Adam Resurrected, a World War II Holocaust drama based on the acclaimed 2000 book by Israeli novelist Yoram Kaniuk. It centers on Adam Stein, a former circus clown who was spared the gas chamber so that he might entertain thousands of Jews as they marched to their deaths. He becomes the ringleader at an asylum in the Negeve desert populated solely by Holocaust survivors and struggles to makes sense of the world. Oh man. Put this one next to that Evening movie I mentioned above and you’ve got a fun-filled double header! And finally, Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly) has joined the cast of an untitled post-apocalyptic thriller, which revolves around four friends trying to escape a viral pandemic in the American West who discover that they are more dangerous to one another than any virus. A scary paranoia movie set in the Old West, eh? Haven’t seen that one before–and oddly, I don’t really want to.
Until next week…
