To dream the Impossible dream…
Lindsay Lohan has heard the self-destructive tape and wants to accept the mission, however impossible it may be. The actress says she has met with Mission: Impossible III director J.J. Abrams, who executive produces two of TV’s biggest hits, Lost and Alias, regarding the possibility of starring in the third installment of the 1960s TV show remake. “I actually met with J.J. Abrams, who is directing,” Lohan said in an interview on Access Hollywood. “I’m a huge fan of Lost and Alias so hopefully, we will see what happens. If so, I’ll be in training for a few weeks, putting on some muscles.” Hmmm, she’ll need it after all the weight lost and what not. Abrams was tapped last year for the directing gig, his very first. Paramount Pictures, the studio producing the sequel, is yet to announce any casting besides its star, Tom Cruise. “It’s kind of an incredible feeling, I’m scared,” Lohan said of the prospect of working with Cruise. “If I do Mission Impossible III that is going to be so exhilarating. I’m so excited, I just can’t wait to do stunts and get all into it.” Ah, to be so young.
Depp brushes up on his Thompson act
Bruce Robinson has been set to adapt and direct The Rum Diary, the first novel by the late Hunter S. Thompson, and Johnny Depp, who played Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, will once again play the gonzo journalist. The Rum Diary is Thompson‘s chronicle of journalism, drinking and carousing in Puerto Rico in the late 1950s. According to Variety, the original adaptation was shot down after Thompson drafted a memorable memo lambasting the script and those involved in developing it. Then FilmEngine picked up rights and tried to make it with Depp, Nick Nolte and Benicio Del Toro. That didn’t work either. Now, they’ve gone back to the drawing board with Robinson, who wrote and directed the hilarious Withnail and I. Either way, should be another strange and wild trip.
There’s even more Depp…
The enigmatic Finding Neverland star is also in negotiations to play the lead in a new film based on the autobiography of a homeless drug addict, to be directed by The Lord of the Rings star Andy Serkis (the one who, more or less, played the CGI-created Gollum). The movie tells the tale of 62-year-old Stephen Smith’s amazing life. Smith was locked in an asylum at 14 and molested by a doctor before becoming addicted to amphetamines. He later became an apprentice to a master thief and was involved with the theft of jewels from movie legend Sophia Loren, as well as becoming involved with the notorious London gangsters the Kray twins. Smith then escaped his addictions and is now a millionaire property developer. Wow. That is impressive. Smith apparently wants Depp to play him and is confident of winning over the actor. He told World Entertainment News Network, “We are speaking to Johnny Depp‘s agents about him playing the lead role. He is a wild-card actor who takes parts he wants and not for money.” Smith adds of first-time director Serkis‘ involvement, “Andy is the blue-eyed boy of Hollywood and has the clout to get the film distributed across North America. I went for him because he is pedantic about detail. He will capture the authenticity and rawness of my life as a down-and-out.” The book–which has sold 1.2 million copies worldwide–was first set for the big screen in 1999 when producer Gary Kurtz reportedly offered singer Robbie Williams $1.9 million to play Smith. Guess that didn’t work out then.
DiCaprio checks his Manuscript
Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star in The Chancellor Manuscript, a political thriller based on a novel by Robert Ludlum, whose books also spawned the Matt Damon hits The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy. The novel was published in 1977, though the big-screen version will be contemporary. DiCaprio will play novelist Peter Chancellor, who is writing a thriller about Washington power brokers being blackmailed with information gathered by intelligence agencies in order to alter U.S. policy. When Chancellor’s work of fiction turns out to have stumbled into reality, he ends up on a run for his life, becoming like a character from his own novel. Oh well, imagine that! “We live in this crazy post-Patriot Act environment where Benjamin Franklin’s warning that those that give up essential liberties for temporary security don’t deserve either one are being ignored, so the subject matter seemed ripe,” Seitzman told the Hollywood Reporter. Of DiCaprio, he added: “This is not pap, but there really is no one better for this than Leo. The author is supposed to be an author, not an action hero. You’re supposed to buy him as a gifted intellectual. Chancellor has only imagined the world outside his four walls, but now, not only does he have to be a participant in it, he has to save it.” No pressure or anything, though.
Altman heads Home
Robert Altman, famed for his ensemble casts, is bringing Meryl Streep, Lindsay Lohan, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly and Lily Tomlin to St. Paul, Minn., to film his adaptation of Garrison Keillor‘s A Prairie Home Companion. “As a longtime Keillor fan, I’m thrilled to be doing this project with him,” director Robert Altman recently told the Star Tribune. Garrison Keillor wrote the movie’s script and will be playing a character named, well, Keillor. Makes sense. The comedy is about an long-running radio show that’s suddenly canceled after 30 years on the air. As the cast and crew prepare for the last live broadcast, secret love affairs, jealousies and feuds come to a boil, taxing the patience of a stage manager struggling to hold the show together. Streep and Tomlin play Bonnie and Rhonda Johnson, the two remaining performers of a five-sister country music act, with Lohan as Streep’s daughter. I’ve attended a theater event in which the very even-toned Keillor read from his Companion–and I promptly fell asleep in the theater listening to him drone on and on. But I have no doubt with Altman and his stellar cast behind it, the movie will be much more entertaining.
And this one is just to make you laugh…
According the World Entertainment News Network, director Oliver Stone has laughed off reports he wants to make a film about former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, insisting he was joking. The controversial filmmaker, known for his conspiracy theories, was thought to be planning a biopic of the Iron Lady, after making such films as Nixon and JFK. But Stone insists he was joking when he discussed the possibility with journalists last year. He says, “I have never said I wanted to make a film about the life story of Margaret Thatcher. I made a crack that the life of Margaret Thatcher would be great with Meryl Streep. It hit the news wires and the Internet. Can you imagine me doing the life of Margaret Thatcher?” No, but it’s kind of fun to imagine the possibilities, isn’t it?
Until next week…
