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GERALD, JENNIFER AND A PRISON MUSICAL
Gerald Butler and Jennifer Aniston may team up for Goree Girls, a 1940s musical set in prison, which Aniston is also producing. According to Just Jared , the film is based on the true story of the first female country-and-western group, formed while the gals are in prison, with Aniston playing an inmate, of course. And who will Butler play, you may ask? Cinematical.com guesses he’ll play Paul Mitchell, an inmate who narrowly escaped death row (literally — he was strapped to the electric car when his pardon came in) and ends up driving the Goree Girls to their shows. OK, I’ve been thinking Aniston should branch out, find another The Good Girl — but I don’t think I’m talking about a country singing prison girl.
KEEP READING: That’s Crazy Talk!
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THAT’S CRAZY TALK!
Looks like George Romero’s Crazies may soon be on the loose again. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Timothy Olyphant has signed on to play sheriff in the remake of Romero‘s The Crazies, a story which focuses on the people of a small Kansas town who go a little nutso after a plane crash lets loose a secret biological weapon into the water supply. This is precisely why I have bottled water with me at all times.
KEEP READING: Eckhart Fights Aliens Next?
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ECKHART FIGHTS ALIENS NEXT?
Aaron Eckhart — who has had a recent string of stellar turns in Thank You for Smoking and The Dark Knight — will play a Marine platoon leader fighting aliens invading Los Angeles in Battle: Los Angeles. Aaron, buddy, don’t you remember how horrible The Core was? Or Suspect Zero?
KEEP READING: Linney Might Get Her Hands Dirty
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LINNEY MIGHT GET HER HANDS DIRTY
With newspaper ink, that is. HBO Films, which always seems to make the most compelling biopics (i.e. John Adams), is developing one about Katharine Graham, the venerable publisher of the Washington Post who oversaw the paper’s historic Watergate coverage. And, according to the Hollywood Reporter, HBO wants Laura Linney for the role. The untitled project is being written by novelist Joan Didion and will follow Graham’s ascendancy after her husband committed suicide in 1963.
KEEP READING: Crayola Payola
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CRAYOLA PAYOLA
Rosie Perez, Craig Ferguson and Arsenio Hall will join Christina Ricci for the CG-animated feature The Hero of Color City, says Variety. As a vocal group, they will become a bunch of crayons fighting to save their multihued city. I love crayons. Who’s going to be Fuchsia? Burnt Sienna? Flesh?
KEEP READING: We’ll Put a Hex on You
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WE’LL PUT A HEX ON YOU
Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have dropped out as the directors of Jonah Hex, the DC Comics property that is expected to star Josh Brolin as a partly disfigured gunslinger and bounty hunter, says Variety. Neveldine and Taylor wrote the script, but their exit as directors was attributed to “creative differences.” Oh, they all say that.
KEEP READING: Pitt’s Behind the Power of the Press
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PITT’S BEHIND THE POWER OF THE PRESS
Now, this one sounds intriguing. Brad Pitt‘s studio-based production company is developing a movie around the real-life story of Missouri journalist Linda Trest, who helped break open the cover of a drug-busting con man, says the Reporter. The 51-year-old Trest was a reporter for the Gasconade County Republican in Gerald, Mo., when she began hearing stories about a federal agent nicknamed “Sergeant Bill” who was rousting people from their homes. Since Gerald had been ravaged by methamphetamine abuse, local law enforcement was happy to assist the fed’s efforts to clean up the town with arrests, home searches and investigations. The only hitch: Bill A. Jakob turned out to be just an unemployed cop and former trucking company owner from a different town with no actual law enforcement credentials. Trest eventually exposed Jakob’s bizarre con. To play Trest, I’d pick Emma Thompson.
