It’s All About the Matts
Matthew Fox, the hunky Dr. Jack on the hit series Lost, is joining Matthew McConaughey in an untitled college football drama from Charlie’s Angels director McG. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film depicts the real-life events following the 1970 plane crash that killed members of the West Virginia-based Marshall University football team, along with most of its coaching staff, sports commentators and many of its local boosters. Yikes. McConaughey will play a determined coach named Jack Lengyel, who tries to rebuild the team, while Fox is set to co-star as fellow coach Red Dawson. The movie will be Fox‘s first feature since Disney’s My Boyfriend’s Back with newly minted Oscar nominee Philip Seymour Hoffman in 1992, before he found prominence in television, first with Party of Five, and now Lost. Fox got a Golden Globe nomination and shared a SAG Award for outstanding performance by an ensemble with his Lost cast mates. Who cares about all of that? Just imagine the possibilities with Fox AND McConaughey on screen together. I’m getting a visual now.
Kidman, Leigh Join the Sisterhood
Well, not exactly the Sisterhood as in nuns and chastity, but Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh are in talks to play sisters in filmmaker Noah Baumbach‘s follow-up to the acclaimed family drama The Squid and the Whale. Although details are being kept under wraps, the untitled comedy-drama takes place over a weekend and follows a mom and her son who visit the mom’s sister. Let me guess the rest: The sisters are somehow estranged and have to rediscover their love and respect for one another, perhaps using the son as the catalyst. Or maybe there’s an ill parent living with the sister and they have to come to terms with that? Or maybe still, the one sister had an affair with the other’s husband? I’ve seen too many movies. Then again, it is coming from writer/director Baumbach, who certainly did something unique with a divorce drama in Squid. He could surprise me.
Howard Braves Working with Foster
Terrence Howard, who was recently anointed with an Oscar nomination for his stellar work in Hustle & Flow, is set to star opposite Jodie Foster in the revenge thriller The Brave One, which Neil Jordan (Breakfast on Pluto) is in negotiations to direct. Foster is set as the title character, a woman who recovers from a brutal attack and sets out on a dark, psychological and physical journey for revenge and justice. Sounds a lot like her Oscar-winning performance in The Accused, maybe mixed with a little rape-revenge drama like Extremities. Howard will play a cop who has a tough choice to make. One thing is for certain–the acting will be good.
Cook and Carell Look for Real Life
Actor-comedian Dane Cook (Waiting) is one of the few breakout stand-ups in recent years. With two best-selling comedy albums under his belt (2003’s Harmful if Swallowed and 2005’s Retaliation), he has been slowly making a shift to the big screen. He is now in final negotiations to star opposite Steve Carell in the romantic comedy Dan in Real Life. The Disney project follows a widower (Carell) with three daughters who, while on a family reunion on the Jersey shore, meets a woman he begins to like. But upon returning home, he finds out the woman is his brother’s girlfriend. Cook will play the brother (Aha! See above plotlines for Baumbach’s sisters movie and add this to the possible list of scenarios). But this isn’t all Cook is doing. He also just sold a comedy pitch to the Weinstein Co., while he was on the rounds pitching another project. He told the executives a one-line idea, and they went for it, according to the Reporter. Details are being kept under wraps, though it is known to be a relationship comedy with heart and broad elements. Is there any other kind?
Williams Joins Long List of Museum Players
Ben Stiller’s new comedy Night at the Museum is turning into a cornucopia of well-placed cameo opportunities. Robin Williams is the latest to signed onto the live-action/computer-animated film, which centers on a night watchman (Stiller) at a museum of natural history who discovers that its many exhibits awaken at night under the spell of a pharaoh’s tablet. Williams will play Theodore Roosevelt, who founded the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Carla Gugino, Kim Raver, Mickey Rooney, Dick Van Dyke and Bill Cobbs are also onboard. When I first reported on this, I didn’t have much faith in the premise, but the idea is now starting to grow on me.
Ring the Bell
I’m sure she’s never heard that one before. Kristen Bell, the cutie star of UPN’s cult hit Veronica Mars, is in final negotiations to play a Star Wars geek in the comedy-drama Fanboys. According to the Reporter, the film follows four Star Wars fanboys–geek parlance for extreme fans–from the Midwest who drive across the country to honor the wish of their dying friend: to see the yet-unreleased Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace in its optimal setting, George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch. Recent Tony Award winner Dan Fogler of Broadway’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee already has been cast as one of the geeks, a hot-headed pizza boy. I like the sound of this one.
Until next week…
