This week’s biggest upcoming project was one so weird that we needed a few days to process it. It has been called Godzilla meets Being John Malkovich and Adaptation (possibly even Lost in Translation for good measure), and if it seems like those two titles don’t add up in anyway whatsoever, you’re not far off.
The movie is Colossal, and THR reports is set to star Anne Hathaway. Hathaway plays a woman returning to her hometown from New York after losing her job. Upon returning home, she discovers that a giant lizard is attacking Tokyo, and she feels strangely connected to the incident via her mind.
Colossal isn’t even some tongue-in-cheek Spike Jonze project but coming from Nacho Vigalondo (Timecrimes), and aiming to be sold at this year’s Cannes Film Festival market. “Colossal is my most ambitious script so far, and probably also the most personal one. Having Anne and this terrific team around goes beyond my craziest expectations,” Vigalondo said via THR.
Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz are reteaming from their days in Vicky Cristina Barcelona for a biopic about the life of Colombian drug cartel leader Pablo Escobar. Deadline reports the drama is to be directed and adapted by Fernando León de Aranoa, currently at Cannes in the Director’s Fortnight category for his movie A Perfect Day. The source material comes from a 2008 memoir called Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar, by Virginia Vallejo, a journalist who eventually formed a romantic relationship with Escobar.
Pablo Larrain and Gael Garcia Bernal first worked together on the Chilean political movie No, and are now planning to reteam with a new film titled Neruda. The film is based on the life of poet Pablo Neruda during the time in which he was pursued as a fugitive of the Chilean government after joining the Communist party and became an activist. Luis Gnecco will portray Neruda and Bernal will play the officer looking to arrest him. The producers of the film told Variety that, “Neruda is a very ambitious, open and entertaining movie; it’s not a conventional biopic of a writer, but rather mixes film noir, some deep meaning and fun.”
Larrain also has another project in the works just announced today with Natalie Portman playing Jackie Kennedy titled Jackie.
After traversing the wilderness in Wild, Reese Witherspoon is making a voyage to space for her next movie Pale Blue Dot. Witherspoon will play an astronaut in a story that concerns the theory that astronauts staring at the Earth from afar lose their sense of reality upon returning home. Variety reports that the spec script from Brian C Brown and Elliott DiGuiseppi will be produced by Fox Searchlight, who also worked with Witherspoon on Wild.
Zoe Kazan (Ruby Sparks, What If) is leaving some of her recent rom-com roots and next pursuing a horror movie. There Are Monsters is to be directed by Bryan Bertino (The Strangers) and will star Kazan as a mother protecting her young daughter from a monster. Collider has the full synopsis:
There Are Monsters focuses on a mother (Kazan) and her terrified young daughter Lizzie who are trapped and tormented by a merciless creature. In the end, only a mother’s protective love, her most primal instinct, can save them.
After announcing plans for a John Wick sequel and to take over a Bloodshot movie, David Leitch and Chad Stahelski will start work on The Coldest City in October. The film is based on a graphic novel and will star Charlize Theron as a super spy tracking down a list of MI6 agents following the falling of the Berlin Wall. Deadline describes The Coldest City as a thriller of “double crossing as agents play out global agendas.”
Ritesh Batra’s follow-up to his charming critical darling The Lunchbox will be The Sense of an Ending, starring Jim Broadbent as a man delving back into his personal history and reassessing his relationships with others. The Sense of an Ending is based on a Booker Prize winning book by Julian Barnes and will be adapted by the playwright Nick Payne, which according to THR will be Payne’s feature film debut.
James Caan hasn’t made a real impact in the movies for some time, but his next project The Waiting will pair him with two young rising stars, Keir Gilchrist (It Follows) and Logan Miller (Night Moves). Variety describes the film as an indie thriller in which two young high school filmmakers decide to stage a horror movie experience on an unsuspecting neighbor (Caan). Variety reports that Kasra Farahani will direct, although IMDb currently lists David Katzenberg as the director.
Alicia Vikander just recently broke out with the surprise hit Ex Machina, and her next film will pair her with a rising director, James Ponsoldt, and one of the biggest stars in the world, Tom Hanks. Via THR, Ponsoldt’s film The Circle is a drama and thriller about a woman who accepts a new job at a high-powered tech company also called The Circle, only to enter into relationship with the company’s mysterious owner. The Circle is based on a 2013 novel by Dave Eggers and is just one of five other movies Vikander has arriving later this year.
Finally, Liam Neeson is in final negotiations to star in yet another action-thriller, this time centered around a terrorist plot. The film is titled A Willing Patriot, and THR reports Neeson will play a CIA agent chasing a terrorist plotting an imminent attack. Martin Zandvliet (Land of Mine) will reportedly direct.