Unless you’re talking about Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters or Toy Story 3, it’s usually not a good sign to hear of a sequel to a long retired franchise, least of all from a new, upstart director (just ask Jurassic World). This week however a director started a project that might even be an improvement on the original.
Deadline exclusively reported Joe Carnahan’s (The Grey) possible involvement in Bad Boys 3. David Guggenheim (Safe House) penned a screenplay for the sequel to Michael Bay’s 1995 and 2003 films, and the studio is hoping to move negotiations along quickly, as they plan to approach both Will Smith and Martin Lawrence to return.
We talked recently about Netflix with military film ‘War Machine’” href=”http://www.popoptiq.com/brad-pit-heads-netflix-military-film-war-machine/”>Brad Pitt‘s involvement on a new project just bought by Netflix, but their top competitor Amazon has signed another major name: Terry Gilliam. Indiewire spoke with the cult director and Monty Python alum, who confirmed not only that Gilliam has signed a deal with Amazon Studios, but that the film will be his long delayed, epic white whale of a passion project, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Gilliam explained back in September funding had supposedly finally come together (i.e. Amazon, I’m guessing) and that Don Quioxte would star John Hurt.
Jody Hill, who has not made a film since 2009’s other mall cop movie Observe and Report, is planning on reteaming with his Eastbound and Down star Danny McBride on a project called The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter. Deadline reports Josh Brolin will star alongside McBride in a likely vulgar comedy that Hill will direct from a script he co-wrote along with McBride and John Carcieri. No plot details just yet.
Marion Cotillard has joined a World War II project directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Brad Pitt. The film, which is written by Steven Knight (Locke), will be a romantic spy drama set during the war. The Wrap describes that Both Pitt and Cotillard will play a married pair of assassins (Mr. and Mrs. Smith anyone?) tasked to kill a German officer, only for Pitt to discover Cotillard’s dark secret. The project is currently untitled and was originally scheduled to start shooting in September, but is delayed due to Cotillard’s involvement with Assassin’s Creed.
J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year, All is Lost) will next direct an adaptation of the book The Liar’s Ball, written by Vanity Fair writer Vicky Ward. The book is a non-fiction story about real estate mogul Harry Macklowe upon his purchase of Manhattan’s GM Building. The events of the book take place around the time of the 2008 financial crisis, a subject Chandor is all too familiar with via his debut film Margin Call.
A new pair of writers have been hired to pen the planned female-fronted 21 Jump Street spinoff, Lizzie and Wendy Molyneux. The pair are both writers on Bob’s Burgers. But if you’ll recall, Sony previously hired Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs, who both write for Broad City. /Film explains that the trend of having multiple writers working on parallel drafts is becoming more and more common, especially among larger tentpole franchise films.
Real Madrid soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the greatest players in the game, is getting a documentary made about his career. Simply titled Ronaldo, Anthony Wonke directed the film, which Variety reports is currently in post-production. Ronaldo announced the film on Facebook, and you can already follow the film on both Facebook and Twitter.
J.K. Rowling recently spoke on Twitter regarding some new details for her impending Harry Potter-spinoff film trilogy, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. We already know that Eddie Redmayne will be portraying the film’s lead, Newt Scamander, and that it will be set in the 1930s, not in England, but in New York. The A.V. Club compiled some of her tweets in which she hinted that Scamander would be visiting a tribe of Native American wizards and witches in [not New York], but withheld the specifics.
Finally, Indiewire had some scant details via Le Parisien regarding legendary Austrian director Michael Haneke. His next film Flashmob, which told the story of two people meeting online and being brought together by the dance craze, was long delayed due to scheduling conflicts with the actress he was pursuing. However, Haneke has finally moved on from the project and is now starting work on a new film shooting in France.