Category: International

MUMBAI: Warner Bros is in talks with Joel Edgerton to star in Shantaram, an adaptation of the Gregory David Roberts novel that is being produced by Inifinitum Nihil partners Johnny Depp and Christi Dembrowski, and GK Films‘ Graham King. Following a couple of stalled attempts to get this feature adaptation up and running after the studio paid $2 million for the rights in 2004, Depp himself jump started the process by personally courting Edgerton to play a role Depp once intended to play before the film was derailed by the writer‘s strike.

Edgerton is being courted for the lead role of a remarkable protagonist who, at the time the book became a sensation in Hollywood, was said to have been modeled after the author in a thinly veiled memoir. He starts as an Australian heroin addict who escapes a maximum-security prison, reinvents himself as a doctor in the slums of India and eventually uses gun-running and counterfeiting skills to fight against the invading Russian troops in Afghanistan.

Edgerton, who most recently starred in The Great Gatsby and Zero Dark Thirty, is Australian-born and fits the model of the protagonist very well. The script is by Eric Roth. Back when Depp was going to star.

MUMBAI: The director of Labour Day is putting up a cast for the film which comprises of Rosemarie DeWitt, Jennifer Garner and Adam Sandler. Talks are on and nothing has been made formal.

The movie is based on a book by Chad Kultgen and it explores the sexual frustrations of students in junior high school and their parents in the age of the Internet.

Sources say Reitman has already written the screenplay for the movie. He is known to have a talent to adapt quirky novels into acclaimed movies. Shooting may start this November.

He would also be producing through Right of Way films, his own house.

MUMBAI: The acclaimed director is all set to recreate a new Sherlock Holmes movie in which McKellen will play a retired Holmes. The movie titled A Slight Trick of the Mind is based on a novel by Mitch Cullin and the screenplay is adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher.

Condon and McKellen were previously seen together in Gods and Monsters. The finance is done by Icon UK’s production department called AI and BBC is co-financing. AI is also co-producing. The shooting is set to begin sometime next April in UK.

Anne Carey is producing via Archer Gray Productions. King’s Speech producers Iain Canning and Emile Sherman of See-Saw Films, Icon/AI Film’s Aviv Giladi, and Len Blavatnik, whose Access Industries owns the Icon UK group, are exec producing as is BBC Films’ Christine Langan.

International sales are being handled by FilmNation. Condon is repped by WME, Anonymous Content, Wayne Alexander and Robert Nau. McKellen is repped by Chris Andrews at CAA and Paul Lyon-Maris at Independent Talent Group.

MUMBAI: Sean Anders and John Morris, who penned New Line‘s surprise comedy runaway hitWe‘re the Millers, have been tapped by the company to tackle its comedy Horrible Bosses 2. Anders will helm the project while Morris will join the project as a producer.

Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day and Jamie Foxx are set to reprise their roles in the workplace comedy.

John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, who worked on the first movie, penned the original draft for the sequel. Anders and Morris recently did a rewrite.

Brett Ratner and Jay Stern are producing while John Cheng, John Rickard and Diana Pokorny are executive producing.

Anders directed Sex Drive and That‘s My Boy, the latter starring Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg. The duo is known for their comedy-writing work on She‘s Out of My League and Hot Tub Time Machine. They also worked on Dumb and Dumber To, the upcoming sequel to the Jim Carrey/Jeff Daniels classic Dumb and Dumber.

MUMBAI: The Autobots and Decepticons have landed in Detroit. The Michigan city is doubling for a bombed out Hong Kong in Michael Bay‘s Transformers 4. This will be the follow up to the already massively successful franchise and the movie is already on the floors and will ready for a mid 2014 release.

Paramount unveiled the official title of its fourth Transformers installment along with a new teaser poster. Transformers: Age Of Extinction is due in theaters 27 June 2014. The Michael Bay magnum opus stars Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Jack Reynor, Nicola Peltz, Sophia Myles, TJ Miller, Titus Welliver, Han Geng and Li Bingbing and is currently in production.

MUMBAI: Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam has officially been set to play Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey, the Universal Pictures and Focus Features adaptation of the runaway bestselling book series.

Hunnam, who had been rumored for weeks, more recently starred in the Guillermo Del Toro-directed Pacific Rim. Author EL James made the casting official on her Twitter page. Sam Taylor-Johnson is directing a script by Kelly Marcel and Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti are producing along with the author.

This follows after the official casting of Dakota Johnson to play the role of Anastasia Steele. Grey is the young, wealthy industrialist with a dark past who favors S&M relationships. His loyalty to the dominant-submissive subset is tested when he meets the young college graduate Anastasia Steele, who seems like the perfect girl for him.

MUMBAI: Oscar-winning director Hayao Miyazaki‘s animation studio says The Wind Rises, in competition at the Venice Film Festival, will be his last feature.

Koju Hoshino announced Miyazaki‘s intention to retire Sunday, but declined to take questions, deferring to a news conference next week in Tokyo.

Miyazaki was not in Venice for the international premiere. His Italian distributor said he stayed in Japan for the domestic release.

Miyazaki, 72, is one of animation‘s most admired and successful directors. He won an Oscar for Spirited Away in 2003 and a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement in 2005.

The Wind Rises, Miyazaki‘s 11th feature film, is a fantasy-filled look at the man who designed Japan‘s World War II fighter planes.