MUMBAI: The Hangover star Ed Helms is in negotiations to be roped onboard the thriller movie, Stretch directed by Joe Carnahan.
Ed Helms would apparently be co-starring opposite the Insidious star Patrick Wilson in the movie.
It has been confirmed that Jason Blum, the producer of the weekend BO shocker, The Purge would be financially backing the thriller project under his Blumhouse production banner.
The story revolves around a limo driver nicknamed Stretch played by Patrick Wilson, who is trying to get clean and pay back a debt owed to a bookie when he gets the passenger from hell.
The Star Trek star Chris Pine has already been roped in and would play the passenger, who is selling his ledger of criminal associates to the highest bidder.
As reported by Hollywood Reporter, Helms is in talks to play a fellow chauffeur at Stretch‘s company, the ideal driver who is a ghost and shows up as Wilson‘s conscience.
While the cast has almost been finalised it is reported that the shooting would commence this summer.
Category: International
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Hangover’s ‘Stu’ Ed Helms in talks to co-star in Jason’s Stretch
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Jason Blum plans a sequel to ‘The Purge’ following its BO success
MUMBAI: Following the massive success of the horror-thriller movie The Purge, producer Jason Blum and Universal Studios have announced they are planning a sequel for the movie.
However, who would helm the director‘s chair for the sequel and the cast remains uncertain.
The Purge was written and directed by James DeMonaco, but his association with the sequel in the same capacity remains unclear as reported by the Hollywood Reporter.
The home invasion horror movie starring Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey with a budget of not over three million dollars, raked in a whopping $36.4 million in its opening weekend grossing to the top over the weekend.
While the movie‘s end is left with a potential for a sequel considering the story which is set in a society where once a year, there‘s a 12-hour period when all crime is allowed and condoned. -
Jerry Bruckheimer hopes for a Lone Ranger franchise, Top Gun sequel
MUMBAI: The American film and television producer Jerry Bruckheimer claimed his 30 year old endeavour to make a sequel of the successful Tom Cruise starrer Top Gun at the Produced By conference. The original 1986 movie directed by the late Tony Scott saw Tom Cruise as ‘Maverick‘ the rebel fighter jet pilot. Bruckheimer stated that the sequel would be done with Tom (Cruise) off course, who is still known as ‘Maverick‘ by many fans, while Paramount are still interested in the project too.
Commenting on his latest venture, Lone Ranger with the versatile star Jonny Depp, Bruckheimer said that he hopes Lone Ranger becomes a franchise with Depp and Armie Hammer, although nothing concrete has been decided yet. Leaving the ball to the audience he added, "If the audience likes the movie then Disney will come to me and we‘ll make another or it will be a one-off."
Revealing about the star Jonny Depp who is along with Bruckheimer, prepping a fifth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean for the studio, said that "Jonny often travels with his Captain Jack Sparrow costume and visits children‘s hospitals unannounced. He knows he is a very fortunate person and he wants to give back."
With Lone Ranger slated to release on July 4, Bruckheimer acknowledged the summer packed competition saying, "It‘s very hard this summer. You have to hold your seats; it‘s not the number of theatres but the number of seats. Warner Bros‘ Man of Steel is coming out this week and then next week another blockbuster will come out, if there is another blockbuster, and Superman will move to small theatres and someone else will get their seats," He noted that Warner Bros and Legendary‘s Pacific Rim is coming out the week after Lone Ranger and that worries him.
In the same context, Bruckheimer said Sunday that a lot of movies coming out at the same time can be a good thing. "I root for my competition to be successful because it increases the audience‘s appetite for watching movies," he added, noting that, in today‘s environment of so much good TV and other platforms, movies have to work hard to get people out of their homes. -
Star Trek director J.J. Abrams to move into Star Wars mode
MUMBAI: After successfully re-launching and establishing the Star Trek franchise, the Star Trek Into Darkness director, J.J. Abrams is all geared up to scale the astronomical franchise Star Wars. He recently shared his thoughts at the Produced By conference about his latest directorial venture Star Wars: Episode 7.
Speaking about the challenges of directing the new movie he said, "I think that the thing is so big and so massive to so many people that the key to moving forward is honoring but not revering what went before."
While the production on Star Wars Episode VII is set to start right at the beginning of 2014, the sci-fi movie is slated for a summer 2015 release. He also let out that he would be moving over to London with his family by the end of the year, to commence the shoot. However given the choice he would preferred to shoot the Star Wars movie in L.A. but as sources report the plan to shoot Star Wars Episode 7 for Disney in the UK was set much before Abrams was brought on board.
Abrams however remained put when asked by Hudlin about the storyline or whether the movie would be based partially on the dozens of novels that have come out over the years bridging various unexplored aspects of the films‘ characters in the franchise.
Abrams also discussed his feelings about the future of George Lucas, the legendary creator of the Star Wars saga, after he sold Lucas films to Disney last year. "George Lucas has spoken for years about wanting to make those smaller, more experimental films and I hope he does because I‘d really like to see them," he said.
Disney and Lucas film had announced last month that the Abrams-directed and Michael Arndt-scripted movie will be shot in the UK and that the latest incarnation of the Star Wars series is expected for summer 2015 release with two more films adding to franchise to follow over the next few years.
J.J. Abrams who made his feature directorial debut in the Tom Cruise starrer Mission Impossible 3, also has clips from Lost, Alias, Fringe, Person of Interest, Super 8 and the Star Trek films to his credit. -
Superman’s opening flight might cross the $100 mn barrier at the BO
MUMBAI: Within a week from now, the box office is going to be struck by the Kryptonian capped superhero film, Man of steel. The Superman reboot, has the 300 director Zack Synder at the helm and stars Henry Cavill as Superman, along with Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Jadin Gould, Rebecca Butler and Christopher Meloni in its leading cast.
According to sources, Warner Bros‘ Man of Steel hitting the theatres on June 14 in UK and US should be geared up for a strong $100 million debut at the US box office alone. Given the early buzz on the film has been strong with a healthy marketing campaign spend of over $150 million. Warner Bros has been going into an overdrive in promoting the movie, with 13 TV spots and 4 clips to date, and while the final trailer dropped yesterday, there is likely much more to come over the next seven days, added by a source.
It seems a lot of expectations are riding on the $225 million blockbuster especially with Warner Bros wanting a Justice League film within the next four years. After Christopher Nolan‘s Dark Knight‘s standalone stupendous success at the box office, Warner Bros is all set to re-launch the red capped DC superhero, Superman through Man of Steel, in their attempt to create a wider universe for other superheros as well.
Also with Iron Man 3‘s collections surpassing the $1.2 billion mark, sources expect that the Christopher Nolan produced Man of Steel has a long way to go to compete with the likes of Marvel‘s Mr. Stark.
Still the industry observers look strongly at the reboots imprint on the box office which premiers on June 10 in New York. -
Christoph Waltz to make his appearance in ‘True Crimes’
MUMBAI: The Django Unchained star will be seen next in the thriller True Crimes, based on the real-life events surrounding a cold case, asserts The Hollywood Reporter.
The movie is going to be based on David Grann’s New Yorker feature, wherein the story involves the real-life case of Krystian Bala, a Polish writer who was convicted of murder in 2007. The murder for which he was convicted had been a cold case, baffling the Polish police for years, and had been called a perfect crime. Bala, never a suspect in the case, attracted attention when he published a novel that detailed a murder very much like the one that was frustrating the police.
Waltz will play Jacek Wroblewski, the police officer who reopens the cold case and becomes knotted in the dark underworld of Poland‘s sex rings, prostitution and drugs. The role will offer Waltz (known for playing memorable villains like a brutal Nazi in Inglourious Basterds) the chance to play a good guy again, like his Django bounty hunter.
The two-time Oscar winner recently signed on to play a Cold War consigliore posing as a typical American suburbanite in Stephen Gaghan‘s The Candy Store.
The project originally was set up at Focus Features, but the specialty label put it into turnaround last year. With Waltz newly attached, producers Brett Ratner, John Cheng and David Gerson who are also producing the upcoming Fan Bingbing-Jackie Chan vehicle Skiptrace are hunting for a new distribution partner.
Roman Polanski has been mentioned as a possibility to wheel as the director of the movie. The next step is locking in a director for the gritty European thriller, which is tonally similar to such films as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Ratner and Cheng are producing through their Rat Entertainment banner. Gerson is producing via his InterTitle Films. Waltz is repped by ICM. -
Juliette Lewis signs with Untitled Entertainment
MUMBAI: Lewis will be soon hitting theatres this November in The Weinstein Company‘s star-studded edition of August: Osage County, playing Karen Weston, the youngest daughter of Meryl Streep‘s character, states The Hollywood Reporter.
Juliette Lewis has inked a deal with Untitled Entertainment. She had been with Buchwald/Fortitude until the agency split this spring.
She received an Oscar and a Golden Globe nomination for her supporting role in Martin Scorsese’s remake of Cape Fear at the age of 18.
Her steady and prolific film career has spanned comedy (Christmas Vacation and Mixed Nuts), drama (Husbands and Wives and What‘s Eating Gilbert Grape) and thrillers (Natural Born Killers and From Dusk Till Dawn).
The recent Portlandia guest star was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for her work in Showtime‘s 2001 adaptation of the YA novel My Louisiana Sky, and she followed up the next year with a Primetime Emmy-nominated performance in the HBO movie Hysterical Blindness.
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Tom Hardy on board of a Yakuza Drama, ‘The Outsider’
MUMBAI: The Dark Knight Rises star Tom Hardy has been roped on board to star in the Yakuza drama The Outsider which would be directed by Takashi Miike as reported by Deadline, a Hollywood website.
The Outsider would be Miike‘s first directorial English film venture. Miike has more than 60 Japanese-language films to his credit including Ichi the Killer, 13 Assassins and Audition. The film would be independently financed by Linson Entertainment and Silver Pictures.
The project is based on an original idea by John Linson, who will also produce it along with Art Linson through their Linson Entertainment banner. Joel Silver, Andrew Rona and Steve Richards will produce through Silver Pictures.
With Hardy‘s credits including The Dark Knight Rises, Inception and the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road he had been chosen for the lead when initially the project was being developed at Warner Bros but Silver acquired the Andrew Baldwin script last November.
The story would be set in the post-WWII Japan which follows an American expatriate who becomes a Yakuza (Japan Mafia) enforcer. Plans are to commence the shooting in Japan early next year.
Silver Pictures‘ long standing deal with Warner Bros deal ended last year, following which it is working on the pre-production of The Gunman, starring Sean Penn and Javier Bardem. Silver‘s thriller Non-Stop, starring Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore, is also slated to release through Universal Studio‘s on 28 February 2014.
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Comic hero Archie Andrews to debut on the big screen
MUMBAI: The fictional illustrative comic characters Archie Andrews and Jughead Jones are all set to debut on the big screen in a live action family comedy brought out by Warner Bros as reported by Deadline.
The big screen adaption shall see the Pitch Perfect director Jason Moore and Glee writer-producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa come on board.
Archies Comics which were launched in the early 1940s will be produced as a coming-of-age comedy by the Warner-based Roy Lee and Dan Lin. This comes an as effort to appeal to the fans of the wholesome Andy Hardy movies.
The script is being written by Aguirre-Sacasa who is also writing a Little Shop of Horrors remake for Warner Bros. In the past he‘s also written the scripts for MGM‘s remakes of Carrie and The Town that Dreaded Sundown.
The comedy plot of the adaption would revolve around Archie facing a "teenage midlife crisis" and his quest to find a purpose in his life before graduation.
The comic book stories are set in the fictional small town of Riverdale with Archie Andrews portraying an upbeat high school student along with his friends Veronica Lodge, Betty Cooper, Reggie Mantel and Jughead Jones. -
Universal’s Fast & Furious 6 breaks all speeding limits grossing $500 million worldwide
MUMBAI: The adrenaline pumping sixth installment of the Vin Diesel starrer Fast & Furious 6 has zoomed past the $ 500 million mark grossing worldwide. The high octane action flick is still going strong in its third week smashing Universal‘s all records and moving faster than any film in the studio‘s history.
The sixth installment written by Chris Morgan was directed by Justin Lin and had retained the ensemble cast of its previous installment including the franchise‘s protagonists Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto along with Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson and Michelle Rodriguez.
Over the past two weeks the Fast & Furious 6 held the No 1 spot at the domestic box office and scored Universal studio‘s highest-grossing opening weekend of all time.
Till date, Fast 6 has grossed $180.3 million domestically and $342.2 million internationally. The film‘s splendid box-office performance helped push the studio past the $1 billion mark on May 31.
With the success of the street racing franchise scaling new heights its seventh installment with James Wan at the helm of the project, is set to release on 11 July 2014.