Back Seat Producers

Adam Green’s Frozen has attracted its three leading actors. According to THR, Kevin Zegers ( Dawn of the Dead ), Shawn Ashmore ( The Ruins ) and Emma Bell will star as college students stranded on a chairlift on a New England ski slope that has closed. The trio are forced to make life and death decisions or risk freezing to death. Green will direct from a script he penned. Shooting begins next week in Utah. Peter Block and Cory Neal of GreeneStreet Films/A Bigger Boat are producing.

Adam Sandler and his former Saturday Night Live cohorts Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider, along with Kevin James, are planning to join forces for an all-star comedy flick due out Independence Day 2010. The film, cowritten by Sandler, follows five high school friends who reunite after 30 years for a July 4 holiday weekend, per Variety. Dennis Dugan (You Don’t Mess With the Zohan) will direct, with cameras slated to roll this summer.

According to THR Pierce Brosnan’s firm is developing a story about famed Hungarian photojournalist Robert Capa, attaching Paul McGuigan to direct. Born Andre Friedmann in early-20th century Budapest, Capa memorialized many conflicts, including the Spanish Civil War and World War II. The colorful journalist also helped found Magnum Photos and traveled in glamorous circles that included a friendship with John Steinbeck and an affair with Ingrid Bergman.

Oscar nominee Josh Brolin joins Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins in the ensemble cast for Woody Allen’s next picture, which the Vicky Cristina Barcelona auteur wrote and will direct this summer in London. No word on the plot or title.

Negotiators from the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers and SAG met until 7 p.m. Tuesday at the AMPTP’s offices in Sherman Oaks. It was the first negotiating session since November; the parties were scheduled to resume their talks at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

Dark Knight star Aaron Eckhart and Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) are in negotiations to star alongside Johnny Depp and Amber Heard in Rum Diary, the big-screen adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s novel.

Planet Terror writer-director Robert Rodriguez is going to commence work on his latest film Nerverackers for Dimension Films. according to ShockTillYouDrop.com. Variety is calling it a sci-fi thriller. According to the trade paper, the story is set in 2085 and focuses on a character named Joe Tezca who is part of an elite unit dispatched to quell a crime wave in a theoretically perfect future society. Dimension will release the film on April 16, 2010.

Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington will join together for an action-packed adaptation of The Matarese Circle, a spy-vs.-spy thriller based on the novel by Robert Ludlum Bourne Identity. According to both the Hollywood Reporter and Variety, Cruise is in final negotiations to join Washington in the would-be blockbuster, which David Cronenberg will direct.

Geoffrey Gilmore is leaving his post as director of the Sundance Film Festival to take the job of chief creative officer of Tribeca Enterprises. The move leaves a void at the top of the fest he intimately shaped while also providing a jolt to one that’s still trying hard to find its niche.

According to Variety, John Malkovich will do a villainous turn in the big-screen version of DC Comics’ Jonah Hex. The flick stars Josh Brolin as a former Confederaete soldier-turned-bounty hunter who faces off against Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich), a wealthy Southern plantation owner out for revenge after his son is killed during the Civil War.

Casey Affleck is directing a documentary feature on Joaquin Phoenix, his friend and fellow actor who last spring decided to swap the acting business for music. Phoenix is embarking on a new path as a rapper, with an album to be produced by Sean Combs. He is scheduled to make his first public performance Friday at a Las Vegas club, which will officially kick off Affleck’s shoot. Affleck, repped by Endeavor and Brillstein Entertainment Partners, is known for his work in front of the camera with such movies as Gone Baby Gone and the Ocean’s Eleven series. He directed a series of shorts for Sundance Channel in the late 1990s.

Ashton Kutcher is looking to tackle the football comedy Traded for Paramount Pictures. The actor would play a superstar NFL quarterback who magically swaps bodies with a 12-year-old middle school geek.

Sources:
THR
IMDB
Variety
E!
Shocktillyoudrop.com

#1 Friday the 13th from Warner Bros. debuts at #1 this weekend earning $42.2 million in 3105 theaters. Budget for Friday the 13th was $19 million.

#2 He’s Just Not That Into You from Warner Bros. drops to #2 this weekend earning $19.6 million in 3175 theaters. Budget for Not That Into You is unknown.

#3 Taken from Fox drops to #3 this weekend earning $19.2 million in 3109 theaters. Budget for Taken is unknown.

#4 Confessions of a Shopaholic from Buena Vista debuts at #4 this weekend earning $15.4 million in 2507 theaters. Budget for Shopaholic is unknown.

#5 Coraline from Focus drops to #5 this weekend earning $15.3 million in 2320 theaters. Budget for Coraline is unknown.

Rounding out the top 10 are:

#6 Paul Blart: Mall Cop Weekend Gross: $11,700,000, up 7% / Theaters: 2965, down 204 / Gross $110,515,000 / Budget: $26 million

#7 The International Weekend Gross: $10,000,000 / Theaters: 2364 / Gross $10,000,000 / Budget: $50 million

#8 The Pink Panther 2 Weekend Gross: $9,000,000, down 22% / Theaters: 3245, up 2 / Gross $22,321,000 / Budget: unknown

#9 Slumdog Millionaire Weekend Gross: $7,150,000, down 0.4% / Theaters: 1634, down 90 / Gross $86,546,000 / Budget: $15 million

#10 Push Weekend Gross: $6,931,000, down 31% / Theaters: 2313 / Gross $19,325,000 / Budget: $38 million

A note on “Gross”: On average, studios will earn approximately 55 percent of the final gross.

Sources:

Box Office Mojo

According to E! casting agents for New Moon, the second film in Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series, recently held an open call in Vancouver and where so overwhelmed at the response that they closed the doors at noon. The line began forming at 5 a.m. and soon stretched for blocks with fans coming from as far away as Florida just for the one day call. The walk ons will join the likes of Dakota Fanning, AnnaLynne McCord, Lucy Hale and Vanessa Hudgens in the competition for roles in New Moon, due out in November.

Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures has acquired the remake rights to two horrors, Anguish and Room 205, to be renamed The Dorm. Anguish is a remake of Bigas Luna’s 1987 film of the same name, wherein a film-within-a-film tells the story of a mother-fixated optician’s assistant who loses his job and goes on a killing spree. But the real plot concerns the patrons of a small cinema who are watching the film when a killer starts to murder them in ways that mirror the film’s plot. In the remake, the protagonists are two girls who find real life mirroring the horror film they’re watching. The Dorm is a remake of Danish film Room 205, wherein a student finds her college room haunted and some of her neighbours dying off in suspicious circumstances.

Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman are uniting for The Baster, a romantic comedy from Blades of Glory codirectors Will Speck and Josh Gordon. Per Variety, when Aniston’s character decides to get preggers via artificial insemination, her best friend Bateman swaps the donor’s sample with some of his own, unbeknownst to Aniston. Shooting is set for this spring in New York.

Sam Rockwell has signed on to star alongside Hilary Swank in Betty Anne Waters. Minnie Driver has also bagged a role in the legal drama. Based on a true story, Rockwell will play Kenneth Waters, the brother of the heroine. When he was convicted of a murder-robbery in 1983, Betty Anne (Swank), an unemployed single mother, spent the next two decades slowly earning a law degree and fighting tirelessly to overturn the conviction. Rumour had it that John C. Reilly had been set to play Kenneth initially, but the charismatic Rockwell seems to be a fine choice for the role. The movie will be directed by Tony Goldwyn.

Camilla Belle is taking the title role in Mary, Mother of Christ, which, per the Hollywood Reporter, will follow the young life and love of the virgin mother. The film, hoping to play to the same audience that flocked to The Passion of the Christ, also stars Peter O’Toole and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who takes on the dual role of Gabriel the archangel and Lucifer. Producers are also seeking to cast Al Pacino and Jessica Lange in the film, which is due for release on Good Friday, April 2, 2010.

Zachary Levi, the star of the hit TV show, Chuck, has bagged his first big movie by signing on to star in Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakuel. Levi will play the cousin of Jason Lee’s returning Dave Seville in the sequel, which will be directed by Betty Thomas. There’s no word, though, on how big Levi’s part will be much depends on whether Lee is merely making a cameo, or if he’s coming back in the lead role.

Disney star Gomez is set to try her hand as the older sister Ramona Quimby. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Gomez will play Ramona’s titular big sis in Beezus and Ramona, based on the Beverly Cleary book series. Ramona will be played by Joey King in the film, scheduled for release on March 19, 2010.

Robert Downey Jr. has denied to MTV that fellow Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke is set to play his nemesis in the upcoming Iron Man sequel. Downey Jr. played the lead role of tycoon-turned-superhero Tony Stark in the 2008 comic book movie and is set to to return for a follow-up. Rumours about actors set to join the cast of Iron Man 2 have been swirling for months, with stars including Emily Blunt, Tim Robbins and Sam Rockwell all linked to the project.

According to Production Weekly, principal photography on Alexandre Rockwell’s Pete Small is Dead is to kick off in March. Amongst the cast are Steve Buscemi, Sam Rockwell and Peter Dinklage, who have worked together on Peter Judson’s Nobody Wants Your Film a documentary about how an independent film gets knocked back every step of the way.

Filmmaker Neil Labute has grabbed a two-film deal with Sony’s Screen Gems arm, with his first project planned as a remake of Death At A Funeral, including Chris Rock as the star. The original Death, which Frank Oz directed in 2007 featured the likes of Alan Tudyk, Matthew MacFadyen and Peter Dinklage in a tale of family secrets and comic misunderstandings.

Sources:
E!
Vancouver Sun
EmpireOnline
Variety
THR
MTV.com
Production Weekly
/Film
TotalFilm News

#1 He’s Just Not That Into You from Warner Bros. debuts at #1 this weekend earning $27.4 million in 3175 theaters. Budget for Not That Into You is unknown.

#2 Taken from Fox drops to #2 this weekend earning $20.3 million in 3184 theaters. Budget for Taken is unknown.

#3 Coraline from Focus debuts at #3 this weekend earning $16.3 million in 2299 theaters. Budget for Coraline is unknown.

#4 The Pink Panther 2 from Sony debuts at #4 this weekend earning $12 million in 3243 theaters. Budget for Panther is unknown.

#5 Paul Blart: Mall Cop drops to #5 this weekend. Cop earned $11 million in 3206 theaters this weekend for a total of $97 million. Budget for Cop was $26 million.

Rounding out the top 10 are:

#6 Push Weekend Gross: $10,204,000 / Theaters: 2313 / Gross $10,204,000 / Budget: $38 million

#7 Gran Torino Weekend Gross: $7,420,000, down 9% / Theaters: 2705, down 310 / Gross $120,280,000 / Budget: $33 million

#8 Slumdog Millionaire Weekend Gross: $7,400,000, down 3% / Theaters: 1724, up 91 / Gross $77,426,000 / Budget: $15 million

#9 The Uninvited Weekend Gross: $6,400,000, down 6538 / Theaters: 2344 / Gross $18,379,000 / Budget: unknown

#10 Hotel for Dogs Weekend Gross: $5,820,000, down 32% / Theaters: 2734, down 426 / Gross $55,234,000 / Budget: unknown

A note on “Gross”: On average, studios will earn approximately 55 percent of the final gross.

Sources:

Box Office Mojo

According to Fox News Joaquin Phoenix says there’s no hoax about it: He really has given up acting to become a hip-hop musician. Phoenix has been spending his time laying down tracks for a rap album in the recording studio he built at his home, the two-time Academy Award nominee said Tuesday in an interview to promote what he claims is his final movie, Two Lovers. After video hit the Internet last month capturing part of Phoenix’s debut rap performance at a Las Vegas club, speculation swirled that he was perpetrating an elaborate practical joke. “I don’t know where that comes from,” Phoenix said. “If it comes from people that I’ve had a falling out with, that are (ticked) off at me?” “There’s not a hoax,” Phoenix said. “Might I be ridiculous? Might my career in music be laughable? Yeah, that’s possible, but that’s certainly not my intention.”

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the third film in the Tomb Raider series will completely reboot the video game-based character, including changing her origin story (most likely shying away from her English aristocracy roots) and introduce new kinds of missions, love interests and villains. And, most notably, a new leading lady as Angelina Jolie will not be returning.

Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) will be playing Zuko in writer/director M. Night Shyamalan’s live-action feature film The Last Airbender, based on Nickelodeon’s Avatar anime, according to Variety. Patel takes on the role of the Fire Nation’s evil Zuko, which was originally to be played by Jesse McCartney until “schedule conflicts arose”. Exiled from the Fire Nation by his father, Zuko is sent to capture the Avatar in order to restore his honor and right to the throne. The Last Airbender will still be released July 2, 2010.

Warner Bros has finally selected a director for the live-action He-Man movie Masters of the Universe. After announcing the project in May 2007, John Stevenson (Kung Fu Panda) has been hired to helm the adaptation of Mattel’s popular toys and 80s cartoon. In fact, it took so long for Warners to make a move on this project that sources inside the studio said the concept was dead and gone. But He-Man cannot be stopped. Joel Silver (The Matrix) is producing based on a script by Justin Marks that buries He-Man in a gritty fantasy world similar to the Lord of the Rings. When a LatinoReview writer did a script review last year, he gave it an A+ and said it was one of the best screenplays he had ever read.

Daniel Day-Lewis and Benicio Del Toro are in talks to star in Martin Scorsese’s Silence, a drama about the violent persecution of 17th century Jesuit missionaries in Japan. Per Variety, Gael Garcia Bernal is also eyeing a role in Silence. The film marks the third collaboration between Scorsese and Day-Lewis. The duo previously worked together on The Age of Innocence and Gangs of New York.

EmpireOnline says Al Pacino’s got another Shakespearean adaptation lined up, following The Merchant of Venice and Looking for Richard, he will be headlining King Lear. Pacino has been offered the chance to play Lear before, but hasn’t felt ready until now. The story, follows the titular King as he resolves to split his domains between his three daughters, determining the split according to how much they love him. But when the two elder flatter him outrageously and the youngest (his favourite) refuses to play the game, he disinherits her and ends up miserable himself. Michael Radford, of Il Postino and The Merchant of Venice is set to direct, with shooting due to start later this year.

Gary Marshall is set to direct New Line Cinema’s comedy Valentine’s Day, about 10 Los Angeles people whose lives intersect on Feb. 14. Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein rewrote a draft by Katherine Fugate. Marshall also directed Georgia Rule, The Princess Diaries and Runaway Bride.

Ken Nolan will rewrite Paramount’s untitled moon project starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Doug Liman and John Hamburg penned the original script. The Hollywood Reporter describes the project as an “action film about lunar colonization.” Liman (The Bourne Identity) is also on board to direct.

Kung Fu Panda shut out its competition in every major feature film category at the 36th annual Annie Awards celebrating 2008’s best animated movies. The DreamWorks Animation pic bested critic favorite Wall-e and other nominee Bolt for “Best Feature.” The surprise win is the first time DreamWorks has beaten a Pixar film for the top prize since 2001’s Shrek over Pixar’s Monster’s Inc. Panda took home fifteen statues Friday night and tied for the most wins ever. The Annie Award has matched the “Best Animated Feature” category at the Academy Awards every single year but one.

Newsinfilm.com says Emily Blunt and Jason Segel are in negotiations to join lead actor Jack Black in Fox’s “contemporary reimagining” of Gulliver’s Travels. Rob Letterman (Shark Tale) has already signed to direct a script from Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and Joe Stillman (Shrek). The adapted story is about Lemuel Gulliver (Black), a travel writer who takes an assignment to the Bermuda Triangle and washes up on the island of Lilliput, where he’s a giant among the tiny population. Blunt will play a Lilliputian princess and Black’s love interest. Segel will play Horatio, Gulliver’s best friend from Lilliput who helps rescue Gulliver when he’s captured.

Sources:
Fox News
IMDB
Variety
The Hollywood Reporter
EmpireOnline
Newsinfilm.com