Walter Hill is planning to write and direct a remake of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? with Adell Aldrich, the daughter of Robert Aldrich director of the 1962 original producing. The plot revolves around the dysfunctional sisters played in the original by rivals Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Hill will adapt Lukas Heller’s screenplay for the original film, which was based on the novel by Henry Farrell. No actresses have been mentioned yet, but Hill explains, “The two equal leads demand great performers – that is a given. The intensity of the gothic storyline makes a reconfiguration of
the drama still a potentially searing experience. The idea is to make a
modern film without modernizing the period. It needs to resonate the
golden age of Hollywood.”
Kirsten Dunst has joined Viggo Mortensen and Oscar Isaac in the cast of Two Faces of January, written and directed by Drive screenwriter Hossein Amini and based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. “Initially set in Athens, it centers on a con an (Mortensen) who kills a
Greek policeman, quite possibly by accident. His wife (Dunst) and an
American tutor (Isaac) help to extricate him from his bind. On the lam,
the three flee Athens to the Greek islands and finally Istanbul.”
Raffaele Ienco‘s
supernatural graphic novel, Manifestations is being turned into a feature from Top Cow and Content House. “Story centers on a woman tormented by the ghost of her
sadistic husband only to discover that he has been brought back to life
by her psychically gifted daughter, a 10-year-old who can move spirits
from dark places to the land of the living.”
Joe Swanberg has assembled a cast which includes Anna Kendrick, Olivia Wilde, Ron Livingston and Jake Johnson for his upcoming Drinking Buddies. The film centers on a fun and flirtatious friendship that goes off the rails.
Director Seth Gordon is looking to reteam with Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis for Horrible Bosses 2 which is currently being scripted by original writers Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. Reportedly the screenplay will not focus on a murder.
Tobey Maguire has joined the cast of Jason Reitman‘s Labor Day. The film, which Reitman adapted from the book by Joyce Maynard, “centers on a thirteen year old boy, Henry, from New Hampshire
who learns valuable life lessons over a five-day Labor Day weekend.
Maguire will play the adult version of the boy, and also
narrates the film.” The cast also includes Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, J.K. Simmons, Brooke Smith, Gattli Griffith, and Brighid Fleming.
Kings of meta Charlie Kaufman and Dan Harmon are teaming up for a unique project to be financed through Kickstarter. Anomalisa will be a a stop-motion animated film about a man crippled by the mundanity of his life written by Kaufman and executive produced by Harmon, Dino Stamatopoulos (aka Community‘s Starburns), Duke Johnson (Moral Oral, Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole) and producer Rosa Tran (Moral Oral, Robot Chicken).
Kevin Hart will team with Ice Cube in the Tim Story directed Ride Along. “Hart will play a second-grade teacher who is ready to get married, but first he must survive a Training Day-like
ride-along experience with his fiancee’s tough cop brother, who doesn’t
want the marriage to happen and tries to scare off the suitor.”
Richard Armitage will join Sarah Wayne Callies and Alycia Debnam-Carey in Category 6, which follows a group
of high school teens dealing with the aftermath of a devastating
tornado.
