"Raise the Red Lantern" director Zhang Yimou plans to make a movie to mark the 60th anniversary of communist China, cementing his shift from a dissident to a government-favored artist.
Actor Jackie Earle Haley is yet another proof that F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong about American lives not having second acts; Haley’s career has come in at least two phases, maybe three, depending on how you’re counting. As a child actor, he had a thriving career, starting on TV (in Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, then with guest appearances on the likes of The Partridge Family, The Waltons, and Marcus Welby, M.D.) and moving into film, most memorably as bad-boy Kelly Leak in the Bad News Bears films. Post-adolescence all but killed his acting career, which
Christopher Nolan will give us a glimpse into the architecture of Leo’s mind.
Variety reports that Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming sci-fi film “Inception.” This will be “The Dark Knight” director’s next project, meaning that a Batman III is pretty far down the road.
All that’s been said about “Inception” is that it is “a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind.” In other words, it fits in thematically with the rest of Nolan’s work. (So who’s the architect? Please, Mr. Nolan, step away from Frank Lloyd Wright. So overdone for all those mind houses.)
DiCaprio is always up for a challenge and likes to work with directors of note; I often suspect that he picks projects more by who is directing than the actual script itself.
Amanda Seyfried gets to play a character named Babydoll.
According to THR, Zack Snyder is rounding out the cast of his upcoming film “Sucker Punch.” Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Hudgens, Evan Rachel Wood, and Abbie Cornish are all in talks to join the production. Here’s the plot:
Set in the 1950s, “Punch” follows a girl who is confined to a mental institution by her stepfather, who intends to have her lobotomized in five days. While there, she imagines an alternative reality to hide her from the pain, and in that world, she begins planning her escape, needing to steal five objects to help get her out before she is deflowered by a vile man.
Seyfried will play the lead, called Babydoll. Hudgens, Cornish, and Wood would play characters named Blondie, Sweet Pea, and Rocket.
Speaking of medieval times…
THR says that New Regency has picked up a spec script from Alex Litvak and Michael Finch, called “Medieval Times.” Here’s the story:
The script’s story line plays like “The Dirty Dozen” in the age of castles, plagues and serfs, which the studio hopes to spin as a hyper-realistic action movie in the vein of “300.”
Castles, plagues, and serfs? Is this “Monty Python and the Holy Grail?” Love that movie.
Alas, we probably won’t be that lucky, considering the throw-in line about “in the vein of ‘300′” which usually indicates to me lots of chiseled bodies, glam action scenes, and perhaps a tendency to take itself way too seriously.
"High School Musical 4" will being production later this year and premiere in 2010.
Robin Williams is canceling several performances in Florida of his one-man comedy show, "Weapons of Self-Destruction," after recently experiencing shortness of breath.
Three of Anthony Pellicano's co-defendants have been sentenced to prison for their roles in the Hollywood private eye's illegal wiretapping scheme.