Archive for the ‘Role Rumors’ Category
Reese Witherspoon is working her way through the classic American songbook.
The actress, who won an Oscar in 2005 for portraying June Carter in “Walk the Line,” is pulling together an untitled biopic about Peggy Lee with writer-director Nora Ephron and Fox 2000. Though Witherspoon is still negotiating to star, she is producing along with Marc Platt.
Witherspoon secured rights to the vocalist’s life from the Lee estate and brought the project to Fox 2000. She then approached Platt, who produced the “Legally Blonde” movies, and Ephron, who counts herself a major fan of Lee’s music. Ephron is writing the script and is attached to direct, as well.
Born in North Dakota in 1920, Lee became an iconic singer, songwriter and actor. In the early 1940s, Lee (born to Scandanavian parents as Norma Deloris Egstrom) got her start singing for Benny Goodman’s band.
She went on to record popular jazz-influenced albums and compose for film sountracks as well as appear on screen in the 1953 movie “The Jazz Singer” and the 1955 musical “Pete Kelly’s Blues,” which earned her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. Her songwriting and voice-over contributions to Disney’s 1955 film “Lady and the Tramp” eventually led to a lawsuit that won her video tape royalties decades later.
Fox 2000 has already done a lot of business with Witherspoon — in addition to “Best Laid Plans” and “Walk the Line” the studio is currently filming “Water for Elephants” with the actress starring for an April release. Studio head Elizabeth Gabler is overseeing the Lee project.
Repped by CAA and Management 360, Witherspoon’s last live-action role was in the 2008 comedy “Four Christmases.” In addition to “Elephants,” she has the James Brooks film “How Do You Know” coming out from Columbia in December and the action comedy “This Means War” in development at Fox proper.
The CAA-repped Ephron last wrote and directed “Julie & Julia.”
‘Twilight’ star Anna Kendrick has revealed she will not be featured in a new movie with Tom Cruise and Will Smith, but Reese Witherspoon is.
The 24-year-old was recently spotted at a meeting with stars such as Cruise, Will Smith and wife Jada Pinkett-Smith at the ‘Saddle Ranch’ in West Hollywood but she admitted she isn’t involved.
She said to Access Hollywood: “It was just a table read. And you know, it’s a movie that’s in production so I’m not really at liberty to talk about it.”
However she added: “I think I can safely say I’m not in it. I’m just standing in for Reese Witherspoon. They just asked me to do it and I was like: ‘Hell, yeah!’ It was fun, it was really fun.”
British actor Tom Hardy has signed on to star with Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine in 20th Century Fox’s comedy “This Means War.”
According to Variety, McG is directing from a Timothy Dowling script.
Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment is producing along with Witherspoon.
The film involves two spies who are lifelong friends until they fall in love with the same woman.
Bradley Cooper had been circling the project, but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with filming “The Hangover 2.”
Hardy can be currently seen as Eames in Christopher Nolan’s “Inception.” His upcoming films include “Warrior” and “Mad Max 4: Fury Road.” His previous film credits include “Bronson,” “Black Hawk Down” and “Layer Cake.”
Vulture has learned that Sam Worthington has been offered a starring role in Fox’s action/romantic comedy This Means War, to be directed by McG; Worthington and Chris Pine (who is already signed on) would play best friends and veteran spies who wage black-ops warfare on each other when they both fall for the same girl (Reese Witherspoon, who’s also producing, along with Will Smith’s company, Overbrook Entertainment). Of course, if this movie’s eleven-year, musical-chair history is any indication, Worthington will sit on the project for awhile and eventually wander off so the mongering can be passed on to someone else.
Here’s a War history lesson: The project has been around since 1998, when it was set up as a comedy for Martin Lawrence. Since then, it has seen stars come and go, most recently Bradley Cooper. The project has also had many directors (Gore Verbinski was once attached) and writers: The list of scribes who have shaped and reshaped it include Burr Steers (How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days), Cormac and Marianne Wibberly (National Treasure), Kiernan and Michele Mulroney (Paper Man), and Tim Dowling (Role Models).
The film is a priority for Fox — they’ll make it by 2042 if it kills them! — but complicating matters is that Worthington is also said to be considering doing Man on a Ledge for Summit Entertainment. In Ledge, he’d play an ex-cop threatening to jump to his death from a Manhattan hotel rooftop; unbeknownst to the police psychologists brought in to talk him down, the “suicide attempt” is a cover for the biggest diamond heist ever attempted. If he takes Summit’s offer, Fox may offer the War role to Colin Farrell, who wasn’t half bad as a spy-in-training in 2002′s The Recruit … that is, if you could hear him above Al Pacino’s near-constant screaming of failed catchphrases like “My dick’s on fire!”
New reports are suggesting Reese has been offered a role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s next film – below are two reports with further details:
Reese Witherspoon Offered A Role In Paul Thomas Anderson’s Untitled Relgion Pic? Shooting Starting In June?
Things have been pretty quiet on the Paul Thomas Anderson front and his new untitled religion picture, affectionately known as “The Master” by fans.Loosely — or not so loosely — based on the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard (read our review of a very early draft of the script), we know that Philip Seymour Hoffman will play the messianic lead, Jeremy Renner will play Freddie Sutton, the drifter character that becomes The Master’s right hand man, and we know that Universal passed on the project and River Road is footing the bill (the company that produced Terrence Malick’s “Tree Of Life” and Doug Liman’s “Fair Game”; Honcho Bill Pohlad is also an investor in distributor Apparition, so don’t be surprised if the film ends up there).
Now comes a few more details from the latest issue of Production Weekly. According to their intel, Reese Witherspoon has been offered a role in the picture and the production is eyeing a June start date. Producing is John Lesher, Pohlad and Jo Anne Sellar.
June is next week if it actually starts on the first. Could the production really be this ready to go and no one’s really reported that yet?
We’ve got to admit, Seth Rogen and Chris Pine are two of our favorite men in Hollywood right now, and they’re both pretty sought after commodities. So when TheWrap learned that they might soon be starring in a film together, our attention was piqued.
Of course, the potential casting reminded us immediately of the unlikely match of Seth and James Franco in “Pineapple Express,” which turned out to be perfect because of their pitch-perfect chemistry together. While Seth and Chris haven’t worked together previously like Seth and James did in “Freak and Geeks,” we still think the comparison fits.
While neither Seth nor Chris have been confirmed for a role in Fox’s long-in-production romantic comedy “This Means War,” TheWrap seems to believe they are the two most likely candidates to land the parts. Each would hypothetically play best friends whose friendship is torn apart after a woman (Reese Witherspoon) moves into their spare room. Their fighting gets so violent that they end up destroying such important New York City landmarks as the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. McG is set to direct it.
The plot seems a little hokey, but we like the idea of Seth and Chris fighting over Reese in a romantic comedy. And it turns out we weren’t so far off on our “Pineapple Express” comparison. James Franco had originally been offered the role of one of the best friends, but has since turned it down. TheWrap seems to think Seth would move over and take the part James gave up, thus allowing him to star opposite Chris.
Fox has been chasing a number of high-profile actors for the character of FDR (one of the best friends and the role for which Seth and Chris had originally been short-listed), according to Production Weekly. In addition to Seth and Chris, Robert Downey Jr. and Matt Damon are potential candidates. But TheWrap got news that Robert isn’t considering the role and that Matt hasn’t even looked at the script yet, which is what helped lead them to their assumption.
“This Means War” was originally purchased by Fox in 1998, which means the project has been sitting in production hell for more than 12 years. While the film now has Reese and McG attached and the script is getting a rewrite from “Role Models’” Tim Dowling, there are no guarantees when or if the film will hit theaters. Still, the idea of Seth and Chris starring opposite each other is enough to get us excited enough to keep an eye on the project into the future.
Water For Elephants
How Do You Know?
Four Christmases
