On Friday, Pierce Conran reported at Twitch that Bong Man-dae, “most well known as a purveyor of softcore erotica,” will be reimagining Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer (2013) as Rice Cake Soup Train, “an erotic parody.” Today, Conran has news of an adaptation with more potential: Signal, based on Bong’s Memories of Murder (2003), is heading to Korean television: “Writer Kim Eun-hee (2006’s Once in a Summer and Kdrama Three Days) will adapt the film, written by Bong Joon-ho and Shim Sung-bo, which itself was based on Kim Gwang-rim’s 1996 play Come See Me. No word yet on casting, but given Kim’s stature in the Kdrama industry, not to mention the fame of the original film, I think we can safely expect a few big names.”
“Stephen Chow and Tsui Hark are in talks to collaborate on a sequel to the $215 million Chinese movie Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, part of a major assault on the film business by Alibaba Pictures.” Clifford Coonan has more in the Hollywood Reporter.
Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all North American rights to Woody Allen’s next film, Irrational Man, featuring Joaquin Phoenix, Parker Posey, Emma Stone and Jamie Blackley. From the Playlist: “There have been some rumor afoot that the movie is about a University professor (Phoenix), his student (Stone) and their entanglement that may turn deadly.” Once this one’s wrapped, Allen will be turning his attention to that half-hour series for Amazon. Meantime, “Placido Domingo will perform in a revival of Woody Allen’s first opera production, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, at the Los Angeles Opera this September,” reports the Telegraph‘s Martin Chilton.
Ang Lee will direct an adaptation of Ben Fountain’s novel Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. THR‘s Gregg Kilday has details.
Nearly a full year ago, we pointed to an item on Whit Stillman‘s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Lady Susan. Variety‘s Dave McNary reports that the project now has a title, Love and Friendship, and will reunite Last Days of Disco stars Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny. “Beckinsale will portray the widow Lady Susan Vernon, who has come to the estate of her in-laws to wait out rumors about her dalliances circulating through polite society. She decides to secure a husband for herself and her rather reluctant debutante daughter. The cast includes Xavier Samuel and Stephen Fry, the long-suffering husband to Lady Susan’s friend and confidante, portrayed by Sevigny. Filming begins in Ireland this month.”
Oscilloscope Laboratories has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a restoration of Kelly Reichardt‘s debut feature, River of Grass (1994)
Philip Maughan talks with Adrian Munsey, who aims to produce an adaptation of E.M. Forster’s “unloved, unfilmable” novel, The Longest Journey (1907). “James Ivory told me it was too depressing to be made into a film, but I disagree.” And Forster himself once told Munsey: “It’s my favorite of my books. It’s so much based on myself.”
Also in the New Statesman, Sarah Ditum: “Yes, we will get an all-woman Ghostbusters, and yes, the cast confirmed by director Paul Feig is a perfect match for the ’80s line-up: we’re promised Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon…. Not everyone is happy about it, of course, because when is everyone ever happy about women getting an even break?” Ditum argues that “all-female Ghostbusters is the best way to exorcise some of that lingering Hollywood sexism.”
Speaking of Kristen Wiig, she, Chris Pine, Jon Hamm and Jason Schwartzman will be joining the cast of Wet Hot American Summer, a Netflix limited series based, of course, on Michael Showalter and David Wain’s 2001 comedy. According to Deadline‘s Nellie Andreeva, that cast already includes “20 returning cast members from the movie, including Wiig’s SNL co-star Amy Poehler, Showalter, Elizabeth Banks, H. Jon Benjamin, Michael Ian Black, Bradley Cooper, Judah Friedlander, Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Christopher Meloni, A.D. Miles, Paul Rudd, Molly Shannon and Kevin Sussman, as well as another dozen of newcomers including Michaela Watkins, Hamm’s Mad Men co-star John Slattery, Josh Charles, Randall Park, Jayma Mays, Lake Bell, Paul Scheer, Rob Huebel and Richard Schiff.”
Here’s another cast. Let It Snow will feature John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Ed Helms, Diane Keaton, Marisa Tomei, Amanda Seyfried, June Squibb, Olivia Wilde and Anthony Mackie. THR‘s Austin Siegemund-Broka: “The film, previously titled Tis the Season, follows the exasperated members of an extended family who gather for their annual holiday celebration. On Christmas Eve, they each face transitional moments in their lives.”
“Geoffrey Rush is to star as artist Alberto Giacometti in Final Portrait,” reports Variety‘s Leo Barraclough. “Written and to be directed by Stanley Tucci (Big Night, The Imposters), the script is based on A Giacometti Portrait by American art critic James Lord.”
Also: “Frances McDormand, Logan Lerman, Brit Marling, Christian Slater and Jonathan Pryce have joined the cast of The Wife, which stars Glenn Close… as the cool, elegant Joan Castleman, a flawlessly gracious wife who gladly gave up her writing ambitions to play the role of helpmate to her husband, the philandering literary giant Joe Castleman (Pryce). On the eve of Joe’s Nobel Prize for Literature Joan decides to leave him…. Swedish director Bjorn Runge (De Blaue Engel, Daybreak), winner of Berlin’s Silver Bear and two Swedish Academy Awards, will direct.”
Trailer for Yves Montmayeur’s forthcoming documentary Meiko Kaji: Under the Sign of Scorpion
“Danny Boyle’s long-gestating biopic of the late technology guru and Apple founder Steve Jobs has finally begun shooting in San Francisco with Michael Fassbender in the lead role,” reports Ben Child for the Guardian.
“Oprah Winfrey and Selma filmmaker Ava DuVernay are creating an original series for OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network with Winfrey set to appear in a recurring role,” reports Elizabeth Wagmeister in Variety.
Kevin Spacey will soon be “playing a man who gets trapped in the body of a cat,” notes Peter Hall at Movies.com. “Yes, this is a real movie. It’s called Nine Lives and it comes from director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black) and the eccentric European studio EuropaCorp (Lucy).”
“Penelope Cruz and Diane Kruger are in negotiations to star romance-drama This Man, This Woman, with Isabel Coixet directing,” reports Variety‘s Dave McNary. Screenplay by Frederic Raphael (Eyes Wide Shut): “Cruz’s character encounters a former lover on a plane, sparking memories of their turbulent romantic relationship.”
“Alan Rickman will be joining Katie Holmes, Evan Rachel Wood and Zosia Mamet in Liz Garbus’s upcoming comedy Taxonomy.” THR‘s Alex Ritman: “Adapted from the 2013 novel A Taxonomy of Barnacles by Galt Niederhoffer and the first narrative feature from Garbus [What Happened, Miss Simone?], the film will see Holmes, Wood and Mamet play three sisters living together in an enormous New York apartment.”
“Hot off their Sundance Film Festival premiere, The D Train directors Andrew Mogel and Jarrad Paul are rolling on to their next bigscreen project, this time with Jonah Hill.” Stuart Oldham: “Mogel and Paul tell Variety they plan to adapt [Kevin Poulsen‘s] Wired magazine article ‘Finding a Vegas Poker Bug Made These Guys Rich — Then Vegas Made Them Pay,’ to which they recently bought the rights as a potential directing vehicle.”
Hold steady, John Steinbeck, here comes James Franco with plans to adapt In Dubious Battle. The feature will star himself, Vincent D’Onofrio, Robert Duvall, Ed Harris, Bryan Cranston and Danny McBride. Deadline‘s Mike Fleming Jr. reports.
For news and tips throughout the day every day, follow @KeyframeDaily. Get Keyframe Daily in your inbox by signing in at fandor.com/daily.
