“Deadline reports that [Paul] Greengrass is slated to helm and write The Director, with [Scott] Rudin producing,” notes the Playlist‘s Kevin Jagernauth. “Based on the forthcoming novel by David Ignatius, the story concerns hacking, the CIA and a search into the darkest corners of the web for a spy.”
“Harvey Weinstein stirred up gun rights advocates when he said on Howard Stern’s radio show that he plans to make a project that takes on the National Rifle Assn. and the issue of firearms ‘head on,'” reports Ted Johnson for Variety. “Weinstein did not go into specifics about the project, but said that Meryl Streep was involved and that it would not be a documentary but ‘a big movie like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.'”
“Denis Villeneuve, the director of the acclaimed thriller Prisoners, has signed on to direct The Story of Your Life, an adaptation of a short story by Nebula and Hugo Award-winning author Ted Chiang.” Borys Kit has details in the Hollywood Reporter.
Citing a report from Flix, the Playlist‘s Cain Rodriguez notes that Athina Rachel Tsangari will soon begin shooting Chevalier “with a script co-written by her and the writer of Dogtooth and Alps, Efthimis Filippou. The film will follow a group of men stranded out at sea on a yacht who ‘kill their time playing a game they devise called Chevalier, an entertaining and highly competitive game. No intends to get off the yacht without being crowned its winner.'”
Steven Soderbergh will direct Chloë Grace Moretz in The Library, a new play by Scott Z. Burns, who wrote the screenplays for Soderbergh’s Contagion, The Informant! and Side Effects. The Los Angeles Times‘ David Ng reports that the play sees its official opening in April at New York’s Public Theater.
“Showtime says Philip Seymour Hoffman will star in a new comedy series about a middle-aged man’s pursuit of happiness.” The AP reports that Happyish will co-star Kathryn Hahn and Rhys Ifans.
A “romantic version of the 1956 film Nineteen Eighty-Four, based on George Orwell’s classic 1949 novel about a dystopian society, is on its way,” warns Alison Nastasi at Movies.com. “Kristen Stewart has signed on to star opposite Nicholas Hoult in the futuristic love story, Equals.”
The MacArthur Foundation, “a supporter of independently produced film and video for more than 30 years,” has “announced 18 grants totaling $2 million for documentary film projects. The documentaries address a range of important issues, including immigration, wrongful convictions, and the aftermath of genocide.”
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