At the AV Club, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky reports that “having turned the rape-revenge thriller into a corrosive critique of social mores with Elle,” Paul Verhoeven “has set his sights on another staple of 70s Euro sleaze: nunsploitation.” Elle producer Saïd Ben Saïd has announced that Verhoeven plans to begin filming Blessed Virgin this fall with Virginie Efira, “who played Rebecca, the neighbor’s wife, in Elle.” This will be “an adaption of Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy, historian Judith C. Brown’s very well-regarded 1986 book about Sister Benedetta Carlini, a 17th-century mystic whose claims of visions led to an investigation by the Church that uncovered her sexual relationship with another nun.”
“After previously taking the film off its calendar, Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions look to be moving forward with a World War Z sequel, with David Fincher directing and Brad Pitt back to the star,” reports Variety‘s Justin Kroll. “Fincher hasn’t directed a film since Gone Girl. The filmmaker has been turning his attention to television as of late. He recently shot the Netflix pilot Mindhunter.”
Olivier Père, director-general of ARTE France Cinéma, has announced that his selection committee has picked four new projects to back:
- Gustave Kervern and Benoît Delépine‘s comedy I Feel Good with Jean Dujardin and Yolande Moreau.
- Christophe Honoré‘s Plaire, baiser et courir vite (working title) with Louis Garrel and Vincent Lacoste.
- Corneliu Porumboiu‘s Gomera, which will be shot in Romania, La Gomera (one of the Canary Islands), and Singapore. With Vlad Ivanov.
- And Jia Zhangke‘s Money and Love, depicting three moments in the life of a woman (Zhao Tao) from 2001 to 2016.
“Hot off the success of La La Land, Damien Chazelle is setting his sights on TV.” Bryn Elise Sandberg for the Hollywood Reporter: “The Oscar-winning director is attached to helm The Eddy, a musical drama set in contemporary multicultural Paris that revolves around a club, its owner, the house band and the volatile city that surrounds them.”
Laura Dern, Naomi Watts, Patricia Arquette, and Hailey Gates on working with David Lynch; Twin Peaks returns on May 21
“Jesse Eisenberg has teamed with J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot Prods. for The Market, a half-hour single-camera comedy series project, which Eisenberg is writing and will be starring in and directing,” reports Deadline‘s Nellie Andreeva. “The Market centers on the recently widowed Harold Katzman who moves to Pittsburgh to live with his adult son, Stan (Eisenberg). Both men simultaneously lose their jobs due to the changing American economy and are thrust into an unforgiving job market.”
“HBO is teaming with Barry Levinson and Robert De Niro on a small screen version of Wag the Dog,” reports Deadline‘s Denise Petski. “HBO describes the series as ‘an ode to the classic film, but moving the weapons of mass distraction beyond politics and into business, entertainment, and yes, non-profits. In the 21st Century with the tools of social media at their hands, nothing is off-limits to a small group of operators when it comes to manufacturing reality. Fake news is so yesterday.'”
At the Playlist, Oliver Lyttelton has the release date for Wes Anderson’s stop-motion animated feature, Isles of Dogs, with Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Greta Gerwig, and many more top-liners: April 20, 2018.
Also, M. Night Shyamalan’s next film will be a sequel to both Unbreakable (2000) and Split (2016). Glass will feature Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, James McCoy, and Anya Taylor-Joy.
Yu Ji-Tae is set to become the first Asian actor to appear in a film by Lars von Trier as he joins the cast of The House That Jack Built, reports Sonia Kil for Variety. “Set in the US in the 1970s, House revolves around a serial killer played by Matt Dillon. Uma Thurman, Bruno Ganz, and Riley Keough are also on board.”
Jeff Goldblum, “who co-starred in 1993’s Jurassic Park and 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park, will appear in Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment’s next Jurassic World film.” The Hollywood Reporter‘s Rebecca Ford: “Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are returning for the sequel, which also stars Justice Smith, James Cromwell, and Toby Jones.” And J.A. Bayona (A Monster Calls) will direct.
“Tom McCarthy, who directed the Oscar-winning drama Spotlight, is in negotiations to co-write and direct Timmy Failure, Walt Disney Studios’ live-action adaptation of the children’s book by Stephan Pastis,” reports THR‘s Borys Kit.
HAIM’s “Right Now” directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Madonna has read Blonde Ambition, Elyse Hollander’s Black List-topping screenplay about the singer’s beginnings, and declared it “all lies,” according to the BBC’s Mark Savage. “In theory, that’s not a barrier to the film getting made, but the script relies heavily on Madonna’s music, including ‘Like a Virgin,’ ‘Everybody’ and ‘Lucky Star.’ If the singer vetoes their use, the project would essentially be dead in the water.” Producers Michael De Luca (The Social Network) and Brett Ratner (X-Men) are attached.” Savage and his team have “read a publicly available draft to see how closely it stuck to Madonna’s story.”
Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner are “in final negotiations to join Jon Favreau’s live-action take on The Lion King,” reports TheWrap‘s Matt Donnelly. They “join Donald Glover in the lead as lion cub Simba, and James Earl Jones as his father Mufasa.”
“Joe Johnston, the director behind the original Jumanji, has been tapped to helm the next Narnia film, The Silver Chair,” reports THR‘s Mia Galuppo.
And from THR‘s Ashley Lee comes word that Robert Smigel will direct Adam Sandler and Chris Rock in Netflix’s The Week Of, which “centers on the week before a wedding in which their characters’ kids get married.”
