If you’re planning to make a romantic comedy about lovelorn zombies, it’s probably best to cast the most attractive people you can think of. If only so the audience is distracted when body parts start falling off during the love scenes.
If that’s the plan behind Diablo Cody’s upcoming production of Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament, then the screenwriter is off to a great start. Pajiba reports that Inception star Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Esquire’s Sexiest Woman Alive, Scarlett Johansson, are both loosely attached to star in the bizarre rom-com.
Based on the book by S.G. Browne, Breathers is about a man named Andy who joins the living dead after a tragic car accident kills him and his wife. Things only get worse for poor old Andy when he realizes that as a zombie, his civil rights are extremely limited.
Screenwriter Geoff Latulippe has already finished work on the script, with Jennifer’s Body and Juno screenwriter Cody set to produce the oddball pic. The search is now on for the right director to bring the strange story to life. So to speak.
Most recently seen on the big screen in Iron Man 2, Johansson celebrated her first Tony Award in June for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role in the Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge.
Fresh off his star turn in Inception, Gordon-Levitt is rumoured to be in the running to star as The Riddler in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming third Batman movie.
(Photo by PR Photos)
Story provided by the Dish Information Corporation
Up-and-coming actress Paula Patton has landed a major role. The 34-year-old stunner is set to star opposite Tom Cruise in the upcoming blockbuster Mission: Impossible 4.
Deadline reports that the actress, who has previously appeared in the Outkast musical Idlewild, the thriller Mirrors and the critically acclaimed Precious, screen-tested for the role along with Lauren German and Kristen Kreuk before landing the part.
Patton will star as a young operative working alongside Cruise’s spymaster Ethan Hunt. She’ll join The Hurt Locker’s Jeremy Renner as a newcomer on the cast, in a flick intended to launch a new series of M:I films that will carry on without Cruise.
Deadline also reports that M:I4 won’t actually be called Mission: Impossible 4, though no new title has been announced just yet.
Brad Bird, the Pixar animation director behind such classics as The Incredibles and Ratatouille is making his live-action directing debut on the $140 million picture.
The three previous M:I films, based on the 1960s television series of the same name, have grossed over $1.4 billion at the box office. Shooting on M:I4 – or whatever it’s going to be called – is set to begin this fall.
(Photo by PR Photos)
Story provided by the Dish Information Corporation
Production was halted on the Chicago set of Transformers 3 after a woman working as an extra was seriously injured during filming.
The Michael Bay production was shut down after things went seriously wrong with a stunt involving numerous cars and drivers on Wednesday evening. Gabriela V. Cedillo, 24, was airlifted to Loyola University Medical Center with serious head injuries following the tragic mishap.
Indiana State Police say an object smashed through the windshield of Cedillo’s car and hit her. The car then smashed into a concrete barrier and continued to travel for almost a mile before coming to a stop.
The roads being used for filming the scene had already been closed by the city for construction and demolition work to be completed after shooting had wrapped. Transformers 3 has been filming in Chicago for weeks. Shooting in the city had been scheduled to finish on Thursday.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that a spokesperson for the production was not immediately available for comment. Indiana State Police are investigating the incident and refused to comment on possible charges.
(Photo by PR Photos)
Story provided by the Dish Information Corporation
One problem with being a success in Hollywood, particularly if you’re young, is that you get typecast. Zac Efron, it seems, does not want to be typecast.
Efron is, of course, known throughout the world as the singin’ and dancin’ Troy Bolton from Disney’s hugely successful High School Musical franchise. But the 22-year-old actor is eager to move on from that wholesome image and establish himself as a serious actor.
On his way to achieving that goal, he’s just signed on to play a con man in the upcoming heist movie Art of the Steal.
Industry trade magazine Variety reports that Efron will play a smooth-talking criminal with a double life in the thriller. A true story based on an article from Wired magazine, Art of the Steal is about a thief who concocts elaborate heists while living behind the façade of a respectable citizen.
The 22-year-old Charlie St. Cloud star will produce the pic with his production company, Ninjas Runnin’ Wild.
Max Borenstein is currently writing the script, based on the article by journalist Joshuah Bearman. There’s no shooting schedule for the flick just yet, but expect one to be announced as soon as a director is chosen.
(Photo by PR Photos)
Story provided by the Dish Information Corporation
There is a growing uproar south of the border as politicians rage against a nationwide billboard campaign to promote an upcoming teen sex comedy.
Deadline reports that the billboards, which read: “Still A Virgin? For Help, Call 888-742-4335″ are part of a guerilla marketing campaign for the R-rated comedy The Virginity Hit from Sony Pictures. But politicians in Louisiana, Miami, San Diego and Arizona have demanded that the billboards come down.
The movie, about a trio of friends trying to help their buddy lose his virginity – and film the act for posterity – is a largely improvised comedy produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay.
When the phone number on the roadside advertisements is dialed, callers hear a recorded message from members of the movie’s cast, suggesting options for troubled virgins. It has been dialed 70,000 times in the past five days.
Guerilla marketing campaigns are the latest hot trend in film advertising, particularly for small-budget films that may have a harder time being noticed among the blockbusters. The Last Exorcism, Paranormal Activity and the Banksy-directed art film Exit Through the Gift Shop all benefited from various types of guerilla advertising.
No word from Sony on whether the studio plans to heed politicians’ concerns and take the billboards down. The Virginity Hit – which was made for only $2 million dollars – will do its best to score in theatres when it’s released September 10th.
(Photo by PR Photos)
Story provided by the Dish Information Corporation
Former pro-wrestling superstar The Rock a.k.a. Dwayne Johnson started his Hollywood career by making action films like Walking Tall before transitioning into family pictures like The Tooth Fairy.
Now the buff charmer seems to have found a project that will let him do both.
The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Johnson is set to take over for Brendan Fraser in the upcoming sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth, entitled Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.
Fraser was apparently set to return for the follow-up but couldn’t agree with the pic’s producers on a shooting schedule. Now the Mummy star is out and the former squared-circle grappler is in.
Young star Josh Hutcherson will be back for the sequel. He’ll reprise his role as teen explorer Sean Anderson in a story that will be loosely based on Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island and will feature Johnson as Anderson’s mother’s new boyfriend, who somehow gets entangled in the action.
Journey will be shot and released in 3D, as was the original, which grossed over $250 million back in 2008. The production is set to begin shooting in late October, just as soon as Johnson wraps The Fast and the Furious 5.
For the second year in a row, Forbes magazine has named Shia LaBeouf the most valuable star in Hollywood. The business magazine says that when it comes to dollars spent versus dollars earned, no one can touch LaBeouf for value.
“For every $1 studios spend on the 24-year-old actor his films return an average $81 of profit,” reports the influential magazine. LaBeouf’s roles in blockbusters such as the Transformers pics and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull have made him one of the biggest names in Hollywood, while his asking price has yet to approach that of long-time stars like Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise.
Second place on the list goes to Alice in Wonderland’s Anne Hathaway. Forbes says that it’s because women in Hollywood tend to earn less than their male counterparts that half of the top 10 names on the list are female.
To make the list, Forbes first picked the top 36 moneymakers in Tinsel Town who have starred in at least three movies in the past five years. The mag then compared what the stars were paid versus what their movies made at the box office to determine how much those stars are worth.
Following Hathaway to round out the top five are Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, the invincible Iron Man Robert Downey Jr., and Cate Blanchett. A surprise in sixth place was The Switch’s Jennifer Aniston.
Though Aniston’s salary doesn’t approach that of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars, pics like The Bounty Hunter do well enough to make her name a valuable addition to the marquee.
Here are the top ten actors and their return on investment numbers:
1. Shia LaBeouf ($81)
2. Anne Hathaway ($64)
3. Daniel Radcliffe ($61)
4. Robert Downey Jr. ($33)
5. Cate Blanchett ($27)
6. Jennifer Aniston ($21)
7. Meryl Streep ($21)
8. Johnny Depp ($18)
9. Nicolas Cage ($17)
10. Sarah Jessica Parker ($17)
(Photo by PR Photos)
Team Jacob may need to break out the pom-poms to support their hunk if a California RV dealer gets his wish. The truck salesman has declared that he wants to face-off against Twilight star Taylor Lautner in a push-up contest.
The challenge by Brent McMahon, owner of McMahon’s RVs in Irvine, California, is intended to settle a lawsuit filed against him by the 18-year-old dreamboat. Cinematical reports that the contest would be for the $40,000 for which Lautner has sued McMahon.
The legal dispute began when Lautner accused the dealer of failing to provide the $300,000 dressing room trailer he’d ordered. When the RV did show up, the teen idol was disappointed to find it wasn’t made to his specifications. He reportedly claimed to have suffered “emotional distress.”
After Lautner filed suit for $40,000, McMahon responded by issuing the push-up challenge. McMahon says if the buff Lautner wins, he’ll give the full 40 grand as a donation to the Children’s Hospital of Orange County.
The move is clearly something of a publicity stunt and Lautner’s legal team wasn’t thrilled with what they are calling a “facetious” suggestion. Nonetheless, the Twilighter’s camp has indicated that if the money goes to the hospital, the suit could be dropped.
(Photo by PR Photos)
Story provided by the Dish Information Corporation
Lindsay Lohan is ready to fight. For her career.
The troubled young Hollywood starlet says that she knows she’s made mistakes but that she is “a damn good actress” who wants a return to the incredible career she once had.
“I want my career back,” LiLo tells Vanity Fair in the current issue of the magazine. “I know that I’m a damn good actress, and it’s been my passion since I was a child, and I know that when I care about something, I put 100% and more into it.”
The interview took place last month, just before the 24-year-old star headed off to the big house to do her time stemming from parole violations that followed a 2007 DUI arrest.
USA Today and the New York Post published excerpts from the interview on Tuesday. In them, Lohan admits to her irresponsibility, but says that a lack of structure in her life led to her making a lot of bad choices.
“I was irresponsible,” she admits. “I didn’t have any structure…I think a lot of it was because when I was doing my first slew of movies, it was very go-go, and I had a lot of responsibility, and I think just the second I didn’t have [structure] anymore — I was 18, 19 — with a ton of money.”
Lohan also takes a swipe at her infamous father, tabloid magnet and notorious meddler Michael Lohan. “I think if anyone should be looked at medically it’s him,” she says. “He has such a big chemical imbalance at this point because of all the things he’s done to himself.”
(Photo by PR Photos)
Story provided by the Dish Information Corporation
A lot of people, it would be safe to say, prefer to see George Clooney in front of the camera than behind it. However, it’s starting to seem as though the Hollywood superstar prefers things the other way around.
Though he continues to star in big budget, high profile films like the upcoming The American, the Ocean’s 11 star is also fond of directing films such as his 2005 hit Good Night, and Good Luck.
Now New York Magazine’s Vulture reports that Clooney is preparing to shoot Farragut North, an adaptation of an off-Broadway play about political insiders working on a presidential campaign.
Clooney is reportedly reaching out to his Hollywood friends to cast the project with such top-of-the-line talent as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and Star Trek’s Chris Pine. Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio were also both set to join the cast until their schedules got in the way.
The formerER doc is reportedly also trying to recruit Evan Rachel Wood and Marisa Tomei to join the project.
Beau Willimon, a former Democratic party operative who worked on Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential bid, wrote the original play and the screenplay based on his experiences on the campaign trail.
Farragut North, which will be financed independently, is set to begin shooting in February.
(Photo by PR Photos)
Story provided by the Dish Information Corporation
