Incredible Hulk’s Zak Penn limbers up

It cost $40m to make and took north of $300m at the box office. A sequel to The Karate Kid was clearly a no-brainer, and, following a previous draft by the Kung-Fu Panda team of Cyrus Voris and Ethan Reiff, the job of writing Karate Kid 2 has now fallen to Zak Penn.

Absolutely no details about the direction of the follow-up are yet being revealed, although there’s been speculation that, in a reversal of the original Ralph Macchio Karate Kid 2, the action might take us from Japan to the US. Columbia pictures are tight-lipped on the subject. Maybe Jaden Smith

Tony Shalhoub also at the table

Somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, on the deep ocean floor, there’s a waste pile of comedy ideas that didn’t quite make the transition between the UK and the US. The challenge of translating British comedy for American audiences is fraught with failure, with every Office countered by ten Couplings. But that doesn’t stop networks from trying, and now Allison Janney and Tony Shalhoub are set for the pilot of Friday Night Dinner.

The Channel 4 original has been a hit over here, featuring Tamsin Greig, Paul Ritter, Simon Bird, Tom Rosenthal and Mark Heap as the bickering Goodman family (and their creepy/weird dog-owning neighbour Jim) who spend every Friday night round the dinner table, which never quite goes to plan.

Created by Robert Popper, the show has been seen across the pond on BBC America and now NBC wants to give a US version a try, with Janney and Shalhoub taking over from Greig and Ritter as the parents. There’s hope for this one, as Greg Daniels, one of the leading lights behind the network’s take on The Office, is overseeing the pilot, which has Office regular director Ken Kwapis attached to direct. Daniels also has experience on the likes of The Simpsons and King Of The Hill.

As of right now, it’s just a pilot, but we’re intrigued to see how the typically British-style humour can be converted. Thankfully, Popper is also involved, so you know it’s in good hands this end. Still, we wonder if he’s been in touch with Steven Moffat to hear how badly it can all end…

Sources:
Janney Sits For Friday Night Dinner

He’s reuniting with Owen Wilson

The combination of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson was part of what led to success for Wedding Crashers, so you’d imagine that any studio would be eager to have them reunite. It would seem that 20th Century Fox will be the lucky recipients of some development changes, with Vulture reporting that it has secured the duo for Interns.

The plot will find Wilson and Vaughn as two fortysomething corporate types whose cushy jobs suddenly come to an end when they get downsized. They decided to take stock of their lives and switch tracks, taking up intern positions at a Google-style tech company. But while they figure their experience might serve them well, they’re suddenly thrust into competition with web-savvy, cutthroat 22-year-old ladder-climbers.

Vaughn wrote the script and had apparently put it into development with Universal. But then another project he was working on for the studio – Jeremy Garelick’s The Insane Laws – fell apart due to budget issues. That film hit the turnaround showers and Interns was sent along with it.

Now Fox has pounced thanks to Vaughn’s new relationship with Neighbourhood Watch producer Shawn Levy. Levy has also reportedly been having budget issues over his planned Frankenstein film, so he’s after another project. Levy’s had more than a little box office success (if not so much critical love) for his comedy work, so this could be a decent combo.

There’s been no official announcement, so all this is currently floating in the ether between rumour and truth, but with Fox on the hunt for more comedy hits, it could potentially be a big winner for them. Let’s just hope it’s more like Wedding Crashers and less like The Dilemma. In every sense.

Sources:
Vince Vaughn Developing Interns

Alongside Mark Wahlberg

Mark Wahlberg has been attached to graphic novel adaptation 2 Guns for a couple of months now. And it looks like he’ll be going toe-to-toe with Denzel Washington, as the Safe House star has now entered talks to snatch the other lead role.

Steven Grant created the Boom! Studios title that is fuelling the film, which finds a DEA agent and an undercover naval intelligence officer unwittingly investigating each other as they both steal mob money. Sounds like there will be more than two guns involved in this one…

While the movie was previously targeted as a directing job for David O Russell, the apparent current feud between director and actor now means that Wahlberg has turned to his new helming buddy, Icelandic megaphone-wielder Baltasar Korm

In the film of Steve Martin’s novel

She was last seen singing and dancing with Kermit and the gang in The Muppets, and now Amy Adams wants to make us all think about art. She’s signed on to star in and produce an adaptation of Steve Martin’s 2010 novel An Object Of Beauty.

Adams will play Lacey Yeager, a young, beautiful and captivating young woman who has real ambitions in the New York art world. After getting her start at Sotheby’s, the driven entrepreneur enjoys a 15-year meteoric rise through her chosen career, buying a gallery in the process, travelling the world and getting into a string of relationships, including one with an artist who goes on to become famous. Lacey’s journey charts the enjoyable highs and dark lows of the artistic community and the world at large. And since Martin himself knows a thing or two about art, it’s naturally loaded with authentic detail.

There are no real details about who will handle the writing/directing sides of the movie yet, but producers Trudie Styler and Celine Rattray of Maven Pictures are now on the hunt to find the right team. Given that Martin adapted Shopgirl for the screen, we wonder if he’ll get the first crack at this one…

Adams will next be seen in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, Jack Kerouac adaptation On The Road, Clint Eastwood drama Trouble With The Curve and Superman saga Man Of Steel.

Sources:
Amy Adams Will Be An Object Of Beauty

He’s making a comedy

Given how much Joseph Gordon-Levitt has enjoyed stretching himself in various creative ways both cinematically and musically, it was only a matter of time before his career wheel spun towards directing. Now he’s making that move, setting up an untitled comedy that he’s written and will also star in alongside Scarlett Johansson.

Talking to Deadline, the Inception star didn’t want to divulge many plot details, but he did reveal that he’s playing a “selfish dick” modern-day Don Juan-type who decides to try to better himself. “I wrote myself a helluva role, one that people wouldn’t necessarily thought of me for,” the actor says, admitting that he’s been preparing to watch himself on screen through his short film work. “It takes practice to get used to seeing yourself and not being freaked out and self conscious by the sound of your own voice.”

He’s locked in funding from Hurt Locker producer Nicolas Chartier’s Voltage Pictures, and plans to co-produce via his hitRecord Films company. “I was a child actor for years and quit at 19, went to school awhile, and a big part of why I came back was that I ultimately wanted to make movies,” Gordon-Levitt explains. “I spent a year working with Chris Nolan, Rian Johnson, Steven Spielberg, and I did my best to pay attention. I’ve also been making short films for a long time now, I’ve directed a ton of them, and that is a huge part of why I feel comfortable and confident in this.”

We’ll see the fruits of those directors’ labours this year, as Gordon-Levitt will be seen in Premium Rush, The Dark Knight Rises, Looper and Lincoln. But his filmmaking ambitions might keep him from sticking to his small part in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. “It will be tricky schedule-wise, but I was honest with Quentin upfront,” Gordon-Levitt says. “He was so cool and encouraging. He said, ‘You strike me as the kind of guy who would want to direct,’ and I took that as high praise.”

Sources:
Joseph Gordon-Levitt Turns Director

In the Anton Corbijn Le Carre pic

Last June, word broke that The American director Anton Corbijn was planning an adaptation of John Le Carre’s novel A Most Wanted Man. Now he’s found a star: Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Hoffman’s close to a deal to co-star in the film, which tracks a Chechen/Russian Muslim named Issa who arrives in Hamburg and gets caught up in the war on terror. Hoffman will be playing the rogue chief of a German spy unit who tries to track down the man’s whereabouts and untangle the mystery surrounding him.

Edge Of Darkness co-writer Andrew Bovell is the man behind the script, which is based on Le Carre’s 2008 book. Le Carre, who spent time in Hamburg during his stint as a British agent, partly took the story from the life experiences of Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen living legally in German who was arrested in Pakistan in 2001 and packed off to Guantanamo Bay before winning release in 2006.

The various producers on the movie will be hunting for sales on the film at the European Film Market in Berlin. There’s no sign yet when it might start shooting, but Hoffman’s involvement is a good sign that it’ll go ahead this year.

Sources:
Hoffman Is A Most Wanted Man

The vampire Lestat could be back…

It’s been a few years since we’ve seen Anne Rice’s most famous bloodsucker, Lestat, on the big screen. But he could be about to make a comeback as Imagine Entertainment have teamed up with producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman to option Rice’s fourth Vampire Chronicles book, The Tale Of The Body Thief.

Lee Patterson, who came to Hollywood’s attention with his screenplay Snatched, has been hired to write the adaptation. Body Thief finds Lestat depressed and lonely. Looking for a little change, he agrees to transfer souls for a day with a human psychic who promptly does a runner with his body. Trapped in human form, the vampire must reach out to some friends to help him track the man down and reclaim his body. Suffice to say that, despite the premise, the focus will be on horror and drama, not wacky shenanigans. So don’t go expecting scenes of whoever plays Lestat running down a street screaming, “Give me my body back!” as he sees the thief about to enter an ice cream shop for a marathon dessert session.

Lestat, of course, was the romantic, dangerous bloodsucker long before the current crop of sparkly, moody types came along. He was played back in 1994’s Interview With The Vampire by Tom Cruise and resurrected by Stuart Townsend for the decidedly dodgier Queen Of The Damned in 2002.

Body Thief is at a very early stage, so there’s no word on who might play the lead this time around – assuming the script makes it through development at all.

Sources:
Imagine Finds The Tale Of The Body Thief

‘I’ve got to stop him…’

Empire was one of the hosts at last night‘s international Amazing Spider-Man event, where fresh footage was revealed alongside a brand-new trailer for Marc Webb‘s web spectacular. And now, here it is online, and it’s looking good.

More wisecracks, more flashbacks, and some jaw-dropping action sequences make up its two-and-a-half minutes, and it should silence the critics who thought the previous Amazing Spider-Man trailer felt a little too much like a computer game.

As well as all that, there’s much more detail to be gleaned of Rhys Ifans’ Lizard, as well as Peter‘s police adversary (and in-law), George Stacy (Denis Leary).

There’s also a lovely moment where you can see the mechanical web shooters being assembled, and an enlightening snippet of Peter coming up with the formula that creates The Lizard in the first place.

So, what are you waiting for?

Along with Joey King

Insidious director James Wan has locked down the final two core cast members for his new haunted house horror, now known as The Warren Files. And he’s hired two young actresses who have roles in what will likely be the biggest films of the year: Mackenzie Foy and Joey King.

The Warren Files is based on the real-life experiences of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who reached out to try to help the Perron family after they claimed they were being haunted in their Rhode Island farmhouse.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga have signed on to play the Warrens, and Lilli Taylor and Ron Livingston will be the Perrons. Now Foy and King will play the daughters of the haunted family.

Foy already has some experience with horror; at least, the sparkly, tween-friendly type. She scored her big break when she was cast to play Edward and Bella’s hybrid spawn Renesmee Cullen in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2. King, meanwhile, had a memorable supporting part in Crazy, Stupid, Love and will crop up in The Dark Knight Rises. Given the likely success of both those films, we’re secretly hoping they show up to the Warren set demanding massive trailers and ice cream for every meal. But we’re sure that they’re probably entirely lovely people, damnit.

Wan is set to start shooting the film later this month in North Carolina.

Sources:
Mackenzie Foy On For The Warren Files