She’ll star in Tony Kaye’s thriller

How things change, part 4,532: Once upon a time (that time being the 1990s, and briefly again in 2006, though we don’t like to think about that), Sharon Stone was the sexy stalker. Now, in Tony Kaye’s new thriller Attachment, she will be the stalkee.

Stone has signed on to play a married woman who has an affair with a student. And because this is a sexual thriller, things don’t go well once the relationship ends. Turns out her former paramour has been cribbing from both Fatal Attraction and Fear and, er, The Graduate, as he shows up dating her daughter and then begins to terrorise her family.

Christopher Denham wrote the script, and there’s a plan in place for Kaye to kick off shooting in April. The producers at Panther Films will be taking the project to Berlin’s European Film Market next week to drum up some sales.

Kaye already has one film that features students and “tachment” in it – that would be Adrien Brody educational drama Detachment, which will hit US screens in March, but has no set UK date yet. Stone has just shot action thriller The Mule and is currently at work on Lovelace alongside Amanda Seyfried and Peter Sarsgaard.

Sources:
Sharon Stone Gets An Attachment

With Jessica Chastain

In a time when studios are increasingly worried about risky, challenging prospects for films, it’s heartening to see someone looking to change things up a little. Kudos, then, to Joel Edgerton and Jessica Chastain for signing on to the intriguing double bill of The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby: His and The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby: Hers.

No, we haven’t suffered some huge copy and paste error – the two standalone films will tell one story, but from a pair of perspectives. Ned Benson wrote the two scripts and is on to direct both movies.

The spine of the drama will follow a married couple in New York who hit a rough patch in their relationship. Edgerton will play a restaurant owner, and Chastain will be his wife, who decides to go back to college. There’s a chance that William Hurt could also sign on, as he’s in talks for the movie.

Myriad Pictures is the company backing the films, and the company’s CEO seems enthused by the idea, as expressed in his statement, picked up by Deadline: “Ned has created rich and engaging characters. They are complex, and it is unique to have two different scripts to tell the story. It doesn’t matter which script you read first, you absolutely want to read the other perspective.” Still, he admits that there will be challenges. “We have to make both films work on their own, both for the buyers but also for the audiences. Together these films will describe a fully, more complete look at these characters and their lives.”

Sources:
Joel Edgerton Takes A Double Feature

And also Beautiful Creatures

Shocking as it might seem to some given her career, The Help actually marked the first time Viola Davis scored the leading role in a film. But following her awards-laden performance (which may yet land her an Oscar), she’s now firmly at the top of the list for many casting directors, and has landed two plum parts, one in Ender’s Game and one in Beautiful Creatures.

We’ll tackle Creatures first: backed by Warner Bros. and Alcon, it’s been adapted from Margaret Stohl-Kami Garcia’s book about two teens dealing with a curse that has bedevilled the girl’s family for generations.

Davis has snagged one of the leads, a librarian who happens to be a friend of the boy, who loves him like a mother and looks out for him.

Richard LaGravenese wrote the script and aims to start directing the film this April in New Orleans. If it’s successful, the studio is hoping it’ll spawn a new franchise, and has obtained the rights to the other books in the trilogy, Beautiful Darkness and Beautiful Chaos.

Ender’s Game, of course is also adapted from a novel – Orson Scott Card’s to be exact. Wolverine director Gavin Hood cracked the adaptation last year, and he’s already recruited Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin, Ben Kingsley and Harrison Ford to star in the story of young Ender Wiggin. He’s a preciously talented youngster recruited by humanity to fight off an insect-like alien race. He and other young people are sent to a military training academy where Davis will be a psychologist who both designs the games that test the recruits and oversees their mental wellbeing.

According to Variety, Game will shoot first with Creatures set to follow later in the year once the rest of the cast has been assembled.

Sources:
Viola Davis Joins Ender’s Game