Film Journal July 2018

FILM CO. NEWS
ANNAPURNA
Hugh Jackman, Zoe Saldana,
Zach Galifianakis, Emma
Thompson and Timothy Olyphant
are among the voice cast
of Missing Link, the upcoming
fifth feature from stop-motion
animation studio LAIKA. Para-
Norman helmer Chris Butler returns
to the director’s chair in
addition to writing. Hugh Jackman
will play Sir Lionel Frost,
a self-proclaimed cryptozoology
expert who travels to the
Pacific Northwest in search of
a creature (voiced by Galifianakis)
who represents the missing
link between mankind and its
primitive ancestors.
DISNEY
Marvel Studios has hired a
pair of writers—Matthew and
Ryan Firpo—to pen an adaptation
of the comic series The
Eternals. Created by Jack Kirby
in the ’70s, the eponymous
Eternals are a group of superpowered
immortals who routinely
square off against rival
race the Deviants for control
of the Earth.
GLOBAL ROAD
Global Road Entertainment
acquired North American distribution
rights to a new adaptation
of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s
classic children’s book The
Secret Garden. Colin Firth and
Julie Walters will play the two
main adult roles, while 10-yearold
heroine Mary Lennox has yet
to be cast. Marc Munden, whose
TV credits include “Utopia” and
“National Treasure,” will direct.
Bill & Ted Ride Again
Excellent. Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves are set to reprise
the roles of Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan in
a third film in the Bill & Ted franchise. MGM’s Bill & Ted Face the
Music will be directed by Dean Parisot, whose credits include
Galaxy Quest and Red 2; Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, who
wrote Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted’s Bogus
Journey, are on scripting duties. Cue the air guitar.
Jordan Peele to Follow Get Out with Us
Jordan Peele will team with Winston Duke, Lupita
Nyong’o and Elizabeth Moss for Us, the writer-director’s
follow-up to indie horror Oscar winner Get Out. Little is
known about the film, save that it’s said to involve two
couples, one white and one black. Universal has set a release
date of March 15, 2019.
Kevin Hart Goes Uptown Saturday Night
The ever-busy Kevin Hart is reportedly in talks to star in
a remake of Uptown Saturday Night for Warner Bros. Directed
by and co-starring Sidney Poitier, the original film focused
on the attempts of a pair of men (Poitier and Bill Cosby) to
recover a winning lottery ticket that’s been stolen from them.
The remake, which has been in development for several years,
was initially set to star Will Smith and Denzel Washington;
now, Washington is out, and Smith will serve as a co-producer.
A director and co-star have yet to be set.
PARAMOUNT
Several months out from
the release of his feature directorial
debut A Star Is Born,
Bradley Cooper appears to
already have his next foray
behind the camera all planned
out. The Oscar-nominated
Cooper will direct and star in
Bernstein, a biopic of composer
Leonard Bernstein, for Paramount
Pictures and Amblin Entertainment.
Josh Singer (Spotlight)
will pen the script. Jake
Gyllenhaal is producing a competing
film about Bernstein,
who conducted the New York
Philharmonic in addition to
composing music for West Side
Story and On the Waterfront.
Gyllenhaal’s version, titled The
American, will be directed by
Cary Joji Fukunaga.
Paramount and Hasbro are
determined to rejuvenate the
G.I. Joe film franchise. A third
movie based on the popular
military-themed toy line has
been in the works for some
time now, and in 2015 the creation
of a writers room was
announced for the purpose of
crafting a Hasbro cinematic
universe. The latest word
is that Evan Spiliotopoulos
(Beauty and the Beast, Brett
Ratner’s Hercules) will write a
spinoff focused on fan-favorite
character Snake-Eyes. Played
by Ray Park in G.I. Joe: The Rise
of Cobra and G.I. Joe: Retaliation,
Snake-Eyes is a commando
who never speaks and never
removes his mask.
Son of a Gun director Julius
Avery is teaming with Paramount
for The Heavy, said to
be a subversive take on the
superhero genre. Onboard to
produce is J.J. Abrams, who
also serves as a producer on
Avery’s upcoming film Overlord,
a World War II war drama with
zombies. That film is out from
Paramount on Oct. 26, 2018.
SCREEN MEDIA
Screen Media has acquired
the romantic drama Bel Canto,
directed by Paul Weitz (“Mozart
in the Jungle”) and based
on the best-selling book by Ann
Patchett. The book, based on
true events, tells of a group
of people taken hostage in
the Japanese embassy in Lima,
Peru in the mid-1990s. Julianne
Moore, Ken Watanabe,
Sebastian Koch, Christopher
Lambert, Ryo Jase, Tenoch
Huerta and María Mercedes
Coroy star.
SONY
The long-in-development
Bad Boys for Life has been given
a release date of Jan. 17, 2020.
This third movie in the Bad Boys
series was officially announced
back in 2015 with an eye on a
February 2017 release date.
Obviously, that didn’t pan out;
delays led to the loss of a director
(The A-Team’s Joe Carnahan)
and removal from Sony’s
schedule. Newly attached to
direct are Adil El Arbi and Bilall
Fallah. Will Smith and Martin
Lawrence are expected to return
as Miami detectives Mike
Lowrey and Marcus Burnett,
respectively.
Hugh Jackman will play
disgraced politician Gary Hart
in Sony’s biographical political
drama The Front Runner. Senator
Hart was considered the
frontrunner for the Democratic
nomination to the Presidency
in 1988 before news of an
extramarital affair torpedoed
his chances. Jason Reitman will
co-write (with Matt Bai and Jay
Carson) and direct the film,
which is based on Bai’s book All
the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics
Went Tabloid. Vera Farmiga,
J.K. Simmons and Sara Paxton
co-star.
STX ENTERTAINMENT
Channing Tatum and regular
collaborator Reid Carolin will
be two of the producers on
Zombie Brother, to be written
by Matt Lieberman (upcoming
films Scooby and The Addams
Family) and directed by David
Sandberg (Kung Fury). The film
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