The Cloon is getting political again. According to Variety, George Clooney “has bought the rights to Jonathan Mahler's legal thriller The Challenge, about the long campaign waged by U.S. Navy lawyer Charles Swift and Georgetown law professor Neal Katyal to ensure a fair trial for Salim Hamdan, the bodyguard and driver of Osama bin Laden.” Presumably Clooney will play the lawyer and not the driver.
Conan (the Barbarian, not the O’Brien) dons his loincloth again for Lionsgate. Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain, who have written an Amazon warrior vehicle for Scarlett Johansson, will pen the return of Robert E. Howard’s creation. (Presumably the governor of California is unavailable to reprise his role.) The Hollywood Reporter quotes producer Fredrik Malmberg as saying “We all want this movie to go into production as soon as possible,” so you know quality is priority number one.
Willem Dafoe is a versatile fellow, isn’t he? He played Jesus in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, and now he’s set to star in Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist. It doesn’t sound like he’s necessarily taking on the title role, however. Variety describes it as a “psychological thriller that evolves into a horror film,” in which “Dafoe and [Charlotte] Gainsbourg will play a couple who retreat to an isolated cabin in the woods following the death of their child.” That Von Trier, he’s a million laughs.
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