The Screengrab : james mangold

The Last Morning Deal Report

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:00:00 GMT

A word of warning: just because this is our last Morning Deal Report at the Screengrab doesn’t mean Hollywood is going to stop announcing ridiculous projects. You’ll just have to find out about them somewhere else. I wish I could say we’ve saved the best for last, but we can only work with what they give us.

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz will reunite for James Mangold’s Wichita. It is not the story of a lineman who’s still on the line. “The script has been through many machinations, but the most recent drafts were done by Scott Frank, with Mangold currently fine-tuning the script with Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island). Two-hander has several action scenes. Cruise will play a secret agent who pops in and out of the life of a single woman,” Variety reports.

Kevin Smith has found another pair of dicks. “Seann William Scott and Adam Brody are joining Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in Warner Bros.' A Couple of Dicks,” Smith’s new buddy action comedy, per The Hollywood Reporter. Smith did not write the script, which is by script Robb and Mark Cullen, and “follows a maverick cop (Willis) and his partner (Morgan) who, while tracking a valuable stolen baseball card, tangle with a memorabilia-obsessed gangster and rescue a Mexican beauty who holds the key to millions in laundered drug money.”

Also, there will be another Batman movie, another Star Trek, another James Bond, and at some point, probably another King Kong remake. Save us the aisle seat!

Morning Deal Report: Ron Howard’s Strange Adventure

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:45:00 GMT

Ron Howard may be bringing The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft to the screen. Universal has purchased the rights to the Image Comics graphic novel for Howard’s Imagine Entertainment. The comic book “borrows elements from Lovecraft’s life, such as his family’s struggle with mental illness and his own bouts with writer’s block, and transforms the young writer’s darkest nightmares into reality when he comes across a book that puts a curse on him and lets the evils he conjures up loose on the world,” Variety reports.

Isaiah Washington is set to play a legendary soul singer in a new biopic. Washington will play Lou Rawls, who “sang in a range of styles that included blues, soul, funk and R&B, selling millions of albums and earning legions of fans, as well as the accolades of Frank Sinatra. He also, according to the script, had a traumatic life, enduring a poverty-stricken childhood and, in adulthood, intense marital strife,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

Vanilla Sky reunion? Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are eyeing a new romantic comedy from James Mangold, previously titled Wichita and Trouble Man, but now untitled. “Story revolves around a woman who has terrible luck with men but finds her path intertwined with that of a mysterious handsome man she meets on a blind date,” says Variety.

Related:
Screengrab Review: "Frost/Nixon"
Tom Cruise Still Creepy, Still Not Funny

Morning Deal Report: Scarlett Johansson, Amazon Warrior

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Are we ready for Scarlett Johansson, action hero? Ready or not, here she comes in her new dark red hairdo. Johansson is set to star in Amazon Warrior, set in the year 200 B.C. “I think I'm supposed to be a gladiatrix,” Johansson tells Variety. “These film guys are crazy about gladiatrixes. But do I fit into the Amazon mold? I'm a Danish/Jewish girl from New York. I've done weapons training. I've fired all kinds of guns: 9 mm, semi-automatics, machine-guns, shotguns. I've jumped off a 60-foot building. I learned to ride for The Horse Whisperer. But I've never done a full-on action role. I guess I'm still waiting for my Cirque du Soleil moment. It would be fun.”

The third Twilight movie may have found its director. “Sources indicate that horror wunderkind -- and Guillermo Del Toro protege -- Juan Antonio Bayona has emerged as one of the finalists to direct Eclipse,” per The Hollywood Reporter. “Bayona's name has come up in recent months, though generally in a group of other directors -- an eclectic list that's ranged from Paul Weitz to Drew Barrymore to James Mangold.” Any movie that could just as easily be directed by any of those people is surely one to look forward to.

Chariots of the Gods is returning to the big screen, but sadly it’s not a Sunn Classics documentary this time. Paradox Entertainment has acquired the rights to “Erich von Daniken's 1968 bestselling book that pressed the case that Earth was visited by aliens. The premise will be turned into a science fiction film that will be produced by Paradox's Fredrik Malmberg and Amber Entertainment's Mark Ordesky.”

Related:
Scarlett Johansson Blows. Her Nose! Blows Her Nose!
Your Thursday Afternoon "Twilight" Roundup

Morning Deal Report: Feeling a Little McClammy

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:30:00 GMT

You may not have heard of Wayne McClammy, but if you’ve been anywhere near YouTube in the past six months, you’ve probably seen his work. He’s the guy behind the Jimmy Kimmel video “I’m Fucking Matt Damon” and its inevitable follow-up, “I’m Fucking Ben Affleck.” Now he’s got a movie deal, which is making me rethink my plan to shelve my proposed short, “I’m Blowing Ernest Borgnine.” In any case, McClammy will co-write and direct Le Car, which the Hollywood Reporter says “is designed to unspool as a ‘found film’ made in the 1980s about a group of CIA agents who try to foil a plot by an evil car aiming to detonate an H-bomb at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y.” Oh please, not that old story again.

Time travel is all the rage in Hollywood. Just the other day we told you about Spike Lee’s The Time Traveler, and now Variety reports that James Mangold (Walk the Line) is on board to direct The Archive, scripted by Proof playwright David Auburn. More time-bending comedy, albeit in the Groundhog Day mode, comes from Universal, which has picked up Repeat After Me. Per the Hollywood Reporter, it “revolves around a couple who realize that they are reliving their disastrous wedding day again and again and start to question getting married in the first place.”

Can Back to the Future IV be far behind? Or ahead? Whatever?