The Casting Couch: September 21, 2006
Making up for lost time...
So, The Casting Couch took a couple of days off since there wasn’t a whole lot to report, but today things picked up so old baggage from earlier this week will be included in what will be known as the largest Casting Couch to date… Boy oh boy, a producer could have fun with some of these names, especially our first one, let’s dig in…
Angelina Jolie is set to star in the film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” for Lionsgate.
The story is of Dagny Taggart (Jolie), and her struggles to manage a transcontinental railroad amid the pressures and restrictions of massive bureaucracy. Her antagonistic reaction to a libertarian group seeking an end to government regulation is later echoed and modified in her encounter with a utopian community, Galt’s Gulch, whose members regard self-determination rather than collective responsibility as the highest ideal. [Variety]
Next we have an answer to the confusion over who the next to be cast in the Richard Matheson adaptation I Am Legend and it is not Gabrielle Union, it is Brazilian actor Alice Braga that will join Will Smith in the “end of days” thriller as was reported by BlackFilm. [Variety]
Jesse Bradford is set to star in Gold Circle’s My Sassy Girl alongside Elisha Cuthbert. The film is a remake of a South Korean rom-com that tells the story of a small-town guy (Bradford) from the Midwest who thought he had his entire life mapped out until he falls for a reckless, brazen girl (Cuthbert) who turns his life upside down. Shooting will start in early November in New York with Yann Samuell directing. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Carlos Mencia is set to star in the now untitled Farrelly brothers comedy alongside Ben Stiller and Michelle Monaghan. The film, once titled Seven Day Itch finds Stiller playing a man who hastily marries a young woman he thinks is his perfect mate. As he watches her turn into a nightmare on their honeymoon, he meets another woman who might be his real soulmate (Monaghan). [Variety]
One more has been added to the Adam Sandler comedy I Now Pronouce You Chuck and Larry as Richard Chamberlain takes on a role. On top of that, if you are interested in seeing some set pics featuring Sandler and co-star Jessica Biel click here. [Variety]
Two new names have been added to the cast of the Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler starrer P.S. I Love You as Lisa Kudrow and Jeffrey Dean Morgan join the cast. The film is based on the novel by Cecilia Ahern and centers on a widow whose life is rejuvenated when letters left by her husband send her on a series of adventures. LaGravenese and Steve Rodgers adapted for the screen. Kudrow will star as one of Swank’s best friends, a successful and single press agent in NYC. Morgan takes a love interest role opposite Swank as an Irish singer whom her character falls for in Dublin. [Variety]
John Malkovich is set to star in the feature film adaptation of J.M. Coetzee’s novel “Disgrace”. The film is set to begin production in January ‘07 as Malkovich will play David Lurie, a 52-year-old English professor whose preoccupation with Romantic poetry–and romancing his students–threatens to turn him into a “a moral dinosaur”. Lurie has an impulsive affair with a student, which sours. He is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to his daughter Lucy’s isolated farm. For a time, his daughter’s influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonize his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. He and Lucy become victims of a savage and disturbing attack which brings into relief all the faults in their relationship. [Production Weekly]
NBC’s “The Office” actor John Krasinski is writing and will direct an adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men,” described as twenty-two stories of imagined interviews with men on the subject of their relations with women. Five weeks of principal photography begins November taking in locations around the Northeast. [Production Weekly]
John Hurt, or in my world the Supreme Chancellor from V for Vendetta, is set to take the lead role in Álex de la Iglesia’s Oxford Murders. The film is based on Guillermo Martinez’s novel in which Hurt will play an Oxford University professor embroiled in the investigation of a series of murders seemingly linked by mathematical symbols. [Production Weekly]
Finally we come to the end as we learn that Maria Bello, Jimmy Smits, Emily Blunt, Josh Lucas and Ellen Burstyn will all star in Robin Swicord’s The Jane Austen Book Club. The film centers on six Californians who join together to discuss Jane Austen’s novels. Over the six months they meet, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships. [Production Weekly]
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