Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez are the first two actors said to be returning to join Danny Trejo in Machete Kills. No big surprise on either account. [source]
Darren Aronofsky will reportedly direct The General, a film that sounds like it’s something of an Inglourious Basterds take (or perhaps more of an Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) on George Washington. The film is set up at Paramount with a script from Adam Cooper and Bill Collage, which is said to be more of an Unforgiven-like tale rather than a straight historical drama. Aronofsky is currently casting Noah for a July shoot and there’s no telling on whether or not The General will serve as his follow-up. [source]
If you wanted Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol director Brad Bird to return for Mission: Impossible 5, it sounds unlikely. The director told Crave, “I’d probably be open to looking at it, but I think that part of one of the successes of the franchises is that they’re always reassessing it with a new director.” [source]
Michael Douglas is looking to star in Last Vegas for director Jon Turtletaub (National Treasure). The film would find Douglas playing a man who, before marrying a woman half his age, invites his three childhood best friends on a wild bachelor party weekend in Las Vegas, where old tensions crop up between him and one of the trio over the woman they both loved as teenagers. Robert De Niro is also rumored to star. Dan Fogelman (Crazy Stupid Love) wrote the screenplay and production starts this September. [source]
While James Cameron talk is 100% about Avatar 2, Avatar 3 and the recent re-release of Titanic as of late, it doesn’t look like he’s forgotten about adapting Yukito Kishiro‘s “Battle Angel” for the big screen. Whether or not he would direct is still up in the air as he adds, “It would have to be pried out of my cold, dead fingers… but on the other hand I don’t want to take it to my grave, either.”
However, it’s environment first as he adds, “Battle Angel is just a great, kick-ass story… [But] I see the good that the Avatar franchise can do in terms of keeping a world audience cognizant of our relationship with nature, but doing it in an entertainment context. Ultimately, I think there’s more good to be done there than with Battle Angel.” [source]
Gerard Butler is in advanced negotiations to star in the action thriller Manhunt for Crazies director Breck Eisner with production set to begin by the end of the year. The plot involves a team of FBI agents sent to the North Carolina wilderness to chase the FBI’s most wanted man, domestic terrorist and survivalist James Tollan, who has eluded arrest with the support of the local population while attacking the federal government. They enroll the help of a reluctant bear hunter to capture the killer. But once the team enters the woods, the hunters become the hunted as Tollan will stop at nothing to survive and defend his territory. Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby wrote the script. [source]
James Van Der Beek, Gattlin Griffith (Green Lantern), Brighid Fleming (Gamer), Tom Lipinski (“Mildred Pierce”) and Maika Monroe (The Bling Ring) have joined Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin in the cast of Jason Reitman‘s Labor Day. The script was written by Reitman based on the Joyce Maynard novel in which Winslet will play a single mother of an awkward and isolated young son (Griffith) who takes in a stranger (Brolin) who turns out to be an escaped convict and ends up teaching the boy life lessons, while she falls in love with him over the course of Labor Day weekend. [source, source and source]
