The Casting Couch: May 1, 2006

Warner Bros. is set to develop The Infiltrator, a drama based on a Matthew Teague article in April’s Atlantic Monthly.

The article concerns the campaign by British intelligence to undermine the Irish Republican Army by planting spies in top positions. Program helped the Brits negate much of the terrorist activity planned by the IRA, but at a high price.

The pic will be produced by Guymon Casady, Darin Friedman, Brad Simpson, Leonardo DiCaprio and David Benioff with DiCaprio getting first crack at starring.

SOURCE: Variety

I was certainly one of the youngsters that grew up on the classic Clash of the Titans and while the story remains a classic the film is certainly dated. So, news that Warner Bros. has enlisted the talent of Travis Beacham to script a remake of the film seems like a very good idea.

Beacham has yet to have a feature film actually made, but he did make his first studio sale last fall when New Line preemptively snapped up his spec script Killing on Carnival Row, a sci-fi thriller, but he does seem to have a good idea of where he wants to take this remake.

He apparently wants the redo to be darker and more realistic than the original and he told Daily Variety, “I’ll keep the big mythological feel. That’s what I totally loved about it when I saw it as a kid.”

That’s what we all loved about it, let’s hope this one works as well as the original did.

SOURCE: Variety

Gabriele Muccino is set to direct Will Smith in the Columbia Pictures drama Tonight He Comes as he replaces Jonathan Mostow who left the pic over creative differences but remains an executive producer.

The feature is expected to get under way early next year as it centers on Smith as a superhero who crash-lands in Sheepshead Bay, N.Y., and causes chaos as he romances a local housewife in an attempt to revitalize himself.

SOURCE: Variety

IGN may have given us a list of rumored names, names I have also heard are official, contracts are just being worked out, but in the meantime Variety does confirm that Travis Van Winkle has signed on to star in Transformers: The Movie for director Michael Bay and Paramount and DreamWorks.

Van Winkle will play the boyfriend of the lead female character.

SOURCE: Variety

Jan De Bont of Speed and Twister fame is set to direct the action thriller Stopping Power.

The film is scheduled to start shooting in September in Germany and centers on a single father on vacation with his daughter and girlfriend who suddenly finds himself at the center of a high-speed car chase after his daughter is kidnapped by a criminal who has stolen their RV. The father is forced to act as a decoy in the getaway car, leading the police across the city.

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter

Catherine Keener and Vince Vaughn are set to star alongside Emile Hirsch in Sean Penn‘s directorial outing Into the Wild for Paramount Pictures.

The film chronicles the true story of Christopher McCandless, who graduated from college in 1992, abandoned his possessions and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness and return to nature. He died four months later in an abandoned bus at a remote campsite. Penn adapted the screenplay from Jon Krakauer’s book of the same name. Keener’s character picks up the hitchhiker and takes him in as a surrogate son. Vaughn plays a tow-truck driver whom Hirsch’s character meets on the road.

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter

Wow, this is as bad an idea as Howard Stern remaking Porky’s, but nevertheless Kyle Neman has signed on to direct a remake of Revenge of the Nerds, and that is all I have to say about that.

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter