Once again I bring you the best round-up of all the movie updates announced in this past week’s trade reports. Why read a TON of articles when you can read just one?
This week you have a lot to get excited about with new films from Woody Allen, Werner Herzog, Michael Winterbottom, John Madden, James Mangold and even Ralph Fiennes taking a stab at a directorial debut and that’s only the first ten new productions listed.
Check out the full list and links are available if the film is in the database already, and remember you can keep up with all new films added and updated on the site right here all week long.
Title: Guardians of Ga’Hoole
Studio: Warner Bros.
Director: Zack Snyder
Screenwriter: John Orloff, John Collee
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Hugo Weaving, Ryan Kwanten, Jim Sturgess, Geoffrey Rush, Rachael Taylor, David Wenham
Storyline: An animated feature film based on the series of children’s books by Kathryn Lasky. The film is set in the Forest of Tyto, where Barn Owls live in peace until their kingdom is threatened by an evil that could destroy their home.
Title: Rum Diary
Studio: Not Available
Director: Bruce Robinson
Screenwriter: Bruce Robinson
Cast: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, Aaron Eckhart, Richard Jenkins
Storyline: The adaptation of the Hunter S. Thompson novel designed around a love triangle in the tale of a washed-up, hard-drinking journalist named Paul Kemp (Depp) in 1950s Puerto Rico.
Title: My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done
Studio: Not Available
Director: Werner Herzog
Screenwriter: Not Available
Cast: Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Chloe Sevigny, Michael Pena, Brad Dourif, Bill Cobbs
Storyline: The film is loosely based on the true story of a San Diego man who experiences a series of mystifying events that lead him to brutally murder his own mother with a sword.
Title: The Killer Inside Me
Studio: Not Available
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Screenwriter: Robert D. Weinbach
Cast: Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Elias Koteas, Bill Pullman, Ned Beatty
Storyline: Adaptation of a novel by Jim Thompson.
Title: Tales From The Golden Age
Studio: Not Available
Director: Cristian Mungiu, Ioana Uricaru, Hanno Höfer, Razvan Marculescu, Constantin Popescu
Screenwriter: Cristian Mungiu
Cast: Vlad Ivanov, Alex Potocean, Ion Sapdaru, Liliana Mocanu, Tania Popa, Diana Cavaliotti, Radu Iacoban, Teo Corban
Storyline: An unconventional personal history of the late communist period in Romania, told through its urban myths from the perspective of ordinary people. Comic, bizarre, surprising, these myths drew on the often surreal events of everyday life under the communist regime. Humor is what kept Romanians alive, and Tales from the Golden Age aims to re-capture that mood, portraying the survival of a nation having to face every day the twisted logic of a dictatorship.
Title: The Debt
Studio: Miramax Films
Director: John Madden
Screenwriter: Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman, Peter Straughan
Cast: Sam Worthington, Helen Mirren, Jessica Chastain, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Wilkinson, Marton Csokas, Jesper Christensen
Storyline: Revolves around three Mossad agents who, 20 years after World War II’s end, learn that a Nazi war criminal is still alive and set out to pursue him across Europe. Assaf Bernstein directed the 2007 Israeli film, titled “HaHov,” which like the remake is set in the 1960s and 1990s.
Title: The Ghost
Studio: Summit Entertainment
Director: Roman Polanski
Screenwriter: Robert Harris, Roman Polanski
Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Ewan McGregor, Kim Cattrall, Tom Wilkinson, Olivia Williams, James Belushi, Robert Pugh, Timothy Hutton
Storyline: The movie tells the story of a former British Prime Minister, Adam Lang, (played by Pierce Brosnan) who is holed up on an island off the Eastern seaboard of the USA in midwinter, writing his memoirs. When his long-standing aide drowns, a professional ghostwriter (played by Ewan McGregor) is sent out to help him finish the book. The anonymous ghostwriter is quickly drawn into a political and sexual intrigue involving Lang’s wife, Ruth (played by Olivia Williams) and his aide (played by Kim Cattrall). Hanging over Lang is the threat of a war crimes trial and a mysterious secret from his past that threatens to jeopardize international relations. Jim Belushi, Robert Pugh and recent Golden Globe® Tom Wilkinson have also joined the cast.
THE GHOST is based on the novel by the same name written by best-selling author Robert Harris. It won the International Thriller Writers’ Award for best novel of 2008. Harris joined Polanski in adapting the book for the big screen.
Title: Coriolanus
Studio: Not Available
Director: Ralph Fiennes
Screenwriter: Not Available
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Vanessa Redgrave (in talks)
Storyline: Feature adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Roman tragedy. Fiennes will play the title role of the proud but contemptuous soldier spurred on by his ambitious mother to run for the Roman Senate, which ultimately leads to his downfall.
Title: St. Vincent
Studio: Not Available
Director: Walter Hill
Screenwriter: Cameron Young
Cast: Mickey Rourke
Storyline: Centers on a hit man (Rourke) who returns to New York to complete a botched hit. Masquerading as a priest, he finds himself hearing the confession of the man who he is targetting.
Title: Untitled James Mangold Legal Thriller
Studio: Not Available
Director: James Mangold (Walk the Line)
Screenwriter: Sasha Jenson, Casey La Scala
Cast: Not Available
Storyline: Based on the true story of a pair of New Orleans lawyer brothers who took on a multinational oil company and its heavyweight legal teams to rep the rights of the families of an oil rig that sank in a typhoon.
Title: Youngblood
Studio: Not Available
Director: Brett Ratner
Screenwriter: Not Available
Cast: Not Available
Storyline: Adaptation of Rob Liefeld’s iconic graphic novel about a superhero team sanctioned and overseen by the U.S. government.
Title: Womb
Studio: Not Available
Director: Benedek Fliegauf
Screenwriter: Not Available
Cast: Eva Green, Matt Smith
Storyline: Tells the story of a grieving widow, played by Green, who decides to clone her late husband.
Title: Conviction
Studio: Warner Bros.
Director: Not Available
Screenwriter: Jonathan Herman
Cast: Not Available
Storyline: Story follows a mastermind bank robber who serves five years in prison following a botched heist. He is forced by an FBI agent to entrap his protege, who’s in the midst of a multimillion-dollar job.
Title: Untitled Woody Allen Film
Studio: Not Available
Director: Woody Allen
Screenwriter: Woody Allen
Cast: Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins
Storyline: A return to Europe for Allen, the new film shoots in London this summer and reteams the director with financer, Mediapro, the Spain-based company which also funded Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Title: Untitled Nancy Meyers Project
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Nancy Meyers
Screenwriter: Nancy Meyers
Cast: Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin, Zoe Kazan, Lake Bell, John Krasinski
Storyline: Follows a woman dealing with empty-nest syndrome who is torn between her ex-husband (Baldwin) and a male friend (Martin).
Title: Dog on It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Not Available
Screenwriter: Jeff Lowell (Hotel for Dogs)
Cast: Not Available
Storyline: Adaptation of the Spencer Quinn novel “Dog on It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery” about a down-on-his-luck private eye who sets off, accompanied by his loyal dog, to solve a missing persons case. The story is told from the vantage point of Chet, a dog that flunked out of K-9 school.
Title: The Art of the Heist
Studio: Not Available
Director: William Monahan
Screenwriter: Not Available
Cast: Not Available
Storyline: Adaptation of the forthcoming memoirs of career criminal Myles Connor. Connor became an art connoisseur and a rock musician whose band, Myles and the Wild Ones, backed Roy Orbison. He was also an accomplished art and antiques thief who was involved in a series of museum robberies that grabbed headlines in Boston in the 1970s and 1980s.
Title: How Could You Do This to Me?
Studio: Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Films
Director: Not Available
Screenwriter: Andy Marx and Andrea King
Cast: Miranda Cosgrove
Storyline: Cosgrove will play a teen who feels that the divorce of her parents has improved her life. When mom and dad appear to be rekindling sparks, their daughter feels threatened and tries to break them up.
Title: Untitled Adam Sandler Comedy
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Director: Dennis Dugan (You Don’t Mess With the Zohan)
Screenwriter: Adam Sandler, Fred Wolf
Cast: Kevin James, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, David Spade
Storyline: High-concept story is a comedy about five best friends from high school who reunite 30 years later on a Fourth of July weekend.
Title: Untitled Andrzej Wajda Lech Walesa Drama
Studio: Not Available
Director: Andrzej Wajda
Screenwriter: Agnieszka Holland
Cast: Not Available
Storyline: A film about 1980s pro-democracy Solidarity leader Lech Walesa. Wajda has said the Walesa film would be informed by his own experiences in the 1980s, when he went down to the Gdansk shipyards to show solidarity with strikers workers.
Title: Betty Anne Waters
Studio: Not Available
Director: Tony Goldwyn
Screenwriter: Pamela Gray, Richard LaGravenese
Cast: Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver
Storyline: The film is based on the true story of Waters (Swank), an unemployed single mother who saw her brother convicted for a murder-robbery in 1983 and sentenced to life in prison. Convinced of his innocence, she spent the next decade earning a law degree and working on her brother’s case. Rockwell plays the brother.
Title: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Director: Betty Thomas
Screenwriter: Not Available
Cast: Jason Lee, Zachary Levi, Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney
Storyline: equel to the 2007 animated comedy featuring the chipmunks Alvin, Simon and Theodore.
Title: A Nightmare on Elm Street
Studio: Warner Bros.
Director: Samuel Bayer
Screenwriter: Wesley Strick (Cape Fear, Arachnophobia)
Cast: Not Available
Storyline: A remake of the 1984 horror classic directed by Wes Craven and aims to keep the high school setting and delve deeper in the psychology of nightmares and Freddy Krueger himself.
Title: The Ghouly Boys
Studio: Mandate Pictures
Director: Not Available
Screenwriter: Sam Esmail
Cast: Not Available
Storyline: Adaptation of the children’s comic “The Ghouly Boys,” the spooky and comical graphic-novel series about a quartet of young monster outcasts and their efforts to fit in. Esmail’s script will follow two friends — a young boy looking to contact his dead father and a young zombie seeking a way to come back to life — who set off on an adventure.
Title: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures
Director: McG
Screenwriter: Bill Marsilii, Justin Marks
Cast: Not Available
Storyline: Remake will serve as an origin story of Nemo as he creates his warship, the Nautilus. Characters come from the Jules Verne novel and the 1954 actioner, that was the first live action film made by Walt Disney. Studio is fast-tracking the project that McG will direct.
Title: Akula
Studio: Not Available
Director: Darren Bousman
Screenwriter: Mark Distefano, Alex Litvak
Cast: Not Available
Storyline: Pic is a heist film set on a submarine.
Title: Jonah Hex
Studio: Warner Bros.
Director: Jimmy Hayward
Screenwriter: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor
Cast: Josh Brolin, John Malkovich
Storyline: The character of Hex (Brolin), known for having the right side of his face disfigured and wearing a Confederate army uniform, was a rough-and-tumble gunslinger and part-time bounty hunter whose adventures always ended in blood. One incarnation of his comic book series saw the Western genre combined with supernatural elements. Malkovich will play Turnbull, a wealthy Southern plantation owner whose son is killed by Union soldiers during the Civil War.
Title: The Adventurer’s Handbook
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Akiva Schaffer (Hot Rod)
Screenwriter: Jonah Hill
Cast: Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman
Storyline: Centers on four 20-something guys who, inspired by the Mick Conefrey book of the same name, set out overseas in search of a mysterious location described in the book.
Title: Gemini Man
Studio: Touchstone Pictures
Director: Curtis Hanson
Screenwriter: David Benioff (The Kite Runner)
Cast: Not Available
Storyline: About a brilliant, aging assassin trying to leave the game whose employers dispatch a clone of his younger self to take him out. The concept allows for some techno-wizardry whereby an older actor with a long career would be cast, and his younger likeness would be digitally grafted onto a stuntman’s body. A similar trick was employed with Jet Li in The One, though not with the generational twist.
Title: Deep Sea Cowboys
Studio: DreamWorks Studios
Director: Not Available
Screenwriter: David Ayer
Cast: Not Available
Storyline: Ayer’s script will be based on Joshua Davis’ article in Wired last year about a salvage crew attempting to save a capsized Japanese cargo ship. The real-time action scenario will explore how a tightknit crew races to beat the clock and potential drowning to save the ship’s dangerous cargo and claim its reward.
Title: Lost In Austen
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Director: Not Available
Screenwriter: Guy Andrews
Cast: Not Available
Storyline: Based on the Brit miniseries “Lost in Austen,” film will center on Amanda, an ardent Jane Austen fan, lives in present day New York with her boyfriend, until she finds she’s swapped places with Austen’s fictional creation Elizabeth Bennett.
Title: Leap Year
Studio: Not Available
Director: Anand Tucker
Screenwriter: Harry Elfont, Deb Kaplan
Cast: Amy Adams, Matthew Goode
Storyline: Adams plays a young woman who travels to Dublin to propose to her boyfriend on Leap Day. When weather forces her to veer off course, she enlists a cynical Irish innkeeper (Goode) to join her on a cross-country trip.
Title: Stretch Armstrong
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Not Available
Screenwriter: Steve Oedekerk (Bruce Almighty)
Cast: Not Available
Storyline: A superhero comedy based on the Hasbro-owned toy. The toy, a 13-inch, blond-haired muscled figure whose limbs could be stretched to nearly four feet, was launched by Kenner in the ’70s. He had a dog named Fetch Armstrong, and a sibling, Evil X-Ray Wretch Armstrong.
Title: Zookeeper
Studio: MGM Studios
Director: Frank Coraci
Screenwriter: Jay Scherick, David Ronn
Cast: Kevin James
Storyline: Centers on a lonely zookeeper who decides to leave his job because he can’t meet a girl, leading to intervention by the zoo’s animals.
Title: The Hardy Men
Studio: Not Available
Director: Shawn Levy
Screenwriter: Ed Solomon (Men in Black)
Cast: Ben Stiller, Tom Cruise
Storyline: A comic riff on the classic young-adult mystery novels, “The Hardy Boys,” which revolved around the mystery-solving efforts of teenagers Frank and Joe Hardy, amateur detectives who often helped their father, a private investigator. The film adaptation would explore the reunion of the estranged, grown-up brothers, who work together to solve a new mystery.
Thanks to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter for contributing to this report.
