We’ll kick things off today with Variety‘s report that Shia LaBeouf is attached to star in an adaptation of “Horns,” the bestselling novel from Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son). He’ll play a 26-year-old who awakens from a black-out hangover and finds horns growing from his head. He’s faced with investigating the unsolved murder of his girlfriend and the case’s connection to his cursed fate. Keith Bunim (“In Treatment”) is penning the adaptation.
THR reports Sam Worthington will star in the Aussie surfing film Drift. The film will be set in 1972 and tells the story of the Fisher brothers battling killer waves, conservative society and ruthless bikers in the process of kick-starting the modern surf industry.
Netflix has entered the original programming game by outbidding several networks, including HBO and AMC, for two seasons (26 episodes) of House of Cards. David Fincher will direct the pilot and executive produce with Kevin Spacey, who will also star. The series is based on the political-thriller novel by Michael Dobbs, which is set at the end of Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as British Prime Minister and follows a politician with his eye on the top job. Deadline reports the deal could be worth more than $100 million and has the potential to change the way people consume TV shows.
Alec Baldwin spoke with Vulture about his upcoming role in Rock of Ages, and it sounds like he’s taking the role quite seriously. He says he plans to hire a vocal coach, which suggests he’ll be doing at least some singing. No dancing, though. “It’s not “Glee,” it’s rock and roll,” he explains. He also confirmed that he has dropped out of the long-delayed Men in Black III due to scheduling conflicts.
While it was reported last week that an offer was made for Johnny Knoxville to play Moe in the Farrelly brothers’ Three Stooges movie, THR reports the offer was never officially made and Knoxville will turn his focus to other projects. Among them is Mustache Riders, which would team Knoxville and fellow Jackasses Bam Margera and Ryan Dunn with the Broken Lizard comedy team (Super Troopers, Beerfest).
Oscar nominee John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone) will star in the indie drama Surrogate, according to Variety. Ben Lewin will write and direct the film, based on the life of Mark O’ Brien. The poet and journalist spent most of his life with an iron lung as a result of polio before deciding to explore his sexuality by hiring a sex surrogate. Let’s hope this doesn’t get confused with the terrible Bruce Willis sci-fi flick with a similar name.
Deadline reports Tom Hanks has been attached to play Captain Richard Phillips in Sony Pictures’ adaptation of A Captain’s Duty, Phillips’ memoir of how he gave himself up as a hostage to Somali pirates to keep his crew from having to leave the ship with them. You might remember the well-publicized news story from April 2009. Hanks jumped aboard after reading a draft of the script delivered by Billy Ray (Shattered Glass, that Hunger Games thing we keep hearing about). Sony’s The Social Network team of Scott Rudin, Michael De Luca, Dana Brunetti and Kevin Spacey will produce.
Jackass director Jeff Tremaine will make his narrative feature debut with the Warner Bros. comedy Revenge of the Jocks. The film provides a fresh spin on the Revenge of the Nerds movies, following three former high school jocks, with their glory days a thing of the past, adapting to a world run by the geek crowd. This time, the jocks are the underdogs. I Heart Huckabees screenwriter Jeff Baena has also been brought in to rewrite the script, according to THR.
