Today’s batch of news items doesn’t necessarily include anything major, though it does include a fair number of intriguing features ranging from Scarlett Johansson teaming with Once director John Carney, an Australian sci-fi film with Carey Mulligan and a secret sci-fi script from Roland Emmerich and then some. Check out the details below.
Scarlett Johansson has signed on to star in Once director John Carney‘s new film Can a Song Save Your Life?, which will be executive produced by Judd Apatow. Set in New York, the film tells the story of a washed-up A&R man who forms a passionate bond with a young singer-songwriter (Johansson) from out of town. Johansson will sing a number of songs in the film. Shooting will begin in New York next year on a budget of around $10 million. [The Sunday Post]
Giancarlo Esposito (The Usual Suspects) has signed to star in I, Alex Cross based on the James Patterson novel. He joins Tyler Perry, Matthew Fox, Ed Burns and Jean Reno in the Rob Cohen-directed thriller which follows the young homicide detective/psychologist (Perry) as he meets his match in a serial killer. The two face off in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, but when the mission gets personal, Cross is pushed to the edge of his moral and psychological limits in this taut and exciting action thriller. [Summit Entertainment]
Will Smith is producing the Hurricane Katrina drama The American Can and he reportedly intends to offer Denzel Washington the lead role. The Blind Side writer-director John Lee Hancock penned the script and is attached to direct the feature, which will follow the real-life harrowing ordeal suffered by the residents of the American Can apartment complex when the levees broke. Word is Washington is giving notes, and based on that, Smith and Sony will decide if it’s a good match. [Vulture]
Roland Emmerich has a new sci-fi feature on the way titled Singularity, which was just picked up by Columbia Pictures and will be released on May 17, 2013. Harald Kloser, who co-wrote with Emmerich the Sony-released 2012 and 10,000 BC, also co-wrote this script with Emmerich and is co-producing. Plot details are being kept under wraps. [Deadline]
Mia Maestro (Twilight) is set to play Benicio Del Toro’s wife, a tough and bitter woman whose soccer mom lifestyle hides a gang-life past, in Oliver Stone’s Savages, an adaptation of the Don Winslow novel. She joins John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Blake Lively, Aaron Johnson and Emile Hirsch in the picture which focuses on a couple of young, independent Laguna Beach-based marijuana kingpins (Johnson and Hirsch) who are blackmailed into working for the Baja Cartel after their best friend and sometime sex partner (Lively) is kidnapped. Universal is set to release the film on September 28, 2012. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Bryan Cranston (Drive) is in talks to join Ben Affleck’s true life hostage-rescue thriller Argo as Jack O’Donnell, an Irish CIA agent from Boston and Dwight Eisenhower’s wartime bodyguard. [Variety]
Gary Ross (The Hunger Games) is attached to direct Outback with Carey Mulligan (An Education, Drive) set to star. The plot details on what is said to be a sci-fi action film are being kept under wraps, but the story will be set in the Australian outback. [Variety]
