1.) Denzel Washington is targeting a return to the director’s chair with an adaptation of the August Wilson stage play Fences. He starred in the production’s 12-week Broadway run back in 2010, alongside Viola Davis, as the story follows a trash collector from Pittsburgh who is still haunted by his squandered professional baseball career. The film would mark Washington’s third directorial effort after Antwone Fisher and The Great Debaters. While Washington would likely also star in the film version, there’s no word yet on he’s looking for Davis to reprise her role as well. [Empire]
2.) Cody Horn (Magic Mike, End of Watch) has joined Maria Bello and Frank Grillo in an untitled ghost story from producer James Wan (Saw, Insidious). Will Canon will direct the thriller, which once carried the title House of Horror. Horn will play a ghost hunter alongside a police officer (Grillo) and a psychologist (Bello) as they investigating the deaths of five people who were killed while trying to summon a ghost. Production begins next week in Baton Rouge. [THR]
3.) Relativity Media has acquired the Jim Carrey-led heist comedy Loomis Fargo, which is scheduled to being filming in April. Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) will direct the true story of four Southerners who stole nearly $20 million from an armed Loomis Fargo truck in 1997. Danny McBride and fellow “Eastbound & Down” creator Jody Hill are on board as producers, though Carrey remains the only attached actor. Still, it’s hard not to think McBride would fit nicely as one of the four Southerner robbers. Time will tell. [The Wrap]
4.) Jeremy Renner will produce and star in the thriller Kill the Messenger, based on the true story of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb. The writer (SPOILER ALERT) committed suicide after being denounced for exposing the CIA’s controversial involvement in helping Nicaragua’s Contra rebels import cocaine into California in the 1980s. The project sounds well within the wheelhouse of attached director Michael Cuesta, who has helmed eight episodes of “Homeland.” [THR]
5.) After original director Mark Romanek (Never Let Me Go) left Disney’s Cinderella three weeks ago, the studio is now courting Kenneth Branagh to replace him. The film could still make it into theaters in 2014, with Cate Blanchett still attached to star as the wicked stepmother and the latest draft of the script coming from Chris Weitz (About a Boy). [Vulture]
