Just above is your first look at Kurt Russell in Bone Tomahawk, a brutally violent, character-driven story following a sheriff (Russell), a gunslinger, a befuddled oldster and a cowboy as they attempt to rescue a group of captives from a band of cannibalistic troglodytes. The film co-stars Richard Jenkins, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, David Arquette, Fred Melamed, Sean Young, Sid Haig and Michael Paré.
Showtime will be joining HBO and CBS and launching a streaming-only service sometime in 2015. [Yahoo]
David Chase says he’s open to the idea of a prequel to “The Sopranos“:
“Even if I did it, it wouldn’t be ‘The Sopranos’ that was on the air – obviously at least one person is gone that we would need. There are a couple of eras that would be interesting for me to talk about, about Newark, N.J. One would be (the) late ’60s, early ’70s, about all the racial animosity, or the beginning, the really true beginning of the flood of drugs.”
Chase has indicated in the past he’s be interested in exploring a story concerning Tony Soprano’s (James Gandolfini) parents and Uncle Junior. [New York Daily News]
Garrett Hedlund and Michael Pena are set to star in War on Everyone for writer/director John Michael McDonagh (Calvary). The story centers on two corrupt cops in New Mexico who set out to blackmail and frame every criminal unfortunate enough to cross their path. Things take a sinister turn, however, when they try to intimidate an outlaw who is more dangerous than they are. The film will shoot in New Mexico in March 2015. [Screen Daily]
John Malkovich and Toni Collette have joined Noomi Rapace, Michael Douglas and Orlando Bloom in Michael Apted‘s Unlocked centered on a CIA interrogator (Rapace) who unwittingly gives info to terrorists and must race against the clock to stop their biological warfare attach on London. [Deadline]
Mark Wahlberg is set to star in The Six Billion Dollar Man for his Lone Survivor director Peter Berg for The Weinstein Co.’s Dimension Films label. Based on “The Six Million Dollar Man” television show from the ’70s, the title has been inflated and will find Wahlberg starring as former astronaut Steve Austin who, after a horrific crash of an experimental plane, is saved by doctors when he is fitted with bionic replacements — both legs, his right arm and left eye. With super-human power, he becomes a force to be reckoned with for the government as a secret agent for the Office of Scientific Intelligence. The project is currently out to writers so don’t expect this one too soon… if ever. [Deadline]
Matthew McConaughey is set to star in the Civil War drama Free State of Jones for director Gary Ross (The Hunger Games). The Oscar winner will play Newton Knight, a soldier who flees the battlefields after being disillusioned by the horrors that touched his own family. On the run, he rallies the support of fellow deserters to lead an uprising against their former comrades, in the process creating a free safe haven. [Variety]
Al Pacino and Brian De Palma are looking to have a reunion in the movie Retribution. The project, which would bring together the duo who previously collaborated on Scarface and Carlito’s Way, is based on the 2003 Belgian thriller The Memory of a Killer telling the story of a hitman and a cop who will go to any length to stop a Philadelphia child prostitution ring. [Screen Daily]
David O. Russell‘s abandoned project Nailed will be released in the UK in 2015 under the title Politics of Love. To my knowledge the film was never technically finished, at least not by Russell, due to financing issues, but it stars Jessica Biel, James Marsden and Jake Gyllenhaal and follows a small town waitress (Biel) who gets a nail lodged in her head which leads to unpredictable behaviour and a journey to Washington DC. [Screen Daily]
Speaking of Gyllenhaal, he’s set to reunite with director Antoine Fuqua. The two recently finished the boxing drama Southpaw and will now reteam for The Man Who Made It Snow, based on the true story of Max Mermelstein, a Jewish hotel engineer who transformed Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel from a small mom-and-pop drug organization into a billion-dollar enterprise. [Deadline]
Barry Pepper and Lili Taylor (The Conjuring) have joined the cast of The Maze Runner Chapter II: The Scorch Trials. Pepper will play Vince, a survivalist who is one of the last remaining soldiers of a legendary unit called the Right Arm and Taylor is playing Mary Cooper, a doctor who started a colony of survivors in the hopes of making a last stand. The film begins shooting in New Mexico this month for a May 29, 2015 release. [THR]
Summit officially announced the cast and plot for Now You See Me 2, which will star Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Daniel Radcliffe, Lizzy Caplan and Jay Chou with Jon M. Chu (G.I. Joe: Retaliation) directing for a June 10, 2016 release. Here’s the plot:
One year after outwitting the FBI and winning the public’s adulation with their mind-bending spectacles, the Four Horsemen resurface in Now You See Me 2 only to find themselves face to face with a new enemy who enlists them to pull off their most dangerous heist yet.
