This week’s Ketchup covers the last week from the realm of film development news, as Hollywood slowly wakes from its collective post-Thanksgiving lethargy just long enough to give us ten top stories. Included in the mix this time around are stories about such movies as biopics about Catherine the Great and Phil Hartman, and new films for directors Ron Howard, Barbra Streisand, and in her directorial debut, Jennifer Lawrence.
While out on the interview circuit this last week promoting The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, Jennifer Lawrence revealed one of the next steps that she would like to make with her career. Like many before her, Lawrence would like to add “director” to her filmography. The project that Lawrence is targeting as her directorial debut arguably falls far afield from where one might expect her to start (and more resembles the sort of movie George Clooney might produce/direct). That film (which Jennifer Lawrence doesn’t plan on costarring in) is called Project Delirium. The project is based on an article in the December 17, 2002 issue of The New Yorker, which told the true story of Colonel James S. Ketchum, who in the 1960s and 1970s was involved with a secret program “to fight enemies with clouds of psychochemicals that temporarily incapacitate the mind.” Specifically, the program included experiments with such chemicals and drugs as LSD and nerve gas. Lawrence is currently seeking a screenwriter to start adapting that article.
Singer-turned-actress Barbra Streisand first made her directorial debut in 1983 with Yentl, followed by The Prince of Tides in 1991 and The Mirror Has Two Faces in 1996. Next year, then, will mark the 20th year since a Streisand-directed film was released. Formerly and recently, Streisand was known to have been working on a new Gypsy musical adaptation, but that film appears to no longer be in active development. Instead, Streisand is now attached to direct a dramatic biopic adapting the life of Russian ruler Catherine the Great. Catherine the Great ruled Russia from 1762 to 1796, but this film will focus instead on “a young, sensual Catherine trapped in an abusive marriage with the heir to the Russian throne. But, when her inept husband proves incapable of ruling, she utilizes her intelligence, fortitude and passion to rise to power.” The screenplay was written by newcomer Kristina Lauren Anderson, and had the distinction in 2014 of topping the “Black List of Unproduced Screenplays.”
There is something of a mini-trend in Hollywood right now of adapting women-in-jeopardy novels with “Girl” in the title. The first was last year’s Gone Girl, and it will be followed next year with The Girl on the Train (10/7/16). Both of those movies were adapted from popular best selling novels, but this week, director Ron Howard is attempting to get ahead of the actual book sales. That’s because Howard (Rush, A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13) is now producing and will direct an adaptation of the upcoming Fall, 2016 novel The Girl Before. “J.P. Delaney” is credited as the author on that book, but it’s believed to be a pen name for author Tony Strong. The Girl Before is described as being about a “traumatized” woman who discovers that the new house she loves so much was formerly the home a few years earlier of another woman recovering from a tragedy. Ron Howard’s next film is the whale attack movie In the Heart of the Sea, which comes out next week, 12/11/15.
With the “Miracle Mop inventor” biopic Joy being one of this holiday movie season’s anticipated films, there is already interest in Hollywood in finding the next such film for another female star (not specifically Jennifer Lawrence again). One such candidate is called Barbie and Ruth, which promises to tell the true story of Ruth Handler, the inventor of the popular Barbie doll franchise. The producers are hoping to recruit Reese Witherspoon to play Ruth Handler, who was inspired by watching her daughter play with paper dolls. Sony Pictures is also developing a new film franchise with Mattel directly adapting the Barbie franchise, but this biopic is a separate project.
The last few major revelations about Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok (11/3/17) have mostly supported the notion that the third Thor movie might be more comedic or lighthearted than the first two. We’re thinking here of the news that Thor: Ragnarok will be directed by Taika Waititi (codirector of the horror mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows), and the reports that it will be a “buddy movie” (with the Hulk). This week’s news continues this theme, as we now know that Marvel has hired screenwriter Stephany Folsom to work on Thor: Ragnarok as what may be her first produced feature film. Stephany Folsom’s scripts in development include the dramedy 1969: A Space Odyssey (or How Kubrick Learned to Stop Worrying and Land on the Moon), which is based on urban legends about the famous director working with NASA to fake the 1969 Moon landing. Filming on Thor: Ragnarok is expected to start by this coming summer, so we should be hearing more casting news within the next few months.
Canadian actor Jason Priestley is best known in the United States as one of the stars of the original 1990s TV series Beverly Hills 90210. For the last ten or so years, however, Jason Priestley has also been developing a new career as a director. For his next film, Priestley is aligning with Canadian producers to deliver an independent biopic about another of Canada’s famous entertainment exports. the late Phil Hartman, whose prolific career included long runs on Saturday Night Live (1986-1994), NewsRadio (1995-1998), and as various characters on The Simpsons (1991-1998). Jason Priestley has already found his Phil Hartman star in the form of prolific voice actor Daran Norris, whose credits include The Fairley OddParents, Samurai Jack, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and the 2004 film Team America: World Police.
Two years ago in 2013, the thriller Prisoners was one of the year’s awards contenders. So, it shouldn’t be surprising that screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski (Prisoners, Contraband) is continuing to land new jobs after that film’s critical success. What wasn’t as easy to predict is what sort of films Guzikowski would be landing (though the Papillon remake is less surprising). Paramount Pictures is now in talks with Aaron Guzikowski to write the studio’s next reboot of their Friday the 13th horror franchise. This will be the second reboot for Friday the 13th after the one released on February 13, 2009, and Paramount has scheduled this one for January 13, 2017. Aaron Guzikowski is also joining Friday the 13th as a screenwriter just as the reboot is losing director David Bruckner, codirector of The Signal and V/H/S.
Judd Apatow is best known for directing such comedy films as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and this year’s Trainwreck. However, Apatow is also quite prolific as a producer of other people’s films, especially those who might need the extra help the most. In Apatow’s near future, these includesPee-Wee’s Big Holiday (Netflix in March, 2016) and The Lonely Island’s first movie, Conner4Real (6/3/16). This week, Judd Apatow was also announced as a producer on a comedy called The Big Sick. That film was cowritten by Kumail Nanjiani (HBO’s Silicon Valley), along with his wife Emily V. Gordon. Nanjiani will also star in the comedy for director Michael Showalter (The Baxter, Hello My Name is Doris). The premise of The Big Sick hasn’t been revealed yet.
This was admittedly a slow film development news week as much of Hollywood wasn’t quite back to work, post-Thanksgiving. That might explain why 20% of this week’s top stories involve the same actress/producer (ie, if her “people” were working when others weren’t). That actress is Reese Witherspoon, and the second news item for her this week involves an upcoming novel called Opening Belle (by Maurren Sherry). Reese Witherspoon is producing and may star in the movie about “a mother of three trying to balance home life with her Wall Street career during the year before the financial meltdown.” Opening Belle is being adapted by screenwriter Matthew Aldrich, who made his feature film debut in 2007 with Cleaner, which earned a Rotten Tomatometer score of just 17 percent.
One of the most controversial complaints that fans still have cause to be concerned with about new films is the strategy of casting actors of races and ethnicities that are arguably different from the source material the movie is based upon. Recent examples of such controversies include Fantastic Four (Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm), Pan (Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily), and you can find more examples here. One film that raised similar concerns recently was Lionsgate’s mythological fantasy action film Gods of Egypt, which features Egyptian Gods as played by Caucasian actors like Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Horus), Gerard Butler (Set), and Geoffrey Rush (Ra). Filmmakers and studios are frequently silent (or effectively silent) on this issue, but Lionsgate took a different approach this past week. Speaking to Forbes, both director Alex Proyas and the studio itself released official comments responding to the “whitewashing” allegations. Both statements use the word “apologize,” such as this one from Lionsgate itself: “We recognize that it is our responsibility to help ensure that casting decisions reflect the diversity and culture of the time periods portrayed. In this instance we failed to live up to our own standards of sensitivity and diversity, for which we sincerely apologize. Lionsgate is deeply committed to making films that reflect the diversity of our audiences. We have, can and will continue to do better.” Although it’s arguably a step in the right direction that apologies are being made, we’re still going to call this entire story the week’s “Rotten Idea,” because frankly, in the year 2015, we as a film industry should be able to prevent something like this from happening before cameras even start rolling.
