Fun facts I learned from today's Variety

Fox Atomic is in talks to pick up an untitled spec script from "Save the Last Dance" scribe Duane Adler. Mike Karz and Generate are attached to produce the project, which the youth-centric specialty unit is looking to fast track. Like "Last Dance" and "Step Up," which Adler also penned, the untitled feature will be the music-driven tale of a forbidden teen romance.

Fact learned: Duane Adler is a genius.

Toho will release helmer Hayao Miyazaki's next toon, "Gake no ue no Ponyo" (Ponyo on a Cliff), in summer 2008. Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli will produce. New toon concerns a goldfish princess named Ponyo who wants to become human and her relationship with a 5-year-old boy. Miyazaki, who is penning the original script, is basing the boy on his grandson, the son of "Tales From Earthsea" helmer Goro Miyazaki.

Fact learned: Miyazaki is a cute factory.

Universal Pictures has set Angelina Jolie to star alongside James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman in "Wanted," an action film based on a graphic novel that Timur Bekmambetov will direct. Pic will be Jolie's next, with shooting to begin in Eastern Europe in May. McAvoy will play a young man who discovers his father is an assassin, only to learn shortly thereafter that his dad has been murdered. The youth is drafted to follow in his father's footsteps. Jolie will play an assassin who teaches the ropes to the wannabe killer. Script was originated by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, and Jolie took the role after a rewrite by Dean Georgaris to tailor the character for her.

Fact learned: Assassin Jolie? The director of Night Watch? McAvoy? (Shut it, Jeff.) Wanted may be based on a Millar comic, but it may also well be AWESOME.

Universal Pictures has set "The Last King of Scotland" helmer Kevin Macdonald to direct "State of Play," the Americanized version of the acclaimed British miniseries that will star Brad Pitt. Scripted by Matthew Michael Carnahan, the film is slated to shoot in November. A congressman's mistress is killed, and a team of investigative reporters secretly work with a police detective to solve the murder. Pitt aligned with the project last year (Daily Variety, July 27).

Fact learned: State of Play will DEFINITELY be awesome.

Labels: moving pictures

posted by Liz  # 11:57 AM

Comments:
I like how Wanted has apparently shed all its superhero trappins on the way to the screen. Interesting. I'm assuming the ending will be different, too.
# posted by  Jeff : March 22, 2007 5:57:00 PM PDT 

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