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00:25 - MOVIES: Jekyll - Chris Evans Circling Lead Role in Lionsgate's Movie Adaptation
EXCLUSIVE: Chris Evans might be diversifying from his Captain America good guy persona. Evans has come attached to play the lead role of Tom Jackman in Jekyll, the feature that Lionsgate is developing from the 2007 BBC One series. Ellen DeGeneres and Jeff Kleeman are producing through their A Very Good Production banner and scribe team Anthony Bagarozzi & Charles Mondry have written a script based on the Steven Moffatt-scripted six episode miniseries. Bagarozzi & Mondry teamed on the Shane Black-directed The Nice Guys and Doc Savage, as well as the remake of Death Note. No director, yet.
This creates a potential collision course between projects sourced from the Robert Louis Stevenson public domain novel about the doctor with the split personality. Universal’s classic monsters franchises set Russell Crowe to play the dual personality doc, first in The Mummy opposite Tom Cruise, and presumably as a standalone in a later film. The BBC miniseries wasn’t a straight adaptation of the Stevenson novella; rather, the lit classic was a jumping off point for a sequel. In the miniseries, James Nesbitt played Jackman, a modern day descent of Jekyll who is beginning to exhibit the trademark split personality. The father and husband abandons his family, without explaining why, and lives in a fortified basement with a psychiatric nurse his ally. When they strap the doctor to a metal chair, she watches him transform into an alter ego who rages, shows heightened strength and speed, and can be a charming flirtatious scoundrel as well. The two personalities try to coexist, even though one doesn’t remember what the other does while in control of the body. They use a micro cassette to leave messages for each other. Unable to stay away from the family he left behind for their own safety, he visits his wife, Hyde assumes control and learns about them, and things grow very complicated.
Source:
Deadline
23:20 - Losing It - ABC Gives Script with Penalty Commitment to Family Comedy
It’s been another very late start to the broadcast network buying season. In one of the higher-profile comedy deals so far, ABC has given a script with penalty commitment to Losing It, a single-camera family comedy from Growing Up Fisher and Truth Be Told creator DJ Nash.
Nash is executive producing the project with Aaron Kaplan from Kapital Entertainment. The comedy is set at ABC sibling ABC Studios. Nash moves to ABC Studios after a five-year stint at Universal TV where he had two back-to-back overall deals and created and executive produced two comedy projects based on personal experiences that went to series, Growing Up Fisher and Truth Be Told.
Written by Nash, Losing It is about three misfit adult siblings and their parents who — between divorce, new parenthood, early-onset dementia and let’s just say life — are all losing it in different ways. And family is the only way they’re going to find it.
Source:
Deadline
21:00 - MOVIES: The Accountant - Trailer feat Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick
21:00 - MOVIES: The Great Wall - Trailer feat Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal
21:00 - MOVIES: The Rocketeer - Reboot in Development at Disney
The Rocketeer is ready to blast off once again.
Walt Disney Studios is developing a reboot of the 1991 action adventure movie, hiring Max Winkler and Matt Spicer to pen the script, which is being titled The Rocketeers.
The project, in the early development stages, is considered a sequel-reboot and, in a modern-day twist, will be headlined by a black female character.
Brigham Taylor, who produced The Jungle Book with Jon Favreau, is producing along with Blake Griffin of the L.A. Clippers and Ryan Kalil of the Carolina Panthers. Griffin and Kalil are partners in a new venture called Mortal Media and approached Taylor with the idea for the reboot.
Rocketeer was based on the popular 1980s indie comic by Dave Stevens and, like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, was a loving homage to the serials of the 1930s and 1940s.
The story followed Cliff Secord, a stunt pilot who discovers a rocket pack and suit to die for and become embroiled with mobsters and Nazis, as well as Howard Hughes and the FBI.
The Joe Johnston-directed movie starred Billy Campbell as Secord, Jennifer Connelly as his aspiring actress (a Betty Page homage) girlfriend, Timothy Dalton as an Errol Flynn-type actor who is a Nazi spy and Alan Arkin as Secord's mechanic.
When the movie was released, it grossed only $46.6 million and came in fourth in its opening weekend (it was pummeled by Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, City Slickers and Dying Young). Its performance was considered a disappointment by the studio and its creative team.
But a rare thing happened: The movie took on a life of its own, engendering a massive following who loved its un-ironic, bright and straightforwardly heroic take on characters, all abetted by a score by James Horner.
When Disney hosted a 20th anniversary screening of the movie in Hollywood's El Capitan Theatre in 2011, fans — many in Rocketeer costumes — lined up for blocks.
It was around that time that the studio began mulling a reboot of the movie, but sources said it sought a way to differentiate it from another rocket-propelled flying hero: Iron Man.
The new take keeps the story in a period setting and offers a fresh view on the characters. Set six years after the original Rocketeer and after Secord has vanished while fighting the Nazis, an unlikely new hero emerges: a young African–American female pilot, who takes up the mantle of Rocketeer in an attempt to stop an ambitious and corrupt rocket scientist from stealing jet-pack technology in what could prove to be a turning point in the Cold War.
Tendo Nagenda and Chaz Salembier are overseeing the project for Disney.
Winkler, the son of Fonzie actor Henry Winkler, wrote and directed the 2010 indie comedy The Ceremony, which starred Michael Angarano and Uma Thurman. He has also directed episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and New Girl.
Source:
The Hollywood Reporter
21:00 - MOVIES: Jumanji Reboot - Nick Jonas in Talks to Join Cast
Welcome to the jungle, Nick Jonas.
EW has confirmed that Jonas is in talks to join Sony’s upcoming Jumanji reboot, alongside Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, and Kevin Hart. Character details have yet to be revealed, but Jonas would join the cast in the role of “Alex.”
The project is billed as a new take on Chris Van Allsburg’s beloved children’s book, which, of course, was previously adapted in 1995 with Robin Williams in the lead role. Johnson has called his Jumanji “a new re-imagining of this amazing story,” and he has said that the new script honors Williams and his character, Alan Parrish.
Source:
Entertainment Weekly
21:00 - Snowfall - Carter Hudson, Angela Lewis, Juan Javier Cardenas & Filipe Valle Costa Join FX Pilot
Carter Hudson, Angela Lewis (Top Five), Juan Javier Cardenas, and Filipe Valle Costa have been cast as series regulars in FX’s Snowfall, John Singleton’s 1980s cocaine-epidemic drama pilot. Co-created and executive produced by the Boyz N The Hood director Singleton and Erick Amadio, and directed by El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the pilot has been undergoing a revamp.
Hudson will play Teddy McDonald, a CIA operative banished to the Los Angeles office after a tragic misstep in the past. When he sees an opportunity to reverse his fortunes, Teddy risks everything to get his life back on track. Lewis will portray Louise Saint, Franklin’s (Damson Idris) party girl aunt. Cardenas will play Alejandro Usteves, a calculating rebel from the Nicaraguan Contras movement who is determined to keep his revolution alive by any means necessary. Costa will play Pedro, the cocky heir apparent of a Mexican crime family that sells marijuana throughout Los Angeles.
Source:
Deadline
21:00 - American Housewife - Meg Donnelly Joins ABC Comedy Series in Recasting
Meg Donnelly (Netflix’s Teen Toon) is set for a series regular role in ABC’s new family comedy series, American Housewife.
Donnelly will play Taylor, the eldest of the three Otto children who was an awkward homely dork up until about three months ago when she suddenly got beautiful and is embarking on a new stage in her life. Donnelly replaces Johnny Sequoyah who was originally cast in the pilot.
American Housewife follows a strong-willed mother (Katy Mixon) who struggles to raise her flawed family in a wealthy town filled with perfect wives and their perfect offspring.
Source:
Deadline