Month: March 2024

27 Mar

Austin Butler has been tapped to star in Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing

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Austin Butler may not be confirmed to be co-starring in Michael Mann’s Heat 2, but the Masters of the Air actor has now been reported to be set to be the lead in Caught Stealing. Since 2022’s Elvis, Austin Butler’s star has really taken off. The former Disney and Nickelodeon child actor is capitalizing on his breakout film with roles in the recently released Dune: Part Two, where he plays the ruthless Feyd-Rautha. However, Butler hasn’t turned his back on smaller films, as he is set to co-star alongside Tom Hardy in Jeff Nichols’ period drama, The Bikeriders.

Now The Hollywood Reporter is saying Butler will be working with Darren Aronofsky for Sony’s crime drama that “follows Hank Thompson, a burned-out former baseball player, as he’s unwittingly plunged into a wild fight for survival in the downtown criminal underworld of ‘90s NYC.” Caught Stealing will be penned by Charlie Huston, who is also the author of the book that the movie will be based on. Huston is no stranger to this process as he adapted his novel The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death for HBO, as well as his novel Already Dead, which can be seen on Max. He is also a seasoned TV scribe as he has written pilots for FX, Fox, Sony and Tomorrow Studios. Huston also served as a consulting producer for Fox’s Gotham, and worked in several development rooms. Aronofsky will be producing this film via his Protozoa Pictures.

Aronofsky is coming off the critically acclaimed film The Whale, which catapulted Brendan Fraser back into the movie spotlight as he earned his first Academy Award win. Aronofsky talks partnering up with Sony to make this new film with Butler, “I am excited to be teaming up with my old friends at Sony Pictures to bring Charlie’s adrenaline-soaked roller coaster ride to life. I can’t wait to start working with Austin and my family of NYC filmmakers.” Sanford Panitch, president of Sony Pictures’ Motion Picture Group, also shared his excitment of working with Aronofsky on Caught Stealing, “Darren is one of the most brilliant audiovisual storytellers in the world, and adapting these wonderful books by Charlie Huston for Austin to star was too exciting an opportunity to not be a part of.”

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27 Mar

A Simple Favor 2: Paul Feig, Blake Lively, Anna Kendrick reunite for Prime Video sequel

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Back in 2018, Bridesmaids and Ghostbusters director Paul Feig brought us the mystery A Simple Favor, which starred Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick in the story of “mommy blogger Stephanie (Kendrick), who befriends Emily (Lively), a secretive upper-class woman who has a child at the same elementary school. When Emily goes missing, Stephanie takes it upon herself to investigate.” A couple years ago, we heard that Amazon MGM Studios and Lionsgate were teaming up to produce a sequel to A Simple Favor… and now The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Feig, Lively, and Kendrick are all coming back for A Simple Favor 2. Filming is expected to begin this spring, and the film is heading for a streaming release on Prime Video.

Jessica Sharzer, who wrote the screenplay for the first film (which was based on the 2017 novel of the same name by author Darcey Bell), returned to write the sequel, with Feig and Laeta Kalogridis also working on the script.

A Simple Favor 2 will see Stephanie Smothers (Kendrick) and Emily Nelson (Lively) heading to the island of Capri for Emily’s lavish wedding. The destination nuptials between Emily and a wealthy Italian businessman are set to include murder and betrayal on the itinerary.

A Simple Favor cast members Henry Golding, Andrew Rannells, Bashir Salahuddin, Joshua Satine, Ian Ho, and Kelly McCormack will all be reprising their roles from the first movie. Feig and Laura Fischer are producing A Simple Favor 2 for Feigco Entertainment, while Sharzer serves as executive producer.

Are you a fan of A Simple Favor, and are you glad to hear that A Simple Favor 2 is moving forward? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

I have seen A Simple Favor, I probably watched it sometime in early 2019… but I remember nothing about it aside from the fact that it was directed by Feig and starred Lively and Kendrick. I couldn’t tell you what it was about or anything that happened in it. Even after that refresher in the opening paragraph, I’m still blanking on this one. So I’m obviously going to have to rewatch A Simple Favor if I’m going to check out A Simple Favor 2.

A Simple Favor

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27 Mar

Wolf Night: Jonathan Liebesman, Platinum Dunes werewolf film finds a home at Screen Gems

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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

Earlier this month, it was announced that Platinum Dunes, the production company headed up by Michael Bay and Bradley Fuller, are teaming up with director Jonathan Liebesman – who they previously worked with on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre prequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and their 2014 version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – to make a werewolf movie called Wolf Night. Now Deadline reports that Wolf Night has found a home at Sony’s Screen Gems.

Michael Bitar is overseeing the project for Screen Gems, while Alex Ginno does the same for Platinum Dunes.

Screen Gems has put out a whole lot of horror movies over the years, with titles including Don’t Breathe, Resident Evil, Underworld, Deliver Us from Evil, The Grudge, Carrie, The Stepfather, Prom Night, The Pope’s Exorcist, Insidious: The Red Door, and the upcoming Tarot. They recently secured a first-look deal with Gary Dauberman, who worked on the two-part adaptation of Stephen King’s novel It, scripted the Conjuring Universe films Annabelle, Annabelle: Creation, and The Nun, co-created the 2019 Swamp Thing TV show, and wrote and directed Annabelle Comes Home for Warner Bros / New Line Cinema. At Screen Gems, Dauberman will “create projects for himself while curating a slate featuring established and up-and-coming filmmakers.”

Deadline wasn’t able to dig up much information on Wolf Night, but they did learn that the project is being described as “District 9 by way of The Purge“. Will Honley, whose writing credits include Escape Room: Tournament of Champions, wrote the screenplay with April Maguire. Honley and Maguire also have the sci-fi thriller Subservience coming our way.

In addition to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Liebesman has also directed Darkness Falls, The Killing Room, Battle Los Angeles, Wrath of the Titans, and episodes of Halo and The Shannara Chronicles.

I’m of the opinion that there aren’t enough werewolf movies in the world and definitely not enough great werewolf movies, so I’m always glad to see another werewolf project moving forward. Here’s hoping this will be something we can add to the list of greats.

Are you interested in Wolf Night? What do you think of the project landing at Screen Gems? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

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27 Mar

Bruckheimer says a National Treasure 3 hangs on Cage

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National Treasure 3

Just barely 60, Nicolas Cage may actually be nearing retirement, saying he only has a handful of movies left in him. And according to the Oscar winner, National Treasure 3 will not be one of them, throwing shade at Disney, saying there was no treasure to be found at the studio. With that, that might be the nail in the coffin of a National Treasure 3, as now mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer is saying a third installment won’t go forward without Cage’s involvement.

Bruckheimer recently told MovieWeb that he personally has hopes for a threequel but it all falls on Cage. “Well, we hope there’s a National Treasure 3. We’ve been working on it for quite a while. We have a brilliant writer working on it right now, so hopefully, if we get a script in a timely fashion, we’ll send it to Nic [Cage] and, if he likes it, we’ll make another one. We certainly would like to.” And so that seems like the true end of National Treasure 3, which fans of the first two have been clamoring for ever since Book of Secrets came out 17 years ago. Instead, we got stuck with a lame Disney+ series that got canceled after one season.

Nicolas Cage had previously expressed bewilderment that National Treasure 3 made it to the big screen. After all, the first movies collectively grossed $788 million worldwide, making them two of Cage’s biggest hits. As recently as January of this year, Cage did seem to hint at a possible interest in returning as Benjamin Franklin Gates, saying, “I’m still kind of amazed that Disney hasn’t wanted to make a third one. I thought the movies brought a lot of joy to the public, and it’s certainly interesting about history, and I think all of that is worthwhile filmmaking.” So it’s a bit confusing – and disappointing – that Cage has evidently walked this back, apparently not finding National Treasure 3 “worthwhile” enough to work into his last run of films. Fine, then we’ll just take a proper Face/Off sequel and drop it!

The National Treasure movies seemed so silly at the time – and, OK, still are – but they remain a lot of fun, showcasing Cage at his peak of family-friendly entertainment. Do you think National Treasure 3 is permanently done for? Or do you think Cage could be roped in for one more installment?

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