Here is a round-up of the latest talent deals in Hollywood.
Variety reports that John Stalberg (High School) is in talks to direct Paramount Pictures’ Spanking Shakespeare. He’ll also rewrite the script penned by Dan Lagana. Based on the book by Jake Wizner, the film “follows the unfortunately named Shakespeare Shapiro, who turns his high school upside-down when he unwittingly becomes an Internet sensation and the face of an anti-college revolution.”
According to 24 Frames, Easy A and Friends With Benefits helmer Will Gluck is in talks with Sony Pictures and the team behind The Social Network to develop and direct an adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s new book “Sex on the Moon.” The site describes the project as dealing with “the wild escapades of 25-year-old NASA intern Thad Roberts, who in an effort to impress a girl orchestrated a plan to steal lunar rocks from the Johnson Space Center and sell them on the Internet.”
The Hollywood Reporter says that Josh Radnor (“How I Met Your Mother”) will direct and star in an independent romance with Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene). Radnor wrote the script for the film, in which he plays a 35 year old who’s still yearning for the life of a college student. Olsen plays a college student who falls for Radnor’s character.
Variety has the unconfirmed report that Francis Lawrence (Water for Elephants) is in talks to develop Sony Pictures’ long-gestating Houdini project. The biopic will emphasize Houdini’s renowned showmanship.
Risky Business, meanwhile, says that Paramount Pictures has hired Andrea Berloff (World Trade Center) to write the script for its unofficially titled drug saga Cocaine Cowboy. The site says the project “is based on Jon Roberts, an injured Vietnam vet who by the late 1970s had become a billion-dollar coke dealer in Miami, then government conduit and, eventually, prisoner.”
And Variety reports that Oscar-winning The King’s Speech screenwriter David Seidler will rewrite Warner Bros.’ family drama The Judge, to be produced by Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey. David Dobkin is attached to produce and direct the film. The story is about “a big-city lawyer who returns home after the death of his mother to learn that his estranged father, a judge, is suspected of murder. He sets out to discover the truth and along the way reconnects with the family he walked away from years before.” Seidler is also attached to write the sports drama Games of 1940, which is the true story of POWs in a Nazi prison camp who staged an Olympics-like competition after the 1940 Games were canceled.
