The Casting Couch: April 12, 2006

Kevin Macdonald is set to direct 28th Amendment for Warner Bros. Pictures.

The Oscar-winning documentary director (One Day in September) will helm the story which revolves around a young U.S. president who discovers the existence of a secret cabal that runs the government and wants him dead.

You may be more familiar with Macdonald’s latest documentary Touching the Void and he will also be directing the upcoming Fox Searchlight feature The Last King of Scotland starring Forrest Whitaker, which is expected to be released later this year.

SOURCE: Variety

I really don’t care about this one, but I thought some of you may as Germany’s Stallion Film along with director Mark Dippe (Spawn) are planning on retooling the Japanese manga Wicked City into a live-action English-language pic.

Wicked City concerns beasts from a parallel dimension and a secret resistance organization trying to prevent the apocalypse.

Original books by Hideyuki Kikuchi, bestsellers in the early 1980s, were adapted as anime “Yoju toshi” by Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Stallion has acquired rights, and Dippe and Johnny Hartmann are penning the screenplay.

SOURCE: Variety

David Krumholtz is set to star opposite Michelle Williams in Woody Allen‘s next untitled Paris-set feature, which is said to focus on a trio of young Americans in the City of Lights. The film is expected to begin shooting this summer.

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter

Writing duo Mark Gibson and Phil Halprin penned Never Happened and Universal Pictures has picked it up for Raja Gosnell to direct.

The story is being kept quiet, but it is described by The Hollywood Reporter as a contemporary high-concept relationship comedy in the vein of It’s a Wonderful Life.

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter

Quick bit here as Paramount Pictures has tapped Keith Merryman and David A. Newman to pen How to Lose It All, the sequel to the hit Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey rom-com How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter

Wow, this one has me doubting it already, but maybe that is because I think Fred Durst is a self-congratulatory troll.

The news is that Durst is set to make his directorial debut on his very own indie pic The Education of Charlie Banks with shooting expected to begin on June 12 in Providence, R.I.

The story centers on a Vassar College student who gets an unannounced visit from the scariest kid from his old New York neighborhood. The kid wears a backwards red cap all the time and claims to have slept with Britney Spears when he really didn’t.

I added that last part.

SOURCE: Variety