Today I’m kicking things off with a pair of press releases followed by some news of the return of Leatherface and Spartacus as well as some concept art from Riddick 3. Excited?
Voltage Pictures and Wildwood Enterprises have cast Shia LaBeouf and Robert Redford in the political action thriller, The Company You Keep with Redford set to direct from a script by Lem Dobbs (Haywire, The Limey, Dark City), based on the novel by Neil Gordon. The film chronicles the story of a former Weather Underground militant wanted by the FBI for 30 years, who must go on the run when his true identity is exposed by a young, ambitious reporter hell-bent on making a name for himself. Redford plays the former radical at the center of this nationwide manhunt and LaBeouf, the determined journalist doggedly chasing him and his story. The picture is currently in pre-production and is set to film in Vancouver in September.
Open Road Films has acquired Joe Carnahan‘s The Grey starring Liam Neeson as the leader of a group of oil-rig roughnecks who are left stranded on the sub-arctic tundra after their plane experiences a complete mechanical failure and crashes into the remote Alaskan wilderness. The survivors, battling mortal injuries, biting cold and ravenous hunger, are relentlessly hunted and pursued by a vicious pack of rogue wolves. Rumor has it this could be a late year Oscar contender and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and perhaps make some award season waves.
Dwight Yoakam, Barry Pepper and Helena Bonham Carter are all in talks to join Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger with Yoakam poised to play the film’s villain. The trio would join Armie Hammer as the title character and Johnny Depp as Tonto in a story that follows the two heroes as they look to take down the Cavendish gang after they attack the Texas Rangers (I’m assuming they’re not talking about the baseball team). Tom Wilkinson and Ruth Wilson also star.
Yoakam would play Butch Cavendish, leader of the Cavendish gang and the pic’s primary villain, while Pepper would play Captain J. Fuller, the leader of the seventh cavalry. Carter is still in early discussions but if a deal closes, she would play the colorful madam of a local brothel. Filming is expected to begin this fall for a December 21, 2012 release. [Variety]
Graham King is developing Spartacus as a feature film based on a pitch acquired from 300 writer Michael B. Gordon. The film will eschew the fictionalized storylines of Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 film starring Kirk Douglas and the Starz show “Spartacus: Blood and Sand,” relying instead on more historic facts of Spartacus as a revolutionary, focusing on him leading a band of 70,000 elite gladiators and 50,000 freed slaves in revolt against the Roman war machine between 73 and 71 BC. The rebellion was defeated through the commander Marcus Licinius Crassus. [Variety]
The original Leatherface, Gunnar Hansen, from Tobe Hooper’s 1974 The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is set to join the upcoming Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D in an unspecified role. The film has been described as a direct sequel to Hooper’s classic, following the lead character, Nikki, a small-town girl who travels to a Texas small-town to collect her inheritance, which includes her deranged cousin Leatherface. Production is already underway in Louisiana for an October 5, 2012 release. [Bloody Disgusting]
Finally, Vin Diesel debuted the above piece of concept art created by writer/director David Twohy for the Untitled Chronicles of Riddick Sequel. The film will see Diesel return to the character of Richard B. Riddick, which he first played in 2000’s Pitch Black and again in 2004’s The Chronicles of Riddick. The film is expected to begin shooting in September for a 2012 release. [Vin Diesel’s Facebook]
