Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!) is making sure his native land is well represented in his adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Entertainment Weekly reports Gemma Ward, the former model who played the creepy mermaid in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, has joined the film alongside fellow Aussies Joel Edgerton and Isla Fisher. Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire round out the cast of big names for the film, which will see release next November.
David Koepp (Panic Room, Carlito’s Way) has been hired to script the Johnny Depp/Rob Marshall remake of The Thin Man. He’ll go back to the Dashiell Hammett novel that spawned a series of six films starring William Powell as the hard drinking detective and Myra Loy as his young socialite wife. Deadline reports the original plan was for the remake to take elements of the first two Thin Man films and add in a few musical numbers (Marshall directed Chicago and Nine in addition to the latest Pirates movie) and Sherlock Holmes-like stylization.
The Coen Brothers‘ next film, Inside Llewyn Davis, comes from an original script about a 1960s New York City folk musician. Variety reports StudioCanal has inked a deal to co-finance and the project will be produced by Scott Rudin, as are most Oscar-contending pictures. The filmmakers have not yet set a release date or distributor.
The film is now in post-production, but David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is still adding names to its cast. Showblitz reports New Zealand Native Alan Dale (Priest, “Lost”) was called in late to play a career detective on the verge of retirement.
Are you ready to see David battle Goliath? Twitch reports Relativity is putting together a project for director Scott Derrickson (The Day The Earth Stood Still) that would pit Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson against Taylor Lautner in the Biblical epic. You can figure out who would play which role, right? Twilight producers Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey are also involved in the project, which would certainly explain Lautner’s potential casting. Psst… I know who wins. But you don’t want me to spoil it for you, do you?
We’ll end with a note on Cloud Atlas, the ambitious project the Wachowskis will direct with Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run). Ben Winshaw told Vulture that everyone in the cast will play at least three parts. One of his parts is that of a woman, which looks to be a bit of a theme in the film. “Everybody’s swapping race and gender, so it’s very ambitious and quite fun,” he explained. He also said he learned to play piano for the film. The project will take its star-studded cast (Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, Jim Sturgess, Hugo Weaving and Jim Broadbent) to Germany for filming in preparation for an October 2012 release.
